Taking Olammiri Home by Kasimma

CW: themes of DV, suicidal ideation, suicide

I am on a rickety bus, taking Olammiri home. The cooler on my lap resembles the sky: white lid and blue body. In it, on pebbles of ice, lies Olammiri just the way she was when she came to me: a frozen catfish. I have come to admire the sky lately. I sit outside most weekends, before the sun comes rearing its blazing head, and study the sky. What will it be today? Will I be able to make out the shapes therein? The shape of my wife, Chinwenite’s, curves, or the way her lips spread on her face like butter on bread when she smiles, or her palms printed on my white shirt? Will I make out the shape of the mop, slim with dirty, curly hair like a mad woman, an intruder who stole my marriage from me? I’ve since destroyed that mop anyway. And I have never bought a mop again. I now clean my house with rags.

Olammiri must stay frozen until we get to Onitsha. I cannot risk her waking up. If the ice thaws, she, for starters, will burst out of this cooler. How will I explain the spectacle to these bus passengers? This man must like fish, this one sitting beside me here who continuously picks his nose—his nostrils as wide as the jaw-dropping-surprise hollow of one’s mouth—rolling thick, yellow sputum, that gummy chewy kind, on his fingers as if it’s a ball of eba, before he snaps it off. Once, the phlegm ball disappeared in the wavy hair of the woman in front. Serves her right! I wish it fell in her eyes.

I asked Olammiri once if it is true that female wigs are possessed by water spirits. She laughed and rubbed my beard. Her touch is always wet no matter how dry her palm is. Water spirits have better things to do. If they want a person, there are better ways to get them, not through hair. She snorted. The way “hair” fell from her mouth like a cough made me believe her. I don’t remember what led us into talking about hair that day, but I remember telling her about what transpired between Chinwenite and me. Olammiri was sitting in my filled bathtub that day—snacking on a bowl of water lotus, seaweed, ugu, and spinach—flapping her caudal fin. She does not eat fish. Mermaids are vegetarians. I remember asking her if mermaids and sharks constantly fight for who’s in charge. She laughed again. Oceans also have countries.

Olammiri’s laughter is loud. I love to hear her laugh, to watch her laugh. She starts as if she is shy. Then she throws her head back, takes a fist to her mouth, and laugh-cries. Tears actually make it down her eyes when she laughs. She wipes them with the back of her forefinger. It’s so lovely to watch. I find her very attractive. Her black hair, so full, so woolly, looks like a cabbage farm. She never allows me to run a comb through it. She says it hurts her. Her almond eyes are curved upwards. The tip of her small, round nose is chubby. Olammiri’s only resemblance to Chinwenite is the hips. Chinwenite’s hips have ears. She’s a pendulum. Her voice is a talking violin. She made me so happy and lucky until the day I made the greatest mistake. The day my life fell apart: two days before I met Olammiri.

The rickety bus jumps into a pothole and staggers. I tighten my hold on the picnic cooler. No way will I allow Olammiri pour out of it. These fish-eating humans will kill her. The woman with fat arms, sitting beside the nose-digging man, perhaps is tired of the digging and cries out. HEY! She dusts her palms in a derisive way. She opens her black, polythene bag and asks the man to LOOK HERE! The authority in her voice makes him obey. What is he seeing inside here, she asks. He calls out the contents: egg roll, boiled hen eggs, boiled akwa ogazi, akara, banana, moi-moi, and roasted groundnuts. I stifle laughter. The other passengers look in her direction. I feel the eyes of those behind us. Nose-picker makes the mistake of asking her what’s his business with the strange combo in her bag. She tells him, in an angry voice, that she can eat everything in this bag NOW! Her size confirms it. But that she has decided to wait until she gets home because she is considerate. But should he dare, DARE, pick his gummy nose again, she will eat all these things and fart until thy kingdom come. And the only way thy will be done on this bus is for us to either puff up and float on her mess or alight in the bush and leave her alone HERE! Everyone bursts into bouts of laughter. We beg Digger to please stop digging. We beg her, please don’t eat. One lady, with long fingernails, even offers Mr. Digger a rubber band to knot his fingers together so that he is not tempted to dig. I sit there wishing that Olammiri is not frozen, happy that she is. But I save up all the details for her. Her laughter would have been the loudest; as loud as it was when I told her of how I lost my marriage and how my cries to Jehovah did not change Chinwenite’s mind.

