‘This place is dry. Let’s listen to something,’ Zina said, jumping up and taking the braid in my hands with her.
She returned with a device that served the dual purpose of cassette player and radio. ‘Let’s check what they have playing on here,’ she said turning the knob.
‘Maybe we should listen to the news,’ I suggested.
‘By this time of the day? What are you expecting to hear? Another coup?’
I laughed, even though it was dangerous to do so. Our lifetimes had been a string of coup d’états, of waking up to the national anthem playing and a new face claiming control of the government, accusing the previous of corruption and then going on to do the same.
Keeping her ear to the speaker, Zina turned the knob, listening to the static until she landed on a station and turned up the volume. Then she twisted her waist as Seyi Sodimu and Shaffy Bello’s voices blasted through, asking to be loved tenderly.
Love me jeje.
Zina had what people called half-caste hair, just like her mother. They had no idea what part of the family had produced such convenient hair; there was no known white ancestor lurking in their family tree. When water touched her hair, it did not shrink in the way mine did, coiling within itself, shielding its strands from moisture, nor did it dry as quickly, brittle and hard at the slightest breeze. In secondary school, the teachers let her wear her hair out, to share the beauty of her curls, while the rest of us were mandated to appear in neatly done cornrows. The hairdressers would spoil her hair anyway; they wouldn’t know how to handle such fine hair.
By the time Eriife arrived, it was four o’clock and Zina’s hair had been washed and blow dried, circling her face like a luxuriant mane, and we were clustered around the mini-television and VCR we’d combined our allowances to purchase, eating groundnuts.
‘The doc!’ I hailed as Eriife walked in.
‘This place looks like a jungle,’ Eriife commented as she made her way through the ruins of cracked shells and pulled off her lab coat.
‘And you’re late!’ Zina accused, her eyes narrow.
Eriife laughed. It wasn’t a sound we’d heard too often recently, and it tugged at my heart. ‘I’m sorry, I was stuck at the lab. Unlike you, some of us don’t have any semester break.’ She turned to me. ‘And Ego I’m not a doctor yet.’
‘I’m preparing in advance.’
‘Are you ready?’ she asked Zina, rolling up her sleeves and sitting on the bunk. She’d learnt to do hair from her father’s relative who owned a salon and was the only person Zina would allow to braid her hair.
‘Ever ready!’ Zina said, pulling out the packs of hair attachment, a pair of scissors, combs and a tub of hair cream from her wardrobe before settling between Eriife’s spread legs.
‘Ego, press play,’ Zina instructed.
‘What movie were you watching?’ Eriife asked as she meticulously traced a line across Zina’s head with a tooth comb.
‘Nneka the Pretty Serpent,’ I answered.
‘Again?!’
‘Zina won’t let us watch anything else,’ I complained, staring pointedly at Zina who deliberately ignored us, her eyes fixed on the screen.
‘It’s because they’re both mami water,’ I quipped and Zina’s leg stretched out to kick me.
Eriife chuckled, her eyes not leaving the braid she was deftly weaving. ‘Are the both of you planning to use your break to only watch movies?’
‘It’s just me and you on this campus o. Ego is going home,’ Zina responded. She did not bother to look at me – Nneka was calling out to the river spirit.
4
Any boy?
Chidiadi was the first to make me realise there was something wrong with my family.
‘How many brothers and sisters do you have?’ he asked in primary two, just before the rainy season came with heavy storms and chilly winds.
After our excursion to Marina to find Aunty Chinelo, Zina and Eriife had been placed in different classes; we needed to learn to make friends with others.
Chidiadi was much taller than me, the tallest boy in my class. It was recess and we were all gathered by the swings.
‘Thu. I have thu sisters,’ I replied through the space where my front teeth had been, thinking of my twin baby sisters who were still learning to talk. I glanced around the playground for Zina and Eriife.
‘Any boy?’ he asked, his thick brows coming together.
I shook my head no.
He drew a sharp breath, his eyes widening and his mouth taking on an ‘O’ shape. And when his friends looked with curious faces, he waved them over.
‘Come and hear what she said. She has no brother, only two sisters!’
‘I have two sisters too,’ one of his friends said, smiling sheepishly and kicking his foot in the sand.
‘But you’re a boy. It’s not the same,’ he said.
‘How is it not the same?’ I asked.
‘Every family should have a boy. That is what my daddy says.’
‘Well, your daddy is a liar,’ I retorted and stuck out my tongue.
