Les Amoureus by Alison Bwalya Erlwanger

Fungisai

Fungisai did not like her hair. It was not about the texture or colour; she loved the way that the thick lush locks framed her face in brilliant dark brown waves. She loved when it was braided, the way her mother used to do it, so that the intricate embroidery of her proud mane fell loosely on her light brown skin. The braids made her feel like a revolutionary. As if the fluid movements of her hair’s reaction to every turn and swoop she made expressed her own freedom. The braids did not move in unison, or any order. They were unpredictable — lashing out like long whips in a confused chaotic dance. She loved the blatant anarchy of her braids, and it was on the days that her hair was braided that she would take Neville out dancing.

Not the type of dancing he often favoured, she detested the stiffness of the tango and the superfluous show the more experienced dancers put on. “How is it real dancing if you have to learn the steps first?” she would protest, but still go with him, if only to see his face light up when she got the steps right.

But on the days when her hair was braided Fungisai took Neville to reggae clubs. She wanted to dance to a rhythm that pumped through her veins with the same reckless abandon as her braids. Waists gyrating to the pulsating beat of the Caribbean, Fungisai would step onto the dance floor, with Neville coyly following behind her, and she would blend into the throng of brown bodies. She did not wait for Neville. Did not care to notice that the loudness of the music, and the closeness of the bodies bothered him. On the days her hair was braided Fungisai did not need a partner to dance, she only needed a beat. She felt the freedom of her soul, all the different strands of it, dance in a beautiful confusion to the hoarse Patois that evoked her true spirit. On the days her hair was braided Fungisai wrote poetry:

Yesterday my skin was kissed by the sun and my hair had a love affair with the wind.

Despite her freedom, Fungisai still hated her hair. Especially on days like this when Neville had brought a brood of Nigerian’s over, and they looked suspiciously at her luscious long locks.

“I thought you said she was African!” The woman Neville had introduced as Kainene exclaimed.

Fungisai resented how, even when they were speaking in English, they referred to her as though she were not in the room, or as though she was a child; not a legitimate voice for conversation.

“She is mixed, her mother is the Zimbabwean, her father is from India,” Neville said in a half-hearted defence.

Fungisai was livid. She hated him for condoning and playing a part in her exclusion, and for claiming her father was from India. Who was he to decide where someone was ‘from’? What does that even mean? To be from somewhere? Whatever it meant, she knew that her father was not from India. Perhaps somewhere down his ancestry there was some Indian blood but she wished that Neville would take himself off of his politically-correct high horse for long enough to realise that he was not fighting for any form of justice by denying her father his true identity. Fungisai’s father was coloured, period. She was coloured. Mixed implied impurity; part of many and insufficient of any. She hated his nonchalant dismissal of her identity, how he reduced the complexity of her rich heritage into an inaccurate sentence, brief enough to placate the disapproval of his friends before he changed the subject.

Fungisai wished she had her hair braided so that she could storm out of the room in a defiant, but silent strut with only the violent back-and-forth lash of her braids to indicate her anger. Tonight, her hair lay limp, unbraided, hiding her face. She felt overwhelmed, standing in her own living room amidst this room of Nigerian academic elites that Neville had not informed her he was bringing home. Fungisai retreated into her bedroom away from the men who talked animatedly with Neville about the upcoming Nigerian elections. Away from the women who laughed in unison, as if on cue, every time Neville cracked one of his jokes about the sloth and laziness of the American college students he taught politics. She walked out of the room slowly, knowing she would not be missed. In her room she assured herself that Neville had not kept the company of Nigerian’s in a long time, which explained why he was too preoccupied to talk about her in depth. She must not be selfish; after all, tonight he had promised her that they would go dancing. She turned her radio on to a slow jazz station to ease her into her grooming rituals. Although the volume was low she could hear the gentle cooing of a tenor voice telling the story of a lady of the night. The song touched her, she wondered about the woman beyond the tenor’s words. She wondered what her story was. Inspired by the song she wrote down the title for a poem; Hands. As the next song began to play she hummed along, sat down and began to braid her hair.


Neville

“Really Fungisai,” Neville scolded. “One would think that especially since you do not look African you would cover up in other ways.”

Silence... Words once spoken cannot be recalled. They linger in the air for so long that they thicken into an impenetrable tension that cuts the ligaments and tendons of once healthy relationships. Unexpected words can be the most destructive. They create strangers where there where lovers, and nurture the once hidden insecurities that wondered; do I really know you?

