by Uwem Akpan
“Hey, honey, you must eat something,” Mama said, handing Mary over to Papa and moving to Paul’s side. “You need the energy, please. We know it’s been difficult for you, but everything will be OK. Dear, what would you like to eat?”
The boy pointed to beans and dodo, and Mama served him and started feeding him. Paul began to cry even though he was older than me. Mama put the food aside, held him close, and caressed and rocked him.
Antoinette looked this way, that way, edged nearer, and whispered into my ear, “They brought many of them in a fish truck from northern Nigeria . . . desert, six days ago. I don’t like him. I wish he wouldn’t come to Gabon with us! I came four days ago. I’m better than him—”
“Shut up, Antoinette!” Papa said, and gave her a stern look. “Don’t be rude. In Gabon, we don’t whisper about people in their presence.”
Antoinette sat up immediately, afraid for the first time. “I’m sorry, Papa.”
“You better be!” the man said. “Good behavior is important, very important.”
“It’s OK, darling,” Mama told Papa, handing him a bottle of La Place beer and a bowl of pepper soup. “Just relax. Don’t you think you are overreacting? You, eat something too, otherwise these children will drive you nuts. Children are like that. They’ll get along eventually. . . . Kpee, eat something, please. Big Guy, come on. Everybody, please, feel at home.”
Our uncle began with the pepper soup and rice, but the movement of his jaws was very deliberate, as if he expected to bite into a pellet. Big Guy unwrapped two mounds of akasa onto a plate, poured crab soup over them, and paused to suck at a bottle of Gulder beer as if on a feeding bottle. I went for Maltina and a mixture of beans and rice and stew. Everybody was laughing at Antoinette, who had mixed pineapple juice with Maltina and Coke and was asking Papa now whether he could pour a bit of his beer into the mix. Yewa was nibbling on a chicken breast in a way that suggested she was already full. She looked tired from eating but wasn’t able to say no to anything that was pushed her way.
SUDDENLY, A GUST OF wind rolled in off the sea, and we could hear it press on the door. It smashed the windows shut. Paul, who was now sitting alone, retched, bent over, and vomited. Papa rushed forward and grabbed him. Mama and the men gathered around him.
“Oh, seasickness again,” Mama grumbled, and looked helplessly at Papa.
“I hope it’s not as bad as yesterday,” Papa said. “We didn’t bring any spirits, darling, or did we?”
“I’m afraid I forgot,” she said, looking beaten for the first time that evening.
“No worry,” Fofo Kpee said, and exchanged a telling glance with Big Guy. “No wahala, no wahala.”
He quickly produced a bottle of payó from under the bed, opened it, and poured it into a bowl. He soaked a piece of cloth in the gin, wrung it out, and placed it on Paul’s face. Mama, who by now was already carrying the boy, held it in place. Fofo cleaned up the vomit. Paul was so weak that no matter what Mama did to hold him, he unwrapped and sprawled, their bodies in an easy tangle, mother snake sand-bathing with her baby.
“You see what I said about Paul?” Antoinette whispered to me.
“He’ll be OK,” I said, to keep her quiet.
“He’s such a baby . . . ,” she began, but stopped when Big Guy lashed her with an angry stare.
Everybody returned to their seats, and in the uneasy quiet that followed, Big Guy turned on our boom box at a low volume, and Alpha Blondy began to croon in the background. Antoinette left her food, giggled, and started dancing near Fofo’s wardrobe. Her hands kept thrashing into the clothes because there wasn’t much space. Then she pulled me up and asked me for a dance, and everybody cheered us on. Yewa joined us at Mama’s suggestion. She stood there unable to wriggle her small waist as Big Guy taught us, because of too much food. Mama said she would have come to dance with us if not for Paul, who was still lying down. Big Guy sat there, following the heavy rhythm with his head, as if our place was too small to contain his height and dance wizardry. Fofo just watched quietly, still not comfortable with this crowd.
Later, against the lantern light, Papa checked our exercise books and praised us for being bright students. Fofo had never looked at our exercise books, so we were excited.
“You two should be given the best education possible in this world!” Papa concluded, embracing Yewa and giving me a rigorous handshake.
