On Black Sisters Street

by Chika Unigwe

  “Ah ah ah, dis one dey ungrateful oo,” the fat man said, his face wobbling as he shook his head disapprovingly at Alek. “She sabi how many people dey wan’ opportunity like dis? I throw opportunity for her lap and she jus’ sit there like mumu dey look de ground. Na cow she be? Na grass she dey chop?”

  Polycarp gave a faint smile and said not to worry, she just had a lot on her mind. “She’ll do a good job,” he added, his voice smooth like a lie, as if he was afraid that the man would withdraw his help.

  IN THE PASSPORT PICTURES THAT ALEK TOOK, HER FACE WAS BLANK, her eyes fixed on a spot beyond the camera, at a cobweb in a corner of the studio ceiling. She was thinking of the spider that built the web, admiring the intricacies of web building, cloning the web, transferring the clones on the back of her hand with henna that would stain the lines first orange then the reddish brown of a brick.

  When Alek got her passport from Dele via Polycarp and saw that she had indeed been renamed Joyce, she did not say a word. She did not even ask Polycarp why.

  Joyce Jacobs.

  Nationality: Nigerian.

  Place of birth: Benin City.

  She was beyond asking questions, beyond asking Polycarp to explain anything at all. It would be another two days before she left the country. And in those two days she and Polycarp were two silent strangers sharing a house and a bed on which they had been promised babies would be made. Alek tried not to think of the woman who might take her place and have the babies who had been promised her. She tried to stop the dust from getting into her nose. She swore she would not cry.

  When Polycarp, who drove her to the airport, tried to kiss her before she walked through the security checkpoint, she slapped him. Hard. The tawai! of it when her palm connected with Polycarp’s cheek flabbergasted her into a sudden, loud “Oh!” She had meant it to be hard but did not know she had enough strength to deliver such a blow. Polycarp shut his eyes, and she knew that it smarted. It did not make her feel as good as she had thought it would. And when Polycarp shuffled off, taunts of “Woman wrapper!” “Slap am back!” “You no be man at all!” following him from amused onlookers, she wished his mother had never come to Lagos. The flight was long. And dark. And lonely. Alek felt like cargo with a tag: DESTINATION UNKNOWN. For what did she know about where she was going? About the children she would be babysitting?

  As soon as she stepped into the house in the Zwartezusterstraat and saw the long thin mirror, she started to have doubts about the sort of job she had been brought in to do. When Madam came in to see her that first day and she asked, “Where are the children I am supposed to be looking after?” and Madam laughed so hard that tears streamed down her face, then said, “Which children? Which yeye children?” she felt a sandstorm whirling in her, painting the walls a dusty, murkish brown.

  Madam had given her two days of “grace.” And then she had to start.

  “Start what?” She eyed the lingerie Madam threw at her in suspicion.

  “Earning your keep. Oya, time to open shop! Time to work! Time to work! Chop! Chop!” A laughing-dancing-clapping Madam bullied her out of the house, into the car, and to the Schipperskwartier. No passport. No money. What was she to do?

  Blue bra sprinkled with glitter and a matching G-string, boots up to her thighs, she stood behind the glass and prayed that no one would notice her. But she was noticed. Her glitter called out to a man with a conspicuous limp. That night she lay on the bed, legs clamped. How could she spread her legs for someone she did not know? She tried not to think about her mother, because she did not want to see her mother cry. She lay there and remembered the men who raped her and squeezed her legs tighter together. The man with a limp, whose face she refused to look at, thought it was all an act, part of her trick. He gushed, “Oh, I like. I like it. Very much. Just like being with a virgin. Tight. Tight. Tight! Many women. Many. Numerous. But nobody do it like you.” His gush became orgasmic. “I like! I like! I like! I like! Ahhhhhhhhhh!” He marked her out and became a regular, nicknaming her “Etienne’s Nubian Princess.”

  She arrived in Belgium a few days after Sisi did. Two weeks later, they set off to discover the country. They took their first train ride together, giggling as they walked down the streets of Leuven, taking in the sights. Madam had told them Leuven was a city worth seeing, better than Brussels, “which has only that pissing boy to recommend it.”

