Butter Honey Pig Bread

by Francesca Ekwuyasi

WE ARE KIN. Here at the in-between place, we are one being, eternal, moving in rotation to the flesh realm only because we must. As sure as the tides, as sure as the sunrise, bound to the rhythm of its particular dominion—we must. “I” is only a temporary and necessary aberration. “I,” “Me,”—such a lonely journey! We separate, single out to “I”s and “Me”s, only when we traverse between realms, when we take breath and body. Only because we must. But we always return to We, you see? Because we must. We sing reminders to the “I”s. We sing them back home in time. We sing them to a doorway. Death is only a doorway. We are Ọgbanje.

In Lagos, there is no bubble thick enough to protect you from the truth of your privilege or your disadvantage; you see it everywhere, every day.

On the floor, against the wooden base of the vanity, are stacks and stacks of books: novels and poetry collections; a mixture of secondary school–assigned literature by Buchi Emecheta, Flora Nwapa, Cyprian Ekwensi, Ama Ata Aidoo, Chinua Achebe, Ayi Kwei Armah, and Wole Soyinka; and books that sixteen-year-old me read voluntarily, like Harry Potter and Purple Hibiscus and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

They are covered in a uniformly thin layer of dust.

I would just sit with the closed book on my lap, the characters like old friends to whom I had just said good night. I would have to wait a while for the lingering aroma of one story to fade from my mind before diving into another.

He Skyped me at four a.m. once, drunkenly ranting about growing up Moroccan in Paris without ever having been to Morocco: the absurdity of the prejudice he endured, the fucked-up way that white supremacy slyly slips a chip on your shoulder, only to turn around and innocently question its position there.

Everyone knows that you do not casually break promises of jollof rice and survive unscathed to tell the tale. You will need two cups of rice, preferably long-grain white rice, but really, any type of rice will do. You will also need a quarter cup of palm oil, some smoked fish—eja osan would be your best bet—one large onion, a half cup of dried prawns, ground peppers, two tablespoons of ground dried crayfish, one tablespoon of puréed tomato, a small bunch of chopped efirin, half a tablespoon of salt, and a cup of beef stock or two bouillon cubes.

Were they the same? Was she lost? Had she forgotten? The other girls accused Mercy of witchcraft, which was typical of teenage girls. Yet Kambirinachi was astonished at the extreme points of emotion that their collective pendulum hit. Mob mentality, groupthink, call it what you like, but one day their classmates would be moved with sympathy for Mercy the sickler—they’d offer to take biology notes for her and fetch her buckets of water to bathe in the morning—and the next day, after she’d suffered a seizure or screamed from the acute pain of a crisis at the chapel during morning Mass or after lunch break, they would again be sure that she was an Ọgbanje, or a witch, or possessed by an evil spirit. She was just sick.

He called her tortoise for her precociousness. After the wily character that stole birds’ feathers to fly and join a feast in the sky. He angered the birds with his greed, so they pushed the tortoise out of the clouds and he fell to the ground, shattering his shell.

Ikenna had left a pot of palm oil stew with catfish on the stove, so Kambirinachi peeled and boiled sweet potatoes in salted water. They ate with their hands, listening to the radio in silence that was occasionally interrupted only by her father’s laughter;

Lovers, Taiye’d had many. Too many. She found herself too lustful, too gluttonous. She desired too much. She recognized her weakness for these particular vices early in her life. As an eight-year-old, she quietly consumed helping after helping of beans and dodo, jollof rice, eba and egusi soup. She ate everything, until her stomach stretched well past its limit, and only pain and nausea forced her to stop.

Where Kehinde was lush with soft curves, generous hips, and ample thighs, Taiye’s skin clung tightly to lean muscle over her athletic frame, narrow hips, statuesque shoulders. This was the extent of their physical difference; they were identical otherwise. They had the same deep dark complexion, the same wide-set brown eyes, the same disarming lopsided smile. Disarming, in part, because it was lopsided and opened to reveal a small gap between their front teeth. Taiye would learn later than Kehinde the effect that particular use of that smile could have on people. Soft manipulation.

“What are you doing, Baby Two?” he asked, without looking up from his papers. A Yoruba man, he believed the lore that she was the younger twin. That even though Taiye was born first, her sister, Kehinde, was actually formed first and had merely sent Taiye out before her to make sure the world was fit for their arrival.