“We’re intelligent too!” Antoinette announced to everybody, pouting.
“Yes, I should say you two are as bright as Paul and Antoinette. Right, Paul?”
Paul was still staring at the floor and didn’t say anything, the cloth covering half his face like a medical mask.
When he finished looking at our books, I said, “Thank you, Monsieur Ahouagnivo!”
“No, no . . . Papa, just Papa!” Big Guy said suddenly, shaking his head and sighing and giving Fofo a bad look. “If you no remember well, just be quiet like dis aje-butter boy.” He pointed at Paul.
“Thank you, Papa,” I corrected myself. “I’m sorry, Papa.”
“It’s OK, Pascal,” the man said.
“N ma plón wé ya?” Fofo Kpee fumed at me. “How come ta soeur dey behave better dan you egbé, Kotchikpa . . . ?”
“Oh, no, his name is Pascal,” Mama corrected Fofo, who stiffened up like someone who has touched a live wire. “Pascal,” she said again. “See how easy it is to make these mistakes? Do we expect too much from these children in one night?”
“Sorry, madame, je voulais dire Pascal,” Fofo Kpee said, a hangdog smile straining his face.
Papa and Mama began to show us pictures of Gabon and some of their property in that land and in Nigeria and Benin and Côte d’Ivoire. They showed us pictures of the inside of some of the ships we saw crossing the water and pumping smoke into the horizon every day. They were all very beautiful. They showed us pictures of some of the children they had helped, doing different things—studying, playing, eating, singing, even sleeping. Some were as young as Yewa. These pictures were shown hurriedly, and Antoinette commented on each of them excitedly, as if she had already been to Gabon and knew all these children. She seemed to know many of them by name.
“And, by the way,” Mama said, “make sure the children remain in good health for the trip, OK?”
“Sure, madame,” Fofo Kpee said.
“Make you buy mosquito net for dem, you hear? I mean prepare de children well well o.”
“No worry, madame. Everyting go dey fine fine.”
“And Big Guy no go worry you again about de oder children, OK,” Papa said, standing up to leave.
“Tank you, monsieur!” our uncle said, and bowed.
“We no go take back anyting from you,” Papa continued. “Just dey do your best. But if someting bad happen to dese two children, we go hold you responsible o.”
Everybody laughed. Fofo gave him his assurances and winked at me and rubbed Yewa’s head. He cracked a few jokes and pulled at his lip, and everybody laughed, even Paul. It seemed to me that for the first time during that long night he had come into his usual confident self. He must have sensed the visit he had dreaded was coming to an end on a good note.
“All right, then,” Papa said suddenly, putting the pictures away, “Big Guy, begin dey pack up. We still get two places to go. It’s a long night.”
“No, four places . . . seven children,” Big Guy corrected him, and started packing up the food and returning everything to the car.
My heart started to sink as they packed away the food. I had nursed the secret wish that they would leave the buffet for us. I had thought about pouring out the ogbono soup that filled our biggest pot, to accommodate the food. I had also thought about converting our aluminum bathing bucket into a temporary pot. Instead of letting anything go to waste, we could have poured everything into these two containers and stirred. As Fofo used to say whenever anyone was eating too many things at the same time, “Dem all dey enter de same stomach.” I could warm the food two or three times a
day.
Yet I calmed myself down when Mama hugged me and said she would miss us, and Papa advised us to be studious and said that this evening was the beginning of good things to come. As Big Guy drove them away, I thought about the good work our parents were doing all over Africa.
I began to feel guilty for being greedy and wanting to keep all the food, when they needed to feed other children. I was ready to cooperate with Papa and Mama, to be as cheerful about our prospects as Antoinette was. I didn’t like the trouble Paul was giving our benefactors and hoped that he wouldn’t vomit at their next stop. I didn’t understand that it was natural for someone from the desert to react that way to the sea, and I was upset that he had embarrassed our parents. I thought even Yewa, the youngest of us children, comported herself better than he did.
