Speechless

by Anne Simpson

  She got up, slid back the deadbolt. Yes, it was Felix. If she let him in it might turn out to be someone else. She opened the door despite herself.

  Sophie, what’s wrong? said Felix.

  She couldn’t speak.

  What happened? he pressed.

  She was shaking now; her knees were made of liquid. They’d give way under her.

  Felix came inside, dropped a bag on the floor, kicked the door shut, and held her.

  Oh, Felix, she said.

  THE TELEVISION NEWS was abuzz with it. The Lagos offices of The Daily Leader were bombed that evening with a homemade device, enough to blow out a few windows and scatter furniture. No one was inside.

  I was just there, said Sophie in disbelief. I was at the office. I was there talking to Charles.

  A reporter stood on a street corner in Kaduna as small, angry people marched across the television screen. Their posters blazed. Shariah — Just Laws for Just People. Go Home, American Whore.

  Do they mean — Sophie broke off.

  As they moved toward the camera the people loomed larger. Someone held up a white cut-out in the shape of a woman with a bull’s eye painted in red where the woman’s face should have been.

  The reporter spoke of protests in Minna and Kaduna, and of the rumours that the protests could become riots. Violence could spread across Niger State, Kaduna State. A’isha Nasir had been moved out of fears for her safety after the publication of the article.

  Will she be all right? asked Sophie.

  I don’t know. Felix jabbed the remote in the air, turning the volume on the television to mute. Shit, he said. He leaned forward, head down, not looking at the screen.

  But Sophie couldn’t turn away. Men gestured at the camera, bent pieces of rebar in their hands. Their mouths were open as though they were yelling. In the background, smoke lay in a grey pall over the buildings. It was almost worse without the sound.

  I don’t think we should stay here, said Felix.

  He paced back and forth in the small living room, a large man in a confined space. We could go to my mother’s.

  She’d appreciate that. She doesn’t even know me. Hi Mom, here’s my girlfriend, Sophie, American Whore. She threw up her hands. We’d be driving at night. You always say it’s a bad idea to drive at night.

  It’s not far, he said. Anyway, you can’t use your mobile anymore. You’ll have to use mine.

  But, I mean, if it’s Charles, I should —

  You shouldn’t use it at all.

  Felix, she said, getting up from the couch.

  He glanced at his watch, a big-faced circle on a gold band. We’ll go first thing in the morning, he said.

  Why don’t I just go by myself? she said. I don’t want to get you into this. It’s enough to have it hanging over my head. I can go early in the morning to the taxi park and get a minivan to Abuja. My Uncle Thomas will pick me up.

  He tapped the face of his watch.

  Felix?

  His eyes gleamed under his brows, and in the dim light of the lamp, he looked angry, though she couldn’t be sure. His face could have been cut from rock.

  How can you ask me that? he said.

  What?

  How can you ask whether you should go by yourself?

  Well, I —

  You can’t take a minivan, he said flatly. He went into the kitchen, divided from the living room only by the counter, where she could see his hands busy with cups. The forks and knives clattered as he scooped them up. You can’t take any kind of transport to Abuja, he said. I don’t want you travelling by yourself.

  She sat down heavily on the arm of his leather chair, gazing at the figures moving on the television screen.

  Anywhere I go, anywhere I stay, I’ll be putting people in danger, she said.

  He stood looking into the sink. It won’t be for long.

  I don’t want you to have to do things for me, she said.

  That’s what people do. People do these things if they care about each other. He closed the dishwasher.

  Where had he gone? It was as if he’d pulled inside himself where she couldn’t see him.

  He came around the counter. Sophie, he said. We have to have a plan. The first thing is that you leave your mobile here. Call your mother but leave the damn thing here. Then we should pack, both of us. Maybe I should ask Simon about a visa for Benin if you need one. That would hold us up, but maybe it’s worth it.

  Benin? You mean I should leave the country?

  Things were going too fast for her. She went into the bedroom, got her red suitcase out of the closet, and put it on the bed. He’d predicted something like this. Now they had to figure it out as they went along.

