Chekwube O. Danladi

“Zazi,” from Flat 17

3. 

When the demon first came to me, my mother was already a miserable bitch and my father was already cut down, absent in a nod. Foul smelling, my people were already all dead, nothing inside, the rot already transforming into hard carbon. 

They dreamed only of European bleached and combed shores, high speed and glittering trains, many hands at work to clear up your rubbish. They dreamed only of the most expensive trade, what of their own flesh they could pilfer in exchange for something White and Empty. They were grateful only for the sharp and exacted line that existed between them and the heavy-sweating masses gathered outside the gates of their estates. 

My mother turns up her nose. 

MOTHER: Trying to sell us plastic nonsense, wishing we would let them in. Abeg.

My mother weeps for being trapped in this shameful country, and often phones her own mother, White and withering away in London, readily forgetful of her half-caste daughter left behind in that far-off shameful nation: this one. Granny, Agatha, had come here to live out her lust and had learned instead of true domination. Now she dominates from a distance, in the tradition of her people.

My mother says,

MOTHER: Do not be proud of your people, who were taken from Africa only to suffer the misfortune of being brought back. 

18, when I came home from Accra, my mother sent me to London, to find a husband at the university. MOTHER: Look for someone White. Try your best. 

I went off. My other mother land. My grandmother refused me from her home each and every Saturday, and sent her chauffer to me with 200 quid each following Sunday. 

GRANDMOTHER,  AGATHA: To tide you a bit, dear. 

Wretched cunt.

I spent the money on pussy. Grandmother’s money loved pussy. Pussy came to my dorm room and we would drink red wines. Pussy and I went out to eat, travelled for coke in Peckham, showed our tits for booze in the city center before ending so many nights with delicious frottage. I found a white woman who loved my strange accent and showed me off to her friends. The demon was in her face, small, just a glimpse in her jawline, which moved hard against its own muscle. 

I gathered once for lunch with her other conquests: a woman from Thailand, an Afghan, another Black woman—German—and a Belarusian who spoke no English. We ate warmed bread and bland eggs and smiled occasionally at each other. You’ll need protection, my WHITE WOMAN once told me, taking a pause from our touch midday, the filthy London air sneaking in through her open window to enter us. WHITE WOMAN: All my others are jealous of you. Because of how fond of you I have been. She meant nothing, and I left London with my White and Empty Degree. A useless few years in the cold. 

When I came home, 23, my mother bought me a car to honor my return. MOTHER: So you can get around. And I won’t have to see you again for a while. She called me inside, up with her to her bedroom, where she sat in front of her vanity, smoothing on cold cream and worrying after her fairness, then looking for my gaze, her bible suddenly in her hands. The terror was visible in her eyes. 

MOTHER: I see the demon in you, getting stronger, her voice even kind, defeated. But madness shall not prosper. Let me pray for you. 

She spoke in hollers, and begged the silence for my blood-covered salvation. 

MOTHER: In Jesus Christ’s magnificent name, demon I cast you out, out, demon I cast you out. Cover this girl in Christ’s blood, my God! 

But my blood had long vacated, and the demon moved calmly through me, amused. I laughed, interrupting my mother’s prayer, and she cast me out, with a new bank card and an account at Bank of Africa, MOTHER: so you should not have to come back here soon.

That same day, I drove myself to see Fadi, who promised me room in the flat when I came home. I had no words to share, still she gave me a kiss on the cheek. 

FADI: The big room is all yours. Nafisah left last month to go back to Kano. 

Then she left me alone like I needed. The big room had a big bed, a vanity with an oval mirror, a window barred and looking out against another cement wall, small gutter running in between. I had all I needed. I needed rest, and took to bed. On my breath, I carried a curse for my mother: her downfall, her rapid aging, her darkening, her death, eventually, and let the pain tire me and carry me to sleep. 

I dreamt in black. Until I heard a sweet voice in my ear, a woman’s, like a sigh, like a kiss. Something light, carrying the fragrance of nectar, brushing against me. VOICE: Are you ready to see me? Because it would mean confronting and abandoning your current gods.

Sweet dream. I whispered back. ME: Yes. 

