by E. C. Osondu
We moved out of the camp to El Hajj’s house. Mama was not exactly his wife, and we did not live in the main house but in a small block of two rooms that was perhaps originally built for his servants.
One night a few days later, El Hajj called me to his bedroom. The room was filled with milk-colored curtains. The bed was high and had a gold-colored pole on each of the four corners. He was wearing his djellaba and was sitting on the edge of his bed. He was smiling and drew me toward his huge belly. I was looking at his soft, white palms and the folds around his neck.As the soft fingers began to poke around me, they no longer felt soft. I felt like someone was poking sharp bicycle spokes into me. Everywhere he touched stung, and I began to cry.
The next day Hajj called Nur to his room, and when she came back her eyes were red.
“Did he do anything to you?” I asked Nur.
“You tell me first. Did he do anything to you?” Nur asked me.
“Should we tell Mama?” Nur asked me, though I had not answered her first question.
“I think we should go back to the camp,” I said. I told Nur that I had hinted to Mama that we did not quite like it here because of Hajj, but Mama had responded that Hajj was a kind and religious man, and that he was only helping us to become better Muslims.
“She is like a new bride. She no longer knows what she is doing. I think we should return to the camp,” Nur said, agreeing with me. “The elders will always look out for us,” she added.
That night, as soon as it got dark, we began heading back to the camp.
When we walked into the camp, a loud ululation went up. “They have come back. They would rather be thin and free than fat but in bondage,” the women sang. The elders began shouting prayers and thanking us for bringing honor to the tribe. Food in trays appeared from different tents, and there was dancing and singing as the moon shone on Zagrawa Camp.
Nur looked at me as we ate, and I looked at her. We should be happy, but we were not. Father would have been so proud of us, but what about Mama? All around us men, women, and children ate and danced.
A few days later Mama came to the camp to see us. First she stood by the entrance to the camp and sent for someone to call us. People in the camp began to whisper.
“So she is now too big and important to step foot in the camp, eh?”
“Why would she not feel important? Look at all that fine jewelry around her neck.”
“She should remember that she once lived here and was no better than the rest of us.”
“Better to live in the poverty of this camp with my dignity intact than to be a kept woman.”
The wind must have blown some of their whisperings into Mama’s ears, because she began to walk into the camp as we were running out to meet her. She held us, and we hugged. She was crying and wiping the corners of both eyes with her shawl.
“My children, you both left me alone—your own mother that carried both of you for nine months. How could you do such a thing? I spoke with El Hajj. He said it was a misunderstanding. He only wished to draw both of you closer to him, but you misinterpreted his fatherly gesture.”
We looked at each other and stared at the dusty earth.
“He is ready to make amends. He says he will give you both some time to grow closer to him.”
Once again we stared at the ground.
“I saw your father in a dream.”
That got our attention. We both drew closer to her.
“Your father was unhappy in the dream. He turned his face away all the while that he spoke to me. He said the only way he could turn his face back to me was if I brought you all back and we all lived under the same roof. I promised him I would. You know I can’t break a promise made to the departed. If I do, I too will die.”
We both gasped. We went back to the camp and picked up our few items and returned to El Hajj’s house with Mama. As we entered El Hajjs’s compound, he waved at us from a distance. He was sitting on his prayer mat. He had a big smile on his face.
“I told your mother that you are good children. It was a misunderstanding. This is your new home. You will both be very happy here just like your mother.”
We both shivered, giant goose bumps on our skin, and walked into the house.
Going Back West
I woke up one morning, and Uncle Dele was standing by the upright mirror in our sitting room; he was looking out into the street from the window and smoking a cigarette. My mother was brewing a cup of tea, and my father was sitting in his favorite cushion chair, shaking his legs from side to side.
I had heard of Uncle Dele and seen photographs of him taken in America. In one of the pictures he was wearing a winter jacket, his shoes half hidden by snow, and standing in front of a large maroon-colored car. He had an Afro hairdo and was smiling very broadly. In person, he seemed a little disappointing; he wore a frown and drew impatiently on the cigarette like a bird sucking nectar. As he exhaled the smoke through his nose and mouth, he licked his lips lightly like a child relishing the taste of candy. I was shocked someone was smoking around my mother; she generally did not permit anyone smoking around her. Uncle Dele’s imprint was all over the house; the old books he used when in high school were filled with maxims written in his impeccable handwriting—“Life is but a walking shadow,” “Without love what is life?”“Ideas have legs,” “Salutation is not love,” and so on. All his old books were stored away in a locker in the pantry, and their outer coverings were wrapped with paper torn from old wall calendars to protect them.
“Hey, man, you’ve grown quite big,” he said to me, flicking the butt of his cigarette out of the window and smiling broadly at me. “C’mon, give me a handshake, my man.” I shook his hand, and he pumped it vigorously. “Everything and everyone looks so different, it is weird, you know …” He trailed off, running his fingers through his thick hair.
