Recovering movement takes a long time. Often the sharks have circled and gone. Sometimes the hunters will die of starvation, their entire families starving behind them.
It happened to me. Not in the West Indies, but in London. In my parents’ closet in Brixton, to be precise. For those who suffer from Canoe Sickness, precision is the only way to be saved.
I did do one thing that may have caused the tide to turn against me—made me more susceptible to illness or ill will. I dated Sally Brune. My mother had warned that if I dated a British girl, I might eventually marry one. A British woman wouldn’t know how to comb our young daughter’s hair. My mum would raise her eyes subtly to point out the half-British/half–West Indian girls in the supermarket with knots in their heads. My father said my half-British sons might not respect me. It was hard enough to get sons to look up to their fathers, he said. How much harder if the son had the colonizer’s blood in him? I had dated other British girls before, but Sally Brune was different. A little plump. Blond hair. Brown eyes. A little short with smooth legs that she shaved every day. She was smashing, really. Sally was different because she and I weren’t just talking, I wasn’t just chatting to her. Sally was my girl. I’d asked her after a game—that’s always when I felt most bold. And she’d said yes. Just like that. She started coming to my football practices. Imagine. Hot babe Sally Brune with her little tagalong friends yapping over her head, while she stared out at me.
She wasn’t shy. She was bold, like I like my girls. Sometimes she’d ask why I didn’t run after the ball. Why I let other guys get the goals. I explained to her that I was a defender, not a striker. And she said she figured I was too sweet, too nice and giving. I wanted to tell her I loved her then, but I didn’t. I never did.
My father was rarely at my practices or at my games. But I still respected him. He was a big man. Not so handsome, but he had an air. He was a lecturer by habit and I knew that when he got his PhD he’d be one of those long-winded profs who ramble on and lose people, cracking jokes that the students don’t get. He worked so hard for that PhD. He never got it, though. His visa ran out and they wouldn’t renew it. And we all had to go back to Ghana. But he worked hard. All night out. Mum would leave his dinner in the pot and send us to our studies. She was strong. She raised us, really. It wasn’t until I was already a grown man that I realized she was young as well. That she should have been pursuing dreams, breaking hearts, discovering the world. Not raising us.
Then one evening my father did a weird thing. He came home early. Dinner hadn’t been served. The tomato stew on the stove wasn’t even the dark red my mother said it needed to be before she could add the canned tuna. My sister was putting her hair into curlers. I was trying to study my European history but I kept thinking of feeling up Sally’s tits. Sally wasn’t a slag, she wasn’t letting me go all the way. Which was good for me, ’cause coach warned that shagging before a match could be bad news and I know for sure that some midfielder’s screwing had cost us a game before. So I’m there with Sally’s knockers and Churchill, and my dad comes bursting in.
We’re all surprised. He does a spin. He calls to my mother “Woman, fix my dinner!” in an exaggerated way that makes her kiss her teeth and giggle a little. He calls to us “Offspring!” and he waves his lecturing hand into the air. “Today your paapa is a star!”
There should have been a sound track, someone should have banged a gong. Instead, there was silence. I’d never seen him so emotional. “I finally made it to a film. Children, go to the theatre and watch me. I’ll be there. Representing Africa!” My mother placed a slice of bread and a square of cheese on the table. She smiled boldly and told him to sit. He winked at me as he bit into the sandwich.
I was the eldest so I asked. I didn’t ask well. I didn’t know how to ask. “Paapa. Why were you in a movie?”
“It’s my job, son. It’s what I do to bring money home.” He chewed for a while and we all waited. “I’m an extra. I’m not really a star.” He nodded and chewed. “Perhaps one day I can take the family to a film. Yes?” He looked over at my mother. But her tomato stew had turned dark red. She was dumping in the tuna.
It was a long time before he came home early again.
After he went to bed that night, one of the few times he went to bed before the rest of us, my mother told us that Paapa was working hard. It wasn’t easy finding a job when he wasn’t legally allowed to work. He was in the country on a student visa. All he was supposed to do was study. My sister lowered her eyes. “Can you imagine Paapa out there in the middle of the night, waiting in line in the cold just to get some small part in a foolish movie?” I couldn’t imagine. My sister shook her curlered hair and it made a clattering sound. I felt ashamed of my father, not pity or pride. I looked at my mother to see what she felt. She looked at me and nodded.
