“Well, good morning,” Uncle Femi said softly, always softly.
His wife pushed the twins toward the chaise where he lay. Babatunde looked up, very briefly, then down, back to work, knowing better than to make his presence known. Taiwo and Kehinde looked blankly at their uncle, their aunt at their backs, seething, “Tell him yourselves.”
“Tell me what?” Uncle Femi asked, smiling, genuinely interested. He considered the twins as if he saw them every day, as if just yesterday they’d been chatting about the weather in Lagos, as if he hadn’t been missing for almost a year. Babatunde, finished, moved away from the table. Uncle Femi leaned forward and snorted the line. “
E se
,” he said to Babatunde, sniffing, smiling. The boy nodded, bowed, and rushed out of the room.
“Your uncle asked a question. They think that we’re stupid. And this one. She thinks she can strike me.
Odé
.” Niké pushed Taiwo, not gently, between the shoulders. Taiwo stumbled forward, caught her balance, straightened up.
“Don’t touch her,” Uncle Femi said. “The boy doesn’t like it.” Now he lit a cigarette. “Isn’t that what you said?” He gestured to Kehinde, brows raised, smiling brightly. “Isn’t that what you told me? ‘Don’t touch her’? Am I wrong?”
“No, sir,” said Kehinde.
“I’m sorry? I didn’t hear you.”
“No, Uncle,” repeated Kehinde, a tremor in his voice.
“Very well then. What happened?” Uncle Femi looked at Niké, then back at the twins in their nightclothes and socks.
Niké cleared her throat as if preparing to orate, but answered, very briefly, “They were caught having sex. The houseboys discovered her blood on the sheet, and the stains from his . . . climax. I can show you the sheet.”
“You’re lying!” cried Taiwo, on instinct. “We didn’t!” This time the blow made her fall to the ground. Niké, from behind her, halfway shoving, halfway slapping her.
“Are you calling me a liar?!” Niké shouted. “I have proof!”
Taiwo remained kneeling on the floor where she’d fallen, her ear burning sharply, too stunned to stand up. More shocking than painful, the way Niké struck her suggested more violence might follow, and soon. Their parents never hit them, never shouted, never threatened; all their punishment was issued with calm, as in court. She found it insulting to be hit by a grown-up, and trembled with anger, hands balled into fists. Intuiting her intention, Kehinde knelt down beside her.
“Don’t touch her,” Uncle Femi mocked, leaning down toward them. The voice remained soft but had darkened, or hardened, the sound of his laughter too steely, too sharp. A weapon.
Eyes welling with fear and with anger, Taiwo turned to look up at their uncle’s blunt nose. She grabbed Kehinde’s T-shirt. “Come on,” she whispered nervously, pulling him up by the shirt as she rose to her feet. They stood pressed together, now facing their uncle, much closer to his body than they’d been until now. The smell of him—sweat and cologne and tobacco—was overpowering now, as was the heat from his gaze. Kehinde reached over and took Taiwo’s hand, without thinking, and squeezed, fingers shaking.
“You
see!
You see how they stand so. You see how he holds her.” Niké sucked her teeth, a low, long-lasting
tssssssssst
.
“Enough,” Uncle Femi said. “Thank you for informing me. You’re welcome to leave. I can take it from here.”
Surprised and affronted, Niké turned and left them standing there, the guards nodding stiffly as she stormed out the door. Taiwo felt her heart sink as the double doors swung softly shut. Baffling as it was, she wished that Niké wouldn’t go. The woman was volatile and violent and dramatic, quite likely insane, but familiar by then. Their uncle was foreign and frightening, a stranger. Too calm, too controlled, and too cold.
How it happened:
“Omokehindegbegbon!” said Uncle Femi to Kehinde. “So only you can touch her,
ehn
? Another little princess.” He gestured with his cigarette to the portrait of their grandmother. “A precious little princess,
ehn
?” He stood up from the chaise. He came to where the twins were and stood just behind them. He cupped Taiwo’s chin in his hands, turned her head. He held her like this, so she was looking at the portrait. “Look at her. Precious Somayina,” he breathed. He stroked Taiwo’s hair. She could feel Kehinde stiffen, his hand in her hand still, could feel his breath stop. She stood without moving, without looking, her eyes closed, could smell Uncle Femi’s odd sweetness, his soap. “Open your eyes,” he said, touching her chin again, bending beside her, his lips near her ear. “Look at her.
Look at her
. Looks just like you, no? Like you. Precious princess, that no one can touch.” He took a step over so he was standing behind Kehinde. He touched Kehinde’s cheek as he’d stroked Taiwo’s hair. “Except you, little boy. Only you.
