Speechless

by Anne Simpson

  Yes, I will.

  Sophie saw how A’isha’s eyes were hooded like her mother’s eyes. They were the same eyes, mother to daughter. Safiya might have them too.

  Felix went to the car and opened the trunk, taking out two yams, heavy things, like logs, each covered in bark, holding one in each hand. Sunglasses up on his head, where he’d put them to get them out of the way. Hum of sunlight, guinea fowl scratching across the swept yard. Clouds full and billowy, but there was blue sky; it wouldn’t rain. Felix was smiling, playing a game with the three boys.

  Who can take the yams? He held them up high, laughed.

  Because he laughed, with his sunglasses up on his head, sliding down, and the yams held in either hand, Sophie wanted to go him and be folded into him, yams and all, but that wasn’t done here, especially here, in the compound belonging to A’isha’s family.

  Felix had yams and Sophie had pain medication in several packets. She had learned that it was useful to take it with her, especially if people couldn’t afford much. A’isha took the pills, gratefully, the red and the brown ones, but Sophie wasn’t sure they would help now that she had seen A’isha’s mother.

  Felix offered one yam to the girl who wore a yellowish dress that was too big for her, the same one who had let the water splash out of the full bucket of water when she’d taken it from her head. He gave the other yam to the smallest of the three boys. The biggest boy asked Felix for his sunglasses, but Felix shook his head.

  Nagode, nagode, said the boys.

  A’isha’s uncle came to say goodbye to them. He was tall, poker thin. Sophie waited as he spoke to Felix in Hausa; even if Sophie had understood Hausa, he wouldn’t have spoken to her. But the little girl with the big dress, the one to whom Felix had given the yam, came and stood next to Sophie. She’d already deposited her yam beside A’isha’s auntie, and now she twined her hand into Sophie’s and stood with her, touching her skirt, the silky material, with the other hand. Sophie looked down on the child’s head, the corn rows neatly dividing her hair. Gleam of black hair, skin between, gleam of black hair.

  Felix started the car, the air conditioning. A’isha’s uncle had some parting words. Felix thanked him.

  Sophie glanced at the neem tree as she got into the car, but A’isha had vanished, and except for the chairs grouped companionably together, it was as if she had never been there.

  ON THE WAY OUT OF TOWN, Sophie asked Felix to slow down. She wanted to buy juice.

  A line of stalls and shacks stood at the edge of the road, tires in heaps, hubcaps adorning the trunk of a scrawny tree.

  Could you stop? she asked Felix.

  Here? If we go farther we can get some cold juice.

  Could you get it and come back? Sophie was already out of the car.

  After she got out, the black car went steadily on, nosing along the road. She watched as Felix parked it, got out, and went to a stall to buy drinks.

  Then she went directly to the shack with the bicycles. A man squatted over a bicycle turned upside down, working on the derailleur. His two thin legs, bent, made a v; his jeans had holes at each knee.

  Are you Musa? asked Sophie.

  You are English? he asked. American?

  Are you Musa?

  I am not the one. The man stood up, wiping his hands on his T-shirt. It was hardly a T-shirt. He called out without turning his head.

  Musa, he is coming. See him.

  A man was running toward them along the road. He loped in an odd way, as if one leg was shorter than the other. Yes, the left leg. This was Musa. He was too young to be Musa. And when he stood in front of her, heaving because he’d been running, with sweat beading on his upper lip, on his forehead, the anger went out of Sophie.

  Madam, he said. Because he’d been running the word sounded like maw.

  Sophie stared at him. Was this the Musa who had fathered A’isha’s child? And what was Sophie going to say to him?

  You are Musa?

  Yes, he nodded vigorously. Yes, Madam. Again, it sounded like maw.

  Musa, the one who repairs bicycles?

  He spread his arm. Behind the stall were bicycles of all shapes and sizes. Bicycles with bent wheel rims, bicycles with no seats, bicycles without handlebars, parts of bicycles, bicycle tires, bicycles that would never be ridden again. Behind the shack were heaps of them, upended, and with wheels sticking up, wheels over wheels over wheels. Red bicycles, black bicycles. It was a kind of cemetery for bicycles.