As soon as the last syllable left his mouth to take on a life of its own Neville was overcome with regret. The words had seemed to echo in the small bedroom, and mocked his empty wishes they could be recalled. He wondered how deep he had cut. Perhaps Fungisai did not hear him. Perhaps the words only tortured him for bringing to life what he always felt.

Neville’s vain hope was dashed as Fungisai turned to look him directly in his eyes, with the same loaded intensity as the calm before a storm. She embraced the silence for a few moments as he waited desperately for her to speak, so that he could at least react. The silence choked him, but he would not show her he regretted his words too soon, not before he knew whether he could make this situation work in his favour or not. She looked away, still silent, sat in front of the mirror on their dressing table and began to unbraid her hair. Neville felt a spark of hope rise within him, maybe this meant she was fine with them not going out anymore. Fungisai began to speak with her face still fixed on her reflection.

“I am not going to apologise,” she said.

Neville was confused for a moment and then replied, “I did not ask you too.” He searched her face to read what she meant, what she was feeling, but her face had a complacent composure he could not understand.

“Yes you did,” she said. “And I have apologised enough, for too long. I am not going to apologise anymore. If I do not look African to your friends you must tell them to move back home, they have lived in New York for too long. I have lived in New York for too long. Maybe we have all forgotten what Africa looks like. Maybe we never knew what it looked like in the first place.”

Neville’s realised his words had cut to a depth he had not anticipated. He had not meant to bring all of his kinsmen home without telling Fungisai. He knew how lost she felt when the diphthongs of their Igbo colonised the room and she had no one to connect with. He also knew that as they entered the house and Fungisai asked him what was going on he should have been more sensitive to her anxiety.

“Ce qui ce passé?” she had whispered nervously to him.

He should have replied in French but he did not, and he felt ashamed for how loud and crude his English had sounded contrasted with her French “Let us welcome our friends nkem, it is nothing, the merriment of old friends is all.”

French was where they connected. When they met in college they both struggled with their French classes but they fought on because the whole world felt closed off from the new world the romance language built for them. ‘I miss you’ became je te manqué, ‘I love you’ became je t’aime and the black ink of their love letters seemed to explode into vibrant colours of deep adoration. He had seen the pain in her eyes when he replied to her in English, when he had made her vulnerable to his Nigerian friends. When they commented on her nationality he had wanted to shout out to her C’est ne rien, ne faite pas, but he could not without having his allegiance checked by the Igbo visitors he was entertaining. He could not because simply saying that everything was fine, would not make it fine.

There was a Nigerian expo in town and one of his colleagues from the university, a younger Igbo man who worked as a lab technician, had invited his relatives and friends to the university to introduce them to Neville. As soon as the crowd of people filed into his office Neville knew it was not going to be a short visit. After commenting on the various degrees that littered his wall, they asked him why he had not attended any of the expo events as yet. He was stumped for an answer. He felt the need to prove that he was still deeply connected to his Nigerian roots, yet unable to attend the events. He complained about a fabricated increased work load and lamented over the Igbo art lectures and displays he had so longed to attend but would not be able to make it for. Neville felt that his charming diplomacy would surely free him from any suspicions that he simply did not want to attend the expo. Partially convinced by his own excuses, and drunk on courage Neville spoke too much. He commented on his own collection of Igbo art in his Manhattan apartment. His visitors excitedly invited themselves to his house to see the art he spoke so passionately about firsthand and before he knew it he had piled half of the people in his car, and another half in his colleague’s car, and they were driving to Manhattan to an unsuspecting Fungisai.

Although initially he had been bothered by his guests he felt energised by their presence and was surprised by how easily Igbo fell from his tongue considering how rarely he had the opportunity to speak it. He felt at home. Nostalgia warmed his heart as his guests, all of whom had left Nigeria in their late teens for college, reminisced about their childhood. He had already begun to think about joining them that night for the expo, fuelled by the desire to stay in this euphoric state of nostalgia, before he heard one of the men, mention Katherine’s name. Neville froze. “Did you say Katherine Okonji will be going with you?”

The man was startled by the seriousness of Neville’s voice, he laughed nervously unsure of why this Politics professor was so concerned with his friend. “Yes,” he responded, “Katherine and I live in the same town in Upstate New York and we drove down here together. I will be seeing her again tonight. Do you know her?” The man felt self-conscious, perhaps Katherine had done something horrible that this professor knew about, and he wanted to hurt her. It seemed to be the only possible explanation for his abrupt change from mirth to shocked seriousness.