My mother was beautiful. I knew that even though I was her son. Not beautiful the way other sons think of their mothers, but beautiful the way a man thinks of a woman. Which is why when Sally told me what she told me, it made my head go loopy for a while.
Our team had just won a friendly and I was feeling strong. I was in my old Puma trainers but my new football boots were slung over my shoulder. I thought maybe today she would invite me to her house to meet her parents, and today I would say yes.
“Your pop said he was in a movie?”
“Yeah. My old man is a joker.”
“Have you ever seen him in a movie?”
“He’s just mamaguying, I think. Giving an excuse for never coming home. He’s studying all the time.”
“So your pops is never home?”
“Nah, babes. But Mums is, so no private place there. Don’t be getting no ideas.”
“So your pop doesn’t even sleep at home?”
“He sleeps all right. But sometimes on campus, you know. He’s a student. Gonna be a doctor of philosophy.”
“Doesn’t your mum get lonely? For a man, I mean?”
“Nah.”
“It never crossed your mind that your pop got himself a little tart on the side?”
“What you getting at?”
“My pop’s got a whole other family. How you know yours en’t?”
Imagine what that did to me. My best girl revealing what should have been in front of my face. I left her and my soccer boots there and walked away. I ran away. I didn’t hear Sally scream after me. She knew what she’d said. She was a smart girl. More mature than the other silly biddies. She made me run. Running, you should know, is a kind of stillness. I ran away from Sally and I didn’t feel like I was moving. The music shops blasting out a bass-warped zook and highlife, the restaurants painted in red or yellow, the loud ladies haggling for imported mangoes and yams; they were all being swept away by some mighty force. I was standing still and that mighty force was me.
I ran through the park where some of the blokes smoked weed after school. I ran past the rosebushes where I’d once kicked a girl when she called me a black coon. I ran toward my house. My thighs were quivering with a weakness I had never known before. It hurt. I thought about how foolish I would look to Sally the next day. I thought about my dad out all hours. Not working a real full-time job. Studying more than I did. I’d never seen him touch my mother affectionately. I imagined him now, touching some cow of a woman. I pushed through the pain.
At the door I stopped to sit on the steps. I leaned over. I thought about throwing up. I thought about it hard because I wanted to do something like that. I wanted to heave and grunt and be sick. It didn’t come. Instead I went in and sank into bed. When my mother called for dinner I pretended to be sleeping. My father didn’t come home until it was almost morning. Until it was the time when I would normally run.
That morning I did something I had never done. I did something little children do, the kind of thing that scars them for life. I went into my parents’ room when I began to hear my father snore. It was morning. My mother was still sleeping. My sister wasn’t even up burning her hair with the c
urling iron for school. I hid in the closet. I sat down among my mother’s shoes and wondered if I was ruining them as they crumpled quietly. I leaned into my father’s trousers, knowing I was wrinkling them. Knowing I was taking out the creases. I made myself still and quiet. I did not sleep. The smell of starch and leather was heavy. I stared out at their sleeping bodies, wrapped up in their light blanket. I realized for the first time that they’d given me the heaviest comforter we owned. I wondered if my sister’s was heavy enough for her. Perhaps I wanted to cry with the weight of my parents’ marriage on my shoulders. The weight of my manself lying there in my father’s skin. My mother was on her side, facing me in the closet. Even in her sleep she was beautiful and strong.
Their room was not a place in our flat I was familiar with. It was the same size as mine and my sister’s, with one big bed instead of our two. My mother hadn’t made the peach-colored curtains. She’d bought them on the street a long time ago when we were shopping together for provisions. I had to hold my sister’s little hand as Mama and the bejeweled woman went back and forth over prices. Mum had said it reminded her of home. She’d said sometimes memory was better than food. That was back when we’d first come. I could see now that the curtains were almost white with fading.
My knees were drawn up to my chest. I held them in place with my hands. A little of the dawn came through the slants in the closet door. It made lines of light on my arms. I was there because I wanted to see if he touched her. They never kissed or held hands in front of us. I thought this was just their African modesty. If he loved her, he would touch her in private. Kiss her when they woke up. If they began to even look like they might have sex I’d burst through the closet. I’d be embarrassed, maybe I’d never get the image out of my head, but I’d know my father wasn’t giving it to another woman. Wasn’t out with some British hussy.
