by Sefi Atta
He makes assurances like “Confess if you’re caught and they’ll give you a lighter sentence,” or “They have no space in their prisons. They will deport you back home,” and oh, oh, his best one is, “They’re not looking for people like you after 9/11.”
So many of his own couriers have ended up as John or Jane Doe of No Fixed Abode. One was stopped at Heathrow and sent to Holloway Prison for her first offense. She discovered a whole community of Nigerians there. Another was stopped at JFK. She refused an x-ray, so federal agents chained her to a bed and waited for her bowels to move. She got five years with no probation. Then there was that other man, Lucky or Innocent something or other, who, after spending time in an American prison, was deported, only to spend another nine years in Kirikiri Maximum Security before he was pardoned. He came out swinging his hips like a woman, eventually died of tuberculosis. She has heard of other couriers who were executed by firing squad in Nigeria, publicly beheaded in Saudi Arabia. Granted, they’re not flying angels, but given their work hazards, five thousand is not too much to ask for.
She shifts her headscarf to a more comfortable position. After this trip, she can afford to pay her rent. It is paid two years in advance. Her carburetor needs to be replaced, or so her mechanic says. She does not move in circles where last year’s iro and buba are no longer fashionable, but she does like to take care of herself. She will buy herself some lace and a few silk scarves, maybe matching shoes and bags from Liverpool Street market. Of course, she has Dara’s school fees to consider first, but in less than twelve hours, she will have earned more money than most Nigerian women spend in a year. She has often wondered what it would be like to be one of those who come to England to work. She sees them at Gatwick Airport, on the Gatwick Express and at Victoria station, walking with the same hurried gaits, and recognizes them by the shapes of their lips and noses. They are all jacketed up like English potatoes and their skin and hair are dried up from the cold. They have more education than she has. Some are even university graduates, but how legitimate can their work be if they are living here illegally?
No, to come and go as she pleases is still the better option for her, even if she ends up spending one night in some cold hotel in North London, with a narrow staircase and worn-out carpet, in a room that doesn’t have enough corner space to lay her suitcase down. When she gets there, she will take a dose of laxatives, and hopefully pass the balloons before her contacts arrive. She is humiliated by their expressions whenever they have to wait for her to finish in the bathtub. She herself cannot stand the smell, or sight, as she rinses her feces off. She wonders who would smoke a substance, knowing that it has come out of a stranger’s bowels, or sniff it up their noses, or inject it into their blood. She doesn’t expect sympathy from the world like the addicts who waste their money getting high. But each trip she makes she plays with death; each trip is her last, until the next. So she, too, is dependent on the drugs she carries. She, too, is living with a habit, after all.
Dara keeps elbowing her; Mr. No Salt across the aisle continues to snort. She has several more hours to go, and wonders what it would be like if the plane were to crash and she never had to work again.
After midnight she falls asleep. She dreams of death by plane crash, car accident; sees herself drowning in Lagos Lagoon, Dara peering over Third Mainland Bridge, and her mother unable to stop him from slipping in because her hands are so crooked from old age they look like a couple of crabs.
When she wakes up it is breakfast time. The lights are on and the attendants are walking down the aisles again. Her eyes are swollen and sore. She shakes Dara’s shoulder and he coughs.
“Take it easy,” she says, rubbing his back.
The air conditioning is no good for his lungs. She checks his socks are still on. The blonde attendant stops by them with a trolley and offers two trays of food and half a smile. Her lipstick has faded.
“Had a good rest?” she asks, bending over Dara.
Dara reaches up and pulls her hair. She struggles to free herself. He drags her lower. She pries his fingers apart and straightens up with a red face.
“Gosh,” she says. “He’s got quite a grip there, hasn’t he, Mum?”
“Sorry,” Mum says. Maybe now you’ll leave him alone, she thinks.