You
can touch her.” He squeezed both their shoulders. “Show your uncle what you do.”
One of the teens at the door cleared his throat. Uncle Femi looked up. “Lock the door, please,” he said. The boys began leaving. “From the inside, you idiots. You two stay here.” They obeyed. “There we are.” Uncle Femi turned to Taiwo now. “My little Somayina.” He patted the chaise, smiling warmly. “Come here.”
Taiwo took a step toward Kehinde. “Uncle, please. We didn’t do what she said we did.”
“You’re lying.” Not loudly. He smiled again, patting the chaise. “Come lie here.” She squeezed Kehinde’s hand, shook her head, a small movement. He laughed, closed his eyes, and then bellowed, “LIE HERE!” The sound of a voice at this volume was so unexpected, so jarring, she dropped Kehinde’s hand. A bit like a robot, she went to the chaise and sat down. “There. That’s better. Now lie on your back.” He placed a cold hand on her neck, pushing backward. Surprised at the force, at the touch, she lay back.
Kehinde stepped forward. “Please, Uncle. Don’t touch her,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Don’t you worry. I won’t.” Uncle Femi stepped back, considering Taiwo on the chaise, with her arms at her side, body stiffened with fear. Still trembling from shock at his touch, and his shouting, she stared at him back, at the black, red-rimmed eyes. He looked like the drawing of Hades, the “rapist,” a word that she’d heard but never seen written down.
Rape
. Flesh and flowers, golden chariot, black horses, a girl carried off. “I’m not a pedophile,” he sneered.
Pedophile, pedophile, pedophile
, thought Taiwo, now starting to cry. For she’d gotten it wrong. A man who loved children? Who loved his own children?
Wrong
. Who had left them, had left her, like Zeus. And where was Demeter? On the hunt for her daughter? Torches blazing, frantic searching? With Sadie at home.
The feel of defeat was a wave washing over. She felt herself slacken, her legs going loose. The tears ran out mutely from the side of her eyes to the floral upholstery beneath her neat braids. She felt her chest cave, giving in, under the nightdress, the Minnie Mouse nightdress she’d had since the man brought them proudly to Disney World, more excited than they were by this, the most American Family Tradition on earth. She felt her fists melt, fingers weaken, unclenching. She felt herself die to the hope of escape. If she tried to run now, the school-play soldiers would stop her. Her uncle would overpower her if she tried to resist. Whatever was happening would happen, she knew; there was no one to stop it. There was no one but
them
. She and her brother alone in his room with this uncle.
A pedophile.
“
You
touch her,” he said. He gestured from Kehinde, who was standing there dumbstruck, to Taiwo laid out on the chaise like a cake. “She’s too pretty for me.” He took a drag. “
Ehn
, now, touch her.” He clapped his hands, impatient. “
Jo, jo, jo
.” Hurry up.
Pedophile, pedophile, pedophile,
thought Taiwo.
“I don’t . . . understand,” Kehinde said.
“Touch the girl.”
“I don’t understand,” Kehinde repeated, eyes filling.
Uncle Femi sucked his teeth. “Then I’ll show you. You, come.” He gestured to the guards by the door, who hurried forward. “Just one of you.” The older one approached with his gun. “Put down the rifle,” he said. “It’ll scare her.” The young man set his weapon on the table. “Touch the girl.” Cigarette dangling, Uncle Femi moved the boy like a puppet into position at the end of the chaise, then made himself comfortable in the armchair across, as to watch a live show, his legs crossed, his eyes bright.
“Sa?” asked the guard.
“Touch the girl. Lift her nightdress. The boy here won’t do it. Unbuckle your belt.”
The guard looked at Taiwo, then at Kehinde behind him. Taiwo squeezed her eyes shut, still crying without sound. With a glance at his employer, the guard unzipped his trousers.
“Stop,” Kehinde said. Barely audible. “Please stop.”
“If you won’t do it, he will,” Uncle Femi said calmly. To the guard, “Use your fingers.”
“I will,” Kehinde said.
Uncle Femi started clapping. “I thought so,” he chuckled. He gestured to the guard, who returned to the door. With the rifle on the table. Like a coffee cup. Just sitting there. A token of the absurdity of the world in which they were. Kehinde stepped forward, looked down at his sister, his knees near her feet at the end of the chaise. Tears in her eyes, and his eyes, the same eyes. With the third pair, the portrait-eyes, watching from the wall. She looked at her brother and thought he was bluffing, perhaps that he’d hatched some sly plan for escape? She stared at him, desperately trying to read his expression. Saw nothing. His eyes had gone vacant and dark. He looked angry. She had never seen her brother looking angry. He wiped his eyes quickly with the back of one hand.
