Desire did not know what to expect as she knocked on his door. It was two weeks since her last visit to see Prof, the day she mentioned Ireti’s name and left without any explanation. She twiddled her forefinger while waiting for him to answer. Prof opened the door, paused and then broke into a small laugh as he moved towards his chair without speaking. She followed quietly behind him, slightly irritated that he would let her in without making her feel any guilt for her absence. She sat on her usual chair and waited for him to begin. She wanted to talk but her mouth was dry. Soon, a small silence drowned their intermittent sighs, deep breaths and pounding hearts. Neither of them gave an inkling of the thoughts in their minds. After about 15 minutes, when they had both settled into their seats in the room and still had not spoken, Prof asked, ‘Would you like some water?’
She ignored him.
He stood up and entered the door that led to the other rooms in the house, but he returned to the sitting room almost immediately. He sat down and returned to the silence which was there before he left.
She said, ‘It is really dark in here. Is it darker? I’ll switch on the lights.’
She stood up from the chair and placed her hand on the switch, unsure of whether she would flick it on or not. The thought of him springing from the chair as she did so, and perhaps strangling her, made her shudder. It was so strong an image that she gasped in reality. She shook her head and wiped her brow with her right hand.
‘Don’t you want to know what I look like today?’
‘Would your look change the price of bread in Lagos?’ he said with a small laugh.
A speck of light slanted onto her chair from his neighbours’ flat. Again, her desire was stirred; but his hawing and heavy breathing stood as a warning of an imagined doom. Desire stopped to weigh his unwillingness to see her. She rested her head against the wall. In synchrony with her thoughts, she moved her hand to the wall and her palm coasted against the coarse text-coat paint as she fingered the protruding button of a switch. Her hand lingered on it as she tried to find the courage to push it down.
‘You can do it,’ a voice in her head spat out in repetition. It was like the refrain of a song.
‘You’ve not said very much today,’ his voice shot at her. She removed her hand from the electric switch, so that it fell to her thigh. She adjusted her position in the chair and gave a deliberate and audible sigh. Then, she cleared her throat like she was about to talk but used the moment to gain courage to put the lights on.
Once she felt she was confident enough, she said to him, ‘Sir, please put the lights on. This room is too dark.’ She explained that she needed to tell him something and it was important that she saw his every expression as she said it. She waited only for a while before she added, ‘And I have not even seen you since I started visiting. I don’t know what you look like since you returned from prison. I want to see how you’ve changed. Please.’
Desire closed her eyes in anticipation of what a lit room would make of her. Perhaps, it was best to be a mental subject than to reveal herself to scrutiny under the lights, and this applied to him too.
When she opened her eyes, it was still dark, and she hadn’t asked any questions. There was even more silence in the room and it was as if they had both stopped breathing. The humming of generators in the distance sounded like a trombone in her head. She arranged her hands over her shoulders and asked, ‘Why is there never light in the room?’
He spoke slowly as if he was measuring his words, ‘The colour of the room makes me nervous.’
‘Change it. I’ll get a painter tomorrow and I will bring you a transistor radio.’ Although she didn’t know how she would get one, she said the first thing that came to her.
‘I don’t think that’s necessary. I don’t need anyone.’ ‘Why?’
Prof became silent, his deep breaths vibrating through the room.
‘I think there’s value in the dark and the light would swallow it.’
‘Ha! Sir, what does that one mean again?’
‘Prison makes you a philosopher who sees the difference between light and dark. It brings out the sage in you,’ he laughed as he said this. ‘Then when you’re out and alone, you become even more sagacious.’
She squeezed her face, wanting him to fill the space inside her. ‘What does darkness do for you?’
‘Like, does it help me wash the dishes or run errands?’ he chuckled, but it sounded rather eerie to her.
‘I mean, what does it do to you?’
‘Well, I’ve come to realise that it is best to be in the dark. You could compare it to a vacuum, a space. It is like being in a place where heads are left to roam and mature into their own form, a place without external forces beating your choices into shape. You know, darkness can be the place where one can understand existence better. Darkness… that state of assumption that brings continuity to our lives; we can hope in the dark. Don’t seek to fill it—you know, the emptiness, the rest of our lives is necessary.
‘Poets will disagree with you. I once had this friend, a poet. He was part of the movement then. He taught me these lines from a poem by a poet called Pablo Neruda. It is called, There’s No Forgetting: “Why should day follow day/Why must the blackness of night time collect in our mouths?” You should read the full poem.’
‘I don’t know poetry, sir. But, your theory, sir, I must disagree this once, doesn’t work. Darkness is not home. And it is not gathering in my mouth. It is not home for anything. It is gathering in my—’ she stopped and leaned against the chair, letting him interrupt her. His voice became a thunder in her ears, it drowned her as he spoke of how empty the world would be if there were no poets.
‘You should only look around you to know that we exist for poems. Life is poetry. The dark is where you find light—this is what poetry does for us.’
Desire pressed her fingers against the arm of the chair and said to him, with a lilt to her voice that sounded like she giggled as she spoke, ‘I thought you were an economist, an activist? Not a philosopher. Not a poet.’
‘We lose ourselves to many things when life chances upon us, Desire. You should know that.’
She swayed, holding her head.
‘And chancing on the fact that you have a son is not enough reason to want the lights on?’
‘What has light got to do with the assumption that I have a child?’ he said slowly and with a tone that Desire struggled to read.
Desire shook her head, closed her eyes and plotted how she would get the room lit up. This madness must stop, she thought to herself.
She got up from her chair and left.
***
‘Your father never puts on the light.’
Desire snuck a glance at Ireti’s face as they walked down the street. He was only half-listening. He smiled and waved to a man standing in front of the chemist where she had once bought condoms.
‘I know I sound crazy and it is still really crazy to me. But do you know all the time I couldn’t see you I was seeing your father at 9pm?’
Ireti stopped walking, he looked at her face, and smiled. Then he tucked his hand into hers and said, ‘Let’s get a drink there.’
They walked to a shop with a roof that extended outside. On the plank holding the roof in place was written: Comfort Eatin’ Place.
A boy who walked with a limp came up to him and asked them what they wanted. The smell of freshly made pepper soup floated about the place and Ireti ordered two plates without asking her if she wanted anything.
‘Don’t you want to know your father?’
Ireti looked up at her face and waited, like he was studying her features, before he said, ‘No. I already met you. My sister. You know you’re like my twin sister. I feel I can tell you anything.’ He laughed.
‘You are certainly not serious! You are friend-zoning me,’ Desire said and sank into the chair again. Her heart became torn as she realised that the idea of her meeting with Prof sounded bizarre. ‘It’s true Ireti. I know your dad.’
Desire looked Ireti over. He seemed different, his hair bushier and uncombed.
‘We need some space—for some weeks or months. I need time to think. I need space,’ he said shaking his head.
Desire stood stiffly for a while, unsure of how to respond to him, and then she walked away swiftly. It was after many steps that she looked back. He was no longer there.