That night, it wasn’t too strange when Fofo Kpee started calling us Pascal and Mary. The next day, he came to our school and changed our names in the school register to Pascal and Mary Ahouagnivo. And, remembering how much Mama loved the names, we became impatient with our schoolmates who kept using our old ones. Yewa bit the ear of one girl who taunted her with her old name, and, though the teacher thrashed my sister with koboko, the point had been made.
THE NEXT DAY, AFTER Big Guy came with a photographer to take our pictures for our passports, Fofo brought in people to change our wooden doors and windows to metal. He said because of our changing lifestyle and his Nanfang, it was important that our home be as secure as possible.
The workers painted the metal doors and windows tar black, and they stood out in our gray cement-plastered walls like the eyes of black pea beans. He bought huge padlocks and dog chains and added the padlock keys to his Nanfang key bunch. But the new keys were too long and threatened to tear holes in his trouser pockets, so he threaded them on a chain that he wore around his neck like a metallic talisman.
One Saturday, he stayed home instead of carrying people across the border, and dug a pit behind our house and extracted clayey sand. With water and a bit of cement, he and I mixed it, put it on a tray, then began to seal the space between our roof and the walls of the parlor. He stood on a chair inside, and I passed up the tray of the mix to him again and again while Yewa played outside, molding mini clay people. Our activity startled the lizards, geckos, and rats, and they kept scrambling out of their resting places and fleeing outside until I was no longer surprised. Fofo whistled and hummed songs most of the time. After each round of filling, we went outside, and Fofo got on a chair and worked on the outer wall, kneading the mud with his knuckles and smoothing it with wet palms.
“Fofo, why are you leaving those openings?” I asked when I saw that he had left an opening on each wall.
“Because I no want kill anybody wid heat,” he said. “E hun miawo hugan.”
“Heat? What about the windows?”
“No need to open window wid de holes. You dey ask beaucoup de questions, son . . . even de holes too big. Abeg, give me mix.”
I passed him the mix, and he reduced each opening to the size of a man’s foot. Standing on the floor inside, we couldn’t see the outside through the holes, not just because they were too high but because they were close to the roof. It was impossible for sunlight to come into the room through them.
“But, Fofo, when are we going to use the roofing sheets? Are you going to change the roof soon?”
Yewa came into the parlor and stood silently behind us, but we didn’t pay her any attention. My uncle’s fast and furious pace dictated the work, and our conversation seemed to only whet his appetite for speed.
“Don’t worry, de sheets are for our ohò yóyó,” Fofo Kpee said.
“New house?” I asked.
“Papa and Mama want build new house for us . . . cement house. Real ohò dagbe.”
“When are we going to see Papa and Mama?” Yewa cut in.
We stopped talking and turned to her for a while. She had come to show us her creations, which had fallen and broken. She carried the mess close to her heart, in open palms, like shattered pieces of a jewel. She said it was supposed to be a rider and a passenger on a Nanfang.
“In a few days we dey go Braffe . . . ,” Fofo Kpee said.
“No, I mean Papa and Mama of Gabon,” Yewa insisted. “I wanted to give this toy to Mama when she comes.”
“No worry, Mary,” said Fofo Kpee. “Yi bayi dogó, and no let dem break again. . . . Mama and Papa of Gabon reviennent soon.”
WHEN WE FINISHED, FOFO swept the parlor and gathered the wet mix that had fallen near the walls. I swept everything outside. Then Fofo sent me to buy huge quantities of amala and ewedu from the market. But when I came back and we sat down and began eating, Yewa refused to join us.
“I want Gabon food!” she announced, and stood up from the bed, her face twisted in defiance. Before anyone could respond, she walked to the threshold and slumped in annoyance. She started sobbing because she had hit her head on the new metal door frame. She sat there, in the open doorway, back to us, facing the ocean.
“Gabon food?” Fofo said, looking at me, scratching his head with his pinky because the rest of the fingers were soaked with ewedu. “Wetin be Gabon food, Mary?”
“Mama brought Gabon food,” Yewa cried. “I want Mama, I want Coke, I want macaroni. I am tired of ewedu and amala.”
“But de woman also bring pepper soup and akasa and crab soup,” Fofo argued. “Dem be Gabon food too?”
“She brought those ones for you and Big Guy,” Yewa said.
