“Did she?” It felt odd, talking about a piece of Ella’s life that was before her own time. Still, there was comfort in it too. “That was a big story for my Aunt Bea,” she said. “She loved to tell how brave Ella was, even though Ella once told me she was scared as hell.”
“Well yeah, considering what happened on that train, of course she was.”
“What do you mean?”
“The thing that happened.”
Angie’s body tightened, preparing itself for a blow. “What happened?”
“She never told you?”
“Told me what?”
Brenda’s finger traced the rim of her jelly glass. “Maybe you don’t want to know; I mean if she never told you—”
“I want to know!” Angie said, louder than she intended.
“OK, OK. I get it . . . She said she was only like eight or nine and—”
“She was seven.”
“OK, seven. Anyway she was scared. That was a long ride to take for a little girl all by herself. Nobody looking out for her.” She paused. “This white man on the train took her in the little bathroom and made her touch his thing.” She looked over at Angie.
“Go on.” Angie tried not to react, even though a hand was squeezing her heart.
“There’s nothing else to tell, really.”
“If she gave you details, I’d like to know.”
Brenda sat up, and a pillow fell to the floor. “Well, she said what she remembered most was the movement of the train along the tracks, how it felt like it was moving in her hand, how he got off on that, on the way her hand jerked up and down. He put his own hand on top of hers and he was pushing her little head down toward it when somebody banged on the door. First he ignored it, said to her ‘Go on, go on’, but she was so terrified she froze and he pushed it up in her face.”
Angie gasped, hand reflexively covering her mouth.
“Yeah.” Brenda looked over at Angie. “Do you want me to go on?”
Angie nodded.
“OK.” Brenda breathed in deeply and her words rushed out with the exhalation. “She said it was so hard and ugly and stiff it hit her in the eye and it wet her eyelid and the banging got harder and harder and finally he opened up. It turns out an old black woman had seen him take her in there and told the conductor.” Here she stopped for air. “All the conductor said was, ‘This here gal with you, sir?’ And the woman said, ‘She by herself,’ and the nasty old white man said nothing so the conductor said, ‘Go back to your seat, gal. I don’t want no more trouble outta you.’” Brenda’s head shook in disgust. “She wanted to move to a different seat, but of course all of the colored people were crowded into the back of the train. She could’ve sat up front after they crossed the Mason-Dixon Line, but that was before the Civil Rights Act, so nobody knew to tell her she could do that. That’s the fucking land of the free, home of the brave for you.” Brenda shook her head again. “I swear, Nigerians may be crazy and they may be running their country into the damn ground, but at least it’s their country to run into the ground, you know what I mean?”
Angie didn’t want to hear political commentary. “What happened after that? Did she tell you?”
“Um . . .” Brenda frowned, working to pull up the memory. “After that the old woman had Ella sit next to her, but she didn’t say anything, didn’t ask how she was doing or what exactly happened in the bathroom. She just fed her some cold fried chicken. Ella said it was delicious and comforting, that food. She said she felt the wetness on her eyelid for miles as the train rolled along; said she was afraid to wipe it off, because she didn’t want to confront any proof that what had happened had happened. She just ate one drumstick after the other.”
Angie felt both sad and betrayed.
“Why didn’t she ever tell me?”
“Maybe she wanted to spare you. Which is why I didn’t really want to tell you.”
She cut her eyes at Brenda. “You certainly didn’t spare any details,” she said, wanting to slay the messenger.
“Well forgive me for trying to—” Brenda stopped mid-sentence, began furiously clearing her bed of the endless shoes, as if that had brought Angie’s umbrage. “I really don’t know what to say to you right now.”
Brenda violently flung shoes into boxes with their awaiting mates as Angie watched.
“I’m sorry,” Angie said, devastated. She began gathering shoes from the bed. “It’s just that I didn’t know. I’m in a little bit of shock.”
Brenda’s eyes glistened. “Me too.”