The man only began to feel better as a wide smile spread across Neville’s face and he nodded thoughtfully. “Yes,” Neville said, “We go way back.”

Perhaps that had been the turning point. Hearing that his long lost love was not only finally in the United States but within his reach, which caused Neville’s indifference to Fungisai and made him say those hurtful words. Neville had never told Fungisai about Katherine, but he had thought about Katherine often. He thought about her constantly before he met Fungisai, and even after he had grown to love Fungisai in her place, he still could not shake the pleasant memory of Katherine, his first love.

They had been together for the two years before his departure for the United States, and had stayed together for his first year as a student at Hamilton College although she remained in Lagos and they were forced to love each other from a distance. During their time together in Lagos before his departure he had felt she was his mirror image. She had supported his unusual obsession with reading political and social science journals while all the other boys played soccer, and had even asked him for recommendations on what she should read. Although not as prolific a reader as Neville, he loved that she tried, if only to make him happy.

Before Katherine he had felt insufficient because of his love of books, and dislike for the sports and physical fitness his father encouraged him to pursue. With Katherine he felt special, like an academic. When she listened he really felt heard. During his first year in the United States she became, for Neville, all of the beauty he had left in Nigeria and longed for as he ate over-processed cafeteria food and trudged through the snow to class longing for his mother’s jollof rice and the harsh Nigerian sun. She had held his hand, from miles away, as he dealt with homesickness and culture shock, and he loved her for it.

When she called him one day crying, because she had not been accepted into any of the American colleges she applied to, leaving her did not even begin to cross his mind. It was only after she said she could not continue to love him from a distance that he realised that her tears were not just about her college applications; she was ending their relationship. Shortly after that conversation she started school at a local university and he did not know how to contact her, especially since she had left instruction at her home that no one must give him her university contact details.

Neville’s heart had never healed. He loved Fungisai. Yet even now, years later, there were nights when he woke up beside her and looked at her face in the steady glow of the moonlight wishing her skin had the rich darkness of Katherine’s, wishing her hair had her coarseness. Wishing she was Katherine.

Determined to attend the expo to reunite with Katherine he had left his guests temporarily to speak to Fungisai. He found her seated in their room with her hair partially braided and remembered the dancing plans they had made. A pang of guilt struck his chest but was quickly overcome by the desire to see Katherine again. She turned to him and smiled as she continued braiding the rest of her hair.

“Are they gone yet?” she said.

For some reason this statement angered Neville, or at least he wanted it to anger him. “Why do you want them gone?” He asked defensively and Fungisai lowered her hands in surprise.

“I did not say I want them gone, I was just wondering when we were going to go to the reggae lounge, they have a live performance today and I don’t want to miss it!”

Neville felt a pseudo-anger burn within him and he decided that this could be his ticket to attend the expo. “Did you not hear anything anyone said Fungi? There is a Nigerian expo in town and tonight there is a lecture on Igbo art, why would you go to that lounge and move your body to music that isn’t even your own when there is a cultural African event going on? Why would you choose that over connecting with your roots?” Neville hoped this would not backfire, that she would not offer to go with him and ruin his chances of seeing Katherine alone. He did not know what he would say when he saw Katherine, but he knew it that it would be things he did not want Fungisai to hear.

Fungisai was caught off guard by his temper. “One, I am not Nigerian, I am Zimbabwean. How is a lecture on Igbo art related to my roots? Two, I just want to dance, when did that become a crime? Will you revoke my passport if I go? Africa will live for one more night while I dance with my Caribbean cousins!”

Neville felt the argument had gone in a direction he had not anticipated. He did not really want to delve into issues of Fungisai’s African identity because he knew the triggering effects this had on her, but he felt the ends would justify the means, at least for him. He would strike while the iron was still hot, it would be just like their arguments on whether to cook garri or sadza, heated in the moment but quick to cool. He just needed her angry enough for him to leave for the expo, he would be back soon enough to placate her anger.

“Oh I’m sorry I forgot that Africa is only a priority for those of us whose ancestors are one with the land, really Fungisai, one would think that especially since you do not look African you would cover up in other ways.” As the words left his mouth Neville realised they were too strong. His desperation had pushed him to exploit the very vulnerabilities he had once comforted her for. Was there any greater betrayal than to use the secret entrusted to you in confidence to inflict harm?