  She thought back to when she’d asked to interview him, and he’d suggested a café. Hibiscus flowered near the table he’d chosen on the patio; he stood up when she arrived, pulled out the chair for her, made her laugh about his fake Rolex. She’d been told he was a good screenwriter. He’d studied the craft in the US, returned to Nigeria. No question, his friend Simon told her, Felix was one of the best in the country, if not the best. It made her nervous. His eyes were velvety black. He was kindly, gentle. They’d talked for two hours, ordered second cups of tea, and kept talking.

  As smooth as water slipping over glass, the way it went from there. Dinners out. A club she hadn’t much liked, so they left early, and walked through a night market, before he took her home to his place, which is what she discovered she wanted. This very bed, she thought, standing back and looking at the open suitcase, its black interior. She stuffed sandals into side pockets, one here, one there. Had she been drawn to him because of his differences? Was that it? She rolled up a skirt, a dress. No. It was because of who he was, how he was, what he thought about.

  No, he had taken her face in his hands, carefully, as though putting his hands around a crystal vase, as if she might break. And then he kissed her, taking his time. Mouth against mouth, tongue against tongue. She didn’t remember undressing, just kissing him and then her clothes on the floor. She reached out a hand to the sheet: not these sheets, the blue ones.

  Let me look at you, he’d said, getting into bed beside her.

  She was shy, but she pulled down the sheet. He ran one hand over her shoulder, down her arm, coming back to her face, putting his fingers under her chin to get her to look up, and moved his hand along her hip, over the slight bulge of her stomach.

  She shivered and he pulled her close and whispered into her ear that she was like a painting. Did she know the paintings by Matisse? The ones of nudes? She was like that. She was one of those. They stopped talking. His lips on hers again, the merest touch of teeth. His tongue. His hands on her body, moving her, shifting her firmly, but gently, so she was on top of him, the way he did that so easily, and the way she opened to him, hands pressing hard into his chest.

  She stopped putting things into the suitcase, found her hands on the wide brim of a sunhat. She punched it down so it would lie flat.

  IT OCCURRED TO HER LATER THAT NIGHT, when she couldn’t sleep, that the nude by Matisse that Felix liked best had been of a woman’s back. Her back. La Coiffure. The pale-skinned back of a woman whose arms were in the air as she worked on her hair. Sophie wasn’t like that woman at all.

  She sat in the dark on the leather couch, flicking through the channels on the muted television. Scenes of golf, then fish swimming through a ghostly, whitened coral reef, then an evangelical healer at a monster church. She let the healer talk and move his arms. She called her mother again, but there was no answer and she left a voice mail. Nothing. She tried to calm down. She phoned her Uncle Thomas without thinking about the time; she woke him and Aunt Monica too. Yes, Sophie remembered now: an alternate universe existed in which they had given her a drive from Kano to Lagos, only ten days ago, and now they were back at home in Abuja. They’d all been together at that dinner party in Kano.

  Sophie? said her uncle sleepily.

  I’m sorry — I’m sorry to wak
e you. I can’t reach Mom, she said.

  Try again, but no, wait until morning. She is still in Kano, and she’s coming to Abuja soon. Her uncle spoke in a muffled voice to her aunt and then returned to Sophie. Yes, she is coming here tomorrow.

  Sophie explained, but her uncle had seen the report on television. He told her she should get herself to Abuja as soon as she could, and that she could stay with them.

  Thank you, she said. I just don’t know where we’re heading or when.

  Let me know when you decide, Sophie, he said.

  In the bedroom, her suitcase was on the floor, half-full. She’d left Felix sleeping, the way he did, deep in the cave of sleep, one arm draped over the edge of the bed. How could he sleep like that when she couldn’t sleep at all? It was 2:43. Why hadn’t she looked at the time before phoning Uncle Thomas? She turned off the television and went back to bed, careful not to wake Felix. Soon they’d be on the road and she wanted to make sure he was rested even if she wasn’t. She lay wide awake. If she could just get her heart to be quiet, if she could just get all the flashing pictures in her brain to stop.