  I repair all, said Musa proudly. I sell all.

  She felt faint, just as she had coming out of Nafisa’s hut earlier.

  He brought a chair for her. You sit, Madam. Sit.

  No, I —

  Yes, sit. You are ill.

  No, said Sophie. She rummaged in her bag for her water flask.

  Up the road she could see Felix coming out of the stall, bottles in his hand. He glanced around for her, got into the car, and circled back along the road.

  You want bicycle, Madam? asked Musa.

  No, she said. No bicycle.

  Felix parked the car. He got out.

  This is your husband? asked Musa.

  He is not my husband.

  Sophie, said Felix.

  You want buy? said Musa. I have. He limped over to several bicycles hanging from hooks in the ceiling of the stall.

  Sophie shook her head.

  They are good. All working parts. Musa waited, wiping his face on his sleeve.

  Sophie.

  You do not buy?

  No, we do not buy, said Felix.

  But see now. Musa took down a black bicycle from the hook. It is working, this one. It is good.

  No bicycle, said Felix. Thank you.

  Sophie stood up. All the fight had gone out of her. She no longer wanted to hit Musa, slap him, punch him, batter him with her fists until he sank down on the shop floor, where she could kick him, kick him again.

  Felix touched her shoulder.

  This is Musa, said Sophie to Felix flatly, as if it explained everything. She realized she was trembling.

  Felix nodded to Musa, put a cold bottle of juice in Sophie’s hand.

  Come on, he said, steering her away. Time to go.

  8

  ___

  FELIX WAS READING THE PAGES Sophie had printed.

  She busied herself in the kitchen, cutting the papaya that had become soft. She cut the orange-red fruit into small chunks. Then she took the pineapple, cut off the crown of leaves, and sliced away the bark. He was still looking at the pages, but was he reading it? He hadn’t shuffled the papers, hadn’t shifted position on the couch. He was staring at it. She cut the pineapple into slices, rings of yellow, then cut the slices into chunks, and got rid of the pieces of pineapple bark, the hard, spiky leaves. She washed her hands.

  Felix? she said softly.

  Hmmm?

  Tell me what you think.

  He leaned back, the pages in one hand above his head.

  She pressed her hands against the counter, damp with juice from the pineapple. It’s awful?

  No, of course it’s not awful. Anyone would want to write the way you write. I mean, there are some things, but there always are. The long and short of it is that you shouldn’t be wasting your time with The Daily Leader.

  He was looking across the room at the blank television screen in a deeply focused way, as he did when watching football — though Sophie knew it as soccer — clusters of men moving a ball in fits and starts across unnaturally green turf. He noticed the strategy, the improvised moves made on the fly; he saw what she couldn’t see no matter how hard she tried.

  But? She wiped the counter.

  He got up, the pages held loosely in one hand. You won’t like what I have to say.

  She could deal with it. Felix, she sighed. Just tell me.

  You’re a woman standing up for another woman who is more vulnerable. The odds have been stacked against her. She’s powerless in this.

  She waited. He rolled the
pages into a tube, unrolled them.

  That’s laudable, he said.

  She could feel herself wanting to tap her fingers on the counter. Why didn’t he come to the point?

  I’m not sure you should publish this.

  What? she said. Why?

  You come from Canada, and you can’t help but be a little naive —

  She slid the knife and cutting board into the sink.

  Because I’m white and naive, she repeated.

  She tried to think, but things moved around in her head like insects, a swarm, and she had to wait for them to settle. She didn’t wait. Because I’m white and naive, a bleeding heart, not to mention a bleeding heart who is an outsider, I can’t speak out when I see a miscarriage of justice? I can’t have a voice? Why didn’t you say all of this before, when we were with A’isha?

  I didn’t know what you’d write.

  What’s so wrong with what I’ve written?

  There’s a way to do this, but you’ve got strong ideas on the subject. That’s really what I’m saying. I’m not accusing you of anything.

  I’m just going to pull some other article out of the air? Something else that maybe you’ll think is good enough?

