by Sefi Atta
I couldn’t believe she would dare to accuse him, even in that underhanded way. She couldn’t even call him by his name, out of respect. What was she saying? At least she had the grace to eye the floor. Popsi was not one of those violent policemen who beat their wives so badly the entire barracks came out to beg. A month ago, one crazy one beat his wife as she tried to leap off the balcony. She was halfway across and the man was beating the parts of her body he had access to. He stopped only to fetch his gun from their bedroom and that was when Popsi and a group of men seized the opportunity to rescue her.
He narrowed his eyes at Momsi and spoke with such dignity. “I am warning you. Do not cross my path today. Do you hear me? You have been forewarned.”
No reference to what she was trying to insinuate. As I backed into the poster of Jesus, I wondered if he secretly was a big boozer. Why else would he always let her get away with insulting him? Momsi adjusted her wrapper. She had bags under her eyes from years of sewing under poor lighting and not sleeping well because of his snoring. Her bones—clavicle or cervical—were sticking out. She slapped her arms.
“I used to be fat when you married me,” she said. “Eh? Fat and yellow. Now, see all my body, shriveled and black.”
“D-did I ask you to g-go all over the place under the h-hot sun s-searching for fabrics?” he asked, faking a stammer to show how serious he was.
She patted her chest. “Why not? Why can’t I search for fabrics? Is it not for my daughter’s sake?”
“Which daughter?” he said and hissed: “The one you almost drove out of this place?”
She nodded. “Yes. I was shopping for my daughter.”
He returned to his room. “Suddenly she is your daughter. Suddenly, because she is marrying a senator, she is your daughter.”
“He is not a senator!” Momsi said. “He is in the House of Reps!”
A cockerel crowed outside. A neighbor was clanging pots. It done do, I thought.
“No one has come to me to ask for her hand,” Popsi was saying. “No one. And until then, she is my daughter. My daughter. You hear me? I didn’t give her away to anyone, certainly not a man who has not had the c-common decency to send his people to my house.”
“His people are in Gandu Biyu,” she said. “You expect them to travel all the way here?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, because he cannot come and face me, after what he has done. Under normal circumstances he would not be able to face me anyway, as my prospective son-in-law, so what is it you want to say, woman? What is it you want to say?”
Her voice trembled. “You’re too proud. Too proud. The girl is pregnant. It’s not as if she is pure, and even your own son said so. He said it was best. It was best for them to marry. He said it.”
“He would,” Popsi said. “If he doesn’t, will his church s-send him as a representative to meet Benny Hinn? Will his church send him on a s-spiritual retreat to Jamaica?”
She was sobbing. “Heh, what is my own with Benny Hinn, oh? What is my own with spiritual retreat?”
I had never even heard Momsi cry. I thought she was completely heartless. Popsi then accused Brother’s church of thievery. He said Benny Hinn was a 419er. He also accused Sister’s NGO. He said they got funding from dubious government officials and spent the bulk of their money on SUVs.
Augustine and I got toVictoria Island and we were able to talk freely as we walked. He told me he was part of the community at the internet café—the daytime Yahoos. Some worked overnight. The chick with the Red Sox cap was one of them. She targeted foreign dating sites. Mugus fell in love with her fake photographs and sent her money. Once in a while she was on eBay. Most of the guys were using the lottery format. They sent emails asking mugus to wire funds in order to claim non-existent prizes.
He said the lottery format was overused. He would start me off with begging letters. I was to keep them as simple as possible. I could write as an orphan, or an elderly man. Pretending to be a woman helped; so did having a terminal disease. The most effective format was that I needed money to complete my education, or my child’s. That would guarantee me a sympathetic response, but I might also get replies telling me to fuck off or go to hell. One woman from South Africa wrote him a whole page telling him off for ruining Nigeria’s reputation. “We despise Nigerians over here,”her email ended. He was tempted to write back and abuse her forefathers, Boers, or whatever they were, but he didn’t. That would be a waste of internet time. He also warned me about scam baiters. They were pranksters, who wrote back pretending to be fooled. If I was not careful, I could end up exposed on their websites. The English were notorious for that. Targeting them had become a huge risk.