  She felt his hand over hers. She hadn’t known he’d woken. His hand was warm and heavy, and she lay with her eyes closed, feeling the good weight of it.

  10

  ____

  THEY HADN’T GOT FAR ON THE ROAD, only as far as Felix’s mother’s place in Ikeja, part of the great web of the city that stretched outwards, ever outwards.

  Felix lay snoring in the other twin bed. Though the room was at the back of Felix’s mother’s house, Sophie had woken to the sound of the imam chanting before dawn at the mosque across the road, and woken an hour later to the garbage truck, a loud, singsong melody playing each time it paused, and then a boy started filling pails of water at a tap outside, all the while carrying on a conversation with someone at an upstairs window. The tap squeaked like a tortured animal as it was turned on and off.

  She got up, went to the dim, unlit shower in the bathroom and poured water over herself with a cup from a bucket of water. Aside from the shower, toilet, and tiny sink, there were seven huge buckets in the bathroom, all covered with lids. Here, everyone saved water when they could, since it ran from the taps only a few hours daily. Again and again, the chill of the water sluiced down her skin, but she couldn’t remember that shock of cold when she went back to lie on her bed, covered only with a light wrapper; she was immediately hot. Felix woke and sat on the edge of his mattress.

  He reached over and passed his hand over her brow. Sleep all right?

  She turned on her side to face him, shook her head.

  Make a bit of room there. He got into bed beside her, a narrow twin, with space for one. It creaked loudly.

  Someone will hear you, she whispered.

  No they won’t.

  He kissed the wild hair that covered her turned-away face.

  What are we going to do? she said.

  We’ll figure something out.

  But your mother will think less of me. When she finds out what I wrote, what I did.

  Felix laughed softly. He’d relaxed, coming here. Why would she think less of you?

  Her body nestled against his and she closed her eyes. She slept.

  At breakfast, she faced him across the table as he looked at his phone. Her arms, resting on the plastic cover, a design of blue flowers on yellow trellises, were already sticky. Felix’s mother, Grace, didn’t eat with them; she sat on a wooden stool in the shadowy room that served as a kitchen, pouring liquid into a pan. Sophie had glimpsed her there, hair bushy, a wrapper around her expansive breasts, flip-flops on her feet, a different person from the Grace she’d seen the evening before, birds emblazoned over her sea-green bodice. It was as if Sophie had caught a glimpse of the private Grace.

  The girls, Felix’s younger sister, Angelica, and his cousin Minta, ran to and fro bearing plates and cups, and then a heaping platter of pancakes, made specially for Sophie. Minta was too shy to speak, but Angelica talked to Felix without looking at Sophie.

  Your mother should come and sit with us, Felix, murmured Sophie.

  She almost never sits at the table, except at dinner, when she’s worn out.

  He called out words Sophie didn’t understand, and his mother answered.

  She says you are our guest, Felix told her. She wants you to feel welcome.

  The pancakes were served with African honey, which was dark, rich, and thick. The cakes were crisped brown on top; Sophie ate two of them quickly and helped herself to a third.

  Good cooking, hmm? said Felix.

  She nodded. Each bite was light and airy.

  Felix tied up the cotton curtains at the window to let in some air. Through the dirty glass of the louvres, Sophie could see people coming and going on the sidewalk above her. Felix’s mother lived on the bottom floor of a house, tucked below a busy road with steps ascending from its front door. A goat, separated from the rest of the herd, clicked its hooves down the steps and stood looking in their direction, its ears pricked, nose high, having caught the smell of pancakes.

  Yaa, cried the neighbour, clapping his hands at it. Yaa!

  The goat skittered up the steps. A man on the sidewalk thwacked it on its rump when it reached the top.

  Felix called to Angelica, who came to the threshold of the dining room just long enough for him to tell her something. She ran off and Sophie heard the door open and close; Angelica and Minta were on the steps outside, long-legged girls in purple and white gingham dresses, one taller than the other.

  She’ll get some milk for your coffee. He studied her. Cheer up.