  My advice, for what it’s worth, is that I think you need to find a way to tone this down. Maybe it will work if you do that. He put the pages on the high ledge of the counter, where they put drinks for guests when they came for dinner, but he’d curled the paper by rolling it and none of the pages lay flat.

  She swiped the board with a cloth and put it in the rack. What do you want me to do? She picked up the knife, rinsed it, smacked it down beside the cutting board. This is the truth! What I wrote is the truth.

  Entirely unable to stop herself, she wheeled around to grab a small purse off the shelf and slammed out the door.

  SHE WOULD GO TO THEA’S. Maybe she could sit on Thea’s balcony, in the shade, sipping a drink with her. A break from Felix and his — what? It wasn’t even criticism. It was totally unfair. But she didn’t get as far as Thea’s, and her tatty blue and white striped chairs, her old patio umbrella casting its deep shade over them. Thea from Brighton, forever an expatriate. What would Thea say? Maybe she would say something snide about Felix. Maybe she would say that Sophie should get over herself. Thea had her snippy opinions. No, Sophie couldn’t go and see her. It was the hottest time of the day and here she was, stepping into the street with barely a glance at the traffic, so that two motorcyclists had to avoid her, one nearly grazing her as he passed.

  Laudable, she said.

  The anger rose up, hotly, and she knew her cheeks were flushed with colour. Nothing would stop her: not the heat, not the dampness of her blouse against her skin. The clouds looked ominous above, but on she went, striding forward. She’d forgotten her umbrella; it was bound to rain. After a half hour of strenuous walking, she resorted to taking a minivan that slowed, stopped for her, and she had to find a space to sit as it continued to rock and tilt forward, making her jerk to one side and crush the mint-green finery of a woman who was probably on her way to a wedding.

  Sorry, Sophie said. Sorry.

  It was because she was white, wasn’t it? He hadn’t said that; he would never have said that. Sophie had said it.

  The driver’s boy was asking where she was going, but she had no idea. She had got herself in the minivan so she wouldn’t have to walk anymore. Victoria Island. Victoria Island, and onwards to the Lekki Conservation Centre. No, all of that was in the other direction. Anyway, she didn’t want to go to a place full of expensive condos, one building after another. She paid and got off the minivan along with the woman in mint green, as if her sheeny head wrap were lighting the way. Now it began to rain. The woman put up her large umbrella and walked quickly ahead, but Sophie would have to find shelter. Just ahead was the entrance to a market where Felix had once taken her.

  Outside the market, women were rushing to protect their wares: baskets upon baskets of shiny-backed tomatoes and okra, so she could almost taste the slipperiness in her mouth, and purpled eggplants, slick smooth, piled one on top of the other. On the other side of the lane, market women under umbrellas were grilling corn, and one laughed with her hand over her mouth. What-o? cried someone. Sophie walked into the main portion of the market, where the rain was buckshot on the roof. Gunny sacks filled with chillies, and beyond, every sort of spice imaginable: cardamom, cumin, and pudgy, splayed thumbs of ginger root. She went on to the fish market, with pots of live crayfish, basins of enormous snails, rose-pink shrimp. Catfish in a tub, red snappers in another. Brine-thick smells. She kept moving, kept shifting from one table to another.

  Why you go now, lady? cried the shrimp seller. Oyinbo, come.

  There was no place for her to stop, and she simply wanted to rest. A shadowy, cool cave was what she wanted. She kept walking, wishing the rain would stop so she could go back, take a shower and put on fresh clothes, speak calmly to Felix as he had spoken to her. Fish heads were stacked in a pot. She was compelled by the round, unshimmering eyes of the dead fish that had once been living, once been in the water, flashing their tails. She bumped into a woman carrying a bucket on her head, then someone collided with her: a man in a dirty T-shirt that said Let’s Jamboree.

  Why did she want to tell the story of A’isha Nasir? Someone else could do it. Anyone else could do it. This was what Maryam Maidoya had probably thought. But hadn’t Sophie been asked? Hadn’t Charles asked her? Would she say no, say that she’d given it more thought and that she couldn’t do it? A’isha herself had said, I want you to speak for me. Nafisa had said, Please.

