The Death of Vivek Oji(63)

“I’m so sorry,” I told the grave. “It was an accident. I would never have hurt you, not in a thousand years. I swear to God. You were my brother and I loved you. I only wanted to protect you.”

I put my hand on the cement and it was cold. “I miss you every single day.”

My voice broke and the grave said nothing back. I knelt there for a long time, and finally I stood up and dusted the dirt off my knees. The sun was stronger in the sky now. I wiped my eyes and picked up the polythene bag. Holding it tight in my hand, I pulled the photograph of us out of my back pocket. I had considered burying it as well, but I couldn’t; I couldn’t let everything rot in that grave with my cousin. I stroked my thumb across the glossed surface before putting it back in my pocket with the necklace. Then I walked away, knowing that I would be leaving, going far away, to somewhere I could put his charm around my neck and wear it every day, and maybe then it would feel like he hadn’t left me after all.





Twenty-four



Nnemdi



Ioften wonder if I died in the best possible way—in the arms of the one who loved me the most, wearing a skin that was true. I watch him grieve and I want to tell him he’s already been forgiven for everything and anything he could ever do to me. I want to tell him that I knew I was dancing with death every day, especially when I walked outside like that. I knew it, and I made my choices anyway. It wasn’t right or fair, what happened, but it wasn’t his fault. I want to thank him for loving me.

My mother has changed the inscription on my grave. She could smell that it was a lie. Love and guilt sometimes taste the same, you know. Now it says:


VIVEK NNEMDI OJI

BELOVED CHILD

I wonder if anyone is pleased that I finally got my Igbo name. If my grandmother, floating somewhere here with me, is happy to be acknowledged at last. I would say it was too late, but time has stopped meaning what it used to.

I don’t mind anymore. I see how things work now, from this side. I was born and I died. I will come back.

Somewhere, you see, in the river of time, I am already alive.





Acknowledgments


To the authors whose books helped me write this one—Toni Morrison for Love and Gabriel García Márquez for Chronicle of a Death Foretold—thank you. To the Nigerwives, for the childhood you made possible, full of books and waffles and swimming and friends. Thank you all for being there, especially Aunty Ingrid and Aunty Helga, and a particular shoutout to Aunty Vonah, for helping me become a writer. To the original crew—JK and Franca, Julie and Chiji and Chukwuma—thank you for the brilliant times, the games, and all the magic. To the entire city of Aba, my home for sixteen years. To Ekenna Avenue and Okigwe Road. To the Aba Sports Club—greet the suya guys for me. What a world it was. To all the queer and gendervariant people back home, especially those making new worlds for us, jisie ike. What a world it will be.

To my brilliant editor, Cal Morgan, and my legend of an agent, Jackie Ko, as well as all the other wonders at the Wylie Agency—Sarah, Emma, Alba, Ekin, and Jessica. To Jynne and everyone else at Riverhead Books. Thank you all for being such a stellar team. To Eloghosa Osunde and Ann Daramola for reading and loving this book so early—thank you, godsiblings. To my dear Christi Cartwright, I am so grateful for the time and care you put into this.

It has taken several people to bring The Death of Vivek Oji into readers’ hands, and my appreciation goes out to each and every one of you. We need all of us to bring these stories into the world. I’m glad to be doing this work with you.





About the Author

Akwaeke Emezi is the author of the novels Pet, a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, and Freshwater, named a New York Times Notable Book and short-listed for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, and a Lambda Literary Award, among other honors. In 2019 Emezi was selected as one of the National Book Awards’ 5 Under 35 honorees, and in 2017 their short story “Who Is Like God” won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa. Freshwater has been translated into ten languages, and is currently in development as a TV series at FX, with Emezi writing and executive producing with Tamara P. Carter. Emezi’s writing has appeared in T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Dazed, The Cut, BuzzFeed, Granta, Vogue.com, and Commonwealth Writers, among other venues.