Unconsciously, I laughed.
‘Yes, Miss Zina, do you have something you’d like to share with us?’ the chairman said.
I straightened. They wanted me to say something, so I did. ‘You live in the poverty capital of the world and you don’t expect to see poor people? Do you stand on your verandas? Listen, I’m not saying this isn’t an issue that should be discussed, but let’s be honest here, how much do you pay your gatemen and live-in workers? Where do you think they purchase the food they eat? Or the minor items they need without disappearing long enough for you to notice or discomfort you somehow? Let’s be serious.’
Behind me, I heard a ruffle of sheets and feet pattering. Then the hum of an electric kettle boiling. Minutes later, Halil walked onto the veranda, clutching two mugs. He extended one in my direction and planted a peck on my cheek as he murmured good morning.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. ‘You don’t smoke so early in the morning except when you’re – how do they say it – upset.’
I wanted to tell him he hadn’t known me long enough to make such a claim, but it felt unfair to transfer my aggression, so instead I said, ‘My friend Ego, the one in the UK, she’s coming back.’
He frowned, and I thought the ruffled curls at his forehead gave him a boyish look. ‘Isn’t that good news?’
‘She’s not visiting, she’s moving.’
I was yet to tell Ego about him, this Turkish man with boyish curls I’d met at a cafe on a day off. Filming for a picture had just concluded and I’d strolled into a posh café – the kind with expatriate customers and white owners that switched up menus daily, somewhere I wouldn’t be mistaken for a character I’d played. I felt, rather than saw, a pair of eyes attach themselves to me as I sat at a table. Their owner: a man pale enough that I knew he was foreign but tanned enough that I knew he wasn’t the usual white. In Nigeria, there were different types of white people: the Americans and Northwestern Europeans, usually employees of oil companies and large multinationals, and the others. ‘Those ones are stingy, they won’t give you anything, because they don’t have that much themselves,’ my friend Tari – short for Ayebatari – always said. Eventually the man approached my table and politely asked to take the seat opposite. His eyes were an unusual shade of green.
He ran a furniture company – Halil Furnitures and Fittings – having come to Nigeria to seek his fortune after years of trying to make it as an architect in Turkey. A friend who owned a business in Nigeria had mentioned the opportunity and he’d taken a leap. Now, he serviced contracts for government institutions and homes; everyone knew Turkish furniture was good. Or was it his accent and olive skin? Regardless, he sat a step higher up the social ladder than most Nigerians.
‘You seem to like tea. You should come to my place, I have a whole err collection of Turkish tea you should try out,’ Halil said to me that first day.
In his apartment that mirrored a capsule from another country, he ran his hands down my arms as the water boiled, murmuring against my neck in splintered English. Then I said no and removed his arms. And for a moment, it seemed he’d never considered the possibility of my saying no, or perhaps no other woman had said no to him before.
We drank the tea in awkward silence that was sporadically broken by Halil’s attempts at conversation – stories of his grandmother who made Turkish sweets, his siblings and the mountains back home.
At the door, he apologised and asked me to come again.
Zino called as I sat in traffic at the Lekki toll gate. At different points in the road, tar had already started to disintegrate but we continued to pay the toll, for what exactly, I wasn’t sure. I handed a note – the most battered I could find – to the attendant and moved forward to join the rest of the traffic.
At the junction that faced the grand Oriental Hotel, a beat-up Toyota swerved into my lane, barely missing my bumper, and I rolled down my glass to give him a piece of my mind.
‘Madam, look where you’re going now!’ he shouted. His windows were already down, the AC of his car probably in need of a mechanic.
‘You’re a fool. Go and learn how to drive!’
‘Waka. All these women wey no sabi drive, who buy you this motor sef?’
My phone rang then. ‘If you want to die, go and die in your house, don’t endanger others,’ I screamed as I clicked on the screen of my dashboard. My eyes connected with an image of myself on a billboard ahead and I quickly wound up my glass.
Zino was laughing.
‘What’s funny?’ I growled.
He laughed even harder.
‘If you called to laugh, I’m not in the mood.’
‘You’re lucky we don’t have proper paparazzi in this country. You would have ended up on some pages today.’
I hissed. ‘Paparazzi ko. Who has fuel to chase anybody about in this economy? Anyways, we still have those blogs.’ The traffic light at the next junction stopped us.
‘Yes, but someone has to record or take a picture to send to them, and to be honest we just don’t care as much as they do over there. Our mentality is: yes, you’re a celebrity, and so?’
‘Maybe when we finally have 24/7 electricity,’ I quipped.
He laughed.
‘I know you didn’t call me to philosophise about our paparazzi culture. So what’s up? Talk to me,’ I said.
‘I got wind of a new project coming up in a few months. It seems like the sort of thing you’d be interested in; different storyline and everything. I like what I see so far and I’m thinking of putting money down, maybe get the director to shoot some scenes in the Western Cape. Where are you headed now? Come to mine, let’s discuss.’
My ears perked up. ‘I have a meeting with a director but I’ll come over once I’m done.’
‘Hmm,’ Zino grunted. ‘Be careful, many of these people are not straightforward.’
It was my turn to laugh. ‘Zino abeg come and be going. You’re talking to me, remember? I’m not exactly a new flower in this business.’
‘Zinachukwu, the ying to my yang,’ Zino greeted me at his doorstep, pulling me into an embrace. He always said it was no coincidence that I was Zina and he was Zino; destined to accompany each other from birth, even though he was ten years my senior.
‘Erezino, my love,’ I responded, tightening my arms; Zino gave the best hugs.
Zino’s house was a masterclass in interior decoration, an analogy for unbridled sensuality: the dark walls, velvets and hanging lights, the abstract paintings and sculptures. But everything about Zino was sensual: his body sculpted and lean, his manicured hands branded by a gold signet ring, his clothes tailored to a crisp fit, pedicured feet covered in Italian leather.
‘He’s gay,’ another actress whispered to me during a production. A blog had carried the gossip but blogs carried gossip about everyone; there were rumours about me floating around that I never bothered to acknowledge.
But I could see why many would assume Zino was gay. In our decade of friendship, I’d never known him to have a girlfriend or discuss an attraction to anyone.
‘So is it true?’ the actress asked me.
