The sun was out there in the middle of the sky, shining so brightly, unusually bright for a Saturday in September. Ifeyinwa lay on her bed, flat on her back, staring at the ceiling with her right hand resting on her forehead. She wondered what her new roommate would look like.

Would she be a pretty young secondary school leaver? Did she own so many pretty clothes and all the bling bling stuff that girls loved? Would she be boy crazy?

Well, she would never really know until the roommate arrived. She became nervous from what she was yet to see, and her bladder felt tense. So, she went to the toilet to relieve herself. Just after she was done and had half opened the toilet door, a knock came on the entrance door. The time had come.

Ifeyinwa shut the toilet door and hastened over to the entrance. Her hands quivering, she twisted the doorknob and pulled the door open. Behold, mother and daughter standing on the other side.

“Good afternoon, Ma,” Ifeyinwa greeted.
The woman replied smiling, “Good afternoon, Ifeyinwa. Kee ka imere? Ị na agwu kwa? Ogadi, this is Ifeyinwa. Ifeyinwa, this is Ogadi.” Ogadi’s mother introduced the two girls to each other, not giving Ifeyinwa the opportunity to speak.

Ogadi half smiled to Ifeyinwa, not showing her teeth and Ifeyinwa returned the smile, courteously. Though she thought a weird smile it was.

“I have brought her to you. I’ll have to be on my way home then. Ngwanu ka odi,” Ogadi’s mother said and was about to leave.
“Ah, Ma, won’t you at least come inside and rest a little while? There’s food in the house, we could spare a little,” Ifeyinwa said as courteous as she could.
“I would have loved to, Ify, but I need to be on my way. She was meant to come alone, but her father insisted I bring her myself,” she said.

While Ogadi’s mother spoke, Ifeyinwa couldn’t help but notice the scar on her neck. It looked like it had been stitched in its initial stage.

“Okay, Ma. Ka odi. Safe journey,” Ifeyinwa said as the woman left.

Ogadi had stepped into the house and shut the door behind her. She stood straight in front of the door with her luggage cradled right between her legs. She stood very quietly, with an air of peace so refined and dignified, staring deeply at Ifeyinwa. Her face was blank, so blank that no matter how hard Ifeyinwa tried to read meaning into this deep stare game, she couldn’t quite make something out of it. She had never played this game of stares before, didn’t know the rules, so she didn’t know how to act.

She stood there looking at the ceiling, at the purple dots on the lilac-coloured curtain on the window by the left side of the entrance door. Just anything she could cast her eyes upon. Anything but this strange girl.

“You have a beautiful neck.” That was Ogadi. “Slender in your caramel skin-coloured glory, joined to the most perfectly structured collarbone and shoulders,” she said.

Swooned would be an understatement as to how Ifeyinwa felt. She had been completely swept off her feet. Here was a total stranger who she was yet to know, standing in her house and of all obvious features about her, this stranger chose the least significant of them all to compliment. An interesting girl she would be, she thought.

“T… th… thank you,” Ifeyinwa said. “Come, I made space for you to keep your bag. You can use the hangers in the wardrobe to hang your clothes,” she said to Ogadi.

The rest of the day, Ogadi took her time unpacking her things, not saying much except asking Ifeyinwa where she could keep some of her things.

Ifeyinwa had lain back on the bed, praying and waiting earnestly for an opportunity for Ogadi to leave the room. Either to the bathroom or outside to go buy something, anything. She was waiting for the moment to go stand in front of the mirror, topless, and stare at the slender neck she never knew she had, joined to the most perfectly structured collarbone and shoulders. She would stare on, down to her chest, her breasts actually, and she would wonder the next sweet thing Ogadi would say if she ever played the game of stares on her again. Of course, she wouldn’t do this with Ogadi present in the room. She wouldn’t be able to stand the embarrassment.

School resumed proper and so did the girls, particularly Ogadi. She had her timetable clipped on the window railing, where the table and chair were in the room. Barely three weeks into attending classes, she had already mastered the timetable and her daily routine.

