News from Home

by Sefi Atta

  He stops and lifts his shirt. There are scars on his back.

  “I swear,” he says. “I would have died if not for Médecins Sans Frontières.”

  He takes me to a cliff. From there we can see Spain. The lights on the coast are so bright; the houses in the port of Tangier are pure white. The sea that stretches between—it is all I can do to stop myself from leaping over the cliff and getting crushed to a pulp.

  “See?” he says. “It’s tempting, isn’t it? Twenty miles only. El Dorado. You can cross anytime if you have enough to pay a samsara to take you. The pateras carry more passengers. The dinghies are cheaper, but they capsize. People have drowned.”

  I can barely hear my own voice. “Which way is better, Ceuta or sea?”

  “I’ve given you the options,” he says. “Take your pick.”

  I take a shit in the dark to clear my thoughts and wipe with a leaf. When I return to our tent, Patience is still reading her Bible. I want to tell her all I’ve found out from Obazee. I want to find out if she has enough to pay a samsara.

  “Bad news,” I announce.

  She shines her flashlight on a page and says, “Listen. ‘I have heard the complaints of the Israelites. Tell them that at twilight they will have meat to eat, and in the morning they will have all the bread they want . . . ’”

  “I’m tired,” I say.

  Fairy tales can’t save us.

  So, my mother says, my girlfriend turns out to be just another woman of the night. Why then is she reading her Bible and going on about the Israelites of the past?

  Here are real stories from a modern African exodus, she says.

  One man from Mali, he couldn’t afford his fare. He crossed the Sahara on foot. It took him several years. The Moroccan security forces got hold of him when he reached Tangier. They repatriated him straight back to the border of Algeria and told him to find his way to Gao. Yes, with the same two legs that brought him to their country.

  Another man, from Rwanda, came by truck with his family. This was long before the barbed wire was erected around Ceuta. The family got into Ceuta all right; then they were kept in detention for months, waiting for their lawyer to prove that they really were from Rwanda.

  What about the Sierra Leonean who, shortly after the barbed wire went up, tried to scale it several times, until his skin was practically shredded? He decided to swim the sea to get to Spain. He had only one hand, by the way. The salt water stung his skin; he still made it to the shore. His missing hand was there to prove that he was fleeing a civil war.

  What about the Nigerian who secretly regretted that her own homeland was not war-torn, and hoped that the baby in her belly would be considered worthy of asylum? The baby came out two months too early, right here in the forest. Mother and child never made it to the next day.

  Then there was the Senegalese. She couldn’t swim. She found a samsara to carry her by dinghy, and it wasn’t that the dinghy leaked or capsized. It was the samsara: he said he could not get too close to the shore; the Guardia Civil might catch him, so he ordered her to jump out of his dinghy into the sea and find her way somehow.

  Perhaps Africans shouldn’t compile these stories in any book, my mother says. Who wants to save such stories for posterity? No, she says, these stories are worse than any night-mares, so considering what may lie ahead, it is better that I continue to sleep for the rest of my journey.

  The night is so chilly we sleep curled up like a couple of crayfish. We wake up to the sound of thuds, shouting, pots clanging, babies crying. It is dawn and the sun has not yet dried up the dew.

  The commotion is over Obazee and his Nigerian cronies. They’ve decided to move the camp further into the bush, to hide from the security forces. Some people are protesting that they don’t want to move—actually protesting over their little hovels. They follow Obazee as he marches ahead of them saying, “I’ve given you the options. Take your pick.”

  Patience and I watch those who are already untying their tents. I have no doubt how we must leave the camp now.

  “Do you have money left?” I ask.

  “For food,” she slurs.

  She is sluggish. She took painkillers. I run my tongue over my teeth and spit. My mouth tastes bitter.

  “It’s five hundred dollars each to go by dinghy and one thousand dollars each to go by pateras.”

  She slaps sand out of her hair. “Who said?”

