“I don’t see why we can’t share it among ourselves.”
“Because that’s stealing,” said Isoken.
“The only time something is wrong in Nigeria is when you’re caught.”
“Devil’s advocate,” Oma said. “Do you think any of us can escape with that money? You leave here carrying two million dollars in cash and what next? Do you have a bank account? Where will you spend it? Who’s going to change it into naira for you? The first person that sees you with that money will kill you.”
“Why are you so lazy?” Isoken added. “I’m working every day, doing hair to save money to go back to school. If you have something you want to do, go and get a job. That money is for children who are suffering.”
The two women were against Fineboy.
“I have suffered,” Fineboy said. “You don’t know suffering until you see what I have suffered. From when I was a child, you can’t even breathe properly because of the gas flaring. And the water most places, totally undrink—”
“Please let me hear word,” Isoken said, cutting him off. “Kidnapping and causing mayhem in the Niger Delta, is that one suffering?”
“Kidnapping people?” Oma asked, shifting away from the boy. “You, Fineboy? A militant? You knew of this?” she said, turning to Chike. “You all knew of this? Jesus. In the same house with a criminal.”
“I vouch for him,” Chike said.
“Where do you know him from? You were a militant too?”
“It doesn’t matter what I was. No one has ever harmed you. Nobody has assaulted you. I will go to the first school tomorrow. Fineboy, you and Yẹmi will stay behind to guard the Chief.”
“Our work nkọ?” Yẹmi said.
“I’ve given our notice.”
“You think we dey for army? If you give order, I go just say yes sah? Nah who tell you say I wan’ leave my job?”
“OK, then. You’re free to stay and continue your work. Godwin only has to replace me.”
“No. I go guard Chief. Just that you go ask me before you come take that kain decision. No be say you go give command.”
“We should take a vote,” Fineboy said.
“I agree,” said Isoken. “All in favor of handing Chief Sandayọ over to the authorities.”
Oma.
“All in favor of keeping the money.”
Fineboy.
“All in favor of redistribution.”
Chike and Isoken.
“Yẹmi?”
“Nah my right not to vote.”
“A majority of one,” Fineboy said. “That’s not enough.”
“We have a runoff,” said Isoken. “That means we must vote again.”
“I change my mind,” Oma said. “I go with Chike and Isoken.”
“Right. Y’all have won. So who are we going to say the money is from?”
“We?” Isoken said to Fineboy. “You’ve joined the winning side already?”
“Whatever we decide, I’m loyal.”
“I haven’t thought of anything,” Chike said. “Maybe I’ll say I’m from the Ministry of Education.”
“They’ll ask for ID,” said Oma.
“Just say a mystery benefactor sent you and he doesn’t want to be named. It happens in films all the time,” Fineboy said.
THAT NIGHT CHIKE READ from the story of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man, corpulent and grotesque, draped in purple and feasting each night. Lazarus begging by his gates, equally grotesque, with sores licked by the stray dogs of Jerusalem. And then in death, their roles some-what reversed. The rich man roasting in a lake of fire and poor Lazarus, held in the bosom of Abraham, still needing to be carried.
“You’re going to burn in hell,” Fineboy said to the Chief when the parable was over.
“Tell the young man: that may very well be so, but I can assure you he’ll be burning next to me.”
28
If you prefer sitting in traffic to sitting at your desk, if you pass office hours waiting for closing time, if you spend more time on Facebook than you do attending to important e-mails then perhaps it’s time for you to consider quitting your job. Before you resign, however, plan your next career move and, if possible, already have your new job or business waiting. Don’t take any major decisions without the support of your nearest and dearest. If your spouse says no, no is no.
—from “Careers with Kunle,” Nigerian Journal
CHIKE ENTERED THE COMPOUND of Kudirat Shagamu Primary School without challenge. Inside, the dim corridors had an odor of sweat and latrines. The students were crowded into classrooms, packed on their benches, elbows and knees pressing into each other. Chalk clicked on blackboards, tapping out like Morse code, white symbols on dark slate. Along with fractions and long division, they would soon learn the equations of inequality, inverse proportion, the rich getting richer, the poor sliding into abjection.
“Yes, how may I help you?”
There was a woman observing his progress.
“Good morning, madam. My name is Chike Okeke and I’m here to speak to the principal of this school.”
“You are speaking to her. Come into my office. Please sit down. What can I do for you?”
“My boss passes this school on her way to work every morning and she wants to see Kudirat Shagamu transformed. She asks only that you write a shopping list of everything you need to achieve that.”
“Who is this woman?”
“Her one condition is that she remains anonymous.”
“Has she spoken to anyone in government?”
“She wants to deal with you and your school alone.”
“I see. You want me to collect money from you without informing my zonal supervisor? If it’s stolen nkọ?”
“Principal, I can assure you that this money is meant for your school.”
“I’ve written to my superintendent so many times. We need a block extension to accommodate all our pupils. We need at least one computer so we can stop using textbooks to teach computer science. And what does he say? Be patient, Mrs. Amadi. These things have been budgeted for and will come after the due process. Due process.”