“Your tea is ready, Dele,” my mother said to him. He turned to her, sat down, took a sip, and smiled broadly.
“Wow, this is exactly the way I remember it, still the best-tasting tea I have ever drunk.”
“Stop teasing me, Dele, you cannot tell me that after all the years you have spent in America you still think my tea is the best; you are just teasing an old woman,” my mother said, smiling.
“I kid you not; it is still the best tea. I drank my best coffee in America, but your tea is still the best.”
My mother smiled and said, “In that case I should go and prepare one of your old favorites—jollof rice.”
“Awesome,” Uncle Dele said, rubbing his hands together.
I had not expected Uncle Dele to sneak back like a thief in the night. I knew he was studying chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of America’s top schools, and was going to return one day soon with a foreign degree to pick up a job with one of the new oil companies. I was going to live with him in his well-furnished flat and go to the university like he did.
That night I stood behind the door listening to him conversing with my father in low tones. My father kept clearing his throat as if there were a small pebble stuck there while Uncle Dele responded in bits and dribbles like a faulty tap dripping water.
“So what did you say happened? I have not really listened to you properly. I have been waiting for a quiet moment like this so you can really tell me what happened.”
“There was a party in a friend’s house and a fight over a cocoye, a Puerto Rican girl.”
“You mean you were deported from America because of a fight over a girl? I may not have been to America, but I am not an illiterate, you know; please tell me the truth. What really happened?”
“It was either deportation or jail—I chose to be deported rather than go to jail.”
“I still do not believe you, Dele. I have been a father to you even more than I have been to my own children; wherever your father, my late brother, is, he knows I have done as much as he would have. I starved and denied myself to send you to America, and yet …” And he clear
ed his throat again. “Did you kill someone?”
Uncle Dele swallowed loudly and did not say a word. There followed a little silence, then Dad spoke again.
“So what is your plan now? I still know a few people in the University of Lagos—maybe you could enroll there and complete your engineering program. They have a good program, I hear. I am doing this because of my late brother, certainly not because of you. You have behaved irresponsibly, and you have disappointed me, but what can I do? You are still my son.”
“I am going back to America, I cannot study in this country. I have made a mistake, and the only way I can make things right is by returning to America to complete my studies,” Uncle Dele said.
“Do you think I have a money tree in the backyard? Can’t you see that your own younger brothers are growing up too? They have to go to school, and I am not getting any younger. The soldier boys are playing cha-cha with the economy, today they remove tariffs on importation, tomorrow they increase tariffs. Life is tough here, Dele. The austerity measures they introduced last year have made life doubly difficult.”
“I will only be needing money for my one-way ticket back. I will bear the cost of every other thing, do not worry. I have disappointed you, I know, but I will make up for it,” Uncle Dele said and prostrated himself on the floor.
“Stand up—you are my son, and as our people say in one of their proverbs, you do not throw your child to a lion to eat because the child has offended you. I will do the best I can,” Dad said.
Uncle Dele was the son of my dad’s younger brother. Though I called him Uncle, we were actually cousins. My dad’s late brother was a farmer and lived in the village. He had gone to the farm one day with Dele; the farms were usually some distance from the village. As they were working in the farm, the sky suddenly grew dark, and thunderclouds gathered. It appeared a storm was gathering. They began to run to the barn to hide from the storm because they were afraid the storm could make a tree fall on them. Before they got to the barn, there was a sudden bright flash of lightning. Dele later told people that he felt like he had been struck on the face with a live electric wire. Dele fell down senseless. His father was knocked down too. When Dele woke up, the storm had passed. He touched his father, but his father was no longer breathing. His skin had grown very dark, and his body was stretched taut. Dele ran back to the village and called the village elders. They came and took the body back to the village. A distant cousin was sent to notify my father. There was a lot of crying. Dad was stoic. “What has happened has happened and we cannot question God,” he said. Dad traveled to the village and saw to the burial arrangements. After the burial, Dele came to live with us. He always came tops in his class; some people in the village said he was brilliant because he had been to the land of the dead and back. Some said the lightning had ignited his brain. When I was still growing up, Uncle Dele won all the prizes in high school quizzes, debates, elocution contests, and dramatic performances.
I WOULD WAKE up most days and see Uncle Dele all dressed, standing by the window, smoking and listening to Jimmy Cliff’s “Going Back West” and “Suffering in the Land” and “Vietnam.” It was from him I first heard that Americans were fighting in one far-off country called Vietnam. The track he played over and over again, however, was “Going Back West.” As Jimmy Cliff sang, he sang along with him, his fingers pointing in a westerly direction. He would drink his tea and leave the house for Lagos Island, where the corporate offices and embassies were located. It was also the location of the criminal enclave nicknamed Olu-wole, where people could obtain forged international passports and birth certificates.
