Tears have a colour
A short story on grief
The car halted to a stop right in front of Wunmi’s brown gate, it was almost rusty. The rain had taken its toll over the past few months. Wunmi swallowed hard and painfully, her throat was sore. She wished the car hadn’t stopped, she wanted the car to keep on moving. She wanted to keep being in motion. No thoughts. Just her sitting at the back of the car, watching the moving traffic. There was something therapeutic about it. She didn’t know why she had felt at ease, but she wanted to tell the driver to keep on moving. Unfortunately, she was home. And she had to go in.
“Thank you”, Wunmi managed to say.
The bald driver didn’t respond. He swiped at his smartphone’s screen. It was due time to find more orders. Wunmi couldn’t blame him, she wouldn’t talk twice to someone who looked like her.
Wumni stepped out of the car. She sighed a slow sigh.
Her apartment was quiet. Just as she had left it. It was always going to be like this. Sanjo wasn’t going to play annoying Lagbaja songs at the highest volume, and she wasn’t going to scream at him to reduce the volume from the bathroom, while she rubbed pasty skin care products onto her face. Wunmi felt the sadness brimming in her stomach and coming up to her throat. She felt her throat hurt. The living room was dark, even the white walls didn’t look really bright, as they used to be. So she opened the windows and the bright yellow curtains. She stared around. It was too bright, her insides didn’t match this brightness. She closed the curtains every single one of them, impatiently. Like the brightness was hurting.
It was dark, but that was how she still felt inside. She felt better this way, with the darkness.
Wunmi hoisted her tote bag with Ankara strips attached to it, high up her shoulders and shuffled into the room. Her room was equivalently dark too. She tossed her bag onto the bed and stood in front of her mirror. She was emaciated, she couldn’t bring herself to eat so much at her parent’s and now that she was alone, she wondered if she could bring herself to eat anything at all. She felt heavy, the reality of what had happened was beginning to really sink in. She thought she understood, wasn’t that why she couldn’t stop crying for two weeks? But the situation felt more real, now that she was in her home, a place that had many memories of him. In its walls, the air, the colors, the stains, the wears and tears, the corners. Wunmi’s face crumpled up, tears leaked from the corner of her eyes. She had thought she wasn’t capable of crying anymore, but during the drive home, she had spotted their favourite restaurant with its beach theme and blinking lights and had become overwhelmed with a fresh sadness but she couldn’t cry. She had thought she had had enough, but here she was crying in front of her mirror. Wunmi carelessly wiped at the mucus dripping from her nose and began to peel off her clothes, until she was naked. She stared at her naked body, at how gaunt and lean it was, even her perky breasts were smaller. She pulled at the ends of her cornrows, it was rough, dirty, and unkempt. She hadn’t minded, but now she just wanted to take it out. Maybe if she cleaned up her hair, maybe if she did something normal, she would feel normal. Like her mother had said, after all she had not been married to Sanjo, so she had to move on, whether she liked it or not. But she didn’t want to. Sanjo was her person. He was hers and still is.
Wunmi slumped down in a single motion to sit on the floor, her clothes cluttered right in front of her. The tiles felt cold on her naked cheeks, but it felt comforting. She loosened her cornrows slowly, with her fingers, as she tried to think of nothing but her fingers going through the braids. She closed her eyes in an attempt to empty out her mind, but only images of Sanjo flashed through her mind. Happy images of him. Him being the obnoxious lovable Sanjo he was.
Wunmi opened up her cabinet and brought her shower gel and shampoo. She was going to wash her hair and maybe try to wash out this grief. Slowly, she opened up the bottle of shampoo. The label made crispy sounds as she turned the cover clockwise. The minty smell of the shampoo filled the bathroom. Wunmi stepped under the shower and turned it on so the slow sputters of the water could make her wet, she poured out the thick yoghurt-like shampoo and kneaded it into her already wet hair. The mint in the shampoo burned her scalp and it was a comforting feeling. The smell and the feel of the mint of the scalp, made her skin sing and made her feel alive. She poured more onto her palm to intensify the feeling. She scrubbed with her fingers and worked her way through with her fingers until her scalp felt raw with pain. She rinsed it off. Slowly and she cried. She took up her shower gel, it had a strawberry scent, a smell Sanjo had told her he liked to smell. Wunmi sighed, she didn’t want to use it, but she wanted to feel clean. She had been so sweaty today and the man who sat next to her, on the bus she had boarded from Abeokuta to Lagos, was a very sweaty smelly man. Wunmi slathered the gel on her dark skin, it was almost like caressing her skin like Sanjo used to. Memories of her and Sanjo flooded in, but she pushed them back. If she allowed herself to remember them she would slip into hysteria. She wanted to feel better, she couldn’t keep on having screaming fits, her throat was sore. She closed the shower gel and rinsed up, she couldn’t take it anymore, being in the bathroom was like torture. There were so many memories of her and Sanjo in it. Every single inch of it. Even in the toilet bowl. Sanjo had sat on it so many times that she couldn’t count.