That evening, Lola arrived. She sashayed into the house, a petite young Igbo woman with thick, cascading ropes of braided hair and big red lips. She kissed Angie on both cheeks.
“I can tell you’re Ella’s sister,” she announced. “It’s the eyes. Behind her glasses, she had those same eyes.”
Having never heard that before, Angie absorbed the compliment with gratitude. She hadn’t expected to like Lola.
Godwin put out the food on the dining room table—bowls of chicken stew steeped in palm oil with white yams.
“How is your wife, Godwin?” asked Lola.
“She is good, madam,” he said. “God willing, the baby will be here very soon.”
“I will pray for the baby’s safe arrival and for your wife,” said Lola.
“Thank you.” Godwin padded away, feet silent on the carpeted floor.
Brenda grabbed a bowl, passed it around. “Poor thing,” she said. “The baby’s late and she’s miserable, barely able to walk. Godwin took her to the midwife yesterday and the woman gave her some kind of herb tea but still, nothing yet.”
They passed around the food. It was Angie’s first real Nigerian meal and she was eager to taste it. “This is delicious,” she announced after the first forkful.
“I told Godwin to pull back on the pepper,” said Brenda. She pronounced it pep-pay. “It was a fight, O!”
“He should insist that his wife go to hospital,” said Lola. “That’s what you need to fight with him about. Really, these village women have got to stop having babies in their quarters!” She wagged a manicured finger at her friend. “And another thing, after the baby is born, Brenda you must encourage her to breastfeed. Here they are, giving their babies formula because they think it’s modern and the formula is absolutely no good, bloody rotten.”
“That’s the story Ella broke, right?” asked Angie.
“An exclusive!” said Lola. “Four years ago Ella wrote about this and still these companies are selling expired formula to our mothers.”
“The problem is that nobody has written about it since Ella,” said Chris.
Lola rolled her eyes at him.
“I will encourage Theresa to breastfeed,” promised Brenda. “Whether or not she’ll listen to me is another story. Her first challenge is to have a healthy baby and not die in the process.”
“Tell me more about Ella’s work on the paper,” said Angie to Lola.
“It was so bold and new!” exclaimed Lola. “Before her, the women’s pages were filled with advice on how to keep your man happy, how to avoid gossiping. Fashion, cooking. What they called traditional women’s issues. Rubbage, you know? And then Ella came and transformed the whole concept of a woman’s page. She showed that family planning, health care, working conditions—these were all women’s issues. And more to the point, all these serious matters were vital to Nigeria’s development.” Lola smiled from the memory. “Really brilliant reporting. I was graduating university and I saw what she was doing and just begged her to let me work for her. I became her reporter-in-training.” She smiled wide. “Ah! A great page, O!”
“And not without controversy,” added Chris.
“Yes, so true,” chimed in Brenda. She turned toward Angie. “Nigerians were furious that the job had gone to an American.”
“Then Jide, brave boy
that he was,” added Chris, “gave the Daily Times a quote saying he simply wanted the most qualified person for the job and he did not care whether it was a Nigerian or an American or a Brit. In this case, he said, the best person was Ella.”
Angie felt a jolt each time she heard Ella’s name.
“Ah, but she could speak for herself!” Now Lola turned to Angie. “She wrote a bruising letter to the editor of the Daily Times, and they actually published it. ‘Dear Nigeria, I am an African American’ she said. Who had ever heard such a term! ‘And I have every right to bring my Western-world expertise to bear on your so-called third world problems. I am your link, Africa’s most populous nation, to your becoming the beacon of the continent that you so ardently proclaim your intention to be’. Something brilliant like that.”
Angie put down her fork, too excited to finish her meal. Here was the Ella she’d always imagined in Nigeria. Really, she should be here right now, telling her own story. The pure injustice of it all was almost too much for Angie. Why did all the rest of them get to be here? Who was more deserving than Ella?
“Was she always like that, your sister? So brave?” Lola asked her.
