Missy had given her an intricate pattern, with the tiniest of cornrows running across her crown and braids tumbling down.
“Now you’re dangerous,” declared Brenda.
“Dangerous?” repeated Angie.
“You look like a Nigerian woman but you have the cachet of being a Western one,” explained Brenda. “The men will be all over you.”
Brenda’s words drifted past Angie. She felt strange—exhausted from running all the way back; she’d gotten caught in the rain, had barely made it inside before a torrential downpour. Her head ached from the tight braids. Brenda’s face floated in front of her.
“Could you excuse me?” she said, and stumbled to her guest quarters, fell across the bed.
Later, Angie awoke to the sound of plaintive cries. She sat up, blanketed in darkness, fear encroaching. More raw-throat moans. What was it? Suddenly the flimsy curtain separating her from the outside world was a joke. She hugged her knees, tried to discern whether the sounds were growing closer. Should she get up, look? Stay put? She listened hard. After several moments, the desperate screams grew less human and more guttural. She wondered was a wild animal attacking another? She got up her nerve, rose, pulled back the curtain as it hung demurely across the doorway, and stepped outside. The full moon hovered just above, watchful. A wet lizard ran across her foot, startling her, and Angie scurried back inside.
She sat on the edge of her bed as the screams persisted, several short ones in succession, each growling, aggressive, evolving into low wails. Now she was less fearful, more curious. Minutes passed and the screaming shifted, sounded defeated, exhausted, dying out. Angie climbed back into bed and curled up. Moans now replaced the screams; then whimpering; then silence. She lay there, disturbed by the wild night, certain an animal had lost its battle. Suddenly, the curtain fluttered and Chris appeared in the doorway. She felt a rush of relief.
“Hey!” She sat up straight. “What’s going on out there?”
He came toward her. “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered.
“I’m not afraid,” she said, as if saying so made it true.
“Good.” He sat beside her, reached for one of her braids, fingered it in his hands. “I like it. Makes you look like you belong here.”
She said nothing, didn’t want to encourage him.
“So, you’ve thought about what we talked about the other night?”
“No.”
He smiled. “You can’t deny that we have a special connection, you and I.”
She hesitated, not sure what to say. She needed a place to stay.
He leaned in to kiss her lips.
She pulled back. “Chris, please don’t.”
“So you are not attracted to me, eh?”
She wanted to say in fact, that’s it exactly. “I like Brenda. I don’t want to betray her friendship.”
“Brenda is the one who betrays. If Ella were alive, she could tell you that.”
Hearing him speak of her sister pained Angie. “Please don’t mention her name.”
He nodded. “Listen. It’s obvious, we want each other. And I understand you don’t want to hurt Brenda. She’ll never know. I promise.”
He put his hand on her thigh, and grabbed her around the neck, pulling her face to his. He pressed his lips against hers. She pushed him away.
“Oh you like to play that game?” he said, smiling. He pushed her hard enough so that she fell back against the headboard. He pulled her legs down, climbed on top of her and held her arms back, straddling her.
“Stop!” she yelled. “Chris, please stop!”
“Shhh!” he whispered. “We’re just having fun.”
As he pried open her legs with his knee she screamed, her own cry as desperate as those she’d just heard outside.
He slapped her. So hard, her face pulsated.
“You cannot fucking yell!” he growled. “She might hear you!”
He climbed off of her and as he moved toward the doorway, she begged, “Please don’t hurt me! Please.” She felt as doomed as whatever animal lay out there, another beast’s prey. I’m about to be raped, she told herself. Okay. Okay. Just get through it.
Chris pulled back the curtain, looked out. She gasped in short, frightened breaths, hugged her knees to her chest.
Certain no one had heard her scream, he returned, hovered over the bed, a hard glint in his eyes.
She winced. “Please don’t hurt me,” she repeated.
“I want you out of here by morning.”
Angie looked up at him. “Leave?”
