New York, My Village

by Uwem Akpan

  “Usen is also angry you called him saboteur Saturday night!” Ofonime said.

  “I thought we could still playfully call ourselves this like in high school,” I said.

  “That was then,” he said.

  “Okay, I shall never even use the word sabo or sabotage near you again,” I said.

  I was still assuring Usen I would never use Biafra to mock him, especially given what the patrols did to my family; I was still telling him how much I enjoyed their home when he screamed at his daughter to go stand in the corner. She shouted she wanted Ofonime to ask me about my thumb and ear. “If you say kpim, I swear, Ekong will never visit your school!” Usen chided her. He rejected my apology, insisting I only brought up his stabbing of the boy to tell his wife he had a murderous temper. “Since you ignored every advice to marry Caro,” he said, “whose granddad gleefully fought for Biafra and even sabotaged your dad’s burial, you’ve become insensitive.” They would not believe I did not really discuss the war with my wife.

  When Usen said he had reported me to Tuesday Ita, I realized I was being invited to a Biafra peace summit in New Jersey on Sunday. I could now understand why Tuesday was so tense the day before when he extended the invitation. But I believed the little I knew of Tuesday’s war travails had given him the moral capital to settle any war disputes and being older than us also meant he could shut Usen up.

  After the phone call, I felt too weak to go down to eat. Bedbugs and Biafra had joined forces to dissipate my great experience of Usen’s home and of the literary awards. To forget everything, I tried to sleep right away. Yet when I stretched out on my bed, the urine-bleach stink was stronger than the night before. I endured. I thought about the smell of my concoction. But now I had two distinct smells in my head.

  I got up and perfumed the whole bed and lay down again. Yet I could still smell the two smells within the perfume. I opened a bottle of wine and downed three glasses in trembling swigs. My gut bloated with hunger and jealousy and guilt for wanting to kiss Molly lightly on the lips like Paul. I dressed again and blundered out to look for something to eat.

  Jeff was also going downstairs, carrying two bloated black trash bags. They were full of noisy empty cans, and I needed nobody to tell me these were used anti-bedbug sprays. I helped him with one bag.

  “TWO HOURS AGO, I left Canepa a voice mail on your behalf, so that he could make arrangements to cover at least our three apartments on Monday,” he said after we had fed the bags to the dumpsters.

  “Wait, wait, iya uwei, who sent you to do this?” I said.

  He offered me a cigarette. I said I did not smoke. “I’ve got your back, Ekong. We needed to move quick, man. This is New York!” Terrified, I told him he should never have called the landlord, that I had just assured Lucci I would personally handle things. Jeff said he was sorry in the tone of a non-apology apology, stroking his hungry goatee.

  He told me hiring a firm could not solve my problem—or our problem, for that matter—as this mess was better cleaned up with all apartments at the same time, or the bugs could crawl from one apartment to another. “You want to foot the expensive bill while he’s making a ton of money off you? You know he’s paying just the pittance fixed by rent stabilization?” he said. “Lucci, that bastard, was never going to call the landlord! You’re an illegal subletee.”

  “I’m illegal … what?”

  “Not illegal immigrant, just illegal squatter. It means Lucci didn’t get permission to squat you. If he did, the law says he should charge the subletee only ten percent more than the rent and that everything must go to the landlord …” My head spun and I leaned against the wall of the building.

  The word illegal clanged around in my brain.

  Lighting another cigarette, Jeff assured me he did not mention my name in the voice mail for the landlord but only my address and apartment number and had insisted Lucci had asked him, his neighbor, to call.

  “So I am illegal. Do you think the landlord would call the police to arrest me?”

  “No.”

  “Lucci?”

  “Nope. But two years ago there was someone he paraded around as an undercover cop. I think he only uses the guy to gather dirt on the landlord for possible blackmail and court battles. Organized racketeers are all over this city. I’m just being straight up with you. Listen, the man is so fake that sweet-old-man portrait on your bookshelf isn’t his real photo! He’s a fifty-year-old giant of a scumbag with a nose bigger than Texas.”

