Keffi House

JÕAO DE OLIVEIRA looked at the sky above him and observed the birds flying in formation. He believed in the significance of signs, and this was a good one. It had been nearly a week since the Oba had assigned him his portion of Lagos, and now, he was standing where the majestic home he planned to construct would be. He took a deep breath. The light wind had travelled from the nearby port, and the familiar smell of the sea elicited all sorts of emotions within him. It was the sea that separated him from Pernambuco. It was the sea that had carried him to Lagos. He looked around him, inspecting the few buildings that stood, and felt a strong sense of contentment that none of the thatched roofs or ramshackle houses would stand compared to what he had planned. He was going to transform the neighbourhood. The thought sent bubbles of excitement rippling through him.

“Boa tarde, senhor,” declared a gravelly male voice behind him. Oliveira swung round to face Lazaro Borges. He smiled widely and pumped the other man’s outstretched hand.

“The British want us to speak only English,” Oliveira said, his lips curved in a tentative smile.

Borges shifted uncomfortably. He did not reciprocate Oliveira’s humour and responded, “We can speak that when we are with them, but when you and I are together, we speak whatever we want to speak. After all, we are home now.”

Oliveira put his hand around Borges’ shoulder. He could sense the tension in the man and smiled widely, stating, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, “You and I are different from some of the other people here. We understand the white man and his wily ways. We know how to work around the cunning.”

Borges regarded Oliveira with consternation as he extracted himself from the other man’s grasp. 

“I may agree that you and I may be different, but I would argue that we are not the same.”

The latter remark stung Oliveira, as he knew that Borges was referring to his heritage as the son of a black mother and a white father. The caramel hue of his skin gave this away. Both men stood at the same height and had the same bearing and disposition, which was common among the Afro-Brazilian returnees beginning to settle in this part of Lagos. Even though Oliveira knew that there was no malice in Borges’ statement, it did not stop him from feeling a tinge of self-consciousness. Yet, he brushed it aside. He had heard from people that Borges tended to speak directly, not tasting the flavour of his words before he spat them out. He had already experienced it the first time he had met with him to discuss his plans to engage his services as a master builder to construct the home of his dreams in Lagos.

“I do not want any old sobrado,” Oliveira had avowed. To which Borges had responded, “What is wrong with a sobrado? I live in one myself, and my wife and sister conduct good business from home.” Oliveira swallowed nervously and continued, “I just mean that I want something different, distinct.” Unfazed, Borges had said, “You know that this sort of home that you are describing will cost you a fortune.” 

He sized up the man before him and wondered how he earned a living capable of entertaining such luxurious dreams. But if Borges knew what his client did for a living, he would probably realise the fact embedded in his declaration that he and Oliveira were different but not the same. It was true that they were different from the local indigenes they met when they arrived in Lagos. Those who did not have the confidence to interact with the white man as the Afro-Brazilian returnees did. Granted, for the new arrivals, their time in Brazil had been one of subservience and subjugation. Still, there was no denying the hard work they had to put in, even considering their pernicious conditions. 

While Oliveira shared their passion and dreams,  he held a deep, dark secret that tormented his soul with a wild fury. Growing up in Brazil, he had listened to tales of the land of his mother’s birth. She had been kidnapped from the kingdom of Oyo when she was a child and had entered a relationship with his father when she was barely in puberty, a relationship that had led to his conception and birth. 

By the time Oliveira had come of age in Pernambuco, the trading of the bodies of Black men and women was still profitable but no longer legal outside of Brazil, but the lure of money and the high demand on the other side of the Atlantic led many to continue the illicit trade. Before her death, Oliveira’s mother had shared with him the enormous heartache that had accompanied her abduction and consequent sale and the penurious conditions that she and others like her had endured before gaining their liberation. He had seen the scars that spiderwebbed across the skin on his mother’s back bulging like inflamed veins. Yet, his knowledge and understanding of the turmoil of being in shackles did not stop him from engaging in the bondage business. Something had been born in him when he was on the other side of the vast ocean that separated people from their heritage. It was this inane desire to savour the energy of the power he could wield over a person’s destiny. His collaboration with the white men to engage in the kidnapping and trafficking of human beings had made him a very wealthy man, but it had also given him a wild and restless mind that carried him to a dark place as he sought ways to atone for his sins.