It was then that she said she would not apologise and her actions became enigmatic. She seemed distanced from him, withdrawn and unnervingly preoccupied with unbraiding her hair as he said he would go to the expo without her. She stayed, humming to herself as she stared blankly at her reflection.

As Neville changed clothes he listened to her hum, and wondered if her not objecting to his departure was the same as her allowing it. He silenced his guilt with the conviction that it was.

When he left the house with his new found friends he noticed Fungisai had begun to write something. He wondered if it would be another one of her poems about the sky and the trees and other frivolous things. He wished he could get her to write about politics, but she said that she could not choose what she wrote about. She just wrote it.

Outside of the apartment the man who knew Katherine approached Neville. “Katherine just called she is on the line, I told her we had bumped into you,” he said dismissively, as he motioned for Neville to take the phone in his hand.

Overwhelmed by how quickly distance and time could be overcome, Neville stared at the man dumbstruck for a moment. “Katherine, she is on the phone for you!” The man said loudly, waving the phone vigorously towards Neville, beckoning him to take what he had longed for, for so long. As his courage returned Neville took the phone firmly in his hand and in a deliberate swift movement raised it to his head. “Hello nkem, it has been a long time…”


Fungisai

Maybe today when you look at me you might actually see me.

It was only when she heard the trickle of voices die down as the front door shut and the cars drove away that Fungisai allowed the tears to come. They burst out in torrents of unwelcome memories and an even more unwelcome present. He was just like all the people who had teased in Harare for only speaking in English, for not having roots. Maybe she was alone after all. Maybe she had convinced herself of a companionship that was not really there.

You might see not just eyes, but what lies inside these windows to my soul.

Her hair lay in a twisted half-braided, half-loose mess across her face. Her tears began to soak some of the strands, their saltiness blended with the cocoa-butter sheen she used to make her locks shine. She wrote feverishly. The tears and poem competed for attention; she did not want the tears to win. They blinded her, and fell violently on the page, but she continued to write line after line to give her some sense of control over the situation. The tears were a burden. The poem was release.

Maybe today when you hear me you might even listen.

She was angry at Neville. How dare he leave her? At this point she was not sure if he had left her to attend the expo or left her for Africa, wherever it was he thought he would find it.

Maybe today when you touch me you might even feel me.

Africa! She wondered. How could this so-called political genius be crass enough to lump together so many different countries, so many different ethnicities, and so many different races, together in one giant melting pot? Had he forgotten that there were many different Africa’s? The Africa with a swollen stomach and stick-like limbs. The Africa with the beats that had given birth to the reggae she wanted to enjoy. The Africa with brother killing brother, despite their common language and birth place, over differences scheming European men convinced their grandfathers of decades earlier. The Africa that nurtured her and sustained her, and had never questioned where she was from. The Africa that knew that Fungisai belonged to her, no other sun would kiss her skin in the same way, or wind blow her hair to free its anarchy, not challenge it.

Maybe, just maybe, you will touch so deep and feel so much that we can strike a connection.

She felt that Africa strengthened and nurtured her, as she cried bitterly in a foreign country, where everyone pronounced her name wrongly. She remembered how she constantly corrected Neville on his pronunciation of her name when they first met. She had stopped correcting him a long time ago. It is not that he finally learned how to say it right, she just began to like the way he said it. She even grew to love it. This thought dried her tears. She felt foolish for crying. Had she not realised from the beginning that it would be hard to love a man who could not even say her name properly? Oh Africa, she thought, I thought that at least we had you in common, despite all of our differences! But now, even that seems to be an illusion. What have we ever had that really belonged to both of us? Yet she knew she loved him, completely, beyond a doubt. She just did not think she knew him. She wanted to know him, all of him. She also wanted to know herself, unbound from the restrictions of other people’s perceptions.

Maybe today you might actually begin to know me.

She looked into the mirror at her swollen red eyes and then down at a pair of scissors that lay mockingly on the dressing table. In a moment of absolute mental clarity — the kind they say that everyone feels just before they breathe their last breath — Fungisai reached for the scissors and raised them up, level with her eyes to inspect them. The glint of the metal excited her. She used her other hand to stretch out a lock of hair before her and, for a moment, she admired its sheer coat. She was surprised by how numb she felt as the first lock hit her dressing table. She became aware of the jazz music in the background again. It seemed to have disappeared in the moments before, she was convinced there was only silence but she must have been wrong. She continued humming to music as she cut.