She would awaken by 4:30 in the morning, read her Bible, and pray the rosary. She would read a book afterwards till it was 6:30 in the morning and would go ahead to have her bath. She would leave the house by 7:20 and come home at exactly five in the evening. And on would her reading continue until the dead of the night.

Ifeyinwa had never seen anyone as articulate, exact and meticulous as Ogadi. What was wrong with her? Was she a robot? How could a person so young and good-looking be this consistent and articulate? Ifeyinwa wondered.

On the note of being good-looking, she had never even taken a really good look at the girl. She sat on the bed with her back against the wall, lost in admiration for Ogadi as the torch light in front of her beamed on her face. Ogadi sat on the chair at the table with a book in her hands, and the torch placed on the table in front of her emitted light. It was night time. Her finely shaped eyebrows, a slightly pointed nose and sizeable succulent lips, all in their right proportion looking so graceful and angelic. She was a beauty.

Ifeyinwa stared on as Ogadi’s fingers turned a page of the book in her hands. She wanted to so badly be the book. She wanted those soft and delicate fingers to touch her, to make her feel alien things like what the compliment did to her. She wanted to know everything about this strange girl who was so vague in every ounce of her simplicity, leaving nothing to her imagination.

In this moment of inquisitive ecstasy, Ifeyinwa asked, “Why do you read so much?”
“There’s much to know,” Ogadi replied, turning her eyes to Ifeyinwa.
“Why do you bother about knowing so much?” asked Ifeyinwa.
“It is in my place and pleasure to,” replied Ogadi.
“Oh. Okay. I have never really asked, what is the meaning of your name? I know it’s an Igbo name but I don’t know what it means.”
“It’s Ọgadịnma. All will be well.”
“Why do you speak like that? Only when you are spoken to. Is that what you learn from the books?”
“There is nothing to say. If there was something to say, I would say it regardless, but there isn’t,” Ogadi said.

Ifeyinwa wanted to say more, to keep the conversation going, to keep those lovely pair of eyes on her, but there was nothing more to say.

“Well, alright. You can continue with your reading,” Ifeyinwa said finally.

This one was not boy crazy. She was book crazy. She was boringly interesting with the beige and dark-coloured clothes she wore, her overt introvertedness, and those eyes. Those eyes that saw volumes and did a good job at hiding them well. She would always be fascinated by this treasure of a roommate that found its way to her.

On a Sunday morning, Ogadi had left for mass before seven while Ifeyinwa was still asleep. She came home from mass by ten and walked in on Ifeyinwa getting ready to leave for her Protestant church. Ifeyinwa was dressed in a peach-coloured chiffon bodycon gown, sleeveless but flowered on the shoulders and V-shaped neck. She adorned her neck with a gold necklace that had a rose flower shaped pendant.

“The most beautiful neck I have ever seen,” Ogadi thought to herself. She walked up to Ifeyinwa and stood behind her in front of the mirror. In a hushed tone, almost in a whisper, bringing her lips close to Ifeyinwa’s left ear, she said to her, “You have the prettiest neck in the world; don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Ah! What thing she had done. What storm she had brought with her words, for while in church, all Ifeyinwa thought of was Ogadi and this glorious neck she had. She did not think of God in His eminence, even as the pastor kabashed to bring down His glory.

This girl made her feel very unfamiliar with herself. She resurrected feelings she never knew were buried in her. She couldn’t wait to go home and stay with her love.

Service was over, and she was accompanied home by a sister in the Lord, her friend in church. While she did the tradition of introducing the sister to Ogadi, she couldn’t help but notice how Ogadi’s gaze was fixed on this sister. She traced this gaze and found it on her friend’s neck.

“You have a beautiful neck,” Ogadi said to the sister.
“Thank you,” the sister in the Lord replied, smiling.

What was that? Ifeyinwa wondered. What was it that she had with necks? Did she also go about in school telling random people she met that they had beautiful necks too? Did she also make them feel the way she made her feel?