  “Obazee.You should have come. Yesterday. He showed me the shore. He said we can go by sea or wait for months to sneak into Ceuta like people around here.”

  I tell her what I know. I know exactly what she’s thinking. She’s put her trust in the Lord.

  “Do you at least have enough to get to Tangier?” I ask.

  She pushes out her bottom lip. “Mm-mm.”

  “How did you intend to get to Spain without money?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Perhaps she’s waiting for a hand to come down from Heaven and part the sea for her. “Where are you heading for after Spain?” I ask.

  “Rome.”

  “What will you do when you get to Rome?”

  “Work.”

  “What work?”

  “Jean-Luc, not this morning.”

  “Tell me.”

  She waves her arms. “I said not this morning! You see what’s ahead of us, eh! We have to pack up and move. All my body is paining me, eh!”

  “I told you mine.”

  She sighs. “When will you learn that you and I are not mates? They recruited me in Bamako. Hear? I’m supposed to be in Tangier right now, working. Understand? When I get to Rome, I’ll continue to work. It’s bondage. Intercontinental. White men, African women. See?”

  Does she think my eyes are the color of weak tea for some other reason? What I see is myself playing football overseas, and Patience not having to sleep her way to Europe. I think about what she told me about the Israelites, and that their main problem was that they didn’t have enough faith. Maybe they wouldn’t have needed to if they’d had enough sense to stick together.

  “I have enough for both of us,” I venture.

  “Enough what?”

  “Cash. To cross by dinghy.”

  She snorts. “I’m sure.”

  “It’s true. I’m not bragging. It’s right here. I’ll share with you.” I pat my left sneaker.

  For a moment she purses her lips. Perhaps she’s worried about our dinghy capsizing.

  “What?” I ask.

  She turns away. “Oh, you’re young. What am I doing?”

  I poke her in the ribs to force her to smile. “Come on.”

  The woman pulls my face right into her armpit. “So,” she says, “just like that, for no reason, you will help me cross the sea?”

  So long as the sea doesn’t rise up against us. I hold my breath as if I’m about to dive. Her armpit stinks to high heaven.

  She says she’ll go to Tangier and find a samsara there. She travels with another woman who is going there to buy chicken feet.

  Morning. I begin to untie our tent. Obazee is busy organizing the move to another part of the forest. Almost everyone has agreed to go, which means that everyone must. This is the way it is around here, all together, through the forest, up the mountain, hup, two, three. One day, I fear they might move so far they will reach the cliff and fall off.

  Obazee makes his rounds and guides them like Moses.

  “You,” he says, snapping his fingers when he passes by me.

  “When is your mummy coming back?”

  “She is not my mother.”

  “Well, remember that by evening, we’re leaving this place.”

  I fold the tent as he walks on. The ground is bare except for our footprints, Patience’s and mine.

  Noon. Most people have moved to the new site. Those who remain gather clothes, pick up pots, and search for what is lost. I sit on the tent as if it’s a mat and lean against a tree trunk. Obazee comes by again.

  “She’s not back yet?�
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  “It takes long.”

  “Not this long,”he says, checking his watch. This time, he doesn’t even stop to look at my face.

  I spread my toes. There is space in my sneakers now; too much space since Patience took my money.

  Dusk. I can count the people left in the camp: five, besides me. One of them is the woman who left with Patience. They’ve cleared up everything except for a sandal, a bucket handle and a red rag. Obazee startles me.

  “You’re still waiting?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t think you should come at this rate?”

  “No.” I can spare him only one word at a time.

  He contemplates the little I’ve said and then bends to wipe his forehead with his shirt. “Don’t worry,” he says. “Maybe she got stuck. Whenever she appears, follow the way to the cliff. You’ll find us there.” He points to the others.

  I would prefer that he tells me to take my pick.