Neville

As Neville reached out a hand to help Katherine out of the car he was startled by the softness of her palm. Whether it was because they never touched anything or because of the vigorous scrubs of a manicurist she most certainly visited routinely, he could not tell, but their softness exhilarated and frightened him. Everything else about her simply frightened him. The perfect red hue of her lips and precise arch of her eyebrows gave her a sharp pristine look that deterred Neville from stroking the face he had so longed to caress. Perhaps it was the accurate placement of every last lock of hair framing her pixy-like face that made him feel as though touching her and disturbing her harmonious beauty would be supreme sacrilege. As she used his unsure hand to pull herself out of the car and towards him, he smelt a sweet, rosy scent, waft into his nose and invade his already compromised senses. The smell made him think of virgin rose gardens, innocence, and youthful memories. He had been right after all. Katherine was perfection. She was more than he ever could have imagined.

“Hmm, and when did you become the gentleman who knows to help a lady out of her car with so much courtesy,” Katherine said, the right corner of her lips curled slightly in amusement.

Neville revelled in the compliment. He had pleased her. A euphoric chill ran down his spine and he felt hungry for more opportunities to please her, if only for the reward of half a curled lip. “Boys grow into men my dear. In our youth we find joy in playful games of cops and robbers, but as we age, few joys compete with being in the presence of beautiful women and so we put our mind to learning a gentleman’s tricks to make the most of that presence. But today I have also learned that young girls grow into women. You are radiating Katherine. I have seen many a beautiful woman in my time, but none could hold a candle to you.” Even as he said the words Neville felt they would sound too unnatural, too superfluous. He could not help but say them, because he honestly believed every word. Katherine smiled. Her whole mouth curled and parted to expose a row of immaculate white teeth. She laughed a throaty laugh that bubbled from between her lips in an abruptness that caught Neville off guard. He had made her laugh. The sound of her laugh urged him on and convinced him he had made the right decision in coming to see her.

Memories… Neville tried to remember what Katherine looked like before. There was a time when he could remember in precise detail each curve and dip of her face and each blemish on her soft youthful skin. As years had passed the lines began to blur and he found that he could only remember her in parts. The small scar on her chin from the time her brothers pushed her off a swing, the charcoal-black amorphous splotch of a birthmark on her lower back. They had changed their mind everyday about what the birthmark resembled. On the days they were feeling philosophical it was the outline of the Madonna and child. On days they felt defiant it was Che Guevera. On the days that they argued, which were rare, it was just a birthmark. The memory of that intimate detail of her body excited Neville. He was once so close to her. He tried to expel the memory of their naked bodies intertwined in euphoric bliss, but the thought invaded his mind so vividly he felt his breath deepen and quicken in reaction. He searched for something to say to stir his mind to other things.

“Remember how young we once were nkem?” he said, but then thought, for the first time, that perhaps he should not call her by her pet name. “Umm… You know Katherine… Kathy. The days when I spent hours in the library and wrote countless articles for the school newspaper. You were amazing back in high school, how did I ever keep up with you? President of the Debate Club, Social Chair of the Interact club, you truly were a force to be reckoned with!”

Katherine rolled her eyes in exaggerated exasperation. “Whatever was I thinking back then! I never even enjoyed those activities, it was surely my mother’s influence — God rest her soul — that made me run around in all those organisations, and miss out on the real joys of high school. Ei, and I remember you and those books! You were lucky I was all too aware of my own social awkwardness to fret over yours. At least now we are grown, and we can redeem ourselves at this expo.”

Her words jerked the thoughts of intertwined bodies and birthmarks violently out of Neville’s mind. He was startled by her reaction but not dismayed. Everyone jokes about their youth and the people they once were. Surely she did not mean it.

“Yes,” he chuckled, joining her, “I was quite the little bookworm. I appreciated all your support despite it all though. Let’s go to the auditorium, there is a lecture on Igbo art in the next few minutes we must rush for. I am excited to hear your thoughts on the pieces. I had some shipped directly from home for my apartment.” Neville was shocked at how easily ‘my apartment’ had escaped his lips. It had become ‘our apartment’ many years back and yet somehow, even though he was not yet sure of the direction he was going with Katherine, he knew that he did not want to mention Fungisai just yet. Conveniently forgetting to mention her was, after all, not anywhere near the same as explicitly denying her existence.