“Ah! Kehinde is married!” Isabella clapped. “Eyah, to who?” “This guy named Farouq.” “Muslim?” “I think so. I’m not sure.” “Nigerian?” “No.” “Oyimbo?” “I think, partly maybe. I’ve seen pictures, he’s brown.” “You haven’t met him?” “Nope.” “Na wa for una sha, I don’t know sisters that don’t talk like you people.” “We’re special like that.”

Taiye shrugged.

TAIYE AND I USED TO BE ONE CELL, one zygote. Isn’t that wild? I sometimes wonder if we knew each other before birth, if we were sisters, or the same person who grew tired of herself and shed the parts she didn’t want.

Music always played throughout the house, filling the small rooms. Akuchi loved Bob Marley. She loved the thrumming rhythm of Ebenezer Obey, the smoke of his husky voice. Often, she sang along to Fatai Rolling Dollar and I.K. Dairo’s Yoruba crooning and swayed her round hips to the Juju beat. She was the youngest of the three sisters, and to Kambirinachi, it seemed that she was the most joyful.

It’s a familiar feeling but much less potent than the one that overtook me that first year in Montreal. There was a lead-heavy and crushing thing that bloomed inside of me then. It started in the winter, a wretched season. Sharp winds sliced through my insufficient layers, and I was sure all the blood would freeze in my fingers and toes. My skin itched from dryness, and I couldn’t seem to get warm enough. To whatever degree my body suffered, my mind was hit tenfold. Something shifted, something cracked. There were many many instances when, walking along the frost-covered sidewalks, I considered throwing myself into the rush of oncoming traffic. I didn’t really want to die; I was just tired, and so cold, and so lonely.

At the dining hall, in my quest to feel anything else, I swung between ignoring my appetite entirely and, in a dizzying haze of hunger, eating plates and plates of bland cafeteria food.

I envied fat women who draped their luscious curves without any embarrassment, thighs quaking as they walked. I envied thin women lounging effortlessly in T-shirts and shorts, nothing pinching or pudging, just smooth skin over smooth muscle over delicate bones. I envied anyone who didn’t hate their body.

It was about beauty, yes, but it was also about belonging. People treat you with kindness and an invitation to belong if they like the way you look, and every time I looked in the mirror, I saw someone who was almost as beautiful as Taiye, nearly as lucky, but never quite meeting the mark.

EVEN AS A YOUNG CHILD, Taiye recognized when her father started earning more money because they switched from using margarine, the kind that comes in a yellow plastic tub with a blue lid, to butter imported from Ireland, the salted kind that comes wrapped in gold foil. Kehinde didn’t seem to notice, but Taiye’s palate sang in response to the butter’s superiority. In London, she didn’t buy butter unless she could afford the organic cultured kind from health food shops. It was a treat when she could spare the money, and she could make an eight-ounce block last well over a month. In Catalan cuisine, though, it was all olive oil. “Ici, nous ne mangeons pas toujours du beurre comme les stéréotypes français. Dans la cuisine Catalane nous utilisons l’huile d’olive,” Guifré announced at the beginning of a lesson on sauces and condiments.

She rested her head on Taiye’s bare lap and played with the ends of her braids, coiling them around her red-tipped fingers, unravelling and rebraiding them. “Oh God, sincere?” Taiye said, self-conscious about her enthusiasm just moments before, her heart still racing. “It’s very good. How is it you say ‘inattendu’? I didn’t … ah …?” “Expect? Unexpected!” Taiye said. “Yes, c’est ça. Because you are like, eh, timide, but not so shy. You don’t say too much, but in bed just now—” “Oh God, I was talking too much?” “No, no … you ask questions, pay attention. It was very nice.” “You liked it?” “Yes.” Elodie rolled off her back and stretched. “Your other lovers, they have not told you this?” “I haven’t … really had other lovers.” “Ah! I am the first?” “A little bit.” Nervous laughter escaped her. “Well, I think that you will have many.” Elodie got out of bed and stretched again before beginning to dress.

Elodie pulled her T-shirt over her head and fell back into Taiye’s lap. She lightly traced a finger from the shallow cleft of Taiye’s lower lip, all the way down her throat and between her breasts, where she paused to tap a rhythm on Taiye’s sternum. She hummed a drowsy tune in time with the slow tapping. That melody again. “What’s that song?” Taiye asked. Elodie paused to think. “I don’t know. I just think of it now.” “Elodie’s melody.” Taiye smiled the words.

