by Sefi Atta
“You are not depressed,” her father said. “You’re stupid and I will kill you before you end up killing yourself or someone else.”
Her mother begged, “Sam, don’t beat my son. Please, don’t beat my son,” which was odd because only a few years ago, all Lanre needed to do was loiter in any part of the house and it was whack, whack, whack from her before she even asked, “What are you doing here?”
Lanre cried out, “I’m not a donkey,” gave her father a hind kick in the groin, and claimed it was a muscle spasm.
It wasn’t funny then. Deola and Jaiye were in tears upstairs. They didn’t speak to her father for days. Once he recovered, her father walloped Lanre for all the times he wanted to and didn’t, walloped him in anticipation of more wrongdoings. He walloped Lanre so that he might not end up harming himself by drinking and driving, then he decided to send Lanre to school abroad for his A levels, to stop him from getting out of control.
Her father suggested that Deola go abroad for her O levels so that Lanre wouldn’t be alone. Deola didn’t mind, but Lanre was at Concord College in Shrewsbury and they hardly saw each other until the holidays, when they flew back to Lagos together on British Airways, usually not on speaking terms. Her father had them in separate schools intentionally, so they would learn to appreciate each other, which they did.
When Lanre turned seventeen, he was allowed to drive, but he was not allowed to go to Ikoyi Club without taking her. Perhaps her parents thought she might keep him in check, but she would sit with him and his new friends in the club rotunda as they drank beer and talked about girls: who was fat, who was loose and who got bensched. She joined in with them because she despised girls, who were turning against her. One cow who was at Roedean, where Jaiye later went to school, would walk up to her, tap her nose and say, “Powder.”
It was a confusing time. Eno was a skinny girl in drainpipe jeans. She was in her final year at Holy Child College in Lagos. Lanre called her “A Taste of Honey” because she looked like the bassist in the band, but he was two-timing with her classmate, who, according to Jaiye, had such a terrible reputation her name was an adjective and a verb. Jaiye was a junior girl at Holy Child. Lanre would ask her and Deola to lie to Eno whenever Eno called. Deola noticed how her mother took pleasure in announcing, “Lanre, one of your girlfriends is on the phone,” and how his friends made comments like, “You know, Deola, you’d be all right, if you’d only just learn to shut up.”
They were not interested in her in that way. They called her “Small Girl” because she was a couple of years younger. She didn’t socialize much with boys her age because their mothers would think she was loose. She tried to and one mother said, “Don’t ever call this house again.” Another asked, “Why don’t you wait for him to call you?”
She couldn’t come to terms with why these mothers who had once patted her head now considered her a temptress, and she began to size up Lanre’s friends who judged girls by their looks. One had a bottom as wide as the wings of a Boeing 747 and the other was as short as Tattoo on Fantasy Island. She stopped sitting with them and tried to form friendships with girls who were not vicious, but they were too goody-goody for her. They wouldn’t even talk to boys. It was like belonging to the Scripture Union after a while, and she also lost patience with Eno, who stayed with Lanre even though he continued to two-time her—or have shows on the side, as he called it.
With Jaiye it was different. Deola didn’t get along with Jaiye from the start. She bullied Jaiye. Her earliest memory of Jaiye was of her holding a stick with a piece of banana ice pop, crying, “It’s not fair, you took the bigger half.” Jaiye was always crying and telling. On Sundays, Deola had to oil Jaiye’s hair and she hated doing that. Jaiye would cry, “It’s paining me,” and Deola would push her head. Jaiye would howl even louder, until her mother would come in and threaten to box Deola’s ears or to throw her down the stairs.
She fought off other kids who called Jaiye names or tried to beat her up only because she considered that a personal affront. “You wounded my sister?” she would say smacking her chest. “I’ll kill you!”
Jaiye grew up and began to preen and read magazines like Vogue and Harpers & Queen and Deola would order, “Read a book.” She thought Jaiye was in danger of becoming vain. She would call Jaiye “Popular J,” popular jingo, to tease her, and Jaiye would call her “Over Z,” overzealous, to retaliate.
