by Uwem Akpan
I insisted I was impressed by Bishop Salomone’s moves so far and begged Usen to give him a chance. I reminded Usen of how he himself took the lead in helping us manage the emotional goodbye in New Jersey and how he equally edified us by telling Ujai how to live if we did not make it out of the train station. I pleaded we could not afford to be too extreme or negative, since we already had friends in that church, folks who were fighting on our behalf. But Usen revealed that even his parents and our village chief had just warned against releasing our addresses to Bishop Salomone, afraid he would forward them to the American police. “Ekong, like many African Americans, our confidence in the system is shot,” he explained. “What’s the use of a bishop’s visit, if we couldn’t open our hearts to receive him?” He said he and the wife had never felt so homesick; they wished they could be at the Thanksgiving Mass in Ikot Ituno-Ekanem.
But, according to Tuesday, there was fresh wahala in that parish: the new priest had quickly posted on the church doors that Christians owed more than a debt of gratitude to Jews. The poster was shredded overnight.
“Someone must kick those anti-Semites out of their coffins!” I said, remembering Alejandra’s grandfather’s swastika coffin.
“Wait … what coffins?”
“Sorry, I’m mixing up stories!”
“Whatever. Nkemeke ee-release my fucking address even to the Pope!”
When I insisted on having the bishop’s phone number, Usen warned me angrily against beating up or kicking Father Orrin out of his coffin this Sunday. He dramatically showed me a text I had sent him on Monday night when he could not reach me. In the text, I had threatened to return to New Jersey, to kick Father Orrin’s coffin. I pleaded drunkenness. I swore I had no intention of attacking anyone or returning to any church in America.
“Ekong,” Usen said as we left the Australian restaurant, “you’re not even aware of the extent of your pent-up anger. I say let’s slow down and deal with our trauma before we think of bishops and visits. As our people say, when God wants to kill you, you do not climb the palm tree with a broken rope.”
I ROAMED MIDTOWN TILL I found myself sitting in beautiful Bryant Park. I feasted my eyes on the rainbow of people bubbling both out of and into the subway. I had the tingling sensation that even the trains pulsing below this glorious NYC skin were full of color. And when I looked up, I marveled that the foliage was celebrating its range, too, by turning red against a deep blue sky. I wanted to watch the sky forever.
I admired the freedom of the birds, myriad voices straining against the noise of the city, the tall buildings surrounding the park, not the least the grand New York Public Library, whose fat columns made me nostalgic for Our Lady of Guadalupe’s smaller ones. Watching people troop in and out of the library that late afternoon reminded me of the importance of books, the very reason I came to NYC. I could see W. W. Norton & Company’s building on Fifth Avenue, which Emily and Jack had excitedly pointed out to me because it was owned by its employees. It was certainly a bigger operation than Andrew & Thompson. I could also see a slice of the famous #4 Times Square, which they said used to house The New Yorker. Well, still reeling from the magazine’s impact on that editorial meeting—just sixteen days ago—I wondered how the weekly got such powers and how to replicate its excellence in my country.
The park had refocused my mind on books: the feel of new ones in the hand, their smell, the crispness of the pages; the memories of the smell of the old, their look on the shelves, the awe they inspired, if you liked them. It all reminded me of the first time I had entered a library.
I was Ujai’s age and it was a mobile library parked in the center circle of our primary school’s soccer field, after our stern headmaster had rung the bell to stop our game. His short speech about the incredible ancient libraries of late medieval Timbuktu brought a frenzy into the lines we had formed to enter the green Ford library bus. No vehicle had ever exuded more magic—the simple ritual of climbing up, barefoot, the aluminum pull-out steps into that world of books, the smell of new prints mixed with that of the bus’s leather upholstery mixed with newly cut grass, the stereo oozing classical music interspaced with the Music-While-We-Study jingle, my first experience of air-conditioner coldness drying up my sweat like juju, the tenderness with which the librarian’s gloved hands carried the books like they were endangered chicks, the John-Hancock-like signature of our headmaster to guarantee you returned the books in three weeks, my subsequent flogging for missing my deadline by my uncle who paid the fine to the school, the painful disappearance of the mobile library because of the deepening evil of military and civilian governments …
I stood up when I saw a mother at a nearby table trying to clean her little child of bird poop and walked to the Times Square station to watch the crowds. But when that did not hold my attention, I rode the shuttle to Grand Central, back and forth. I eyeballed the subway conductor, who finally caught on to my game and fiercely stared back. I did not care and only gave up when a cop strolled into view, his gloved hand on his firearm, like the Arab American New Jersey cop. Though this guy was shorter, his gait was exactly like that scum’s. And when he turned in my direction, though he wore no mask, his eyes were stern and unblinking.
I found refuge in the nearest Starbucks. I downed two bottles of water because I was sweating, and read my emails, which I had not done since Tuesday. But the one from Angela, which had come in yesterday, caught my attention. The marketing department meeting had been rescheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Worse, I was quite embarrassed to discover, on rereading Monday’s postponement email, that it had said something completely different. It did not say “three key people could not make it because of a sudden problem” but “three key outside analysts could not make it because of a sudden passing of one of them.” I read it six times, but it said the same thing, and six times I replayed my phobia conversation with Molly, my egusi visit with Jack, my crippling suspicion of everything.
