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.