  They got on very well, Alek and Sisi. Sisi had taken Alek under her wing, adopting her as a younger sister, and it was to Sisi that she told part of her story. It was also Sisi who encouraged her on days when she needed encouragement. Sisi who often told her how lucky she was that she could keep most of her earnings, unlike the rest of them, because she had a benefactor who was paying off her debt. Madam treated Joyce differently, deferring to her in a way she never would to the others under her control. Joyce could choose her own clothes, she could knock off work earlier than the others, and when she said she was ill Madam took her seriously, even becoming solicitous on occasion, cajoling her into eating soup to make her feel better. One more spoon, Joyce. Chicken soup to make you better. Once Polycarp finished paying—and he had not defaulted even once—Joyce would become her own woman. She was saving her own money, too. She was not sure what she would do with the freedom. Maybe she would move back to Lagos, open up a boutique on Allen Avenue. The idea appealed to her. She could come to Europe every summer and shop for her boutique. She even had a name ready for it. She would call it TOT: Talk of the Town. She had shared this dream with Sisi, who told her that once she, Sisi, was free, she might enter into a partnership with her.

  And now Sisi was gone.

  SISI

  SISI DID THE THEE POTJE A FEW MORE NIGHTS. IN ITS DIMNESS, IT WAS hard to fake the cheerful insouciance needed to attract a man. Its gloominess was a greedy sort that sucked her decision to pretend. To accept. So she sat in a corner and watched the other girls—flirting and chatting, throwing their hips this way and that, disappearing into toilets with men, laughing a laughter that spilled out at the sides—and had a desperate wish to be more like them. When Madam brought the news that she had found Sisi a display window in the Schipperskwartier, on the Vingerlingstraat, Sisi came close to hugging her.

  Working the windows was a better job. The window girls were by far classier than the café girls. Mannequins in lingerie and high boots, they exuded a confidence, an arrogance, that Sisi was sure she could master. It would be easier to do her job from the security and the privacy of a window booth. She could see her life before her: money. And more money. A return to Nigeria with a poise and a wallet that Chisom never could have had.

  Sisi learned the rates pretty quickly. She always had a head for figures. Fifty euros for a P&S, a blow job. A bit more if a French kiss was required. Twice the price for half an hour of everything: P&S, French kissing, and full penetration. With a condom. Without a condom, the client paid thirty euros extra. Sisi did not like to do without—what with everything one could catch—but thirty euros was not something she found easy to turn her nose up at. It took a lot of strong will to do so.

  She learned to stand in her window and pose on heels that made her two inches taller. She learned to smile, to pout, to think of nothing but the money she would be making. She learned to rap on her window, hitting her ring hard against the glass on slow days to attract stragglers. She learned to twirl to help them make up their minds, a swirling mass of chocolate mesmerizing them, making them gasp and yearn for a release from the ache between their legs; a coffee-colored dream luring them in with the promise of heaven. She let the blinking red and black neon lights of her booth comfort her with their glow and, tripping the light fantastic, lead her to the fruition of the Prophecy.

  In between customers, she talked with the woman from Albania who rented the booth beside hers, a partition wall separating them. The woman was big, bigger than Dele’s women, who all seemed to be more or less the same size: tall, slim (even Efe, the heaviest, was not that big), with impressive chests and
buttocks that were well rounded.

  They talked about their childhood. Sisi made up hers. She was sure the Albanian woman did, too. They were people without any past, people with forgotten pasts, so whatever was said would have to be made up of air. But that did not matter. The act of talking meant a lot more than what was talked about. It meant someone still saw you as more than a toy to pass the time with. Sometimes the men who came to them wanted to talk. About the weather (bad summer this year, good winter next year). About wives (my wife, I married her at twenty; nice woman, but the love is going, I think). About parents (my father has to go into a home: old people’s home, you understand? You have that in Africa? I don’t think so). About regrets (I should have moved to Mexico when I got the chance). About travels (last year I went with two friends to Tunisia: It’s Africa; you know Tunisia?). About love (I love you spoken so desperately that it became alarming). Mostly, they said nothing. Wham. Bam. No thanks. Just money counted out and, if the girls were lucky, a tip thrown in. On such nights, Sisi threw her legs in the air and counted how much more until she could open her boutique. Start her car-export business. Her Internet café. All the dreams filling her head. The dreams expanding to make sure nothing else came in.