Jaiye started going out with Funsho, and Funsho had several shows on the side. His excuse was that girls were constantly hounding him. Funsho was known as a fine boy at University of Lagos. Two of the hottest Unilag chicks had got into a physical fight over him. Jaiye would walk into parties and stare her rivals down. She married Funsho soon after she graduated from the medical school. Deola could have told her that was a bad idea, but she didn’t want to be accused of being overzealous, or worse, jealous. Lanre wouldn’t discuss the matter, and her mother immediately began to plan a wedding, though her father didn’t approve of Funsho. “I don’t think that boy is capable of kindness,” he once said.
Her father was capable of kindness. He would get her mother wet towels whenever she had headaches. He would shell her mother’s pistachios and indulged her long-term infatuation with Harry Belafonte. “Your boyfriend is on television again,” he would say and her mother would squeal, “Ooh!”
Jaiye was Daddy’s girl. He called her “Doc.” He was worried that her marriage to Funsho would not last. He gave them the house in Ikeja as a wedding present anyway, but he made sure the house was in Jaiye’s name alone.
Funsho, at least in the beginning of his marriage to Jaiye, was capable of going out at night and not coming back until morning. Deola told Jaiye to speak up and Jaiye did, quoting her. “You see?” Funsho said. “That is why your sister is not married. Her mouth is too big for her own good.”
z
This evening, there is a pleasant smell in the foyer of the hotel, like meat pies baking in an oven. Deola takes a bath and changes into sweatpants before coming downstairs for dinner. The tables in the restaurant are laid out with screen-print cloth and several paintings by local artists hang on the walls.
She orders a steak and sees the young businessman at the bar. He is with a woman who has a long hair weave and a bracelet just under her bicep. The woman is in her twenties, a Hollywood celebrity clone—or is it a hip-hop video girl clone? It is hard to tell anymore, but her confidence is admirable. She doesn’t seem conscious that her jeans are so low they barely cover her backside.
Deola orders a bottle of Eva water and goes to the lounge to wait for her meal. A Nollywood film is showing on the Africa Magic channel. She watches for a few minutes when a man joins her in the lounge. She hears him laugh, but she doesn’t turn around.
By now, she has figured out the plot of the film, which is about to end: prosperous and honorable man duped by his conniving wife and mother-in-law, who practices juju. His mother-in-law’s juju backfires on her and she confesses to a priest who is brandishing a Bible. The film ends with a warning: “Wickedness will not be rewarded. BEWARE!!!” Its credits are preceded by a message: “To God be the glory.” Only then does Deola turn around and she discovers the man is not one of the guests she has come across.
“They all end the same way,” he says.
His moustache and beard are a dark shade of gray and he wears a white shirt. She pulls her T-shirt down, conscious of her sweatpants.
“What?” she asks.
“Nollywood movies. God takes care of everything.”
He puts his hands behind his head. He is not wearing a ring. She has seen several Nollywood films in England and has yet to decipher how much they approximate reality. The tragedies are comic, the comedies are tragic. The scripts are definitely written by men.
“It would be nice to see one that portrays women differently,” she says.
She couldn’t care less. Her shrug gives her away.
“How so?” he asks.
“We’re not all into witchcraft.”
>
He smiles. “How’s your room?”
“My room?”
“You’re safe here. No need to worry.”
She returns his smile. “I don’t need your assurance.”
“Sorry,” he says, standing up. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m Wale Adeniran. I’m the owner of this place.”
She shakes his hand. She was attracted to him from the moment she saw him, but only when it occurs to her she has not met anyone this attractive in years does her heart begin to act up.
“It’s a good thing I didn’t badmouth the service,” she says, her voice higher than normal.
“How is your room?”
“Fine, fine.”
“And dinner?”
“I haven’t had dinner yet.”
“Are they keeping you waiting?”
“No, no.”
Keep your head straight, she thinks, resisting the temptation to tilt it, as she remembers how easily a man can sense desperation in a woman.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you,” he says.
