Guilt Is a Guillotine

“Now that wasn’t hard, was it?” My husband kisses me on the forehead. “Oh, my cousin dropped off his daughter yesterday. Was babysitting. Trying to learn how to be a father whilst I have the time,” he says, smiling. “I’ll get breakfast ready. Join us, will you? She missed you last night.” He disappears, and I’m finally alone.

“I may need a replacement for the AI microchip,” I tell the AI assessor quietly. My tongue is thick with lies. “This one’s been burning through my neck these past days.” What the hell am I trying to do? Get myself caught? Let it go! This fucking guilt.

“Please turn around,” the microchip assessor says. “Remove any material in the nape area that might obstruct the scanning session.”

I move my braids to the side, turn around and expose my microchip to the mirror. The scanner’s LED light is warm as it zips up and down my neck. Maybe the microchip really did malfunction. Crime can be annihilated, but its energy will always find ways to trickle into our country. This body of mine is a liability to the country’s safety.

“Scanning complete,” echoes the assessor. “There were no errors detected in your microchip. No replacement is required. If you feel unsatisfied with my assessment, please alert me to set an appointment with Gaborone Police Precinct.”

My stomach sinks. That can’t be right. The Gaborone Police Precinct’s tools are considered infallible. Does that mean body-hoppers throughout the city are getting away with crime? If I bring this up, I’d have to snitch on myself to provide proof of how wrong their AI microchips are. I don’t want to be caught, but I don’t want to bring up my family in a place where danger breeds without detection.

“Thank you,” I whisper. “No, that won’t be necessary. That will be all.”

If my infractions aren’t caught by the AI assessor, they’ll certainly be detected by the forensic evaluation, which I’m due for in eleven months. I’ve dodged the bullet this round, but not for long. For surely, within one day, the body will be found.

“Have a good day, Nelah,” it says. The sound patterns dissolve, and the mirror reflects a young Motswana woman with a very disturbed expression.

The marble bathroom is too white, too sterile, too stark. I sit on the porcelain edge of the bathtub. The water swirls, clear of guilt, translucent. My reflection catches me weary. My head aches. My scalp itches. I lean into the toilet bowl and quietly puke. I want to breathe. I need to breathe. The bathroom mirror studies me. Prints lack of sleep beneath my eyes, dark shadows eclipsing bloodshot eyes. Gilded dust motes dance in the sunlight pouring through the window slats, painting my skin the same tone, light brown saturated with dawn. I need to wash up. I spill bleach all over my body, exorcising yesterday from me.

I open the medicine cabinet. A handful of pills. Don’t know which ones. Doesn’t matter. I’m ready to look human today. The woman who no one can read. The woman who everyone thinks is a bitch.

I have to look normal, like my usual self. I don ash-black, high-waist cigarette pants, a grey top, and a black hooded overcoat with a lavish gilt-and-emerald Ankara print on the underside, an overwhelming size like a shield from everything. I part my braids in the middle and let them hang to my shoulders, curtaining me from the world. Line my eyes in kohl. Pat my lips in rose. Roll my shoulders back and forth. Exhale. Stand back to stare at my reflection. In media, they say I look like a sharp-boned model. No, I look like a dagger that stabbed someone yesterday. “I am okay.” My voice ripples across my lips; the brown in my eyes shimmers in fear. “Relax. Everything is fine.” I rub sweat from my shaking hands onto my pants.

I skim by my home office, third floor up, beneath an oval skylight, phone-snatch some contractor briefs digitally pasted to the wall.

Downstairs, the chef’s kitchen island is splattered with spilled cornflakes, a glitter of laughter. “Aunty Nelah!” my niece-in-law, Pearl, screams in joy. She holds a red crayon in hand, scribbling on a paper.

My husband tickles her. She giggles, kicking out her tiny legs. Like her. The woman I murdered last night. She jabbed me in the chin, colored it with a bruise entombed under foundation. She’s going to swim out of the mud, swim out for air and scream my secret out, her gills stuffed with my DNA. Shit. What other parts of ourselves did we leave on her body? We must check. Guilt is a guillotine, and it has my head and soul.

I swallow and say, “Morning, nana,” and kiss her cheek. Her hair’s plaited in wool, and I stay in that hug for years.

The TV. Morning news. My face on the screen. A heroine advocating against poverty and violence against women through proceeds from the built environment. I’m a renowned, haloed angel, sometimes. Granted prestigious real estate and humanitarian awards. Yet, how could I do that to the girl from last night? I’m so ashamed of myself that I slam the remote against the counter. The screen flicks to black.

My husband glares. “When’s the ceremony?” he asks.

“It’s this Monday,” I remind him. Again. “7:00 p.m.” Two days left. How can I be in a celebrating mood after what we did?

“Oh, sorry, love,” he says, scratches his thick, rich Afro. “Everyone at the office keeps telling me what a lucky husband I am.”

You love the idea of me. That’s it. You needed me in your bed, wrapped around your finger as marriage.

“Will you sort out my suit for the ceremony?” he asks. He’s a king. He must look dapper. The queen is just a trophy he raises to the limelight. In all the magazines, at all the events, no one knows his name. He hates me for it, that he’s referred to as “Nelah’s husband,” not by his real name. Not even his well-known professional status as Assistant Commissioner of Police. He’s eye candy, but he’s nothing compared to me. That’s what he said. You’re the smart one, anyway. You make all the decisions. I tried to make him feel better, to feel bigger, smarter. Gave him a stake in the company. Invested in his ideas. I tried to make myself small for him. Too small for myself. And Jan . . . He let me be me. And now we’ve killed someone.

