Remy slammed the door shut forcefully, cursing under her breath. The car shook.

“Eh-eh,” Ailsa exclaimed. “Auntie. Please.”

“Sorry,” Remy said. She busied herself with getting settled, as Ailsa watched, letting her shoes fall to the floor of the car.

“Are we all set?” Ailsa asked.

“Mmmm…” Remy rummaged through her handbag, located her phone and charger, and nodded. “Yep!”

Ailsa shifted her foot from the brake pedal to the accelerator, and they climbed the short drive to the gate, which was opened by a rather serious looking security guard in a sharply ironed black and white uniform. He saluted as the car idled by. Remy blithely wriggled her fingers at him in return.

As they turned into the main road. From her street, Remy cursed. “Oh damn!”

Ailsa had to stop herself from slamming on the brake pedals. “What? What?”

“I forgot my-” Remy paused and reached into the glove compartment, retrieving a pack of cigarettes. “Okay good. I was afraid you had thrown these out.”

“Why are you keeping those in my car Remy? My mum could’ve opened that and thought I’d started smoking.”

“When’s the last time your mum was in your car?”

Ailsa didn’t respond, and Remy tossed the Marlborough pack in her bag, fished out a lipstick and angled the rear-view mirror towards herself.

Ailsa shook her head and turned up the radio slightly.

It was always like this with Remy. She was a whirlwind of a person in Ailsa’s mind. She would sweep into rooms, bringing with her the scent of expensive perfume, and commotion that swept up everyone and everything around her.

There was a permanent absentminded-ness to her personality that dominated everything she did. She was perpetually late, always seemed to have forgotten to do this, or that, and always emerged from the house carrying her purse, shoes and a few loose items she had only just managed to grab on her way out. Coupled with a moderately flippant approach, this not only made her careless, but cool. She was the antithesis of Ailsa’s overthinking.

Remy was a few years older than Ailsa - their mothers were around the same ages, and had formed a close friendship during their time at medical school. The resulting relationship between Ailsa and Remy was closer to sisterhood than friendship.

On Mondays, like today, the restaurant wasn’t open to the public, but would be closed to receive deliveries, a thorough cleaning and rehearsals for the band. If they were lucky, Mikhail would be in the kitchen with Davis, the head chef, going over a new recipe for the menu or improving an old one.

Ailsa had planned to spend the day watching a few movies, but Remy had called her and said she’d needed a lift to rehearsals. After some begging, pleading and promises to be ready and out of the house as soon as Ailsa arrived at Remy’s house, Ailsa had relented.

“What happened to your car?” Ailsa remembered to ask. Remy hadn’t been clear on the phone.

“Eh. Mum took my keys again.”

“Remy!”

“We went out on Sunday and I hit something! I wasn’t even drunk Ails. Not even tipsy. I just couldn’t see, it was dark.” She sighed and fluffed up her hair. “Anyway. Sean said it needs a new battery.”

Remy was always mentioning people. Ailsa had no idea if they were all friends with Remy or romantic interests, and she had long since stopped asking for clarification on the matter after receiving wildly different and conflicting answers in the past.

“When she took them, she was saying again that I need to get married. - So many people are getting married Ails. It’s not fair.”

“I know,” Ailsa piped.

“I’m like why guys?” Remy lamented. She wouldn’t admit it, but Remy dodged commitment like most cats dodged water.

“If I found one good guy, I’d be getting married too Ailsa. Just one.” She pushed the rear-view mirror back towards Ailsa. As Ailsa adjusted it to better reflect the cars behind them, Remy began to pull on her shoes.

“You forgot about Wanga.”

Remy shot Ailsa a long look, and it took everything in her not to laugh. Wanga and Remy had dated for 3 years, until Remy, sensing an impending proposal, had broken it off. “Wanga was boring, Ails. You know that. He was so serious all the time.”

“Okay,” Ailsa said.

“Just focus on your driving.”

“I’m focusing.”

“Yeah, do that.”