“The best thing is for you to go. Before she suspects something. Or before I tell her you tried to come on to me.”
He hit the doorway curtain and it froze in midair for a brief, terrifying moment. He held it back as he turned to her. “Ella understood how things work. And here I thought you were smart like her. You may wear the same hair, but you’re nothing like her. Not even close.”
He stalked out.
Once Angie’s breath returned to normal, once the throbbing across her face subsided, once it was clear Chris wasn’t returning, she lay awake and contemplated her fate. Where would she go? She chided herself for naively landing in the midst of people living messy lives and not being prepared for that fact. She could just go back home. She was already near the airport. She rose, grabbed her gold pen and a sheet of thin, blue par avion paper from her bag—paper she’d purchased for long, detailed letters home that she’d failed so far to write. She quickly scribbled:
Dear Brenda,
Thank you for everything. I’ve decided to move on. I’ll never forget your hospitality and the friendship you extended to me. Be well.
Love,
Angie
She lay still and waited until the sun slid through the slatted windows; on cue, she rose, packed her bag. When she stepped outside, Godwin was there, tossing a jerrican of water onto the concrete inside his doorway. His newborn baby’s cries sliced into the silence with hiccups of ferocity. She watched as the houseboy tossed another and another, washing away the afterbirth and blood stains seeping into the cement floor. Waa, Waa, Waaaaa. Understanding now, she walked up to Godwin, hugged him. “I wish the best for you and your family.” He looked stunned. “Thank you, madam.”
“And make sure Theresa breastfeeds,” she said, as she passed by to slip Brenda’s note under the back door, along with the key. Then she quietly made her way to the front of the house, toward Olapade Road.
Only while zooming along the highway in a taxi did she realize she’d never gotten to see Brenda and Chris’s house at night, totally missed the pretty, yellow porch lights casting their soft, hazy glow.
SURULERE
ELEVEN
28, Onibu Ore
Surulere, Lagos
30 November 1983
Hey Angie,
More news: I’m now staying with a real Nigerian woman! Nigel is not with me--we decided to cool it, do our own thing for a while. C’est la vie. Quite frankly, I’m relieved.
Her name is Funke Akinlolu and she’s amazing! I met her while reporting a story on Lagos businesswomen. She works as an executive secretary for the assistant commissioner of the ministry of transportation, and THEN on weekends she runs a kiosk in the market, where she sells beauty and hygiene products. AND she takes in foreign travelers as a host. She’s a true feminist, like so many Nigerian women--working day jobs, being entrepreneurs and community activists and wives. Her husband is an asst. minister of forestry and he’s never home, always in Abuja. Oh yeah, and she’s pregnant with her first child! I got the best quote from her for the profile. She said, “Most women are too easygoing. They sit back lazily and allow themselves to be tossed about by men like helpless pieces of corn in a river.”
I used that as my pull quote! Fantastic--and VERY shocking to everyone that she dare speak the truth.
&
nbsp; I’m learning so much from Funke. She’s already taught me how to cook a few Nigerian dishes. The other day, we went to the market and bought some gorgeous indigo fabric (I’m just loving that color!) and she taught me how to tie a “rappa” and a “gele,” the matching head-wrap. I look very authentic! I’d send a picture but getting them developed here is crazy expensive, so I’ll show you when I return.
The area she lives in, Surulere, is my favorite in Lagos. It’s largely residential--the whole district was built for civil servants--with a kiosk here or there. I love all the flat-topped structures with their stone lattices built into the walls. It’s like looking at fences made of lace. Very practical too--lets the cool air in (whatever that is). And the place is so manageable compared to Lagos Island! Besides, it’s much closer to The Voice office.
Anyway, write me back soon. Glad you’re liking U of M. Join the Black Action Movement--if the damn thing still exists. And yes, come to Nigeria for Winter Break! I miss you.
Luv,
Ella
“This is Surulere,” said the taxi driver.
