Second Class Citizen

by Buchi Emecheta

  But the picture Francis conjured up in her mind clung like a leech. She had seen the picture of the man Christian, dressed shabbily like Robinson Crusoe, climbing a steep hill with a staff in his hand, puffing and puffing. So that was how Francis would look, the big load on his back, puffing up and down the stairs; and then, all of a sudden, the mad English dogs would chase him, barking like mad, hungry to butcher him, to eat him up, and their owners would be standing there laughing and saying “poor nigger”! This thought would send a chilling feeling through her veins and she would shudder at it. The thought of Francis running, running for his life and the dogs in hot pursuit. The picture would not go away. It stayed there with her, so much so that when Francis left for the post office in the mornings she would say to herself, “I may never see him again. The dogs may have eaten him up by the evening.” But Francis usually turned up, ready to recite more horrid experiences. It was brutal of Shakespeare to say that “Cowards die many times before their deaths”, because the cowards really suffer. What they imagine is so real to them that they actually suffer. Adah had never died before, and she had not been fortunate enough to see somebody who had died and then come back to tell her what it was like, but she had suffered the fear of death, and had seen Francis suffer the fear of being eaten up by the angry English dogs, so she knew that this fear could be real. Really painful fear.

  She took Titi to a play-group at Lindhurst Hall, just round the corner from Willes Road, next to the Athlone Street Library. Normally it took her only five minutes or so to cover this short distance, but it was winter and there was snow on the ground and it was her first day of using her feet after the cutting-up in the hospital. Her feet were reluctant to obey her. It seemed to her as if she had to learn to walk all over again. She held Titi, now three, tightly, but Titi was so happy at the thought of escaping from their one-room mansion that she skipped up and down, down and up, on the dangerous snow. Adah let her go, her feet wobbling, her head light, and her vision blurred. It seemed to her that she was seeing lots and lots of colourful balloons in the air, blue, red, and yellow, but there was more blue than the other colours. So she walked with caution, taking her time. So this was what the sister of the ward was talking about when she said she was sure Adah was not well enough to look after three young children. Yes, the sister was right. She was not well enough.

  Anger welled up inside her. Was she so ill without knowing it, and Francis telling her the story of the dogs that would eat him up, and she blaming herself for letting her husband work? Anger mixed with her fear. Suppose it was going to be like this till the end of her days? Suppose she was going to remain a weakling, with wobbly feet, and eyes that would not focus, and a brain that went round and round like the ripples in a pool. What would she do then? How would she study to be a librarian and then a writer, which she was sure she was going to be by the time she was forty? Let the dogs eat Francis up, she could not care less. She started to blame herself for worrying about it in the first place. All men do work, why should he want to be different? Had Adah not learned that in the hospital? Had she forgotten her resolution, the one she made then, that she was going to be indifferent to Francis’s worries? Here she was five days after leaving the hospital, worrying about it all, forgetting everything she had learned.

  When she got to the play-group, the woman who was running it congratulated her on the birth of her baby, but remarked that she looked tired. She should not have come. She would return Titi to her, at noon, when the play-group closed. She would collect Titi in the mornings on her way in until Adah was really strong. Did she not realise that she had lost a lot of weight. She was surprised the hospital had discharged her so soon, she should have stayed longer, the kind woman observed as she made Adah a nice hot mug of tea.

  On her way home, Adah saw another student carrying a big bag, but she seemed to be walking very, very briskly, almost as if she was happy working for Christmas. She was a woman. And she was black.

  Adah leaned against the dirty supports of the overhead bridge off Carltoun Street, watching this young woman clip-clapping the letter-boxes as she went along. Adah thought she could hear her singing. Wasn’t she aware of the dogs, the weight of the bag, the black band and all that? Adah shrugged her tired shoulders, picking her way back to Willes Road with care. When she came to the front of the café run by the Greek woman and her baldy husband, she rested again, savouring the smell of bacon and chips coming from the café. At last she got home, and slept most of the day.