Taiye’s voice is distinct. I can hear it in my mind. Her voice is transparent; she hides nothing. In this letter, she tells me how she is learning to make sourdough bread. I can read her excitement in her handwriting, which is slanted and sloppy, and some of the words aren’t entirely spelled out. I’m a little bit in awe of how little this recipe needs. It’s simple and complete. Flour, water, and time. That it! Well, I think the real magic is the bacteria floating in the air and wild yeast in the flour. Breadmaking is my favourit part of Culinary schoo so far. I butchred a pig the other day, and it was intense. Intense is a good word. Fresh sourdough and butter is everything

After scouring self-help blogs online, Wolfie found testaments on journaling as a healing practice. He brought me an unlined brown leather-bound journal and suggested I write about my sadness. I started many sentences, but the writing was peeling me open and unearthing questions I didn’t want to think about, so I let my pen glide over the smooth pages in meaningless lines and loops. I doodled for what seemed like ages, page after page, in a soothing flow, emerging hours later feeling rested. I started attempting to render objects in ink, simple still lifes of dirty plates, stacked books, fruit. Eventually, I grew more interested in drawing faces, so I looked through my things for family photographs. I was looking for a particular portrait of my father as a boy, the one with his hair picked out into a glorious Afro, a toothy smile stretched wide across his round face, the embroidered neckline of his dashiki peeking through, just barely in the frame.

I don’t think Wolfie realized the gift he gave me with that journal. Or with his kindness. He made me cups and cups of woody St. John’s wort tea, because he’d read somewhere that it was a natural antidepressant. Once, I was rummaging through his kitchen cabinet in search of some honey. I found it by his computer on the small dining table in the corner of the cramped kitchen. I sat down to check my email, and it was still logged in to his account. Everyone knows you mustn’t snoop, everyone knows, yet I did. And there sat an email from the head chef of Grégoire, a restaurant in Paris that Wolfie and Luca had prattled on about since I’d worked at Milas. Wolfie had visited the year before, and then sent a long and eager message asking about opportunities for an apprenticeship. Many months later, the chef was offering him one, to start in eight weeks. Wolfie had received the email over a month ago. Simultaneously, joy—incredible amounts of it for him—and a deep dread for myself filled my body. The corners of my chest, the overgrown cuticles of my toes, every inch of me vibrated with that fight. The next morning, before sunrise, I initiated sex. We’d barely touched since the miscarriage. Wolfie was gentler than usual, leaning his forehead against mine to kiss me over and over. He told me that he loved me and asked, with a catch in his voice, if I loved him too.

He took my hands in his and said the things you say when you’re afraid to let go. I said nothing. We held each other until I had to leave for school. It wouldn’t have been right, if I’d gone with him.

A dull pain pulsed through her temples in an incessant rhythm; drained of serotonin, she felt her whole self tipped toward the void. She pulled the hood of her jacket up over her braids and shoved her hands into the snug pockets of her tight jeans as she walked quickly, almost passing the café. It was a small, unassuming place with an indistinct white placard on the side of the entrance that read in red block letters, POPPY. TEA AND TREATS.

At the counter, a light-skinned woman with a gorgeous large orange halo of Afro stocked the display case with baked treats. She swayed slightly to the electronic rhythms pulsing on low volume from a radio on a shelf behind her. She flashed Taiye a wide smile to reveal a gap between her two front teeth, greeting her, “Hiya, you all right?” “Good morning,” Taiye croaked, her voice still laden with sleep. “I was told that you served a vitamin smoothie type thing, good for hangovers?” A coy smile. “Ah, yes! The Vitamin Aid.” The woman pointed to the chalkboard menu on the wall behind her. “Bit cold for smoothie, though, innit?” “Yeah, I was wondering if maybe you had a hot version or some kind of tea that works the same magic.” “You know what?” The woman tied her hair into a coily bun atop her head. “The real magic in the smoothie is ginger and ashwagandha infusion.” She took down a jar of what looked to Taiye like small grey wood chips. “We make a really strong tea with this, with some fresh ginger, and loads of lemon. It’ll be nice and hot.” She offered the same wide smile, and the only word that could come out of Taiye’s mouth was “yes.” Taiye stood at the counter and watched the woman make her tea.

