NEREAH by Anjelica A. Young

NEREAH

 Anjelica A. Young

“It is possible, however, that the artist is both thin-skinned and prophetic and, like the canary lowered into the mine shaft to test the air, has caught a whiff of something lethal.”

― Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book

I write in Hades. 

PART ONE 

The ceremony was supposed to be my ex’s happy anniversary party—until his wife Nereah was found dead in the bathroom. I found her lifeless body lying there, her skin as pale as the color of black cotton soil. It seemed like the ankara dress she wore with light blue and dark blue and teal blue shades sucked the life out of her, and her brown eyes stared at space so hard, as if the cause of her death lay written in the air. I was in the company of her husband—my ex—who walked into the room a few minutes after Nereah's untimely death (I italicize the word because, as you'll get to see, Nereah's death may not have been untimely at all, but a matter of me being in the wrong place at the wrong time).

"We get out right now and what do you think the guests will say?" I asked him. "You know I didn't—I cannot even imagine killing her Charles." He let out a heavy sigh. He knew I was right. I mean, I'm always right if we’d have to compare the two of us. He was the one who lied to me. Who hurt me. He was now there with me in their room though, and in the bathroom, his dead wife lay. 

30 minutes earlier, we were toasting to the two of them. Nereah was fine. She seemed okay. They were dancing to Sura Yako by Sauti Sol so happily. How could she be dead right now?

I had decided to get some fresh air away from the music—or from the fact that I couldn't bear seeing Charles with another woman after all the pain he caused me, or maybe because deep down I hoped that we would find a way back together like we always did. But after requesting me to meet him at Java House a week earlier to formally invite me to his anniversary party, I was devastated. The conversation started off casually, with him asking about my mother, and how she was recuperating, and how I was faring, before dropping the bombshell. But why should I be devastated at this? He was a monster. He hurt me—innumerable times.

I remember when I first spoke to Charles. I’d seen him on several occasions at the College of Biological and Health Sciences in Chiromo, but that day was the first time we’d actually conversed. It was at Text Book Centre, at the same mall where the Java House he’d invited me to for his first anniversary party was located. 

‘Might you be having The Odyssey?’ 

‘Uhhh..’ The attendant typed out the word 'Odyssey' on the computer, ‘no, we don’t.’ 

‘What about 1984?’ 

Keyboard clicking. 

‘We don’t have that either.’ 

‘Things Fall Apart?’ 

He pursed his lips as he typed, knowing that they may be having it. ‘It was sold out yesterday.’ 

‘The Promised Land?’ ‘By Grace Ogot?’ He typed then shook his head, embarrassed. 

Charles was behind me, waiting to pay for his stack of self-help books: The Brain That Changes Itself, Broken Places & Outer Spaces, We Should All Be Feminists—I don’t think he ever read the latter, or if he did, he didn’t apply its knowledge in the real world. I didn’t notice him until I turned to leave. As I walked out of the store, I wondered what he thought of my taste in the classics. He was in the school of Medicine and Surgery, in his 5th year while I was in my fourth year on a degree in Pharmacy. I had always seen him on campus, strolling with his friends in the labs, discussing Anatomy, dissecting cadavers, flexing in their lab coats. He seemed magical in the way he walked, like there was a force that pulled his peers toward him, like he was the leader of the pack. There was a sort of magnetic field around him, and his face—with long, curved lashes like those of a mystical horse—was as alert and bright as that of an angel, or of what I imagined Jesus looked like after the transfiguration. It always drew me to his enigmatic aura. On that day at Text Book Centre, I had just discovered that besides his enthusiasm for Medicine, he happened to be a lover of the classics too.

‘I’ve never found a store that sells The Odyssey unless you order it online—from Amazon you know.’ He said when he caught up to me. ‘I bought my copy from Amazon after a fruitless search across several bookstores in Nairobi.’ He said, his eyes glittering and exuding an inexplicable brightness. I saw the universe in his eyes, and up to now, I don't know if he spoke again to break the awkwardness of my staring. ‘I however bought my copy of 1984 in the supermarket. Some Naivas store in Moi Avenue.’ He said and cleared his throat, waiting for me to say something. 

‘Right.’ I said. ‘Ordering online seems to be costly though. With customs and all.’ I was awkward in the way I spoke and acted and stood, and several days after having this conversation, I thought of ways I should’ve driven the conversation. That said, he offered to lend me his copies of The Promised Land and Homer's Odyssey, and I guess that’s how our friendship was born—with a mutual love of classical literature.

I heard the Sauti Sol music fading out in the background. Another song started, and its tune was meshed with the even chatter of guests in the living room of Charles and Nereah's home. I didn’t make it outside for fresh air because I bumped into Nereah’s cousin Chege. 

