by Jennifer Juo
“Please go,” she pleaded, fearing Winston would wake up.
Ayo punched his fist through the kitchen window in anger and frustration. When she heard the glass shatter, she felt like he had punctured her heart and his too. The broken glass cut his hand. His blood dripped onto the white tile floor where they had once made love. She couldn’t erase that image in her mind. She grabbed a kitchen towel and wrapped it around his bleeding hand to stop the blood. He looked up at her, but she avoided his gaze. Instead, she turned and opened the door, signaling him to leave. He did not protest but walked slowly out the door.
After he left, she cleaned her lover’s blood off the kitchen floor, her own tears washing it away. She called the compound maintenance to come and fix the window, saying a robber had broken the window. Then she went into Winston’s study and wrote on the yellow legal pad on his desk: I have left him. I am here for you and the children. She hoped he would forgive her.
***
The next day, Winston didn’t say anything. But she knew he found the note; it was scrunched up in a ball in the trashcan next to his desk. She cooked all his favorite dishes for dinner, niu ro mien beef noodles, dumplings, and spicy ma po tofu. A feast, this was her apology to him, which he accepted by devouring her dishes. He still didn’t say anything, but she could tell by the softened expression on his face, he was appreciative in his silent way. Later that night, she touched him, and he was more than willing.
In the middle of January 1983, a few months later, she enrolled in the Nursing School at the University of Ibadan. As she walked into her first class at the age of thirty-two, she hoped she could start over. For the next six months, she spent her mornings at school and her evenings doing the required homework. She missed Ayo, this she couldn’t deny. But what hurt the most was that by the summer of that year, he seemed to have moved on and taken up with the new American woman, Donna. Young love flows like water, but water that has flowed away cannot be brought back. So went a local Nigerian saying.
Donna—single, young, looking to have sex and adventure with a local flavor, wasted no time singling out Ayo, attractive and charming. Sylvia had to endure this long-legged brunette in a short white tennis skirt chase after the ball opposite Ayo. She felt Ayo lost no time either. Did he not care about her feelings? He probably was not used to women discarding him. His ego had been bruised and hurt by her, and this was why he readily accepted Donna’s advances. It felt like a betrayal to her even though she was the one who had left him. He was entitled to move on with his life, it was what she wanted for him, but still it was more than she could bear. One night, Sylvia saw Ayo and Donna leave the clubhouse together, drunk on local Star beers. She felt like someone losing a game of mahjong. She had thrown the woman next to her the winning tile. She was not shrewd enough at the game. She would have to pay double for this. Except the stakes were not plastic colored chips, but love.
Images of Ayo’s hands running over the athletic body of that American woman tormented her. She heard Donna leaned on Ayo as her tour guide for the “local scene.” She asked him to take her to the tin-roof shantytown bars packed full of perspiring locals dancing to highlife music under red light bulbs. Donna, fearless and full of adventure, drank the local homemade brew of fermented grains rumored to be spiked with fuel and the accidental ingredients of dirty water—rotting rats or underwear.
Sylvia supposed Ayo was glad to fulfill these new roles. It must have been easier for him, dealing with Donna, non-emotional, just in it for the sex. But he never took Donna to his father’s old house in town, this much she heard through Patience and her robust network.
SYLVIA/WINSTON
Chapter 26
As Sylvia watched Ayo with Donna from afar, she began to doubt her decision. But how could she go back to Ayo? He had moved on. But she craved seeing him and began to look for a reason to be by his side again. Events in the tumultuous country around them would set the stage, providing her with the perfect opportunity and excuse.
Nigeria, which at the start of the last decade had been drunk on its sleek oil, now woke up in 1983 with a heavy hangover. After having been drenched in crisp naira bills pasted on foreheads and arms while they danced, the people discovered the money was never really theirs. Secret pipelines had siphoned valuable foreign exchange to Swiss bank accounts. Schoolteachers had not been paid in months. After the rigged election, people took to the streets in December 1983.
