Nigerians in Space

by Deji Bryce Olukotun

  “Help me during the rainy season,” a deep voice said from the shadows, “and I will help you during the dry season. That’s the proverb.” Then the voice roared like a peel of thunder: “THAT IS THE PROVERB!”

  And Dayo was yanked to the doorway by an unseen force. “DAYO! WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!”

  And Thursday was running full tilt, stumbling and cursing, down the stairs, the lamp in his hand a blue streak in the stairwell.

  In the Dark

  1994

  Basel, Switzerland

  Dr. Mohammed Farai was a Ph.D. who worked for a Basel biotech firm and had published papers about analgesics, which Melissa determined had something to do with pain. He had been nearly impossible to find. The librarian in Évry had helped her yet again, tracing Farai’s publication history to an editor in Basel. After some cajoling the editor had agreed to help her contact him, as long as it pertained to academic matters.

  “You’re interested in my work?” Farai asked over the phone, seeming surprised. “Are you a researcher?”

  She’d already decided it was best to lie. “Yes, I’m a journalist for the Figaro, I would like to speak with you about your important work.”

  He asked her a number of questions and she fudged the answers as best she could.

  “I see,” he said, somewhat doubtfully. “It sounds like I may need to give you some background. It may take a while. Can you come to Basel?”

  She said she could be there in a few days.

  “Good. I can’t meet outside, I’m afraid. I prefer not to be seen.”

  “That is fine,” Melissa agreed. He didn’t need to see the niqab, she felt, or the horror that lay beneath.

  “I know just the place. There is nothing else like it in Basel.”

  It had rained for three days before Melissa arrived in Basel on her fake French passport and the forecast predicted three more days of rain. The glacier waters charged down the ravines at Interlaken looking like blue foamed milk. The meadows of the highlands turned a deep, rich green, sprinkled with Edelweiss, and the roads that followed the lakes were drowned in water.

  Basel reminded Melissa of Paris with its balconied apartment blocks and misplaced spires, yet the city was cleaner and overrun with trams, which pounded violently down the pavement amongst the cafés and shops. The trams passed taxi stands which passed commuter lines which passed international trains, and through them all the buses wove and hooted at the passers-by. There were ornate roundabouts crowned with seasonal flowers. But even the crowded cafés and plazas seemed devoid of something, a spark of the unknown, that the surprises had either been planned away or would not be forthcoming. She felt that it was not a city where daughters found their fathers and without the weathered rolling hills there would have been no lovers.

  Weaving between the camera laden tourists of the plazas, scents of attraction began teasing their way into Melissa’s thoughts. She found herself eyeing certain men and desiring to speak with them. And there was another feeling, a new one growing deep within her that came and went in soft waves: that she might finally have some protection after surviving on her own. That someone might protect her again. She felt clean and excited and in pain all at once.

  The dinner reservation was made for six o’clock at a restaurant across from the Münsterplatz, the old castle that loomed above the Rhine. Below the castle, the river thundered by in a wash of red and brown, having churned up sediment on its journey down from the mountains. The lights of east Basel on the opposite side glowed faintly and looked vulnerable against the force of the river. Both banks were lined with kiosks and small eateries for the summer crowds. Faint music could be heard playing in the summer breeze.

  The sign outside the restaurant featured a mountain goat wearing sunglasses on top of a cobalt blue neon backdrop. Opening the tinted glass door, Melissa found the interior to be spartan, with two Scandinavian couches, a plain coffee table, and a coat rack. The colors were mismatched: a pumpkin-colored carpet, a green throw rug over the couches, ugly flower printed drapery, and a high ceiling with electric fans that were too quiet to make a noise. No effort had been made to adorn the walls with pictures, and the exposed I-beams overhead suggested that the structure may have been an old warehouse. It felt empty and practical.

  There was a hostess behind the desk. “Grüezi hoi,” she said.

  “Je ne parle pas le suisse-allemand,” Melissa replied politely. “I don’t speak Swiss German.”

