by Sefi Atta
“Are you all right?” Dr. Srinivasan asks.
“Yes,” she says, but she wants to cry.
She takes shallow breaths as she changes into an examination gown and shuts her eyes when Dr. Srinivasan takes swabs and draws blood from the vein. She is eleven years old again with sore breasts, thinking she has cancer. She is telling her doctor she has a pain in her “chest” because she can’t say the word “breast.” He is putting a stethoscope to her chest and listening to her lungs and he is saying, “You’re perfectly fine.”
Dr. Srinivasan pats her arm and says, “You can get dressed now.”
When she returns to the waiting room, the men are still there, but there are more people, most of whom are black, except a woman with bleached dreadlocks and a balding man in a brown polyester suit. Her legs tremble as if she has been running in a marathon. She couldn’t stop them if she weighed them down with bricks. She could get up and walk down the street, but if she leaves, she might never return. She can’t move anyway, not voluntarily. Again, she wills her father to make his presence felt, but he doesn’t, so she believes this is a sign. He knows she is HIV positive. Her head aches and her mouth dries up. She stumbles into a psalm:
Please, don’t let me be HIV positive. I will be a different person if I leave this place with a negative result. I will, I will, I will. I will change. I will be good to my family and friends. I will counsel them. I will counsel everyone I can. Use me as a conduit. Use me, use me, use me. I will obey Your will. I will be respectful to my mother. Do You want to kill the poor woman? Is that what You want? Well, You will. You will, then You will be sorry. All right, I bow down to You as Your humble servant, then! I said I submit myself to You! What more do You want? Why won’t You believe me? How do you expect me to trust You, if You won’t trust me? Yes, yes, I have let You down, but that is because Your commandments are too strict. Yes, they are. Yes, they are. Yes, I’m arrogant to say that. Yes, I’m selfish. Yes, I’m a bitch. Sorry I used that word, but You know what I mean. Forgive me for my indifference to my fellow man. Forgive me for my lack of compassion. Aren’t You supposed to be all-knowing? Aren't You supposed to be omniscient and omnipotent? So help me! Help me to grow! I’m only human, a mere mortal, a wretch. Yes, I accept that now. I’m a wretch and You created me that way. Yes, You did, in Your image. I didn’t mean it that way. All right, I did, and I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t be in this position if You were more accessible. You’ve never been. Okay, that was rude. Okay, okay, I hear what You’re trying to tell me, but don’t teach me any lesson this way. Take my job, take my pride, take anything you want to, but please, please get me out of this place negative. That’s all I ask and I won’t ask anything else of You forever and ever…
The receptionist calls her. “Angela Davis?”
She gets up, knees rocking and cold from head down. The first step she takes calms her down. She walks through the door and Dr. Srinivasan has the same expression.
“Your test result says you’re HIV negative.”
Deola pats her chest as she sits down.
“But you’ll have to come back in six months for a repeat test.”
Her physical symptoms have disappeared and her religious doubts are already raising their hands. She was expecting congratulations and would be furious with Dr. Srinivasan if she were not this grateful.
“All your test results today are fine,” Dr. Srinivasan says. “I’ll go over them with you, but you’ll have to make another appointment or contact us in week to find out about the rest.”
Deola nods. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
She is the same way with the receptionist later, almost curtseying when she says she will call in a week. Only when she walks out into the car park, oblivious to the wind, does she spare another thought for the people in the waiting room. What were they there for? What were their results?
As she reverses out of the car park, she sees her reflection in the rearview mirror and stops to rub her dried tears. She is negative. She thought she would toot her horn and flash her headlights, but to rejoice now would be disrespectful to those who are not. She drives, conscious of a world where people are negative or positive. She can’t tell them apart on Peckham High Street as they walk in and out of the Internet cafés, kebab houses, MoneyGram shops, black salons and barbershops. There are so many Nigerians here, more than there are in Willesden Green. It is almost like being back in Lagos. She passes Obalende Suya, a food spot she has heard about, and a row of yellow brick, semidetached houses with “For Sale” signs. She imagines the houses were built after World War II, when families slept in the undergrounds and lost their fathers, husbands and sons. Did they accept death with dignity in those days? Or was it that death was more exalted, unlike nowadays, when death is put on display so often that people can see there is no dignity in it. She recalls the news footage of the attack on Baghdad; African and Eastern European countries in the middle of civil wars; villages ravaged by outbreaks of cholera and smallpox; land destroyed by earthquakes and tornados.
In Lagos, people are afraid of death by armed robberies, car crashes and sickness. They are terrified of bankruptcy—financial and the other kind that leads to a permanent loss of hope. They call on God so much because they don’t trust that the next day will be delivered free of charge, so they want immediate remuneration, connections and companionship.
