Tacker figured he’d already taken the risk. He poured water over his head several more times and wiped his face.
“Now you are baptized into Nigeria,” Samuel said.
Abraham and the others were in the river, naked, swimming. Everything in the world was brown and green. Tacker had never gone swimming with black people, certainly not naked.
“How do you know what’s below the surface?” Tacker said. He couldn’t see one inch into the water.
“I don’t,” Samuel said, launching himself chest first into the Osun.
Tacker slipped out of his shirt and trousers, his underwear, his skin so white he looked like the albino lizard in Samuel’s dorm room. The floor of the river felt good, a little silty but solid. When he was thigh-deep, Tacker raised his hands into a V and dove. Fantastically, he knew he would not be ill. Not that he disbelieved in parasites. Rather he believed that Nigeria was an entirely plausible country.
* * *
• • •
WHEN THEY GOT back to Ibadan, it was late. The driver dropped Tacker at the faculty residency. Dinner had been saved for him on the dining table, covered with a napkin—two chicken legs, spinach, potato fries, and sliced pawpaw. Everything was cold. But he was hungry and ate. The Israeli men took up the adjoining living room. Being in the midst of some debate, they hardly acknowledged him. They talked in Hebrew, so it was only when a city or political leader or country was named that Tacker knew the subject. These men were not as animated as Samuel, but they were more intense and Tacker hadn’t been able to figure out if they ever joked.
He wished someone would ask about the trip. There was no crack in the wall of their conversation. With all the mentions of Jerusalem and Palestine, they weren’t talking waterworks. Tacker had tried to extract from Rafael, the one who seemed most favorable to him, what Israel’s interest in Nigeria was. The answer had been brief. “Nigeria’s advancement.”
Tacker was weary of being left out. “Hey, guys,” he said.
No one turned in his direction.
“Hey!” He clapped his hands. Finally he picked up his chair and brought it down hard on the tiled floor. “For the record, my day was fine. I hope yours was too.”
They looked at him. Rafael gave him a wave. “Thank you for the report,” he said.
“I’m going to bed,” Tacker said, and as he left the room he sensed the pocket of air he had taken up closing behind him.
* * *
• • •
“I STILL DON’T get it,” Tacker said. He, Samuel, and Abraham were eating in the cafeteria.
“You’re all Christians but you think the Osun River is sacred. Wouldn’t that be . . .”
“Pagan?” Joshua said, suddenly beside Tacker, sliding his tray onto the table.
“It’s a reasonable question,” Samuel said. “The Nigerian is like one of those large pottery vessels made everywhere by women. In Ilorin especially. The pottery is made of clay. Yet even some little bit of goat dropping may go into it. Some ash from the fire.” Samuel rubbed his thumb against his fingers. “Some bit of trash from the bottom of your shoe. But once the clay is mixed and formed and the pot is fired, then the vessel can carry clean water. That is the Nigerian. It is especially the Yoruba man. He is made of many things, like the clay. Yet he can carry the true word. So we don’t throw out the old part or what some may consider the impure part. To do so would be to spring a leak in the vessel. No. We use all of it to carry the word of God.”
Joshua swung his great head in disagreement and peeled a mango. “Then I am not a Yoruba man,” he said. “I am a new man in Christ.”
Abraham guffawed. “You are a Yoruba man. You have the stomach.”
Joshua made a loud cluck with his tongue. “Please, brother. Don’t talk of my stomach. You satisfy your appetite with women and palm wine.” He devoured the mango.