In my dream, I could feel pinching on my toes, a curl around my ankle, so I kept dreaming, and kept my eyes closed. Then he squeezed tighter, and my foot was colder than blue fire. I could open my eyes—so was forced to see, and I saw him, recognized him inherently—but my mouth brought nothing forward, no offering in exchange for mercy, no supplication, no sound. He was a horrible sight. 

Melting skin, the brittle grey of ash. His eyes exactly like mine, nearly black, large and sunk. His tongue was coated in dried blood, crackled and frayed again and again. His voice of smoke: deep and tattered. And when he spoke—

And when he opened his mouth, when he spoke, his voice was trilling, the sound of crickets, with layers of soot pouring out and through—

Out came:

DEMON: I KNOW YOU, DO NOT THINK OTHERWISE NOR THAT YOU CAN EVER BE AWAY FROM ME. OF ME. YOU OF ME. WITH YOU. WITH YOU I HAVE LONG BEEN. TETHERED TO YOUR BLOOD AND DRINKING LONG FROM IT. WITH YOU. TAKING AND GIVING YOU BREATH. PUT HERE LONG AGO. I KNOW YOU WHOLLY. IN PARTICULAR. ZAZI. DAUGTHER OF BRIGIT CHIOMA PETERS-RANSOME. DAUGHTER OF THAT OLD WHITE WOMAN WHO IS ELSEWHERE, WHERE SHE IS ALSO A DEMON, WHERE SHE HAS SURROUNDED HERSELF WITH GOLD RIPPED OUT FROM THIS LAND. TELL THAT BITCH YOU WANT YOUR GOLD BACK. 

ZAZI. DAUGTHER OF GEORFREY AYUBA RANSOME, FORMER ONDO STATE GOVERNOR SON OF WILSON IBRAHIM RANSOME, FORMER HEAD OF LOCAL AND PUBLIC RELATIONS AT NIGER COAST EXPORT COMPANY. I BROUGHT THEM THEIR WEALTH, AND BRING YOUR OWN TO YOU. YOUR FATHER WHOSE BLOOD I STILL DRINK FROM. I DRAGGED YOUR FATHER THROUGH WAR AND GRANTED HIM NO MERCY. I DAMNED HIM TO SURVIVE AND REMEMBER.

YOU WANT YOUR MOTHER DEAD. YOURE MOTHER IS A HALF-CASTE CUNT WHO WISHES SHE COULD BE JUST A BIT MORE FAIR, LESS CURL IN HER HAIR, RID OF THAT GOD-AWFUL NATIVE NAME THAT STAYS HEAVILY IN HER CENTER, LIVING SOMEWHERE COLD. YOUR MOTHER IS HALFWAY DEAD. BUT I HAVE TASTED THE BLACK IN HER BLOOD. AND KEEP HER ALIVE TO REMEMBER. SHE KNOWS I HAVE TAKEN TO YOU. SHE HAS SEEN ME BEFORE AND WILL SEE ME AGAIN. YOUR FATHER. I KNOW HIM TOO. HE HAS GIVEN ME EVERY MAGNIFICENT DRINK. YOU. YOU HAVE LET ME IN, EVERYWHERE YOU HAVE BEEN. EVERY WOMAN YOU HAVE TASTED, I HAVE TASTED HER TOO. YOU HAVE SHARED EVERYTHING WITH ME. MY BELLY IS ALWAYS FULL. YET YOU, YOU ARE STILL SO HUNGRY.

5.

It becomes only another way of seeing, another shade to color your vision. Once he appeared to me, I could see demons roaming everywhere. Some laying their weight on top of people’s heads, some flowing like whisps, as light as silk webbing around people’s bodies. Some crawl beneath the skin like worms, and others—this my own—leech onto the blood. Demanding to be let through and freed from the body, by breaking or tearing or slicing if need be, and in exchange: bringing feeling.

I see the demon now in my father, found his in the sound from his voice. On the patrons at bakeries, the uniformed men at the filling stations. Demons broadcast on NTA, on the announcers and in the interviews. A flame demon unleased at a bombing at Nyanya Station. Lust demons run amok in our nation’s National Assembly.