In Oyo state where Sylvia lived, President Shegari’s Northern Muslim-dominated party had “won” even though the state was mostly populated by Southern Christians, the opposition party. Winston was gone, paying no heed to the unrest in the country, visiting Simeon and other rural farmers. Sylvia heard there had been a riot in the town. She knew Ayo’s clinic would be overflowing with patients, and he would need any help he could get. It was the morning of New Year’s Eve, the day that marked the start of their affair years ago. Suddenly, she had to see him again. A kind of madness compelled her to get into her car and drive through the unsettled streets.
Sylvia turned out of the compound’s white gates. She noticed there were more people than usual clustered alongside the road, and the traffic slowed. Despite the air conditioner, it was hot in the car, and her bare legs stuck to the plastic seats. She kept the windows rolled up. Suddenly, there was a loud bang on her window, and she jumped. She looked up and was surprised to see a boy holding a bag of red apples instead of the usual mangos and pineapples. He shouted out an exorbitant price, the apples smuggled in someone’s suitcase from the UK, banking on desperate expats craving their favorite fruit for the holidays.
Sylvia drove by the new soccer stadium, the steel structure casting a dark shadow on the cardboard and plastic tarp shacks around it. Precious government oil revenues had been squandered on steel and glass while half-dressed children played in the gutters beneath it. Next to the stadium, she saw the carcass left from a car accident—the wheels, steering wheel, seats, and mirrors already scavenged and reused. Somewhere, a legless man was wheeling around in the front car seat, now attached to bike wheels. A young woman was applying lipstick while gazing into the rear view mirror that now hung above a yellow plastic bucket, her sink and bath.
A block from Ayo’s clinic, the traffic stopped moving entirely. She could see the two-story blue and white clinic in the distance, but her car was trapped behind the multitude of cars, mopeds, and carts swarming the road. She got out of the car, not caring that it might be gone in a matter of minutes. She began running toward the clinic, weaving through the crowds and pushing her way through. When she reached the clinic, she was out of breath, her dress drenched in perspiration. She walked through the glass doors and saw Donna sitting behind the small wooden reception table.
***
Unaware that his wife was running to Ayo’s clinic in the midst of riots, Winston visited Simeon’s family on the morning of New Year’s Eve. He had brought gifts for the children. The four children smiled at him with dark eyes and white teeth. Simeon’s ten-year old son held up a small white goat in his arms. His son was shirtless, and his brown pants were too large for him, rolled up at the waist and at the bottom. Simeon’s other two children pulled the youngest child in a pink plastic laundry basket around the dirt ground, the little girl with beads in her hair squealed in delight. Abike stood ironing the children’s school uniforms on a wooden plank placed over an empty oil drum, the rusted iron full of burning charcoal. She took pride in ensuring her children were dressed in crisp, clean uniforms every day for school. But today, he could feel the intensity of her rage coming from the hot iron, the way she attacked her ironing with a vengeance.
Now more than ever, he wanted to make it up to Abike, to quell her rage. Winston sat down on a wooden stool next to Simeon. He reached into his bag and pulled out a large manila envelope. This year’s harvest had generated enough to replant next season. But it was still not enough to repay Simeon’s loans, which Winston knew were multiplying with interest. There had been too many
failures. Two harvests ago, Simeon’s crop had suffered without the regular supply of fertilizers. This year, despite a decent harvest, the flooded market had driven the price of maize down. Winston knew Simeon was struggling financially.
He placed the envelope into Simeon’s hand. Simeon looked inside and saw folded naira bills, a generous amount of Winston’s own savings. Simeon looked up at Winston. He seemed surprised and then hurt.
“No, no…dis is not necessary,” Simeon said, shaking his head, pushing the envelope back into Winston’s hands.
