He heard the sea cow’s response in his head, like a child’s voice through a mobile phone.
“You will see,” it said.
CHAPTER 22
RELAX
Moziz parked the car in the narrow road that ran behind the house. Philomena was there waiting at the door.
“Put your masks back on!” Moziz instructed. All but Troy piled out of the car and ran inside. Troy climbed into the driver’s seat and waited for the others to come out with the alien. His mobile phone buzzed, but, for the moment, he was not thinking about the rape of his cousin.
* * * *
Kola was filming Ayodele as she stood by the window watching the crowd. Holding the camera as steadily as possible, Kola adjusted the contrast, faded out the scene, then tilted the camera up so she could clean the lens with the hem of her shirt. She was having a wonderful time. She turned the camera back on to film the crowd outside, zooming in on the man in white standing before the gate with his arms spread.
“That’s Father Oke,” Kola whispered. She snickered. He looked silly and really sweaty. He was surrounded by other people who were also in white. Two of them were arguing with a tall tall woman who looked like a fashion model and a woman who was dressed like a man but still looked like a woman. One of the men in white slapped the tall woman, and she responded by punching him in the face so hard that he fell into the crowd. Kola grinned and zoomed in on them. High drama, like in the Nollywood movies her mother loved so much and her father hated.
A car slowly pushed through the crowd, annoying the people around it. The car’s doors opened, and five people, one well-dressed woman, and four men in suits, got out. They had pads of paper in their hands and immediately started talking to people and snapping pictures of the people fighting. “Newspaper people!” Kola exclaimed. She zoomed in on one of the male journalists, who walked up to one of the people in white who was not fighting. The journalist said something, and several people in white instantly started shouting at him until he stumbled away, shocked. “Oh, this is great!” Kola said, giggling.
Ayodele paid Kola no mind as she stood watching the crowd, a satisfied look on her face.
Anthony sat on the chair with Fred, calling and calling Adaora’s and Agu’s phone numbers. “Shit shit shit! What is going on? This is bullshit!” he hissed when he got no answer for what seemed like the twentieth time. He glanced at Fred. “Sorry, o,” he said, patting the boy on his head.
Fred smiled. “It is okay,” he said. “I’ve heard my mother and father say those words. Usually when they say it, there is a good reason.”
Anthony smiled back, patting the boy on the head. He looked up, his eyes falling on Philo. She was staring at the kitchen entrance with wide eyes. He slowly got up, his hand sliding off Fred’s head and pushing the boy behind him. “What are you—?”
The men in black burst in from the kitchen.
“A beg, mek everybody relax,” Philo said in a high-pitched voice, moving aside to let Moziz and the others forward.
“We no wan injure person!” Moziz and Troy were wielding guns. Philo pointed to Ayodele. “Na she!”
“Everybody lie down, now!” Moziz shouted, aiming at Ayodele.
Ayodele stared blankly at him and didn’t move. But Kola and Fred dropped to the floor as if their lives depended on it. Anthony held his hands up and asked as calmly as he could, “What is this?”
“Lie down!” Moziz commanded.
“Eii! Na Anthony Dey Craze, o!” Tolu exclaimed, lowering his gun and grinning.
Distracted, Moziz blinked and looked at Anthony again. “Shit,” he said, lowering his gun.
“I get all your album!” Tolu exclaimed.
Moziz smacked Tolu upside the head. “Ee remain mek you kukuma ask am for him autograph!” He looked at Anthony. “Sorry, Anthony. But you sef, you need to lie down for floor, too. We no mean any harm. We just want dat woman.” He pointed at Ayodele, who still hadn’t moved.
“Please,” Moziz said to her. “Mek you just follow us quietly.”
“What do you want with me?” Ayodele asked. She cocked her head and switched to Pidgin English. “Wetin una want with me?”
“We go talk dat one when we comot outside. Just—”
“I no dey go anywhere with una,” she snapped.