One day Uncle Dele came back and told my father that he had made some contact that would take him back to America.
“What kind of contact have you made? You have to be careful—Lagos Island is filled with con men.”
“These are not con men. I have made contact with a musical promoter, he is taking King Pago and His Rhythm Dandies on an American tour. He has agreed to take me along as a member of the band for a fee of one hundred thousand naira.”
“Are you not going to go through an interview at the embassy?” Dad asked him.
“The interview is just going to be a formality; I will be dressed like the other band boys and will be playing an instrument.”
“But you are not a musician, Dele.”
“I am practicing how to play the conga drums, I am rehearsing with them already.”
“You have not given me enough notice—how do you expect me to raise such a huge amount of money within such a short time?”
“Don’t worry about the money. I have already paid half of the money to them and will pay the remainder as soon as we get the visa.”
“Oh, I did not know you came back with bags of money,” my Dad said, chuckling and sounding relieved.
I began looking forward to Uncle Dele’s return to America. He had already promised me that as soon as he got back, he would start sending me the latest clothes and magazines, and as soon as I was done with my secondary school education, he was going to help me get into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Uncle Dele came back from the embassy looking glum. He stood by the window, smoking stick after stick of Benson and Hedges cigarettes and staring into the distance. When Dad came back that evening, I heard them conversing.
“They denied all of us visas.”
“I thought you said the arrangement was foolproof, that the interview was a mere formality.”
“The consular officials asked us to play for them. We played, and they seemed to be enjoying the music, but they said they could not give us a visa. They said it was wintertime in America, and that our promoter should know that people do not attend outdoor musical shows in wintertime. They said we should reapply in the summer.”
“What about the money you paid? Is the promoter going to refund it?”
“He says he will, but don’t worry, I am already on to something else. Someone I met at the embassy says there is some other way of getting into America, and he is asking for only fifty thousand naira.”
“Dele, you are spending money like water. Like I said before, I can get you into the University of Lagos. In a couple of years you will be done, and then you can get a job with the National Petroleum Corporation and settle down and marry so my late brother’s name will not be lost.”
Uncle Dele told me of his new scheme to get back to America through the Cayman Islands.
“From the Cayman Islands, America is just a spitting distance. I will get a passport from the island and get into America with it. I will not even need a visa. It is so easy, I wonder why I had not thought of this myself.”
“Since it is so easy, maybe I can join you for the trip,” I told Uncle Dele.
“No, you don’t need to go with me—just read your books, and when your time comes, you will come to America like a prince.”
“Thanks, Uncle Dele—I know you will do your best for me, but promise you will not forget me when you go back this time.”
“C’mon, my man, you have my promise—now run along and bring your mathematics textbook, and I will teach the easiest way of solving the quadratic equation.” He had an easy manner of teaching, and all things became easy as soon as he explained them. We would end our sessions with him smiling and saying to me, “If your teachers ask you whose formula you used to get your answers, tell them it is Uncle Dele’s formula.”
The trip to America by way of the Cayman Islands did not work for some obscure reason, and Uncle Dele became withdrawn.
One evening, the moneylender’s black Peugeot station wagon pulled up in front of our house and parked. The moneylender, who was a potbellied man with a pockmarked face, got out and asked for Uncle Dele. The moneylender’s name was Maikudi, and he was known in our neighborhood for his unorthodox ways of getting his money back from debtors. Whenever his car was parked in front of anybody’s house, it meant the person’s debt was overdue. On his way out, he would be clutching a goat
if the money owed was not much; if it was a lot, he went away with a young boy or a young girl, one of the children of his debtor. He had a bakery, a block factory, a poultry farm, and a large cassava and yam farm. He would put the children to work until their parents paid up. He had many wives, and some of them were girls whose parents could not pay what they owed.
My dad came out and greeted him. He offered him a drink, and Maikudi accepted. He drank a glass of the beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and belched in a satisfied manner.
“What brings you to a poor man’s house like mine?” my dad said, smiling nervously.
“It is your son Dele I have come to see,” Maikudi said, suddenly losing all affability.
“You mean my son who just came back from America?”
“Yes, he is the one I am looking for. We have some unfinished business. In fact, there is no need hiding anything from you; he owes five hundred thousand naira. He promised he was going to send me the money as soon as he returned to America, but that was a long time ago. I came to ask him how he intends to pay. Of course he can always work for me—I am planning to open a petrol filling station.”
“Dele, where are you? Come out here,” my dad shouted. Uncle Dele shuffled in from his room; he stood before my dad, staring at the floor. Dad looked at him and shook his head.
“Maikudi, take it that I am the one owing you. I will arrange to pay you somehow; you know I am not a rich man, but I will try.”
“I trust and respect you. Take your time and pay me any number of times you like. You are not the type who will owe me and make me fret whether you can pay or not.” He drank the remainder of his beer and left our house, belching.