That night, Mama asked me to help her bathe. For a week, she had only been able to give herself sponge baths, because it was too painful for her to climb in and out of the bath.
I boiled a kettle of water on the kitchen stove. We waited till the sun had gone down completely, then I poured the hot water into a bucket, took it to the tap outside and filled it with cool water so that the temperature was just right.
There was a cement slab in the backyard on which we washed our clothes. Above the slab were wire lines on which we hung the clothes to dry. Mama stood on the cement slab. She crouched a bit, as if shielding herself from peering eyes. But our fence ran the whole way around the compound, and the houses nearby were flats like ours, not high enough to allow the possibility of second-storey peeping Toms. Still she crouched, because of the pain. And though it was mostly dark outside, the moon and stars shined brightly enough that I could make out the redness all around her shoulder and chest.
With a small bowl, I poured the water over her shoulders, down her back. I lathered up a washcloth with a bar of soap and rubbed her skin gently with the cloth.
I poured the water down her breasts, lifted them one at a time and washed underneath. They were heavy and sagged, nothing like mine, though I knew that mine would surely one day become weighed down with age, too.
She squeezed her eyes shut each time the cloth touched her skin. It didn’t matter how gentle I was. The fear had been implanted in her, and so she’d squeeze so hard that wrinkles formed on her forehead and crow’s feet around her eyes. That night, it was hard to tell what the droplets on her face were: tears from so much pain and suffering, or merely splashes of bath water.
Even with the aroma of the soap, there was still something yeasty, almost stale, and a little honey-like about her scent. It was a smell that resembled that of the sweet powdered milk which we used to drink in our morning tea. And I thought, so this is what it smells like to be old and weak.
I imagined rubbing powder on her face, all over her body, smoothing her out, the way Njideka had smoothed me out. I imagined erasing the age from her face, imagined putting life into her cheeks. If only it could be as easy as rubbing some of Njideka’s blush onto them. But of course, that was not an option.
We prayed again that night and Mama read again from Job. Despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty: For He maketh sore, and bindeth up: He woundeth, and His hands make whole.
‘You must speak good English,’ Njideka told me the next time we met. It was a Friday, after classes. I had told Mama that I would have to run some errands, university business, pick up groceries at the market. Those types of things. She had nodded and told me she’d be waiting, whenever it was that I got back home.
‘None of this pidgin that we use when we are by ourselves,’ Njideka said. ‘These men are looking for intelligent women who can hold a conversation.’ Of course, I could do just that. I could discuss budget and political issues comfortably. It was what I studied at the university. If I did well, I could bring in five hundred dollars or more. American dollars.
I would do it just that one night. To get the money for Mama. To get the money so that I could take her to a specialist, one that Njideka would recommend. I knew that Mama would ask where the money had come from. I’d tell her that I’d taken up a short-term job. It would be the truth. She’d probably ask more questions. What kind of job? How did you find it? I’d figure out answers for those questions later, I thought.
Njideka did my make-up just as she had that first afternoon. Then she lent me a red wrap-around dress, a little too tight on her, she said, but just my size. It formed a V around my neck. I’d never before given any thought to my collarbone, but in the mirror that evening, I thought what a beautiful thing the collarbone was. And I thought how terrible that Mama’s was so damaged.
The man arrived in a BMW—a Be My Wife, Njideka teased. He was tall and dark, his simple linen buba and sokoto crisply ironed. He reached out and took my hand, drawing it upwards and tipping his head just a bit as he placed a kiss on its back. He wore gold rings on three of his five fingers. They were not massive rings, but small diamonds circled each of them and sparkled so that the rings appeared much larger than they actually were.
It was supposed to be a simple dinner, at one of those swanky restaurants in GRA—Blue Elephant or G’s Barracuda—those expensive hangout spots for the wealthy. And it seemed that this would be the case as we headed down Abacha Road, past the GRA Everyday Emporium, the grocery store with the escalators and fancy security guards. But then he continued to drive, taking some turns and winding up in a place that, in the dark, I did not recognize. He stopped the car there and asked me to untie my dress. I shook my head, smiling just a bit, like a mother gently scolding a misbehaving child.
