What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky

by Lesley Nneka Arimah

  “Why don’t we query the class? Class, which word is better, luminous or obnoxious?”

  My army responded like a rehearsed choir.

  “Luminous!” And Femi Fashakin was put in her place.

  Anita Okechukwu fared worse. She hadn’t been popular before the supposed bra acquisition, her only claim to fame being that her baby brother was albino, and she couldn’t take much credit for that. But she’d tried, and her incessant conversations about a three-year-old earned her a reputation as an odd one. She’d fallen even further now, with girls pointing and laughing at her, which was only to be expected. What I hadn’t expected were the boys who ran behind her during recess and lifted up her skirt, as though my actions had given them permission, as though because they had seen her bare breast they were entitled to the rest. It was a boyish expectation most would not outgrow even after they became men.

  At first Anita yelled and pulled her skirt down and chased the offenders, but soon something cracked and though she cried, she no longer tried to stop them. This earned her the reputation of being easy, which would haunt her long past girlhood.

  I resisted the urge to walk over to Anita and went instead to the cluster of girls who awaited my command. We sat in a circle looking at each other. I was seated on a crate that had once held soft drinks. Damaris Ndibe, who had installed herself as my second in command, dragged a smaller girl forward and stood her in front of me.

  “She lied about the job her older brother got.” It took me a minute to realize that I was supposed to set this right somehow. The incident with Anita made me the purveyor of vigilante schoolyard justice, but I’d lost my taste for truth.

  I stalled for time.

  “What’s your brother’s name?”

  “Emmanuel,” she whispered, and though it wasn’t my Emmanuel, something about the way she said his name, a trigger in her inflection, brought it rushing back. Emmanuel’s vigorous laughter, the way he ruffled my hair and pulled up my braids in a bid to make me taller. The way he bartered stories and wit with my father. His growing moroseness, his angry outbursts, the crying that followed. My mother would pull me away from where I eavesdropped and put me to bed. After Emmanuel left, I’d hear them argue, my mother’s raised voice saying, “It isn’t right, Azike, he isn’t right. I don’t want him here.” But the next week he’d be there again and sometimes he’d be okay and sometimes he wouldn’t, and sometimes he’d pull my braids and sometimes he wouldn’t, but he was always there. Until he wasn’t.

  Something pooled in my fist and it itched, then intensified to a stabbing pain I couldn’t shake off. I punched the lying girl’s nose.

  Damaris was the first deserter. She led away the bleeding, shell-shocked girl, sneering over her shoulder. Others followed with rolled eyes and whispered insults. By the end of the day, I was a queen with no pawns.

  —

  My mother was livid. This time, there were no half-serious threats to tell my father, no jesting declarations of what incorrigible traits I’d inherited from his line. She spanked me, an undertaking she hadn’t performed in years. It was awkward, like running backward.

  During dinner, which I wasn’t permitted to share with my parents, I sat on a stool in the kitchen, soothing the shrapnel sting on my behind with daydreams of how upset my real parents would be when they discovered these temporary guardians had used me ill. I tried very hard not to think about the little girl and her nose, how it crackled beneath my fist. I tried hard not to think of Emmanuel, how he’d been discovered by the sister with whom he still lived, hanging from the ceiling fan in his bedroom. When I first heard the news, before the full weight of it hit me, I’d wondered out loud if his legs were still kicking, like the chickens whose necks my mother wrung like sodden towels. My mother had given me a strange look. I tried not to think about that.

  In the days after Emmanuel’s death, my father slipped deeper and deeper into the strangeness that had plagued him his entire life. His growing moroseness, his sudden outbursts of anger or mirth, the deep silences he fell into, so heavy my mother would pry and pry till they fell off. When the chance came for my father to transfer to the Port Harcourt branch of the oil company, my parents had taken it, hoping the distance would help.