The attendant smooths her hair back. As soon as she rolls the food trolley past them, Mum hands her sticky pastry to Dara, and then raises the window shutter. The ground below looks like geometric shapes separated by green bushes. Roads curve through clusters of red-brick homes. From the ground, the red-brick homes are the color of dried dirt, a few of them defaced with graffiti, and their gardens are so tiny, so chinchini. She would not like to live in England. She wants to remain here, above the country, suspended.
Dara eats his pastry after hers. The blonde attendant collects their trays and is more careful about keeping her distance. In no time at all the pilot announces they are about to begin their descent.
“Nn,” Dara moans when the plane dips.
“Hm,” she responds in his language.
Taking off is easier than landing. She clutches her armrest and braces herself. The balloons in her stomach feel as if they are about to drop.
Only Nigerian passengers clap and cheer when the plane lands with a bump, she is certain of this, and they also get up and remove their hand luggage from the overhead compartments before the seat-belt signals are switched off. At Gatwick Airport there is a rush, as usual, through the corridors towards passport control. She would like to keep up with the rest, but Dara lags behind. He is preoccupied with the clusters of trolleys, and the lit signs saying emergency exit, arrivals and baggage reclaim.
They reach the hall and join the long queue. Her heart beats on her eardrums and she tries to focus on a sign to keep calm: We. Take. Extremely. Seriously. Any. Attempt. To Inti. Midate. Our. Staff. Either. By. Threats. Or Assaults. We take. Extremely seriously. Any attempt. To intimidate. We take extremely seriously. Any attempt to intimidate...
She takes hold of Dara’s hand, just in case it strays again. When they stop at the line on the floor that they can’t cross over, she mentally pokes fun at the man in the immigration booth so she can speak to him with confidence. The man’s head is shaped like a boiled egg. His cheeks are as blotchy as half-ripe pawpaws. His mouth is no bigger than a kobo coin.
“Morning,” she says, looking at his forehead.
“How long will you be staying?” he asks.
“Too weak...”
“Sorry?”
“Too. Weak.”
“Two weeks?”
She nods. This one can’t understand her. She herself finds it difficult to decipher what oyinbos are saying, especially when their mouths are as small as his, but he enunciates as the flight attendant had.
“What is the purpose of your trip?”
“Holiday.”
“Visiting friends or family?”
“Friends.”
He stamps their passports after a few generic questions.
She has found that white immigration officers are more lenient than black, and men are more lenient than women.
“Have a nice stay,” he says, nodding at Dara.
“Thank you,” she says.
Again, she has to remind herself to take even breaths. At Baggage Reclaim, she concentrates on the carousel to avoid making eye contact with those on surveillance. Her clothes don’t matter because they can’t differentiate between Nigerians. They can only rely on telltale signs like shiftiness and sweating.
She is sweating again, under her arms. People continue to break from the crowd around the carousel to retrieve their luggage. She panics when she doesn’t see hers. She will not make this journey again, she tells herself. She should not and cannot. Her nerves will not survive another trip.
“Wait for me,” she says to Dara.
She walks around the carousel to stop her legs from trembling, and spots her suitcase with a pink and gray tapestry pattern. She reaches for it,
as if it is drifting down a river, and grabs the handle. The suitcase is lighter than she recalls and she loses her balance. She backs into someone, and discovers it is Dara.
“I told you to wait,” she says, without raising her voice.
She is not upset. He has been the perfect diversion. Here in England, people glance rather than stare at him, as if they would rather be fake than rude, but he is shivering. Is he nervous or just cold?
“What?” she asks, leading him away from the carousel. “What is it?”
She is using the opportunity to check that there are enough people passing through Nothing to Declare. Two customs officers are on duty. One of them steps forward and her heart beats so loudly it deafens her.
The customs officer stops someone else behind them. She takes steady steps before she is round the corner, and is relieved to see the shop, the one with all the colorful socks. They walk into the crowd on the other side, past people who are waiting for arriving passengers. An elderly woman kneels to embrace a toddler. A row of men display handwritten name cards. Dara raises his fists and cheers. Everyone watches as he runs a victory lap and returns to her.
