The Death of Vivek Oji(31)

“Nsogbu ad?gh?.” I brushed my cheek against hers, doubling the greeting. “I’m just looking for Vivek.”

Juju’s face closed up. “Oh. Actually—”

I raised a hand to stop her from having to come up with a lie. “I just want to see him, Juju. He’s my cousin.”

She exhaled heavily and stared at me. “I have to check,” she said. “Wait here.” The door closed behind her, leaving me out on the veranda, staring at her mother’s cattail flowers. A tight knot of anxiety crept up between my shoulder blades. I’d been trying so hard to not think about why I was there, why I was trying to see Vivek. I knew the reason—of course I knew—but to admit it was more than I could handle. I had to pretend, otherwise I would turn and walk back through the hibiscus-lined path and out of that gate and drive back to Owerri and never come back. So I counted the cattails to keep me from running away. I’d reached fifteen when Juju opened the door.

“He said it’s fine,” she told me, stepping aside to allow me in.

“But you don’t agree,” I said, watching her face.

At first Juju didn’t reply, simply leading me upstairs to one of the bedrooms. At the door, though, she paused. “I don’t even know why he wants to see you after the things you said to him in the village,” she said. “But if he says it’s fine, I suppose it’s fine.”

My face heated in shame. “He told you about that?”

Juju’s stare didn’t waver. “Yeah, he did. And he’s different now, Osita, very different. So be careful. If you’re going to say something like what you said before, it’s better that you just go home now, ?n?kwa?”

“I’m not going to say anything like that, I swear. I just . . . I need to see him. I want to know if he’s okay.”

She stepped aside, still watching me, and as I turned the door handle, she put a hand on my arm. “I’m asking you. Take it easy.”

“I hear you. I’m not going to do anything.” I pushed open the door and closed it behind me, Juju hovering on the other side as the wood clicked shut into the door frame.

Vivek was standing at the window, leaning against the wall, his fingers curled softly around the iron bar of the window protector. I sucked in a quick draft of air, my heart thudding against its own membrane. My cousin had lost even more weight; his hair was down to his waist. I stared at his wrists, his slender ankles, the white caftan he was wearing. Vivek turned his head as he heard me enter, and I saw both the bruised shadows under his eyes and the soft red of a lip tint staining his mouth. He didn’t move.

“Osita,” he said, and his voice was a stream of memory, my oldest friend. Seeing him hurt my chest. He looked as if he was dying. “Juju said you would look different,” I said.

Vivek smiled. “I look worse, I know. Don’t worry, I’ve just been sick. But I’m getting better.”

“Okay,” I said. “And . . . the lipstick?” There was no point pretending I didn’t see it. He lifted a shoulder, then dropped it, indifferent. He was watching me, curious to see how I would react. “You know it makes you look—”

Vivek laughed. “It makes me look like what, bhai? Like a fag? Like a woman?”

I waved a hand, embarrassed. “No, no, that’s not what I meant. I was going to say it makes you look different, that’s all.” Even me, I wasn’t sure if I was lying. I wasn’t sure what I thought. My cousin folded his arms and smirked, which annoyed me. “Come on,” I said. “It’s not as if I would lie to you.”

“How’s that your girlfriend?” Vivek asked, pushing some of his hair behind his ear. I flinched, and he smiled. “You know, the one in Nsukka. You never managed to tell me her name.”

There was something different about him, and it had nothing to do with how he looked on the outside. It was something more insidious, something coiled in his eyes that I’d never seen before. For the first time, I felt afraid around him. It didn’t feel like I was standing in a room with my cousin, with the man who was as close as I was ever going to get to a brother. Instead it felt like I’d fallen into the orbit of a stranger, like I’d stumbled across worlds and now I was here, out of breath and off balance.

“There’s no girlfriend,” I said. In the face of my confusion, I fell back on the truth.

Vivek lifted his chin, mild triumph flashing in his eyes. “Okay,” he said. “Does it feel good to not lie anymore?”

I frowned. There was an undercurrent in his voice that I didn’t like. “Are you angry with me?” I asked him. He huffed and looked away, walking to the bed and sitting on it, his bare feet against the patterned carpet.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Vivek threw his hands up and let them fall against the sheets. “Fuck. Yes.” He looked at me and his eyes were holes in his face. “I’m angry with you because you abandoned me, you know? You just . . . threw me away.”

I flashed on Vivek, sitting on the landing of the boys’ quarters, teary and apologetic as I walked away. “We were children,” I said, the words weak.

My cousin laughed. “We haven’t been children in a long time. I didn’t hear pim from you after the village. I thought you would reach out after that.”

The room was heavy and silent. He wasn’t making any accusations, not yet, but I could feel them anyway, like pinpricks against my skin. “I didn’t mean to just disappear,” I said, but then my voice trailed off.