No one was interested. You had to be desperate to even consider such terms. For three weeks, I tramped through the streets of Lagos, starting with the largest retailers – where I was not even allowed to see the manager – and working my way down to the smallest shops that were little more than kiosks. None were desperate enough.
I wandered into Aunty Precious BLESSED FOOD STORES by chance. It was a wonder I even noticed the squat building that had faded into the colour of the dust strip that encircled it. It had two storeys and, as was often the case, only the ground floor was a shop. Above, tenants aired themselves and their faded clothing on their balconies.
‘Hello?’
I stood at the doorway, blocking the sunlight and peering into the dim room. There was nobody at the till. I glanced at the four aisles of goods and the small freezer humming in the background. The place wasn’t dusty, or dirty or untidy. In fact, everything was neatly arranged, the products lined up in barrack-straight rows. Still you could tell business was slow.
‘Hello?’ I said again, walking to the end of the shop. The shelves were stocked with tinned food, detergent, toothpaste, bread, cereal and, against the wall, a freezer crammed with ice cream. In the last aisle, I saw a woman sound asleep on a stool. Her body sagged round the stool seat, allowing her to balance without leaning on anything. The hem of her starched boubou swept the floor, the skin of her round face relaxed around her jaws. On the white scarf wrapped around her head were the words ‘women’s prayer conference 2006’ printed in bold. I cleared my throat loudly and she opened eyes that were large with sleep.
‘You must be Aunty Precious.’
‘Yes. And who are you?’
‘I’m a hawker,’ I said, reducing my volume to match hers.
‘You don’t look like one.’
‘Yes and this is because, today, I come as something more than a hawker. I come as—’
‘If you’re here to sell me something let me remind you that you are in a shop.’
‘I know. And this is why I’m here because—’
‘And if you’ve come to buy anything from me, I’ll give you some advice. It’s cheaper at a wholesaler’s. Wait, I’ll write an address for you.’
When she stood, I saw she would have been petite if not for the weight that gathered round her hips. She walked to the front desk and wrote on a piece of paper.
‘Thank you very much. This is not what I came for,’ I said, tucking the slip into my pocket.
‘Then why are you here?’
‘I have a business proposal.’
‘Why didn’t you say so?’
I was well rehearsed by now. I had made my proposal almost ten times that day and each time it sounded more natural. I delivered my pitch with my hands behind my back, making eye contact half of the time.
‘And so,’ I said, rounding up, ‘this is why I know it would be in your best interest to become my partner.’
‘Why do I need you? How do you know I’m not happy with my profit?’
‘You might be happy but you’d be happier if you made more. Also, your business needs to be taken to the next level.’
‘Why do I need to be taken to the next level?’
‘Because you are not – are not maximising your potential.’
‘And how do you know this?’
‘Because:
‘There are few gaps on the shelves.
‘The products are too neatly arranged for people to have shopped here recently.
‘The floor is clean. Customers would have brought dirt in.’
She laughed, a low, throaty laugh that bore no relation to her appearance. ‘I’m impressed. I’d be even more impressed if there wasn’t a flyer in the window announcing the store is closing in two months.’
I walked outside the store and looked at the window. There it was. A large red poster saying in black block letters: CLOSING IN TWO MONTHS.
‘You’re a good boy,’ she said when I came back in. ‘As you now know, my shop is closing down. Neither of us can stop that from happening but I will hire you for the eight weeks I have left.’
‘Thank you. You won’t regret this.’
‘Eight weeks only. Is there anything you want to ask?’
‘Since the shop is well-stocked, why don’t I start hawking some of the things you have now? We can split the profits sixty–forty. Of course you would be taking the sixty per cent.’
If she didn’t agree, it would be the end. No one was going to consider my offer. I knew that now. The wholesalers wouldn’t take me back. I would go home and spend my savings on Dettol, soap, cereal and bread. In fact I didn’t have to go home. I could spend them here.
‘How about you take fifty per cent since you’re the one running on the road.’
* * *
I was thinking about this first meeting when I arrived at the store today. Eleven months later it’s still open. For this I must take some credit, though the office that opened down the road also has something to do with its solvency. I read the sign outside and as usual, it made me smile. On one side was written in pink, italic letters: Aunty Precious and on the other side in cramped block letters: BLESSED FOOD STORES. Coming from one direction, you could be walking past a beauty salon or, when it was night and the script blazed into the dark neighbourhood, a brothel. Coming the other way, it was a shop that sold olive oil and locust paste.
When I walked in, Aunty Precious was sobbing at the till and a strange ox of a man was on his knees. They both looked at me. Her face was tear-streaked, her eyes swollen into two red moons. The strange man looked like he was about to cry.
‘Emeka, you have to leave,’ Aunty Precious said to him.
‘But—’
‘Please leave me.’
‘Pre—’
‘I’m sorry, sir, but madam said you have to go.’