Angie stared into a gutter that snaked alongside the narrow road, skim of algae glistening green and viscous in the Sunday morning drizzle. A small group of women dressed in white walked just up ahead, carrying Bibles. She wondered whether they were headed back from baptisms. She’d once read that Nigerians called baptism “the water god.” Where would the preacher have dunked them? In the oil-slick lagoon, with its beckoning dark presence beneath the city’s bridges? She’d decided to go home. But then she thought of her mother, their argument, how she’d left so abruptly, and she couldn’t bring herself to return. Not yet. The thought of Denise’s I told you so was enough to make her stay.
The driver turned onto Onibu Ore Road. They passed a church, a square cinder block building with a neon sign proclaiming, YE MUST BE BORN AGAIN. The women must be headed here. She had the urge to stop, go inside the little church, sit among the simple pews and raised altar. Surrender and declare herself born-again.
She was so relieved to have escaped Chris’s clutches that this felt like a fresh start. She didn’t need to be in the middle of Chris and Brenda’s domestic drama. She was headed to a better place, a place that Ella had loved—with an authentic Nigerian woman. She hoped Funke was still accepting foreign travelers, hoped she’d be pleased to see Ella’s little sister.
Just past the church, makeshift tin-roofed shacks clustered alongside the road. Many sat atop cinder blocks, some were lean-tos held by poles, others squatted low behind open gutters, planks of wood set up as walkways. She eyed a woman stooped over, sweeping an area with a low broom, a naked girl at her side. Abruptly, the woman whacked the girl with her broom and the child wailed. Cooking fires simmered outside the shanties, creating clouds of black smoke. Chickens ran amok. Angie wondered how a woman who lived in a shantytown could offer her home to a foreign traveler. She wondered too why Ella hadn’t mentioned this fact in her letter.
Then she noticed the houses on the opposite side of the road. These were solid, closely built wooden homes with gravel yards and clumps of foliage out front. Painted in lollipop colors of pink, yellow, and blue, with their rough charm they looked like crude images drawn by a child’s hand. Number twenty-eight was faded orange and had a front porch with a white railing. She exited the taxi, grabbed her bag, walked up to the house and knocked. Within seconds, a young man opened the door. He was angular save the horizontal tribal marks gouged into his face. He wore a soiled dress shirt opened to his navel, exposing a smooth, frail chest. The shirt hung over black trousers, which were shiny from too much ironing. His hair was in a Jheri curl. He ground a chewing stick as he studied her.
“I’m here to see Funke Akinlolu,” she said.
“Funke no dey.”
“She knew my sister, Ella?”
“Wetin be yua name?”
“Angela.”
“Ah, this name no sabi.”
“I’m visiting from America,” said Angie. “Please.”
He chewed on his stick. “Enta,” he said at last, stepping out of the doorway.
The room was dimly lit, and her eyes took a while to adjust. A string of Christmas cards hung across the room, dipping below the ceiling. Dust covered the cards and the three chairs and end tables that comprised the room’s furniture. A small TV with rabbit ears sat atop one of the little tables. Books and papers were stacked high in the corners. The room smelled of mold, and looked all but abandoned. Angie thought of Godwin, ever dusting and cleaning at the Olapades’ sprawling home. She set down her bag, certain this young man was Funke’s houseboy and these were his quarters. Angie scanned the space. Four doors lined the length of the hallway.
“You know Michael Jackson?” asked the young man.
“What?”
“Michael Jackson.”
“No,” she said. Her throat was parched.
“No?”
“Well, everyone knows of him,” she explained. “But I’ve never met him.”
He chewed on his stick, as a horse might chew a carrot, digesting her answer. He stood there.
“Do you have anything to drink?” she asked.
“I get minerals,” he said, walking out the open front door.
Angie sat down in one of the chairs and peered into the kitchen. A large, white refrigerator stood beside another smaller one and a tiny cooker sat atop a large modern stove. The kitchen wall was lined with shelves filled with an array of blue jerricans, tin basins, straw baskets, wooden bowls, metal pots, yellow plastic buckets, assorted rags—a still life of color.