* * *
• • •
A MONTH LATER the Daily Times announced that Nigeria would hold its first national election in 1959. All in preparation for the country’s independence from Britain the next year. The news was cause for intense debate among Tacker’s friends: the queen would still be the titular head, the northern part of the country was too backward, or the North would use any means to dominate. Tacker, whose awareness of polarity was limited to the North and the South in the American Civil War—and that was ancient history—was over his head in these debates since Nigeria had three major regions and apparently hundreds of smaller tribes and languages within each of those regions, and all of these territories were in play at the present moment like matter swirling in outer space. It reminded Tacker of the inconclusive science of physics, in which he had not excelled. He did, however, enjoy his friends’ passion, especially since the ferocious discussions were generally followed by a soccer game and jovial reconciliations and then libations. One evening they planned an excursion into the city proper, where they would eat at a new Lebanese restaurant. A fellow from Osogbo was joining them. He had graduated a year before Samuel and already owned his own business, installing corrugated roofs on mud houses that had formerly depended on thatch. His name was Chukwu. He arrived on campus dressed in starched trousers pressed like blades, a gray button-up shirt with long sleeves, and pale Italian-looking shoes. A slender paperback fit neatly into his shirt pocket. Tacker could make out Langston Hughes, a name he didn’t recognize, though it seemed that he should. Chukwu brushed past Tacker to climb into the front seat of the van.
The restaurant occupied the second floor of a building that housed a CMS bookstore beneath it. Awnings sheltered tables on the spacious upstairs porch. Several tables were already occupied by Europeans, the largest gathering of white folks Tacker had seen since arriving in Nigeria. Entering, they were met by a woman with sable brown hair.
“I think we will like a table in the front,” Samuel said.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “They’re reserved. Please come this way.”
Tacker was happy to follow her nicely curved figure. He imagined how her breasts would gentle down when she undressed.
“What are we doing?” Chukwu said. “We are fine taking those tables there,” he said, pointing to a table on the porch that was free.
“Those tables are already occupied,” the woman said.
Chukwu laughed, but this was not a pleasant laugh. “By ghosts?”
“Please follow me,” the woman said. She tilted her head in the direction she meant, causing her breasts to tilt too. She led them toward the back of the restaurant where the tables were set in one long row. The men began to fan out and Tacker straddled a bench.
“Why have you brought us here?” Chukwu said, blocking the woman’s passage to the front. “As yet, there is room on the veranda. This table is for children.”
“Come along,” Samuel said. “It’s cooler here. We won’t be feeding the flies.”
The Lebanese woman managed to slip by Chukwu. Tacker was sorry to see her go.
“This is my own country. No?” Chukwu said. “Who is this woman to seat the oyinbo in the choice spot and leave us for this area? Is this her country? Even the British are leaving.”
Tacker sat down and swung his leg around.
“See?” Samuel said, sitting down. “This American is happy to eat in this place.”
“My brother,” Chukwu said. “Are we pushing off Britain only to embrace her sister country? America is not my country. Those are savage people, you know. Very violent. They will not allow us—if we visit there—to eat at the same table with Tacker. They will beat you if you cross the line into their districts. You should educate yourself to the United States of America. It is worse than Great Britain.”
Tacker looked into the man’s face. It was dark in the dim light of the room, but his eyes were bright.
“Ask this man. My friend”—he pressed a finger into Tacker’s shoulder—“tell us. If w
e come to visit your country, will I sit at the table with you?”
Tacker couldn’t think of a good answer. He doubted if Chukwu and Samuel would be allowed to sit with him in a Winston-Salem restaurant, but he’d never thought about it. They were Africans, not Negroes. But folks at home would not see a difference.
Chukwu laughed. “See. His mouth hangs open like a baby’s. He cannot answer. Let us leave the American to use this table. I will sit in the front.” He left in his Italian shoes.
The rest of the group stayed with Tacker. Soon they were amusing one another with talk of Awolowo and Azikiwe and Balewa—Tacker couldn’t keep the Nigerian leaders straight, though his teammates knew about Eisenhower and Nixon and U.S. secretary of state John Dulles, and more about World War II than he did. Their fathers and uncles had fought for England. Some had died in the East Africa campaign. Tacker itched to master their discourse. Why hadn’t he developed a brain that could house such details? He knew all the U.S. states and capitals. But those were permanent. These men seemed capable of storing knowledge that slipped and spun and changed like currents in a stream.