The real masters in the business, the real P-I-M-Ps, were the ogas, the Yahoo millionaires. Those guys did not play around. To trap a mugu, they would print fake certificates and letterhead paper, rent a government office and furnish it if necessary. They would put on any charade. Any. Augustine had worked for one who didn’t pay his commission. He tried several times to reach him by phone, only to hear his number was no longer in service. He went to his house, found him there and the man claimed he had been in Côte d’Ivoire. Augustine asked when he was likely to pay his commission. The man said the money was in a domiciliary account and the balance had to be wired to a local account.
What excuse didn’t he giveAugustine after that?Augustine’s account number was missing a digit. The wire was awaiting one security clearance or another. He had had no electricity for weeks. Armed robbers attacked him. He managed to jump out of a window and escape. His leg got sprained. In fact, he had been sick with malaria.
“He thought I was a mugu,” Augustine said.
Mugus were not only fools, he said, but they were also the victims of their own vices. Those who sent money in response to our begging letters were somehow relieving their guilt about how extravagant their lives were, or they were prejudiced about Africans and believed we were all desperately in need. Those who sent money to claim lottery proceeds were plain greedy, and anyone who responded to transfer-of-funds letters had to be corrupt as hell.
“You can be anyone you wanna be,” said Augustine. “Anyone on the internet. These mugus are ignorant about us, man. Ignorant. They don’t know jack about Africa. They think we’re still swinging on trees. You’ve gotta realize the level of ignorance you’re dealing with here.”
His new oga went by different aliases. Solomon Goodhead was one and Alhaji Ahmed was another. He would give me money to buy food to eat at the bukateria, next door to the café. They had edikang ikong and pounded yam on their menu, rice and stew with plantains and assorted meats.
It occurred to me that there was nothing more precious in the world than satisfaction. That it was possible to end up committing a crime just because you were contaminated by a little discontent. You could convince yourself that you were satisfied, then someone could come along and say, “But I can offer you more,” and then you could begin to think, My life is not worth much after all. In fact, you could tell yourself, My life was completely worthless from the start.
That was exactly how I felt as I listened to him, and I blamed everyone we came into contact with. The bobos in their Benzes, for one. I would never be them, picking up chicks and taking them to private clubs. Beggars, for another—one in particular who sat cross-legged on the street with his hand extended. They were too humble, far more than they needed to be.
Augustine had this new girlfriend whom he called his “shorty.” Her name was Glory. She was older than him and worked as a receptionist at a hotel on Victoria Island. The hotel was four star and French-owned. The hotel management didn’t encourage people like us to walk in. Security guards hovered around the gates, ready to pounce on us, but Augustine seemed to know them. He raised his fist and called them “chief” or “oga.” They nodded in response. He asked one of them to get Glory. We couldn’t walk into the lobby so we stood on the cement ramp outside between the casino and banquet hall. A curved ixora hedge bord
ered the ramp. A popular police-band song was playing: “Guantanamera.” Momsi knew all the words: “Wancharamera. Maria, wancharamera .Wancharameeera...” Moments later, when Glory came out walking in time to the music, my mouth fell open. This was the chick he was calling his “shorty”? She was practically a palm tree. Her legs could have reached my shoulders, and she wore high heels. She was in a black skirt and waistcoat. Her hair, which had to be fake, was halfway down her back.
Augustine had said she had recently been attacked. An area boy had tried to grab her handbag outside a Chicken George, but she refused to let go. The area boy pushed her into a gutter and ran off. Passersby pulled her out and said how lucky she was that he hadn’t stabbed her. Glory just sat on the side of the street and howled. She was putting serious pressure on Augustine to leave Nigeria, now. She could help him get a visa, she said, through her expatriate connections. He didn’t have to pretend he was dying, but she needed him to buy her a plane ticket.