Slowly, I realized I had gotten so many things mixed up, like I had been drunk the whole week. I was ashamed I might have misread the office atmosphere. My head voices disappeared.
* See Brigadier General Godwin Alabi-Isama’s The Tragedy of Victory: On-the-Spot Account of the Nigeria-Biafra War in the Atlantic Theatre (Spectrum Books, 2013), although some of the spectators who went to the stadium that day have funnier versions.
CHAPTER 22
The breakup hurt
FRIDAY MORNING, I RAN INTO JACK, WHO HAD CUT WORK since Tuesday. He could neither meet my eyes nor share some crazy laughter with Angela. He had lost his swagger, and, like me, he seemed to have lost weight, too, and his new clean shave and haircut only deepened my suspicion. Angela herself was always cocooned in the company of other people, as though she expected me to attack her. When we could not avoid each other, no matter my smiles, her greetings sounded more formal than an embassy announcement.
That was when I finally decided I could never work with these two.
I deadpanned and continued my parade of friendliness, and even shook hands with the person who had laughed yesterday when Angela ran into her office. Then I knocked on Molly’s door lightly because it was open a crack. When she said hello, I peeped inside to say a bright good morning. She responded with a nice smile. Although the day had just begun, I wished her a great weekend and left.
“Ekong, could you come in a sec?” she called after me. “Please, we need to talk about New Jersey!”
I stepped back inside and closed the door, almost leaning on it, because I suspected she was not ready for any serious conversation. “Molly, New Jersey is old boring stuff, like two years ago!”
She hesitated. Given Jack’s testimony to her phobia, I could not but conclude she had wanted to say something about bedbugs. Now even her not offering me a seat finally showed me we were still not ready for New Jersey; such a conversation needed a good level of comfort. I could not risk the fragile thing we were negotiating now. I could not endure any more misunderstandings in NYC.
“Could we talk next week, please?” I said. “Too many things on my mind today. But I’m also really wondering whether it wouldn’t be better to meet Liam with you …”
“I think you would be great in a one-on-one.”
“Okay.”
“Or is there some reason you’re concerned about it? What’s on your mind?”
She studied my face. Yet I could not tell the white woman my fears since we had not discussed New Jersey. I simply said it would just be nice to go together.
In truth, I worried I might be walking into another well-choreographed private sacristy reception, while Molly, like our church friends, would be waiting innocently and expectantly outside to celebrate the outcome. What would being banished from Andrew & Thompson or from the whole American publishing industry feel like? I did not want to put myself in a situation where I retched my New Jersey bile on Liam. And, Awasi mbok, where were the expats in the Nigerian publishing industry who would take the kind of risk the brave American oil workers were taking this Sunday across the ocean, to defend my humanity?
“Molly, maybe we should cancel the lunch altogether,” I said, studying my shoes.
She rose and came around her desk.
“Ekong, it’s just lunch,” she said.
“I know,” I said.
“Liam asked after you two days ago—he can’t wait to meet you. What I told him about your boldness at that first editorial meeting really impressed him! Even when I told him you had a bug infestation—I hope you’re okay I extended this little courtesy to him—he shrugged it off, saying he himself had spent a fortune on bugs in his penthouse four years ago.”
“I already feel better!”
“I knew you would. Well, your comments have got him thinking about the heights minorities have to climb to be seen. To exist. The whole thing blew his mind.”
She said his new agenda would be figuring out whether his charities were actually reaching minorities or had been hijacked by the biggest ethnic groups, something he never thought about before. Molly believed my assessment of things would be a great blessing to his understanding. “I think, too, the kind of stuff the Uramodese president talked about has to be sensitively reinforced often and in different contexts,” she argued. “Ultimately, to be honest, our industry will only diversify if the boards and owners want it. Liam is on our side.”
“Okay, there’s another thing. I’m also just realizing rotating to work with other departments won’t be as useful to me back home as staying with editorial. I’ve learned so much already since I got here!”
“That’s okay. Just send the others a note. I’m sure they’ll understand. Again, don’t forget: if anyone makes you feel uncomfortable, I need to know!”
I was convinced Molly did not know about my visit to Jack’s office. But, most of all, I was relieved I had gotten my sorry ass out of having to deal with the Humane Society Two at such close quarters.
THERE WAS A LITTLE PILE of books, gifts, at the entrance to my cubicle—this time on the floor, not on the desk. Whoever brought them must have waited until I was in Molly’s office. Was it the same person who had leaked the sanctions against the Humane Society Two? Was this similar to sending war victims relief materials, folks you never wanted to meet?
However, when I bent down to pick them up, I noticed that the white traces on the carpet had actually increased from yesterday’s. No, I refused to touch the books.