These days, Londoners are afraid of terrorism. They are predicting a retaliation, their own 9/11, but London is often a terrorist target. She was in the middle of her accountancy training when the IRA was planting bombs. She was living in her parents’ flat when that one went off in Victoria Station. Her family called from Lagos and she told them not to worry. The prospect of being blown up was remote, something to do with governments and their policies. This is different, from a virus she can’t see, one that takes over cells and mutates, one that she can carry, transmit and pass on to a child without realizing. For her, this is the greatest terror of all.
z
Tonight, her neighbors have a party that goes on past midnight and she can’t sleep from their laughter and music. The next morning she wakes up exhausted. She does not want to go to work, but she gets ready anyway.
In her kitchen, she calls Wale as she butters toast. If his recorded greeting comes on, she will not leave a message. She doesn’t want to hear that word “Shalom” ever again, especially from him. He answers after a couple of beeps.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Wale?”
“Yes?”
“This is Adeola Bello.”
He pauses. “Hello.”
“I just want to tell you I got tested and I’m fine. I found out yesterday.”
“That is good news,” he says, in a subdued voice. “Thanks for letting me know.”
She returns her butter dish to the fridge, presses the phone to her ear and it gives her a semblance of intimacy.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes, I can.”
“Clearly?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“In my office. Don’t worry, we are safe.”
She shuts the fridge door. Are they? He has not seen her test result and she has not seen his.
“I also want to ask you a question. Don’t take it the wrong way, but it bothered me. I want to know how you could fall asleep that night. I’m not a parent, but if I were, I would not sleep.”
Again a pause. “I must have been tired.”
Her tap is dribbling. She tightens it until her palm smarts.
“Is that why you were quiet?” he asks.
“That’s why,” she says.
“I thought you wanted to be on your own. I was tired that night. That’s why I slept.”
She stamps her shoe on the linoleum. He doesn’t care. Not enough.
“I’d better go.”
“No. We can talk.”
“I have to get to work. I’ll be late if I stay on much longer.”
“O
kay, then.”
“I wish you the best.”
“You too.”
He should have kept her on the phone, she thinks, on her way down the stairs. He could have, if he really wanted to. This is the last time she will call him. The banister is shaky and the staircase creaks. Her skirt is short enough to allow her to run down. She stops to button up her jacket and cringes at the dirt embedded in the carpet in the hallway.
Outside, she hurries along with other commuters. Her brisk walk causes her to regurgitate orange juice, only a little, but it burns her. Choosing to love a man may not be conscious after all. It is like breathing. She may choose to hold her breath, but her will will prevail.
z
Throughout the day, she thinks of Wale. She doesn’t need much of a prompt: a tone of voice, a colleague’s fresh white shirt or an accidental touch. Even a business card reminds her of his and this thoroughly annoys her. She mistakes her preoccupation with him for desperation. What else can it be? She had just one night with him, if she can call it that. Shouldn’t she be more liberated than this?
After work, she has an idea to call Subu and Bandele and tell them to get tested. This she can do for a start, acting as a conduit.
She calls Bandele first when she gets home, but he wants to talk about his writing instead.
“Hey, remember that writer I told you about? The one who was going on about Coetzee the other night?”
“What about him?”
She is lying on her couch in her sweatpants with her knees apart, listening to Rufus and Chaka Khan’s Stompin’ at the Savoy.
“The shithead won the prize.”
“What!”
“Yes, he got the book deal. Can you believe it?”
“Damn. Damn. How did that happen?”
“I don’t know, but his novel is about some Nigerian writer who gets murdered in exile.”
“In exile where?”
“Germany or somewhere, by neo-Nazis or something. But guess what his title is?”
“I can’t.”
“Just guess.”
“Um, something with ‘rock’ or ‘river’?”
“The Death of the African Writer.”
“Ugh!”
African novels are too exotic for her. Reading them, she often feels they are meant for Western readers, who are more likely to be impressed.
“Original, ay? I wonder whose bright idea that was. I still can’t get over it, but I suppose this is what they want. I suppose this is what they’re looking for these days, from those of us of a certain persuasion. The more death, the better. It is like literary genocide. Kill off all your African characters and you’re home and dry. They certainly don’t want to hear from the likes of me, writing about trivialities like love.”
She shakes her head. Genocide indeed. Over the years, Bandele has whined about unfairly awarded book prizes. She suspects he is jealous as he tells her about the award night.
“I’m sitting there eating chicken and potatoes in what looks like baby’s diarrhea. I have a journalist on one side of me and he was all right, quite interesting to talk to. We had a good chat. I have an agent on my other side and I was trying to talk her. You know, to get her to sign me on, but the rep from the Nigeria High Commission kept interrupting. On the other side of the table is this literary event organizer, who has a vacant stare throughout, as if she has no idea how she got there, surrounded by all these Africans. You should see the look of relief on her face when she meets the Afrikaner writer. Every once in a while a chap gets up and reads excerpts and there is nothing worse, nothing worse I tell you, than an excerpt from your novel being read out when your bowels are churning. Then this woman, who wears a caftan and what looks like a plant growing on her head, gives a speech, and I can’t even understand a bloody word she is saying, her accent is so thick. She announces the winner and of course it wasn’t me. Coetzee Critic shuffles up to the podium in his garb, you know, looking like a real native, as naïve as you please. He gives his thank-you speech: ‘I yam vary grateful, I yam vary humbled.’ I could puke at this point. Then the patron of the prize takes a photograph with him. He is smiling away, all teeth. The rep from the Nigeria High Commission abandons me to congratulate him. Prize patron shoos rep away. Prize administrator comes up to me and whispers in my ear, ‘There was a sense that he needed it more.’ I’m thinking, What are you running here? A literary contest or a charity drive? And this judge, whom I have no respect for whatsoever—I couldn’t get past the first page of her novel—walks up to me and says, ‘Keep writing.’ Like that, and I’m thinking, Piss off, you untalented tart! It was torture, pure torture, so patronizing. What’s more, the poor bugger who won didn’t seem to realize.”