He imagined that even outside the tight walls of her office, she would always speak as if addressing an assembly, no space for interruptions from the floor. Her hair was more grey than black; her age closer to sixty than fifty. She was used to making do, he saw from the broken wooden ruler on her table, held together by clear tape. The photograph of the president, framed with yellow metal, was the newest thing in the room.
“Well, here’s a copy of the list I have been submitting for five years. If your employer can help us with some of these items. Good day.”
Outside, the children had come out to play. They were thin but energetic. Stones flew through the air; fights broke out on the edges of the red clearing on which nothing grew. Their screams took him back to the Delta, his mind traveling to the night he left the army, flames on the thatched roofs, the tinder smell of palm fronds burning, the gauze of smoke, the night, orange and ablaze.
The principal’s list asked for textbooks, computers, desks, whiteboards, fans, but there was no mention of swings or slides. He would buy them anyway. There was power in his gaze; the all-seeing donor who could grant wishes and change lives. They would be a sort of atonement for those children he had watched career into a line of gunfire. He shut the school gates and began his journey home.
“GET ME SOME WATER,” the Chief said to the circle around his television glued to a Nigerian film. The lead actress’s husband had just died and her in-laws had arrived to throw her things out of the house, hurling her suitcase across the screen. The men ignored his request but the woman got up and went to the kitchen. When she returned with the cold water, he thanked her, noting her slim wrists and the way she walked lightly on her feet.
“Chike must be proud.”
“Why do you say so?”
“Any man would be proud of such a beautiful wife.”
“Oh, Chike is not my husband.”
&nb
sp; “Beautiful lover, then.”
“We’re not—”
“Where did your children go to school?” Fineboy said, turning from the screen. “I can bet they didn’t school in Nigeria.”
Sandayọ and his wife had sent their son to America with money earned from publishing and printing, long before he became a minister.
“Please tell that young man I will not be exasperated by his stupidity today.”
“Tell me yourself,” Fineboy said.
“I only talk to human beings.”
“You must have been silent in Abuja, then. Bloody beasts of no nation.”
“Basket mouth wan’ start to leak again o,” Yẹmi sang, keeping his eyes on the TV.
“Yes, it’s good you referenced Fẹla. He would have had a lot to say about the Niger Delta. That bunch of thugs running around claiming to be freedom fighters. If you know how many of them the president has paid off, you’ll go and become a militant right now.”
“Who has he paid off?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Sandayọ turned his face to a painting of the Lagos waterfront, an orange fire burning in the foreground, the blue-grey ocean receding into the horizon. He needed to find a way to escape. Fast.
29
Stop complaining about this country. Do something.
—“Morenikẹ the Motivator,” Nigerian Journal
AFTER THEIR DAILY READING, Fineboy whispered to Chike that he wanted to talk outside. Chike had noticed his restlessness since they decided that the money would go to schools. Fineboy was always restless, but there was a brooding, silent quality to his fidgeting these days. Aboveground, the air was moist from the afternoon’s rain. Chike had cleared the trapdoor area of algae, but after such heavy rainfall, it would sprout again. They walked out into the dusk, damp grass rising up their legs. Fineboy lit a cigarette.
“I smoke when my mind is busy.”
“Just don’t let Oma see you.”
“Yeah, before she poisons my food.”
The boy inhaled deeply, oxygen and nicotine rushing to his brain.
“I want to bring a journalist. Chief Sandayọ was talking about the secret deals that go on in Aso Rock. It’s news for the whole of Nigeria. We can’t keep it to ourselves.”
Chike did not know what he had been expecting, but it was not this quest for the dissemination of knowledge. Motives were not immediately apparent. Yet it was Fineboy. There must be a motive.
“Do you have anyone in mind?”
“Yes. One newspaper that’s very professional.”
“You know somebody that works there?”
“Not yet.”
“It could be dangerous.”
“I won’t bring anyone we can’t trust.”
“I’ll leave it to you, then.”
Some minds were always searching for patterns, joining threads until life was a carpet of recurring shapes and symbols. And even if you weren’t of that bent, it was impossible not to attach some significance to Fineboy. The boy had found them a home; saved them from eviction. Who knew what this idea of his would bring? Chike trusted the boy not to harm them. Beyond that, Fineboy was Fineboy.
Chike remained outside after the boy had left, tilting his head to the sky. For the first time since he arrived in Lagos, he felt he had a place in the world again, a mooring in this spinning planet. From the hotel, to the bridge, to the crossroads, to their underground flat, he had tumbled along with chance. Even this family of five had sprung together by circumstance. But now he had stood up to fate. MAN FINDS TEN MILLION DOLLARS IN LAGOS. DONATES IT TO SCHOOLS. Who would believe it?
He would never be a somebody in this city, never make his mark in any public way. He would have Yẹmi’s respect and Oma’s and Isoken’s and on most days, he believed, Fineboy’s as well. Most important, he would have Chike Ameobi’s respect. That would have to be enough.
Isoken came with him to the schools, his partner in do-gooding. She left her hairdressing to weekends now, bussing from school to school during the week, drawing up lists in her neat, tight handwriting.
