FALLING

The body by its own weight gravitates towards its own place. Weight goes not downward only, but to its own place. Fire tends upwards, a stone downwards. They are propelled by their own weights, they seek their own places. Oil poured under the water is raised above the water; water poured upon oil sinks under the oil. They are propelled by their own weights, they seek their own places. Out of order, they are restless; restored to order, they are at rest. My weight is my love; by it am I borne whithersoever I am borne.

—Saint Augustine (354-430) Confessions.
Book XIII. Chapter 9
Translated by J. G. Pilkington.

You think often of gravity. And more specifically, falling. Falling because you are clumsy and certain you have dyspraxia — you find going up the stairs particularly challenging because you routinely miscalculate the distance between each step and stumble. Falling because it is one of the first things you read about in the Bible: how the first set of humans fell into sin and out of grace and doomed everyone to a life of pain, violence and suffering. Falling because all your life you studied and prayed about not falling for the wiles of the devil “[y]our adversary, [who] walks about like a roaring lion, seeking to devour someone.” Falling as a metaphor for life. Falling as a state of being. Falling as a cautionary tale. Falling for a scam. Falling in love.

Ice skating in Berlin, you still recoil in fear when you see anyone fall. You are working on your reactions. Apart from extreme injuries, the ice rink is that one place where it is acceptable to fall, where people do not feel fremdschämen when an adult falls — they allow themselves have eye contact, smile and laugh along with the person who has fallen at the absurdity of being flat on the ice.

People skating with friends are especially not in a hurry to get up when they fall.  The friends gather round, laugh, before offering a hand. For a few seconds, the fallen one is at rest, almost as if they are restored to order, to a childlike state where falling is still acceptable, where everyone agrees it is not shameful.

You are thinking of all of the times you have fallen into feelings that could have been love. The times when falling made you restless and you kicked and squirmed on the floor of this feeling and the times when you have fallen and just lain there, flat, closing your eyes, inhaling, your muscles relaxing as if that is where you belong.

***

When you first see N, you feel it like a stab in the chest, a spear through your heart. The first time you see her, the first time she invades your senses and becomes a permanent fixture in your consciousness, coursing through your veins, swimming along, reaching your heart, and all your organs, it is a hot Friday. You have just moved back to the city after one horrific year with your parents, where you became a child again, with a curfew, and still pretending to be a loyal Jehovah’s Witness.

You are back and there are things to be done. You need to review the year you spent away, caused by a terrified horse you rented at Jabi Park, Abuja flinging you into a pile of huge rocks. You right ankle was caught in the rocks and you broke a bone. You then lost your job, and the room in a house you once lived in, in a nice part of Nigeria’s affluent capital.

You need to make a decision and convey that decision to your parents: you no longer wish to be part of the very strict religion you have practiced since you were old enough to speak. You need to decide for yourself what this means: a temporary break or a final one. Do you still believe in the religions interpretation of life and the religious texts you had to read every week? Do you still believe in a god? What if you met someone? Could you ever get married? Because if you knew anything, it was that your parents would not set foot in a place of worship that was not theirs, not even if their first son was getting married. Worse still, they would never sit through a service officiated by a person of another religion and witness firsthand how you were becoming unevenly yoked with an unbeliever. You had been formally expelled from the religion, which meant that shunning was now in effect: all communication between non-family members of the religion you had grown up around was strictly forbidden and the only communication allowed between your immediate family and you, was necessary communication: organising burials, dealing with finances, receiving news of births and deaths, or medical care.

But on this Friday, after being away for a whole year, you are just excited to see your friends in the literary community in the capital again. Someone had asked if you could lead the open mic session since the main anchor was running late. You are glad to do this.

Left column. Three rows down. First seat. Unfamiliar face. The most striking eyes you have ever seen. She sits still, upright, and looks straight ahead, almost through you.

Five jokes in, thigh slapping laughter all around, but she does not flinch. Does not smile. Does not frown either. Her face is a blank unreadable slate. You tell your best jokes. Everyone — except the one person whose face you want to broaden into a smile — is laughing. You decide to take it a step further and ask her what she thinks. She shakes her head to tell you she has nothing to say.

At the end you make a beeline for her. You will find out why. Did you say something offensive? Did she perhaps speak a different first language and found it hard to follow?

She followed everything, she says.

She loved everything, she says.

She would rather listen than speak, she says.

You do not push the issue. Up close, her eyes are even more breathtaking, and before you can think of it, you feel the words leaving your mouth.

—I am going for a drink once we pack up here. Do you want to join me?

