to use, when she approached me.
“Why are you sitting here on your own?” she asked.
“Go back to your friends,” I said.
She mimicked my expression and I noticed her eyes were red. She was barefooted and about to scramble up a tree, or fall face down on the bank; I wasn’t sure which.
“Are you drunk?” I asked.
“What if I am?”
The air smelled sweet. I looked beyond her. The Peugeot had gone. Damola and his friends were huddled in a semi- circle by the Kombi van. Damola was in the middle, smoking what looked like an enormous cigarette. I’d never seen one before, never smelled the fumes, but I knew: it reddened your eyes, made you crazy. People who smoked it, their lives would amount to nothing.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
Sheri lifted her arms and her top plummeted.
“We have to go,” I said.
She danced away and waved over her shoulder. When she reached the boys, she snatched the hemp from Damola. She coughed as she inhaled. The boys laughed. I stamped my feet in the water. I would give them ten minutes. If they hadn’t gone, I would risk the disgrace and walk away. I heard Sheri cry out, but didn’t bother to look.
I got up when I no longer heard voices, walked toward the van. From the angle I approached it, I could see nothing behind the windscreen. As I came closer, I spotted the head of the boy with a cap bent over by the window. I edged toward the side door. Sheri was lying on the seat. Her knees were spread apart. The boy in the cap was pinning her arms down. The portly boy was on top of her. His hands were clamped over her mouth. Damola was leaning against the door, in a daze. It was a silent moment; a peaceful moment. A funny moment, too. I didn’t know why, except my mouth stretched into the semblance of a laugh before my hands came up, then tears filled my eyes.
The boy in the cap saw me first. He let go of Sheri’s arms and she pushed the portly boy. He fell backward out of the van. Sheri screamed. I covered my ears. She ran toward me, clutching her top to her chest. There was lipstick across her mouth, black patches around her eyes. The portly boy fumbled with his trousers.
Sheri slammed into me. I shook her shoulders.
“Sheri!”
She buried her face in my dungarees. Spit dribbled out of her mouth. She beat the sand with her fists. Her arms were covered in sand and so were mine. I tried to hold her still, but she pushed me away and threw her head back as the van started.
“N-nm,” she moaned.
I dressed her, saw the red bruises and scratches on her skin, her wrists, around her mouth, on her hips. She stunk of cigarettes, alcohol, sweat. There was blood on her pubic hairs, thick spit running down her legs. Semen. I used sand grains to clean her, pulled her panties up. We began to walk home. The palm trees shrunk to bamboo shoots, the headlights of oncoming cars were like fire-flies. Everything seemed that small. I wondered if the ground was firm enough to support us, or if our journey would last and never end.
She looked tiny. Tiny. There were red dots at the top of her back, pale lines along her lower back where fingers had tugged her skin. She hugged herself as I ran warm water into a bucket. I helped her into my bathtub. I began to wash her back, then I poured a bowl of water over her. She winced.
“Too hot?” I asked.
“Cold,” she said.
The water felt warm. I added hot water. The hot water trickled out reluctantly.
“My hair,” she said.
I washed it with bathing soap. Her hair was tangled, but it turned curly and settled on her cheeks. I washed her arms, then her legs.
The water dribbling down the drain, I wanted it to be clear. Once it was clear, we would have survived. Instead it remained pink and grainy, with hair strands and soap suds. The sand grains settled and the scum stayed.
“You have to wash the rest,” I said.
She shook her head. “No.”
“You have to,” I said.
She turned her face away. I could tell her chin was crumbling.
“Please,” I said. “Just try.”
I placed my book on the table. It was her fourth donut since we’d been sitting on the veranda and it was hard to concentrate with the gulping sounds she was making. Biscuits, coconut candy, now donuts. Sheri brought food to my house each time she visited and she had not said a word about what happened.
“Where are you going?” she asked when I stood up.
“Toilet,” I snapped.
How could she eat so much? After I bathed her, I had to teach myself how to breathe again. Breathing out wasn’t the problem, breathing in was. If I didn’t prompt myself, I simply forgot. Then when I wasn’t thinking, the rhythm came back. I realized I hadn’t felt hungry in days. I didn’t even feel thirsty. I imagined my stomach like a shriveled palm kernel. At night, I had visions of fishermen breaking into my room. I dreamed of Sheri running toward me with her face made up like a masquerader. She slammed into me and I fell out of my bed. I held my head and sobbed.
I sat on the toilet and waited for the urge to pee. What I wished was for my parents to come home. Sheri was making me angry enough to punch walls. I came out without washing my hands. She was eating another donut.
“You’re going to be sick,” I said, grabbing my book.
“Why?” she asked.
“If you keep eating and eating like that.”
She wiped grease from her mouth. “I don’t eat that much.”
I used the book to cover my face. “Eating and eating,” I said to provoke her.
“I don’t... ”
She stood up and let out a cry. My book slid off my face, just as she lurched. Her vomit splattered over the table, hitting my face. I tasted it in on my tongue; it was sweet and slimy. She lunged forward and another mound of vomit plopped on the veranda floor. I managed to grab her shoulders.
“Sorry,” I said. “You hear me?”
Tears ran down her face. I sat her in the chair and went to the kitchen to get a bucket and brush. The water gushed into the bucket and I wondered why I was so angry with her. Holding my breath, I delved deeper and the fist in my stomach exploded. Yes. I blamed her. If she hadn’t smoked hemp it would never have happened. If she hadn’t stayed as long as she did at the party, it would certainly not have happened. Bad girls got raped. We all knew. Loose girls, forward girls, raw, advanced girls. Laughing with boys, following them around, thinking she was one of them. Now, I could smell their semen on her, and it was making me sick. It was her fault.
The
