UCHENNA ONYISHI

My dearest April, I wondered why you went away. 

And now that you are back, I cannot help but wonder why you let him handle you with such careless hands?

It is early on a Sunday morning here in Beijing—03:55. I am thinking of going to church when the sun rises in a few hours, but sleep has abandoned me to my thoughts. I still need to pack for London, and I am not sure I have it in me to make the fifty-minute drive to church without rest. I have not been to service since winter, and the guilt is killing me.

Late February in Beijing is much warmer than I remember, and I keep running into the sun before I am able to find a little sleep. I had planned to spend more time outdoors, to visit my god-sister whose IVF fell through. My mother insisted I see her before she left for London, but I could not step away from my computer. My doctoral thesis is due for blind review, and completing the latest draft took everything in me.

I keep reminding God, during my morning devotions, that my parents—whom He loves dearly—would be very glad if their son came home with proof of the last six years spent in school. So far, all has gone well.

It has been a week now since you called me with a troubled heart. I was in the midst of settling my engagements before my flight and could not find the time to call you back as I said I would. And since I am unable to sleep, I decided to write to you before I leave on Monday.

Also, it has been more than a year since I last saw you in London, after we flew back from St. George’s together. Yet the details of you and your family that held my attention at the resort remain as clear as the Caribbean Sea.

I remember your face. Your two sisters, too. And your mother and father. I remember the smile that never quite leaves your mother’s face—a safe kind of smile. The same one that sculpts the edges of my mother’s. I remember you reading under the sun in your swimwear, and eating alone at the restaurant before your sisters joined. 

It is always striking how small a family suddenly becomes when a few members decide to skip a gathering.

I remember wishing you all to myself, I remember the photos we took at the beach. And the water that was determined to swallow you whole as I clicked away with my camera. It is damaged now—the Canon I photographed you with. The rolls of film too. I look at photos of you on my phone now as I write to you about the men who you wish would color the grays inside you. Your mother’s smile returns to me, and once more, I find myself wondering how and when you turned sad. 

***

I thought I would be done by now, but I could not finish writing to you last Sunday morning. My sleepless nights had finally caught up with me, and a heavy slumber took hold of my eyelids until the rest of my body succumbed.

I spent the last few days and nights rewriting the first few chapters of a novel I wrote while applying to writing programs in the States. I am intent on showing my father how serious I am about writing—about clearing tall grass, tilling hard soil, and rising above the natural order of tradition and family he insists upon

I am on the plane now, on my way to London. The young man next to me is reading an old copy of Anna Karenina. Earlier, before I continued my letter to you, he mentioned he was traveling to Berlin to see his wife. He is twenty-five. An Engineer at Audi. 

They met and began dating during his exchange year in Berlin. They are expecting a baby soon, and he wanted to know what I thought about him moving to Germany to be closer to her. Her family insisted his wife remain with them until their child is old enough for school.

***

April, I have been hurt before—by a woman I paid too much attention to. And she cried while doing it. Since then, I have refused to give another the pleasure. I have given the women in my life only enough to sustain my lust. 

And so, I must tell you how extraordinary it is that, for the first time in your life, you are willing to speak out against who you are—to look at who you have become and seek change.

I have found that happiness does not dwell behind my gate of brass, nor is there joy in living as I have lived. Real joy—the kind that holds meaning and retains its volume—requires that I comb the earth for the scattered pieces of my sundered heart and tenderly glue them back together. To accept that every beat will cause it to expand and contract, to bleed a little, to hurt a little. 

But I have been too afraid.

The man you speak of, Mr. Ezekiel Armstrong—the racing driver who left you in October for another woman—is no stranger to women who find little shame in giving men all that they are. But I cannot hold him ransom for the neglectful ways he has treated you when I, too, have been guilty of entertaining the attention of a woman who entered my life ready to serve my every need.

I have wondered what makes a woman beg the way she did. 

I told myself she was adult enough to understand the truth of her choices, that she was content with a fraction of my attention. But I knew these were lies. And yet, those lies were emboldened by the intoxicating feeling of having her as property, by her many pleas to hold on to the hem of my clothes.

The truth I abandoned is this: she did not desire less from me because she was happy with little; she did so because all I was willing to afford her was little, even after she had given all of herself to me.

But where should you direct your pointed fingers—

at me, who was willing to give her less than what my friends had access to, or at her, who insisted she was enough for both of us? Should I have taken only as much as I was willing to give in return?

Which one of us should be crucified for our sins?

I will return to this at the end.

The loneliness you feel cannot be erased by simply pouring paint over them and brushing until they disappear. Give it a little time, and they will reemerge. To better handle your loneliness, you must understand its very nature—where it resides, your encounters with it, and all the choices you have made that have alienated you from yourself.

A young woman, Halimah, wrote to me some time ago. In her letter, she spoke of a young man whose actions failed to reconcile with the affectionate words he repeatedly threw at her. I wrote back, telling her:

“The young man you speak of, the one you wish to forget, may not be forgettable. We do not get over a person by simply wishing for it, just as a lie does not become the truth because ten people are willing to tell it. So tell yourself the truth, repeat it over and over again, and fill your room with it until there is no space for lies.

Tell yourself that you want him, but he does not belong with you. Tell yourself that you want him, but he is not right for you—that you are not right for him. It is a large room, so do not stop yet. Tell yourself that he is here to stay, and that it is all right that you must now shelter him.”

Loneliness is the corner of the room. It lingers out of sight—hidden, quiet, ever-present. Sit with it. Trace its edges. Measure its depth. 

It is your place of reflection and safety; it is where who you are retreats when she has been neglected. It is where you go to isolate yourself, your root—where you will end, where you began. 