“Not true . . . Antoinette ate them too,” I said. “I ate them too.”
“Kai, we now get rich people problem,” Fofo said. “Auparavant, before now you dey eat everyting I give you, like a good goat. Now you want select?”
“Fofo Kpee, she’s not hungry,” I said, cupping amala into my fingers.
“I want Gabon food,” Yewa said, and shuffled her legs on the ground.
I continued to eat, paying no attention to her. But when I looked up at Fofo, I could see he was listening to her. “No way!” I said, wriggling deeper into the bed. “I’m not going anywhere!” I said this because I knew that if Fofo agreed with her, I would have to run back to the market to get the food for her. “You spoiled girl, get up from there,” I shouted. “Look at your head like Gabon food!”
“You’re stupid!” Yewa told me.
“Who’s stupid? Me?” I snarled.
Yewa spun around and bared her teeth, ready to bite me, which was what she did each time I hit her for being naughty. Even against the brighter background outside, I could see her smirk. I rushed toward her, but Fofo hooked the seat of my shorts with his fingers and yanked me back. I stumbled and kicked in his grasp. Yewa stood her ground and kept calling me names until Fofo told her to stop or she wouldn’t go to Gabon.
Yewa refused to come in or go out. Her eyes were swollen with unshed tears, which soon came flushing down her cheeks. The combination of her desire for what she called Gabon food and the threat that she might not go to Gabon upset her. She cried like she did when she had malaria and the quack doctor came to give her an injection in her bottom. Fofo started begging me not to beat her up, and when he saw that I had calmed down he released my shorts. He picked up Yewa, brought her into the parlor, and carried and nursed her as Mama had done that night.
“I don’t want to go back to the market,” I said quietly. “Why didn’t this monkey say this when I was going to the market?”
“Who want send you back to market sef?” Fofo said. “Make you no scold your sister again. You know de gal dey too light. We must fatten her for de trip. Oderwise, she go embarrass Mama and Papa. And, Pascal, you suppose be glad de gal done begin like Gabon food before you reach de place.”
“She has to be more considerate, Fofo Kpee,” I said, and went outside to sit on the mound and sulk.
“Anyway, no wahala,” Fofo said. “I dey go market myself, den.”
He carried Yewa on his back, went into the inner room, and wheeled out the Nanfang. He set it o
utside, smiled at it. In those difficult months, it seemed the machine was a source of stability for him, something he could always be proud of, something he would still have when we left for Gabon. He looked at himself many times in the side mirrors, smiling and mumbling to the machine, as if it could hear and answer him. Now, he swung Yewa from his back onto the gas tank, sat on the bike, and rode out to the market. He didn’t come back as soon as he should have, because, as he said later on, he wanted to give Yewa a longer ride. When he came back, he put the Nanfang back as majestically as he had brought it out. We were going to eat and drink inside as usual, but Yewa complained that the smell of the wet mix was nauseating. We went outside and ate under the mango tree, like we were having a picnic.
Later that afternoon, we went back to work, this time trying to seal off the inner room. It was more difficult to work in there because it was crowded with things. Fofo wasn’t in the business of letting the Nanfang stand in the sun or even in the parlor. So now he took his time and moved the Nanfang to the center of the room and covered it with our bedspread and tarp. It was as if he were dressing up a big pet. I wanted to take the other things out of the room or push them out of the way.
“Where you want put dese tings?” he asked me.
“Outside,” I said.
“No . . . you no get head, boy? You want expose my riches to everybody?”
“What about the parlor?” I asked, bending down to close the pots of soup in the corner and drape old newspapers over them.
“And if person dey come, wetin we go do? You see me invite anybody to help me in dis work? No move anyting o,” he said, pushing the mortar away from the wall to make room for the chair on which he would stand to do the job.
WE WORKED HARD AND fast. Fofo wasn’t talking or whistling or humming, as he had when we worked in the parlor. He left no holes in the walls here. He seemed so focused on the job that in some ways it felt as if he was uncomfortable with what he was doing now. He had no time for finesse anymore. Even though the cement fell on all the signs of the better life we had come into, he didn’t care. And when I wanted to stop to wipe off the mix, he glared at me.
