The warm yellow glow of the ceiling light flickered before darkness swept the Mafejopami’s living room.

“These people again. Taking the light and bringing it,” Mrs Mafejopami said in Yoruba with a raspy voice, to her guest – one of the many women who offered to assist in cleaning the house on the weekends.

“That’s how they’ve been doing all day o. It usually doesn’t last very long sha, maybe 10 minutes… Eku ijoko.” She let out a choked laugh, clapping her hands together and leaning forwards; her gaze drifted towards the stairs as she patted the black hip pouch at her waist.

Condolence visits still trickled in two weeks after Mr Mafejopami’s passing. Mrs Mafejopami enjoyed the visits now and then: always sharing a memory or two about her ‘friend,’ as she fondly called him.

“Do you know how we started calling each other ‘friends’?” she would ask the guest, never waiting for a reply. “We were settling one of our many fights in bed, like husbands and wives do,” she’d smile knowingly.

“And we decided from there that we should always talk instead of always screaming at each other like market women at a bargain. Like friends. This was over 30 years ago.” A small smile would expose brown teeth she blames on years of smoking with her husband.

Every visit left her exhausted. She wanted to grow familiar with the silence that had settled over the house like thick dust. His family never approved of his choices – and his wife sat high on that list – so they never visited.

The warm light flickered back on. Mrs Mafejopami clapped her hands. “I said it. It is not even up to 10 minutes,” she said, glancing at her wristwatch with the map of Africa printed on it.

Her greying hair, streaked with jet black, caught the light that streamed in through a nearby window in an aluminium sheen, gathered in a neat knot, with a single cowry bead resting at the crown.

The lights went out again almost immediately. Her eyes went to the stairs again and lingered.

“At least you people even have light here,” her guest said. “We haven’t had light for 2 days. They said it is because the wire is not yet dry. Hmm,” she shook her head thoughtfully, as if dismissing the thought of an alternative reason.

In the three hours that passed without power restored, Mrs Mafejopami busied herself in the kitchen, with the assistance of her guest, frying chin-chin. Every so often, she stepped away from the heat to sit by the kitchen entrance, looking towards the stairs.

“Mo n bo, I’m coming,” she said, rising. She had always been a tall, thick woman whose features and strength age hadn’t yet touched.

Her guest, busy picking chin-chin off her skirt and throwing them into her mouth, paused for a moment to stare at Mrs Mafejopami’s build before bending to retrieve one last piece from the floor.

In the storeroom, she stopped in front of the chest freezer and pressed the back of her hand against its side. “This thing is getting old and weak,” she muttered. She reached into her pouch, pulled out a bunch of keys and unlocked the padlock. Gently, she lifted the lid, and thick curly fog of cold air coiled around her fingers like cold breath. She smiled down into it, reached in and delicately stroked her husband’s frigid cheeks. She stopped and pulled the melting ice blocks, still wrapped in plastic bags, over his face before shutting the lid.

“He needs all the cold he can get right now,” she whispered.

She stood in that spot for a moment before locking the door and turning to climb the stairs, joining her guest upstairs.

 

 

 

 

 

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