If history was anything to go by, Remy would now lament on her mother wanting her to find a “proper job”, and put her bachelor’s degree to good use. It was a constant source of contention between Remy and her mother that Remy was singing at the restaurant instead of taking the corporate world by storm. Remy was extremely clever – in high school, she had been in the same year group as Andrei’s brother, Kristoff. She actually had the top grades of their graduating class.

However, after she graduated, Remy studied business administration, a degree which was - according to Ailsa’s mother – a dime a dozen. After she had graduated – again, among the top students in her class, Remy had suddenly decided she wanted to explore her singing talents, and put a halt to all her mother’s vicarious plans on academia.

Remy’s phone started to buzz, and she pulled it from her purse and pressed it to her ear with a sigh.

Remy’s phone was always ringing. Ailsa did not resent this fact. Nor did she compare it to her own phone, which was rather silent in comparison. She simply wondered if Remy ever got tired of it. Of always having people want to talk to you every day, all day about this and that. Remy’s phone probably didn’t ring as much as Ailsa imagined it did, but this was immaterial in Ailsa’s musings.

Ailsa wondered if Remy had time to herself to simply think. Just ten minutes of uninterrupted silence, where her phone didn’t ping or vibrate or buzz with some incoming call or text or anything. In Ailsa’s mind, Remy had never gotten through a single activity without coming back to find at least a handful of new notifications. If she were Remy, Ailsa believed she would simply turn it off one day and never look back.

*

“Is Mikhail in the kitchen?” Ailsa asked. Sekani was busy restocking the bar, but he had paused to answer the greeting Remy had thrown over her shoulder as she half-ran towards the stage, where the rest of the band was waiting.

The band was comprised of older, dreadlocked men Ailsa had yet to learn to differentiate from one another. They all had some-what wiry frames and faces that were youthful, but for the wrinkles creased around their eyes. Their names were Mabvuto, John, Joshua and Felix; known to Ailsa only because of Remy, her interactions with them were limited to the odd song every now and then. Nevertheless, she rather liked them, and according to Remy, they were a riot after a few drinks.

“Not today,” Sekani said. “I think he’s meeting with a supplier.”

Ailsa hoisted herself onto a bar stool along the short leg of the L-shaped bar.

“You want something to drink?” Sekani offered.

“Your most expensive bottle,” Ailsa retorted. Sekani smiled to himself and continued to lift bottles onto a polished wooden shelf overhead. She watched him work for a moment, then turned to the stage, where she could hear Remy apologising for being late. They were all gathered around the keyboard.

“What did you do this weekend?” Sekani piped.

Ailsa watched his back as he worked. He was wearing a black t-shirt with a lime-green logo that danced every time he lifted his arms.

“I was here,” she said, after a short pause.

“When you weren’t here. What did you do?”

“Ah, nothing… I was just at home. I had a weird dream though-”

The “STAFF ONLY” doors swung open, to Ailsa’s right and Mikhail emerged, dressed as always in a pristine white golf-shirt. “Ah!” He boomed, as his eyes settled on Ailsa. “My favourite!”

An old friend of Ailsa’s father; Ailsa had known Mikhail for most of her life. She had yet to ascertain what exactly she was Mikhail’s favourite at being. He had simply taken to calling her his favourite one day when she was about 5, and the nickname had stuck.

On numerous occasions, she had retorted “Your favourite what, Uncle Mikhail?”

“Just my favourite!” He would boom. Mikhail was perpetually booming. It was as though his voice reverberated in his round belly before it came out, amplified for all to hear. He would have been labelled boisterous for it, but because he was wealthy, he was said to be jovial.

“Hi Uncle Mikhail,” Ailsa called.

“Hullo!” he suddenly stopped in the doorway, checked his watch (it was as flashy as its owner) and gasped. The person behind him almost collided with him. “Sorry, sorry,” Mikhail said, continuing into the restaurant.

Behind Mikhail was Mada, carrying a tray of freshly laundered napkins, well starched and piled high.