“How now,” she said, coming to a stop.
The breeze was strong enough to lift her hair weave and we had to raise our voices. Cars and taxis crawled up and down the ramp.
I strained my neck. Close up, she had pimples on her forehead and her lips were lined black. She was most unattractive. Augustine introduced me as his cousin and she bent to hug me, as if we were friends.
“Oh, he’s so cute! How old is he?”
Her perfume was strong, yet I could smell her hair weave, which had a similar odor to sour milk. Chicks usually responded to me as if I were one of them. Glory wasn’t my type, but if she was not careful I would rummage through her belongings, I thought. Augustine said I was twelve.
“What’s your name?” she asked, rubbing my head.
“Idowu,” I said.
She looked at Augustine. “But he’sYoruba. How can he be your relative when he is not from our side?”
Augustine’s people were from Warri. They had English names. His parents were called Eunice and Enoch. He mumbled an explanation about me being related by marriage as we walked away from the ramp. People who talked about tribes amused me. Who the hell cared where our forefathers were from?
The hotel was full of prostitutes, packed with them, and they were dressed in western attire. They could easily pass for proper elite. What gave them away were the crooked-legged walks they acquired from parading up and down the diplomatic district. Glory called them “va bene,” not “ashawo,” as everyone else called them. So many of them ended up in Rome, she said. She did not dislike them as much as the other staff did. If the oyinbos at the hotel were not screwing someone out of their money, what were they looking for in a place like Lagos?
“That’s why I love you,”Augustine said. “You’re egalitarian in your thinking. Very enlightened.”
“Ega what?” she said and smacked his shoulder.
She was too old. We found a bench by the car-hire service, near a mosque, beauty shop and magazine store. Kuramo Waters was before us. Behind us was a red-brick bazaar where Hausa traders sold arts and crafts. Above us was what looked like an air conditioner’s yansh trapped in an iron cage. It blew hot air over my head and dripped water occasionally.
“But you know I love you,” Augustine insisted, stroking her arms as she sat there pouting.
“Then buy me a ticket,” she said.
He said he was saving up and it would take time, then he began to compare her to beauty pageant queens as she denied his praises.
“You’re my Miss Nigeria,” he said.
“At all,” she said.
“My Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria.”
“At all.”
“My Face of Africa...”
She gripped his hand like a wrestler. “Face of Africa? Please, don’t remind me of that.You know they are holding the next contest here?”
“Eh?” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “The preliminaries will be held here and I am not allowed to participate because I’ve passed the age limit. Can you imagine? And if you see the monster they chose last year, you will run. One girl with a square jaw, like this, and a shaved head. Face of what? Who wants to be that? It is the ugly girls they want. The ones with flat noses. They look like lesbians.”
She pronounced the word “lexbian.”
He reached for her hair weave. “It doesn’t matter. You would win if you were allowed to enter. Who is finer than you?”
The Face of Africa girls were not bad at all. What they had in common was that they were not rich. The last Nigerian who won was offered a modeling contract for a hundred thousand dollars. She went to live in NewYork. The rest had to return to their hovels or wherever they came from. The winner had never held a passport before. She was taller than Glory and her body was tight. Any girl who could manage a haircut that low had to be beautiful. This one didn’t have a dent in her head, but a chick that tall was beyond me. If I wanted to have sex with her, where would I begin?
Glory’s phone rang. “’Scuse me,” she said, flipping it open with her fake nails. “’Lo? Yes? No. No. I’m otherwise occupied. I said I’m otherwise occupied. Yes. Later.”
She returned the phone to her pocket as Augustine watched her.
“Who were you speaking to?” he asked.