Wunmi hurried out of the bathroom, smelling of strawberries. She stared at the mirror, water dripping from her body, her eyes puffed up and swollen, her afro wet and shrunken, dripping of water too. Wunmi stalked to the opposite end of the room and then opened up her wardrobe. The smell of her signature perfume greeted her. She pulled out her blanket, dusted the bed, and crawled onto the bed naked, covering up with the blanket. She closed her eyes to sleep. She wanted to stay still for a while. She hadn’t planned to come back to her home this early. Her being back in her home, signified she was ready to continue with life and she was not ready to move on. She wished she hadn’t listened to her mother. She was not ready to live a life void of Sanjo.
Wunmi woke up to the sound of Asa belting from her phone in her bag, it was her ringing tone. Wunmi adjusted from her feline position and then laid on her back. The ceiling fan was rolling, there was power now. NEPA had decided to bestow power on her neighbourhood, out of their scant benevolence. She listened to Asa sing about fire burning on the mountaintop until the phone stopped ringing. But then it started again, just as soon as it had stopped. It kept on ringing, and just as Wunmi was already feeling sick of hearing Asa and contemplating throwing her phone out of the window or into the toilet of her ensuite bathroom, the phone stopped ringing. Wunmi wondered who it was.
Her mother? Seun her sister? Ginika, her friend? Sanjo calling from the land of the dead?
The latter option was impossible, she knew. As for the rest, she didn’t have the energy to talk to anyone. So she looked at the three hands circle around the head on the ceiling until she could see just two hands in the fast whirl, and then she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Do something.
Wunmi’s eyes flayed open abruptly. Slow and steady she got down. She stepped into the baggy shorts she liked to wear at home and a grey T-shirt she wore while painting. It had so many paint stains on it that couldn’t be washed away. She stepped out into the second room, which she had converted into a work-like studio, even though there was nothing studio-like about the room, it was like any other room, except for the plain upright canvas sitting on its easel, the palettes, the stain of paint on the tiles and white walls, the canvases with finished and unfinished paintings lying around. Wunmi sat in front of the plain upright canvas. She grabbed a palette and a tube of red paint lying around. She squeezed the tube onto the palettes and took up a brush from a bowl of water dark with paint. The water must have been there for about a month, considering the last time she was in the room, but she didn’t mind. Wunmi didn’t want to paint or create anything, she just wanted to do something. She brushed over the canvas, she was going to paint it red from top to bottom.
Top to bottom.
That’s how her life had gone anyway. Top to bottom. Wunmi began to paint large strokes of red over the plain canvas. Tears began to stream from her eyes, her eyes were so used to crying, they were beginning to cry on their own now.
Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.
Wunmi covered up the canvas with thick strokes of paint. The red swallowed up the plain white spaces fast. Wunmi painted mindlessly. She tried not to think of anything. Not even Sanjo. No, not Sanjo. But she saw him, his bright mischievous eyes, a smirk on his face, his eyebrows arched in that playful way of his. She ran her thumb over the left eyebrow, the curls bounced as she traced. He held her face and then smeared paint on it.
She knew this memory, a week after he had just moved in. And everything was sweet sweet, the sweetness of all things new. And even before he died it was still sweet, the sweetness of things we understood, and were used to, the things we loved. Like eating your favourite food for the umpteenth time, but still loving it. She loved Sanjo and his love.
Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.
Wunmi kept on painting. She sniffed. Her tears were coming down in torrents now.
“Wunmi, I am going already!”, she heard him shout from the door all over again.
She was frying plantains, her purple bonnet over her matted afro, she was getting ready for a showcase, she had been painting for almost three weeks and had rarely left the home.
“ I’m frying dodo, I don’t want it to get burnt, now. Bye baby, safe journey in Jesus name.”, she had turned the plantains in the sizzling oil, they had become golden brown already. The oil in the pan boiled furiously, threatening her to leave for a second.
Wunmi knew the oil would fulfil its threats.
“Bye dear”, he had said.
That was the last word, or was it a phrase? that he spoke to her. If only she left the damned plantains, if only she had hugged him one last time and planted just one kiss if only she could go back in time and grab him in a bear hug, squeeze him lovingly, and kiss him passionately. If only she had told him she loved him at least. If only he was alive somehow, she would never leave him, or choose plantains over him.