More people like him were arriving in the burgeoning community that would become one of the most popular cities on the West African coast. They were bringing with them the skills they had learned when forced to live on the other side of the ocean. The master builders and masons, like Borges, the carpenters, painters, architects, cabinet makers, and locksmiths had acquired skills that they would use to transform the architectural landscape of Lagos. They had returned to the city with a passion burning in their collective hearts to survive, thrive, and create a life similar to the one observed on the other side of the ocean. When it came to the houses they began to build, they would construct them by combining their heritage with what they remembered from the stately homes they had helped to build in places like Salvador do Bahia. 

From the ground sprung up the intricately designed homes sought after by the growing number of elite families.  Oliveira was determined to have a home like that constructed for him, one of significant magnificence that would stand out in beauty. That was why he had sought out Lazaro Borges, the master architect and builder. The latter had established a reputation for his skill at creating the homes and places of worship that would transform the architectural landscape of Lagos. 

Now, as they stood together at the site that would become Oliveira’s home, Borges surveyed the surroundings, his face expressionless and his lips pursed to the point that they looked like a thin laceration against his stony face. Oliveira watched Borges and said a silent prayer because even though Borges had agreed to meet with him, he had not yet agreed to construct the stately home of Oliveira’s dreams. It took several minutes of silence and what seemed like an eternity to Oliveira before Borges turned, faced him, and stretched his hand to him for the second time that day. The two men exchanged a solemn handshake. 

Borges was a solid man. His occupation as a master builder meant his body had become a mass of taut muscles, but the softness of his eyes would make many understand that he was not an ogre. Borges understood this, which is why he always looked directly into the eyes of those he did business with, and he did so with Oliveira, who was slender and slight but still stood at the same height as him, his angular, chiselled face devoid of facial hair. He was slightly taken aback when Oliveira shifted his eyes away and refused to make continued eye contact. Later, when the winds of time brought with it the indubitable revelations of Oliveira’s business dealings, Borges would recall that moment. 

By then, he and his team of artisans would have toiled inexhaustibly to create the palatial home that Oliveira desired. It was an impressive addition to the architectural landscape of a neighbourhood that was already rapidly changing. Solid, stately homes were starting to replace the hodgepodge of flimsily constructed bamboo houses with the corrugated metal roofs that layered over like fish scales that had given the vicinage a squalid appeal. Borges contributed to the transformation by creating a two-story detached residence with six balconies projecting from its main façade and two more on its west façade. None of the other homes in the community had this sort of magnificence. 

The house occupied the corner of two converging streets, the main thoroughfare in what would become the Brazilian Quarters neighbourhood in Lagos. Each of the house’s balconies had a wrought iron balustrade intricately designed by the artisans who put in laborious effort to make it just right. There were six doors on the ground level. The central doorway was reminiscent of the Bahian houses in Brazil, carved in a local stone with a Renaissance frame and flat cornice enhanced with classical mouldings and fluted Roman columns. Elaborate marble arches were carved over ornate pillars with a stucco façade and a baroque-style design characteristic of the Portuguese colonies. Large windows and balconies adorned the building’s frame and enhanced the vicinage’s beauty, bolstering its prestige.

Inside the home, seven large bedrooms were scattered across the two floors, and there were two living rooms, one on each floor. The main entrance opened into a wide corridor that narrowed as it approached the central courtyard that housed an enchanting garden and a large backyard with ample space for gatherings. The perfect addition to the masterpiece of architectural design was the parapet and roof terrace, which adorned the top surface. 

The few visitors permitted to enter the house would climb up the cantilevered staircase that led to the highest elevation to marvel at the vista below. After the completed construction of the house, the neighbourhood was abuzz with awe at its magnificence. Many were envious that they had not come up with this idea first. But more than anything, there was a persistent curiosity of the residence’s owner, who chose to keep to himself and did not socialise much. It was an aberration of social etiquette for a house of such grandeur to be constructed in the neighbourhood and for the owner to refuse to throw its doors open to welcome the neighbours to celebrate with a feast of epic proportions. In addition, unspoken solidarity existed among the Afro-Brazilians in the neighbourhood, with the understanding that everyone had suffered the same dark and humiliating fate in Brazil, and arriving and settling in Lagos was a way to put the past behind them. What better way to do that than to celebrate and break bread together?