Winston took the money back, embarrassed. He had hurt Simeon’s pride. He suddenly wished he had not tried to do such a thing. The gesture had been full of good intentions, and he knew Simeon appreciated this, but it still recalibrated their friendship. He knew it had humiliated Simeon, signaling they were not on equal footing.
Winston got up, embarrassed, and took his leave. He put the small white goat, a gift to him from Simeon, in the back of his jeep. He saw Oluwa standing in the distance, watching them.
“Be careful, sah,” was all Simeon said as Winston got into his jeep.
The armed escort drove Winston along the deserted road. Winston looked out the window and felt the isolation. There were no towns along the road, just the bush on both sides. The late afternoon sun lit up the red earth termite mounds, some ten feet high—spiraled towers and castles of dirt, full of underground tunnels. Winston couldn’t stop thinking of Simeon’s face when he had offered the money. He noticed Simeon’s goat was skittish in the back of the jeep, jumping from corner to corner. This nervousness was contagious and Winston felt on edge. He knew bloody skirmishes had occurred between the Muslims and Christians in the towns. He was glad to have the armed escort, but he didn’t know if this was a false sense of security.
After seeing no one for a full hour, he saw something in the distance, a few empty oil drums set out in the middle of the road, some soldiers dressed in camouflage, a military check point. But something didn’t seem right. Why in the middle of nowhere was there a military checkpoint? Perhaps a response to the riots and violence in the town, he hoped. The armed escort slowed the jeep.
***
The soldier at the checkpoint asked Winston and the armed escort to get out of the jeep and open the trunk. It seemed to be a routine military checkpoint, and in any case, Winston thought, the armed escort was no match against the military. He was merely meant to scare off a few crazy villagers.
Another soldier looked in the trunk and picked up the skittish white goat trying to make its escape.
“Keep it, Happy New Year from me,” Winston said, hoping this would be the end of the search. He was worried the soldiers would find the envelope full of cash in his bag. He had shoved the bag under the passenger seat as they had approached the checkpoint.
“Tank you, ma friend,” a tall, thin soldier said smiling. “Anyting else you want to give me, eh?” When he smiled, the tribal tattoos on his cheeks, ripples on his skin, seemed to disappear.
Winston shook his head.
“Are you sure?” the tall soldier opened the front door of the jeep and peered inside as if he had been tipped off about the envelope of money.
“You trying to hide something from us, you O’Ebo?” the soldier said as he searched the car further. Because of his height, it took some effort for the soldier to reach under the seats, but he soon found the bag. He looked in the bag and pulled out the manila envelope. The soldier’s eyes grew large when he saw the amount of cash stuffed in the envelope.
“Keep it too. Another New Year’s gift from me,” Winston said, suddenly feeling nervous.
“You weren’t going to share dis wit me and I thought we was friends. I am hurt, ma friend,” the soldier said, holding the cash in his hand.
With his other hand, the soldier hit him in the face. Winston fell to the ground, his mouth full of dirt and the taste of his own blood. With the salty tang of blood in his mouth, Winston suddenly felt afraid. He knew once blood started flowing, who knew if they would stop. These men liked the smell of blood and the scent of fear on their prey. Winston’s armed escort reached for his gun, but another solider hit him in the stomach, and he fell to the ground. They put Winston and his armed guard in the back of their truck.
“We taking you to de station for dis deception. Take you to see de boss,” said the soldier with the scars.
Winston realized his folly. He should have just given these men the envelope up front. Now, they were going to mess with him.
The soldier drove Winston to the “station,” a stifling, three-room cement house under a tin roof. The inside “office” was more for show. Most of the soldiers hung out under the cool of the large tree outside. The soldier introduced him to his captain. Winston sat down at the desk. The Captain, a large overweight man, sat down opposite him and asked for his passport. Winston reluctantly gave his passport to him, but the thought occurred to him that this could be last time he would see it. Being stranded in a country on the verge of political violence without proper identification was not his idea of how to spend New Year’s Eve. His passport served as his ticket out of here. He thought of the road they had built on the compound next to the lake, long and wide enough for airplanes to land and takeoff for immediate evacuations.
