Irenosen Okojie - Butterfly Fish

“Hmm, but that’s not why you came is it?” he smiled astutely. I made a show of feigning ignorance, wrinkling my nose and attempting the blank eyed look. “What? No.”

“Yes, I know you, can’t get you down these ends on most days.”

“About my mother.”

“Ahah! I knew it.” He stepped away from the barbecue to give me his full attention. Now the Staple Singers were playing, waiting to do it again.

“Did she talk about her father much?” Internally I smoothed his puzzled expression as pieces slotted into place.

“Not really. You been reading that diary?” he said.

“I think I might need your help.”

“Oh yeah? What for?”

“I don’t know yet, I’m just warning you in advance.”

“So you need my help but you don’t know what for? You’re a strange girl you know that.”

“What does “not really” mean? Just now when I asked about her and my grandfather that was your answer.”

He pinned me to the spot with a calm look, “Not really means not really.” I didn’t believe him.

After that, I got a condensed education on the merits of chess from a bunch of black nerds. Somebody caught me on the video camera and I pulled a face Freddie Krueger would have been proud of. Then, I slunk away to relieve myself.

Mervyn’s house had three floors and I went straight to the top. You would think that his house would be full of facsimiles of him and all the people he entertained, plastered everywhere, but especially as I climbed up to the top floor toilet the walls grew emptier and the house took on the feel of somewhere much more functional and far less inviting than it had appeared down below. The walls were bare, painted a dull greyish white and the carpeted stairs held not so much as a stray hair, as if no-one really spent any time up here. In the bathroom I found myself wondering about Mervyn and his family and what made them tick.

I emerged from the toilet to the faint scent of perfume in the air. It was lightly exotic and sweet smelling. With each step I took, the smell grew stronger. It seemed to get stronger further along the hallway. I followed it to Mervyn’s bedroom. The hairs on my arms stood up. The smell felt overwhelmingly familiar. The bedroom door was firmly shut. I opened it.

He’d had it redecorated after his wife died. It was a masculine room with dark oak panels and huge wooden bed made with a blue duvet. An un-emptied ashtray spilled old cigarette butts onto the dark nightstand while some big shoes frowned at their temporary neglect. I could have blinked and missed it. Peeking out from beneath the soft breast of Mervyn’s pillow was a strip of light purple material. There was a searing, short sharp pain in my chest. I picked up the material. It was silky and light. It weighed nothing but felt heavy in my chest. I held it to my nose, inhaling the scent deeply. Now the smell was inescapable. White spots on the material polluted my memory. I recognised it instantly, my mother’s Hermes scarf. She used to tie it into a bow at her throat. I pulled it out gently, touching it. It had the faded smell of Yves Saint Laurent Opium , her perfume. I was a low, grainy resolution of myself in that instant.

The thick, maroon carpeted stairs must have cushioned his footsteps because I didn’t hear Mervyn come up. I only heard him at the door, shuffling from one leg to the other, his stance slumped and awkward, the expression of deep sadness on his face. He opened his mouth several times but no words came out. He looked smaller in the doorway. I asked myself how that could be possible. Fresh tears sprang in my eyes. We stood there just looking at each other. I took my time, putting my mother’s scarf back under the pillow, as if he wasn’t standing there watching me. By the time I left the party, Gregory Isaacs was crying for his night nurse.

Outside, the night had the illuminated intensity of an owl’s gaze. I took off my Converse shoes and walked barefoot, carrying them gingerly. A white van tore down the street, its exhaust pipe panting magic smoke waiting to catch my sleepy eyes. Later, I knew I’d get home and think of my mother’s scarf still faintly smelling of Opium, a red flag under a white pillow.

I met my Felicia. I only met her two days ago but one day I will marry her. It was inside a small, thriving shop several miles from the barracks in Onisha. She was sitting behind the till, sipping from a Supermalt bottle. I have never envied an inanimate object before! She looks like a Fulani girl, with delicate features and her hair braided in an elegant style. She is beautiful. About five of us stopped off to buy some refreshments, maybe bread and tins of sardines to eat on the ride back. She barely glanced our way as we descended on a wave of noise.

I listened to one soldier call her “pretty girl” and wink at her after asking where the beer was kept. I had been pretending to check out maize flour while watching her discreetly. Her voice was calm. “Soldier man, is under the sign that says beer. You dey lose sight for army?” We laughed and she dismissed us, turning to concentrate on the magazine open in front of her on the till counter. She looked no older than twenty to me but her voice had an assurance to it. I watched her bend down in her little shoebox of space, head disappearing under the counter only to come up again with a cigarette stuck between her lips. The slim cigarette glowed. I found myself starring at the white strap of her top on her shoulder. I picked up more than I needed, bottles of beer, Fanta, pounded yam flour, Bournvita, bread, a packet of Tom Tom sweets. The others were teasing each other at the back, grabbing products, putting them down again.

At the counter I laid everything out carefully. Smoke curled from her mouth. Stupidly, I told her smoking was for fast women! I don’t know what made me say that, especially considering I smoke myself! She rang up the goods laughing, telling me if I wanted to ask her out that was not the comment to make! Throughout our brief conversation, she managed to watch what the boys were doing at the back. After she asked if my friends were in the shop to play. I whistled at the boys.

Inside the rusty, white Volkswagon on the way back to the barracks I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Up close, she was slim and not too tall. Say 5ft 5in and had the kind of shifting face that looked subtly different each time you saw it. Felicia seemed capable of being a little cruel. For some reason, this made me more curious about her, intrigued. The boys teased me. “British gentleman nah wah oh! See how he just become smooth in front of woman!” They slapped me on the back as if they were proud. “She fine well well but she dey make yanga.” I didn’t care about their words. I knew they were jealous. I kept playing my conversation with her over and over again in my head, thinking about army life. I can no longer say whether I like it or not, the sound of soldiers boots is constantly in the background. But I like what the army can do for me. It is why I am still here, waiting to take opportunities when they come.

Obi, Emmanuel and I have not talked about the thing we did that night, but there is a coiled string attaching all three of us. These days, when we talk, our sentences have double meanings. I can see the truth, white words written in chalk on their foreheads. Obi is jovial as ever, you would think he has won the lottery. I wonder how long it will last, but the money is good, nawah! Emmanuel is surprisingly calmer than I’ve seen him in the past. For now this situation has been the making of him. These boys are confident nothing will happen. The General has paid us well, made good on his sugarcoated promises but we will see. I thought of sending the brass head home to my father, a gesture and gift he would love. This would amuse me, the irony of it. But yet I want to keep it to myself, it is mine after all. It is safely tucked away amongst my possessions. Whispers of a military coup taking over the current government have begun slipping in and out through keyholes. Who knows if this will manifest, but if it does, the death must not be for nothing. Also the General will think of me for the bigger plan, if not I will remind him. I have not told Obi or Emmanuel about the brass head, it is better that way. At unexpected moments I catch myself wondering what I have become now that my heartbeat is no longer my own.