If it’s too early, 4:49am, I see the demon in my reflection, blackening my eyes and flitting wildly across, stuffing my tongue full with razors, spiteful to be witnessed naked. He streaks along in a line from my throat to my clit, lighting a blaze along the way, where he vacates and crawls up the walls to watch me. 

He hides himself easily from the presence of others, though through a strong look, one might glimpse the shadow of his bloodied tongue, his blades for nails. He hides easily in the daylight, my lovers still coming by, where he watches me with them, holding still in the furthest corner, holding in an orb—as if a jar in his hands—all of my sense. 

I ran my own experiments. DJ Keys came over one morning, my best test subject. The demon had been with in my room 13 days. I hadn’t left him in that time. Keys messaged me early:

KEYS: babe how far  good mornin

my dream last night was of your sweet taste 

<3

I straightened the bedroom, bathed. I texted back. 

ME: I want you to drink me. 

The demon watched me oil myself, trim my cunt hairs. He said nothing. I said nothing. I drank two glasses of water, peed, ate a slice of bread, and waited. Keys came. Small talk with the others in the parlor. Gazes ricocheted elsewhere as we shuffled back to my room. He was still there, looking directly at me, and at Keys, who didn’t see him at all. She sucked me, drank from me, turned me, spanked me, grasped my belly, my hips, she fucked me, kissed me, bent over for me, knelt down for me, lowered me, lifted me, and through it the demon watched and said nothing. I watched him too, and every time my back was to Keys, I opened my mouth and begged him back in. So I could feel, again, everything I had ever felt through him. Because of him. He refused me, and looked on. Me and Keys, we paused, smoked long and came up, wet again, to start over. 

She left. Around 2. Left me smoking, in my bed, some music playing. The songs of dead and sad women who had also known demons. I heard their songs as images and visions. The demon, he hovered over me, rising and falling, rocked by the steam from my body. He was not lovely, and neither was I. I had wanted Keys to stay, maybe for a day or two, gather with the others to do something ordinary, but the demon wanted her out, used my mouth to tell her to leave. And so I was alone with him. How many more days to come?

Fadi knocked, asked to enter the bedroom. She had gin and Fayrouz. 

FADI: It smells like sex in here.

ME: I cannot even tell. 

She laughed at me. She wanted to know about work, about my meals and water intake, moments scheduled for the future. She wanted to assure I was still alive, still present, still here. She could not see the demon, floating right there, eyeing her, his eyes open to their hilts. I could lie easily, tell her I was fine, make her believe in my continuity, because she would never see him, already birthed. I saw her touch my arm.

FADI: What do you need from me?

ME: Not a fucking thing.

She left the room and I was alone with him again. He went quiet, his eyes still flaming.

DEMON: Why are you punishing me? Yourself?

I kept quiet, not yet frightening. Emptiness renewed my curse.

Meals were meaningless and I failed every attempt. But I did not wither. Instead, my skin began to melt. I rushed to pick up after myself: a pile of abandoned me in the doorway to my bedroom; a pool of flesh on the balcony. Fadi put her cigarettes out on me, a wet circle left on the end of the table in the sitting room. I was a perfect ashtray. No one noticed that I was absent, my body a ruin, my mind vacated. Three other weeks I carried on senseless.

Eventually the demon had permission to come back in. Keys came back, so we could do primordial dances together. Color returned to my face. Sudden feeling. All three of our howls sounded out, Keys voice first, then the demon purring, and through his noise my own spiraled out and finished the harmony.

4. 

Your ancestor was a scorned thing, dead weight in the caravan, too small and refusing cow’s milk. His mother was preparing to throw him away anyway. So you understand? 178 years ago. It was he who first summoned me.

That night was a tricker’s god’s hunting night, and the herbalists prepared their potions, and the blood-bound women gathered in caverns or, came to the edge of the inland waters or, gathered at rivers and creeks and, they conjured their masters, the ones they feared the most, who filled this realm most urgently with the pregnant force of their power, just before the moon turned black. Black moon summation: his people knew when to conjure demons. His mother knew it, and that kind of knowing is transferred easily in the blood. 