  This time, my father didn’t ask me why I’d done what I’d done, which was just as well. He laid out the chessboard and we began to play. Every once in a while my mother walked by the door, shoes clipping her anger on the tiles. My father glanced up each time, but I ignored her. He was distracted enough that I was able to maneuver his queen into a precarious position.

  He paused, leaned back, and rested his head in cradled hands. The stance was familiar. I knew I was about to hear another of his true war stories.

  “We were stationed near a small village around Enugu where the only thing worth seeing was the concrete highway that passed through. During the day it was hot enough to char skin, but at night it cooled. That’s when the snakes came out. Dozens of them. They curled on the concrete, which held the sun’s warmth late into the night.”

  He raised and caressed his queen. When my mother again walked by, he was too preoccupied to notice.

  “While the snakes slept, Emmanuel would tiptoe to one, slip his rifle through the top of the coil, and shoot off its head. The body flicked around for a couple of minutes, then settled down. Then Emmanuel would bring the snake into our tent to cook it. And the smell, the smell just turned my stomach. He laughed at how queasy I got, but I chose to sleep outside instead of fighting about it.”

  “I can’t imagine that Lieutenant Ezejiaku was too happy with him.” I had grown fond of the lieutenant, who I imagined was like a father to my father.

  “He didn’t really mind until one time when Emmanuel crossed the line. We were walking one evening and there, coiled on the sidewalk, was the biggest snake I had ever seen. I mean, it was bigger around than both of my legs joined together. Emmanuel crept up to it like he always did and fired at the head. The snake went wild. It snapped and flipped so hard, it went off the road and into the bush. Its whipping around even destroyed one of the shacks nearby. Every time it stilled and Emmanuel approached it, the snake sensed him and started flipping around again.

  “The next morning, the lieutenant came to our tent and pulled Emmanuel out by his ear. He pointed to a line of villagers who stood not far off. He said, ‘They want you. You have been killing their gods and they want me to give you to them for judgment.’”

  My father went silent. He took my bishop.

  “I had never seen Emmanuel so quiet. He said only one thing: ‘Please.’ Lieutenant Ezejiaku told him that if one more snake died, he would hand Emmanuel over to the villagers and turn a blind eye to what they did with him. Over the course of the day, a crowd gathered where the snake lay. No one ventured close enough to touch it. Finally, one shirtless boy ran up to it with a stick. His mother screamed at him to get back. He ignored her, the way boys ignore mothers, and poked at the creature. Before we could blink, the snake coiled so tight around the boy, his chest grew purple. He tried to slide the animal off, as one would a pair of too-tight trousers. He was dead in seconds. It took four days before the snake died and they could bury the boy’s body.”

  There was something in my father’s eyes, in his voice, as though he hadn’t meant to tell this much of the story, as though, perhaps, he had forgotten that this was how it had ended.

  “So what happened to the lieutenant?” I asked, wanting another story to erase this one.

  “He died, Nwando; they all died.”

  “How come you didn’t die?”

  “Because,” he said, “when the time came, I ran.”

  My father dragged at his beer bottle, then focused on the chessboard. The next move was obvious, my queen exposed to his knight and rook. But he didn’t move, and I could see that the veil had come over him. My mother, who’d stopped by the doorway to listen, came an
d gathered me to her. She herded me into my bedroom and sat me down on my bed. I slid under the covers fully dressed. She stroked my head and began to tell me a story of her own, about when she’d been a girl and her cousin found a nest of termites in a tree trunk and the pulp was so syrupy they stirred it like soup. I listened with every atom and she animated the story with everything she had.

  WILD

  Two months before my first semester at Emory—two months I’d imagined I’d spend getting high in Leila’s basement while we crooned stale power ballads at each other—my mother sabotaged my summer plans with a one-way ticket to Lagos and a promise to purchase the return only after I’d earned it. A suitcase was already packed and my passport, whisked from my room the week before, was presented to me along with the ticket, relieving me of excuses. My plane left in four hours.

  “I’ve just had enough. You can either go and stay with Auntie Ugo or work at the clinic with me, no friends, no visits, no nothing. It’s up to you, but enough is enough.”