‘Eve! So nice to see you! Are you okay?’ He said and rubbed the tip of his nose. His voice was shrill and coarse as if he had come up with a cold. But that was his usual voice. It sounded like he didn’t clear his throat when he spoke and all his mucosal cells were located there and diligently did their job in secreting mucus, making him sound like he’d been smoking since he was conceived. He would've made a great preacher with that voice. His breath smelt like an overused, old, wooden cutting board.

‘Yeah. I’m. I’m good. I’m just thirsty.’ I gave a crooked smile.

‘Let me get you a drink.’ He said. Chege looked like the drawings in my old coloring book in Class Two. Those of dinosaurs breathing fire from their mouths. There was just something about his face that reminded me of those T-rexes I colored. I couldn’t decipher what it was exactly but it was there. I felt like he could sneeze out a ball of flames and burn my face off and the remainder of what was left of my charred, crispy flesh would unmask the facade I put on. 

It was baffling since he was holding two wine glasses. Thought he would give me one but, clearly, the world doesn’t revolve around me.

“I got into the room after you did. So I’m not going to ask—”

“Charles. You know I didn’t do this. At least I still have my humanity not to.” I stammered. “Harm people.” I could notice him staring at my earring, then at the curve of my neck as I tucked my French braids to the back of my ear. The scar he gave me was still there, menacing and ugly. I felt uncomfortable staying in his room. It smelt of him. It brought back all the suppressed memories of my old Westlands apartment, where we laughed and cried, and where he struck me on the neck with a butter knife. I was convinced that he was going through one of his manic episodes because I refused to give him the money I had saved to pay for half of my Master's fees. He said he had a really bad emergency and I didn't empathize with him. You know, the weirdest thing was that he was a doctor so he earned a good lot of cash. Why did he like living off of my money? I never borrowed him his. I felt disgusted by him. He was no longer the guy I'd met at Text Book Centre but a wretched tick, sucking my blood yet, he had his own blood to suck. That night, I took myself to hospital and swore to never go back to him. He was a monster. He was a greedy and selfish monster. Flashes of that day assaulted me with a cruel alacrity. I could see his dark, hooded eyes staring at me, with the butter knife still in his hand. I could see his evil face, as ugly as death, as gory as a snake's, staring at me, torturing me with his diabolical gaze. No amount of therapy could make me recover from that day. I wanted to lunge a knife at him to make him feel all the pain he caused me. I saw myself stabbing him in the stomach, and I'd twist the knife through his guts, and I'd take it out, and do that over and over and over again. I saw him die. He looked like the cadavers he dissected at Med school. I smiled at that imagination, and then I cried. I cried because I knew he was seeing someone else. Maybe that was why he battered me. Because he wanted me to leave.  

Then one day he called me, and apologized, and offered to pay for my remaining Master's fee. Obviously, I rejected his offer and told him to save it for his emergencies. I hung up the phone and wept until no more tears came out of my eyes. I felt disgusted because that one call replenished a flame I had tried so hard to douse: A hope of something hopeless; a longing for a good dream from a sea of utter nightmares. 

There was a distinct lavender fragrance in the room too. I assumed it was Nereah’s. I wondered if she smelt of lavender as she lay dead in the bathroom. 

“Is this about us?” His jaw tightened. But his eyes shifted sporadically. He knew I didn't do it. He knew that Chege would be walking into the room and find this, and think that we were both responsible for murdering Nereah. I could see in his eyes and in the movement of his jaws and in the manner in which his Adam’s apple moved that he knew.

20 minutes ago, Chege came to me with a strawberry drink—I hate strawberries. Charles loved strawberries.

‘How’s your internship going?’

‘I finished my Master's degree last month,’ I said curtly.

‘Ouuww. Yeah, sorry,’ he rubbed his nose, ‘for the…’ I had already zoned out at that time. Nereah was nowhere in sight, and so was Charles. Coincidentally, I felt like going to the bathroom, to not only relieve myself, but to also get away from whatever Chege the T-rex was blubbering.

‘Will you please excuse me? Do you know where the restroom is?’

‘There’s only one and it's upstairs…And don’t you think it’d be weird for you to go up there,’ he swiveled his head and rubbed his nose, ‘judging from the history—’

‘I’m pressed.’ I started walking towards the stairs when Chege caught up to me. 

‘I can take you back to your place. You weren’t feeling so good.’ It was the manner in which his mouth was curved that made him look like a T-Rex, or, now that I think of it, a monitor lizard.