  The hostess nodded curtly and asked for her reservation. Melissa gave her a false name and the woman nodded. “Dr. Farai is not yet arrived.”

  “You know Dr. Farai?” Melissa asked. The woman had spoken of him with familiarity.

  “Of course. He is one of our favorite customers. He was here a few days ago.”

  He was still alive, Melissa thought, growing excited. Even though she had spoken to him a few days ago, she hadn’t expected to really meet a man who had known her father.

  “Are you familiar with our restaurant?” the hostess continued.

  “I have been to restaurants in Paris much nicer than this one.”

  It was a brash comment but the hostess did not take offense. She even seemed enthused. “Ah? Is that so? I did not think there was a restaurant such as ours in Paris.”

  “There are thousands of restaurants in Paris.”

  Now the hostess looked at her skeptically. “Perhaps you are mistaken.” She indicated a velveteen couch. “Your server will be here in a few moments. Her name is Ruth. Please have a seat until Ruth arrives.”

  For such a poorly decorated place, Melissa found the woman’s manner overly formal, as if they were in a much classier restaurant. What did she think was so special about it, anyway? She criticized the bland décor of the room on the couch until a hand squeezed her shoulder. Before her stood a young Swiss woman with shoulder length hair, wearing a plain black dress.

  “I’m sorry,” the girl said. “Did I scare you? I am your server. My name is Ruth.”

  Ruth seemed to be staring intently at a point just over Melissa’s ear. She told Melissa to put her hand on her shoulder, but she didn’t seem to see Melissa’s hand and continued staring ahead. Then Melissa understood. The woman was blind.

  They exited the large room and entered through some velvet curtains into an antechamber. “We will stay here,” Ruth said, “for your eyes to adjust. When you are ready, please squeeze my shoulder. We will go into the dining room.”

  Melissa waited. A sliver of light peeked through the foot of the velvet curtain from the waiting room but otherwise it was dark. They remained there for a moment, with Melissa’s hand on Ruth’s shoulder, until she gave a squeeze. They passed through the second velvet curtain out of the antechamber and into the dining room. Even with her eyes open Melissa still couldn’t see. Ruth led her through the tables, turning quickly now and again, until Melissa thought that she would never find her way out. In every direction there was blackness, and in every direction the sounds of people eating or talking, people she could not see. Whereas before she had felt pity for Ruth’s blindness, the roles had reversed and she was grateful for Ruth’s unassuming kindness. When Ruth announced they had reached the table, Melissa sat with relief.

  “Your plate and silverware are before you,” Ruth said. “Can I serve you a drink?”

  Melissa ordered a glass of wine because it was offered first, in several varieties, and there was no menu. She reached out and found the fork and knife, ran her finger around the rim of the plate. Ruth returned a moment later with the wine, and guided Melissa’s arm towards it.

  “Your wine is here. Would you like to eat now or wait for your guest?”

  “I’ll wait.”

  She was surprised at how nervous she was to be meeting a person who had known her father. Her flesh felt alive. In the pitch dark she grasped the wine and took a sip. She usually did not drink at all, even very little water. This wine was a rich, almost syrupy red. She did not like it but she liked the distance that th
e feeling of the alcohol put between her and the darkness. Rolling the wine around her tongue, she tried to gauge her surroundings. She had no sense of the size of the room.

  Another server seated a couple at a table not far from her, a meter perhaps. It took only a few moments to surmise they were meeting for the first time on a date, and Melissa smarted at their nervous chatter. If she could hear them so clearly it would be possible for them to hear her speak to Farai, and she wouldn’t be able to talk with privacy, and she began to regret the whole thing. Her stomach began to cramp and she felt the air was being sucked from the room.

  “Ruth?” Melissa said.

  “Yes.”

  “Ruth, I would like to leave.”

  “You would like to use the toilet?”

  “No—I would like to leave.”

  Instead of asking Melissa to put her hands on her shoulders again, Ruth put her hands over Melissa’s eyes. There was the scent of amber. And vetiver, brief, then it seemed to fold in on itself again, and left behind citrus and cedarwood.