  “Enough” had started with stupid teenage things that, magnified under the halo of Chinyere, my well-behaved cousin, made me a bad, bad girl. There was the misfortune of having my first kiss—with Bartholomew Fradkin, who shouldn’t even have been in my class but had been held back once in kindergarten, then again in third grade—witnessed by no less than four faculty members and three students. The resulting plague of rumors earned me a lecture from my mother—“You are not like these oyinbo girls, you can’t just do your body anyhow”—and an undeserved reputation as a bit of a ho.

  “Enough” was the time my mother, looking to treat a headache, found the Ecstasy I’d thought cleverly hidden in an Excedrin bottle, and I came home to her making carpet angels. I joined her and we laughed and laughed till she’d sobered up and the laughing stopped.

  Or when I was suspended for calling my Debate and News teacher a fascist cow because she refused to let me argue for abortion rights, an issue I didn’t feel one way or the other about until I was denied the option to support it. The suspension lasted a week and a half and that fascist cow scheduled a pop quiz every day I was gone, lowering my GPA by 0.07, enough for Emily Gleason (the fascist cow’s niece) to be valedictorian instead of me. When my mother found out, she screamed at me for an hour about responsibility and dedication and all the responsible and dedicated people who had made it possible for me to be here, starting with my great-grandfather, a mere goat herder, who no doubt was curled in his grave, weeping, and ending with my father, God rest his soul.

  “You know, they told me to beat you.”

  “Who?”

  “Everybody. They said since you were being raised without a father and in America of all places, if I didn’t beat you, you would go wild. And I didn’t listen.”

  “Well, are you going to start now?” My mother was a small woman who carried her weight in her personality. I had three inches and fifteen pounds on her. It would be tricky.

  She just shook her head at me, wearing a helpless half sneer that asked whose daughter was this. It was a look I had seen many times.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “This is because of that girl,” she said, ignoring my apology.

  “That girl” was Leila, my best friend since the seventh grade. At first our friendship had been one of convenience, a forced camaraderie that came from being the only two nonwhites—and foreigners—in our entire grade. But later that year Leila’s mother passed away and, each of us down a parent—mine to a car accident, hers to cancer—we bonded over the loss. My mother had liked Leila at first, preferring that I make friends with other immigrants, but after Leila’s mother died and she started acting out, my mother tried to steer me away, although she remained courteous to her.

  “There’s nothing wrong with Leila. There’s nothing wrong with me. There’s nothing wrong with anything. We’re fine, Mom.” My mother threw up her hands and the argument ended as many had before, with her exasperated capitulation.

  Or so I thought.

  Now, two weeks later, my mother drove to the airport in a silence so heavy it slid across my skin. She’d threatened to send me to my aunt so many times it had become toothless, but the valedictorian thing must have been the last straw. At the airport, she mellowed enough to give careful warnings—don’t take anything from strangers, stay at your gate so you don’t miss the plane—but I responded in monosyllables, too angry to manage much else.

  “Chinyere will be picking you up from the airport. Please be good. I love you.”

  —

  I could tell right away that I wasn’t what she’d expected, this wild American cousin of hers. I was wearing loose jeans, a tank top, and a flannel shirt, which had served in the coolness of the aircraft but I now tied around my waist to circumvent the naija heat. I looked, as always, disappointing. My mother constantly complained about my dressing, the baggy jeans and shirts too masculine for her liking, but I had always dressed for comfort, not much caring how I looked.

  Chinyere dressed for style and was much thinner than I’d expected, but without the bony edges that had earned me the nickname “Daddy Longlegs” in my adolescence.

  “Chinyere.”

  “Ada, welcome.”

  My mother loved invoking Chinyere to nudge me into correct behavior. Chinyere was such a sweet girl; Chinyere went to church, so why couldn’t I; Chinyere was so obedient. Even after her indiscretion, the lectures continued. Chinyere was so nice, you see, and called my mother every other Sunday afternoon between three and four, just to chat. There was no chance of us being friends.