Oliveira knew that his occupation was an intense betrayal of the existence of the members of the community that he had decided to settle in. The burden of that guilt made him keep more to himself than was culturally accepted among his people. He quickly earned a reputation as a misanthrope, with an air of mystery and an insouciant charm. Many questioned his arrogant audacity in choosing to keep to himself rather than socialise openly with the rest of his neighbours. They did not understand why he decided to be highly selective about whom he permitted into his social circle. The one person they believed would know about Oliveira was Borges, who enjoyed a high social standing as the community’s master builder. But even he found Oliveira to be an enigma and could provide less information for the grapevine.

The new home was christened Casa do Oliveira, and the owner could not contain his joy at having a piece of Lagos to call his own. Casa do Oliveira became a connubial residence when the vestal and meek Agatha Soares became Senhora Oliveira. 

Her family had also recently returned from Brazil and settled in the community. Oliveira considered their similar backgrounds sufficient to take her as his wife. Two children were born in quick succession, and Oliveira agonised that he had daughters and not a male heir. His wife settled into her role as the lady of the house and mother of his children. She took her uxorial duties very seriously yet found her husband’s dark, contemplative ways difficult to understand. Theirs was more a transactional than a romantic relationship, to the point where they had little to say to one another and instead remained enclosed in a cocoon of arcadian harmony. Unlike the mistresses of other stately homes in the neighbourhood, Oliveira’s wife rarely entertained. 

The two of them had little to say to one another, and the few servants whom they hired, one as a nanny for the girls and the other as a cook, observed that their family life was dull and rigid, utterly devoid of the intricate structure of habit, affection, and annoyance that typified most family interactions. Before long, the living conditions in their household had become common knowledge in the compact community they belonged to, and many had a wry sense of satisfaction that the perfection of the exterior had an inlying defectiveness.

By this time, Lagos had become a British colonial possession and was undergoing a cultural evolution. The Crown exerted its influence over everything that happened in the city, from the language spoken—which was increasingly becoming less of Portuguese blended with Yoruba and more of the English Language—to fashion; clothes sleeves that flared at the wrist, square necklines, jacket-style bodices, the traditional attires abandoned for the British styles, which were considered more à la mode. The Afro-Brazilian returnees found it easier to adapt to the new way of life than the local indigenes. The returnees had lived with the white man and understood his wily ways. They rose quickly to the top of the burgeoning social elite as the bourgeoisie emerged from within the shadows of society.

The British enforced new laws, and there was no patience for participating in a trade they had abolished. 

Before long, Oliveira was caught, alongside half a dozen Portuguese merchants, and implicated for his participation in the illicit trade. Judgement was swift and harsh. Oliveira and his cohorts were banished from Lagos. Their presence was a stain on the golden image that the Crown was trying to cultivate on the West African coast. 

Under the cover of darkness, in the middle of a raging thunderstorm, Oliveira abandoned his wife, who was with child, and their two daughters. He left a hastily scribbled note in which he wrote, 

Please forgive me. I hope the child is a boy.

As she read it, Senhora Oliveira wondered how she would convey the news of the gender of their child to her runaway husband since he did not leave a forwarding address. It would be years before she would learn that her husband returned to Brazil, where he succumbed to smallpox during the Grande Seca.

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WHEN THE NEWS of Oliveira’s departure reached the British, they cast their eyes on the grand mansion the exiled man had left behind. They were familiar with its beauty and magnificence as one of Lagos’s noblest homes. Even though there was no mention of the house in the judgement passed against its owner, they had already decided to claim it for themselves. Those who made this decision had selfishly overlooked the fact that Oliveira had a family. Greed could be a contagious malaise when it takes root in a group. The British official who was dispatched to retrieve the keys of Casa do Oliveira was received at the main entrance by a heavily pregnant and barefoot Senhora Oliveira. Diminutive in size but mighty with words. She did not exhibit a combative attitude as she softly asked the young man what his mission was. When he stated this, she smiled wryly, crossing her thin arms against her chest so that they sat directly on top of her bulging stomach. 

Her gently spoken words tore into his chest as she asked, “So, where do you expect me and my children to go if you take our home?” 

He was perplexed by her question and even more surprised that she spoke to him in flawless English. While he found this rather impressive, he also remembered that he had a job to do and responded to her, “We expect that you will accompany your husband on his exile.”

Senhora Oliveira laughed a dry, throaty laugh that intimidated the man who stood a head above her. She glanced down at her feet, swollen in the final stages of her pregnancy, and then continued. “What my husband has done, he has done on his own, and so if he is exiled,” she paused as she emphasised the word exiled, “he is exiled by himself.” 

