Everything Good Will Come

by Sefi Atta

  “I know nothing of our government,” she said. “Or our president, or any African leaders for that matter. I don’t care to know. They are the same. Short, fat, ugly. Not one ounce of sense in their heads. How long has your father been in detention?”

  “Over a month,” I said.

  “He’s done well,” she said.

  There was a loud snore. She sucked her teeth.

  “Who was that? These women, worse than any drunken husband... ”

  “You must miss your husband,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “Focking ass couldn’t keep a job.”

  “But you... ”

  “But me no buts. My whole life was ruined by one but.”

  I smiled. “But you married him.”

  “Doesn’t mean. You’re a woman, aren’t you? We marry anybody for marry sake, love anyone for love sake and once we love them, we forsake ourselves. Make the best of it, till they die or till we do. Look at me. Everything, everything, in that house I bought, and I was sending money to my parents in the village, sending money to his parents.”

  “You must have had a good job.”

  “A shipping company. Paspidospulus, or however they pronounce his name, these Greeks. You know white people, they pay well, unlike our people.”

  “He treated you well?”

  “Paspidospulus? The kindest man ever. He gave me his wife’s old clothes to maintain a professional appearance, though her trousers never fitted my ass.”

  “Goodness.”

  “Then like a fool I was telling everyone that it was my husband who was providing, you know, to boost him up. Then he started telling everybody that, yes, he was taking care of the family, he was providing. Providing what? Five hundred extra mouths to feed? Ate like a focking elephant, that man. Greediness killed him, not me.”

  She began to laugh, and her laughter turned to grunts as she spoke.

  “It’s my children I miss. Not him. You eat like that, you bear the consequences, God rest his soul. He ate my food store empty. Buy a week’s beans and he demolishes it. Pfff! A month’s meat... ”

  “Please,” I said, waving an arm. Her grunts were funny and my head was light from hunger.

  “Gone in a day,” she said. “Can eat fried ants if you put them on his plate. He won’t know the difference. Paspidospulus couldn’t have paid me enough... ”

  I felt laughter in my belly, and a sweet pain lower down. My bladder was full.

  She kept on grunting. “Paspidospulus couldn’t have paid me enough. I’m telling you, tomato. Tomato, I tell you. This was when tomato was becoming expensive. The focking ass... ”

  “Please,” I said. “Stop, otherwise I will have to go.”

  “Huh?” she said. “Go where? Who released you yet?”

  “To toilet.”

  “Piss in the bucket,” she said. “What do you think?”

  I could not let her down. She was enjoying our friendship, and I thought she might begin her tirade again. The bucket was available, she said. For whatever business I had to do. We were all women in this place. There was no reason to be proud. Worse things were happening here, worse than I could imagine. One woman was rotting away. Couldn’t I smell it?

  “What?” I asked.

  “Her cancer,” she said. “It’s terminal.”

  I had not taken a step before the familiar wave forced me over again. The back of my neck tightened, bile rose from my stomach and singed my throat. I’d gotten up too fast.

  “What’s going on?” Mother of Prisons asked.

  My mouth opened again, involuntarily. I crouched between two bodies, held my sides.

  “Are you all right?” Grace Ameh asked, sitting up.

  “She’s miscarrying,” Mother of Prisons said. “Help her.”

  The bile tasted bitter on my tongue. Nothing else came out. I was trying to say I was fine. The women rose in varying stages of alertness. They circled me, the sick and the mad with their sores and ringworm and tuberculosis. Their body heat enveloped me. I stretched one arm out, to prevent them from falling over me. I took shorter breaths, shut my eyes.

  “Let her breathe. Let her breathe,” Grace Ameh was saying.

  They kept on pushing.

  “She’s miscarrying,” Mother of Prisons said.

  Do-Re-Mi began to talk to herself again. “La So Fa Mi. Ti Ti Re Mi... ”

  A whiny voice recited a psalm. “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the almigh-tee... ”

  “Please, please let her breathe,” Grace Ameh said above the noise. She sounded anxious. I was all right, I wanted to tell her.

  “He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, the noisome pestiii-lence... ”

  There were hands on my head. Someone kicked my back. I curled up.

  “Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror by night. Nor for the arrow that flieth by day. Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness. Nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday... ”

  They would suffocate me, I thought.

  “A thousand shall fall at thy side. Ten thousand at thy right hand... ”

  There was loud banging on the door and shouting from outside.

  “What is happening in there? What is happening?”

  “Thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked... ”

  The cell door creaked open. Light shone on our faces. The noise died to a few mumbles. The psalm stopped.

  A stocky warder appeared. She was the one who had led us in. She spoke in a resigned voice. “Mother of Prisons, are you making trouble again?”

  As the women dispersed, I finally saw her face, Mother of Prisons. Her hair was in patches. Sores had eaten into the corners of her mouth. She was shaking like an old woman. She was about my age.

  “Trouble?” she said. “Which trouble? You see me making trouble here?”

  The light made me squint.

  “What are you doing with the new prisoners?” the warder asked.