  After they leave, I turn on Patience’s flashlight and flick through her Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. I can’t find the story. I reach Revelation and still can’t find the stupid story she told me, but you won’t catch me running off like some girl. I’ll wait until morning if necessary. If I shiver it’s because of the winds. They come from the desert and the sea. They carry sand and salt. They clash right here in the forest and can pierce to the bones no matter how well you’re prepared for them. It’s funny how. I hope she drowns.

  A TEMPORARY POSITION

  For about four, five months before I began my accountancy training at Price Waterhouse in London, I had a temporary job as a receptionist at the head office of a company I’m not going to name, because I was not legally allowed to work there. The visitor’s visa in my Nigerian passport clearly stated this: Leave to enter the United Kingdom for six months. Employment prohibited. Luckily, I was living in my parents’ flat in Pimlico rent-free. They paid all the bills and had also offered to give me “a little something,” as my father would say, until I joined Price Waterhouse and was able to apply for a work permit.

  I had told him no thanks. At twenty-two years old, with a degree from the London School of Economics and one year’s national service, which I’d spent working at the Nigerian Stock Exchange, I really didn’t think I ought to be getting pocket money anymore, and it wasn’t just that my pride came before English immigration laws. I planned to eat out as often as I could in London, shop, go to the cinema and to nightclubs and perhaps travel within Europe. This was in the mid-1990s and my father’s “a little something” turned out to be just fifty quid a week. I was part of a group—huge community, really—of Nigerian graduates living in London. Some of us were getting financial support from our parents, some were working illegally—as I intended to do—and others were collecting dole checks, somehow. We used fake national insurance numbers. No one was getting caught.

  The office I worked in was off Oxford Street, which wasn’t a bad commute from Pimlico on a daily basis by tube; I didn’t have to change lines. During the morning rush hour there wasn’t much of a crowd either, which was just as well, what with people thinking they could get away with not bathing. It was the end of spring and the beginning of summer. Occasionally, the sun shone and I’d shut my eyes imagining I was somewhere else in Europe, somewhere more exciting and beautiful, like Barcelona. I would forget the Thames looked like tepid tea and the pavements were splattered with saliva, chewing gum and pigeon droppings, except when the rain poured so heavily that they oozed a brown muck.

  The office itself was rather un-English, I thought. It had none of that dark depressing wood furniture or those intimidating bronze relics. Instead, there was steel, glass and a maze of compartments made of a light wood—very Ikea-ish—and the island of gray carpet in the reception area reeked of an addictive chemical.

  Cath, the head secretary, escorted me to my workstation on my first day and I felt so bad because, whatever she said, she reminded me of Pepé Le Pew, the cartoon skunk. Her hair was black and pulled into a ponytail with a single curl. Her suit was cream-colored, made of crêpe, and her voice was full of mucus. Cath was a smoker.

  She explained that the department dealt with in-house publications and, looking around, I spotted a few PR-types, with their tans, blue-striped shirts and general busyness. They exchanged praises like “brilliant,” “great,” and “excellent.” I guessed that they were well-paid English graduates, and experts at pretending to be keen.

  I did not tell Cath I had a degree in economics. In my CV I’d written that I had five O levels instead of ten and one A level instead of three, so she wouldn’t consider me overqualified for the job. I was glad my home address could pass for a council flat’s, and even though my name and features betrayed me, I did not reveal that I was a Nigerian, in order to keep my background story simple. I spoke to Cath in the accent I’d acquired in my first year at boarding school when I got tired of my English schoolmates asking, “You what?” as if they couldn’t understand a word I was saying. So, I was speaking in my fake English accent—phonetics, as we Nigerians would call it—to Cath who really couldn’t be bothered to enunciate herself. She dropped most of her H’s and called herself “Caff.”

  Cath wanted me to be professional at all times. Clients visited the department and sometimes journalists. She whispered the word “journalists” as if I ought to be wary of them. Within an hour, she’d taught me how to answer the telephone, put callers through or on hold, make announcements and buzz the door open, after checking the security screen. By the switchboard was a crystal vase, shaped like a womb, and I had to make sure it was rinsed out and topped up regularly.

