The Death of Vivek Oji

Narrating, Osita recalls that when Vivek came home from college, the family becomes divided over Vivek’s long hair and the assumption that this hair change means Vivek is unwell. Osita remembers more:

Vivek suggests that Osita might be lying about having a girlfriend in a different town. Vivek then suggests that Osita might be attracted to men. Osita becomes angry and responds aggressively when Vivek tries to comfort him. When Vivek calls Osita “brother,” or “bhai,” in the middle of the night (his term of endearment for Osita), Osita has the urge to move a curl of hair from Vivek’s cheek but is “too afraid to touch him” (88).

An unnamed narrator reports more past events:

At Mary and Kavita’s behest, Vivek attends Mary’s church, but he comes home angry and refuses to return to the church, showing Kavita where Mary’s congregation beat his body. “Stop trying to fix me” (95), he tells Kavita angrily.

Kavita calls Mary to confront her about the assault. Mary maintains that it wasn’t Vivek they were beating, but the devil inside of him. Kavita ragefully forbids her from ever again coming near Vivek. Mary calls Kavita ungrateful before Kavita slams down the phone. At first, Kavita does not tell her husband, Chika, what happened.

While comforting her friend Maja in the wake of family tragedy (Maja had discovered her husband’s infidelity), Kavita recalls hiding her grief over Ahunna’s death on Vivek’s birthday, which occurred on the same day. Ekene eventually chides Kavita and Chika for not telling Vivek about Ahunna’s death. Kavita remembers that it was Mary who gently told Vivek that on the day he was born, Ahunna “became an angel” (102).

Kavita comes home and tells Chika about the church beating. Though Chika is also angered, his approach to the situation is different, foreshadowing Kavita and Chika’s different ways of grieving Vivek’s death in the future. While Kavita wants to know why Vivek’s body was delivered to their doorstep, Chika believes the policemen when they say it was probably protest violence or robbery. Kavita vows to find out what really happened to Vivek.

Chapter 9 is a short entry by Osita claiming that Kavita is not prepared to know what really happened to Vivek, the same way he was not prepared. He says that the truth hit him “like a lorry” (108). Ostia also fears that someone saw him on the day of Vivek’s death.

In Chapter 10, the narrator Vivek recalls that he felt heavy his whole life, like he was “being dragged through concrete” (109). He describes his black-out episodes, or “fugues,” as “short absences […] small mercies” (110) and says they finally allowed him to rest. He says that growing his hair out long made him feel protected and balanced, but, in hindsight, he doesn’t know what he thought the long hair would protect him from