Mikhail paused, and Mada carried on, giving his boss a wide berth out of respect. Behind Mada scurried the new waitress, struggling under the weight of a large tray packed with glass tumblers.

“Come on,” Mikhail said, and Ailsa realised there was another party to the procession, who had kindly held the door open for Mada and the waitress.

For a moment, they were half-hidden by the soft indoor lighting, and she thought it was a tall stranger. As they emerged into the restaurant, she realised it was Andrei.

He flashed her a quick smile, and her eyes slid to Mikhail inquisitively as she returned it.

“You know, he told me he knew my favourite!” Mikhail offered, throwing his hands up in wonder. Ailsa cringed at the pet-name, but Mikhail, having deposited Andrei in Ailsa’s hands, was already making his exit.

Her uncle hurried off to make a phone call, leaving a faint trail of Paco Rabanne in his wake. Andrei politely climbed onto a stool and greeted Sekani, who gave a gruff response and promptly busied himself with polishing the far end of the bar. “Well, hello,” Ailsa said, a little unsurely. She hadn’t expected him to sit down, as though he was here to have a long conversation. It made her slightly self-conscious. Remy would definitely have something to say about this. Ailsa felt it in her bones.

“How are you?”

“Great, how are you?”

“Pretty good.”

They looked at each other. Ailsa remembered she was supposed to text him.

He hadn’t actually meant that had he? He was bound to bring it up soon if he did.

“What are you doing here?” Ailsa asked. It was a little tactless, and she smiled kindly to offset this.

“You may be new clients of ours,” Andrei said. “If things work out.”

Ah. So, this is the supplier Sekani was talking about.

The Antonopouloses owned large poultry farms located in the south and central regions in the country. And indeed, on every supermarket and local grocery shelf in the country, you could find Duwa eggs. The business was named for Andrei’s paternal grandmother Rose, whose name was roughly translated into Chichewa to adorn egg cartons and frozen chickens. Everyone knew the story of Duwa’s eggs! There was a short paragraph about its history on every carton label. The business had grown from a small hobby Andrei’s grandfather had started shortly before his early retirement from the medical profession.

From time to time, when Ailsa ate eggs, it would amuse her to think that she actually knew the celebrated Duwa’s grandson.

“The other night was about becoming a supplier as well?” Ailsa asked. It seemed a lot of trouble for some eggs and chicken pieces, even if money was involved.

“No that was… I heard the food was good. And I like jazz, so,” He shrugged.

Just as Ailsa gave him a smile and started to respond, the band started playing.

She was forced to repeat herself. “I’m here for rehearsals!”

“Are you going to sing?” Andrei asked. He sounded genuinely interested.

She shook her head vehemently, and he gave an exaggerated pout, which made her laugh. It looked as though he wanted to say something else, but was hesitating.

Ailsa glanced at Sekani, who seemed to be making a point of focusing on his work. She turned back to Andrei, who it seemed, had taken it seriously when Mikhail had deposited him on Ailsa.

They talked about simple things; high school and what they had been up to in the years since their departure. She thought she was doing a lot of the talking, and she was, but she learned about him too; that he had gone to university in the UK, and had studied economics.

“Did you like it there?” she asked.

There was a small flowerpot between them. Usually, it would hang from the bar awning overhead, but Sekani had taken it down to give it a good wipe with a damp cloth. Andrei paused and picked a small pink bud from it, gently rolling it between his fingers. She had a moment of clarity as she watched him, and thought to herself about how strange it was to be sitting with Andrei Antonopoulos at a bar/restaurant on a warm Monday afternoon.

Andrei looked up and smiled when he met her eyes.

She wondered if he could read her thoughts.

“Yeah, I liked it.” He said.

Of course, he did.

“Why? What did you like about it?”

“I don’t know… the course was challenging; the people were cool… Great environment… it just felt right, you know?”

Life would always fall into place for him.

Ailsa found herself picking a bud too. But when it was in her hand, she didn’t quite know what to do with it, and held it still between her index finger and thumb.

“What about you? Do you like insurance?” Andrei asked

She debated, and then let the small pink flower slip from between her fingers. “No.” she said, honestly.