She waited for a reaction from the man who stood before her, who had now retrieved a white handkerchief from his jacket pocket, which he used to pat the sweat on his brow.

The young British official burrowed through his brain for the right words. He was entirely unprepared for confrontation, as amiable as it appeared. Senhora Oliveira recognised that she had him exactly where she wanted, ensuring he understood the impeccable English that grated his ears. “And so, I ask you again, sir, if you take over our family home, where do you expect my children and me to live? Or is this what the British plan to do here? Remove families from their homes?” 

She looked directly into his eyes, speaking, and suddenly, she beamed widely. A full-wattage smile lit her oval face and brightened her brown eyes. It was so unexpected that it disarmed him completely. His nose reddened in embarrassment. Her words had stung, but a part of him remained confused as her demeanour did not match the gravity of the words she had spoken. For a moment, he considered that she may not have understood what she was saying. Yet, her self-assured demeanour convinced him otherwise. 

The official had no choice but to apologise with a bow, demonstrating that she had earned his respect. The British never bothered her again about the ownership of Casa do Oliveira.

Soon after the official left,  Senhora Oliveira, relieved, made the arduous climb to her home’s roof terrace, where pools of water glistened in the sunlight, evidence of the previous night’s rain. From this height, she took in the comings and goings and said a silent prayer in which she asked for wisdom and patience. 

She descended to check in on her girls who, nestled in one of the living rooms, playing with Naiva, their devoted nanny, were entirely oblivious to the dramatic way that their lives had been transformed. She and Naiva exchanged a look. When they first met, neither realised how important they would be in each other’s lives. Other new mothers would have rejected Naiva as a choice of a nanny. Her front teeth were missing, and her face held a gnarled collection of jagged scars, the most prominent running across the bottom of her left eye to the base of her chin. She walked with a crooked limp. Nevertheless, Senhora Oliveira connected with Naiva on a soul level, while her husband was frightened of her and never wanted to be in her presence. She suspected it was because he thought Naiva could see beyond the secrets, lies, and deceit that he balanced with such skill. 

Two days after Oliveira’s departure, Senhora Oliveira gave birth to a third daughter. 

When the news of her tiny but significant triumph over the British circulated in the neighbourhood, the more cynical residents wondered how she intended to keep and maintain as large a house as Casa do Oliveira with no husband or income. It would be the last time that they would underestimate her ingenuity.

Within a short amount of time, enterprises began buzzing through the home. It started with a small dressmaking operation that evolved into a laundry business. The women whose stylish gowns Senhora Oliveira sewed depended on her to keep their clothes clean. Next, a bakery opened in the courtyard because of a passing comment a lady made when she tasted a slice of cake that Senora Oliveira had baked herself. The bakery became the most lucrative of the businesses. It was only rivalled by the inn established to cater to the many visitors to Lagos, which had quickly established itself as a commercial nexus, given its location on the Atlantic Ocean, a vital trading node. The individuals coming to do business there from other places needed a place to stay, and lodgers could be guaranteed a clean room and a nice hot meal, with amiable company thrown in for good measure.

Oliveira would have been mortified to find that the mansion he had so painstakingly planned had been turned into a common sobrado, no different from any of the other homes that populated the Brazilian Quarters. Through it all, Senhora Oliveira had not only succeeded in silencing the voices that doubted her ability to rise above the tide, but she had also elicited a healthy combination of envy and respect as those who had diminished her ability to survive without a man watched in awe as she thrived in abundance.

And so it was that when Senhora Oliveira’s slight frame began to bulge, announcing another child’s pending arrival, many could not conceal their bewilderment. The atmosphere in the Brazilian Quarters was heavy, with the weight of the whispers speculating who the child’s father might be. Some contended with the rather far-fetched notion that, in his desperate bid for an heir, the scoundrel, Oliveira, had defied the terms of his expulsion and subsequent exile to sneak into Lagos and impregnate his wife. Those who adopted this thinking had failed to pay attention when Oliveira had sworn numerous times to anyone who cared to listen that “Once I say good night to a place, I do not come back and say good morning.”

Perhaps an inadvertent prediction of his exile.