  ZWARTEZUSTERSTRAAT

  JOYCE IS CRYING, AND IT IS THE FIRST TIME THE WOMEN HAVE EVER seen her cry.

  They do nothing. They are on unknown territory, having always had a relationship that skimmed the surface like milk. They have never stirred one another enough to find out anything deep. Joyce’s tears take even her by surprise, and she hurriedly wipes them away with the back of her hand. But that does not stop the flow. She pulls her legs up to the sofa, her knees under her chin. She looks like a giant fetus. Her snot mingles with her tears. She wipes her nose on her sleeve. For a while her sniffing fills the room, a cavernous sound that devours everything, even the silence. Ama sighs and then puts a hand out and touches Joyce on her cheek. It is a warm touch, and Alek smiles through Joyce’s tears. And then the sniffing tapers and completely dies.

  “Some of the stories I heard at the camp, it seems ridiculous that I’d be crying for myself. You know, there was this woman who used to walk around wringing her hands and talking to herself. She told her story to anyone she saw. It did not matter if you had heard it before.” Joyce bites her lower lip, takes in a deep breath, and then: “Her village had been attacked, rockets fired, but she and her husband refused to leave their land. They were farmers, growing crops and herding sheep and donkeys. They sent their children, except for the oldest, to the mountains to hide. One day her husband was away visiting family when they were attacked again. The woman and her son were at the well with their animals when they saw hundreds of janjaweed militia on camelback and horseback coming. People started gathering their animals and running to safety. She hurried their donkeys to a hillock. Her son was behind her with the sheep. At least that was the arrangement. But when she turned back, she realized that all the men had stayed behind. Apparently to try and protect their land and animals. It was a stupid thing to do, because the janjaweed outnumbered the men. She hid behind the hill and prayed. And prayed.” Alek stops, looks up at the ceiling, shakes her head slightly. It looks as if she is trying hard not to cry. A sigh that is long and sad escapes her. Hmmmmmm. “She could hear the sounds of gunfire and screams. She prayed. And she cried. And she prayed. By nightfall, the sounds of gunfire and screaming had faded, so the woman returned to the wells to find her son. Some other women were there, too. Searching. But there was not a single man to be found. Just carcasses of animals tossed carelessly about.”

  Another long pause.

  “In the wells were the corpses. Dismembered body parts. A leg on a head. A hand on top of another. It was in a well, the moon lighting the features for her, that she saw her son. A head. His eyes open. His upper lip framed by a mustache that was just starting to sprout. You know what she did with that head?”

  No one answers.

  “She said she took the head. She took the head …” Sniff. “She took the head and she buried it. So you see, what Polycarp did to me, it’s nothing. It’s nothing at all.”

  Another bout of silence descends upon them, but it is less claustrophobic than before. The air has also lightened somewhat, as though a huge dark cloth that had been covering them has been flung away. Finally, Ama breaks the silence. “Of course it’s something. What he did to you is not nothing. Men are such fucking bastards, you know. Why did he bring you all the way to Nigeria only to abandon you?”

  “Why did your mother’s husband rape you?” Joyce responds. “Why do people do the stuff they do? Because. He did it just because.”

  The territory they are charting is still slippery. They are just starting to really know one another.

  “You know, every day I go to work I wonder if Polycarp was in on this. I wonder if he knew all along what Dele had in mind for me. I don’t want to believe he’s that heartless. But thinking of all the whys and how comes, I can’t sleep at night.”

  “Polycarp might have known. He might not have known. You’ll probably never know. But one thing is sure, Joyce. You are the one having to live with it. And it’s up to you how you handle it. What did you say you promised yourself that day at Dele’s?” Efe asks gently.