Perhaps I did cry. But I was still. I wanted them to be natural. I wanted them to be unsuspecting. Eventually, my father shifted. It was such a sudden thing that I wasn’t sure if I had seen it. Then he leaned over and kissed her temple. He didn’t wait to see if she awoke. He rolled back over onto his back. Then she opened her eyes. She looked straight at me. From behind the closet door my heart moved more than a beat. I wasn’t excited or scared. It was if I had already witnessed something that really would ruin me. Her hair was wild around her face. I thought I would jump. But I didn’t. Of course, this was because I couldn’t.
My mother didn’t smile. Her eyes were open but nothing else had changed. Damn it, shouldn’t she smile? What else was smiling for? Then my father’s hand came around and tugged at her hair. Her hair was thick and strong and he didn’t caress it like I caressed Sally’s. He grabbed a piece of it in his fist and pulled her toward him as if he was simply tugging at her hand. She rolled over and settled into his shoulder. Her back was now to me. I could feel one of her buckled shoes digging into my thigh. They didn’t speak. They seemed mysterious and foreign. I couldn’t tell if they were okay or not. I couldn’t tell what had just happened. They stayed like that for a while. I thought maybe they had gone back to sleep. But then I heard the door open to the room my sister and I shared. Then my mother rolled over and sat up. She pushed her feet into her house slippers. As she walked away from the bed my father’s hand trailed along the back side of her nightgown. He held on to the edge of the silky fabric until she finally smiled and smacked at his hand as she pulled away. I could hear my lungs and my heart and even the pulsing in my leg because it had fallen asleep.
And still I couldn’t move. It was as if I had become nothing. I didn’t even exist there in the closet. That’s why I couldn’t move. I wasn’t a body anymore. I couldn’t feel a body. Was I dead? Was I dying? My father grunted. I wanted to hear the grunt again. Perhaps the sound would move me. My sister was yapping loudly. My mother was cooking red-red. Discipline! I said to myself. To what existed of myself. Move! Run! I knew my body. But my body wasn’t supposed to do this. Perhaps I was dreaming.
I thought about movement. I contemplated it. I tried to imagine the smallest part of myself. My arm. My forearm. The hair on my forearm. If I breathed heavily maybe the hair would move. Move, hair. Move, damn it! And then one single hair shivered under my light breath. I saw it move, though I never felt it. As suddenly as I’d had that success my entire body collapsed from the fetal position I’d wrapped myself into. My head hit across my mother’s heels. My feet slammed against the closet doors. I stood up quickly and pushed myself out. I saw my father watching me as I ran toward the shower.
I didn’t wait up for my father again. Sally didn’t bring it up again, though she did bring my boots the next day. My sister started dating a Nigerian boy and that caused my parents some agony. He wasn’t from our tribe. He wasn’t even from our country. Yes, he was African. But a Nigerian? She might as well have dated a Brit, or worse—a Jamaican. I was spending less time at home. So much practice. To be honest, I was taking Sally to the movie theatre on a regular basis. Using the money Coach gave us as allowance. Somebody might say I was looking for my father in the films, but really I was looking to get under Sally’s skirt. I’m not a bad guy. But, like I said, Sally was hot. I respected her, don’t get me wrong. But she was my girl and that’s what couples do. I could never afford popcorn but Sally would buy the sweets and soda without even making me feel less of a man. She was good like that. We’d usually watch something fruity that she wanted. Though sometimes we’d watch an action flick. We were watching My Sunshine Boardwalk when it happened again.