  My knees hurt and I slid into a squat against the wall. I was breathless.

  “Ekong, Lucci has got this long, complicated feud with the landlord. These two Italian Americans have been at each other’s throats forever. Someone said they both trace their roots to Palermo, where they have all this Mafia shit. My advice? Pay him his shit and don’t think about it.” He blew a torrent of smoke down to my face till I sneezed mightily and stood up and staggered.

  “By the way, Ekong, did you sleep better last night? We all heard you spraying, blasting, rummaging in there like a bison.”

  “I slept well. Thanks.”

  “Ha, it’s a mere cease-fire. And you probably flushed them all out to our end …”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to do that.” I held his arms pleadingly.

  “Brad and Alejandra and I understand. We’re holding off from spraying our entire apartments so that the bugs won’t crawl back to yours. We only spray our beddings so they can’t get into our sprayed zone around the bed. Yet, last night, each time I closed my eyes I could see them scurrying away like they were being hampered by an invisible electric barbed wire. The thing will take over your mind, like racism, if you’re not careful! The shit is bad. Bill Clinton had the shit. Victoria Secret had the shit. I’m going to buy a plastic bedcover, to seal in the reek.

  “But I think you’re the luckiest man in Manhattan: When you pray by the stairwell, your face is absolute peace. My advice? Make your prayer sessions longer!”

  AFTER GRABBING A STALE HAMBURGER, I was so down I bought more wine, using cash to conceal my vice from Caro. As soon as I returned, I yanked Lucci’s fake picture from the shelf. I spat on his calm smiling gentle face and smashed it under the bath.

  From what Jeff was saying, it was going to take communal efforts and sacrifices to save our hides from those bugs. It was like some of our ethnic clashes which had roots in comic or forgettable events, like two people from different ethnic groups having a disagreement in the open market over, say, palm oil or akara. And then before you knew it, the two groups were at each other’s throats. And then someone was killed and then properties razed in retaliation. And then other groups took sides and then peace meetings were brokered, which calmed or did not calm everyone. And then some youths ambushed the other ethnic group to avenge the dead, and then chaos broke out again.

  CHAPTER 14

  I’ve totally lost interest in Argentine soccer

  FRIDAY EVENING, ALEJANDRA LEDESMA AND BRAD Parkes and I left for a dinner in Chelsea. Jeff could not make it for some work reason.

  On the way to the subway, I expected them to ask politically correct questions about my background like my office folks had done. So, though we were full of laughter, I was nervous inside, plotting my responses. I decided to tell them of my embassy mess but would cut out the fight to prove our Annangs’ existence, to avoid shame. But then I was already upset from the tiring mental edits, like carrying garbage I could not dispose of. But instead my neighbors talked about The Americans and Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Motown: the Musical. I complimented them on their matching fashionable J.Crew boots and said I must get them for me and Caro.

  My spirit finally totally relaxed when Alejandra brought up soccer. We went back and forth about the games Argentina, her country of birth, had played against Nigeria. She told me how sad she was when Nigeria beat Argentina in the final of Atlanta ’96, to take the gold. She confessed her only real pain, though, was that things were so tense that night in Buenos Aires, the capital of Arge
ntina, that in some quarters Black immigrants were apprehensive, for it was like the whole Black world had defeated Argentina. Brad reminded her that since Argentines had been mocking the Brazilians, their archrivals, for losing the semifinal to us a few days earlier, after Argentina lost, a Brazilian was killed in a bar in Buenos Aires for laughing at his hosts.

  Argentina’s racist history has ensured there were no Blacks on their national soccer team, but I held back from mentioning that. I did not know how Alejandra would react; I wanted us to have a good evening out.

  So I just told them Nigeria had been so happy, the government declared a public holiday to celebrate our gold, that we celebrated like our twenty-two players had taken twenty-two golds at separate individual events. I told them Diego Maradona, Gabriel Batistuta, and Fernando Redondo remained my soccer heroes, especially Maradona for single-handedly destroying England, our colonial masters, in Mexico ’86. I told them soccer was the only thing that united our country. She told us soccer was an endless incurable fever in Argentina, every loss a national crisis. What pained her was that so many of her compatriots sadly took particular umbrage at losing to an African country at an Olympic final. She said, for example, where she grew up, losing to Ecuador, whose team was predominantly Black, was bad enough, but losing to Blacks living in Africa was unthinkable. She said she was praying for her hometown from NYC during the 2008 Beijing Olympics soccer final because she did not know what they would have done if Argentina had lost again to Nigeria.