Back on campus, he asked Samuel about Chukwu.
“He’s an Igbo,” Samuel said. “A very serious Igbo.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“He is critical of everything. Very direct. He thinks of himself as principled,” Samuel said, poking Tacker in the shoulder the way Chukwu had.
“Why?”
“He is a Marxist Igbo.”
“You’re pulling my leg.”
“Not at all. The Soviet Union wants to make friends with Nigeria as well,” Samuel said. “I’m sure you know that.” He clapped his hands, then stood at attention. “All of history is the struggle of class warfare,” he intoned, wagging his finger.
“So Chukwu’s an atheist?” Aside from a general notion about the evil of Soviet Russia, the only thing Tacker knew about communism was its godlessness.
“Don’t be crazy,” Samuel said. “Every African believes in God. Don’t let Chukwu worry you.”
“Who is Langston Hughes? That book he was carrying.”
“Ah! You don’t know? He is an American poet. From your own country. He has one poem, ‘Youth.’ We love that poem. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of him. He writes about Negroes in America.”
How could he explain that coming to Nigeria had nothing to do with Negroes?
“Why not sleep in the dormitory tonight?” Samuel said. “You don’t want to climb that hill to the faculty house this late. Those Israelis are asleep by now. You will wake the night watchman. He doesn’t like his sleep interrupted.”
It was a joke they all shared—the sleeping night watchman.
“You don’t even have your torch.”
Tacker had a momentary vision of his bedroom at home—his desk facing a window, a lamp glowing pleasantly, a State College Wolfpack pennant on his wall, the double bed with the maple headboard, the bedspread folded back.
He was happy for the invitation.
“But where will I sleep?”
“Just here,” Samuel said, indicating his bed.
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry. I’m an African. I can sleep on the floor. I prefer it.”
Winston-Salem,
North Carolina
Late Fall 1959, into 1960
Chapter Seven
KATE WAS ALONE with Aunt Mildred and Uncle John for Thanksgiving because Brian had not come as promised, and during the meal she kept looking at his chair, feeling guilty that she had ever begrudged him their mother’s affection. When she got home late in the afternoon with nothing to do, she wandered into her mother’s studio. It still smelled of oils and turpentine and easels, and stretched canvases were still scattered around. Kate had made no progress on a darkroom.
She squeezed watercolors onto a palette, filled a jar with water, found a pad of watercolor paper, and selected a brush. Her bids at watercolor as a girl were not especially successful. Kate dipped the brush into the water and then into the paints and ran the brush in a wavy line across the paper. The colors bled nicely, the image continuing to bloom for five or six seconds until the color was absorbed. She tried again, another wavy line. Again the colors bloomed and settled. That brief uncertainty followed by the staying of the image reminded Kate of developing film. She wished for someone to share this small revelation with. If she had invited him, James would have come for the holiday. Why did she refuse his company? Was she punishing herself for something?
Kate made a supper of butter sandwiches and at eight o’clock she went to bed. The next morning she walked to the drugstore down from Hart’s and bought a pack of Lucky Strikes and a Christmas card. She’d smoked occasionally with her roommate, Janet, never by herself. Back at the house, she settled at the kitchen table, where she pulled the card from the paper bag and slipped the cigarettes into her pocket. She wasn’t sure how to begin. Finally, in a mad flourish, she dispensed with the salutation and below the card’s standard greeting wrote, Thinking of you as Christmas approaches. With memories of last year, Love, Kate. She slipped the card into the envelope, sealed it, and addressed it to James. She walked back through the house, drew a stamp from the stationery drawer in the library, picked up her key, shut the door, and walked to the nearest mailbox, where she dropped the envelope in the slot before she could change her mind.
