Chapter II
II
They sat in the living room. She listened to him talking to his sister on the phone as she searched for the elusive genetic counsellor job.
Any that seemed to match were in the US or Europe.
Time was passing quickly; it had already been eight months since she got her master’s, and she was no closer to the career she’d been dreaming of.
Zubby ended his call and resumed sketching.
Now and again he would look at her, so she suspected that she was playing the role of muse. She didn’t mind that at all.
She looked at some of the international postings again.
There was one—a graduate role at a UK-based NGO dedicated to genetic health and access to genetic counselling.
It was perfect. She hadn’t even considered going abroad to work.
For starters, she didn’t have a work visa, but the NGO was offering to sponsor the right candidate.
Grandma West had always spoken so poorly of the UK; her memories there were of the cold—cold food, cold weather, cold people.
Besides, Zubby was here, in Lagos. But it wouldn’t hurt to apply.
She filled out the application and pressed send.
She paused when she saw him stretching from the corner of her eye.
“Can I see?”
He handed her his iPad, and there she was; well, a semi-realistic version of herself—he had exaggerated her hair, made it so large it took up most of the page; her eyes were bigger too, and more angled; her lips were puckered because she was engrossed with her laptop.
It was still mostly sketch, but he had started to ink the outlines.
“It’s really good.”
“Then why do you look so sad?”
“It’s hard to look at myself these days without thinking of her.”
“Hmm.” And then, “You know what, I have an idea.” He stood up abruptly and grabbed his jacket. “C’mon.”
“Wait. What?”
“I want to take you somewhere.”
“Where?”
“It’s a surprise!”
He took her to a tattoo parlour. She hadn’t even known that they existed in Lagos. He was out of the car before she got a chance to ask him what on earth was going on. She followed suit. Inside, he began to explain himself.
“You told me about…you know…your aunt. And all the commonalities you shared. But you didn’t say anything about a tattoo.”
“Why would I? I don’t think she had one. I don’t think anyone in my family has ever had a tattoo.”
“Exactly. So if you get one, it’ll be another thing to set you apart from her. Right?”
Eniiyi wasn’t sure she was completely behind the logic, but she was moved by the thought.
She wouldn’t have said she was a tattoo girl, but she got excited looking through the catalogues.
Zubby insisted on getting one in solidarity.
He picked a Latin quote—“Alea iacta est.” But she flipped past the quotes, past the zodiac signs, past the images of celebrities until she finally slowed at the birds of prey.
She settled on the black kite. She liked the intelligence in its eyes—she would have the artist focus on the eyes, and the hooked beak.
It was expensive—a hundred thousand naira, which Zubby said he was happy to pay.
The tattooist talked them through the procedure, and then sat them down in adjacent chairs.
Eniiyi chose to have hers done on the side of her body, just below her breast, and Zubby said he would have his behind his ear.
She gritted her teeth through the pain. Zubby’s was finished before hers.
But she was happy with it when it was done, even though her skin felt raw and sensitive.
The bird was two inches long and about three inches wide, and the artist had inked it mid-flight.
She listened to the instructions about bathing, and caring for the tattoo whilst her skin healed, and then they were out in the sunshine once again. She hadn’t realised how gloomy the parlour was.
“How do you feel?” Zubby asked, blinking into the sunlight.
“Weird. Terrified.”
“Do you regret doing it?” he asked, taking her hand.
“It doesn’t matter,” she replied, feeling the warmth of his fingers clasping hers. “I did it for myself.”
—
She gave herself to him—unreservedly and generously.
And he responded to her with the enthusiasm she had anticipated but with a gentleness that brought her close to tears.
It should have felt strange to her, to have a person become so intimate with the parts of her that she had never paid mind to; but it was Zubby and it could not have been more right.
Her body dissolved into his. And then they began again.