  Sophie’s phone fell from her purse and she reached for it, bending past a basin of eels, gliding and gleaming over each other. When she stood up, the market had darkened, and she put out a hand to a table edge. She faltered, fell. Something crashed with her, maybe the thick black ropes of eels in the basin. All she knew was the falling, a wobbled buckling, as her knees refused to bear her weight. Her body came undone, as if she had no spine, no bones to hold her in place.

  The market women lifted her, a press of women, bringing the musky smell of their aprons, slithery with fish guts. They propped her on the stool that had held the basin of eels, which several of them were scooping up in handfuls. A child came with a pail, and Sophie watched the silvery water pouring into the basin. It wasn’t real; it couldn’t be. Her head was throbbing. She should leave, take public transit, go home to Felix. But a woman put a restraining hand on Sophie’s wrist as she tried to stand, spoke quickly in Yoruba.

  Stay seated, said a man. I have called. Someone is coming.

  Sophie shut her eyes. All she had to do was obey and wait for the fainting spell to pass.

  He is coming, said the man.

  Who? said Sophie.

  The deacon of St. Bartholomew’s, the church, there, across the road. See him now!

  But —

  The deacon came, escorted by a trail of children. His jacket had been soaked by the rain.

  He put his hands over Sophie’s head, not touching her. Something dripped down her neck.

  What are you doing? asked Sophie.

  It is the devil that needs to come out.

  There’s a devil?

  She saw the button of his wet jacket straining in its buttonhole and had to cast her eyes on the slick of tangled eels. Why did it all make her want to laugh?

  I will bring it out, he said confidently. I have done it many times before.

  The market women began quarrelling with the man who had asked for the deacon to come. An ambulance is needed, said one, in English. Not this man.

  See now, said the deacon. The Lord God will vanquish His enemies.

  SOPHIE RETURNED HOME. She’d meant to buy a few things at the market, but she’d simply fled. All her wet clothes would have to be hung up. Now she wanted to talk to Felix, wanted him to put his arms around her.

  But the rawness was still with her, and even after she showered and changed, she could not free herself f
rom it. He was making a curry with vegetables and chicken. He’d make rice to go with it. If she were in a mood to be helpful, she’d have cut vegetables for him.

  You were gone for hours, said Felix. I went out looking for you.

  I was at the market, the one with all the fish.

  I thought you’d be upset. I wasn’t sure you’d come back here. I knew that what I’d said hurt you.

  You didn’t hurt me, she said, looking at him levelly. You said I shouldn’t do something that I have every intention of doing. I’ll do it for A’isha.

  You’ll do it for Sophie.

  What?

  She left the kitchen. Her damp hair was in ropes and she towelled it dry. Yes, she would publish it. It might not be brilliant, but she had to try. She would try, yes, she would. She marched along one side of the bed. Yes. But then she heard him saying you’ll do it for Sophie. She marched along the other side of the bed, and paused at the window, covered by blinds. The heat of her anger. She had to grip her hands to stop herself from ripping down the blinds. She kicked the bed instead, and hurt her foot, so she had to sit down, take the impatient foot in her hand and rub it, knead it, fool the pain out of it.

  Felix was at the door. That was uncalled for, what I said. I’m sorry.

  He came and sat down beside her on the bed and took her foot in his hands.

  She shut her eyes.

  Sophie, it’s because I care about you. I wanted to warn you.

  He rubbed his hand slowly up and down her instep and it felt good.

  You can’t tell a person what to do. I can’t say to you, don’t do this, don’t do that, he said. I just worry that they’re going to point at you. They’re going to say, she’s outside this. She doesn’t count.

  Maybe that will happen, she said slowly. Maybe you’re right.

  He waited.

  I’ve been exorcised. Of demons, or just one demon, I couldn’t tell.

  You went out of here and —

  I didn’t mean to get exorcised. I fainted in the market, and they told me to wait for someone who did that sort of thing. From St. Bartholomew’s.

  He stopped massaging her foot, and she tucked it under her leg.

  Felix, she said.