I nod and cuddle his ego against my breast like a fucking newborn. “You’ll be the hottest man at the ceremony.” The words dry my mouth.

I have other things to worry about, like the girl from last night. He’s going to have to take this pity party elsewhere, which he doesn’t. He stands by the doorway, the light sharp around his body. Steps closer to me, and we’re concealed from our niece, her quiet chatter, busying herself with her drawing. I feel his mood switch ever so fast, as usual. He’s waiting. I can already hear what’s coming next. Please don’t ask. He’s holding a butcher knife. If only he could stab me to death with it.

“I’m horny,” he says. I stare, clinging to the past-perfect version of him, not realizing he’ll never return. He could be nice, I’d tell Mama. Treats me like a queen. Loves me deeply. Once in a full moon.

“I’m tired,” I say, wearily.

“Ag, you’re always tired.” He turns his back to me. Just as he is leaving the pantry, about to walk to our niece, my neck burns, and my hands pull him by his tie. In seconds, I relent. I’m against the shelves as he silently pummels into me, our niece playing at the breakfast table, unable to see or hear us. Who am I anymore? How do I want and not want sex at the same time, hours after I killed someone? There’s something terribly wrong with me, worse than the previous owner of this body. We’re both twisted. The microchip fibrillates heat into my nerves. When Elifasi comes, he muffles his shrieks, dropping a black remote.

“What’s that?” I ask.

He grabs some serviettes, wipes himself down, and zips his pants. Picks it up, shoves it into his pocket. “Remote key for my office.” Walks away.

I clean myself up, take several breaths, and follow him into the kitchen. Pretend everything is normal. My niece pretends a piece of cornflake is a mermaid that she dips in and out of her milk. My eyes tear up, and I brush the tears aside.

“You’ll take her to school this morning?” I ask, pushing aside my thoughts. My head’s not straight. Better I drive alone, just in case. I can’t trust myself with her. Can’t have another accident. I stare at Pearl’s little neck, my fingers around it. Clasp my eyes shut. My niece is my niece—she’s not her! The girl from last night. A force yanks me back. My husband. I clasp the neck of a wine bottle instead. Just like I did her throat. I drop it. Its blood splutters on the beige tiles.

“Ao? Drink? This early?” He fiddles with his Vandyke beard, considering locking me in our basement, a sub-street maisonette—before we rented it out. It’s worked before, a little isolation to surface me back into society, into normalcy. I shake my head and mop up the spilled drink.

“I’ll take her to school,” he says. “Have a good day, babe.” He kisses me. How does he so easily mood-switch like that? From anger to nothing-happened joy. He lifts Pearl, play-acts she’s an airplane. “Just you and me this morning.” She stretches out her arms, screaming in joy.

The front door slams. I jump. Too much noise. Desperate need of quiet, to sully my guilt to nothing. Take the attention away. Outside, in the driveway, he’s sealing her into the child’s seat. He waves to our neighbor across the street. Donald, from last night, in his gown, in his grey-stoned double story. Watering the lawn.

I thumb-press the garage remote. The garage door slides open. The daylight sniffs around, clambering all over my car. It shows me what I didn’t see in the dark. My SUV, a dent on its side, a slur of blood across its headlight, the lamp broken. I hit an animal. I hit an animal. I hit—

My husband slams his car door shut. Shouts a goodbye, but I spin around panicked. “I hit an animal.”

His eyes widen, color with terror. He skips toward my car, inspects. “What type of animal? Why didn’t you say anything? Take my car, I’ll have yours fixed. Maybe you should take the day off, too. You look . . . faint and . . .” My husband caresses my face, and I’m overwhelmed with disgust when I look across the rosebush-lined road. “What’s wrong?”

I point a finger. To something walking—no, limping—up the street. My husband turns, faces in the direction I’m pointing. “What are you pointing at?” he asks, shielding his face from the sharp morning sun.

“Can’t you see her?” I ask.

“Babe, there’s nothing. It’s just the Viller family watering their lawn.”

“But . . . but,” I whisper, trembling. “There’s a girl. Coming up the street. She . . . she looks hurt. Who is she? Oh God, someone help her.”

He blinks, focuses. Sees nothing. Irritation ruffles his face. “Bona, I don’t know what’s going on with you today, but I’m not dealing with whatever mess you have going on. Again. My niece is here, for Christ’s sake. Just for one day, can it not be about you for once?”

But a young woman. A stranger. Unkempt. Bathed in dirt. Unlike the crowd in this bucolic estate. Mbinguni Estate, a little utopia stretching its limbs alongside a pseudo-beach. Security wouldn’t let anyone of that sort bypass their access gates. I see her, her skin marred with muck. Her clothes ragged at the joints. Her skull, dented on the left side, weeps blood down the side of her skinless face, slurring her leftover brown skin. The sun, a halo in the sky, blinds her sight as she sways to and fro.

I’m about to open my mouth again, but I realize the inconvenient truth.

She’s a secret shone by sunlight.

It’s the girl from last night.

The girl we buried.