Nigerians in Space

by Deji Bryce Olukotun

  Dayo had broken out in a full sweat by the mezzanine of the stairwell, and the numbered floors did not begin until they had already climbed five flights. Wale tramped up sweating, too, holding the hems of his agbada on the landings. They burst out of the fire escape into an empty corridor striped with mauve, fuchsia, and wilted sunflower paint. The fuchsia was the biggest stripe. There were exposed structural beams and air ducts from refurbishing and each door had a plastic placard with a name on it.

  “Mrs. Craxton is in four-point-thirty-five-point-sixty-two-point-twenty-one,” Wale said. “Or was it point-twenty-three?” He took a note from his pocket.

  “I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”

  “Point-twenty-two. You ate too many yams. I told you not to eat so many yams.”

  They followed the hallway for a good two hundred meters until they were back at the stairwell. The only people they passed were security guards who they wished to avoid. Cautiously, they trailed a custodian and came to a window where a reception officer waited behind wrought iron bars. She claimed that Mrs. Craxton wouldn’t be coming into the office until Wale, fishing in a bag of his, produced an appointment slip and a Tupperware container.

  “Please send her our compliments of the season,” he said. “Some dudu for you.”

  “Doo-doo?” she chuckled.

  “Plantains. A typical food from my home country.”

  The receptionist smiled, now looking at the appointment slip. “I see, yes, it’s for today. She’ll be right here, Doctor.”

  They waited patiently, Wale looking agreeable but not sycophantic. Wale was wearing a honeydew-colored agbadawhich, slightly starched, hung out from his belly like a maternity dress. He had insisted that Dayo wear a blazer and a burgundy silk tie over a white shirt. Whereas in the queue below Wale’s mannerism was humble and anonymous, his posture now conveyed a life accustomed to being treated with dignity. Mrs. Craxton arrived a half hour later with a supermarket bag in hand, spoke briefly with the receptionist, and looked suspiciously in their direction. Wale smiled warmly.

  Grimy windows ran the length of Mrs. Craxton’s voluminous office, and a fuzzy blob of Robben Island could be seen in Table Bay. It was a sunny day outside but there would be no way of telling in her office. Along the window ledge, a line of black crows was cackling and cawing softly, looking out at the water. For all its space, there was just a small aluminum desk and three straight-backed Shaker chairs. Then there were a few posters on the wall of the travel agency variety: washed out photos of Cinqueterre, Nepal, and Vic Falls. You could tell by the make of the vehicles and the flared jeans that the photos were several years old.

  Mrs. Craxton was a fleshy, fifty-something white woman wearing a Batik Mandela print dress. She had a necklace of orange plastic beads around her neck, and very full, healthy cheeks. Her watery light-gray eyes were hidden behind some plastic bifocals, and she had a slender forward-bent neck. If it wasn’t for a disdainful expression one might have imagined that she had enjoyed a carefree youth. But the lines had been created from a lifetime of frowning.

  Wale adopted a Nigerian accent as she entered his information, including his CTR number, into the computer. She typed laboriously with her index fingers as if it was a typewriter. Her own accent was an even mix of Afrikaner and Sou Thafrican English.

  “Ah, Doctor,” she said, reading at the computer monitor, “I remember now. You were one of the few Nigerians who met the criteria for persecution. The Ibeji gang, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, the Ibeji. It’s more of a terrorist organization, operating behind the scenes. I’m on a list of theirs for knowing too much about them. A kill list.”

  “You’re still on it?”

  “My sources tell me that my name is on top.”

  “I suppose we’d better extend your permit, then. You know your people can be awfully devious, with the drug syndicates and the rest.”

  “There are always a few bad eggs in the batch,” Wale smiled.

  “For Nigerians it’s more than a few, isn’t it? My guess is that it’s the climate. People will do anything to get out of the heat. Of course, the tune’s changed a bit: now it’s the Delta problem. But you were one of the few who made it through, Doctor. You’re a model refugee.”

  “By the grace of God,” Wale said, quickly. Dayo was staring out the window. Normally he disliked it when Dayo didn’t listen but for once he hoped he had remained in his own world. He deftly steered her towards the purpose of his appointment, applying for a biometric identification card, which Mrs. Craxton had forgotten.

  “Unfortunately, the IDs aren’t ready yet. The worst part of my job is managing expectations. I’m assuming this is your son, Day-Oh?”

  “Die-oh. Like diology.”