“Touch her like you do in the bedroom downstairs.” Uncle Femi looked joyful. “Pretend I’m not here.” At Kehinde’s hesitation, he added, “Don’t worry. I won’t tell your mother what your auntie told me.”
How it happened:
how her uncle gave her brother instructions from his armchair, a director, the guards looking on. How her brother, not speaking, with his eyes saying nothing, removed her weekday panties, set them neatly on the floor. Put his finger inside her. The baffling sensation, less painful than uncomfortable. An opening, a tear. “Harder! Harder! Harder!” said Uncle Femi. “Faster! Faster!” With glee in his voice. Kehinde’s finger, with force.
This was the first time that she learned to leave her body, just to leave the body lying there, mind wandering off. Not with effort. It simply happened: she was lying there in Lagos on a chaise lounge in her nightdress when she felt herself go. Weary party guest departing. She was floating above them, then, watching the proceedings just as calm as could be, watching Kehinde in his T-shirt and his matching cotton Mickey shorts, his finger in his sister, Uncle Femi in his chair, the two boys at the door, their eyes wide with shame, pleasure, the portrait above the mantel, “Tuesday” panties on the floor—then floating elsewhere: to their parlor in Brookline, to the piano, to Shoshanna shouting, “Faster! Faster! Fast!” while she tried to play Rachmaninoff—and elsewhere: to the classroom, to the teacher’s nervous laughter while she shaded in
o
’s—to her bedroom: to the window watching Kehinde in the driveway, with their father looking guilty, little light on in the car. It seemed almost impossible that she, in this body, had covered such distance, from Brookline to Lagos, from piano and classroom and bedroom and safety to
here
, to this nightmare unfolding: too far. She floated above them and wondered who was this, then, here in that body? Wasn’t her. Couldn’t be. Was simply a body. A body she’d left there as one drops a towel.
To which she returned.
Kehinde had finished. Slid his finger from her body. She opened her eyes. Saw the stain on his shorts. Uncle Femi was clapping.
“E kuuse!”
Well done.
Sweat, or something like it, ventured shyly down her thigh.
“You can go,” said Uncle Femi. Kehinde hurried from the room, his shoulders shaking, leaving Taiwo there alone. She sat up. She looked at her uncle. She collected her panties (but didn’t put them on, not yet, the gesture too abasing). She walked out the door with a hole in her body, a space where her girlhood had been, no longer crying. Babatunde was there waiting with an expression on his face that suggested he knew what had happened and how. She didn’t find Kehinde in the kitchen or their bedroom. She went to her room down the hall, still too cold. She lay on the bed looking up at the ceiling for the rest of the day. No one called her for dinner. The next morning Babatunde came to fetch her. Up the elevator. For a week their uncle watched as Kehinde touched her like that. He said what the molesters say in made-for-TV movies: that he’d report them to their mother if they ever told a soul.
Then there was a party, and they were made to wear makeup and to walk around smiling at guests, boys and men, Nigerian and South African and white, of all ages. A gay man from Ghana: “I know who you are.” They left without luggage in a taxi with the Ghanaian. He put them on a plane to JFK and they came home.
And . . . scene
.
• • •
Taiwo pauses, her breathing grown labored. She means to say, “Happy? Now you know,” or the like, but she can’t catch her breath; is weak, sweating, dehydrated; intends to storm off and instead starts to sway. Fola lurches forward, catching Taiwo as she buckles, managing to grab her by the shoulders as she slumps to the sand. The movement is instinctive—less embrace than intervention—but it puts their skin in contact for the first time in years. Taiwo jerks backward, the dizziness mounting. She tries to say, “Don’t,” and erupts into tears.
vi
Fola pulls the girl to her chest, clutching tightly to prevent her from attempting to flee or pull away—but Taiwo clings back, body wracked by the sobbing, too weakened to stand without something to hold. So holding Fola. Barely choking out words, as a child does attempting to give voice to its grief between sobs, “How could you send us there? How could you send us? You knew what would happen. You knew, Mom. You knew.”
Of the many things Fola thinks, holding her daughter, is the thought that it’s useless to love with such force, for the force doesn’t travel, doesn’t keep them, protect them, doesn’t go where they go, doesn’t act as a shield—and yet how to love otherwise? What else might she feel but this raw, desperate love as she clutches the girl, wishing only to protect her, to act as a shield, and this raw, desperate grief, having long ago failed? “I’m sorry,” she whispers, stroking Taiwo’s long dreadlocks, knowing
sorry
won’t do, not knowing where else to start.