It is, also, where your truth goes to hide.

The race driver—the one who abandoned you last October—like the man Halimah harbors feelings for, may never be forgettable. You will not forget him by simply employing your heart to feel again for another man, no matter how lovely the man may be.

Men do not replace men.

You will also not heal from your wounds by simply pouring spirits on them, because spirits do not heal wounds. They drown you, they turn you into a ghost, and leave you with a ghastly hollowness.

For when there is little to be proud of about yourself, when you feel small, it is natural to want to attach yourself to a man who has conquered the world. But if he accepts you, he will demand that you only disturb your heart with what is important to him.

You listen to him.

You want him to be happy. 

You want him to be happy with you. 

It is January,

and quietly, the deathly hollows spread inside you. 

He consumes and affirms you all at once. 

Each bite he takes from you, he tells you that you are still whole—

and you believe him.

But January has come to an end,

and the February cold in Nottingham brings with it too much snowfall.

Races are suspended, 

long enough for him to devour what is left of you, 

and you succumb to the hollowness.

“You’ve been nice,” he says.

He pauses to acknowledge your begging words.

“I don’t understand, please don’t do this…” 

You are unable to put together a compelling argument.

“I need a little time,” he continues. “I’m sorry.”
You’re sorry too. But you do not know what for.

Except for not being enough.

The call drops,

and you condemn yourself to a smile.

You have to.

Your tears will break your mother’s heart.

And you want to show him that you are strong—

he likes it when you are strong.

Perhaps, in a few months, he will find his way back to you.

For now, you plan to keep up with his races.

The first few months come and go.

Work has been exhausting, and you miss a few rallies.

But that is okay, you tell yourself.

He will be in town this weekend.

You will pick things up where you left them.

Then, on a busy Thursday, the news finds you:

He is with someone else now.

You search your phone for his number and you find it.

The last thing he said to you comes back:

“Ape, you’re being pathetic.”

You put your phone down.

You pick it up again.

You find her.

The new girl is…but you do not finish the thought.

You wrestle it back to a corner of your mind.

You want to replace him with someone else,

But men do not replace men.

You cannot stitch the wounds from one man with the love of another—nor paint over your wear and tear with a fresh coat.

The silence of Saturday morning in your bedroom is gently interrupted by the metallic scrape of your father’s shovel meeting stone. You wash your face in the bathroom, moisturize, and bundle yourself in layers of wool and a down jacket before joining him outside. He hands you the shovel, and you pick up where he left off, slowly clearing what remains of the snow.

He returns with two hot cups of Rooibos tea, handing you one, then grabs a bag of salt from the garage and scatters it over the sidewalk. A short while later, your mother joins, followed by your two sisters. The weight of your mother’s palm on your back settles you. You raise your head and meet her gaze as she walks by toward your father. She smiles, and you smile back.

Your sisters begin throwing snowballs at each other. One catches your right shoulder. You look up to scold them, but another strikes your chest. You toss the shovel aside, roll a snowball, and start firing back at the two of them. They shriek and they run off. 

Their laughter rises into the morning air and falls back, soothing you.

They dash past the magnolia tree in your compound and out through the black, wrought-iron gate. You notice the hint of pink in the swelling buds of the magnolia tree. 

You walk over for a closer inspection, and take a deep breath—it is early spring, and these are the last days of snow. 

Your father will be leaving again for work in a week, you think to yourself, and your mother will have to hold everything together until next winter. 

You glance around for the cup of tea your father handed you. It rests on the hood of your mother’s Audi. You pick it up and head inside to warm it but decide instead to return to your room for a late morning nap. 

As you drift off, your mother’s joy, your sisters’ quarrels, and your father’s busy hands rush through your bedroom window and fill your ears.

***

She is gone now—the young woman who offered herself to me on a platter. I took her on a quiet walk somewhere beyond the premises of my life and left her alone there. In the end, I suppose we are all sinners—a mix of good people who do horrid things and bad people who have some good in them.

I would like to think I am the former, though she might say otherwise.

I am sorry about Ezekiel. He was never yours.

True connection—the kind that you need—will be mundane, like a Saturday morning at home with family. Its warmth is incomparable.

The plane has begun its descent, and the flight crew are making their final rounds. The young father-to-be sitting next to me is now sleeping.

Regarding the question he asked me earlier, I told him it is important that he stays close to his wife and child. I also said that the quality of the time he spends with them matters more than anything else. The decision of where they should live, I added, should be made between the two of them—that while her family may mean well, their position does not take him seriously enough.

He agreed with me, but said he does not want to come between his wife and her family. If his mother were still alive, he said, he would have someone on his side to look after his wife. I wonder if he has considered that perhaps his wife is capable of managing on her own without her family, or if he is simply frightened by the responsibility of moving them to Beijing. Perhaps she has remained silent on the matter because she senses his hesitation.

In the end, he concluded that Berlin was where he met her, where they had fallen in love, and that the city holds, in its cusps, the version of themselves he believes is—in his words—essential to the survival of their union.

I remain undecided on where I stand regarding his view of the fragility of the bond holding his marriage together. But I understand why he has, perhaps unintentionally, sided with his in-laws. Becoming a wife, a mother, and a new resident in a foreign country can bend even the most willing hearts and strain even the strongest bonds.

I have to put away my things now. I will be in London for a month before traveling down to Enugu to see my parents. Come see me on Sunday, March 9th, if you can. I will be visiting my god sister in the middle of the week and should be done with my medical appointments by then. We could go to church together if you come out early enough.

Here is the address where I am staying on Addison Road:
*7 Addison Rd, London W14 8EB, UK.

May the spring wind continue to blow your way,

With love, from Seat 27A, British Airways

Uchenna Onyishi.