He looked at Aunty Precious. She turned her face. When he walked out with his eyes fixed to the floor, she put her head down on the till and continued sobbing.
‘Aunty Precious, what’s wrong?’
Chapter 9
‘So, Abikẹ, where have you been?’
My father rarely asks such a direct question without knowing the answer.
‘The car had a fault so Hassan went to fetch a mechanic.’
He was standing but the distance between us made it seem like we were level. Tall, without being thickset; handsome without effeminacy: physically, most would say he is perfect. I have always thought there is a worrying sharpness about him.
‘What about this friend of yours?’ I had seen the IG many times in this study. Perhaps my father was now using his network.
‘Oh, the hawker? He’s just someone I buy stuff from. He’s very handsome though.’
I knew the last part would annoy him. He is like a normal father in some respects.
‘I’m not sure this is the kind of person you should be spending time with.’
He had stopped asking questions.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, picking up a leather-bound book that was lying on the cabinet. Crime and Punishment, I read off the spine.
‘Abikẹ, you know perfectly well what I mean.’
I put the tome down, smiling at the fingerprints I’d left on its dusty surface.
‘Well, usually I would agree but there’s something special about this hawker.’
I turned my back to him, facing the trophy cabinet where he kept his accolades, the yellow lighting caressing the oiled metals. Best Student: King’s College, 1974, I read off a recent addition.
‘You mean he’s handsome.’
My eyes darted to the image of him reflected in the cabinet glass. He was standing under a painting of himself and both pairs of eyes were looking into my back.
‘Yes,’ I replied, waiting for the reflection’s mouth to open before adding, ‘Also because there’s something odd about him. He doesn’t look like he belongs to “our kind” yet he acts like it.’
‘Don’t be naive. Anyone can pick up p
osh manners.’
‘Like you, Daddy?’ I asked, turning to stare directly into his face.
He is very proud of the fact that no classmate of his has ever recognised him. The Olu Johnson we know and love has come a long way from Olumide Jolomijo of fifty years ago.
‘Yes, like me, Abikẹ.’
‘Well, Daddy, don’t you think that someone smart enough to reinvent themselves deserves some curiosity? Like you.’
He smiled as we sat.
Mr Johnson: 1
Abikẹ: 1
* * *
‘So who was that?’
‘A Lagosian Senator.’
‘Why did he come?’
‘He is looking for a rather large amount of money to rig the next election.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘Yes.’
‘And if he doesn’t win?’
‘I’m sponsoring his rival.’
In the stories he selects for me, he is always the wily fox; rarely brutal or cruel. It shows he values my opinion. He of all people should know better.
‘So, Abikẹ, why are the windows of my newest jeep still not tinted?’
Because how will my hawker see me when I drive past?
‘Because only government officials are allowed tinted windows in Lagos. Besides, it saves money.’
‘My money.’
‘Not forever.’
‘I do have other children.’
‘But you want Johnson Corporations to succeed when you’re dead.’
Abikẹ: 2
Mr Johnson: 1
We continued like this but the score remained the same. By the end of the evening, I had won. As usual, we went through the Wednesday ritual of a robust hug. I often tell myself, while he crushes me, that Frustration is his way of preparing me for the world. Playing becomes easier if I believe the game doesn’t stem from perverseness.
‘Abikẹ, I’d like to meet this hawker of yours.’
I hugged him back, my arms unable to exert a pressure his thick hide would feel.
‘Why not? I’ll invite him over sometime. Maybe one of these days you’ll run into each other.’
As usual, it ended in a draw.
I looked at Aunty Precious’s heaving shoulders. She had not answered me.
‘Aunty Precious, what’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ she mumbled, her head still buried in the crook of her arm.
‘Who was that?’
‘Nobody.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. I’m fine. Just go.’
‘I don’t want to leave you alone.’
‘Go. Your mother and sister will be worried.’
She was leaning stiffly against the wall when I left, eyes closed, like a person who had fainted in a sitting position. It was a relief to step into the evening breeze. My mood soon sank when I remembered where I was going. Even the garbage wants to escape from my neighbourhood. At the end of each day, people pile their rubbish on to the side of the road and the next morning, you see the sweet wrappers and banana skins a few metres from where you left them, slowly being carried to their freedom by people’s unsuspecting feet. Oh, to be trash.
As I turned into my street, I was disgusted by the ugliness that even moonlight could not soften. The rubbish heaps that looked like burial mounds; the candlelit house fronts that shed light on scenes made uglier by the flickering jaundiced glow cast on them: melon-bellied children chasing a lame dog with sticks, a man squatting in the shadows, showing solidarity by shitting pellets into his neighbour’s compound.
I don’t know why people in my area get robbed. All our valuables put together and trebled would still be a fraction of what thieves could get from some of the houses I can think of. Whatever their logic, the armed robbers pay us a visit twice a month. We hear the gunshots, we cower and the next day we thank God it wasn’t us. There’s no talk of calling the police. We’re not their type.