  Sophie was thinking of how she’d tried to reach her mother on Felix’s phone, but there had been no response. All she could do was leave voice messages.

  Felix flicked on the television on top of the bookcase, with the volume kept low. The anchor’s eyes followed the prompts, noting that the Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, was in France for meetings, and there was a quick video clip of him with his entourage.

  Always out of the country, said Felix.

  Three foreign workers had been killed in Cross River State the evening before. And in other news, a fatwa had been issued by Alhaji Nuhu Mohammed, the deputy governor of Niger State, against the life of Sophie MacNeil, a reporter for The Daily Leader. A picture of the deputy governor flashed on the screen.

  In other news, the emir of Sokoto State has —

  Felix turned off the television. Well, that’s not good.

  It’s like a bounty on my head, isn’t it? Sophie’s throat felt constricted.

  We should still go to Abeokuta, as we planned, he said. What about your sister?

  What about her?

  Wouldn’t we be putting her at risk? What if I’m recognized?

  They said your name, Soph, they didn’t show a picture of you. Just the deputy governor.

  But they did say my name.

  Felix’s mother came in with two brimming glasses. She’d made them the pineapple smoothies that Felix had talked her into making. American smoothies. She set down the glasses and wiped her hands on her wrapper, making a motion for Sophie to drink.

  This is good for you, she said to Sophie in English.

  Sophie raised the glass to her lips, tasted the foam. A fatwa against her life, she thought.

  It’s delicious, she said to Grace.

  I went to visit Felix in America when he was living there, said Grace. I was scared all the way there, travelling on a plane for the very first time, stopping at Frankfurt. What if I didn’t know which airplane to take? What if someone stopped me? So nervous! And what would I do when I got there and Felix was not waiting for me at the airport?

  But I was there, he said. And you burst into tears when you saw me.

  Oh, I’d been so afraid. But I went all the way from Lagos to Los Angeles and he was there.

  And you wore a hat, that funny-looking hat, said Felix.

  It was a fascinator, she said, turning to Sophie, hands sha
ping something on top of her head. Everyone in Majesty magazine wears hats. It was blue and —

  It looked like a giant bug, said Felix. That’s the first thing I saw, the giant bug.

  It was not a giant bug. Maybe a bit like a butter —

  Giant bug.

  She flapped her hand at him, batted him on the side of his head, laughing. A happy laugh. Felix, you are a scoundrel!

  She looked at Sophie. No one in LA wears hats unless they go to the beach.

  The girls flew into the room. Angelica had a can of evaporated milk, and Minta hunted in the cupboard for a can opener. They poured coffee from the thermos into the waiting cups, and Angelica set the milk on the table and slipped under Felix’s arm, where she stood, stealing glances at Sophie. He stroked her slender arm. Minta took away the dishes in swift, catlike movements.

  You were beautiful. All in royal blue, said Felix.

  He took me everywhere, said Grace. Drove me everywhere, even as far as the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon.

  The Grand Canyon. Sophie was in one world with Felix and his mother, and in another world at the same time, one that could have been the slippery deck of a boat, tipping her into the ocean. I’ve never been there, she said.

  You see? Grace pointed to a calendar on the wall, with a glossy picture of the Grand Canyon. Oh, my, she said, I’m getting too excited — I’d better sit down. It’s my BP, you see, she explained to Sophie. It’s high.

  Blood pressure, said Felix.

  Do you have to go to Abeokuta? Grace asked. I think you should rest another night here, at least one night more. Felix? She switched into Yoruba, still pleading.

  We have to go.

  Sophie came back to herself, finishing the last of the pineapple smoothie, Grace’s treat. Sophie had been far away at the Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, but the deputy governor of Niger State had justified the taking of her life, and now anyone could kill her.

  She got up from the table too quickly, nearly spilling her half-drunk coffee, and swayed in a room that seemed to be pinpricked with a thousand lights.

  I’ll get our things together, she said.

  Too soon! exclaimed Grace. She put her hand on Felix’s wrist. Angelica was still twined against him, a vine around a tree.