“Why?”

The words struggled on Ailsa’s lips.

She was doing what her parents wanted. It had always worked before, and She’d never felt trapped or unhappy doing it. It seemed reasonable to her. Studying insurance was something her mother had said she would do and she was doing it. But for the first time, she felt… unhappy.

Ailsa knew she could think for herself, but it seemed above her somehow.

A year ago, when she had returned home, time had seemed to stretch before her. Filled with a sense of freedom and an inexplicable, but overwhelming relief that she wouldn’t be going back for a while, Ailsa had shut everything to do with the university in her suitcase and shoved it under her bed.

It was strange because Ailsa had never been more at liberty in her life. She could be anyone she wanted to be, and the options were limitless. She could party and drink all day if she wanted. She could be a very studious, pensive person who only had serious conversations with serious people. She could join one of the reverent youth groups, she could be a loner, she could be a poet or an artist or a thespian. A writer. A musician.

She could be anything.

She could do anything.

But something just felt amiss. Time passed, not with the fluidity of water, but with the viscosity of mud. Things paled there too - colours just didn’t seem as bright.

Consciously, it was difficult to perceive that she hated it there, but subconsciously, she must have known. She always felt helpless and dreaded going back when she came home. It just didn’t seem like a real problem, because there was nothing, she could put her finger on and put to fault. She simply didn’t like it.

African parents were good sensible people. They wanted nothing less than for their children to grow up better than they had and for them to see their grandchildren grow up even better. This came from studying for sensible degrees and pursuing lucrative careers thereafter.

It affected her future children. And possibly her distant relatives in the villages. They’d only ever been told how well she did at school and this was what they expected to hear. After all, one day to some degree, they would probably depend on her.

And this in itself was a problem. Ailsa hadn’t grown up around them, and devoid of that nearness, felt no real ties to them. she didn’t understand why they’d look to her for sustenance any more than she’d run crying to them if she had troubles.

It was un-African of her, but she didn’t want to help them. It was her hard work they’d be living off of, all for that old African value that you didn’t turn a relation away.

She would fight herself on this point, knowing that those relatives hadn’t had the same opportunities as she had, and weren’t fortunate enough to be studying for a Bachelor of Insurance Management. She would sail into a future of opulence and comfortable living. She had the security of knowing her meals would always come, but the relatives would continue to rely on the unpredictable rains.

It wasn’t until a couple of days after she had shoved her suitcase under her that she recognised the action as a coping mechanism. And yet Ailsa didn’t dare think it, even to herself, that she didn’t want to go back. It didn’t seem like she had the option not to.

And then her aunt Vi had died. And it didn’t seem important anymore whether she liked insurance management or not. She was almost finished anyway. There would be no use in starting all over again.

But would Andrei understand it all? What was the point of telling him, even if he genuinely wanted to know? They wouldn’t hang out again.

“I just don’t.” she said. “It just wasn’t what I expected.”

“Hmm.” Andrei reached towards her unexpectedly, and she stilled. “I’m sorry about that.” he said, leaving the flower in her hair.

“Well.” She smiled. She was fighting not to reach up to her hair. She didn’t know whether she wanted to tuck the flower more securely into it or to pluck it out completely, but her face was warm from the closeness of the gesture.

He certainly was a strange fellow.

“I’m going to get going now.” He said, after a moment. “I’ve got some errands to run. It was nice catching up though,”

“Yes,” Ailsa managed.

He got down from the stool.

“You still owe me a text,” he said catching her eye. She gave a short, guilty laugh. “Maybe I’ll see you next Monday.”

“Maybe,” She said, noncommittally.

“Wasn’t that that Antonopoulos guy?” Remy said, when Andrei had gone. She had come down from the stage, to the bar when the band was taking a break. “The one you and all your friends were always talking about in high school?”

“We weren’t always talking about him,” Ailsa protested.

“Okay. You’re right. You were always talking about him sometimes.”

Ailsa laughed, and Remy sat down where Andrei had been.