He is jealous. This is first time he has ever acknowledged that race matters. But doesn’t he realize Africans know when they are being patronized? Doesn’t he know the more naïve they pretend to be, the more they can capitalize on patronage? The poor bugger outplayed Bandele.
She has never worked in the publishing industry, but she imagines the people he encounters there. People who would never tolerate a supercilious upstart African like him. An African who doesn’t even have the common decency to entertain them with stories about how awful his country is. Love indeed. She comforts him anyway.
“Love is not trivial,” she says.
“I know that.”
“Love is epic.”
“I know, I know.”
“So what’s your novel about exactly?”
“Two people. Just two people who are unsuitable for each other.”
“Are they Nigerian?”
“Is that relevant?”
She struggles to sit up. He is always so defensive about his writings, protecting them as if they were his balls.
“They must come from somewhere in the world. Okay, where is the story set?”
“London… and Paris.”
“Paris! I’d love to go to Paris!”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why Paris? Tourists walking around on eggshells, as if it’s their fault the French are rude. Piss all over the streets. You hop into a taxi and you’re at the mercy of some North African with a chip on his shoulder. Style is all that matters over there. You can get away with just about anything in Paris, so long as you have style. Paris is a cliché.”
Wasn’t that a clichéd description of Paris?
“Why set a novel there, then?”
“Because Paris turns out to be more disastrous than their relationship. Only people in books and films want to go to Paris. The only reason I want to go there is to get my scenes right and finally send off this bloody manuscript, if anyone will care to read it. It’s not that I’m moaning or anything. It’s not that I even care. It’s just that I can’t get anyone to take a look at what I’ve done so far. Just take a look at it. And I’ve been working hard, harder than I have ever worked before. You understand?”
“I understand.”
“So suddenly I am an ‘African’ writer. Suddenly it’s the only way I can get ahead in this business, and I can just sense there is going to be an interest in African literature because of this prize. I can just feel it, but it won’t be real, if you know what I mean. It will all be about trying to fit into the African literature scene and you either exploit what is going on or you don’t. That’s all I’m saying. See?”
“I see.”
She thinks of Dára, who crossed over by pretending to be a street child.
“Love is not trivial,” she says. “Love can be dangerous. Love can be deadly in this day and age, and there are casualties, so write your story. There is no need to fear.”
“You’re good to me,” he says.
She finds African literature preoccupied with politics in a way she never was. The fact was she accepted the civil war was the only reasonable option for Nigeria, and from then on witnessed a parade of military and civilian rulers: cowards, reformers, sexual deviants and murderous juju disciples. Th
ey were like the stars at night to her. She couldn’t deny their significance, but she was hardly dazzled by them. There were times she thought she ought to take more interest in what they were doing, but the death toll from the civil war and years of political unrest combined could not add up to the number of casualties from AIDS, so perhaps her concerns over what was happening between chicks and guys were not so misplaced after all.
“You know I had an HIV test yesterday?”
“Excuse me?” he says.
“I’m fine. But I promised myself I would tell you to get tested.”
“Why?”
“I just thought I should.”
“Why me, I mean?”
“Why not you?”
“Because you’re all right?”
She did not mean to be smug.
“I’m telling you as a friend.”
He laughs. “I’m not sleeping with you!”
“It’s not by force, Bandele.”
“I should hope it’s not ‘by force.’”
“Don’t do it, if you don’t like.”
“I don’t like. So how was Nigeria for you?”
She rolls her eyes. “Fine.”
“Must have been.”
He is smiling and so is she.
“Agbaya,” she says.
“Pardon?”
“You heard me, so you can pardon, pardon all you like. Grow up.”
“Who is he, then? Why do I think he is a doctor, or a lawyer, or an accountant, with a name that begins with ‘Ade’ or ‘Olu’ or ‘Ola’?”
“Get off my line.”
She disconnects him. He and his Camillas and Felicities. He will not stop her from being a conduit.
He almost puts her off calling Subu, whom she was saving for later because she expects Subu to be more difficult to persuade. Subu is still at work when she calls.
“Shoe Boo,” she says.
“Na wa,” Subu says. “So you can’t call somebody when you get into town?”
“My sister, I’ve been through a turbulent, torturous, tumultuous period of trial and tribulation.”
“What happened?”
“I had an HIV test yesterday.”