“Sure.”
She forgets to tell him her name and tries to hide her saggy sweatpants as she walks away, suspecting she looks as if she is wearing a baby’s nappy. He can easily find out her name if he wants to anyway, and she is curious meanwhile. Why is he staying here?
She goes to the dining room and a waiter soon serves her food. Her steak is tasty and so filling she is sure she will sleep well tonight, but she doesn’t. The generator that comes on at night doesn’t carry her air conditioner well. After midnight, it begins to rain. She hears the drops on her window and worries about mosquitoes, but none surface. She takes out Pride and Prejudice and begins to read under her flickering bedside lamp. The lamp continues to betray her. She curls up wishing she were in her own bed and falls asleep at the purgatory hour, just before dawn, when she is most aware of how alone and vulnerable she is.
z
The next morning at breakfast, her eyes are swollen and her voice is hoarse. She eats a croissant that is a little too heavy and has two helpings from the fruit bowl, while nodding at the other guests as they appear. The black American woman is again dressed in a boubou. The Belgian couple is eating with their daughter, who smacks her lips. The young businessman is on his laptop again.
Deola goes to the front desk to check up on the car she has hired for the day and the receptionist asks, “How was your night, madam?”
“Restful,” she says, reluctant to complain.
The receptionist has small eyes and full cheeks.
“Mr. Adeniran says we should take care of you.”
“Why?”
“It’s our policy, madam.”
“Oh, I see. Thanks.”
Her driver arrives. His Peugeot smells of his flowery cologne. It should take him only half an hour to get to the office, but the road is flooded and blocked with rows of cars, which are parked in front of businesses. One reverses on the street and blocks it. Car horns go off and the driver of the offending car pretends he can’t hear them. When he’s satisfied with the commotion he’s caused, he drives off. Deola’s driver turns into a road where residential homes are hidden behind rusty gates.
Victoria Island is the banking hub of Lagos. The traffic is so bad that people can’t drive out of their homes during rush hour. There are fewer cars on the new road. Cigarette stalls are set up under almond and mango trees. GLO and MTN phone card sellers sit under umbrellas.
The office is in a block of flats with a cemented yard. No signboard, but the security guard confirms that she is in the correct place: Plot 400. He opens the gates and allows her driver to park inside.
“De malaria man?” he asks, when she asks for Dr. Sokoya.
“The malaria man,” she confirms.
“First floor,” he says.
She walks up the stairs. The walls are smeared with handprints. Dr. Sokoya shares the floor with a travel agency. He has a Ph. D. in public health. His certificate hangs next to a Chinese calendar. He is bald with a taut face and, for someone who is looking for funding, not cordial. He clasps his hands together on his table and watches his knuckles as she introduces herself. The fluorescent lights are harsh on him and a bottle of Eva water sweats on his desk.
“I thought you were expecting me this morning,” she says.
“I was,” he says, his gaze shifting to the whirring air conditioner.
She will give him a chance. She has often discovered that what she mistakes for hostility is simply nerves. Sometimes clients are simply trying to look busy.
“So you’re London-based,” he says.
“I am.”
“You’re lucky.”
“Am I?”
“Of course. To escape all the hardship.”
She agrees. London is not paradise, but that isn’t the point.
“You are Yoruba?”
“My mother is Yoruba.”
“So gbo Yoruba?”
“Mo gbo Yoruba.”
“I’m surprised.”
She ignores his putdown, but he grows more inquisitive.
“You grew up in Lagos?”
“Yes.”
“Where in Lagos? Don’t tell me, Ikoyi?”
“Yes.”
“I can always tell.”
He smiles and so does she. Worse than the smell of privilege is a cheap attempt to mask it.
At Trust Bank, she worked with men like Dr. Sokoya. They immediately took a dislike to her. No matter how brilliant they were and no matter how much she admired them, an accusation would always come: “I’m not from a rich family.” She would get upset. It felt like a judgment. Her father, who did not grow up rich, would warn her, “It’s envy.” Lanre would advise her on tactics similar to those used to tame wild animals: “You have to know how to approach them. You have to come down to their level of thought and establish who is in control from the beginning. Any sign of weakness and they will pounce on you.”