“I bet you’re going to text them all now,” She teased. She put on a high, whiny voice. “Oh, we went to a bar and talked for hours…”

“Ha-ha!” Ailsa said, keeping a straight face. “Other people were obsessed with him, Remy. I wasn’t. I didn’t understand why everyone made such a fuss about him.”

Remy ignored this. “What did you all call him again? The B… The baseball? The baby?”

“The baby?” Ailsa repeated. She gave a short laugh. “He was called the Battery.”

“Right! The Battery!” Remy sipped from her hot-pink water bottle. “You know,” She said slowly. “His brother was a douche.” She spat the word like it was a sour grape. “He was always talking about ‘my grandfather’ this and ‘my grandfather’ that. You’d have thought they owned a bank. Not some chickens.”

“I don’t think Andrei’s like that,” Ailsa said quietly. At least, he hadn’t seemed that way.

“I hope not,” Remy said. “People like that never seem to grow out of behaving like privileged idiots.”

*

After dropping Remy off at a nearby friend’s house, Ailsa began the short journey home. Because her thoughts were occupied by the conversation she had had with Andrei, she had slowed down to almost a crawl. Ailsa’s intentions were to avoid any accidents that would occur as a result of her being preoccupied, but she was fortunate that the lunchtime rush was over and people were back at work. Someone surely would have cursed her off the road by now. Malawians were not angry people by any means, but anybody would have been frustrated at the decreased speed at which the little green Nissan March was ambling by.

She was stuck on the suitcase she had shoved under her bed. In her mind, it was like an elephant in a room… But, instead of standing in the corner, this elephant was lying under her mattress and she was sleeping on top of it… this in itself was like the story of the princess and the pea… but instead of marrying the prince, all that awaited her was parental disappointment. She decided she would name the matter “the suitcase-elephant”.

There was a large pond near her house, located to one side of a rather sudden dip in the road. For drivers who didn’t know it was there, the pond came as a lovely surprise. It was somewhat of an Easter-egg in an otherwise ordinary neighbourhood.

When Ailsa’s family had originally moved to Lilongwe, they had all gasped in surprise when they had first laid eyes on the pond, its waters gleaming silver under the late afternoon sun. Ailsa’s mum and dad had said how beautiful it was, and Ailsa had agreed. Her father had even slowed the car down as the car moved into the dip in the road, and they had all turned to look at this natural wonder; so reminiscent of the lake of stars itself.

It was expressed at least a dozen times by Ailsa, her mother and her aunt that they would one day walk to the pond; perhaps to have a picnic or simply sit and chat. After all, it wasn’t that far away from where they lived. Finally, when Ailsa had grown tired of simply stating she would go, she had gone. Her mother had been tired and her aunt had been asleep, and so Ailsa had gone alone. It was every bit as lovely as she thought it would be, soured only by the fact that she had gone alone.

The water had danced enticingly, little town birds skimming its surface lazily, reeds swayed in a gentle breeze. It was like a little slice of Lake Malawi right in the middle of town, and it had made Ailsa think of her childhood; days spent in her swimming costume, grains of sand infiltrating everything, and the faint smell of fish in the air as she watched fish-eagles dive into the water.

“How was it?” Her mother asked, when she had returned. And then, when she had described it, “We will go!”

Aunt Vi had agreed. And then she had died a few days later.

They had never gone.

Ailsa pulled her car over to a small clearing to her left. There was no one behind her, but she signalled dutifully before coaxing her car off of the smooth tarmac onto the sparse gravel beside it.

She fetched her bag and made sure the car was locked, before she made her way down to the pond. It was a quiet afternoon, and there was nobody around, not even by the little flower nursey where she had parked her car. Ailsa thought of the owners.

Didn’t they worry someone would steal the plants?

The plants were defenceless and looked lonely in their individual black plastic casings. Still, by this simple gesture of leaving the plants unattended, there was something to be said of the honour system in Malawi.