Moziz looked at Tolu and Jacobs, then gave a small nod. All three of them lunged at her. Then they immediately froze. To Moziz it sounded like the house was full of those noisy bugs in the trees, all screeching in terrible harmony. He clapped his hands over his ears, dropping his gun. His mouth hung open and his hearing was muffled as, right before his goddamn eyes, she . . . she . . . melted? Melted! Imploded? Disintegrated? Right before his eyes. Evaporated into something small on the floor. A green . . . He squinted. A green lizard.
Tolu stood there, gun in hand, ears uncovered, and shrieked like a little girl.
“You see dat?!” Jacobs shouted. He’d pulled off his mask, and his face was wet with sweat.
“Catch am!” Moziz shouted.
Chaos ensued as all three went after the lizard. Moziz’s mind was blank, his world shrinking down to focus on the impossible thing before him, the lizard-that-was-once-a-woman. Retrieve her and get out. First she had been a woman. Now she was a lizard; he would catch the lizard.
Philomena just stood there watching Moziz scrambling around, chasing a lizard. Like a child. His legs looked so short and skinny, and she realized how stocky he was, how graceless, how he had a bit of a gut that bounced when he ran. She sighed, her shoulders slouching and her stomach dropping. Moziz was just another young area boy.
They knocked over vases and threw aside the coffee table. They stepped on pillows and cushions. And they cursed the entire time. Anthony grabbed the children’s hands and ran to the front door. He threw it open only to be met with the excited cheers of his fans.
BLAM!
Kola screeched and Fred crouched at her feet. Anthony shoved the children behind him. “Stay low,” he said, frantically looking for the gunman. Near the sofa, Tolu was shooting at the scampering lizard.
“Biko! No shoot am! We want am alive!” Moziz shouted.
Tolu’s eyes were wild. “Na evil she be, o!” he babbled, waving the gun wildly as he tried to follow the lizard’s path with the barrel. “We suppose kill am! Kai! Kill am!” He pulled the trigger again. BLAM!
“What are you doing?!” Jacobs shouted. “Stop it!”
Anthony, Kola, and Fred were still trying to figure out which way was safest to flee when the lizard ran out the door between Anthony’s legs.
* * * *
The first thing Adaora thought as she got out of Benson’s car was that the street outside her house had turned into a carnival. The very air smelled deliciously festive. There were vendors selling suya, fried plantain, boiled eggs, Fanta, beer. One woman had even set up right across the street from her house. She was selling fufu and what looked like egusi soup, jollof rice, and other hot food items. And she was making a killing, from the looks of it. She had no less than ten people waiting to be served.
There were young people milling about, laughing, conversing, smoking, drinking. Two clean-shaven men wearing white native clothes and matching caps stood side by side in the middle of the street, frowning in disgust. “We should return to the mosque,” one said. The other nodded, but neither of them moved.
Most everyone in the crowd kept one eye on her house. “Anthony DEY CRAAAZE! Anthony DEY CRAAAZE!” some people chanted, then they started laughing. But, despite the festive atmosphere, not all was well. On the far side of the gate was a colorful group of people who seemed to be in distress. A tall woman had a bloody nose. Had there been a fight? Adaora squinted. Some from the group were nervously holding up rainbow-colored signs with a large spinning black sphere drawn in the center. She remembered similar flags when she’d visited San Francisco, California, once. A gay
pride group? In Lagos? There were women in suits, and a man standing beside them was wearing a pink shirt and . . . leather thigh boots? Well, that’s both bold and stupid, Adaora thought, frowning. They were going to get their asses kicked, or worse. She considered asking Benson to send some of his people to help them, but then realized that was an equally stupid idea. Better not to alert the military.
Father Oke and his parishioners were monopolizing the area directly in front of her house. They were singing, praying, swaying, and clapping. Some were jeering at the group carrying the gay pride signs. More were pleading for “Ayodele the Extraterrestrial” to come out so that they could embrace her and welcome her into their church. But Adaora could have sworn she also heard a few of them calling for “the abomination” to “show its heathen face.” A bad sign.