Immediately, almost before you can hope to god that she will at least consider it, she says yes. Nothing tentative. No conditions. Just a firm, resolute, yes. You are shocked. For a second you wonder if it is sarcasm. Perhaps she means, yes, of course I am going to have drinks at past 10pm with a strange man I just met.

Her face remains the same. And you break out of your reverie, running to pack up the chairs and put them away before she changes her mind.

As you return from putting the chairs away, you see her, standing in a circle with others who also appear to want to hang out. People are introducing themselves to her.

—Are you married? Someone asks.

You are not sure what context you have missed but you wait to find out.

One person says no. Another says yes.

They turn to her and ask: And you?

—Yes, she says. I am married.

You freeze, trying not to show any shock. Why then did she say yes to having drinks with you so quickly?

Then it starts, the process of forcing your thoughts out of the zone of desire. You deaden your body members, say to yourself, this is only drinks, she is proudly married, don’t be that man who thinks women are easy just because they said yes to drinks.

You will ask about her husband, not to show discomfort, but to show the opposite. To show you are not that man; that you can be genuinely interested in talking to a woman without wanting to fuck her. And when she answers, you will not break eye contact, you will nod and ask follow up questions, the kind that say: I am listening, I am interested, I think this is all so fascinating.

July.

August.

September.

October.

November.

And you still have not stopped going for drinks, being attentive, you still keep eye contact but now because you want to, because it fires up something inside you when her eyes and lips widen into a smile, when she laughs. You still ask about her husband because now you convince yourself that you do not feel anything for this woman you see three to four times a week. You now have a favourite spot, a run down establishment with a back room that provides privacy as you drink your beers and eat your roasted catfish. The hugs you give at the end of each long evening last longer each time, stopping just before there is anything manifestly inappropriate.

You are not in love with her.

You cannot be in love with her.

But you need to prove this to yourself. Once, a friend you had a fling with told you: I see the way you look at that woman you call your friend. Your eyes cannot lie.

So you suggest to N that you want to meet. You and this friend, N and her husband. You will cook. And everything will be fine.

The dinner happens, it is even a success. You show off your culinary skills, and you have evidence that nothing inappropriate is going on between you and the wife of this smart, soft spoken man who works in a different city from his wife.

The only weekends you do not see her, are weekends when her husband is in town, once maybe twice a month.

December.

January.

You tell her everything. When you have finished writing a story you like. When you have finished reading a story you love. When you find a new spot to hang out. When you find a new person to have sex with. When the new person realises you are not the kind to commit and you start to have fights. When you stop sleeping with the new person.

Each time you meet someone new, each time she knows you are sleeping with another woman you feel less guilty. About seeing her face when you close your eyes. About seeing her face at work, on your bed, on your floor, in your tiny bathroom. About hanging out with her, for too long.

So you do the hard thing. Lying on the couch in your friend J’s flat, you begin typing messages to her. 

You cannot do this anymore,
cannot bear the tugging at your heart each time she lets go of you.
You cannot keep waking up each day counting the hours until you see her.
You cannot keep not caring when someone notices that your pupils dilate when you see her or when someone mentions her name.
You cannot be sure that you will not, the next time you both linger after a goodbye hug, ask for a kiss and ruin this friendship forever.

She writes back.

She understands.
This might be for the best.
A sensible thing to do.
She will miss you.
Very much.

When you put down the phone, you are seized with a heady breathless feeling. You pace and then lie back down, your face buried in the couch.

J is silent, smiling. Normally he would make fun of you but he has not seen you like this, maybe ever. Yes you cried when your brother died and when you talked about him shortly after but this is different.

When you sniffle, he says playfully but tenderly: Nana!

He calls you Nana as his way of being affectionate. Because men will not say to each other, you mean a lot to me. Because they will not say, I love you.

The cavity in your chest grows smaller. The walls in the room pull closer. You try to swallow but your mouth is dry. But your eyes aren’t.

—This is so fucking hard, you manage.

And you sob, letting the tears flow into his couch.

—Nana… he says again, softer this time. He walks around the room, pretending to put things in order to avoid the awkwardness of his friend and fellow lawyer crying over a woman who was never his in the first place.

You would never say this, and he would not want to hear it, but you would love to be held right now. You would love to feel any other pair of hands that aren’t yours. But Nana, is all you will get. Because men don’t tenderly hold men while they cry.

You are restless, out of order.

***

You will capitulate and text her again. Many more times. You will cry many more times before she leaves him. You will feel the crushing weight of guilt each time you walk away after spending hours and hours with her.  Many more times.