  In her car, a sporty but dusty two-door Toyota, my phone beeped as it connected to a network. Chinyere held out her hand.

  “May I borrow it? Just to make a quick call.”

  “I don’t know, my mom said it would be expensive and I should buy a phone here and only use this one for emergencies.”

  Chinyere didn’t push, but the air between us turned hostile. After a few moments of sitting in traffic, I shrugged and capitulated.

  “Here, just make sure it’s fast,” I said, extending it to her, but she didn’t even look at me.

  We were somewhere on the mainland bridge when she held out her hand again, and this time I gave it to her. She spoke excitedly to the female voice that answered, telling her to call my number if she wanted to speak to her and adding that since her cousin was here, her mother would have to let her go out sometime, so they could meet up then. After ending the call, Chinyere explained that her mother didn’t allow her to have a mobile anymore and she wasn’t allowed to go anywhere or do anything.

  “I see.” This didn’t bode well for us having a good time.

  At the house, Auntie Ugo rushed out, looking like a wider, taller version of my mother, and hugged me.

  “Look at you so grown up. And so tall. You must have gotten that from your father.” She said her husband was in Abuja and wouldn’t be back till next week, but he was very excited to see me. Then she updated me on people I’d long forgotten, chattering about who was doing what and how proud my mother had been when I got into Emory and how I must be so excited. Not once did she look at Chinyere, who rolled my suitcase behind us.

  After a few more minutes catching up, Auntie Ugo went to finish making dinner, pointing me to the guest room upstairs. Along the staircase were pictures of Chinyere as a child, alone, with her parents, with me on the last visit I’d made when I was thirteen. The pictures stopped a couple of years after that, and there were no images of the baby.

  In my room, I found Chinyere rifling through my suitcase, pulling out tops and dresses and holding them to her.

  “They’re all new. Did you go shopping just for this visit?”

  I looked at the suitcase. Not a scrap of flannel or denim in sight. No doubt my shirts and jeans were being sorted at a thrift shop right that minute, or possibly aflame in our backyard fire pit.

  �
��Ugh, my mom must have. I don’t dress like this.” I traced the beaded edge of a black jersey top that managed to accommodate folds and layers and creases. It was so lovely I resented it. “You can have it if you want.”

  “I have my own clothes.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  Auntie Ugo called us.

  In the kitchen, she manned several pots while giving instructions to the housekeeper, Madeline, on what to buy, mentioning foods she remembered as my favorites even after all these years. Madeline bounced the baby on her hip and he pulled at her buttons.

  “Chi-Chi, why don’t you take care of your brother,” Auntie Ugo said, and the cadence of the request carried the rhythm of one uttered many times. The boy was a year old, bug-eyed and cute. My mother had warned me I was to go along with the pretense in public, but I hadn’t expected that even in the privacy of their home we were to act as if the boy wasn’t Chinyere’s son. Madeline handed him to Chinyere and they both left the room, leaving me alone with my aunt. I didn’t know how to fill the silence after her casual malice. She was more than up to it.

  “You know, we did everything for that girl, everything. The best schools, the best everything.” She tasted the soup and added Maggi, shaking the bottle so vigorously I resigned myself to dinner being a little salty. “But you children, you don’t know anything.”

  She sounded just like my mother, and I knew that if I didn’t interrupt, the lecture would escalate until I wanted to slit my wrists just to give her something to mop so she would. Stop. Talking.

  “I’m tired,” I said.

  “Oh, sorry, my dear, go and lie down. Chinyere will get you when the food is ready.”

  Instead of escaping to the guest room, I went to Chinyere’s, where I found her lying on her bed while the boy toddled around waving a comb in the air. She looked up when I walked in, then went back to tempting him with an unlit candle. When he released the comb, she snatched it up and slipped it under her pillow. He grabbed the candle and jabbed the air with it before offering it to me, grinning.