“My sister,” she mumbled.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Look,” she said, raising her hand. “Don’t come here and accuse me of all sorts. I’ve told you before, this body is not for sale. I don’t give it up easily. I’m not a va bene. I may not have money, but I am coming from somewhere. My father was a famous footballer in this country. If not for his leg injury...”
“OK! OK!” he said.
She herself was like a footballer. She was all thighs. Her calves were as thick as her thighs and so were her ankles; there was no in or out. A simple “Are you sure?” and now she wanted to give her life history. All that talk was like his bragging about sex anyway. If her father was that famous, she wouldn’t have to say he was.
Augustine was a mugu, big time, or too much in love to care. He had probably paid for her nails and her phone. How they would qualify for visa interviews, I didn’t know, but rather than sit there as he continued to toast her, I excused myself and decided to explore. There was enough vegetation to hide behind: traveler’s palms, mango trees, frangipani and kinikan kinikan.
The arts and crafts bazaar was open. Oyinbos were shopping there for souvenirs like ebony busts, bronze masks and malachite ashtrays. No self-respecting elite would buy any of that. From what I’d observed, they preferred to surround themselves with objects that reminded them of Europe.
I saw a woman with an oyinbo man who looked old enough to be her grandfather. Her T-shirt was tight and short, and her bobbies stuck out. He had a hooked nose and his hair was wet with sweat. So was his shirt. He carried a brown briefcase that seemed to weigh him down.
“Is good the eh, eh, art effects?” he asked.
“Yes, of curse,” she said. “They have a lot of artifacts here. Any artifact you want, you can boy.”
Nigerians. Why did we always change our accents whenever we spoke to foreigners?
“Is eh, eh, hex pensive?” he asked.
An illiterate would have been more articulate.
“Oh, my gourd, no,” she said, patting her chest. “They are not expensive at all if you convert to naira. They won’t cost you much.”
From his appearance, he didn’t seem to be worth much, wherever he was coming from, but that was the trouble with the naira. Anyone could come to Nigeria and become rich, once they converted their currency to ours.
The Hausa traders called him. “Oyinbo!”
He refused to acknowledge them, as if he was too scared to without her protection. They came out of the bazaar and beckoned at him, “Oyinbo! Oyinbo! Oyinbo!”
“Heave,” he cried out as their calls grew louder.
He clutched his briefcase to his chest. Eve? That was her name? He was most likely French, then. I’d heard they
had problems with their H’s.
“Oyinbo! Oyinbo! Oyinbo!” the traders kept shouting.
“Heave,” he cried out again.
She hurried over to rescue him. He was now using his briefcase as a shield against the Hausa traders as she shooed them away.
Heave indeed.
The new wing of the hotel was to my left. Other women walked in and out and I tried to guess which ones were the prostitutes. It was hard to tell. They all moved with such pride. I counted about three suspects who were accompanying oyinbo men and then got bored of watching.
The hotel had a swimming pool. Guests in the new wing would have to have direct access to the swimming pool—to avoid walking through the reception of the main wing scantily dressed. Nigerians despised unnecessary nakedness. Oyinbos enjoyed swimming. I could find my way to the swimming pool through the new wing.
I was right about the alternative route. The outdoor corridor from the new wing led there, past a bougainvillea courtyard and fountain. I smelled the chlorine long before I reached the pool, and I was also right about oyinbos. The place was full of them, chock-a-block with them. There was only one Nigerian in the shallow end and he was performing stretching exercises. Then he crouched and did breaststroke movements with his arms while walking underwater.
Nigerians couldn’t swim—Lagosians, who lived on the mainland. Island people from fishing villages could. They swam better than the fish they caught. Perhaps that was how they caught the fish. People from the Delta could swim, too. As for people from Lagos, Eko people, despite the water that surrounded us, we were useless swimmers. Even the elite didn’t appreciate getting wet, I’d heard, for all their attempts to be like oyinbos. The women especially, with their expensive hair weaves and extensions. The smallest drop of water could revert their looks to African.