  Francis came back in the evening, telling her that he covered the worst houses ever built in England. He was sure those houses were specially built to torment him. Did Adah not know that those houses had their letter-boxes on their roofs? Adah said, “Huh!” and Francis said that “roof” was just a figure of speech. But that the letter-boxes were almost on the roofs, because he had to stretch and stretch to reach them.

  Adah listened, and yawned on purpose. Francis’s words did not cling this time. They went in through one ear, and came out of the other, without leaving a single scratch on her. That did not stop Francis, for he loved the sound of his own voice.

  Christmas came and that particular Christmas, Adah was happy to tell people that her husband was a Jehovah’s Witness, because there was no money for any celebration.

  Mrs Noble gaped at this piece of news and asked, “You mean, you’re not buying any presents for your children, not even a single toy?”

  Adah said, no, they were not buying because you see, Jehovah’s Witnesses believed that Jesus was born in October and that the Christmas celebrations were the work of the devil. The devil had turned people away from God, and people celebrated for the devil at Christmas instead of for Jesus in October. Mrs Noble sighed, trying to follow Adah’s reasoning and came up with another piercing question. She was an inquisitive woman, that Mrs Noble.

  She asked, “I did not see you celebrate anything here last October or did you?”

  “No, we did not,” Adah replied and wondered why the Witnesses don’t celebrate in October; maybe because they think the birth of Christ was not important enough to bother with.

  Adah did not really care. She believed that there was a man upstairs who cared for what happened to everybody, including herself and her children. She knew there was a man called Jesus. But the part of Christianity that still confused her was why this great man should be called the son of God. Adah did not want to ask anybody about this, because they might think her stupid, not knowing why Jesus was the son of God, so she started celebrating His birth because she was born into it. Her Pa had liked to preach in the church on Sundays and she had been a choir girl ever since she could remember. Then she had taught children at Sunday school at All Saints’ Church in Yaba, in Lagos. How, then, could she go to a vicar and say, please, Mr Vicar, I still don’t understand why you call Jesus the son of God because His birth was so unorthodox? Adah did not mind celebrating His birth because, from what He said and did, He was a great poet, a great philosopher, a great politician and a great psychologist, all in one. The world celebrated the births of lesser men, why then should she grudge this great man the celebration of His birth? And what did it matter whether it was celebrated in October or in December? If we humans could rationalise about dates and all that, she believed that God, who made the humans who could rationalise and come to terms with things, would be able to rationalise still more. So, having equipped herself with this idea, she did not share Mrs Noble’s distress. The long and short of it was that she had no money for Christmas; God would understand.

  God did understand and comforted her a little. Because, all of a sudden, a big parcel arrived as if it were from Santa Claus. It was from the kind woman who was her boss at the North Finchley Library. There was a doll with eyes that blinked, dressed in white lace with white shoes and socks to match, for Titi. There was a little guitar for Vicky and a hopping, squeaking hedgehog for Bubu. They were so lovely that Adah could hardly wait for Christmas Day to give them to her children. That w
as the only thing that had worried her, her children having no toys, when every child had one at Christmas. The Nobles made the situation worse. There was this man who was a salesman, selling from door to door. From him, the Nobles bought a big doll as big as a child of two, a big pram, big enough to take a real baby, and all sorts of things for their five children. The cost of it all was so outrageous that Adah called upon Jesus to have mercy on them all. Then Mrs Noble explained to her that they were buying them on the “never-never”. Adah did not know what the “never-never” was and she looked so blank that Mrs Noble laughed, twisting her long red hair between her fingers.

  Mr Noble then told her that here in England it was possible to buy many things without having a penny. You simply had to agree with the seller that you would pay every week, or every month as the case may be, and then you signed a paper or two, to say that you were sane and of sound mind and that you knew what you were doing when you promised to pay and all that; you then took the goods, just like that.

  “Just like that?” Adah said unbelieving.

  “Yes, just like that,” Pa Noble agreed.