  “Me? It’s you. You should be ashamed of yourself, locking up a pregnant woman. If she had miscarried, the blood of her child would be on your head. Right there on your head. It was I who looked after her. I alone. If not for the kindness in my heart, it would have been another k-legged story in this place.”

  She waddled back to her spot scratching her armpits. The others lay down. They looked like twisted tree branches. The warder walked between them.

  “How is our sick prisoner today?”

  “What do you think?” Mother of Prisons answered. “Why haven’t her people come for her?”

  “They say they can’t afford the treatment.”

  “Take her to hospital. She hasn’t opened her eyes for days.”

  The warder sighed. “Give her pain-killers.”

  “She won’t take them.”

  “Crush them with your teeth and feed them to her. You did it before.”

  Mother of Prisons raised her fists. “Are you listening to me? I say she’s nearly dead. How will she swallow? The whole womb is rotten now. We are choking on her smell.”

  The warder was silent for a moment.

  “I’ve done my best,” she said.

  “Not enough,” Mother of Prisons said.

  The warder pointed to me and Grace Ameh. “You, you,” she said, in a resigned voice. “Follow me.”

  I was prodding myself to check for wetness between my legs. I rose with my back bent over and breathed steadily to keep my nausea down.

  “Better get a doctor inside here,” Mother of Prisons said, as we walked out. “Before we have another wrongful death in this stinking place! If you think I will ever stop talking, you must be focking joking!”

  The warder asked us to hurry back to the hall, “should-in case” armed robbers stole our cars, “plus-including” the men, we were free to go. She released us, no explanations given. She warned Grace Ameh not to participate in further political activities.

  Grace Ameh’s husband was wai
ting for us outside. We drove back to the hall and I occasionally caught his scowl in the rearview mirror. I did not know who he was angry with: me, his wife, or the people who had detained us. I did not care to know. I only wanted to get back home. I breathed in fresh air through the back window.

  “I’m sorry I involved you in this,” Grace Ameh said before we parted. “I suspected they were watching me but I didn’t think they would go this far. Go home and stay home.” She patted my shoulder and I had a feeling she’d left something of herself on me.

  I arrived home at four in the morning. Niyi was waiting for me in the living room. He got up as I walked through the front door.

  “What happened? I’ve been waiting five hours now. I thought you were dead.”

  I began to undress. My clothes fell to the floor as I told him.

  “I can’t believe this,” he said.

  “I swear.”

  “We were living normally, in this house, a few weeks ago. They were making political speeches. Why didn’t you leave?”

  I was in my underwear, surprised that this was what he couldn’t believe. I mumbled, “One person. One person said something.”

  “What if they beat you up inside there?”

  “They didn’t.”

  “What if, I said.”

  “They didn’t.”

  He raised his arms. “Come on. Wasn’t it enough to be in prison?”

  “I didn’t ask them to arrest me.”

  “You’re not hearing me. It’s not just about you anymore.”

  “It’s me they arrested. You weren’t there.”

  “I’m talking about the baby.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was holding back from slapping or hugging me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “I don’t know what else to tell you. I don’t know what else to say. Your life means nothing to them. Can’t you see? What will I tell people if something happens to you?”

  “Please,” I said. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  He brushed past me to lock the front door. “You’re confused, o-girl. It’s not them I care about. It’s you. You, and you’re the one opening your mouth, not me.”

  I went upstairs to have a bath, then I lay on my bed in the spare room. I begged my child for a second chance. I could still smell the prison on me.

  Niyi would never tell anyone about my arrest, and I would not tell anyone. I would take my time in prison and put it away. Do-Re-Mi, Mother of Prisons, Born Again, Holy Ghost, the woman with the rotting womb. Gone. Niyi went to the police station the next morning. They told him my arrest was an unfortunate incident. Two weeks later when I read in the papers that the hall had been fire-bombed and some of Sheri’s customers complained because they would have to change venues for their wedding receptions, I said nothing. I didn’t blame the police; I blamed myself for putting my child at risk for another miscarriage. No, they shouldn’t have arrested me, and yes, people should be allowed to say what they want. But it was one thing to face an African community and tell them how to treat a woman like a person. It was entirely another to face an African dictatorship and tell them how to treat people like citizens.

  I wasn’t inviting trouble, that evening. Niyi knew, Grace Ameh knew, which was why she spoke to me with the sincerity of a mother telling her war-bound son, “Make sure you come back alive.”

  The day after my release, I saw my doctor for an unscheduled check-up, then I closed the office for a week after he cleared me. I went back to work the following week only because I knew my father’s staff would have to earn their livings, even for as little as two hours a day, and also because I realized that wherever I was in Lagos, I was no longer safe. Like a joke, like a joke.

  If February seemed long that year, March was beginning to feel longer. At work, jobs dried up as my father’s clients shied from dealing with me; at home, Niyi’s silence continued. I shuttled between the two locations feeling anesthetized. Only on occasion would I feel breathless for my father’s safety and I would immediately fight the feeling down. I dared not think otherwise. Each moment carried me to the next and I no longer imagined prison cells because I’d seen the inside of one. I also promised myself that I would no longer speak for women in my country, because, quite simply, I didn’t know them all.

