Page 61 of Cursed Daughters
Eniiyi cocked her head. He was the first person in her life to ever suggest that she looked like her mother. Perhaps they shared lips and a wide forehead, but those were Falodun traits; no single woman could lay claim to them.
“Well, you’ve got her number now. Call next time. She goes in to work on Thursdays.”
She winked at him and went through the gate.
V
There was someone stumbling around in her room, but as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she realised she was in no immediate danger. She rubbed her eyes and propped herself up on her elbows.
“Grandma?”
Grandma West drew closer. She was in a pale cream nightdress; her body looked thin and fragile beneath it. “Monife. Monife, where have you been?”
Eniiyi got out of bed and switched on the light. Her grand-aunt’s eyes were brimming with tears. Where she was normally resistant to being called Monife, Eniiyi felt something in her shift. She placed a hand on the older woman’s elbow and guided her out of her room. Within minutes, they were back at her grand-aunt’s room.
She had considered waking her mum on the way, but what would have been the point? Grandma West was drenched in sweat. The room was hot, musty. Eniiyi opened the windows and pulled shut the mosquito blinds—at her age, Grandma West probably wouldn’t survive malaria. With the loss of her mind, her body seemed to have lost substance, too. Where she had been tall, straight-backed, with strong hands, the quintessential headmistress, she was now slower, smaller, the skin of her hands and cheeks fragile and wrinkled. Her hair was untidy; new growth was escaping her six cornrows. Eniiyi would have to remember to re-braid them in the morning.
She coaxed her grand-aunt into bed and switched on the fan. She waited till the older woman’s breathing seemed to steady, then headed for the door.
“That boy will hurt you.”
Eniiyi froze where she stood, and then turned.
“What did you say, Grandma?”
“That boy is not good for you.”
“Are you talking to me, Grandma? Or…or Monife?”
There was no response; her grand-aunt’s breathing had already become a peaceful snore.
She meant to go back to bed, but she found herself heading to Monife’s room. She paused at the door, checked behind her and then gently turned the handle. She immediately felt the cold, heavy air. She switched on the light. The first thing she saw was the huge yellow water stain on the ceiling over the bed. The plaster bulged, looked almost soft. On the bed was an outfit, but the sheets and the clothing were mouldering from the water damage. Eniiyi could see a fresh puddle beginning to form along the back wall. There must have been a pipe leaking somewhere deep inside the old house, but it was clear the room had been visited recently, as the floor looked recently mopped. She opened a cupboard and saw clothing still hanging from the rails. If it wasn’t for the leak, it was as if Monife could have left the room a mere five minutes ago.
The bedroom made her feel immeasurably sad. Monife may have been buried, but she had not been laid to rest. For over twenty years, Grandma West had simply been waiting for her daughter to return to her.
She walked over to the dressing table and sat on the stool, looking at herself in the mirror. Then she opened the drawers before her and rummaged through them. There was an old white envelope and a black leather notebook. Within the envelope, a collection of photographs. She thumbed through them—boys playing football; a young Grandma East and Grandma West in a half-embrace; a sixteen-year-old Ebun standing on a podium in her graduation robe; a colourful shanty town; Sango the puppy baring his baby teeth; and then—a photograph of Monife.
It may have been the only surviving photograph of her aunt in the house. It was an up-close shot of her laughing face. It could have been a photograph of Eniiyi. She stared at the picture till it began to blur, but could not find a single physical difference between the self she knew and the woman in the photograph.
It was unsettling. She resisted the urge to crumple the photograph, there was no ignoring how alike she and Monife were. She could no longer dismiss Grandma West’s claims or conclude that the older women were simply off their rockers. Here was irrefutable proof. She could be a clone. A doppelgänger. What exactly was she? Who was she?
She found Monife’s smile particularly alarming—their mouths moved in the exact same way. She looked away from the photograph and up at the mirror, practising her expressions; trying to differentiate herself from the face in the photograph.
“What are you doing in here?”
“Mum!” Eniiyi stood up abruptly, shutting the photographs in the drawer as she did so. “You scared me.” She remembered the last time her mother had caught her in this room. But she was older now. Still, the hand disguising the notebook within the folds of her skirt was trembling.
“What are you doing here?” Her mother’s eyes scanned the room, searching for what had been disturbed, then found their way back to her daughter. “Well?”
“There was a…a leak,” Eniiyi said as she gestured to the puddle along the back wall.
“And you saw that from the corridor, did you?” She did not respond, and Ebun sighed. “There is nothing in this room.”
“Hmm.”
“I would have had it cleared ages ago. But it might have broken Aunty Bunmi.”
“What was she like?” Eniiyi ventured.