Angie nodded, remembering Ella taking off on their father’s wild horses. Saving that girl’s life at the basement party. Moving in with Nigel, against their mother’s protestations. “Yes, always,” she said. She thought too of Ella’s political work. “And she wasn’t afraid to fight for what was right.”
Suddenly, the others broke into laughter.
“What?” Angie’s eyes darted from face to face. “What’s so funny?”
“We know that your sister was a fighter,” said Chris. “With good fists, O!”
Everyone howled.
“Tell her,” said Brenda. “Go on, Lola.”
“What?” Angie couldn’t take it. “Tell me!”
“It is a bloody good story,” said Lola. She took a sip of water, swallowed hard. “So. I used to be engaged to a man named Tunde,” she began. “And let’s just say Ella helped me when I got into a little situation with him.”
“A situation?” echoed Angie.
“Well, I asked Ella to join me to visit him at his flat one evening.”
“A visit that was born of suspicion,” added Chris.
“Who is telling the story here?” asked Lola.
Chris smirked. “Go on.”
Lola continued. She and Ella showed up to her fiancé’s flat, but no one answered the door.
“We were about to leave when I noticed that the curtain to his bedroom window was blowing. The fan was on. I got close to the window and could see his watch sitting on the ledge. He never left home without his watch.”
“Uh-oh,” said Angie, riveted.
“So. I called out, ‘Tunde, Tunde, are you in there? Come open the door!’ At this point Ella says to me, ‘Let’s just go, Lola,’ but I had no intention of going anywhere.”
“Indeed, this was what she’d come for,” said Chris as he shoved food into his mouth.
“Stop with the commentary,” said Brenda. “Let the girl tell the story.”
“I took off my shoe.” Here, Lola took off her black, four-inch stiletto pump. “And I banged it against the bedroom window like this.” She demonstrated with shoe in hand. “Glass shattered everywhere. It was so loud, like a gunshot! Ella yelled at me I think, but I’m not sure.”
After that, they saw a shadow hurry past the bedroom window and seconds later the front door swung open. Tunde stepped out, wearing trousers and no shirt, eyes bloodshot. Lola pushed past him, one shoe on, one off.
“Wha?” Tunde had mumbled, looking half-asleep.
Ella followed Lola to the bedroom. Tunde ran after them, tried to pull Lola back. As they stood at the bedroom entrance, they saw a woman crouched in the corner, half-naked, scurrying into her clothes. Tunde closed the bedroom door, stood guard in front.
“I screamed, ‘How could you?’” said Lola, arms out, manicured fingers splayed, in total performance mode. “‘After all I’ve done for you! After what my mother has done for you! Treated you like a son!’”
Ella begged her to just leave. But to no avail.
“I lunged at him. Beat him with my fists.” Lola smiled at the memory. “I was like a very annoying fly to him. As big as he was, as little as I am.”
Just then, said Lola, the bedroom door swung open and the woman, now dressed, pushed past all three of them and ran out the front door.
“She was one of those acada girls,” said Lola. “I recognized her from the telly.”
Brenda filled in Angie. “She means one of these women who are kept by big men in Nigeria. Government men who give them on-air jobs at Nigerian national TV in return for certain favors.”
Angie, engrossed, couldn’t believe the others were eating. Even Lola had taken a break in her storytelling to finish her dinner. “Go on!” she urged.
Lola quickly chewed, swallowed. “So I am sobbing and crying and saying how his father told me I was worth any bride price a family could name, blah, blah, blah. And he is saying to me, ‘Why did you just show up without warning?’ As if that’s the real issue. This is when I pull off my engagement ring and hurl it at him.”
“And the bastard thought enough to pick it up and put it in his pocket,” said Brenda.
“A diamond costs a lot of naira,” said Chris. “Of course he picked it up.”
Brenda cut her eyes at Chris.
“And then.” Lola pushed back from the table, stood up for effect. Her arms acted out the story. “Out of no where, the little agaracha returns, with a big healthy woman at her side, O! And her hands are like this.” Lola held up clenched fists.
Angie gasped.
“She said to the girl, ‘Which one did it?’ And the whore points to Ella!”