  “Guess who?”

  It was a man’s voice.

  Melissa tore the hands down from her face. “Ruth! Ruth, I would like to leave.”

  “No, it’s all right, Ruth,” the man continued. “Please have a seat. I’m sorry I was late.”

  Melissa remained standing but there was nowhere to go. She could never find her way out. And she was nervous about causing a scene. Or not being seen, being heard. Causing a row.

  “The toilet?” Ruth asked again, politely.

  “Oh, bloody hell,” the man said. “I forgot the signal. Right, now give me your hand.”

  Melissa did so. Farai’s hand was large and enveloped hers, dry and calloused below the fingers. He squeezed twice in the agreed upon signal. But when she let go he let his fingers softly slide along the base of her handglove. She withdrew her hand quickly.

  “Thank you, Ruth. Maybe I will go later.” She sat.

  “Would you like a drink, Dr. Farai?”

  “Some hot tea would be lovely, Ruth.”

  Farai could be heard pulling out a chair and sitting. Melissa remained quiet until Ruth returned a few minutes later with an herbal infusion.

  “It’s hibiscus tea,” Farai said, “if you were wondering.” His voice, which had earlier seemed confident and jovial, had now become nervous. “I’m sorry for the joke. And for being late. I—you see, I used to work here in my student days. My sister is blind, she was a waitress. I’ve got a feel for the place.”

  Melissa sensed that he was trying to impress her, and did not indulge him. She could still feel his fingers sliding along her wrist, and felt strangely distracted by it. In his touch she had sensed a promise.

  “My sister is married and lives in Lucerne,” Farai went on. “But they haven’t changed the table arrangements. They put up sound barriers now and again to change the décor, move some flowers around, but that’s it. I hope you don’t mind if I ordered for us. It’s the surprise dish.”

  “Surprise?”

  “You guess the dishes.”

  “I am not hungry,” Melissa said.

  They fell into silence. With the couple on a date beside them, Melissa couldn’t bring herself to ask after her father and Farai seemed at a loss for words. She wanted to act like a journalist but the charade started to feel pointless. The man at the table next to them was claiming that he spoke all kinds of languages, trying to win over his date. The girl spoke a few words of Spanish but eventually gave up and changed the subject. One of the large groups at the other end of the restaurant was growing louder. They were stealing one another’s food and swapping drinks.

  The food came. Melissa was not hungry and did not touch it.

  “I must be going,” she said, giving Farai a chance to speak.

  “Wait, please,” Farai said. “I shouldn’t have done that earlier, putting my hands over your eyes. It was rude.”

  When she remained quiet, he added: “You asked me here. Didn’t you want to meet me? Aren’t you a reporter?”

  “It was a lie.”

  He sounded worried, and she could hear his voice tense in the darkness. “You’re not a reporter. A researcher, then? You want to know about tail flick?”

  “Tail flick?”

  He carried on, nervously. “It was arrogant of me, I suppose. To think that the press would be interested in tail flick. It’s an important test, you know, one I developed to assess pain. That is my specialty. Rats are unique animals. They flick their tails in response to pain. There was a general range to measure the flick before, but it was hardly accurate. It was more of a binary answer: yes or no, that sort of thing. I’ve isolated the gene.”

  With difficulty, Melissa decided to indulge him.

  “Tell me more about the tail flick.”

  He hesitated. “If that’s—if that’s what you want.” He cleared his throat. “Now when the rat flicks its tail a specific amount, an exact dose of pain medication can be prescribed. The rat’s pain has been managed when the tail stops flicking. Identifying the gene made the test a quantifiable measurement of the intensity of pain, which has been up to now a matter of speculation. In a few years we will be able to assess exactly how much pain a person is in and stop it precisely. It’s a breakthrough for pharmaceuticals and, deeper, for the human experience. We can now isolate the psychological from the physiological.”

  “You wanted to go to Nigeria,” she said, “to study this.”

