Little Rot

At 8:43 pm, Ola gets a phone call from Souraya. Crying, Souraya tells her she is downstairs at the hotel and asks Ola to bring water. Ola rushes down and helps Souraya wash the blood off her hands. Ahmed tries to say goodbye to Souraya, but Ola glares at him protectively and ushers her friend inside. She helps Souraya out of her blood-stained dress and into the shower. Ola notices that Souraya’s knife is missing and asks her what happened. She tells Ola about living in New Lagos as a child and a man who “did things to [her] for a long, long time before [she] got away” (257). Ola understands Souraya’s anger. She remembers how Okinosho once tracked down one of the men who hurt her as a gift. He had given her a gun to kill him, but she hadn’t been able to pull the trigger. Instead, one of the bodyguards killed the man while Ola watched.

Souraya says she will catch the first flight back in the morning. She tells Ola she shouldn’t have let her convince her to come back; New Lagos is “rotten,” and she regrets returning. Ola doesn’t take responsibility, but she understands Soraya’s distress. Souraya is packing when Ola gets an angry text from Okinosho; Kalu and Ahmed are late, and he wants Ola to be there, too. Souraya tells her to go, promising not to leave for the airport before her friend returns.

Ola arrives at Okinosho’s at 9:27 to find the pastor “seething.” He calms down after they have sex, and then Ahmed and Kalu arrive with Machi. Okinosho reminds Ahmed that he wanted to kill Kalu for “violat[ing] the earthly vessel of God’s anointed with such impudence” (260), but through Ola, the Holy Spirit gave the pastor a better idea for “divine justice.” He tells Ahmed that Kalu thought himself “superior,” but Kalu is just like everyone else, and Okinosho will endeavor to remind Kalu of this. Ola is “proud” of her plan, which will keep Kalu alive, satisfy Okinosho’s desire for revenge, and pay Machi well enough that she can retire for the rest of her life. Okinosho tells Ahmed that Kalu must have sex with Machi “until he comes,” while Okinosho watches for “proof.” Ahmed goes pale but hides his horror well. When Okinosho leaves the room, he turns on Ola, calling her “sick” for suggesting the plan. Ola reminds Ahmed that the job he hired Machi for was just as “sick” and insists she did him a favor he should be thankful for.

Ola finds Machi in a dressing room, having her makeup fixed. She asks for privacy with the girl to explain the job and tell her how much money she will make. Machi fights back tears when she hears the sum and thanks Ola profusely. Ola reminds her that she still has to do the job, but Machi is “dismissive,” behaving like “such a professional” when she claims the job will be easy (264). Ola thinks the girl’s flippancy is “a fucking shame,” but it also reminds her of herself; she knows that the “world was brutal” and that she “couldn’t save people” (264). She helps Machi finish her makeup and leads her out to meet the men.

Having sex with Machi is “the most humiliating and devastating thing Kalu had ever done and would ever do in his life” (266). He gets undressed in front of Okinosho, Ahmed, Ola, and the already-naked Machi. She looks like a child, and he tries to tell himself that she is 17, that “he wasn’t doing what it looked like” (266). He also reminded himself that “he was being coerced” (266). He must have sex with Machi or die, although he does wonder if death might be a better option. However, Ahmed had begged him to do it, looking close to tears, and Kalu knew he had “no choice.”

Ahmed looks away as Kalu approaches Machi, which he considers hypocritical, “after all those parties” (267). Ola, on the other hand, watches Kalu “like a vulture […] waiting for [him] to rot” (267). Okinosho tells him to “start [his] penance,” and Kalu begins to touch himself. As he does so, he feels “something in him curl and blacken” (268). He thinks that he now knows “what damnation feels like,” and knowing that it is “a corruption he would never recover from” (268), he penetrates Machi.

It’s 11:06 pm, and Ahmed and Kalu drive in silence. Ahmed’s hands are shaky, and he is haunted by the image of Kalu with Machi and his own role in bringing Okinosho’s plan to fruition. He hopes that Kalu was thinking of Aima when he came, but he also considers the possibility that it “had been enough” to think “of the child beneath him” (269). Kalu is silent and unmoving in the passenger’s seat, and Ahmed knows that “whatever personal hell Kalu was in was just beginning” (270). He is overcome with guilt for his role in hurting this friend, but he is also aware that there isn’t anything he could have done differently.

Kalu’s broken phone blinks to life, and Ahmed sees Aima calling. He urges Kalu to answer the phone, telling him that Aima never left New Lagos and that he can still make a life with her. When Kalu answers, he cries as Aima apologizes and tells him that she still wants to be with him. However, to Ahmed’s dismay, Kalu tells Aima that he isn’t the man she thinks he is and can no longer be with her. Aima begs him to tell her what happened, but Ahmed reminds him that he “can’t ever tell her” (272). He suggests they could “try again” after some time, but what Kalu did must always remain a secret. He thinks of killing Seun and his confession to Souraya, how “[h]e’d brought his darkness to her, fucked it into her” and left her with a “hollowed look in her eyes” (273). Kalu argues that a relationship is impossible with secrets of that magnitude and tells his friend he feels like Okinosho “reached inside” and put “a handful of dead things” (273). He feels as if he is “rotting,” just like the woman at Ahmed’s party told him would happen in the city. Ahmed wants to speak, but all he can think of is Seun’s dead body, Machi’s face as Kalu penetrated her, and Souraya crying after killing her abuser. He wants to tell Kalu his secrets and find some relief from the “gutting despair” that they share. However, Kalu says, “It’s too late,” and Ahmed agrees, feeling like “a fault line inside him yawned into something worse” (274). He steps on the gas and “[drives] them both into the night” (274).