So you understand. His mother brought him to slavers. He was likely to die anyway. Small and long fatherless, useless. She carried him to where they gathered, the church they built near the edge of the forest where a river joined with another and pushed forcefully further south. Church of the Holy Redeemer. She gave him to a local man she had known, who sold onions in the market with no shoes on his feet. He spoke to her in their language, he who called out for a white man in English. She was starving. She handed them your ancestor, and they in turn gave her a full sack of grains and a portion of a split chicken, two coils of smoked fish. Then she disappeared and he became unmothered, damaged.

He called on me. Chain-bound the next hour, his toes grazing another boy’s ankle as they marched, chain-bound and carted off, he cursed the land right there. His people’s land, his own lineage. The poison of his rage dripped sweetly. And from my place, I writhed from its taste, waking sharply, the others rising around me, conjured by another boy, chain-bound:

YOUR ANCESTOR: From this night forward, may the waters the tubers drink from

 suffocate them before they ripen. Spit. From this night forward, may every child born on the first market day die young by fire. Spit. May my own mother die, uttering the name of her new God. Spit. May her God die in the minds of his own people. Spit. 

He was a small and angry boy, ordinary in this way, yet the force of his vengeance, in that small body, was so concentrated, so loud. I was made easily present. He put me in his body, see? And I pressed into his veins, promising to live forever in his blood. So you understand? I have always been with you. Here. Inside. Close against you. Feeling for you.

2. 

When I was 13, my father sent me to boarding school in Ghana. SOS in Tema.

FATHER: So I won’t have to look at you any longer.

Now I know that even then, the demon was present. My lineage well known, but his first venture into a body quite like this one, and school was already destined to be a place of suffering. SOS. Full of girls whose fathers hoarded secret gold and slaves within their homes. Emir’s children, Omo Alhaji (as in, “My papa works on the top floor of Elf Oil,” “My own manufactures concrete for all of Central Africa”), on our final stop before schooling abroad. My father’s dream for me was for another man to pay my price eventually so he could collect the hefty ransom. Stupid man. He doesn’t know to this day that it is he who set me up to have any sense.

I was boarded with my Big Sister in The Lord. Catholic School. Mission School. A divine duty to salvage souls. My Big Sister in The Lord. Her name was Godsend. A terror. Godsend’s task was to show me how to make it through secondary surrounded by packs of gnashing, roving bitches ready to eviscerate the small and newly-born for their own survival. Godsend. Instead, my first weeks there, she woke me at the edge of daybreak, but the night still ruling, with a bucket of cold water thrown at my head. The water and the bucket, all. 

GODSEND: I can drown you in your own bed, she spit, as if I threw you into the ocean myself. Look at you. Foreign thing. You people are not ashamed to be so greedy. One can never rest around you, you steal everything from us. 

A different sort of demon was in her. I know it now.

She scorned me, kicked me, stole my snacks and sweets. And I let her, never whimpered, held her gaze each time that she came after me. In earnest, I was coming after her too, and knew I would break her in no time. One month into our knowing, soon familiar with the firmness of her slaps, she stormed back into our room. She had gone out with the other Year Four girls from our quadrant that night, to drink liters of beer with disgusting men who would never afford the bride price. Danced with them, then ran back to school to abuse us. Low girls. Or so she thought. She stormed in. She gripped me by my wrist. She smiled, a devil’s grin, and told me, 

GODSEND: You think you are so beautiful. I can take your beauty from you. 

Her hand around my wrist, I was beginning to sweat. She—drunk—pulled me up, held my gaze. And that is how I easily broke her. I pushed my mouth onto hers, swallowed her eyes with my own. MY EYES: Moan for me. She moaned, pressing against me. I bit a piece of flesh from her lip, breaking it in a thin vein, licking the blood while she moaned louder. Sound off with me. I grunted, and she followed after me, followed my every bellow, my every stroke, fell in line as we danced violently around the room. Thrown naked against the walls, transferring our heat into them until even the walls began to sweat. When I finished with her, I was never beaten again.

We fucked the whole year. At the summer holiday, she had returned to Kumasi, and by that year’s August, she had left for Atlanta. Her fuck taught me transformation, how sweet a death it can be. The remaining three years of Secondary were suddenly a paradise, each girl awaiting me—in the shadows, shy and uncertain, my hunger suddenly in their eyes—a bud for every passing season. A drink so heady, I came to know myself.

Flower Conroy