  “What is diology?”

  “That is how it is pronounced, Mrs. Craxton.”

  She asked a variety of questions about Wale’s refugee status and his skills, all in order to get out of dealing with the biometric ID. He explained that the Ibeji organization continued to strike fear into his heart, but that he didn’t have proof that it existed, except for the small wooden carving that he pulled from his sack. The carving was evidence of their heinous crimes, he said, and they would surely kill him for the doll if they found him. He handed the carving to Mrs. Craxton but she merely crossed herself against its devilry and told him that she would recommend his refugee status be continued for two more years. For good measure, he told her that he volunteered at the Royal Observatory and ran a bamboo business to put his son through private school.

  “Your son is quite handsome, Doctor.”

  “Don’t be fooled, Mrs. Craxton!” Wale laughed. “He’s a troublemaker. Children are always greener on the other side. Especially the knees.”

  Mrs. Craxton laughed, enjoying watching the father put the son in his place. A gust of wind began rattling the foggy window. The crows lining the ledge suddenly took flight in a black cloud, beating their wings, and then swept out into the bay. Mrs. Craxton typed away on her keyboard. Somehow, lifting her fingers made her break out in a sweat and she began eyeing the shopping bag full of chips. Wale, noticing this, reached into his bag and extracted a very large Tupperware container.

  “Bloody hell,” Mrs. Craxton said, opening the lid. “Not so much soup in there. More like broth with meat. Just how I like it.” Then she held up a glob of yellow grain in plastic wrap. “What is this? Mealie pap? Do you eat mealie pap in Nigeria?”

  “It’s called gari. Made from cassava. You can dip it in the soup, or mix it together, as you like.”

  “I’ll try both,” she replied gleefully.

  He did not have to mention the ID again, for, invigorated by the pepper soup, she put his name at the top of the list and gave him an appointment at the Barrack Street office where the IDs were being issued. They said goodbye, promising to get the inexplicable—but required—chest MRI. Wale rose feeling that he’d done well for Dayo.

  But of course that wasn’t good enough for his son, who suddenly rested his eyes on Mrs. Craxton. Dayo tugged at his tie, making it slip askance. His posture had reverted back to its usual slouching form. “There was a security guard using a whip outside,” he said.

  Mrs. Craxton snapped the lid on the Tupperware container and put it into a drawer in her desk. “Pardon me?”

  “The security guard outside was whipping people in the line. He whipped us, too, and they beat up a man. Are you going to do anything about it?”

  “We call it a queue in our country.”

  “Pardon?”

  “We call a line a queue.”

  “They whipped us in the queue.”

  She frowned. “What did he look like?”

  “Small, broad shouldered.”

  She waved her hand. “Oh, Themba. He’s a Zulu. I suppose you don’t know what that means, young man. Here, we’ve got tribes. Zulus, I love them to death, but they do have a history. Have you heard of Shaka?”

  Dayo nodded, not seeming to think the question d
ignified a response.

  “Themba’s a Zulu who manages the queue”—she drew out the word like an elementary school teacher—“but it’s not always what you think, young man. We at Home Affairs hate abuse as much as the next one. No, you can say we hate it more, because we see what it does to our clients and how it humiliates them. I was the secretary of the Sea Point Black Sash, to give you an idea.”

  Wale cleared his throat, attempting to salvage the bonhomie he’d garnered with the soup. “Please excuse my son, Mrs. Craxton. He’s—pardon the pun—out of line. We know you’re busy, we’re both very grateful for your—”

  “No, Doctor. He has a right to an answer. That is also something I believe in. Total transparency. It was probably the sound. Do you know the sound? Kind of like tchi, made with the tongue on the back of the teeth. Tchi, tchi, tchi, like a hummingbird. Well, that sound is a supreme insult to Xhosas and slightly less so to Zulus, but certainly enough to take offense. Many of our Francophone clients do it without thinking. I’m sure that’s what happened.”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Dayo said. “He was being whipped.”

  “There’s no doubt it was the tchi. I’ve seen Themba resist all manner of insults, but that’s his soft spot. For a Zulu he is like Christ. Unfortunately, tchi is a natural display of dissatisfaction for the Francophones. We’ve tried to post signs but you can imagine it’s a very difficult message to communicate.”

  “They took a guy away in a military uniform,” Dayo said.

  She said that UNHCR had promised to task their linguists with developing good signage.