‘It’s okay. I’m okay.’ I said curtly. He tried to convince me one last time (he was getting on my nerves now) by blocking my path, and that made him bump into a cleaner who was carrying water in a bucket from upstairs. The water spilled on the last three steps of the mahogany stairs. And on my outfit. I don’t know but I'm sure I heard the cleaner gasping, then she held her pockets in a casual but nervous way. At the same time, Charles came from outside, hurriedly hanging up a call he was in. I could see him push through the throng of guests to get to where we were. His face had that ‘holy crap why is she drawing attention in my anniversary’ kind of look. 

That was 17 minutes ago.

Chege was saying his oceans of apologies when Charles eventually got to where we were. He told the cleaner, whom I later discovered went by the name Violet, to take care of the mess, and then turned to me. In those split seconds we had a whole conversation with our eyes.

‘What are you doing?’

‘It’s not my fault—get over it.’

‘You should go get yourself cleaned up.’

‘Not in your house. No.’

‘The guests are watching.’

‘Not my problem—’

‘Charles what happened here?’ His wife came from upstairs. ‘Come to my room—’ she was already pulling me up the stairs to get changed. Charles walked behind us, and Chege behind him. Turns out he was also soaked in water due to his unnecessary insistence.

Nereah had no idea that Charles and I were together. We played the ‘We’ve never met before card’ in front of her to ease the tension. Her eyes always seemed watery, like they were about to cry, but it was because she was always smiling, always kind, always happy. She had everything I didn't have. No wonder Charles left me for her. She had her own company at age 25 that could make funds enough to cater for both of their emergencies, and a cousin Chege, who stares at me in all definitions of a psychopath. A T-rex psychopath. 

15 minutes ago, we got to the door of Nereah and Charles' room. I walked in with her, and the boys remained outside. I had expected both Charles and Chege to be egoistic and not look each other in the eye, judging from how Charles ignored him a few seconds ago, but there was a tight atmosphere of anticipation in their eyes. They probably felt the weirdness of ex and wife walking into the master bedroom together—or so I thought.

PART TWO 

The meaning of life is that it stops.

Franz Kafka

‘Here’s a dress. You wear dresses, yeah?’ 

‘Yes,’ I said amid a plastic smile. You know, those smiles we give to attendants to show that we’re not rude jerks. She handed me the dress. It was purple and it smelled like lavenders. It was a beautiful silk dress, with lantern sleeves and all. My jumpsuit outfit dulled beside that beauty.

‘You look familiar. Have we met before?’ Nereah asked as she sat drowsily on her bed. Her skin was smooth like the petals of a rose flower. When she blinked, she did so slowly, and this accentuated her overall graceful appearance (I stand corrected on this latter description since it could’ve been a sign that she was tired, weak, fatigued from the etiology of her death). I wondered if Charles battered her too. Why did she settle for such a monster? What did she do when he hurt her? Did she remain silent? Why hadn’t she divorced him yet?

She shifted to show that I had not answered her question yet.

‘No. I don't think so. I don't think I can forget an amazing soul—like yours.’ I choked amid a chuckle. I wondered if she bought that strained chuckle. ‘You’re unwell?’ I asked her. ‘Those pills. Are they yours?’ On the bedside table, there was a white medicine container, and another sepia-colored one whose label I was unable to decipher due to the great proximity of the table from my myopic eyes.

Maybe she took painkillers to ease the pain of Charles' battering. Maybe, if I bonded with her, she'd open up to the fact that Charles is still the monster I knew.

‘Just a headache, nothing more.’ She said, turning her gaze from the medicine container on her bedside table to me. ‘I’ve been having crazy headaches for the past few days so Charles got me those.’

There was a way in which she spoke that reminded me of him—Charles that is. They spoke in the same intonation.

‘Ohh. Sorry for that—the headaches. Not Charles getting you the pills.’ I could feel my feet sinking on the floor after speaking. I clutched the dress she gave me so hard that I felt its purple color fading onto my palms.

‘But I'll get over it,’ she said. ‘Charles has been on my neck whenever I plan on missing my dosage,’ she chuckled. ‘He’s literally like my sister when it comes to medicine discipline.’ She chuckled again, strenuously this time, almost as if she felt nauseated, by the conversation, by me, by the event, I could not quite tell. One thing for sure, as I understand now—and as you’ll probably do too—is that Nereah was dying. She tried to fight what caused her death, stoically, enthusiastically, charismatically, but it was all in vain. She died anyway. A sad, staggered, slow death, and she never got to know what actually happened, and she died loving people who were not supposed to be loved, trusting people who were not supposed to be trusted, being loyal to people who deserved no ounce of loyalty. I was the last person she spoke to. I, a stranger to her. She had neither a sister, nor parent, nor brother close by to share a parting anecdote with, an inside joke, a long forgotten childhood memory. I wish she would’ve communicated her feelings to me, her symptoms, anything really. Maybe I would have saved her from the agony she was going through. I feel burdened by the knowledge of the truth. It is heavy like grief. It is somber like the weather on a cold, cloudy afternoon. But that’s the past now anyway, and the past is a memory, and a memory is history, and history ought only to be remembered, celebrated, scrutinized, and not to be resented. Because resentment is bitterness, and it eats you alive, it devours your soul, and you die before you are buried; you live as a deceased person.

