Page 30 of Cursed Daughters
“What happened?” asked one of Funsho’s friends.
“One man don enter water. We no fit reach am.”
They instinctively turned their heads towards the ocean. It had never looked vaster. There were no lifeguards at Elegushi beach; there was rarely a need because no one ever entered the water. Why would you? It wasn’t the sparkling blue of a Hawaiian sea or that glassy translucent colour that allowed you to see what lay beneath. The same bottles and carrier bags on the sand floated in the murky waters, and the currents could be deceptively strong.
The people around her were rolling up their mats, gathering their things. No attempt was being made to rescue the boy who’d got into difficulty. The gatekeepers simply wanted the witnesses gone. She scanned the lagoon. And then she spotted a hand disappearing into the water.
She began to run. She heard Funsho call out after her, but she did not answer. The hand was not so far. He was not so far at all.
She leapt into the water before she had a chance to think, and she felt it embrace her. She swam with strong, confident strokes, but it was choppier than she’d realised and she couldn’t always keep sight of him. She hoped she wasn’t swimming in the wrong direction. But there he was—perhaps God was on her side. She grabbed an arm to turn him, so he was facing the sky. He was barely conscious and he was not light, so she supported his head and twisted his arm under his armpit so he would float and she could paddle him to shore. The waves were breaking over them; they were pulled under twice. The sea did not give up her prey so easily. But before long, she could see the sand, and there werehands pulling her out of the water. She released her ward to them.
She collapsed on the sand.
“You silly, silly girl,” cried Funsho.
“Is he alive?” asked someone else.
The crowd looked at the man laid on the sand. On closer inspection, he was about their age. His body was long and fit. His face angular, with sharp cheekbones and full lips. Eniiyi wondered what his eyes would be like. She wondered if he would ever open those eyes again.
Someone dropped to their knees and started giving him mouth-to-mouth. It dawned on her that they should call an ambulance, but she had no idea what the number was for that; or if there even was a number to call.
The gateman who had tried to chase them away was making her dizzy with his pacing and annoying her with his muttering. He was more concerned with the potential trouble of a corpse than he was with the life hanging in the balance. Meanwhile, instructions were flowing in from all around them.
“Press his chest,” said someone.
“You have to lift his neck up,” another chimedin.
Someone in the background was speaking in tongues. Eniiyi added a prayer under her breath.
Suddenly the man coughed. God was praised as the water dribbled from his mouth. Someone patted her on her back. He opened his eyes.
His eyes were beautiful.
IX
After that, it was a flurry of activity. A friend of the man’s insisted on taking him to the hospital. Eniiyi was about to offer to accompany him, but Funsho gripped her arm and started fussing over her, asking her if she was okay, as though she was the one who had been in danger of losing her life.
The adrenaline was gone, and the cold was beginning to set in. She grabbed her towel and wrapped it around herself, scanning the beach as she did so. She hadn’t realised they were the last people there. She gathered her things and walked behind the boys as they headed to the cars.
—
Ebun was already frowning when Eniiyi walked into the living room. The woman’s face was perpetually shaped in an expression of frustration and annoyance, but Eniiyi let her mother’s mood roll off her.
“Where were you? I called your phone several times.”
Eniiyi glanced at her phone and realised that it was dead. “My bad. My phone died.”
“Your bad? Is that all you can say?” Her mother didn’t want to hear what she had to say, which would begin with the fact that it wasn’t even that late and end with the fact that she was a grown woman. “Well?”
“I’ll make sure to charge it next time.” She was exhausted; all she could think of was slipping under the covers and letting sleep carryher away. The adrenaline she had used to save the stranger had long since abandoned her. The memory was already blurring. Had he really been so far out? When he looked at her, had she really felt a jolt in her body?
Beside her, Sango was vigorously wagging his tail; she absent-mindedly stroked him. Her mother wasn’t satisfied, though; she opened her mouth—just as the grandmas walked into the living room.
“Who was that boy?” Grandma East said, pointing a ruby-red nail at her granddaughter.
Eniiyi tried not to smile. “Boy? What boy, Grandma?”
“You know what boy! The one that dropped you at the gate. Is that your boyfriend? What is his name? Is he Yoruba?”