Principals always asked for textbooks, desks, and computers, the trinity that would solve all their problems. As for the students, they subscribed to the trinity but they also believed in other gods: microscopes, Internet access, air-conditioning, school buses, flushing toilets, basketball courts, sanitary bins, swimming pools, tennis courts, new equipment for a band. Some wishes they could not grant. A young girl had run up to Isoken after a focus group and whispered, “We need new teachers.”
They took danfos, the rough and tumble of public transport endured for the higher cause of “education transformation,” a term Isoken had started using for their work of two weeks. Yet it was she who was most transformed, lifted to a new stage in her life cycle, from dormant pupa to this alert, darting creature, drawing up plans and strategies and backups. Sometimes in the evenings, they went through self-defense moves, elbow in groin, palm smack, foot stamp. He did not know what the Chief thought of their use of the money. He seemed to have submitted to his incarceration. Oma mentioned that he complimented her excessively when Chike was gone, praising her cooking and looks.
“Maybe he thinks both of you can become lovers and escape with the money,” Chike said to her.
“He’s too short for me.”
“What’s your type?”
“People who don’t ask too many questions.”
“Like me?”
She had laughed, showing her teeth to her molars and the strong, slim trunk of her neck. Surely the lines are fallen for me in pleasant places, he thought as he turned to go back inside.
30
TNJ: Why is it that you only date light-skinned girls?
JJ: (laughs) Who told you that? Well, it’s true, I prefer our fairer sisters. Not because I’m hating on the chocolate or anything. If you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, but you know how it is. You want the latest Range, the newest Blackberry, and the hottest light-skinned chic. That’s Naija for you. We’re too materialistic.
—extract from interview with MC James Java, Nigerian Journal
“MR. BAKARE WILL SEE you now.”
Fineboy had sat sweating in the reception of the Nigerian Journal for an hour. When he asked the receptionist to switch on the air-conditioning, her reply had been terse.
“We’re using the small generator. It can’t carry AC.”
She was certainly bleaching. Although whatever cream she was using must be good. It was the ears that gave her away. Standing over her at the desk, he spotted them, coal against her caramel face.
If Chike had divided the money, Fineboy would have taken his share and disappeared. No matter what Oma said, it couldn’t be that hard. Two million dollars would have set up his own radio station, an entire media empire if he wanted, Fineboy Communications: Entertainment of the people, by the people, for the people.
But Chike had not shared the money and you could not attack a man that had saved your life. You would be forever cursed and Fineboy knew about curses. His grandfather had committed suicide after cuckolding a river god. The aggrieved deity had risen above the waves and walked on land for the first time in millennia, shrimp and small fish sliding out of his clothing as he made his way to Fineboy’s grandfather’s hut. A curse had been placed on their male line, cutting them off before forty. Fineboy’s father had committed suicide. His older brother had committed suicide but he, Fineboy, would not kill himself.
He had been taken for deliverance in a church where demons were routinely cast out and mammywaters flopped in the aisles, their gills shriveling under the onslaught of prayer. The curse had been ripped out of him with shouting and convulsing that left him bedridden for a whole day. The matter had been sealed when his mother took him to a medicine man. There were two deep incisions on his chest to ward off death by his own hand.
He fingered the scars through his shirt now as the receptionist motioned him to a door. He had picked the Nigerian Journal b
ecause its pages were free of the adverts that took up the other papers, adverts congratulating men like Chief Sandayọ. The paper itself looked sleek and professional, standing out from the rest on display. He had not expected the office to be so small.
Chike would not understand why Fineboy was here. It was true that he would have taken the money if given the chance but it was also true that he believed Nigerians should know what went on in Aso Rock. The two impulses lived in him peacefully, and with one thwarted, the other naturally came to the fore.
He knocked and entered Mr. Bakare’s office. There were headlines hung on the walls, framed in dark wood, the room shouting with bold block sentences. Mr. Bakare was a young man, trendy in his navy blue suit and gold watch face, large as a pocket mirror. The room was cold, the air-conditioning denied Fineboy in the waiting room on full blast here.
“Good afternoon. How may I help you, Mr. Fineman?”
“Fineboy.”
“Yes. My receptionist, Chidinma, said you’d come on business of a confidential nature. Apologies you were kept waiting. It’s been a busy day. Did she give you something to drink?”
“No.”
“I’ve warned her many times. I must apologize again. I would offer you something but I don’t want to keep you. It appears you have a news story for me.”
“Yes, I do.”
“And what is it?”
“News that will make every Nigerian want to read your newspaper.”
“I’ll settle for advert subscriptions. The only things Nigerians read are the captions under wedding photos.”
“If you run this story, you’ll sell so many newspapers, you won’t need adverts.”
“I’m listening, Mr. Fineboy.”
“I know where Chief Sandayọ is.”
Under his calm exterior, the editor of the Nigerian Journal was an excitable man. He took off his suit jacket and tossed it up to the ceiling, sleeves flapping, silk lining flashing as it rose and fell to the ground. Then he picked up a phone on his desk and said, “Chidinma, bring this boy a drink and cancel all my meetings for today.”
Welcome to Lagos Page 12