‘Is she here? Downstairs?’

‘No I'll be visiting her next week. She'll be at home for her midterm break.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Nawire. She's the sweetest, unless she wants you to leave her when she's on her phone.’ She said this last part while lowering her voice, like she was revealing confidential information and I was the only soul trusted enough with it. ‘Her phone turns her into something else.’ Though she blinked slowly ever so often, her eyes glittered as she told me of her sister. And of Charles too. Maybe she was his redemption, his final hope. 

‘I’ll go to the bathroom to give you room to change.’ She said in (what I recall now) a strained voice and stood while holding her temple. I don't know if she left because she felt my stomach churn and my face sag from the shame in the manner in which I conversed with her. As soon as she left, I loosened my grip on the dress at least, then I heard a thud three minutes after she got into the bathroom. By the time I managed to open the door, she was dead. 

“Who do you think did it Evelyn?” Charles called me by my full name when he was dead serious. Or dead nervous. I walked to the bathroom and back to the master bedroom, contemplating. Charles was then pacing in the room. It was as if the reality of what had happened had sunk in. His wife was dead, and his ex was in the room alone with her. 

“Was she sick?”

“Mhh? No. She was n—she had.” He swallowed. “She's been epileptic since birth.” The red in his eyes manifested and his pupils shifted and he blinked rapidly, shielding tears from breaking free from his eyes, like rain water emerging from gutters during the rainy season: Torrential. Heavy. Gray. Sad.

For a second there I felt bad for him. He had to come to terms with the death of his wife. Was that denial I'd just witnessed? I never knew the weight that grammatical tenses could bear on someone till that time. An hour ago, it was just ‘Nereah has headaches, she has a sister, she has a beautiful smile’ and now it's ‘Nereah had headaches, had a sister, had a beautiful smile’. 

I looked at the pills on her—their— bedside table and turned to Charles. 

“You’re not telling me that she took an overdose. That she wanted to kill herself?” His face seemed flushed as he spoke.

I opened the white container that was supposed to house panadol tablets for her headaches, but I could see all sorts of paracetamol tablets: Tylenol, Excedrin, Calpol. She took the same types of drugs as Panadol. She wanted to kill herself by overdosing on multiple drugs that served the same purpose. The sepia colored container had the inscription, ‘Phenytoin Tablets’, and I deduced that they were prescribed for her epilepsy. Phenytoin, given the current circumstances of a possible paracetamol overdose, could exacerbate the then established overdose problem. I turned to Charles again and explained this to him, and he nodded placidly though I presume he already understood the situation from his prior knowledge in Medicine. His phone vibrated from his pants pocket. He took it and threw it on the bed. In a split second, I saw his hands shaking. I was always told that doctors’ hands shook from all the knowledge they absorbed, but the hems of his coat and his earlobes and his eyelashes were shaking too. 

Chege knocked on the door and asked what was taking us so long. 

We both turned to the door, startled. Charles then turned to me and squeezed my arm. His eyes were not convinced that I'd murdered Nereah, but he had no choice but to believe the events that unfolded. She couldn’t have killed herself with the tablets. And, according to him, I had a vast knowledge of drugs so I convinced her to take drugs similar to panadol to overdose her.

"Leave me." I said, my voice strained, fearing that Chege could hear us. ‘Even if I Godforbid did that before you came you know the effects of overdose are not that rapid. Now you better leave my ha—’

"Tell me the truth." He growled. Charles' vision blurred in my eyes. He needed someone to blame and I was the perfect someone.