“That is cute Neville, I personally do not like the rustic designs. I carried a few Nigerian paintings with me when I came but I never put them up, they did not blend in with the colour scheme of my new apartment. I’m sure your art must give your apartment a rather quaint look. But as for the talk, no one really goes for talks anyway Neville. I never miss these expos, it’s such a lovely opportunity to socialise! Maybe after the drinks we can use that money you saved on a home decorator to get us a lovely room in this beautiful hotel for the night, it would be a shame to waste our two days together. I still know how to make you happy.” Katherine leaned in towards Neville and cooed her last sentence into his ear before gently nibbling on the soft lobe.

Neville froze. The dreadful recognition of his error hit him with such force that he felt foolish for not seeing it earlier. How could he have been so blinded? Had he really imagined he would find the construction of his mind in this stranger? He felt sick. Had the sweet Katherine he remembered really only existed in his mind? A part of him mourned over his imagined Katherine’s death, killed by the stone cold reality of the unknown woman before him. He wondered who the real impostor was? The sweet memory in his mind or the unfamiliar beauty before him? He thought of Fungisai and her awkward Zimbabwean accent, her peculiar name, her hippie poetry. For all the pain the symbolic death of Katherine caused him, it did bring him to an epiphany; he wanted a real Fungisai over a fake Katherine. Neville pushed Katherine away from him, looked directly into her eyes and walked away. He did not bother to say anything. In his mind Katherine was long dead and her ghost was not worth his words.


Katherine

Kathy could see the disappointment in Neville’s eyes. She always could do that, take a deeper look into the emotions people tried to hide from her, even emotions they tried to hide from themselves. No matter how often she disappointed people, she always burned with feelings of inadequacy as they looked at her with that patronising judgment hazing their vision. Neville’s gaze was piercing. She could see not only disappointment in her, but disappointment in himself. He seemed to be a shadow of the revolutionary boy who gave her an education on life and politics that her school teachers did not have the courage to give her. Would it make a difference if she told him it was because of his inspiration that she was studying sociology? She wondered for a moment whether to tell him how he had sparked her interest in the intricacies of humanity with his lectures on Marx, Freud, and Foucault. Perhaps knowing that the memory of him had guided her path to the present state would only serve to plunge him deeper into his current state of despair. Perhaps that would disappoint him too. Maybe she had picked the wrong way to try and make him happy and she should have been more genuine?

Kathy walked briskly towards the auditorium and tried to push Neville out of her mind. She knew that a small part of her — in a place few people would ever see — had been hopeful that their reunion would spark an old flame and ignite a new beginning. Instead, she became painfully aware of the death of that past and she slowly began to bury it. She shifted her mind to the talk on African Corruption she decided she would attend, since Neville had gone. There was bound to be a lonely man to buy her a drink, the mark from his wedding ring almost rubbed out enough for her to not feel guilty about taking him with her. Maybe he will stay the entire night, and she can feel the warmth of hungry hands erase the memory of Neville, even just for a moment. All she ever knew were hands.

Kathy wished she had told Neville the truth, yet she also wished she did not have to; he did have eyes and could chose to see if he wanted to. Life was not easy when all that was valued about you was your smile, your make-up, and your body. She wished she had told him that this, who she was, was not her choice. That she remembered the young girl who naively listened, with bated breath, to his monologues on the problems with structural adjustment. She too missed that girl. She too felt his disappointment. But she was angry at him for not seeing that, since him, no one had cared talked to her in the same way that he had. No man had talked to her with a genuine curiosity to know how her mind worked. No man had talked to her for any other reason than to charm a way into her embrace.

She was suddenly overcome by anger. How dare he feel disappointed by her? Who gave him the right to have any expectations or to judge her so harshly? She knew it was not only disappointment that welled in his eyes and burned into her soul. There was that hint of lust she was also all too familiar with. As she took her seat and awaited the speaker she laughed to herself at his utter hypocrisy. He judged her for her appearance, she knew it, very few Nigerian men didn’t, and yet he also found it attractive. Such a contradiction these men were, she thought. She was all too used to the contradictions having always been caught up in them. She was good enough for their bed but not good enough for their home. Although the men she had could be too busy to drive her to the airport, or take her out on her birthday, they were never too busy to weigh her bed down with a sea of unfulfilled promises.