TAIYE’S TEA WAS STILL TOO HOT TO DRINK by the time she walked to the high-ceilinged chapel of Our Lady of La Salette. The massive oak doors were propped open by a white sandwich board that read ALL WELCOME. Taiye slipped inside as quietly as she could, tiptoeing to keep the chunky heels of her boots from striking the floor, and sat at the end of an empty pew. It was a modest brownstone church with stained-glass rose windows on either side of the vaulted archway. She sipped the tea, burning her tongue. Mass had already begun.

The sound of the congregation praying together, many voices rising and falling in unison, sounded like a rushing brook. It felt like warm water pouring down her skin.

TAIYE’S FLAT WAS A CONVERTED ATTIC in the home of a Trinidadian widow in her late sixties named Cherelle Baptiste. Cherelle was kind to Taiye, if slightly overbearing. Although a narrow flight of wrought-iron stairs led to her own entrance separate from the main house, Taiye tiptoed to keep from alerting Cherelle, who routinely rapped on the window, waved Taiye toward the front door, and talked about the joys of her relationship with Jehovah, and the brilliance and generosity of her son: Kevon, a very handsome engineer. By the time Taiye undressed and bathed the night and sex, and holy smoke, off her skin, Our Lady of La Salette had made herself at home in Taiye’s mind, stretched out on the plush sofa by the garden window of her thoughts.

Curled up at the edge of her mattress with her face toward the open window, Taiye lit the joint and sucked the smoke deep into her lungs. She held in the smoke for a long pause and turned her attention to Our Lady, who watched Taiye with pale, lazy eyes from the corner of her mind. “So, where did you come from?” Taiye asked, as she exhaled a dense plume out the window.

AFTER HER TIME IN MONTPELLIER, Taiye had a string of restaurant and bar jobs, from dishwasher to server to line cook. But the late nights, and the easy access to utter and blissful intoxication, proved too seductive and risky for her. So she polished her resumé, highlighting her chemistry degree, and found work as an analytical chemist in the quality control department at Green Key Pharmaceuticals, where she tested luxury cosmetics for allergens. The pay was decent enough for rent, food, transportation, and very meagre savings, but it did not suffice for weekly benders with seductive strangers because she insisted on living alone, drinking too much, was precious about the grade of weed she smoked, and liked organic butter.

She shared a trust account with her estranged twin—their late father had set it up when they were children—but she didn’t dare look into it. She was very much at odds with her own self, a pendulum striking extreme and opposite points; it made for an abundance of emotional self-flagellation.

I’m sorry! You could’ve just declined my invitation to gawk at mediocre art No, I really wanted to come But …? But I’m a shithead … I see … I’d still like to see you again You had your chance For real?! Jokes! Sober soirée ce soir chez moi if you’re keen. A few friends, someone’s bringing a juicer. I can do sober Rough night? A night Tell me about it when you get here Can I bring anything to atone for my bad behaviour? Ha, bring yourself. We’ll talk. Taiye smiled at her phone. Our Lady rolled her eyes.

Taiye didn’t take offence at Our Lady finding her irksome. She, too, was incredibly sick of her own shit.

“Are you a believer?” Taiye asked. “In Unchained? No, not at all. There is zero percent room for someone like me to be out in Nigerian Pentecostalism. I am a believer in God, though, like in a divine goodness that loves us and wants us to love each other, blah blah.” He laughed, this time with a calm sincerity.

“I think that God is definitely femme, though. I mean, look at flowers! Anyway, are you?” he asked Taiye.

The following morning, they ate crepes with salted brown butter and blackcurrant compote. They drank hot Ribena from misshapen mugs that Aiden had made in a beginners’ ceramics course. Afterward, they lay with swollen bellies on her bed and shared a joint of sticky sativa buds and lavender. “Would it be totally weird for you if I wanted to be friends with one of your friends?” Taiye asked, her head resting on Aiden’s soft belly. “Timi? He said to give you his number. You two are too cute.”

“Oh man, yeah, like my mum’s a refugee. I mean, she came here from Eritrea as an asylum seeker when she was quite young, much much younger than I am now, and she married this, like, working-class Welshman from Swansea, and they moved to Cardiff and had me. And like,” she gnawed at a hangnail on her left thumb, “I can’t go to Eritrea, yeah, and I can’t afford to go anywhere in Africa, at least not yet, so this way—like with this project—I’m a bit closer to the, like, handiwork of people with a similar experience to my mum. I think.” She laughed after a brief moment of silence. “You know, I could’ve just written that for the Erasmus grant.” “Yeah,” Taiye said, nodding, “that’s a lot more fucking real than anything with the term ‘frameworks.’”