When the young man returned, he handed her a cold Fanta and watched as she drank.
“I am Andrew,” he said, pointing to himself.
She held up the Fanta. “Nice to meet you Andrew.”
“I am a singer.”
“Oh?” She held the bottle to her cheek. The room was muggy and stifling.
“Beat it!!!! Beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it!” he sang, snapping his fingers and spinning around for effect. His voice was warbled, straining high.
Caught off guard, she laughed.
He smiled, his teeth small and ecru. “I will go to United States and become a singer like Michael Jackson. A black can be big, big in America.”
“He’s not just any black,” she said.
It was then she noticed that the young man’s hands and face were much lighter than his chest. In fact, his face had the anemic, washed-out complexion of Nigerian women she’d seen on Lagos Island who obviously bleached their skin. Too bad, she thought, he was trying to look like a 1983 Michael Jackson, when the 1987 one had moved on to a new look and even lighter skin.
Andrew did another spin and a woman burst through the door, a little boy at her side. She was short and wide, a market bag in her hand. Her sideways cornrows gave her a girl-like quality. When she saw Angie, she stood stock-still, stared. The young man filled her in, speaking rapidly in Yoruba. She took in the suitcase on the floor, turned to Angie. “Who are you, please?”
Angie saw that she was pregnant.
“I’m Ella’s sister,” she said. “She stayed with you, here, four years ago?”
Recognition lit the woman’s face. “Ah-ah, the black American girl who ran in the street and died?”
Angie nodded, undone by her description.
“And you are her sister.”
“Yes.”
“And you have come, why?” said the woman, rubbing her belly.
Both Chris and Brenda had asked the same question. “Just to visit. Meet you.” She wished she could come up with a better answer. “I hope this wasn’t a bad time to come?”
“That depends,” said the woman. “I am Funke.” She nodded her head toward the young man. “And so you have met my nephew, Andrew.”
“Yes.” She realized her presumption; he most certainl
y wasn’t a houseboy. “If this is not a good time—?”
“Ope!” yelled Funke. The little boy had teetered his way to a pile of papers in the corner and was pulling them down. Funke scooped him up, parking him on her hip. She walked over and thrust the boy at Angie. “Here, take him please, thank you.”
She disappeared behind one of the doors as the boy squirmed in Angie’s arms. This must be the boy Funke was expecting when Ella visited. Angie’s only experience with children came when she was fourteen and got her first job working for a nursery school a few blocks from home. Timbuktu it was called, and the director spent much of his time telling her about the great kingdom for which his place was named. She didn’t like the toddlers’ high-pitch screams, found their neediness exhausting. When he left her alone with the children one day, he returned to find her napping alongside them. He fired her.
Ope slapped Angie in the face with his pudgy hand. Flashing back to Chris’s violence, she grabbed the boy’s hand and squeezed it. He yelped and she let go, held him at arm’s length. He squirmed, about to fall from her grasp.
“Please, take him!” she said to Andrew, who laughed, grabbed Ope, and sat him on the floor. He took a pan from the kitchen and handed it to the boy, who gurgled in delight. Funke reappeared in a bright wrapper tied around her waist and a T-shirt with a Coca-Cola logo. She turned toward the kitchen.
Angie, feeling awkward, followed her. “Can I help?”
“You can make draw soup?” asked Funke.
“No.”
“Then you will watch.”
Angie stood close as Funke pulled an onion, tomato paste, dried shrimp, okra, and dried red peppers from her bag. She grabbed the small gas burner from atop the huge stove, placed it on the floor, and lit it with a match. She then placed a huge pot on the flame, squatting as she poured palm oil inside. “I had no warning of your arrival, so there is no meat stew.”
“That’s fine,” said Angie, watching as Funke chopped the onion and dropped it into the hot oil, along with the other ingredients and a Maggi bullion cube.
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