  He released her hand. “How did you know about that?”

  “By your surname. I have Nigerian friends.”

  She heard him suckling his tea. His voice lost its confidence again. “I’ve always wanted to return, but Nigeria never had the capacity to support my research. They still don’t. I’ve been courted by my homeland, you know. I turned them down.”

  The couple beside them, seemingly oblivious, was searching for something to talk about:

  “I would rather be deaf than blind,” the girl said.

  “Yes, it would be better to be deaf,” her date replied.

  “What do you know about a man named Bello?” Melissa whispered.

  “Bello? Have you seen him?”

  “No. He promised me something.”

  He sounded relieved. “I’m afraid you wouldn’t be the first. Two years ago, Bello contacted me about developing the biotech sector. Nurudeen Bello. He claimed to be a kind of adjunct minister. I’d never heard of him.”

  “Go on,” she said.

  “He made all kinds of grand promises—that I would be the one who would steer Nigeria to a brighter future. Brain Gain, he called it. Well, I’m not afraid of Nigeria like some of my countrymen. I go home every two years. The country has changed—and it certainly has its problems—but people live their lives there like anywhere else. I told him that I wanted to see what he had in mind. Nigerians try to scam me all the time, you see. Usually it’s an email scam about sending money to rescue a kidnapped dignitary. What was strange about Bello is he didn’t want money—he wanted a commitment.”

  “Commitment?”

  “He wanted me to steal something from my lab. Something that would help Brain Gain and make sure there was no turning back. Collateral, if you will. I told him I wanted to see his program in Nigeria first. That trip saved my life. It was a scam, you see. A very dangerous scam. Bello was a praise singer. He had been trained in persuasion since birth. It was a powerful combination in the hands of someone with ambition. Bello convinced me he would arrange everything. I was to get a tour of the research facilities around the country to recruit talent for my project. The only thing that worked was the plane tickets. When I got to the airport I knew something was wrong. I’m used to greasing the wheels with a bit of cash, but the customs officer gave me a devil of a time about Bello. His name was on my entry visa. Bello never showed up to escort me. The researchers seemed surprised to see me, but they were good scientists, underequipped of course and a little skeptical. None of them knew anything about Bello
. The next thing I knew I was arrested. They threw me in a cell.” Farai stopped abruptly. Took a drink of his tea. “I don’t know what Bello had said or what he’d done, but he had a lot of enemies. Maybe he’d scammed them all, too. Thank god that I had been going back every few years. I was able to get my cousin to bribe me out of prison.”

  “You came home.”

  “Yes, I flew back to Switzerland. I haven’t been back since. My cousin told me that there was a warrant for my arrest. And the rumor was that a hitman had been sent after me. A hitman! I’ve never even been in a fist fight, and now someone wanted to kill me. I have never been so scared. I had my address delisted. I moved. I changed my phone. I hoped I would never hear from Bello again. That’s why I have to go through this absurd secrecy. And now I am thinking to myself, how do I know that it’s not you?”

  He said it so casually that it took her a moment to respond. “I’m here because I’m afraid of this person, too. I thought you might be able to help me find my father.”

  “Is that right—so I’m not alone?” She heard him fidget beneath the table, his leg accidentally brushing hers. “I should never have been put in this situation. It’s my own damn fault. Bello’s scam was ridiculous from the start. You need more than cash to develop a biotech sector. I’m one man! I would have been the tusk of a white elephant.”

  Melissa decided she could no longer resist. The thought of her father in prison rattled her. “Did you meet anyone else on your trip to Nigeria? A South African man by the name of Tebogo?”

  Farai paused, thinking about it. “That’s your father, is it? Bello had a man that tended to pass me messages. He arranged my flights, too. But I can’t say with any certainty whether he was South African or not. I never met him. He would drop notes in my home or at the office—all very secretive. I haven’t heard from him since I was arrested. A few months ago someone began contacting me and asking me questions about Nigeria. I’ve—I’ve been getting any number of calls lately.”