“Iwo” she says, shaking her head. You.
This is the last time she will travel with him, but he has given her so much trouble she has almost forgotten hers. He claps as if he knows she is pleased with him, and she is glad he has no idea why.
NEWS FROM HOME
It is not a good day to tell her. This morning she quarreled with Dr. Darego again. They were upstairs in their bedroom on the second floor; I was on the sofa bed in the basement where I sleep every night. I heard their voices clear as if I pressed my ear to their door. Mrs. Darego called him a selfish man. Dr. Darego said, “Listen, I work very hard.” Mrs. Darego said she was overworked. “What are you harassing me for?” Dr. Darego asked. “You wanted help, I got you help. You have your nanny downstairs. Call the girl, tell her to get the kids ready, take the keys to the jeep. All of you, drive to wherever you feel like spending your July Fourth. I’m not going. Finish?”
Mrs. Darego must have been the one who slammed the door.
Perhaps this is why houses like theirs in America are called “dream homes.” They are not built with unhappy couples in mind; their walls are too thin.
I fold up the sofa bed and replace the cushions, which are in a pile by the concertina-shaped floor lamp. I untie my black satin scarf to let my braids down, slap lint off my shorts, then listen to a world news broadcast as usual. It is Independence Day here in America. Hopefully, there will be an update on the demonstrators from my hometown.
Forty years it took for our story to reach the front pages of the Times: Nigerian Delta Women in Oil Company Standoff. The women had occupied Summit Oil’s terminal, the report said. They were clapping and singing. If their demands were not met, they would strip naked, and this was a shaming gesture, according to local custom.
I did not know of any such custom in my hometown. I only remembered old-fashioned Catholic women who would consider knee-length shorts like mine a taboo. We Kalabaris were an overdressed people. You had to see our men in traditional attire, with their long tunics, staffs and black bowler hats. Women wore bright silk head ties, lace blouses and layers of colorful plaid wrappers down to their ankles. Why would they bare their bodies for a cause? I thought the newspaper report was a hoax, designed to ridicule Africans and trivialize our protest. I wondered who in my hometown had joined the demonstrators, what had happened to my friend Angelina who was one of them, whether Val had since been found, and if Mama now agreed with Papa when he said that on the arrival of the foreigner, the native must learn to sleep with one eye open.
The broadcast ends without a word about my hometown. In a cowardly way, I’m relieved. I pull the floor lamp to its proper place by the wall, push the sliding doors open to let warm air in. My goose bumps shrink. Outside, the Daregos’ small lawn is bordered by flowers I can’t name. They are pale compared to hibiscus and bougainvillea, muted like the rest of the house. Indoors, there are beige walls, bronze carvings, ebony masks, mahogany tables, and batiks. African-inspired, I’ve heard Dr. Darego say about their choice of decor. I’ve never seen a house in Africa that resembles theirs, so consciously and deliberately African, so beautifully coordinated. To me it is highly westernized.
“Eve?” Mrs. Darego calls from upstairs.
“Coming,” I say.
Fresh air from outside chases me as I hurry to her kitchen. Living in a basement is like living in an underground tomb.
When I was a girl, I was in love with every expatriate I came across in my hometown, Catholic priests especially. I thought they were as pure as God in their whites. I couldn’t wait to hop on their laps. I was envious that they seemed partial to boys. My class teacher, Sister, I didn’t understand why no man had spoken for her. I would have married her myself. She was as beautiful as the Blessed Mary with her red hair and freckles. She was decent enough to spank with rulers, unlike the tree branches our mothers favored for beatings. She taught us about Mungo Park, the Scottish surgeon who was killed on an expedition trying to find the source of River Niger. He was trapped in swamps, fell ill with fevers, was ambushed by natives who stole his equipment and shot at him with bows and arrows. The textbook said he eventually jumped into the river to save himself, and drowned.