  “That I’ll never let my happiness depend on another,” Joyce says.

  “So there you go. Say to fucking hell with Polycarp. Banish him to the hottest part of hell. You might not have asked for this, but this is what you got. That’s life. We don’t always get what we bloody order. Forget Polycarp. Be the best worker you can be, make your money, and do whatever else you want to do!” Ama lets her cigarette dangle from between her lips while she talks. She removes it now. “Whatever you do with your life from this point on is up to you. Forget Polycarp. Keep your eye on your dream. Fuck Polycarp.”

  “Fuck Polycarp,” Joyce says after Ama. She is determined that she will never again let the thoughts of what he knew, how much he knew, keep her awake at night. She will never again suffer an insomniac night on his behalf. Later, when she thinks of this conversation with Ama and Efe, she will think of it as a release from something she had not known held her hostage. Weeks later, on a Saturday morning, she will tell Efe and Ama, “I had forgotten that my destiny was in my hands. You girls reminded me of it.”

  “Ah, Joyce, no begin all dis so so fucking wey Ama dey use ooo. One is enough in dis house!” Efe teases. The three women laugh.

  At the end of it, a thoughtful silence swallows them up. When it spits them out, it is to hear Efe say that she always wanted to be a writer.

  “It was my biggest dream. I was going to write books and become famous.” She laughs. “At school na so so cram I dey cram my literature books.” She stands up and begins to give a performance. “ ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so.’ ”

  “I like the way ‘incredulity’ and ‘epoch’ dey drip commot from the mouth. I like the way things wey dey opposite, salt and pepper, dey side by side. Best of times. Worst of times. Light and darkness. It make me tink. Tink say how dat for happen? And when I read am, I jus’ wan write like dat. Words wey fine so like butterfly, fine sotay person go wan’ read am again and again and again.” Her voice dims and she sighs. “But dat one no go happen now.”

  Before today she had not even thought about it. She has amazed herself by remembering the lines, by her ability to still recite them. But she is not amazed by the happiness it brings her. At the familiar neediness it opens up in her.

  Ama starts clapping for her, and Joyce joins in. Efe beams. When the clapping stops, she takes a mock bow. “Maybe I fit try fin’
the book. I hear say for Brussels dem get English bookshops. It go nice to own that book again. I for like read am again.”

  Efe will trawl bookshops in Brussels three mornings in a row without success. On the third day, a helpful shop assistant will offer to order the book for her. It will take a week to arrive. “I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all,” Efe will reply. The day Efe picks it up, she will lock herself in her room with it and cry at a remembered past.

  Joyce says she wanted to be a doctor. “Dr. Alek, that was how I saw myself. I thought I would marry, give my parents grandchildren, work in the government hospital. Now I think I’ll settle for maybe a boutique. Or a huge supermarket in Lagos.”

  Ama says she gave up her dream of going to the university long ago. Now, she says, she sometimes thinks of becoming a pop star. Ama does not do more than dream, because even she knows that her singing is false. Once, during a quarrel, Sisi told her that she mewed like an angry cat whenever she sang. “Every time I hear you singing, I think we are under attack from the cat next door!” Sisi had told her. But that is not enough to stop Ama from dreaming. “Sometimes, when I stand behind my window, I imagine I am standing on a podium, posing for my fans. I imagine them screaming out my name, shouting out for autographs. I imagine that my real father hears about me, his famous daughter, and reveals himself to me so I can tell him to fuck off.” She laughs, joined by Efe and Joyce.

  “I wonder what Sisi’s dreams were,” Efe says. The question changes the mood again and sucks the easy laughter of the women.

  “It’s not easy to believe that she is really dead. I keep thinking, what if they’ve made a mistake? What if she’s not really dead? What if she has just gone out on one of her walks?” Ama asks.

  Joyce counters, “If she’s not really dead, she’d be bloody well here.”

  “It feels like she is here, I dey feel am,” Efe says. Her voice is soft. A prayer. Perhaps even a wish.