  Adah’s mind sped back to Lagos. If a salesman could be stupid enough to allow people to buy on their doorsteps goods worth almost a hundred pounds, just like that, the salesman would soon have to close up his business. In Lagos, people would not pay, and if the salesman’s demands became too irritating, people would just disappear. Then she asked Pa Noble: “Suppose I run away, taking all his goods with me. What will he do then?”

  “Ah,” Pa Noble laughed, “you’re thinking of home. Where will you run to here with all your children? It is not all that easy to find a new place to live, and people here usually leave a forwarding address. It is not easy to cheat here, because you’ll be caught in the end.”

  Adah did not need Pa Noble to tell her how difficult it was to find a house to live in, because she had experienced it. So the Nobles were going to pay every penny for what they were buying.

  “But it will take a long time before you finish paying for all this.”

  Pa Noble agreed again, but told Adah that in England you worship two goddesses; one is Christmas, the other one is holidays. As soon as they finish advertising for Christmas on television and in the papers, the next big thing is the annual holiday. So he was sure they would finish paying before they started saving for their holidays. He ended up by suggesting that Adah should get some toys for her children since she was not a Jehovah’s Witness like her husband.

  She was tempted to buy one or two small toys for a pound or two and to lie to Francis that somebody had given them to the children, but how was she going to pay? From the two pounds a week housekeeping money Francis allowed her? No, she would rather spend more on food and make do with the presents sent by Mrs Konrad. In fact she was not “making do”; the presents would do all right. They were new, they were beautiful and they were appropriate. Why worry for more? She knew why, though: because she wanted to buy them herself, not from the never-never man, but to go to Woolworth’s or the other toy shops, browse, around touching this and touching that, asking for the prices, and making her own selections, just like other mothers, bustling and rushing about in their Christmas busyness. Adah would have liked that, especially when she realised that, in England, Christmas is celebrated more in the shops than in the churches. As for her children, were they not too small, too isolated from other children to be able to compare notes and find out what they were missing?

  The 24th was cold. For the first time in Adah’s life she had to spend Christmas Eve indoors. It was cold and damp, and there was the white snow. There was not a single masquerade, no fireworks, no bell-ringing; it was all quiet, just as if Jesus had died, not like the celebration of His birth.

  Francis went down to the Nobles to watch their television, because there were going to be some special Christmas films on the BBC channel. Adah had to stay with her babies, putting them to bed, telling them to be good and go straight to sleep, because there was going to be a big surprise for them the following day. She felt so lighthearted that she sang to her children Adeste Fideles, and Titi, who seemed to have heard the tune somewhere before, joined in. Vicky looked at his mother and sister, his little Francis mouth pouting, his sleepy eyes wandering from the one to the other, wondering what it was all about. Adah noticed that one of his ears seemed to move with the song, or was it her imagination? She touched the ear, but the child did not make any sound. Yes, there was something funny with that ear, it was definitely bigger than the other one, hanging down like an elephant’s ear. Adah stopped singing. Funny, she had never noticed that one of Vicky’s ears was bigger than the other one. It must have been natural, otherwise he would have winced with pain when she touched it. She ought to do something about it though, now that she had discovered the difference. It was shame for God to make a simple mistake like that, allowing one ear to be bigger than the other one. She could not correct it now; it was too late, it was too fixed. So she picked up a jar of Vaseline, which she bought for the baby’s bottom, and rubbed it liberally in Vicky’s big ear. Whether that was intended to ease the non-existing pain, or to correct the defect, or to ease her own mind, Adah did not know. But she felt better, having done something about the ear. Then she went to sleep.

  Christmas morning was like any other morning, except that there was so much silence in the street. Snow had fallen in the night and there were no footmarks at all to smear the carpet of white. It was so silent, so peaceful, that Adah understood now why the carol Silent Night belongs to that time of the year. In England it was silent night, holy night. In Nigeria it was noisy night, holy maybe, but fireworks night, the night of loud rejoicing, the night of palm-wine drinking in the streets, the night of bell-ringing. In England it was a hush, hush, morning for was Jesus not lying asleep in the manger?

