The Death of Vivek Oji(43)

While Chika lay in their bed, Kavita stayed in Vivek’s room. She ran her hands over the walls, over the posters he’d ripped out of pop magazines Eloise had brought back from the UK. The woman’s interest in her child seemed false and ugly now; perhaps it had all been a way to get close to Chika. Kavita reminded herself that it didn’t matter. Eloise could have Chika if she wanted. Nothing mattered. Her eyes ran over the pictures without really registering them: Missy Elliott. Puff Daddy. En Vogue. Backstreet Boys. He had put them all up before he went off to uni. Kavita wondered why he hadn’t taken them down afterward, once he’d changed. Or maybe he hadn’t changed as much as it seemed. At night, now, she slept in his bed and cried. Sometimes she thought she could hear Chika crying, too, through the wall, but she never went to him.

Sitting across from Somto in Rhatha’s sitting room, Kavita watched the girl cry and thought how ridiculous it was that she could still look so pretty even while sobbing. There were no inelegant strings of mucus swinging from her nose, no shiny saliva pooling in her mouth when she opened it to wail. Somto wept mostly with tears, gleaming against her skin as they fell. She dabbed at them with the hem of her dress, the skirt full and wide, leaving enough material to cover her thighs even as she bent to reach her face.

“I’m sorry, Aunty Kavita,” she said. “I know this must be terrible for you.”

Terrible, Kavita thought. What a word. Did it feel like terror? More like horror, actually. Terrible sounded like it had a bit of acceptance in it, like an unthinkable thing had happened but you’d found space in your brain to acknowledge it, perhaps even begin to accept it. Then again, horrible sounded the same way. The words had departed from their origins. They were diluted, denatured. She looked up and realized that Somto was looking at her, sitting there in silence.

“I just want to know how this happened,” Kavita said. “What time did he leave here?”

Somto thought for a bit. “Maybe around twelve o’clock? He didn’t say where he was going. We all assumed he was going to see Juju.”

“Are you sure he didn’t say? What of Olunne? Maybe she’ll remember what he said.”

Somto looked at Kavita, a bit concerned. “Aunty, you can just ask Juju. I know she saw him that day, but I don’t know if he went straight from here.”

“Where is your sister? I want to ask her also.”

“She’s not here. She went out with our mum.” Somto stood up. Kavita could see the discomfort wafting off her. “But I’m sure Juju is at home with Aunty Maja. You can go and ask her.” Somto must have known she was being rude, but she didn’t seem to care. “I have to go and run some errands,” she added. “My mum will be angry if I don’t finish them before she gets home.”

Kavita stood up, already thinking of what she could ask Juju and Maja. “Tell your mother and sister I’ll come back another time to ask them,” she told Somto, who made a mental note to avoid Kavita for a while. She would tell her mother about Kavita’s questions, and perhaps Rhatha wouldn’t force her or Olunne to sit through this kind of questioning, as if it was their fault that something had happened to their friend.

“Yes, Aunty,” she said, though. “I’ll tell them.”

“Don’t forget.”

“I won’t.”

Kavita picked up her bag and started to leave. “It’s important.”

“I know, Aunty.” Somto closed the door and leaned against it, exhaling in relief.

Kavita stood outside and looked around the yard, trying to imagine how Vivek would have seen it on that his last day, when he was leaving: the sky wide above him, the orange tree spilling over the fence. He might have stood in front of this door, looked up at the clouds and seen shapes in them, as he had when he was a child. Kavita folded her arms around herself and walked to where she’d parked the car. She drove to Maja’s house in a partial daze, slow enough that cars around her kept blasting their horns. A few of the drivers leaned out of their windows to insult her. She didn’t hear any of it.



* * *



—

Maja greeted her at their front door with a tight hug. Kavita tried to return it, but her arms were tired and limp. She let Maja lead her into the sitting room and pour her some tea. “Drink it,” Maja said, and Kavita held the cup in both hands, feeling the warmth seep into her palms.

“I just came from Rhatha’s house,” she said.

“You should be resting, my dear.”

“Her daughter said Vivek was there on the day he died. And then he came here.”

Maja gazed at her friend sadly. “What are you doing, Kavita? You can’t keep going over this. It’s not good for you.”

“Did he come here?”

Maja sighed. “I was at work all day that day. He might have. He usually did.” She put a hand on Kavita’s knee. “Why are you asking all this?”

“I have to know what happened. My son can’t just die like that.”

“It was an accident, no? That’s what Chika told Charles. It was a car accident? And someone brought him to the house?”

Kavita looked up at her friend slowly, a frown tightening her forehead. “An accident,” she said.

“Someone recognized him, didn’t they?”