Lanre was an heir to the throne at Trust Bank, but he did not earn that position. He had to prove he deserved respect from his colleagues, who got where they were by being competitive, not by stepping into Daddy’s shoes. Her father’s only encouraging words to him throughout his thirties were, “A fool at forty is a fool forever.”
How annoying she must have been, practically apologizing for being the chairman’s daughter. Her father and his peers were responsible for the new banking class that emerged after the banking sector was deregulated. Now that some of her former colleagues have risen in Trust Bank to become senior managers and directors, and now that Lanre has told her how quick they are to become pompous and ostentatious, she realizes that yes, it was envy all along.
Dr. Sokoya introduces her to his employees, a skinny graduate and a woman her age who wears a wig. Deola is pleased that he is not particularly well dressed and doesn’t have an expensive car parked outside. The security guards know what he does for a living. This points to his legitimacy, though she is certain he set up the NGO to create a job for himself.
He rubs his hands together. “If all goes well, we are looking to expand next year.”
“Is there any reason why all shouldn’t go well?”
For the first time he is animated. He waves his hands.
“Ah, no! I didn’t mean it that way!”
She recognizes she is not the vulnerable party, coming from abroad and being in a position to decide whether his application for funding can go forward.
“I’ll be in your way for two days,” she says.
“You’re not in our way,” he says. “Everything you need, we will provide.”
z
The right elements of internal control have been incorporated into their daily processes. They have paper trails, authorizations and separation of duties. Malaria does not get enough funding, Dr. Sokoya says, and there are resistant strains because of the fake drugs imported from Asia.
“I hear it’s the same with HIV,” she says.
“Yes
,” he says. “But that is mostly because people are non-compliant. Even if the drugs are not fake, they don’t take their medication regularly or they can’t afford to continue to take the drugs.”
“Hm.”
“It is bad, but HIV gets more attention.”
“Malaria is also communicable.”
“Not in the same way. It is a parasite, not a virus.”
He is eager to explain what he calls the pathogenesis of the disease. She already knows about the female anopheles mosquito from secondary school biology. As a boarding student, she slept under mosquito nets. She would spray a cloud of repellent inside her net and wait for it to subside before going to sleep. If her net had a hole, she would patch it up. Malaria meant a few days off school. Solid food was out. The nausea was severe and the headaches and chills were worse in the evenings.
“So we’re still fighting malaria with nets,” she says.
“It’s the cheapest way,” he says. “And prevention is always better than cure.”
The nets he distributes are pre-treated so there is no immediate need for mosquito repellents. She is sure she will be able to recommend his organization. She does not tell him this, though.
“I’ll have to come back tomorrow,” she says.
“We’ll be here,” he says, smiling. “Maybe we can treat you to dinner afterwards, a local delicacy to fire up your London taste buds?”
This throws her every time: after the accusations come the propositions and they are delivered with such aplomb. She wonders why any man would want to date a woman he disapproves of.
“I doubt we’ll have enough time,” she says.
“We’ll see,” he says, undaunted.
z
The traffic is worse this afternoon, especially along the route her driver takes. They pass people queuing outside the Embassy of China. Perhaps they have given up on getting British and American visas, she thinks. On another street, also filled with potholes, she notices several car dealerships and it occurs to her that the terrain here actually resists development. It is a passive-aggressive landscape. There are no earthquakes, volcanoes, tornados or hurricanes, but a car dealership opens and the road in front of it splits, as if to say, “I told you I couldn’t handle it.” A mall is built and bundles of sticks and stones line up along the pavement and apologize, “Oops, excuse me. Oops, don’t mind me, I’ll be out of your way soon.” A restaurant gets popular and a banana tree at the entrance wets itself and whimpers, “I can’t help it,” as mosquito larvae flourish.