Also a bad sign were the ten army trucks and cars parked nearby. And the soldiers walking toward Benson carrying AK-47s. Benson motioned for them to wait. He clutched Adaora’s arm. “Walk,” he said, dragging her toward her house.
“You don’t have to be so rough,” she snapped.
They were yards from the fence when the entire crowd suddenly sprang to life and started surging toward the gate.
“Anthony Dey Craaaaaaze! Anthony Dey Craaaaaaze!” people shouted.
“Hang on to me!” Benson yelled, pulling her toward the wrought-iron fence but away from the house’s front door. Thankfully, the gate was still closed or the front yard would have been overrun. They made it out of the crunch, yet still had a good view of her yard. They watched as a tall, lanky, dark-skinned man, a little girl with braids, and a small boy in pajamas stepped out of the house. Anthony, Kola, and Fred. Kola was carrying Adaora’s camera, filming the chaos in spite of the danger. Anthony kept anxiously glancing behind him into the house.
“Fred! Kola!” Adaora shouted, trying to rush forward, but Benson kept hold of her arm.
“Those are my children,” Adaora yelled at him.
“Get us the creature and then you can get your children.”
“We love you, Anthony!” a woman yelled.
“Let me go to them!” Adaora snapped, trying to tug away from him. “I’ve brought you here, haven’t I?”
“I brought you here,” he said. But he let go of her arm. “I have soldiers surrounding this place. Don’t try to run; they all know what you look like.”
Adaora took a step toward the gate when somebody grabbed her arm yet again. She turned, prepared to dig her nails into Benson’s hand if she had to. It wasn’t Benson.
“Chris?”
His eyes were wild, staring. She noted that he wasn’t wearing white. He was wearing the same jeans and dress shirt he’d been wearing yesterday when he’d slapped her. “Fred and Kola are in danger! Let me go!”
“I’ve been following you,” he snarled. “Who is this man? Another of your boyfriends? How many of them do you have?”
Adaora glanced toward Fred and Kola. “Don’t you see the children in— Let go of me!” She threw a look at Benson, pleading for help. He smirked at her before moving to intercept Chris.
“Excuse me, sir, I need your wife to come with me,” Benson told her husband. “This is important business. Military business.”
Benson might as well have not spoken. “Nothing but a whoring witch!” her husband spat at her. “I saw you with him in the car, that other man . . .”
As Adaora braced herself for another slap across the face, she heard the sound of metal balls on glass coming from inside her front yard. Even from afar, the sound made her want to vomit. A few people around her actually did turn to the side and vomit. At the same time, Adaora felt relief. She knew exactly what was happening. The way things were going at the moment, something had to give. Something had to intervene. And something was about to.
“Ayodele,” she whispered. “Thank God.”
All around, people began to scream and press their hands to their ears as they stared into Adaora’s yard. There were the clicking sounds of guns being raised and aimed. But all Adaora saw was the creased, starved, unshaven, raging face of her husband as he swung her by the arm and slammed her against the fence.
* * * *
Moziz looked out the open door at the surging crowd. “We need comot for here, jo!” he shouted. “Now!” At his words, Ayodele the lizard became Ayodele the woman. Tolu whimpered, still clutching his gun, and backed into the house. They all followed, including Philo, fleeing into the house and out the back door to Troy, who waited in Moziz’s car.
“Where she dey?” Troy asked as they threw themselves into the Nissan.
“Drive!” Moziz shouted. They peeled out exactly one minute before soldiers and police flooded into the narrow road behind Adaora’s house like water flooding a beach.
CHAPTER 23
GREETINGS
This time when he attacked her, nothing magical happened. He wasn’t held down by some mysterious force or anything like that. Then again, this time she felt no fear, no desperation, no shock. And she wasn’t alone with him in their home, as she had been last night; there were soldiers and a mob around her. But still, she realized, she’d expected the strange force to have its effect, if necessary. She could make it happen.
Oh God, she thought.