A short bald man occupies the seat next to her and Kathy smells a distinct mixture of gin and smoke. He turns towards her and his blood-shot eyes lower from her face to the firm swell of her breasts at which point he licks his lips and introduces himself. His eyes do not move upwards. “I have been watching you, I have seen the man you were with earlier leave and, while I consider him a fool for abandoning such an exquisite specimen of beauty in a room full of distinguished gentlemen such as myself, I shall not complain. This city is dangerous madam, our kind hearts were not made for the criminal vultures of this country. Allow me to ensure that you arrive home safely after the show,” he said, and his eyes finally rise hesitantly to her face for a response.

He is wearing a tacky green and orange tie with an expensive Versace suit. It looks like the kind of tie bought by a young girl for the father she adores, oblivious of all the other peoples daughters he pursues on the nights he cannot read her a story before bedtime.

“What kind of work do you do?” Kathy sees no reason to beat around the bush. She knows what kind of a man he is, and he knows what kind of woman she is… period. There is no need for the niceties that other people busy themselves with. This is a business transaction, this conference is two days and she needs companionship and attention, preferably expressed in fine wine and beautiful jewellery. He is a man who understands this. Kathy is glad she did not have to wait long to find a distraction from thoughts of Neville.

“My dear, I am a political analyst for the Nigerian Diasporic Chronicles, have you not read my blog before? What shall you say when you return home and join the Ministers in Parliament when you sat next to me and never knew who I was, heh? It is fine, this weekend is for meeting new friends and reconnecting with old ones. We shall establish a good friendship now and when you come home and I am in government you must look for me.”

Kathy smiles politely; she knows he will not remember her. She is not here to make memories. Memories are for weak souls that believe in myths like faithfulness in both love and politics, who believe in the resurrection of childhood romance. Kathy covers the weakness of her soul with thoughts of unfair disappointment and rests her hand on the man’s knee, momentarily confusing him with her confidence. “Thank you for offering to take me home safely, you must allow me to thank you with the wine I have in hotel room when we arrive.”


Neville

The drive back seemed to last longer than Neville had anticipated. He felt broken and all he wanted to do was lay next to Fungisai and hold her, forget that any of this had ever happened. When he reached their bed he looked down at her for a moment did not want to wake her. She slept with the covers completely covering her face except for a small space to breath. She said she had developed that habit as a child when she believed that her comforter had magical powers, and so monsters could not get her from under it. He had laughed at her story and asked why she did not sleep like that when he was in the bed with her. She shrugged the question off embarrassed, “I guess I have found a new source of magic.”

The tears in Neville’s eyes which had since dried began to fall again and he knew he could not wait until morning. He placed his hands over her back and gently shook her out of her sweet slumber. As he rose the comforter fell and he noticed for the first time that her hair was gone. Cut down almost to the root, she looked like a young boy and he gasped in surprise. “Your hair” he said.

“Yes.” Fungisai sat upright in the darkness and the defiant look on her face made Neville know not to ask any further questions or pass any comments. He did not care about the hair all he wanted was Fungisai, in any form she came in.

“It’s an ideology,” she said.

Neville was confused. “What is” he asked, happy that the darkness hid his tears and so he could explore whatever dream she had brought with her from her sleep. Only Fungisai could wake up in the middle of the night and break into an idea before sufficiently leaving her dreams.

“Africa, it is an ideology, neither one of us has been there in over ten years Nevy, and yet we are always there in our minds, in our arguments, in our disappointments. But sometimes you go to a part of the ideology where I cannot touch you, and I want to be able to touch you. So today I am saying this, I know where my home is, it is wherever you are, and unless you come to terms with loving me, and loving Nigeria at the same time we have to go our separate ways.”

Neville was stunned by the forcefulness of her voice and the independence she imbued. He realised for the first time that he not only has the love of a good woman, but the challenges she brings as well. Neville reached his hand over and stroked her unevenly cut hair. “Tu es chez moi, je t’aime” he said, and thought, yes, Fungisai was truly the only home he ever needed.

Les Amoureus was written by Alison Bwalya Erlwanger.

Copyright © Alison Bwalya Erlwanger 2012.

Alison Bwalya Erlwanger is a Zimbabwean/Zambian aspiring writer concurrently pursuing a career in Public Health. She enjoys poetry, prose and everything in between, and hopes to someday blend together her writing with her passion for social justice activism.