In the cramped space of the kitchen, they danced around each other casually, with unexpected ease. They worked smoothly in soothed silence; Taiye offered gentle orders to purée, grind, pour, chop— “Careful careful, don’t touch the pepper seeds with naked fingers!” Timi responded by doing. He knew his way, had done so many times, with his mother and sisters, and the occasional lover. They soaked, rinsed off the chaff, and ground beans for moi moi: They mixed the mealy ground beans with pale red onion and tomato purée, sharp slivers of Scotch bonnet, chicken bouillon cubes, palm oil, and crayfish powder. They poured the thick batter in oiled ramekins—turquoise, white, black and gold, yellow. Because Aiden didn’t have a large enough pot, they baked the moi moi in a bain-marie, with a broad sheet of foil cinched around the tray to keep the steam inside to cook the savoury bean cakes. Taiye and Timi peeled, sliced, and fried overripe plantains in fragrant coconut oil, squealing and jumping away when scalding oil spat from the pan. They oven-roasted skewers of marinated beef covered in homemade yaji—a valiant attempt at suya. They laughed at this, at their diasporic angst, as they dipped yeasty balls of puff-puff in glossy melted dark chocolate.

WEEKS LATER, Taiye went to Unchained Ministries in South Norwood to watch Timi sing in the church choir for the first time. This Timi was a watered-down version of the one she’d met at Aiden’s party, the one with whom she had spent many of her evenings since Aiden’s Glitter Goodbyes. They’d made a tradition of meeting on Wednesdays after work to cook together or watch Yoruba films online or traipse around galleries, giggling at contemporary art. In Aiden’s absence, they developed a fast friendship. The kind of kinship established due to a common sadness, shared loneliness that becomes bearable through laughter and food and the good company of one who understands.

Zora wanted nourishment, so although their few months together were torrid, they were also tumultuous and exhausting for both women. Once Zora clocked that there would be no real lasting relationship with Taiye, she left, and that was that. By the time Taiye emerged from that most recent collapse into lust, or a self-delusion of potential love, she couldn’t find Timi. She called often. She left apologetic voice messages that stayed unreturned: “Hey, love, I’m sorry I’ve been M.I.A. How are you doing? Let’s catch up.” “Timmy Timz, miss you, lovey. Let me know what you’ve been up to.” “Heya, Timmy, I’m so sorry I’ve been a rubbish friend. I’m sorry.” Then text messages: Baby boy, we NEEEEEED to hang out. Bruhhh! I miss you, bruh. Let’s sneak wine into the cinema and watch white people release ancient curses from Egyptian tombs.

The weeks crawled by in Timi’s absence. Taiye was outrageously stoned, splayed on the floor of her shoebox flat, nibbling on cold spring rolls, ignoring the apparition that had become her only companion, basking in the stink of her self-loathing, wondering how she managed to take so many lovers yet failed to keep one friend.

“The choirmaster, Wasiu … he forced himself on … then he told the elders … he showed them my Grindr profile … they told the whole church.” “Timi, I’m so sorry.”

She closed her eyes, and Our Lady was there. The apparition folded Taiye’s damp and shivering body into her own holy one, held her tight, and whispered a secret in her ear.

I did a bit of reading on Nova Scotian history: Did you know the first big group of immigrants to Nova Scotia (except for the dodgy white settlers—do they count as immigrants?) were Black Loyalists who came to the area as refugees after the American Revolution? Afterward, a group of exiled Jamaicans settled. They helped build the city’s citadel and served in the military. African Nova Scotians have a history of more than four hundred years. I read that on a government website. I’ll let you know what else I learn.

I’ve occupied myself, mostly, by reading Taiye’s letters and attempting to have lucid conversations with our mother. She is a whole other character. This morning, for example, while we were tucking into a breakfast of masa and catfish stew that Taiye woke up before the sun to prepare, our mother asked if I still worked at the gallery. “Yes,” I said, “but only part time.” She didn’t ask, “How come part time?” or “What do you do the rest of the time?” She just nodded and said, “Lovely,” then took a big bite of her breakfast. “How about your art?” Taiye had asked to fill the awkward silence our mother had plunged us into with her half-assed interest and typical distractedness. “Good—how did you know …?” I’d asked.