Olammiri guffawed. She likes the sound of Jehovah. I asked her if she knows Jehovah. She rolled her eyes at me as if to say these humans are so naïve. Is Jehovah not Jesus H. Christ? I shuddered. Since Olammiri came into my life, I have avoided mentioning Jesus or even praying. I hid my Bible and rosary (anything Christian) away so that they don’t scare her. I asked her if she’s not afraid of calling Jesus. She chuckled. How can one be afraid of calling a name? She quoted Genesis 1:21, explaining that God created them a day before They created humans, if the Bible is to be believed. But God placed humans above their senior creations because God is God and can do whatever They like. I accused her of jealousy. She laughed and flapped her caudal fin. I can never be resentful of humans. Humans are the most nescient of all God’s creation, so powerless in their powerfulness. Magnificently brainless! Then, do I want to continue the story, or should she sleep?

I sighed and gathered the loss of my marriage into a short story. It happened on a rainy day, as if the sky knew what was about to befall me and started early to cry. But the rains only aided my downfall because they made the red sand wet and afforded Chinwenite the weapon with which to hinder my going out. Before I could say Jack, Chinwenite squatted, stamped her palms on the wet mud, jumped up, and stamped those muddy palms on my pure white, lace blouse. I remember looking up, hoping to see bright rays of light shining down while the heavens opened—the way it did during Christ’s transfiguration—and a voice would call me His beloved son with whom He is well-pleased and ask me to forgive my wife, and console me that she only wanted me to stay home hence her staining my cloth. That did not happen. I looked to the ground, hoping fire would burst it open and Lucifer-with-the-horns would come out and tell me to kill Chinwenite. It did not happen. So, I looked around, and right there was a mop. I rushed to the front porch, grabbed the mop, and, in raving rage, slammed it repeatedly on her until it gave. I left her crying on the ground there, clutching her stomach. I drove off.

That image of her lying on the wet sand; her knee folded up to her stomach; her hands hugging her knees, her way of protecting our baby; her eyes leaking the pain pouring from her voice, haunted me as I drove. I asked myself, where to oh son of man? Where art thou headed with stains of sand on your shirt and guilt in your heart? How dare you leave a pregnant woman beaten and cold? Suppose she died? So, I slammed on the brakes. I reversed and drove home. My gate was opened. My door was unlocked. My wife was nowhere to be found.

At this point in my story, Olammiri screwed up her face and slid into the water. I asked her if she wanted to sleep. She said nothing, immersed herself in the bathtub and turned into a big catfish. That’s how she came: as a catfish that I bought for supper.

After my wife left, I starved myself for two days, hoping to find penance. I could not forgive myself. I could not bring myself to ask her forgiveness. I did not go to work until after two days. Dazed with hunger, I stopped by the market after work. Olammiri stood out. She was the biggest fish I’d ever seen for sale. The seller, a woman with a big, black mole on the tip of her nose, reminiscent of a rhinoceros’, convinced me to buy that fish at double my budget. But the size was worth it. Because it was so frozen, even after I got home, I could not slice it. I placed it inside a basin of water to thaw. I went to watch TV. I slept.

A singing mosquito woke me up. People still danced on the TV. I turned the TV off. I yawned and stretched. Then I made for the bedroom when I remembered the fish I had soaked. That was how I went to my kitchen and saw that the catfish had transformed into a strange-looking creature with a human head and torso, but fish scales down to the fins. I cleaned my eyes and looked closely. The person/fish was crouched inside the basin, her head buried in her knees. I remembered Chinwenite. Maybe she finally died of injuries from my pelts and had come to haunt me. But Chinwenite’s hair was relaxed; this one was woolly. Chinwenite was light-skinned. This creature was dark-skinned. I thought maybe I was in the dream. It had to be a dream. Until the human or fish or both raised their head and revealed a face more beautiful than beauty. Her eyes were red and wet as though she had been crying. It did not occur to me to run or shout or pray. I was frozen in shock. Her voice moved me to compassion and the compassion melted me. Her crying, shaky voice: Please, take me home.

The rickety bus jumps into another pothole. Mr. Digger calls the driver reckless. The driver calls him a gold digger. I rub my head where it hit the roof of the car. I wonder if a cube of ice hit Olammiri’s head. I cannot wait to get off this bus. Mr. Digger tries several times to strike up a conversation with me. I ignore him. He gives up and presses his phone. I am worried that the ice will melt and Olammiri will transform. It will be a disaster. We will both be killed. I will not get a chance to keep my promise of taking her back home. But my cooler is tested and trusted. I have kept ice in it for a full day and it stayed that way. This is just a journey of forty-five minutes to Onitsha, and we are almost at the bus stop.

---

In my hotel room, I fill the bathtub, yellow from overuse. I open the picnic cooler. My cubes of ice are as frozen as can be. Olammiri lies there, hibernated, a complete catfish. I have no idea into where her beautiful hair and face dissolves when she transforms into a fish. I carry her lovingly and drop her in the bathtub. I look away as she sinks to the bottom because it reminds me of my mother. I carry the upholstered chair from the room to the bathroom. I sit and watch. Tonight, I shall make the short trek to River Niger and release Olammiri home. But how will I cope without Olammiri? Her loud laughter and the sincere concern in her eyes when I cry out my regrets are my treasure. I am too ashamed to call Chinwenite or face my in-laws. Work is now boring. I no longer hang out with friends. I am endlessly in a hurry to go home and thaw Olammiri.