I went immediately to inspect Emily’s space, but her white powder was gone. I stood there trying to figure out whether I was seeing right, or, more complicated still, whether I was remembering right. When I bent down to study her electric sockets, there was nothing. But I smelled a whiff of alcohol on her desk and chair. I thought, perhaps, the cleaners were boozing in her cubicle the night before.
I inspected my desk and chair and shelves very carefully. No white stuff. And none on the books. I refused to set down my bag. I refused to plug in my laptop cord. I refused to sit down. Though I knew I was paranoid, today I refused to overlook it. No, I stared at the powder till all my fears about New Jersey, all my fears about Andrew & Thompson, wracked me.
I needed to sort out this powder shit.
I went down into the streets in search of the nearest Starbucks for a strong drink. They said I needed something called Doubleshot on Ice, and when it arrived, the strong icy coffee scent hit my nostrils like snuff. It was just what I needed. In the transparent cup, the color looked sinister, like mixed paint. I protested that I had never taken iced coffee or tea before. They explained it had no hot version. I slipped the drink into a paper jacket, to spare my fingers the cold. By the time I stepped outside, closed my eyes, and took one hesitant sip, the fog in my head had cleared. Though the ice numbed my tongue, I felt like jumping. When I could finally taste the shit, the caffeine had kicked in.
In my cubicle, I took a big gulp again and again. Then I took a deep breath, knelt down to really study the powder traces. I wanted to make sure the chaos in my head no longer affected my judgment of objective reality. And though the beams of the overhead lights were at their fullest, I switched on my phone flashlight, like a mechanic monkeying around the tightest crannies of an engine. I could spot at least four new layers of the powder. I reckoned these signified the four days since I spotted this on Tuesday.
Slowly and tentatively, I touched it with the tip of my right index finger. Rubbing the finger against my thumb, I could feel it was grainy, like some kind of salt. I smelled it. It was odorless. When I tried again, I sneezed and hit my head under the desk. I gave up and plugged in my laptop cord and stood up and put away the books. I sat down and kept my feet away from the powder as I started to edit my stories. But my mind was on the mystery under my desk, like it was going to crawl over my shoes and spread out and grow like bubble bath and fill up my cubicle, to suffocate me.
I did not tell Caro for fear she would think this white stuff was a tracking device from the New Jersey cops. Yet I wished its existence were a figment of my imagination, another mangled understanding of the wordings of some memo. To focus, I sipped the drink and swallowed four ice cubes. Yet, instead of getting used to it, my mouth felt dry and a heavy thirst taped my tongue. I began to sweat, something I never experienced with hot coffee. And the sweat seemed to come out all at once, soaking my shirt, the type of abrupt cold sweat our people call ikpo ekpo. My nose ran and my eyes shone like they would never know sleep again. When I sneezed again, I dropped the drink into the trash can.
I did not believe this powder was to protect them from my bedbugs, because it was not like anything we were using in Hell’s Kitchen. Then I worried this powder could have been programmed to grow, spread all on its own. Then I worried about the fact that it had made me sneeze.
I went to lunch alone at Ruby Tuesday, from which I emailed Angela and Jack to cancel my presence at their meeting. When I returned to my cubicle, I saw that Lucci had called five times. Patiently, I sat through the long voice mails, each the kind of ramble you knew only ended because the caller ran out of recording time. I felt violated as he asked about my village population, my cousins’ occupations, the architecture, age and price of our home, how many relatives I lost in the war. His inquiries were as random as the American visa interview questions. His voice now felt as though he was an audio version of the carpet powder, another addition to the Humane Society Two.
When I sneezed again, I lost focus.
Who told you to smell this poisonous powder? a voice whispered.
And twice or thrice? another said.
After that sneeze, if I were you, I would see a doc ASAP!
What if Liam ordered this powder like Father Orrin ordered you to be moved?
You’re taking Molly’s word on Liam without discussing New Jersey?
Just cancel the fucking lunch.
You see why Usen doesn’t want the bishop’s ass in his home?
Ha, poor you, the powder can only increase on Monday!
I was sickened by that
last but new sarcastic voice that had already pushed my anguish into the following week. My weekend felt crapped upon by this mind-leap, destroyed.
That afternoon, I sprinkled water on the powder, just enough to soak through. My thinking was that when it dried up, it would cake over, making it easier for me to better judge on Monday how much of a new dose was being poured.
LATER, ALEJANDRA TEXTED to say Brad’s plans to recruit Keith had ended in a nasty confrontation between the two men. She blamed me for not approaching the Black man myself. She accused me and Jeff of voting along color lines against Brad, with whom she said spent the whole of Monday night washing off our drunken puke dripping down the stairwell. “Ekong, I think we need some space!” she announced, to end our friendship. I was too dejected to reply. Instinctively, I called Jeff. But after two rings, I hung up, remembering he, too, was already angry with us.
The breakup hurt.
To deal with the pain, I took a walk into the city, going as far as the New York Times Building and UN Building. I got some perspective on my way back: I could never forget that their blessed Chelsea pictures and selfies had already saved our villages from certain riots and would set the tone for our Thanksgiving Mass in two days’ time. I tried to see our friendship as a wonderful dream I did not want to end, but it did anyway.