  As we sat down in the train, I congratulated her belatedly, though we ourselves were still smarting from that loss. Brad said if Argentina and Nigeria met in the next World Cup in Russia, the three of us must be there to watch.

  “But, guys, look, I’ve totally lost interest in Argentine soccer till we’re able to have Blacks on our national team,” Alejandra lamented as I turned sharply to stare at her. “Yes, yes, Ekong, your reaction tells me you already know of our sordid race history.” She admitted it was a crime Argentina went from enslaving their Black population to sending their Black brothers en masse to be killed in their wars. She spoke about covert genocide against the Blacks by the government of Domingo Sarmiento. I pursed my lips when she said that even war widows were disappearing from home.

  She was quite emotional that these systematic atrocities meant postwar gender imbalance in the Black communities had forced the women to procreate with white men, leading to mulattos—a slow bleaching of the population! I was not surprised when she added that lack of opportunities for Blacks resulted in squalid conditions and death from cholera or that, at the end of the day, many fled north to Brazil and other places.

  “Gentlemen, my dear Argentina went even further than this, so we don’t have to face race issues like America! My great-great-grandfather was a general in the Argentine army, so we have crazy stories of what policies guided the deployment of Blacks in the Argentina-Paraguay wars.

  “Worse, I grew up hearing my grandfather tell me snidely how hard he worked to help hide Nazi fugitives, making them fake IDs. He converted from Catholicism to Pentecostalism to, as he said, ‘improve my personal holiness.’ Before he died, he requested the swastika be carved inside his coffin, under the cover so he could contemplate it forever! Now you know why I skip family reunions and refuse to watch our national team even though I miss Argentina like crazy. I miss the food, the carbonada, the asado—”

  “Sorry to interrupt, but I wish I could taste this food, Alejandra!” I said.

  “I miss our beautiful seasons and traditions,” she said. “I miss dressing up in my most gorgeous summer clothes for the Christmas Eve Mass, followed by the huge raucous eleven p.m. meal that ushers our extended family into Christmas. I miss our end-of-the-year summer season and will never get used to America’s winter Christmas! But now visiting my town is all so complicated for me. Four years ago, I disrupted a Christmas gathering conversation which was blatantly racist, and they all shouted at me like I was an outcast, a New York smart aleck. It didn’t end well. Someday I’m going to write the autobiography of my childhood.

  “I’m no longer a child, so I don’t have to fly back to listen to some relative at these gatherings praise the valor of our ancestors or visit their gravesides. How do I relate to these folks who honored Grandpa’s anti-Semitic wishes …?”

  “It’s okay, baby,” Brad said, grabbing her hand and kissing her head.

  “Courage!” I said.

  “Ekong, Brad has his war woes, too.”

  “Yeah, I, too, don’t go home for Thanksgiving,” Brad said. “Will tell you why someday.”

  I could see that NYC had changed Alejandra’s life. In her story, I could hear echoes of Emily Noah’s journey, especially the way the city had remolded their worldviews. I was touched to learn that Alejandra was already having the kind of difficult family conversation Emily had brought up when she praised Trails. Yet the image of the swastika inside the coffin had cut deep into my mind. I did not know how angry I was till I felt a stiffening in my right foot, a longing to kick her grandpa’s corpse till it rolled out of the casket and was buried in the naked humility of mere earth, our common home. A numbness began to climb my leg. I resisted the temptation to ask Alejandra if the burial pastor knew of this swastika. I was afraid a yes might spoil my dinner.

  My mind was numb. It simply refused to consider the fate of the Black Argentine soldiers and their survivors. I was too ashamed.