  She took her flowers seriously, Cath. She favored orchids and spaced out their stems. I was to pluck off their leaves if they looked as though they were dying, and I wasn’t allowed to let them touch the water, otherwise the water would end up stinking. That week, as she occasionally stopped by to ask, “All right?” in a voice so cheerful that my heart would skip a beat, I observed her flower rules and other rules, like no eating and no personal phone calls. My friend Remi called to say, “What’s up?” and I answered, “Certainly, I’ll put you through,” and immediately disconnected her. The no-eating rule troubled me more. At lunchtime I had to go to the snack room to eat my roast beef on rye sandwich, with horseradish so strong it burned the roof of my mouth. The snack room was not as clean as the rest of the office. The table had greasy fingerprints and rings of sticky soft-drink sediment.

  Cath said I was doing really well, and I could have been any black receptionist to her, any in London, until the afternoon that Raj, an editor in the department, not bad-looking with rockabilly sideburns, was on his way out and asked what time it was. I told him and he pointed at me as if he were shooting.

  “Are you Nigerian?” he asked.

  Cath had stopped by my station again to make sure her orchids were prim. She separated their stems and her lips were pursed from concentrating on her task.

  “Em,” I said. “Yeah?”

  “I know that accent,” he said. “I have Nigerian friends.”

  Foreigners, I thought, why did we always have to stick together? He slapped the pockets of his leather jacket and was out of the door before I could rebut, and then I had to answer the phone again.

  “Good afternoon,” I said, rounding my vowels even more.

  “I didn’t know you were Nigerian,” Cath said, when I finished transferring the call.

  “Yeah,” I said. “But it’s not like I’ve been back there in a while. I really don’t identify. I was quite young when we left. My parents came over...”

  Her smile was sympathetic and mine, I hoped, came across as grateful for English citizenship.

  “So sweet, Raj,” she said, plucking a leaf. “Really, really sweet, and he’s just got married, you know.”

  “Yeah?”

  All I knew was that he wore leather well.

  She nodded. “Mm. I was at his wedding last month. Lovely, and I like
Indian food—popadoms and samosas”

  From then on I was more relaxed around her, and by the end of my second week, my colleagues were appearing less slick. I noticed crusty eyes in the mornings, laddered tights at the end of the day and dandruff on shoulders. They were exactly like me. Exactly, exactly. I was seeing a trichologist on South Molton Street for my dandruff, which I had initially thought was caused by stress. Misuse of chemicals, he said. That was from my national service year in Nigeria. Scrunched was the best way to describe the texture of my hair now, and my hairline was also receding from plaiting with extensions. I looked like a skinny sumo wrestler, even though I secretly held an image of myself as being very attractive and highly intelligent.

  Before my various interviews at accountancy firms with names like Stuck-Updale and Hoity-Toityheim, I had taken the Victoria line south to Brixton to buy a wig and found one imported from America, a pageboy style in off-black. I looked like a Supreme when I slipped it on and practiced how to walk through a door with confidence, give a firm handshake and answer positively without discussing salaries. I was still sporting the wig for the receptionist job. Cath thought it was my real hair.

  Through her, I got to hear about Graham, who was the head of the department. He was short with a bald patch, and was always hidden in his office, but he knew exactly what was going on. I could barely hear what Graham said, because his lips hardly moved and they were inverted. His secretary, Moira, complained all day about drafts in the office. “Oh, this place is too cold for me,” she would say, or “Oh, this place is making me sick.” I thought Moira was West Indian, but she claimed to be South American.

  There was Neil, who had represented England in past Olympics. He came from the mailroom a couple of times a day, winked and called me “love.” I didn’t mind that he expected me to be flattered. How like England, I thought, for someone to represent the country and end up in a mailroom. Now, there he was, and his only consolation was chatting up Trish, the general secretary of the department, the one with the ladder in her tights and crescent of cubic zirconia studs in one ear.