‘Come on,’ he said, his voice soft and pleading. ‘Don’t be afraid of me, beautiful Ada.’
My name on his tongue sounded vile. Like an insult.
‘What about dinner?’ I asked, trying to sound calm. ‘Let’s eat first, and then we’ll go from there.’
‘Come on,’ he said again, his voice more gravelly, more urgent. He lifted his buba, lifted it so high that I could see the drawstring of his sokoto and the dark coils of hair just above, on his belly.
I shook my head again. ‘Dinner first,’ I said, my voice trembling. Njideka had said that most of the men wanted nothing beyond dinner and maybe a kiss. How could I have been so unlucky as to wind up with this man? I began to cry, begging him to take me back home.
He patted me on the back, then opened his door and stepped out. He came around to my side, pulled me out of the car and into the back seat, all the while telling me not to worry, that he would not hurt me. Then all his weight was on me and he was pinning open my thighs with his. He paused only to grab a condom from his pocket, to tear open its plastic wrap, and to slip it onto himself. I screamed, but it was dark all around, empty space like in an open field. Who could have heard?
He dropped me off several blocks away from Njideka’s flat. It was just as well, I thought at first. But as soon as I got out of the car, I decided that I could not bear to see her. It would be like staring my sin straight in the face. It would have been too difficult a thing to do.
And so I walked home, many kilometres on bare feet, holding the sequined heels that Njideka had lent me. I found the stash of bills in my purse as I walked. One thousand dollars. All that money, perhaps because he knew that I had never been with a man. Maybe Njideka had told him. It was more than enough to pay for Mama’s visits to a specialist.
Mama was kneeling by the sofa, her arms and chest resting on its cushion, as if she’d been in the middle of praying. She was wearing her grey wrapper tied around her chest. She turned slowly, her eyes probing. She must have seen the streaks of mascara coming down my face, the blotched lipstick around my mouth, the dried bits of blood that had dripped down my thighs, a darker shade of red than the dress I was wearing. I went to her, kneeled before her. But she only shook her head. ‘Mama, ndo,’ I said. Sorry.
Her eyes appeared sunken, and her shoulders were slumped lower than ever before. She only shook her head, and then she slowly walked away.
Days went by, and then weeks. I did not return to school, instead I remained at home with Mama. Every day I made her pepper soup and brought it to her. But each time I went back for the bowl, the soup was just as I had left it, only cold. She did not speak to me.
Then one Saturday, nearly two months later, I brought her pepper soup again in a tray, and for the first time since my night as a runs girl, she looked at me, her eyes dull. ‘It’s been a long time since we went to church,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow we should go.’
‘Yes, Mama,’ I said, but I wondered how she could possibly make it through the bus ride.
That evening I came back to collect her bowl of soup, and again, it was cold and untouched. She was leaning on the sofa again, as if about to pray.
I left her where she was and went off to wash the pl
ates, to sweep the floors, to bathe. When I returned to her, she was still leaning on the couch. I called out to her. ‘Mama! Do you hear me? Mama!’ She did not respond. And then suddenly I was turning her around, checking for breath. And there was none.
Papa’s brothers and sisters came to the funeral. Some of Mama’s cousins came, too, along with some distant relatives, many of whom I did not recognize. ‘Ekwensu,’ they all called it, when I explained to them how the pain began. The work of the devil.
Together, we buried her in the cemetery not too far from our flat, the same place where we buried Papa. I used the money from my night as a runs girl to pay the funeral expense.
Sometimes I go to the cemetery to visit Mama and Papa. On days when I’m overwhelmed by shame, I go in the evening or at night, as if the darkness will somehow mask the shame. I allow myself to remember the time before Papa died, and if I listen carefully, I sometimes hear Mama’s laughter ringing out, somewhere far away from the cemetery.