Each time you meet her husband who you have come to like, you will rationalise it, telling yourself you have not kissed her, or had sex with her, or been otherwise inappropriate. You will find ways to rationalise spending every waking moment thinking of her, or talking to her or talking about her.

***

When she finally leaves him she assures you, it is not because of you— it was a long time coming. You cannot say what exactly the matter is and you will not ask. Even though you wanted it since that Friday in June, when she asks if you are sure you want to do this properly, your throat gets dry and you feel more terrified than you have ever been.

She is the only one who knows what you truly are, the only one who has seen every side of you. She knows what horrific things you are capable of. She knows the most tender parts of you. She has seen you vicious. She has seen you sob like a baby. She has seen you be a slut around town. She has also seen you want one thing every day, however hard you have tried to hide it.

—I do not like the other you, she says. The loud one, the public one, the one that is brash, scandalous, provocative.

—This is the you I know, that many people do not see. The kind one. The caring one. The loving one. The tender one.

She does not understand why you always have to be confrontational in public and in politics. Why you indulge your every whim. Why you feel the need to say shocking, sometimes hurtful things, to people you do not know. You feel stripped down, naked before her. For the first time, there is someone you cannot pretend with, who sees the parts you keep tucked away, suppressed. In her presence an unbundling occurs and you cannot perform like you have always done. Your magic spells do not work here.

You feel your soul curling up into a fetal position, and all your haughtiness begin to melt away. She is a mirror in front of you and you wear no clothes, no skin. The flesh beneath transparent, you see how the blood courses through your veins, you see your heart beating, you see your soul and you want to scream. You can’t scream. You hate what you see but you know that it was all made by you. Every inch of ugliness is the work of your own hands.

You want to ask her why. Why she is giving someone as covered in soot as you are entry into this clean space of hers. But you know she will assure you that it is not as clean as you think it is. You see it for the first time, the audacity of thinking that you could compliment her, you see your true self, the one you have hidden from yourself, standing beside. For the first time you feel totally unworthy.

—Are you sure?

Yes you feel unworthy. And naked. The fear begins to melt away, slowly. Your stomach stops trembling and you realise you do not mind that she sees you in all of your imperfection. Maybe this is it. Someone who makes you confront all of your ugliness, but someone who makes you want to reach for the light, stop running, and start cleaning up all the filth that can be cleaned.

You cannot remember ever stopping to breathe. Now you just want to curl up and lie beside her.

You stop. And start to put down your baggage, one by one.

Yes.

Yes.

You want it. More than you have ever wanted anything before.

Things which are not in their intended position are restless. You are not sure of many things. Of religion. Of the existence of god. Of the career you have chosen. But you are sure that your weight is your love. That if she says yes, properly leaves her husband, you will be restored to order, stop going home with every person who will have you, commit, share a bed, a kitchen, a home.

It is in her eyes that she knows she is taking a risk. The only thing she seems sure about is that her marriage is over. That she must find a way of also being restored to order. She doesn’t know if you are that order. If you or this, whatever this is, will give her rest. But she will try it.

You make promises. To her. But mostly to yourself. Your impulsiveness will stop. For the first time you will be proud to publicly call someone your partner. You will tame your roving eyes.

You are not sure how this will work. N is calm, contemplative, reserved. You are boisterous, brash, irreverent. She comes from a village. You have never lived in a village. You fear she might be frigid. She fears you might be insatiable.

But you have never met anyone who is, as hackneyed as it may sound,  everything you have ever wanted, everything you have ever hoped for, and more. You have never been so sure of anything in your life, have never felt so totally seized by something so brutally clear, grounding you so firmly in a reality you have for so long hidden from.

This weight is your love. And at least for a while you are not restless. You have asked, sought your own place. Like fire she tended upward, out of her shell, out of the zones she used to seek comfort in; and you —formerly a fire leaping upward kicking the air and consuming everything in your path— now a stone tending downwards, laying in her bosom, settled. This will be the first time you will know love, and for a long long while, it will be the only time.

***

The first time you kiss, you will do it in your matchbox flat (if you can call a room barely big enough for a large mattress and desk a flat), sitting on the bed, because that is the only surface wide enough for both of you to sit on. She will have sorted things out at home, moved out. You will have sorted things out and broken off with a couple of casual lovers. Your heart will race. You will close your eyes, feel her lips connect to yours like a shot of heroin through your veins, and instantly slow your heart rate. Every muscle will relax and you will feel your hands reach for her face. It will be glorious, this kiss.