If anyone had cared to ask the house, and no one did, it would have gladly revealed the paternal identity of Senhora Oliveira’s child as a merchant from Keffi who had travelled to Lagos on a trading mission and stayed as a lodger in Casa do Oliveira only for an outburst of passion to ignite from the moment that he and Senhora Oliveira met. She had allowed him to warm her bed and other parts of her body during the short duration of his stay. She was not unaware that their relationship would be fleeting, nor was she seeking a long-term relationship. Yet, she had not expected him to plant his seed in her as a reminder of the brief entanglement.

Her daughters were in their teens, carving out their paths as they were approached by suitors attracted by their family pedigree.

It was Naiva, the devoted nanny who helped her raise her daughters, who remained with her through her pregnancy and attended to the birth of her son. Senhora Oliveira smiled at the irony of life that Casa do Oliveira’s much-anticipated heir did not have Oliveira’s blood flowing through his veins. “Perhaps,” she thought, “it is for the better.”

“I am going to change the name of this house to Keffi House,” she told Naiva the day after her son was born.

“Coffee house? Why coffee?”

“Not coffee…Keffi. Keffi House”

“What does that mean?

“It’s the name of a place.”

Naiva looked at her mistress quizzically. She had learned not to question her decisions over the years that she worked for her. There was always a reason behind every action that Senhora Oliveira took. She knew that changing the house’s name was the right thing to do. It was a way to send an ethereal message to the universe in honour of the father her son would never meet and the place he would never visit. 

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THE YEARS THAT followed were memorable ones of profound joy and immense pleasure. Senhora Oliveira became an astute businesswoman, and her little businesses evolved into solid enterprises. She diversified into real estate and began to acquire other properties. Still, Keffi House remained her primary residence at that time, and she converted her name from Senhora Oliveira to Yaya Keffi as she established herself as one of the most venerable matriarchs of the Brazilian Quarters. Her daughters married into respectable Afro-Brazilian families and had children of their own. She was satisfied with the way they turned out. 

However, her son was a cause for concern. She found him much more challenging to raise than her daughters, who were easily malleable. He became fractious and impetuous and acted rather gormlessly because his mother had pampered him shamelessly. She, unsure of what to do, attempted to interest him in some business venture or the other, a series of failed feats. Naiva, who had been her confidante and trusted advisor, succumbed to a bout of malaria. Yaya Keffi had long been estranged from her family, who were not in support of her life choices. Larger societies applauded the independence of women, but they were not always supported by their own families. 

Through it all, it was the house that kept Yaya Keffi happy. She continued to lavish it with tender love and care. Every year, extensive upgrades were made, with each room getting a fresh coat of paint, the exterior burnished until it sparkled regally in the sun’s brightness. The older she got, the less she ventured outside of the house. She became more religious later, and the custom-made oak table beside her bed held well-thumbed copies of the Roman Catholic Bible, the Holy Qur’an, and a bead of cowrie shells housed in a brown calabash. She had learned to treat people with the same kindness and dignity she required of them. 

As the community became saturated with cultural variety, Yaya Keffi became a loyal custodian of the Afro-Brazilian ways. She sponsored the Careta carnival, with Keffi House adorned with bright colours banners and a prominent stop on the route for the parade of revellers representing the prominent families who made up the Brazilian families. In addition, the matriarch of Keffi House routinely hosted people on her home’s roof terrace, which was one of the neighbourhood’s highlights because there was no place like it. Guests would be guaranteed to enjoy a bowl of frejon, with a large piece of fish dancing in the pale brown soupy liquid, contrasting with the fish stew’s redness.

Her son’s refusal to set aside his roguish ways and settle down continued to cause her concern. He fathered more children than his mother could count. The paternity of the children brought to her doorstep was never in doubt, as the family resemblance was indisputable. When she was ready to exit the world, her desire for her son to have a responsible family life was a little more than a fancy delusion, a mirage in the desert. 

And one night, as she slept soundly, enveloped in the warmth of the embrace of the home that she had dutifully nurtured, her soul exited the body that it had inhabited for more than ninety years, and the various layers of Keffi House’s shuddered in profound sadness at her departure. She had been a faithful and loyal custodian.   

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Jola Naibi was raised in Lagos, went to school in the U.K., has lived in Switzerland and now calls the U.S. her home. She has been writing fiction for more than twenty years and is the author of TerraCotta Beauty, a collection of short stories that capture the essence of life in the city of Lagos. Her work has been featured in Afreada, midnight & indigo, Thriving Writers, and Isele Magazine.  Her short poetic essay There Are Things that Your Privilege Will Not Let You See featured in Grub Street Literary Magazine and received an award from Columbia University.