She was troubled for the rest of the day. She felt cheated on. How could this girl whom she felt something for make someone else feel the same way she made her feel just a few hours after rousing her. Her trouble did not last only on the Lord’s Day. It lingered on and as it lingered, so did her fondness for this stranger seem to dwindle.

A day during the week, while Ogadi was away at school, she was at home because the classes for the day had all been cancelled. She thought it necessary to clean the house thoroughly by lifting bags and clothing baskets and the bedding to sweep dust off. Just as she lifted Ogadi’s bag, an empty water bottle, half-cut on its chest, fell from the bag to the ground. She picked it up and opened the bag to put it back inside but found many other empty water bottles half cut on their chests just like the first one.

What were all these half-cut bottles in her bag for? She wondered. It was not a habit of Ogadi to hoard dirt. For all there was and all she had seen, Ogadi was the neat one. She took her bath twice a day, swept the house at intervals, stacked her books neatly, disposed of the dustbin when it was filled, and changed the bed linen fortnightly. She was perfecto. Why then would she keep raggolis? And condemned ones at that?

“Well, it’s not my business,” she said to herself as she threw the bottle into the bag and zipped it up. She was still suffering the pain of being cheated on.

The following day, she came home from school in the evening and went into the kitchen. It was her turn to prepare dinner. As usual, she found Ogadi at the table. The kitchen knife was not there in the basket that contained the utensils. She wanted to slice an onion.

“Where’s the kitchen knife?” she asked Ogadi.
“Oh, I took it to the man that sharpens knives just at the market down the road. It got blunt from my using it to cut those plastic bottles you saw in my bag,” Ogadi replied.

Ifeyinwa’s eyes widened. She was stunned. She hadn’t yet told her she saw those bottles in her bag. She didn’t even have the intention of asking her what she was doing with them. How did Ogadi know she had seen those bottles?

“You need not be shocked. I knew you saw them because I always leave the bag unzipped,” Ogadi said. “You can always cook without an onion; the knife is not yet sharpened,” she continued.
Ifeyinwa prepared dinner without onion. She made jollof rice. What else did university students eat anyway?
“I’ll be stepping out for a bit to get some fresh air. I’ll be back in an hour or two,” Ogadi said finally and left the house.

By the time she was done cooking, the evening had grown dark into the early hours of the night. She dished her food and sat on the chair eating and fiddling with her phone.

***

Ogadi had gone to the market to collect the knife from the man she had given it to. She felt the sharpened edge with her finger, and blood spluttered out. How severely sharp the knife had become. She wrapped it with the paper the man had given her, slipped it into the side pocket of the cargo trousers she wore, and left for home.

She didn’t go back inside the house immediately. She sat outside the gate, opposite the house where there were stacks of blocks. She sat there to get some fresh air just as she had told Ifeyinwa.

The evening breeze blew and it cooled her skin as she gathered her thoughts. She sat there and watched as evening was turning into night. The weather was becoming chilly and lightning appeared in the sky. It looked as though it was going to rain.

She checked the time on her phone; it was past nine. Three hours had gone by from the time she left the house. It began to drizzle and she went back into the house. Ifeyinwa was at the table when she walked in; she was still on her phone. Ogadi went into the kitchen to boil water for her bath. She would have dinner after.

By the time the water had boiled, the rain had already started coming down heavily. She mixed her water for bath and went into the bathroom with the knife.

The rain came down more heavily as Ogadi entered the bathroom, splashing on rooftops and accompanied by thunder and lightning. The perfect weather, Ogadi thought. The perfect weather to conceal the splashing of water in the bathroom. The perfect weather to conceal a muffled scream.

She took her bath and got dressed inside the bathroom. She stepped out with the knife in her hand. The chair Ifeyinwa sat on was a few steps away from the bathroom and was facing away from it. The room was dark and the only light that shone was from Ifeyinwa’s phone as she was still fiddling with it.

How long she had waited for the moment. The rain covered the sound of every step she took, as Ogadi walked stealthily to Ifeyinwa, covered her nose and mouth from behind, and slit Ifeyinwa’s throat.

 

 

 

 

 

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