We are luckier than most to have a two-bedroom flat all to ourselves. My father’s leftover money combined with the sporadic generosity of his old colleagues and friends was enough to pay rent for five years. The lease contract is in a drawer in my mother’s room. Sometimes I wonder what will happen when it runs out. I have some money saved, but it is for the shop I want to start.
As usual, when I got home, there were boys smoking on the bench by the stairwell, the tips of their sticks glowing red in the dark.
‘Boyo, how far?’ my neighbour’s fifteen-year-old son said, in a fake gruff voice.
‘Good evening, Ayo.’
‘I don tell you. My name be Rambo. You wan smoke?’ he said, offering me something that was too fat to be a cigarette.
‘No, thank you.’
When we first moved in, Ayo was the only boy in our block I approved of Jọkẹ speaking to. He went to school every day, he combed his hair every morning and he knew what he wanted to study in university.
‘If you no want smoke gerrout from here.’
A year ago I would have told Ayo to show some more respect. Ever since I saw him smash a bottle over a boy’s head in a fight, I have grown wary of him.
When I walked into our flat, my mother was sitting in the living room where I had left her. At least she wasn’t in her nightie.
‘Mummy, good evening.’
‘Welcome.’
‘How was your day?’
She looked at the table as if bewildered to find herself still sitting there. ‘It was good, I think.’
I walked into the room I shared with Jọkẹ.
‘Jọkẹ, I’m back.’
‘OK.’
There was a candle next to the bed and she was doing her homework on her lap.
‘Has Mummy eaten?’
‘I don’t know.’
This is how she is at home: curt, monosyllabic.
‘Have you eaten?’
‘I made noodles.’
‘Why didn’t you make for Mummy?’
‘I cooked them for her once and she said they looked like worms.’
I went out again.
‘Mummy, what do you want to eat?’
She stood and began to walk towards the kitchen. ‘That is what I should be asking you. Do you want yam pottage?’
The last time she tried to cook supper, Jọkẹ and I were out. When we came back, there was smoke in the apartment and a pot on the stove, burnt to black uselessness.
I led her back to the chair. ‘No, thank you. I’ve already eaten. What about you?’
‘Maybe a little bread.’
I spread margarine over a slice and waited until she had swallowed her first bite before returning to the room.
‘Jọkẹ, next time make sure she starts eating before you leave.’
‘OK.’
‘Or if it’s not too much to ask, you can sit with her while she eats.’
‘OK.’
‘And you can say something other than OK.’
‘OK.’
When I went outside, my mother was still nibbling on the white part, her teeth sinking into the bread a millimetre at a time.
Three months after he died, while we still had one car left and my mother was alert enough to drive it, she took me to the accident site and pointed at the blackened chassis of what had been my father’s car. Already the grass was beginning to reclaim it, growing round its geometric shape. We parked and walked down the slope.
‘It is empty,’ my mother said as I stuck my hand through a gaping window, clenching and unclenching my fist. My father was the only padding that had stood between life and a blackened skeleton, between before and after.
Sometimes, I search my memories for a clip of before and play it to myself. A favourite is the first time I saw snow. I was in New York and it was not snow like you saw in the movies. It was brown and gritty like sand.
‘What is it?’ I asked my father.
‘Snow.’
‘No,’ Jọkẹ said. ‘Snow is white.’
‘It stings,’
said my mother, ‘cover your eyes.’
Now it seems a lie that, once upon a time, my father’s bank account was full enough for the American embassy to grant us visas. But it is true. I have been to America. There are stamps in my expired passport to prove it. I have seen snow. For this there is no proof except the memories in my head. They are enough to remind me that once I knew more than Mile 12 and hawking and fetching water on Friday evenings.
It was before Abikẹ wanted to know about when she was asking all those questions.
I don’t share.
Chapter 10
‘Do you want to come to my house this weekend?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Would you like to come to my house on Saturday?’
‘Well, I—’
‘Some friends are coming over and I thought you might like to come.’
I worried about inviting him. The papers are always full of armed robbers who are hawkers in the daytime.
‘Yeah, sure. What’s your address?’
Even if he is a thief, it is unlikely that he and his gang will get past my gate.
‘It’s fine. We’ll pick you up at one o’clock?’
‘That’s really nice, Abikẹ. I’ll be here.’
It’s possible my father is right. The speech and manners may be newly acquired. Or worse, the road may make him seem more polished than he is. If he doesn’t come to my house, I’ll never know if he can fit into my life.
‘Don’t be late.’
‘Same to you.’
‘The prophet said I would know.’
‘Know what?’
‘I will just know.’
More and more this prophet kept appearing in our conversations, his robes brushing our faces, his sandalled feet treading on our toes.
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