Wunmi burst out in a scream. She brought down the canvas and threw it across the room forcefully. She had to scream, vent it all out, the bitterness and regret and the sadness. She sniffled and then she choked on her mucus. She choked as she searched for the canvas, the one with Sanjo’s portrait, the one she was going to finish when he got back. She clutched at her chest, seeing this unfinished painting of him was painful, a piercing kind of pain. She sank down, holding it. She traced her fingers over the empty face, she hadn’t done the details yet. But it looked familiar, felt familiar, the shape of his head, his ears. Everything that was to be painted on this canvas was below the ground, probably rotting away, did rot start this soon? It was no use, she would never complete it, it was no use, she would forget if his eyebrows arched to the right or the left. She would confuse his mischievous smile with some other man’s smile. She would see someone else and think he smiled like Sanjo. The painting wasn’t good enough, it wasn’t Sanjo, and Sanjo was gone. Wunmi bared her nails and scratched the painting, one strike, another strike, three strikes. She saw it ruined, her sight blurred with tears. And then she regretted it, she could have kept it, she could have finished it from the memories of him. The memories that refused to leave. The memories she saw in her sleep, and every time she closed her eyes. She sobbed uncontrollably. Her tears rained on the canvas, painting it in spots, at every drop, the colour of sadness, love, grief, and regret. It was almost like nothing, but it was there. Bursts of dark colours that made the paper darker. The paper couldn’t contain the colours and it began to peel. Wunmi stretched out on the floor, cradling the canvas in her arms like a baby. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to see him. In a non-existent memory. He came back from the trip two days later just as he was supposed to. She welcomed him at the door. His arm encircled her slim waist as they hugged. He hoisted her up in his arms and swirled, she laughed deliriously. She flailed her arms as she sank into the joyful dizziness.
“Wunmi wake up.”, she heard Ginika say.
Ginika wasn’t supposed to be here? She tried to remember why Ginika would be in Abeokuta. She opened her eyes and the harsh light flooded in. Ginika was standing over her, staring wide-eyed.
“Ginika, what are you doing here?”, she asked as she rose. Feeling confused, her headache with a side migraine, she winced.
“ Why haven’t you received your calls? Why didn’t you lock your door? Why are you sleeping on the floor?”
She hadn’t remembered to lock the door, it didn’t even cross her mind. She was in Lagos?
“I am sorry.”, it seemed like a reasonable thing to say.
“Have you eaten?”
“No Gina, I do not want to eat.”
“Stand up.”, Ginika said, like she was talking to a child, a child that had lost her toy and needed help finding it.
Wunmi felt too weak to stand. She just wanted to throw up or just sleep.
“ Give me your hand dear”, Ginika said, stretching her hand towards her, she was still using that tone. Wunmi grabbed her hand and Ginika pulled her up. The contents of Ginika’s bag poured out in a clatter. Wunmi watched her as she picked everything, the leather bags, the onions. Ginika held her by the hand again and led her into the kitchen, to the stool.
“Sit here. I am going to make you a meal.”
“I don’t want to eat Gina.”
Ginika carried on like she hadn’t heard her. She grabbed a bowl and then switched on the tap. She loosened up a nylon and emptied the bloody beef pieces into the bowl to rinse.
“Why?”, she finally spoke, deeping her hands into the bowl, “ Food is life.”
Ginika was repeating a mantra Wunmi had repeated to her severally. But now she didn’t believe in her foodie mantra. She didn’t feel like anything was life. Nothing was life.
“My boyfriend just died. Don’t be insensitive Gina. If food was life, I could have just fed that bloated body of his in the coffin, so he could wake up and follow me home.”, Wunmi’s voice was laced with bitter sarcasm.
Ginika grabbed a spoon from the drawer and loosened up a nylon bag full of green shredded vegetables. Then she turned around.
“ Wunmi, if I tell you that I understand how you feel, I would be lying. I do not understand because all the men I have ever been with have been jerks, but Sanjo was a good man, and he loved you wholeheartedly and everything he did screamed love, and he died… “
Wunmi flinched. Ginika wasn’t supposed to say it like that.
“And I am sorry that he died, but you have to move on.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
“You have to. You missed your showcase, you can’t miss any more of your life.”
Wunmi remained silent. Ginika returned to cooking. She watched her as she cooked. Ginika was a good cook. Not the kind of good cook that loved cooking or took joy in it. Ginika cooked with experience, she didn’t experiment. She had been cooking for years since she was nine. She knew exactly what to do and how. She watched Ginika chop and slice the onions, she watched as she poured the palm oil into the pot, she watched as she stirred the frying onions. She wasn’t that good a cook. She had gone to a secondary boarding school, and then a Nigerian private university where the population was small, and they weren’t allowed to cook. She could cook all the normal Nigerian meals, but she was so inexperienced. She was no chef.