I cried for Mungo. I thought natives were wicked people, too ugly in the book illustrations. I grew up, and missionaries like Sister left town. The only expatriates I came across worked for international oil companies—British, Dutch, Canadian, Italian, and American—like the human resources director of Summit Oil who interviewed me for a nursing position at Summit Oil Clinic. He signed the rejection letter addressed to me. Most nurses I graduated with were selling bottled water, bathing soap, tinned milk for a living. Few people in town could afford to buy such provisions. We were one of them. Papa was an electrician; Mama had a Coca-Cola consignment. Still, I was lucky to come to America to work as a live-in nanny.
Mrs. Darego is wearing a flowery housecoat. Her face looks freshly washed. She has the kind of dark skin I admire, almost indigo. This morning she appears gray under her fluorescent kitchen lights. She narrows her eyes as she speaks.
“I’m sorry, Eve,” she says. “It’s me and you today. We have to take the children to the barbecue. Their father doesn’t want to go, and I don’t know what else to do.”
She was going to give me a day off and spend her time shopping for groceries and cooking. I was looking forward to doing nothing useful.
“Shall I get them ready?” I ask.
“Yes, please,” she says. “I’ll pack the cooler and make sandwiches.”
I head for the children’s room, but she stops me by the fridge.
“Is everything all right?” she asks.
I smile to assure her. She has sensed my mood.
I arrived in America in February of 2002. I saw snow for the first time. To me it looked like granulated sugar, this white sprinkle on trees, streets, buildings and the expressway to the Daregos’ house in New Jersey, so pretty I reached out in their yard for a handful and licked it. I loved snow more once I was indoors and warm. Through the sliding door in the basement, I watched the flakes fall. I stepped outside one night to feel them settle on my head and thought the wind was playing a terrible joke on me, the way it cut through my cardigan to my bones. In Nigeria, we had a dry season most of the year, rainy season in summertime, harmattan winds over Christmas and New Year. None compared to the chill of winter. Out there, under the black-blue New Jersey sky, I thought that living in America was exactly what it was like to live in a mortuary.
In my first week, I caught a flu so severe I wished for mere malaria. I sweated from fevers; headaches pounded my temples. Mrs. Darego worried because I had no health insurance. She treated me with lemon drinks and vitamin supplements. I was meant to relieve her, but already I was a burden. I recovered and found I was down to my weight as a teenager. In my spare time, I went for wa
lks to the mall to increase my strength. There, I saw shops for underwear, shops for pets, and thirty types of breakfast cereal. Pancakes with blueberries, raisins, honey, nuts, chocolate chips. Disinfectants and air-fresheners for every germ and odor. Scented toilet paper!
“Where are you from?” Americans often asked. Sometimes they smiled, other times they looked at me with suspicion. I was from Africa, I ended up saying, because I quickly learned they didn’t know Nigeria. They asked, “Algeria? Liberia?” I started to say West Africa, to make things easier for them. They said, “Oh, South Africa!” I met people in New Jersey who had never been to New York. I began to understand their sense of the world.
“Hello, Auntie Eve,” Alali says as I rub her back.
“I had a bad dream,” Daniel groans.
They sound like frogs whenever they get up. Daniel is five and Alali eight. They have their mother’s half-moon eyes. I untangle their legs from their Disney bedsheets and notice new lumps on their skin from mosquito bites. Here, there is no risk of malaria.
“Bath time,” I say.
When I met them, their expressions were Who-are-you? and What-d’you-want?Their accents were wanna, gonna, shoulda.
“You talk funny,” Alali said, once she was comfortable with me living in the basement. “Are you one of those people who call candy sweets and cookies biscuits?”
“Yeah, are you from Africa?” Daniel Junior asked through his missing teeth.
Alali pointed out imaginary locations on the tablecloth. “Now, my mom is from this little village here in Africa. My dad is from this little village here in Africa. Which village are you from?”