There were two large rocks placed a few metres away from the water, just close enough to ensure that if anybody sat there, they would not come away fretting about mud on their shoes. Ailsa sat on the more comfortable of the two (the other being slightly pointed on top) and took a deep breath. She imagined for a moment she was at the lake… that the air smelled faintly fishy and there was sand underfoot, as well as the constant lapping of waves against the shore.

The thoughts in her mind were silenced as she set this scene in her mind. Wishing the peace to last when she opened her eyes, she fished out a book from her bag.

The book jacket was creased, and so it was evident that at a point, the book had been well thumbed. However, now its pages were pressed firmly together, and it seemed that the book had been buried under several heavy items and not opened for a long time. It was a colourful cover – awash in a bright leafy shade of green with brown, orange, white and black used to depict a rather curious scene. There was a church in the background, with a small white cross atop a thick thatched roof. Next to the church, with its curious blackened windows, seemed to be a missionary. He was wearing a white suit, some strange head gear Ailsa imagined to be a hat with mosquito netting, and held a small black bible in his hands. Next to him, with only a miniscule loincloth, was a native man, black as those church windows.

There was dense vegetation, some plant with large leaves and a figure in an elaborate traditional mask and head gear. To Ailsa, such people were called Gule Wamkulu, a secret cult of the Chewa people whose mysterious ways transcended them into more than mere humans. Aunt Vi called them animals.

And it was Aunt Vi’s book; Ailsa’s mother had placed it on the bookshelf in the home office when they had gone through Aunt Vi’s things. Ailsa had found it on top of the other books, and had understood that the book had been placed there almost as an afterthought. She had picked it up and tucked it securely away in her own room, and now she was sitting here at the pond, reading it at last.

She came to the pond regularly, as though her frequent pilgrimages would atone for her Aunt not having visited the pond before she died. In her mind, reading the book there, by the water’s edge somehow cemented her aunt’s presence there.

The title read; Things Fall Apart.

She opened the book, the dry paper making soft crackling sounds as they were pried apart after so many years. Just inside the cover, her aunt had printed her name, in rather small capital letters.

Ailsa brought her hand up, imagining a younger version of her aunt, perhaps Ailsa’s age, making this inscription all those years ago. She turned the page, hoping for something more. The page cracked rather loudly. Ailsa looked around, as though she was sitting in the type of place one ought not to make loud noises and she had just done so; like a library perhaps, or the room of a sleeping infant. There was only a small brown bird perched on a nearby reed. It had turned its head suddenly at the sound, its beady eye angled in her direction as if in reproach.

That’s ridiculous, she thought. But quietly, she said, “I’m sorry.”

The bird took off.

She gently bent the book, loosening up the pages as they curved this way and that. Something fell from between the pages and into her lap.

Ailsa reached for the paper, which she now saw was a photograph. It had landed face-first; rescued from the dirt by the hammock formed by the skirt of her dress. On the back was a repeating logo with the words “Super No.1 Photo Studio” in piped lettering, yellowed with age. But over this, in thick pencil was simply a year, 1981, and the word “Vi”.

There was Aunt Vi, in a knee-length pencil skirt; tan against her warm brown skin. Her shirt was coral coloured and baggy, with puffy sleeves, and her hair was styled in a voluminous bob. She looked so young and full of life, leaning coquettishly against a wall. Her face was angled to her right, as though she had been listening to someone speak just before the shutter clicked. She was wearing those curious long shoes with low heels that used to be in fashion during the eighties.

There was someone next to her, but all Ailsa could make out was some powder blue, polka-dot material, and part of an arm placed on a waist.

Ailsa turned the photo over again, noting a small pencil mark just under 1981. Hugging the edge of the photo was a figure that might have been part of the capital letter “D”. Perhaps the caption had included the name of both women, Aunt Vi and her friend, but they were now lost to time.

Ailsa turned the photo back over. The white border around the photo extended ran all the way around, except for the right edge. The picture had definitely been cut.

Ailsa stared at it for a moment longer, and resolved to show it to her mother later. Perhaps she would know who the other woman was.