  WHEN WE GOT DOWN TO CHELSEA, my mood lifted. Brad told me this was the Lower East Side. Though it was almost night, it was more scenic than Hell’s Kitchen, the Bronx, and the awards ceremony neighborhood. The cobbled streets were narrower, and the architecture, by and large, looked Georgian and Greek Revival. I thought the folks looked calmer than the crowds in Times Square. The cobbles even brought a measure of tenderness to our strides, forcing us to look at the ground, like everyone was discovering the place anew. Restaurants had fronts all made of windows to allow you to see everyone having fun inside. You could even hear the talk and laughter from the curb.

  In this strange sort of intimacy, my nostrils picked up on food scents again, despite the deadening effect of fermented bleach. The strong smell of vindaloo washed over me, then of barbecue, then of oregano, then of saffron, dark and sweet. Then all of them at the same time. But a little warm wind diluted and then swept everything away. And even this smell of nothing was pleasant because it cleansed my memory, too. It reminded me of what it once meant to smell nothing. It endeared me to Chelsea. Brad and Alejandra pointed in one direction and talked excitedly about something called the High Line and how cool and crowded it was on weekends. Though I could see fun-seekers moving as though they were floating on air, my focus was on my food aromas of Chelsea. I smiled to myself and tilted my nostrils upward like I wanted to inhale the entire neighborhood’s freshness, till, subtly, the scent of newly baked bread nibbled at me.

  There must be a bakery nearby. The scent changed into that of cinnamon cookies and then of burnt chocolate. It was such wonderful novelty, and I allowed my nostrils to be teased. It reminded me of the smells of the bakery in Children of Elijah Moses, the manuscript I sacrificed for Trails at the editorial meeting.

  IN THE BEAUTIFUL RESTAURANT, my companions insisted I must sit on a particular chair and promised to explain later. I drank Sprite as Brad and Alejandra enjoyed their glasses of Riesling. We asked for appetizers of sticky baked chicken wings and fried calamari and onion rings. I asked for sirloin steak, rare, while Alejandra wanted a buffalo burger and crinkle-cut fries and Brad cedar plank salmon, medium, with mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts.

  Alejandra excused herself and went to the restroom.

  When she returned and the drinks, water, and bread arrived, like my village folks in the Bronx my friends toasted the Toni Morrison Fellowship that brought me to Andrew & Thompson. They toasted me for acclimatizing so fast to NYC. But then, lowering their voices and leaning very close to me, as though they wanted to kiss either of my cheeks simul
taneously, they whispered, To your first weeks of gallant bedbug survival! This took me completely unawares, sending all of us into fits of laughter. I almost splashed my Sprite.

  Their faces brewed with even more mischief when they abruptly stopped laughing, putting on poker faces. When I hooted even louder, they came back in with guffaws. I could not remember when I ever laughed like that. Other diners wondered what we were celebrating. A waitress and waiter offered to sing for us if we were celebrating a birthday or anniversary celebration. We shook our heads and said we could not share our joy with the world.

  When we recovered, I hugged them and held on to Alejandra a bit longer. I thanked her for what she had shared about her childhood and family and background.

  I DECLINED LUCCI’S FOUR CALLS as we ripped into the calamari and onion rings and deboned the chicken wings. They asked whether I was hearing from home and whether I would ever consider relocating to NYC. They asked me about the state of publishing in Nigeria. They asked what I thought of the Bronx. I asked them how they became friends, what countries or U.S. states they had visited, and told them how much I wanted to see the rest of the country.

  As we settled into our entrées, my neighbors became curious about what sort of food we ate in Africa. I told them it was so diverse I could only actually talk about the dishes from my part of Nigeria. I explained this without feeling any pressure.

  I loved their company.

  I told them all I could about our dishes. To bring it back home, I announced there was a Nigerian restaurant in Brooklyn. In the little silence that followed, I said I even had some of our foodstuff and did cook. More silence. I concentrated on the sirloin steak and sprouts because their indifference did not worry me. And I did not push the matter by inviting them to a meal. Foreign taste has to be learned at an individual pace, I reasoned, unless it is forced upon you by travel or famine.