Sixteen months ago, I remember walking out on him, and he gripped my hand, but his face had a remorseful look. He begged me to take him back because he had paid for my mother's hospital bill. This came as a shock since I was still contemplating on where to source the money, then I got a call from the hospital saying that she was going to be discharged in three days. ‘Her bill was settled by his son,’ the person on the call paused to presumably refer to the name as I heard the tapping of the keyboard, ‘Charles Bor.’ His son? How dare he. Still, I pondered. Maybe he was sorry. Maybe his intention was genuine. But there was a voice in my head that told me not to take the chance. ‘Don't do it, Eve. They never change. Don't. Do. It.’ It was faint and suppressed by the glimmer of Charles' face and the flutter of his eyelashes as he begged me, his eyebrows sunken, his eyes dazed in guilt and reddened by God knows how many bottles of Black Label. But flashes of the horrific night when he struck me with a butter knife returned, and his face was replaced by the dark, sinister, diabolical gaze. As gory as a snake's. The faint voice prevailed, and I didn't give in to his request. He then stared at me, his pupils dilated in bafflement. His face twisted to a grimace, and he said that he'd be leaving for a business trip to Dar es Salaam the following day, and walked away. That was him telling me to think about the offer because he had saved my mother's life and I now owe him. I'm thankful to this day that I listened to the faint voice at the back of my head. Because I refunded him the money 6 months later after taking out a loan.

I managed to free myself from his grip when Chege knocked a second time. At the same time, Charles' phone rang. We both turned to the bed where the phone buzzed and saw the caller. Chege.

Chege called again and knocked at the same time. "Charles? Eve?"

"Answer it." My voice was trembling and I could hear my breathing through my mouth. 

He sighed. I saw microbeads of sweat forming on his forehead. They seeped through him, more and more each second like steam condensing on cold metal. I took the phone from the bed and gave it to him. 

"Answer it. He’ll suspect that something is going on."

He swiped the screen to receive the call.

"Chege?" He glanced at me and paused, thinking of what to say. He was always good with words. Though none of them prepared him for such an occurrence. 

"Give me the phone." I said. He wanted to protest but I took it from him. 

"Chege." I took five strides away from Charles, my back facing him. "Just head back to—" The line went blank. I looked at the screen and dragged the notification bar to see whether the call was still there. 

And then I froze.

PART THREE 

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.

Isaac Asimov

Today I can confidently say that when someone is about to die, they see it coming, because on that day I felt a surge of emotions welling all over me like they were leaving my physical body to await and reunite with my soul. I felt like I could see more clearly, as if a mist had been pulled from my eyes. As if I was God himself as He scanned the lies in His subjects’ eyes: The flaws that made us human; that made us mortal. I saw my mother's face, and my human self wondered if I'd see her again and tell her of this day. I wondered if we'd ever recall when she lay in the hospital, and her praising me for consistently visiting her in the ward, her voice still frail, and her handing me four sliced oranges as a snack after she recovered. I saw my whole life flash through my eyes in an instant and a melancholy and lethargic sadness settled at the pit of my stomach. All the toiling to do my Masters’. To pay for it with my own sweat. All the pain Charles caused me. All the tears and anger and frustration and resolve to rise from it like a phoenix from the ashes. Was that all vanity? I didn't and still don't know now how I would've gotten away from the situation I'm about to explain, and I think I've made peace with the fact that I may never know. Maybe I was doomed like most classical characters: Like Pecola Breedlove or Okonkwo or Hector of Troy. Maybe that was my fate. Maybe that was just it. 

Charles looked at me. ‘What has he said?’ He asked, his dark, hooded eyes set on mine, studying them. Like a cat studying a mouse before devouring it. And in that minute, I knew who the murderer—murderers were. On the notification bar were messages from Chege: ‘Gave her the drink with metoclopramide to quicken the paracetamol absorption.’ ‘Now she only has to take the pills.’ ‘Call her. Tell her the cleaner’s getting her the tablets and she’ll have to take all of it. Two of each.’ 

Violet Cleaner: ‘Already replaced the real pills.’

I felt sick. What was I seeing? My eyes blurred and all I knew was that Charles was five strides away from me—four strides.

Was he going to kill me just like he did to Nereah?

Three strides.

I could make a run to the bathroom and lock myself inside. I’d be safer there. But that would make it easier for him and Chege to frame me. The realization of all the events played out clearly in my head now. Even when Chege called out from outside the room. He only called me and Charles because he knew that Nereah was already dead. He didn’t offer me the drink because it was Nereah’s altered drink. The cleaner held her pockets where the replaced pills were. 

Two strides. Think Evelyn! 

I could scream as hard as I could. The visitors will hear me. There will be a commotion and I will tell everyone everything before Charles and Chege get away or think of an alternative plan.

One stride.

I screamed as hard as I could. It was a scream of agony and terror and pain. And I pictured my death. I pictured their deaths too while in prison—and from the shame of what would unfold.

But now, only time could tell what would unfold.

EPILOGUE

‘Death smiles at us all; all a man can do is smile back.’

                                                                 -MARCUS AURELIUS