Coffee

Wazila was having a strange day. It was a quarter past 12 in the afternoon and she had run through three cups of coffee, 1 full glass of water, and a small shot of agbo ara riro. Her head pounded as she made her way over to her desk with her second glass of water and a limp in her left leg. Before she had settled fully into her chair Amil was asking whether she had any plans for the weekend. She wanted to tell him that this weekend, like she had done every other weekend for the past three months, she would be going to Precious Boutique. She would wear a variation of one of her bubu’s - black this time, and her rubber green sandals, and slip into Joy’s store at 8:30am before any of the other customers arrived. Then she would sit in a corner of the shop and go through bags and bags of clothing, trying to decide which colour was best to die in. Last Saturday, after nearly an hour of searching, she had pulled out a beaded lavender dress, nodded in delight, and cleared half her bank account to buy it on the spot. 

She turned towards Amil to tell him of her Saturday plans at Precious Boutique then smiled when she remembered there would be no clothing store runs this weekend, or ever again. She flashed him the widest smile she’d ever let out at the office and replied, her voice laced with glee, 

“Nothing.”

She pivoted towards her computer and hummed under her breath. 

“Nothing at all?” He asked, breaking the flow of her hum. 

She didn’t know why the question had thrown her. Probably because up until recently Amil had never said more than 5 words at a time to her. He floated around the office in a daze, quietly dropping off and picking up papers from her desk and never making eye contact as he did so. It's funny because she used to be in love with him. 

When she first joined, he’d been the only member of the team not to clap as their manager, Lovette introduced her. Instead he had lurked at the back of the crowd, quickly averting his eyes when Wazila looked at him. She was enamoured instantly. She spent the first four months of her employment asking her colleagues if they wanted anything to drink so she would have an excuse to drop something on his desk every morning. She memorised his order but still asked day in and day out, just for the chance to hear his voice. In the office kitchen she would mix coffee, milk, and two spoonfuls of sugar into a cup. Then, she would whisper the words the friendly witch doctor with the crooked teeth that lived across her apartment had taught her into the cup, and leave it on his table with a smile. 

“I might see my sister.” She said more to the computer than him.

“I didn’t know you had a sister. Is she older or younger?” 

She frowned, thrown even more off balance by the continuation of the conversation. One of the things she used to like the most about Amil was the way he could walk into any room and blanket it in silence. During lunch, he sat in a corner of the canteen picking at his food with cutlery that he would bring from home. When Lovette called for informal team meetings he would always feign illness or preoccupation. He had only ever come for one work party and had spent the night drinking Heineken and rolling his eyes at everyone who approached him- Wazila included. She had told her sister, Layla about him and she’d stared back unblinking as Wazila babbled about the way his veins crisscrossed around his forearms, or the way his lashes framed his eyes, or how his top lip would disappear on the rare occasions that he smiled. When she’d finished speaking Layla had nodded slowly, tilted her head to the side, and asked with no real curiosity,

“So what do you like about him?” 

To which Wazila responded by rolling her eyes the way Amil would do every time she asked a question that wasn’t coffee related. She found the question irritating. She had spent just over half an hour explaining what. He was a hard worker, efficient, and methodical. He approached every day with the same frown, clipped tone, and honesty. The honesty was the what. Wazila had decided she would end her life at 33 when she was 13. She also decided that before she did there was a quota of thrills she had to fill. Since then her whole life was crowded with accusations of her indiscipline, her failure to commit to normalcy, and her dedication to remain, in the words of her mother, uncouth. 

The job she had held with Afritech Solutions was the longest stint of her entire career, and she had only been there under a year. In her teenagehood she filled her time by running away from home, occasionally even crossing state lines. While at university she’d briefly joined a cult, and had only left because Layla had threatened to cut off her allowance. She was, in a word, insufferable. But nobody had ever had the guts to label her that except Amil. He had said that exactly one day, as she hovered over his desk offering to make him coffee again for the third time in five minutes. 

“You are insufferable.” He had said, not looking up from his computer screen. “I’ll take the coffee.” He added a moment later, stretching out his cup to her and still not making eye contact. 

She had nearly skipped on her way to the office kitchen that day. Finally, she thought. After years of living on the fringes of acceptability, of safety, of rationality, somebody had called her what she had spent her whole life striving to be. Her sister had accepted she was doomed by the time she turned 21. Layla had stopped trying, allowing Wazila onto herself. Instead of insults or curses or shouting she resorted to slow, empty smiles. She nodded along to Wazila’s stories, she sent her money whenever she’d ask for it, and she visited Wazila in her two storey apartment every Saturday evening with a cooler full of food. But she’d stopped calling first. She’d stopped hugging Wazila hello and goodbye. And, at least to Wazila, Layla had stopped loving her. 

That day when Amil had stuck his cup out to her she’d reached for it slowly, making sure that her fingers wrapped over his. In the kitchen she had said the incantation thrice, letting a tear fall into the cup. She’d given the coffee to him with shaky hands, spilling half the content down his shirt. When he’d cursed at her she had offered to make him another cup and another and another. He had screamed so loud that people from neighbouring desks came running around to see what had happened. She chased away the worried faces with smiles and platitudes when they swarmed around them. She allowed him to keep screaming, letting his rage wash over her in waves. She knew in her bones that he was right, that she was insufferable, disastrous, and pathetic, and useless. Sometimes, like in that moment, she was all those things at once. But after his screaming he mellowed and stuck out his cup to her again, asking for another coffee. He even, uncharacteristically, made eye contact then. She grabbed the cup with steady hands and walked deftly back to the kitchen to repeat the process. But this time she didn’t say any words over his drink, realising that they had already worked. 

Because what else do you call it when someone is completely themselves with you? When they shatter themselves because of you? When they peel back layers and masks and pretences and turn their whole selves inside out for you? They stand in front of you bleeding with bones protruding, showing you all the things that would make a lesser woman flinch away. Wazila had walked him along her fault lines too. They had seen the worst of each other and yet, even with a soaked through shirt, he had reached out his hand for another cup. Because she was insufferable but he would take her incessant disturbance, her perpetual annoyance, and the unrelenting disaster that characterised her, all for a cup of coffee. Because she was insufferable but he would still suffer for her. And what else could you call that but love?