The Captain read his passport cover page, Taiwan, the Republic of China, as he smoked a cigarette. Old cigarette butts were scattered on the cement floor below him.
“China?” he asked. “My brotha he go to China. He is soldier too. He met Chinese girl. She come here with him.” The Captain spoke with a scratchy, raspy voice, typical of a chronic, long-term smoker.
The Captain was not smiling, he didn’t seem angry either, so Winston couldn’t tell if this coincidental family connection was going to be fortuitous for him. Winston wondered what the Captain’s brother was doing in China, but this was the Cold War. No doubt Communist China was doing its bit to build “relations” with African countries especially oil-rich ones like Nigeria. Winston didn’t bother to explain that he was from Taiwan, the “other China.”
The Captain tossed the passport on his desk, and to Winston’s dismay, the passport seemed to get lost in the piles of loose papers and bits of oil-stained newspaper once used to wrap the Captain’s breakfast. This Chinese woman, Winston realized, whether she had been nice or not nice to the Captain’s brother, would decide his fate. She was his only ambassador at this point.
“Let me show you your five stah hotel for tonight,” the Captain said, coughing. His voice sounded brittle to Winston. He walked down the short hallway. They passed a cell crammed full of people—the small size of the cell offering barely enough standing room for the crowd. The Captain led Winston to the other cell.
“We prepared dis one just for you,” the Captain said. “Courtesy of your good friend.”
Winston looked up. This was the first time the Captain had mentioned any other accomplice in his situation.
“What friend?” Winston asked.
“Let’s just say we have a friend in common, you and me.” The Captain chuckled.
Winston thought only of Oluwa. He had arranged for this? Had he seen the envelope of money Winston had tried to give Simeon and then alerted the Captain to rob him? The money would be payment to the Captain for locking Winston up, serving Oluwa’s larger goal to be rid of Winston.
The Captain pushed him into the cell. Winston surveyed his dismal accommodations. The cell was empty. There was a small window up high with bars. The only furniture in the room was a wooden stool and a lidded red bucket in the corner of the room that reeked of urine. The Captain then shouted someone’s name. A girl came hurrying in with a bucket of Fanta and Coca-Cola bottles. The Captain handed the girl a stapler. A stapler? What were they going to do to him? But the girl took the stapler and, with the back of the metal, opened a soft drink bottle for Winston. Another soldier came into the cell and threw Winston his suitcase with his toothbrush and change of clothes. Then the barred metal door slammed l
oudly, and the Captain, soldier, and girl took their leave.
Winston was left alone in the cell. He wasn’t sure what had happened to his armed guard. Was he in the cell next to him? Winston felt unbearably hot. There was not much air in the cell. The smell of urine coming from the bucket and the cell itself made him feel sick. He sat down on the stool against the wall strewn with the pockmarks of bullets. Would this be his end, languishing in a Nigerian cell arranged by Oluwa and his juju doctor? He might not make it through the night. He tasted the flavor of his own blood in his mouth. He washed this down with the sweet orange taste of the Fanta soda.
Chapter 27
Sylvia walked through the mass of people overflowing into the hallway, the familiar sour, metallic smell of blood and ammonia greeted her. She noticed some new rusty-red stains on the floor.
“Sylvia,” Ayo said, their eyes met. “You came.” He showed her into his office at the back of the clinic.
“I came to help out.”
“I’m glad to see you,” he said softly. “I’ve missed you.” They looked at each other briefly, and she blushed. He was so close to her, she wanted to touch him, lay in his arms again.
“I’ll end it, if you come back. She’s nothing to me,” he said as if reading her mind.
“I should go get changed. I’m sure there’s a lot of work to do,” she said, suddenly upset. How could he make love to someone and say it was nothing?
