15003

They sat on the bench tense not talking pretending they did not know each other. It was safer that way. The corridor was painted that institutional grey green on pockmarked walls that needed plastering. 

They could see the silhouette of the men in uniform looming like foreboding dark figures in the background. They seemed jovial, joking about like it was a normal day. 

Maybe it was for them, it certainly wasn't for the cringing women in the corridor. They were being called into a room one by one. The sniffling disappearing as they reached the room. 

She saw the expressionless look on the women's faces as they passed her. Hajiya, she looked up scared. 

Yes? 

Follow me. 

She got up reluctantly the unfamiliar bulk of her burkha making her less than graceful gait worse. She gathered the hem, staring at what she could see of the tip of her toes as she shuffled along. 

There were a series of rooms on the corridors with doors that barely sat flush to their frames. In each she caught a glimpse of a uniformed hat, and old looking desk held with the leg patched together. 

She was finally led into a room on her right towards the end of the corridor the size of a large wardrobe. 

She stood until she was bid to seat on a wobbly plastic chair. She sat staring down at her laps as she saw a yellow manila folder move across the table on the periphery of her vision. 

Somewhere in the back of her mind she remember a program about Gorillas and how looking into their eyes was a sign of aggression. She had always been taught to look down and not directly. Or had she? 

She couldn't remember if it was just something she'd picked up. Another unspoken rule. Something she had spent years breaking herself out of. 

She remembered standing in one of those clubs in Europe. After weeks of scoping the club, never daring to enter. Afraid of how it would brand her, like a klaxon would go off declaring her as queer to all the world. 

She was not aware that it made her look shifty and untrustworthy until one of the female doorwomen confronted her. She had run away having nightmares that a signal had been sent to everyone she new at home outing her as a lesbian. 

She had not returned to the venue for almost a year. Instead trolling the internet for news of events for people like her. Trying to make friends in chat rooms. 

It had been difficult for her and had introduced her to alcohol and later drugs. Anything she could find to take away the deep rooted anxiety she felt every time she tried to be gay with others? 

Years of being programmed that there was something wrong with her, that she was abnormal, queer somehow had wrapped her sense of self and with that her esteemed. 

She had tried to repurpose the moniker queer, tried to get claim it as something positive and powerful just like her internet friends seemed to do. She could barely see the country Lebanon spelt out without a clenching in her gut. 

As she looked up at the folder she caught the word lesbian underlined and looked up to see the person of authority staring back at her. 

Dread and recognition shook her.

Tsoro! She breathed out loudly in relief what are you doing here?

Tsoro's expression did not change. It was stoic, stern with eyes hard. 

At first this did not phase Duniya. Nigerian's were notorious for their "resting bitch face". It seemed every person from the traders in the shop to the girls in the salon to the business and professional frowned for no apparent reason. 

It was an expression that still threw her and had her feeling she was in front of a head teacher or that she was extremely naive for smiling and having an open expression. 

Even her staff thought she was a soft touch and were always trying a thing.

As Tsoro's expression did not change she became aware of the menacing feeling cloying around her. 

Was Tsoro undercover. Was it a bad move to show that she knew her. Was she compromising her and therefore endangering both of them further. 

There was nothin "butch" about Tsoro nothing masculine apart from the strict lines of her uniform. If the stereotypical typical lesbian was believed to be mannish. Surely even here enough people had seen the L word, understood that where there was an Ellen there may also be a Portia?  

Tsoro did have that ball breaker vibe people like to ascribe to strong women. But Duniya had seen another side of her. She had seen Tsoro though still with her armour gentle and kind and smiling even if it was only in Kyakyawa's presence. 

Thoughts of Kyakyawa but a calm over her. She was surely not her and not on any list. And if she was not then Tsoro had not placed her there. There was a realisation to Duniya that

Tsoro did have that power to do so. 

She wondered why she had never been curious about Tsoro. Why she had never made friends with her and wondered about her job. It wasn't unusual now for women to do interesting jobs  although still rare there were quiet a few women with high flying jobs and maintaining a marriage. There were less single women though and Tsoro was definitely of the later. 

Tsoro asked her to confirm her full name and date of birth like she was talking to a stranger to whom she probably was. 

What really had Duniya shared with Tsoro all her energies had been consumed with Kyakyawa. It was difficult to be around Kyakyawa and see any other woman. 

Tsoro asked her to list all her friends. As she handed her the pen their fingers brushed but Tsoro did not even flinch. 

Her friends? She had been thinking about this for months. Envisioning this scenario trying to prepare herself of what would say or do. 

Would it seem suspicious if she asked which friends? In reality how many friends did she have.

There were her work colleagues who could be classed as friends. There were people she had on her phone acquaintances mostly. Did she dare bring heat on people who knew nothing of this. On the other hand she could not very well do nothing. 

She began to write, she was from a large family her father the fifth of 33 and in her family names recurred as if child honoured their mother, or father. Uncle and aunt. Grand fathers and grand mothers on both sides. Foster parents, children that had been raised in the same "daiki" rooms. 

She closed her eyes and started from her father's first sibling a female. She listed all her fathers siblings it filled the page and a bit at the back. Then she listed all her mother's siblings. They were less numerous being only in 15. She wrote slowly painstakingly

Tsoro sat opposite her saying not a thing as she pushed the paper across the table to here. 

She dared look straight into Tsoro's eyes but only the noticed she was wearing dark glasses. She looked like a villainess in a Bollywood seventies movies. The room shrunk in size right before her, the desk turned to water. The cloying essence of someone's perfume mixed with the heat and sweat was too much for Duniya to bare. 

She heard the scrapping of furniture on the floor and thudding sound of dead weight hitting concrete floor she felt a sharp pain to her right hip bone and followed by a crack. 

For some reason her mind to her to the cold winters in Alexandria Palace, her on an ice rink wobbly trying to stay upright as children whizzed around her doing loops, and tricks. Skating backwards in laughter while she white knuckled the barriers around the skirting rink. Let go the voice said from a far. Let go. You will not fall. 

She had looked down at the hard white ice knowing with untaught instinct that the pain would be unforgiving. 

She had called out to her date, a Jamaican with blond dread locks and a penchant for speed to come and hold her hand. To help her. 

Her date had laughed at her not unkindly but the teasing had stung. Telling her to let go and she would be ok. She had not believed her and in that instant had understood she did not trust this beautiful sweet patios talking woman. 

They had been going out for two months or so. As with everything cliched she had moved in after the second date U-haul and all. The sex had been ok, quickly dwindling to friendship fast. She had not been able to stand the summer barbecues with the Wray and Nephews and thick blunts until the early hours of the morning. She had felt uncomfortable in her own skin. Trying to fit into a culture though black but not hers. 

Her "club friends" as she had privately called the ragtag bunch of misfit African's painfully dancing to EDM and cheesy 80's music in the dank dark sticky floored clubs in city centre on the days they we're handed over to the "alternative crowd". 

Yo go girl! They would holler in fake cheer. Everyone trying to be who they were not desperate to belong. 

The priority had been for her the only girl in the group to "link up". The girls, as the boys use to refer to themselves "linked up" all the time. 

Duniya was not sure this was true but it had been a world of posturing, primping and posing and Duniya not wanting to feel completely alone went along. 

Her African crew as she started referring to them decades after never seemed to have any money where mostly on student visas though a few could have been on tourist visas well expired and overstaying their welcome.