I wasn’t being very cool. I had one hand around her shoulder, which was a good move. But I’d leaned over a little and I had my other hand in her knickers. I had popcorn butter on my fingers so they were sliding around her hair down there. She was staring at the movie screen as if nothing was happening. Even from my twisted groping position, I was staring at the movie screen as if nothing was happening. Then I saw my father. Right there in the same jacket he wore when coming home. His very own schoolbooks under his arm. He stopped right in the middle of the screen. He looked far away at something. How did I see him? He was in the middle of a crowd. Other people were looking up, looking at their watches, taking out their umbrellas. But there was my father. I remembered my mother not smiling for so long. Him pulling at her hair. Her nestling into his shoulder. Everything without words. Without sound. Almost as if they hadn’t moved. I took my hands off Sally. Then I froze. I felt myself incapable of moving. I wasn’t sure if I was breathing. It was like I was on the roof’s edge and I wanted to jump. You know the feeling. But I couldn’t. I imagined myself moving. I imagined my feet lifting off the cinema floor. Nothing. Something sad was happening on screen. Something devastating. I couldn’t move. Sally wouldn’t touch me. She wouldn’t reach out to push me, make me move. My eyelids fluttered. I could blink. But I couldn’t move my mouth. I couldn’t whisper. “Move,” I said in my head. My father had left the scene. He’d walked off the screen into the city. Did he walk toward our house? Did he walk to campus? Did he walk to stand in another line where they would ask him to look at something else in the distance and walk some more?
The main character died. The leading lady was in mourning. And I was burning with stiffness. I felt as though I had run too many miles and my muscles had grown loose and liquidy. The leading lady was waiting on a busy London pavement. All these people were rushing by her. Going places. Many of them were in dark grey suits. There weren’t any saris or kente among them. These were movers and shakers. They were hunting down their destinies. I couldn’t remember what the leading lady was waiting for. But she just waits there. With all the other people rushing around her. I wanted to go to her and tell her, “Lady, get out of the street.” Tell her that she should move on. Her lips are quivering, she’s looking like she could melt under all the rain, because she’s got no umbrella. And then he walks behind her and pauses. Just like that, as if he doesn’t know that this is the same bloody movie. My father looks at her as if he would tell her, “It’s o
kay. This waiting isn’t okay but you, you are okay.” And then he walks off the screen. The leading lady is crying now. Her crying is like a child’s. It has a rhythm. I begin to lean into the rhythm. The movie ends with the woman still waiting and crying.
Then the credits came rolling up and I felt myself leaning. I felt myself about to lose balance. About to hit the floor. About to feel an impact that would shake me loose of the stiffness. Then Sally smacked my leg and I stood straight up as if she’d slapped my face. I guided her out of the theatre as if nothing had happened.
I couldn’t get the last image out of my head because it seemed as if my father had looked at a stranger and understood. Or perhaps because it was as if my father was there in the movie theatre right when I was feeling up my girl. Or because my father was suddenly larger than his true self. Or just because my father was something I didn’t know he was. There was nothing so grand in these things. Nothing really. But I didn’t go with Sally to a movie ever again because I was afraid that all I would see would be him big up there. Him sitting down to a meal in a posh restaurant. Him driving a minicab like any poor foreigner. Him in a world he wasn’t supposed to be in.
I’ve had the sickness since. At a game. When as I went to tackle a striker, I suddenly saw my father on the sidelines, making a fist and yelling. Suddenly his voice was all I could hear. The ball went by me. If I hadn’t been kicked to the ground I would have stayed there and stared at him. Unable to move toward him. Unable to move toward the goal. When I got up and looked around he was not there. Perhaps he was ashamed that I’d let the ball go by me. Perhaps he knew that I wouldn’t want him to pity me. I’d rather pretend he was never there, then he could congratulate me afterward and skip the lecture about the importance of staying alert in this country.
Now I fear the sickness. I fear it will come on me when I’m teaching my fifth form history class to the students in the Accra Day School who dream of Britain. We will be reviewing the years between 1940 and 1960 when the colonized world clamored for independence. We will turn to civil movements and we will discuss the decay of small economies and indigenous family structures. I will pass out a National Geographic that features the Caribs whom my pupils insist on calling Indians. The students will gawk when they read about catching sharks with spears and bare hands. But even that will not do it. I will be telling them about the movement of African and Caribbean immigrants to the U.K. I will say a word like Brixton and then I will be unable to say anything else. My students will look at me quietly for a minute, maybe many minutes because they are polite. Eventually, they will move into mayhem. They will throw things and laugh and I will be at the head of the class hoping that something they throw will hit me. That their laughter will grow into a thing that can reach out and pull me down.
How to Escape From a Leper Colony Page 8