My phone rings. I rush to the room and answer the call. It is an irate customer complaining about a transaction they did on Friday that did not reflect on their account. Silly people. So, what am I supposed to do on a Saturday? Break into the bank and post his transaction or what? I am still hissing when I walk back into the bathroom and find Olammiri sitting there, smiling at me. Her teeth manage to be sparkling despite that she eats too many veggies, and she does not brush. I want to hug her, maybe kiss her. I want to beg her to stay with me. Her loud laughter snips my thoughts. I scrunch up my face. You bad boy.

I sit and hold her hand. It’s slippery though it looks dry. I beg her not to go. She shakes her head. You promised to take me home. I want to talk, but she interrupts me. She says she misses her family, her world. She misses having a large place to swim. She wished she listened to her mother’s warning against her attitude of turning into a fish and going to the river to watch humans. How did she know she would be captured? Have I not got empathy for what her family is going through? Of course, I feel for them that is why I am here. But I’ll miss her too. I do not tell her this. There is no need to say it.

Her wide eyes are so bold like cartoon characters’. I look at her hair. A shiver runs down my spine. I feel wetness on my face. I clean my cheeks, thinking I am crying, but my hand touches Olammiri’s. She smiles at me. She does not say anything. Her wide eyes are slightly squinted. Her nose is slightly widened. Then I know she feels the same way too. I draw closer. She draws closer. I close my eyes and navigate my lips to hers. Her arms circle my neck. It feels as though a snake is wrapped around my neck, but I kiss her harder. She tastes like Seven Seas syrup. My lips keep slipping out of hers and I keep pushing them back. I grab her, but my hands slip away. I grab her again. Because she is so slippery, my hold is strong. She groans, maybe out of pain or excitement, I do not know. I stop.

I ask her if she has ever turned into a human before like those mermaids in movies. She chuckles. I watch too many movies. I want to see what she will look like with legs. I ask her if I can carry her to the bed and see if she transforms. She accepts. She wraps her arms around my neck, and I lift her. She holds me so tight I almost choke because her hands keep slipping. Her fin drips water all the way to the bed. She smiles when her body touches the bed. It’s soft. I kiss her again. I have not eaten sashimi, but if what I hear about sashimi is true, then Olammiri must taste like sashimi. Her touch is cold. I open my eyes, ashamed, and see her gasping for air as if she is dying. Her grip is firm. She had been suffocating. I carry her, and dash into the bathroom. I bury her in the water, washing her face, willing her eyes to open. They do eventually. I have never been so scared. The last time I felt this afraid was when my mother struggled with the water, coming up several times and sinking back in as if some force under the water insisted on pulling her down there with them, until they succeeded. Now, here I am, afraid of losing a mermaid. But then I understand what Olammiri’s mother must be going through, and I decide to take her home tonight.

I take a stroll to the river, holding my blue picnic cooler, taking Olammiri home. It’s past 3 a.m. I smile when I remember the look of disgust on the receptionist’s face when I walked past. Her eyes stay on my cooler until I can no longer feel them. I am sure she will rush to my room to snoop. Well, all she will see is a bathtub filled with water and a soaked bed.

The street is very silent and empty. I get to the river, which is, thankfully, devoid of humans. Maybe they are afraid of Idemmili, the Igbo God who lives in waterbodies. I squat by the sandy riverbank and pour the ice and the fish into the water. The fish sinks in like my mother. I sit on the wet sand and wait. I remember my mother fighting the water, drowning. I was eight. She was afraid; her eyes said as much. And in those same eyes, I saw her hope that I would not jump in to save her because I, too, cannot swim.

Olammiri calls my name and lifts my spirit with a dazzling, glowing grin. I smile. She looks so happy. She thanks me for bringing her home. She says she has to make the journey back to the Atlantic Ocean. We look at each other, afraid to say goodbye. I think of my mother, of Chinwenite, of Olammiri, and I start to cry. I bury my face in my palms and cry. I hear my name. I do not look. I am ashamed. She says goodbye. I finally look. She smiles, her eyes locked in mine. She turns and jumps into the water. I cannot return to that hotel room, reeking of fish, without my fish. What will I do every day after work? I look for Olammiri in the river. I do not see her. I am filled with loathing for water. Water took my mother. Water took Chinwenite. Now water has taken Olammiri. I hiss. Water might as well take me too.

I jump into the river. While my body sinks in, I trail Olammiri home.