It took two soldiers to pull Chris off Adaora. They wrestled him to the ground. Adaora grasped the gate for balance. She stared down at the man she’d lived with for over a decade who’d never ever laid a hand on her up until last night.
“Witch!” Chris sobbed as a soldier pushed his head to the concrete.
Benson took her arm, more gently than before. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s move to the front. Maybe you can help.”
It was easy for them to get through the captivated crowd of fans, Christians, soldiers, Black Nexus members, curious passers-by, and press people now. Even Father Oke was speechless, the metal cross in his hands forgotten.
Where a moment before there had been a tiny green lizard, a woman now stood. Ayodele, in the middle of the lawn, looking at the crowd.
* * * *
“Mommy!” Fred shouted when he spotted Adaora through the fence. Anthony squinted then waved. Adaora waved back. At least she’s alive, Anthony thought. Before he could stop the child, Adaora’s son ran across the lawn to his mother. Anthony didn’t dare move. The crowd was bewildered, confused, frightened. Anything could set them off. They didn’t need to see him do anything but stay where he was.
As Fred ran toward Adaora, Ayodele looked down at Kola, who was still filming her. “You are doing a good job, Kola,” Ayodele said. Kola grinned and continued filming. “You see your mother?” She pointed and Kola looked.
“Mommy!” Kola said, waving.
Adaora waved back with her free hand. Fred had reached her and was holding her other hand through the gate.
“Keep the camera on me, Kola,” Ayodele instructed. Kola nodded, holding the camera up. She had about two hours of battery time left; she’d checked.
Ayodele looked over her captivated audience. She raised her chin and smiled.
“Greetings, people of Lagos,” she said.
CHAPTER 24
GREETINGS
The Lagos Internet café was full of the usual suspects. There was the owner, Nonso Daouda, who sat behind his counter doing a poor job of not seeing what his customers did with his computers and Internet connections. Then there were about twenty men between the ages of nineteen and forty—all were in the process of e-mailing, texting, chatting, researching. Some were legit, most were up to some sort of 419. There was also one woman chatting with her boyfriend overseas. There was not one person here who had not been here yesterday doing the exact same thing.
Suddenly all the screens blinked off. They came back on showing the face of a young woman who called herself Ayodele. Everyone in the café sat back, watched, and listened. One guy who’d
been in the process of texting his sister was watching the beautiful woman with long braids on his mobile phone.
“We landed here in the night,” the woman said, her strange voice smooth and confident. The picture moved a bit. It was obvious that someone was holding the camera and trying his best to stay still. “From beyond Earth. From space. You all will call us aliens. We are guests who wish to become citizens . . . here. We chose here. I am the first to come and I greet you.”
* * * *
The Lagos restaurant served everything from Nigerian cuisine to Chinese food. Expats and locals alike frequented the place. That’s what gave the Tribe’s Calabash its reputation and popularity. Today it was full. But, now, all the eating and conversation had stopped. The eyes that weren’t watching the wide-screen high-definition television on the wall were glued to mobile phones, computers, an iPad prototype, even e-readers, where the same slightly shaky footage aired.
“I apologize for the noise of our arrival and your rising waters from our landing,” Ayodele said. “Nobody is attacking you. And nobody will dare now. The winds of change are blowing. We are change. You will see.”
* * * *
In a busy open-air market in the central Nigerian city of Abuja, people crowded around a clunky television that was for sale in a used-electronics booth.
“In less than twenty-four hours, I have seen love, hate, greed, ambition, and obsession among you,” Ayodele said. “I have seen compassion, hope, sadness, insecurity, art, intelligence, ingenuity, corruption, curiosity, and violence. This is life. We love life.”
* * * *
Unoma was driving her old but wonderfully reliable off-white Peugeot down the Lagos Expressway listening to an Anthony Dey Craze song when her mobile phone buzzed. When she flipped it open to answer, the footage Kola was filming showed on the small screen.
Unoma worked hard to keep her eye on the road. “What the—?”
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