And sometimes I think that if I were to be placed in a valley full of bones, I would create a new Eve, create her from a new set of bones. And I would lay sinews upon her dry bones, and flesh upon the sinews. And I would cause there to be a noise, a clicking noise, and everything would fall in place. And I would cause breath to enter in, and this new Eve would live.
And this new Eve would walk amongst the trees of the garden. And she would drink from the waters of the river of the garden. And again, she would eat the forbidden fruit. But she would not be cast away from the garden, because she would be given the opportunity, just once, to ask for forgiveness. And she would be forgiven.
America
We drive through bushes. We pass the villages that rim our side of the Bonny River. The roads are sandy and brown, with open gutters, and with wrappers and cans and bottles strewn about. Collapsing cement shacks stand alongside the roads, in messy rows, like cartons that have long begun to decompose. There are hardly any trees, and the shrubs are little more than stumps, thin and dusty, not verdant as they used to be.
A short distance from us, something comes out of the river, a small boy or girl, maybe six or seven years old. Hands flail in the air and another child joins—typical children’s play. Except that it’s too early in the morning for that. Except that their skin, and even the cloth around their waist, gleams an almost solid black, that oily blackness of crude.
The bus moves slowly, and for a bit, as we make our way out of Port Harcourt, I worry it’ll break down. The last time I made this trip (about a year ago now), there was a problem with the engine. The bus only made it to the terminal in Warri, not quite halfway between Port Harcourt and Lagos. When we arrived at the terminal, the driver asked us to exit. He locked the door to the bus and went inside one of the offices in the terminal. He locked the office door too, leaving us outside to fend for ourselves. We had passed no inns or motels on the way. Just splatters of small shops, their zinc roofs shining in the sun. Lots of green and yellowing grass. Clusters of trees.
At the terminal, I found a nice patch of ground on which I slept, using my luggage as a pillow under my head. Some passengers did the same. Others, I assume, wandered about the terminal all through the night. The next morning another bus arrived. It took us from Warri to Lagos. I made it just in time for my interview. Lucky that I had left a day in advance. Not that leaving in advance made much difference in the end: as with the two previous interviews, my application was declined.
I sit on the bus again, slightly more hopeful about the engine and much more hopeful about the interview. I have not left a day early, but so long as the bus does not break down, I expect that this interview will be a success. This time I have a plan and, even if I hesitate to be as assured as Gloria is, there is a good chance that she is right, that very soon I will be on my way to her.
It was on a dry and hot day in November that Gloria and I met. The headmistress had arranged it all: I would be Gloria’s escort. I would show her around the campus for the week.
That day, the headmistress stood by her desk, me at her side, waiting for this Gloria Oke. I was already one of the senior teachers at the time; I had been at the school for nearly ten years by then.
I’d expected that she’d come in like the big madam she was, ‘big’ as in well-to-do and well known, maybe with a fancy buba and iro in lace, with a headscarf and maybe even the ipele shawl. Even with the heat, the headmistress, and all the big madams who visited our campus, came dressed that way.
But Gloria entered, tall and lanky, a bit too thin to be identified as a ‘big madam’. She wore a long ivory-coloured gown, no fancy headscarf, no ipele hanging from her shoulder. Her unpermed hair was held together in a bun at the nape of her neck. Pale skin stuck out in contrast to dark brown eyes and hair. Her lips were natural, not lipstick red. On her feet she wore a simple pair of black flats.
Even then, there were things I liked about her: the way her eyes seemed unsure, not being able to hold my gaze. The way she stuttered her name, as if unconvinced of her own existence in the world. And yet her voice was strong and firm, something of a paradox.
That first day, we spent our lunch break together, and for the rest of the week we did the same, me sharing my fried plantain with her, and she, her rice and stew with me.
She started to visit me at my flat after her week at the school was up. She’d stop by every other week or so, on the weekends when we could spend more than a few hours together. I’d make us dinner, jollof rice, beans and yams, maybe some garri and soup. We’d spend the evening chatting or just watching the news. Sometimes we’d walk around the neighbourhood and when we returned, she’d pack her things and leave.