  Mrs Noble had invited the children down for tea. She had made all sorts of elaborate preparations. There were jellies of different colours in a riot of Ali-Baba-shaped paper cups and paper plates and paper napkins. She had her room decorated in Christmas paper, all shining and bright. She bought paper hats to match the colours of the jellies she had made. Adah saw all the colours and thought it was a shame they had to be eaten. What were the colourings for? To make food more appetising? To make it more beautiful? For it was beautiful. She hoped her children would enjoy it. As for her, the whole affair was too sugary. She was not brought up with that taste; anything sugary tasted like cough medicine to her.

  Adah got the children ready for Mrs Noble’s tea party. She told Titi to eat everything on her plate, because Mrs Noble would be very angry if she made a mess of her food. Titi understood some of the reasoning Adah was trying to pump into her. That was all Adah could do and then hope for the best. It puzzled her, though, why people should be forced to eat everything that was set before them. In Nigeria the situation seldom arose. You finished all the food quickly and wanted some more, especially when you were a child. But here you had so much to start with that food became a bore. She knew that though she might never have enough money for other things, she would never allow her children to go hungry. There was no room for that.

  She cleaned Titi and put on her red dress with spotty pockets, which Adah had bought from one of the shops along Finchley Road. The dress had been too big for Titi, but Adah hemmed it up to size because she did not know if she could afford another dress like that for a long time. She sat Titi down in the middle of the bed, and told her to stay quiet and still so as not to mess up her new white tights. She then proceeded to Vicky. Then she saw the ear again. It was hanging down more than ever, it was getting bigger and bigger, there was no doubt about it. To cap it all Vicky was sitting down quietly, too quiet for Adah’s Vicky. Panic took hold of her. Was Vicky sick again? Was the meningitis, or whatever the illness was called, coming back again? Was this another type of the same illness back to visit them again, and on Christmas Day? She did the only thing that came into her head. She yelled for Francis, who, as usual, was
downstairs watching the Nobles’ television.

  Francis came up almost immediately because, unlike Mrs Noble, Adah seldom called her husband for anything. In fact, sometimes she was grateful to the Nobles for accommodating him for so long, because otherwise it would have meant his staying in the same room, getting in Adah’s way, telling her she ought to have done this instead of that.

  He came to ask her what it was that made her call him like that when she knew that he was watching a pantomime on television. She then told him that Vicky’s right ear was getting as big as that of an elephant. Adah was sure it was going to be bigger than an elephant’s before morning, because it had grown bigger since the day before. Francis examined the ear and decided they had to call a doctor.

  “A doctor on Christmas Day? He will not come and Vicky will die. Trust this child to be ill on a day when there is no doctor available!” Adah cried.

  “Look, doctors are supposed to call on you at any time you’re ill. It is the law,” Francis explained as he struggled into his coat, on his way to the telephone kiosk. “I must call him out. Christmas or no Christmas, Vicky is ill and that’s that.”

  “But it is Christmas,” Adah persisted. “At home in Nigeria you can’t get a doctor out on Christmas Day, unless you are a millionaire or something.”

  “Well, it is different here. You can get one on Christmas Day!” With that announcement, Francis walked out, jingling the coins he was going to drop into the telephone slot in his hand.

  Fancy getting somebody out in this weather and on this day, just because a child was ill. She guessed it was their right, but maybe this was a right that could be easily explained away, because they were blacks and because Vicky was only a baby and because it was Christmas Day. If anything should happen to Vicky now, Society would forgive the doctor, because he was a black child and had been taken ill on Christmas Day. Why then should Adah expect a doctor to call? She started to panic. She did not know what she was doing any more. Vicky was dying now. Had not his enlarged ear not proved it? She dressed him in his best suit, the one she had kept for Mrs Noble’s Christmas party. Even if it was going to be the last suit Vicky was ever going to wear in his life, it was going to be a good one. She touched the ear; it was getting hot as well. Adah knew it, death was coming, and on Christmas Day.