  One morning, I came in determined to tidy my father’s drawers. His letters were in no order, and I was sure he kept them separate so his staff could not gain access to them. I sorted the bank letters first, then the letters from his accountants. The folder where I found salary details needed tidying, so I flicked through. I discovered my parents’ divorce papers: “Take notice that a petition has been presented to the above court by Victoria Arinola Taiwo instituting proceedings for a decree of dissolution of marriage and also seeking orders with respect to the custody of the one child... ”

  My mother had given her reasons for falling out with my father: a neglectful and uncaring attitude; withheld housekeeping allowance; on several occasions did not return home and gave no reasonable answer as to his whereabouts; influenced her child to disregard her; disrespected her church family; made wicked and false allegations about her sanity; colluded with family members to alienate her; caused her much embarrassment and unhappiness. There was something about a car. I could not read on.

  Peace came in.

  “Someone to see you,” she said.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Your brother,” she said.

  I refused to allow my heart to jump. I had not done anything wrong. “Please tell him to come in,” I said.

  My brother looked like my father, although he was taller. He had big eyes and that wasn’t from my father. He was wearing blue khaki trousers and a striped yellow shirt.

  “Debayo,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  He had a widow’s peak. That was my father’s.

  “Uncle Fatai called me,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to come.”

  I watched every move he made. He frowned at a spot on my father’s desk, rubbed his thumb over the top of his lip. I held on to my pen with both hands. He did not know if he should come, but his mother would not forgive him if he didn’t.

  Outside the sound of sirens deafened us temporarily. It could have been a government official passing, a security van escorting money from the Central Bank, or a Black Maria van carrying prisoners.

  “What kind of doctor are you?” I asked.

  “Pathologist,” he said.

  “Eh? Why?”

  “It’s not so bad,” he said.

  “A doctor of dead bodies.”

  “I wanted to study law,” he said.

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Two of us, in here. It would have been difficult.”

  He was smiling. Where he found the grace, I could not imagine.

  “You have a right,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I’m over that now, wanting to work for Sunny. I had people pushing me in that direction. The way I see it, Sunny decided for me.”

  He called our father Sunny. He was not as cordial as he appeared.

  “Debayo,” I said. “I’m sorry, I don’t know where he is, and the little I know, I don’t know if it will put your mind at rest.”

  “What do you know?”

  I told him. He gave me a telephone number and asked me to contact him if I heard anything else. He was visiting Uncle Fatai later that evening. He didn’t seem worried and spoke as if he was relieved to have fulfilled his obligation to his mother. I walked with him to his car and we stood facing the road. His ears stuck out a little, and that was from my father. I shielded my eyes from the sun.

  “Where are you staying?”

  “Cousins,” he said, and then he added. “My cousins.”

  “How is your mother taking the news?”

  “My mother? They are not together anymore.”

  “No?”

  “For many
years now.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  He turned to me. “You must know I’m the youngest in my family.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “That I have three older sisters?”

  “No.”

  “He didn’t tell you anything about me?”

  “A little. Did he tell you anything about me?”

  “No,” he said.

  “You never even stayed with him?”

  He smiled. “Once. Only once, one summer, when my mother caught me smoking, and it was lecture, lecture, lecture... ”

  “What were you smoking?”

  “Cigarettes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell him to leave you alone?”

  “Him?” he said. “I was scared of him.”

  “You were?”

  “Weren’t you?”

  “No,” I said. “Not really.”

  He rubbed his thumb over his upper lip again. He was double-jointed. His fingernails were square and they reached his finger tips. That was my father.

  It could have been different for a son. Debayo had not offered his help in any way, I thought, and I wouldn’t either if I were him.

  “You must be the only doctor left in Lagos,” I said.

  “No,” he said, taking me literally. “We’re many. Some of us don’t want to go, even though the temptation is there. We keep hearing about those abroad, doing well, especially in America.”

  “Why do you stay?”

  “Steady work.”

  “For goodness’ sake,” I said.

  I sensed that he had delivered that line many times before, and I sensed he was enjoying my disapproval. My brother knew everyone in the office. He gave Dagogo and Alabi that manly handshake, before he left. “Man mi,” they called him. When I returned to the office I asked Alabi, “You know my brother this well?”

  Alabi nodded. “He’s our paddy.”

  “Our paddy-man,” Dagogo said.

  “I’m not your paddy-man?” I asked.

  They laughed.

  “Face like stone,” Dagogo said.

  “Worse than BS,” Alabi said.

  I recognized my father’s initials. Bandele Sunday. In his office, I resumed my task. Some school bills caught my eye. They were not from schools I’d attended. I flicked through. There were school reports, letters from a principal. I read them. They were my brother’s. He was an above-average student, played field hockey. He was good at math. Once he was in trouble for playing truant. My brother. It was a start.