Early the next week, Kate saw Tacker at the K&W. She was out with Aunt Mildred. Tacker was leaving and it appeared he had eaten alone. Kate felt an odd conflict in seeing him: attraction mixed with annoyance. He hadn’t called since their outing. She had thought she needed to explain that she wasn’t free, but it appeared he wasn’t interested anyway. Last December, before Kate came home to Aunt Mildred’s for Christmas break, she and James had gone to the Sky Room at the Atlanta airport for dinner and eaten oysters. She’d never had oysters before and she swallowed them whole and drank wine and got slightly tipsy, and James called Janet to meet them at the door and whisk her back to their dorm room without Kate’s condition being detected. It gave her a shiver to think about it: the salty, cold oysters and wine and the ride back to Agnes Scott with the windows of the Corvette down, the freezing air on her face.
“Kate?” her aunt said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re eating with your mouth open. What’s wrong with you?”
“I was distracted for a moment; I thought I saw an old friend but I was mistaken.”
In the evening, she sat in her mother’s upholstered Queen Anne chair in the library and opened the pack of Lucky Strikes. She bit the cellophane, releasing the smell of tobacco. The first match went out before she got the cigarette lit. She succeeded with the second and inhaled. The back of her throat burned and she coughed like mad. When she had herself under control, she drew again on the cigarette, more carefully this time. She’d forgotten an ashtray, so she moved to the fireplace, sitting on the hearth, tapping the cigarette against the brass andirons. A cigarette was a little bit like a companion, a rhythm, a give-and-take.
On the first Saturday of December the radio announcer proclaimed midday temperatures in the seventies. After a walkabout in the garden and a visit to the early-blooming camellia, Kate threw open the back door. She would clean out her mother’s pantry. Kate carried a trash can from the side of the house to the back patio. How pleasant to keep the door open, clear shelves, and throw things out. Kate had reached the top shelf when she found the old Saltine tin her mother had kept from who knows when and periodically refilled with new sleeves of crackers. The tin had yellowed, but the word PREMIUM in blue still slanted across the front. Nabisco, in red, filled the left corner. When she was a girl, Kate would place a cracker on her tongue, absorb the salt first, letting the cracker turn to mush, and then swallow. Later, when she was confirmed and took her first communion, she thought of Saltines
as the bread of life. A sense of well-being stole over her. She wanted the tin, a sign from her mother.
On the patio, Kate forced open the old lid, turned the tin upside down, and emptied the contents into the trash can. What fell out was not crackers but a bundle of letters held by a rubber band. Kate’s heart leapt. She leaned into the can to retrieve them, and on the threshold of the back door, she curved forward and sat down. The first letter was addressed in her father’s script. Her hands began to tremble as she leafed one end of the envelopes like a deck of cards. They clicked in complaint and the rubber band snapped. All of the letters had been written by her father to her mother, all in the aqua blue ink of his fountain pen. The exact dates on some envelopes had faded, but the year was 1951. Opening the first letter, she scanned the date—June 14. She remembered the summer right away. She had volunteered in the children’s ward at Baptist Hospital, after her seventh-grade year. That was the summer she started wearing a bra, though it always rode up over her little buds. About her father she vaguely remembered that he had spent that summer doing research at the Smithsonian in D.C. Her mother had made simpler meals: pigs in a blanket, macaroni and cheese, and ham sandwiches. Brian had loved it, but Kate had missed her father. It was a summer of imbalance.
The first letter was two pages long, onionskin so thin she could almost see through it. The most interesting tidbit was a mention of President Truman eating at a Woolworth’s one day, an entourage of Secret Service men with him. The rest of the letter reported on the predictables: where her father was staying, where he took his meals, how the buses ran. Yet this banal reporting created a tide of images so vivid it seemed Kate had shadowed her father that summer: her father in gray trousers and a burgundy Windbreaker, the slight folds of flesh over the far edge of each eye.
Kate held the letter to her chest. She took her time.
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