I grew a big enough garden in my backyard. Pineapple leaves stuck out in spikes from the earth, neat rows of them. Plantain trees stood just behind the pineapple leaves. Behind the plantain trees, lining the wall leading up to the gate of the flat, an orange tree grew, and a guava tree, and a mango tree.
Once, while we stood plucking a ripe mango, Gloria asked me what it was like to teach science at the school. Did we conduct experiments or just study from a book? Were all of the students able to afford the books? It was a private school, she knew, but she suspected (quite accurately) that that didn’t mean all the students were able to afford the texts.
I straightened up to face the wall that led up to the metal gate. Lizards were racing up and down. I told her that teaching was not my job of choice. That I’d rather be doing something more hands-on, working directly with the earth, like in my garden. Maybe something to do with the environment, with aquatic ecology: running water-quality reports, performing stream classification, restoration, wetland determinations, delineations, design and monitoring. But there were none of those jobs during the time I did my job search, even though there should have been plenty of them, especially with the way things were going for the Niger Delta.
But even if the jobs had been available, I said, perhaps they would have been too dangerous for me, with all that bunkering going on, criminal gangs tapping the oil straight from the pipelines and transporting it abroad to be sold illegally. The rebel militias stealing the oil, and refining it, and selling it to help pay for their weapons. All those explosions from old oil rigs that had been left abandoned by Shell. Perhaps it would have been too dangerous a thing.
She was standing with her hands on her hips, showing surprise only with her eyes. I suppose it was understandable that she would have assumed I loved my job to have stayed those many years.
We became something—an item, Papa says—in February, months after Gloria’s visit to the school. That evening, I was hunched over, sweeping my apartment with a broom, the native kind, made from the raw and dry stems of palm leaves, tied together at the thick end with a bamboo string. I imagine it’s the kind of broom that Gloria no longer sees, the kind that Americans have probably never seen.
Gloria must have come in through the back door of the flat (she often did), through the kitchen and into the parlour. I was a
bout to collect the dirt into the dustpan when she entered.
She brought with her a cake, a small one with white icing and spirals of silver and gold. On top of it was a white-striped candle, moulded in the shape of the number thirty-four. She set it on the coffee table in the parlour and carefully lit the wick.
I set the broom and dustpan down and straightened up. Gloria reached out to tuck strands of my tattered hair back into place. I’d barely blown out the flame when she dipped her finger into the cake’s icing and took a taste of it. Then she dipped her finger into the icing again and held the clump out to me.
‘Take,’ she said, almost in a whisper, smiling her shyest sort of smile.
Just then, the phone began to ring: a soft, buzzing sound. We heard the ring but neither of us turned to answer, because even as it was ringing, I was kissing the icing off Gloria’s finger. By the time the ringing was done, I was kissing it off her lips.
Mama still reminds me every once in a while that there are penalties in Nigeria for that sort of thing. And of course, she’s right. I’ve read of them in the newspapers and have heard of them on the news. Still, sometimes I want to ask her to explain to me what she means by ‘that sort of thing’, as if it is something so terrible that it does not deserve a name, as if it is so unclean that it cannot be termed ‘love’. But then I remember that evening and I cringe, because, of course, I know she can explain; she’s seen it with her eyes.
That evening, the phone rings, and if I had answered, it would have been Mama on the line. But instead, I remain with Gloria, allowing her to trace her fingers across my brows, allowing her to trace my lips with her own. My heart thumps in my chest and I feel the thumping of her heart. She runs her fingers down my belly, lifting my blouse slightly, hardly a lift at all. And then her hand is travelling lower, and I feel myself tightening, and I feel the pounding all over me. Suddenly, Mama is calling my name, calling it loudly, so that I have to look up to see if I’m not just hearing things. We have made our way to the sofa and, from there, I see Mama shaking her head, telling me that the wind has blown and the bottom of the fowl has been exposed.
Happiness, Like Water Page 8