Sanjo used to cook for her too. He was a cautious cook. He was always so careful about doing the right things and putting in the right things. She remembered the first time he cooked Jollof rice for her. He had watched dozens of tutorial videos, even though he already knew how. The smell of boiling beef filled her nose, and her stomach rumbled. She looked at it and patted it. Like it was some wild dog, she could scowl at it and it could see. Ginika emptied the broth and meat in a bowl. Ginika slowly added the pepper mix from the plastic container she had brought from her house probably.
“Do you remember that day at Deborah’s place?’ Ginika asked.
Wunmi nodded, it was an old story, it had come up in thousands of discussions they had had, dates, girls’ nights out, sleepovers, and visits. It was a funny story, she wasn’t interested in rehashing. It was the first night Ginika drank and they were at Deborah’s house. Deborah was celebrating moving out from her parent’s, she was the first to do so among her friends, she was the strong-willed one. The one who could look an African parent in the eye and voice her opinion without any fear. Ginika got so drunk, she was talking gibberish. The girls were so scared that they had to sleep over at Deborah’s house, they couldn’t afford to let her parents see her that way. Ginika called Patrick a guy she had gone on a few dates with and said loads of things that a woman shouldn’t be conventionally telling a man she was interested in.
Wunmi smiled, Ginika knew the story would do that.
Ginika was her oldest friend asides from all the friends she had had in the university and had drifted apart from. She had known Ginika for five years, they met at a job interview. But it was two months later they had really met, in the mall. Ginika was window shopping with Deborah. They were three young broke millennials from average families, freshly out of the university, tired of being unemployed and staying under the same roof as their parents. It was love at first sight, they had bonded over that. They had grown together. Found their first, and second jobs, quit and resigned, found new jobs, started new businesses, went into new ventures, tried new things, and comforted each other during their heartbroken phases from unnecessary breakups by jerks. And here was Wunmi comforting her, except it wasn’t a silly breakup, it was death. Sanjo’s death. She still remembered clearly. How Ginika had fawned over the first text he sent her.
“I told you he liked you!”
Wunmi had tried to act indifferent and she had failed at it. She was smiling ear to ear. Then Sanjo was the cool, collected handsome guy who had walked up to her and Ginika at Deborah’s business partner’s birthday party. But they got together and he was this goofy, carefree handsome man she fell deeply in love with. She loved him for two years, she still loved him, could she love anyone else? Tears began to well up in her eyes, but she wiped at it, she knew Ginika would make a fuss. But the tears were welling up again as her hands were at her side.
“Gina, I can’t do this.”, Wunmi said, her voice thick with tears.
Gina poured the shredded vegetables into the pot, stirred and then turned around.
“I know you can. I think you feel like you can’t live anymore. I know you think you can. But you can, it is just going to take a little while, you will, I promise.”
Wunmi gave in to the tears, she knew Gina cared but she hated her, hated for the stupid reassuring smile, the way she was cooking so cheeringly. Who told her she could cheer her up.
Wunmi swallowed more spittle, her throat hurt as the fluid went down.
“Gina please can you leave?”Wunmi said, surprising herself.
Ginika was surprised too, Wunmi could see it, her eyes were bulging and her mouth was open in a wide O.
“But..but I am not done cooking…”, Gina finally managed to say.
“I know, can you just leave? I want to be alone.”
“But..”
“Now”
Ginika grabbed her bag from the kitchen counter slowly. Wunmi watched her reluctantly walk out.
“Just promise me you will be fine, Deborah told me she would drop by”
“Okay”, she said. As she heard the soup simmering in the pot, it annoyed her.
She won’t be fine, she won’t be. Deborah was not going to come, ever since she started her business with her rich friend she hasn’t really cared about them. She didn’t even like Sanjo. She had despised him for moving in. She didn’t mind that he paid part of the rent too. She wanted everyone to get hitched with a young dashing multi-millionaire like her. Wunmi didn’t care, Wunmi didn’t want her in her house, not anybody. Wunmi heard the door close. She stood up from the stool Ginika had made her seat like a baby. She turned off the gas, lifted up the pot and upturned it into the sink. Some Of it splashed on her arms and she exclaimed in pain, it was hot. She stared at the mess she had made, green and red, lumpy beef pieces. The liquid drained slowly. The green vegetables had clogged the drain. Steam rose from the sink, along with the aroma of the food. It smelled delicious. Her stomach churned with anger and something else, hunger. She picked up a beef peice from the sink and chewed. While she tried not to think about Sanjo, she was thinking about him. He was in her heart, her house, her life. She couldn’t live without him, so she picked up another piece of beef and then chewed some more.