“What?” yelled Angie.
Lola nodded. She placed her hands on her hips. “This hefty woman says to Ella, ‘You ripped off my sister’s clothes?’ And that’s when we notice that, bloody hell!”—Lola makes a ripping motion—”The whore’s top is actually torn and hanging from her shoulder blades! Tattered! I yell, ‘Nobody touched her! That agaracha was with my man!’”
“It gets really good now,” said Brenda.
“American soap opera style,” added Chris.
Lola affected a deep voice. “‘She said you ripped off her clothes,’ growls Hefty to Ella. And then, Oh Lord, she charged at Ella! I screamed, right? But Ella balled her fists, and punched her in the face!”
Angie’s mouth flew open. “No!”
Lola nodded. “Hefty didn’t expect that. She stepped back, ready to plunge at Ella like a wrestler. I am still screaming and—”
“Meanwhile Tunde is just watching the show,” said Brenda. “Can you believe that pussy of a man?”
“Don’t speak of him that way,” said Chris. “That’s a nasty word.”
“He is a nasty man,” said Brenda.
Angie couldn’t bear marital bickering getting in the way of Lola’s tale. “Shhh!” she said.
Lola whispered for effect. “And suddenly, mercifully, a very handsome and muscular man appeared out of nowhere and stepped between Ella and Hefty.” Lola shifted her voice to imitate the man. “‘Zainab, come on home girl,’ he said. And he pulled her away. ‘You know ain’t nobody hurt Sade. Why you dig am out?’ And Hefty says, ‘She hit me in the eye!’ And Ella says, ‘I’ll hit you in the other one too, bitch!’ And just like that, this man pushed Hefty out the door.”
Lola plopped back down, performance done.
“Wow,” said Angie. “Ella did not mention that in any of her letters!”
Lola laughed. “It was insane. Really something.”
“And when Ella got back here,” Brenda chimed in, “She said the part that galled her the most was—”
“Brenda, really?” pleade
d Lola. “Do you need to?”
“Yesssss,” said Brenda. “It’s all water under the bridge anyway.” She leaned toward Angie. “Ella said the part that galled her the most was that at the end of the night, Tunde and Lola were holding hands.”
Angie met Lola’s eyes. “Really?” The whole story was so juicy, the kind Denise and their mother would greedily share at the kitchen table. Only this one involved Ella as heroine. Fighting back!
Lola sucked her teeth, loudly. “You must understand,” she said to Angie. “I was feeling the pressure to marry.” She smirked. “Now my family has given up on me, and I’m a free woman.”
“Tell that to Yomi,” said Chris.
“Yomi?” asked Angie.
“My new boyfriend,” explained Lola. “He still lives with his mother so I have nothing to worry about there.”
Angie laughed, warm blood rushing through her limbs. “Lucky you!”
Lola stood. “Let’s move to the den. I, for one, could use a spot of Cointreau. Talk of my own humiliation makes me very thirsty.”
Everyone rose, filed into the cozy den, draping themselves over the sofa and chairs. Brenda opened the liquor cabinet, served brandy to Chris, Cointreau to Lola and Angie and herself.
Lola held up her glass. “To our dear departed brother Jide, who died for the struggle.” She turned toward Angie. “And to our dear departed sister Ella, who changed lives everywhere she went.”
“Here, here,” said Brenda, glass aloft.
“To our beautiful brother and sister,” echoed Chris.
Angie raised her glass too. “To Ella. And Jide.” She took a sip of the liqueur. The drink’s orangey, sweet taste reminded her of that day with Solo. This was what she’d wanted and she’d gotten it. To be here, among Ella’s friends. Had she ever gotten what she wanted before?
“I am grateful that I can continue Ella’s work with my own women’s page,” said Lola. “I call it Woman to Woman, in honor of her.”
“I’d love to see it,” said Angie.
“It’s a very good page,” noted Brenda. “And I love the new picture of you, Lola.”
Into the Go Slow Page 16