  “All I want to know is if that man’s alright.”

  “Come, Dayo!”

  “Call UNHCR. Here’s the number.”

  Mrs. Craxton scratched a number on a Post-it note and gave it to Dayo.

  Wale shouted the whole ride home, feeling that Dayo had sabotaged the meeting and that Mrs. Craxton would never print a biometric ID for Dayo as well. Dayo, who had shown a momentary spark of interest during the conversation after three days of silence—of what Wale had misinterpreted as three days of penance—retreated into himself again, staring out the window along Main Road, where an advertisement for a shampoo featuring the supermodel Melle, with her lustrous skin, coated an entire building.

  Dayo’s silence in the passenger seat made Wale think that his point, mostly shouted and at times repeated for emphasis, was getting though, but again, he was wrong. Wale, in fact, knew little about the inner workings of his son. He didn’t know his music preferences, whether he read books or played Frisbee, or had peculiar habits. That was beyond the responsibility of a father. He provided food for Dayo and Dayo ate it. He gave him water, electricity, scratched to pay his tuition at the Steiner Academy after Dayo had nearly failed public school, purchased, following a burglary, a comprehensive security package from the local armed response. Wale provided and protected, fulfilling his duty. Dayo’s fascination with the snowglobe, which should have ended in primary school, was to Wale a mere hobby that should subside before his own duties. This was growing up, the acceptance of duty, of hard work without unmerited expectation of results. And Wale kept waiting for the hobby to subside.

  “Give up this refugee bullshit, Dad. What kind of accent was that? Why do you sink to it? You never wear that agbada. They treat you like a dog.”

  Wale let go of the steering wheel. “A dog?”

  “She didn’t try to pronounce your name. She sits there and gobbles chips all day long. Doesn’t lift a finger. Did you hear that talk about Zulus? It’s disgusting. She’s a remnant! Black Sash or not. She should be purged!”

  “You’re mistaken,” Wale said, recovering the wheel. “She speaks Zulu. I have seen her do it. She grew up in KZN.” It sounded unconvincing even to himself.

  Dayo put his hand up on the safety handle above his window, as if steadying himself for an approaching blow. “She knows how to order people around in it. That doesn’t mean she speaks it.”

  “Do you speak Zulu?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Afrikaans?”

  “Who cares?”

  Wale decided he would pursue this line of approach, tangling his son up in minutiae and semantics. It would buy him time to understand what was happening. Give him perspective.

  “You don’t speak Zulu. So how do you know what kind of Zulu she speaks?”

  “I’m American! How am I supposed to tell?”

  “You live here.”

  “The only language that matters is English. You said that yourself.”

  Wale braked so that a minibus taxi could cut three lanes over to pick up a pair of boys in navy blue school uniforms. “Dayo, whether a snake is large or small, it can’t be used as a belt. You know what that means? That woman is powerful whether you like or not. She is the snake. We could be deported without her help. That appointment slip, I forged it myself. I cooked that food and brought the bamboo covers. I prepared my bag all last night like a—like a juju. And look: we didn’t get whipped, we got what we wanted—and we would have gotten the IDs if you hadn’t fouled it up. Granted, I don’t like Home Affairs, but this country protects us because no other country would take us. People like Mrs. Craxton. So why are you so angry? You consort with criminals and you think you have the right to judge her. And me.”

  “You’re missing the point.”

  Wale drifted into the right lane to give him more time to berate his son. He hated the term ‘juju’ with its colonial triteness but it had slipped into his head somehow. This was major, large; it would require a coordinated reproach. “Is it because you think you’re better than them?”

  “Than who?”

  “Refugees.”

  “Than refugees? That has nothing to do with it.”

  “You called me a dog.”

  “You’re twisting my words.”

  “You just said it. She treats me like a dog. That is not twisting words.”

  Dayo took a few deep breaths and closed his eyes in the passenger seat. “Dad, fine. Fine. You’re not a dog.”

  “Thank you.”

  “All I want to know is why you talk to her in that accent.”

  “And refugees?”

  “What?”

  “Do you still think they’re dogs?”

  “I never said that.” Dayo cranked down his window. They were passing cheery pastel homes now, with narrow streets and impossible garlands of flowers draping over the wall. The flowers were always brighter in Observatory than Wale remembered them. Driving down its lanes, the color consoled father and son for a moment.

  Dayo broke the quiet again. “You never tell me anything about America. You were important there. You should be proud of it.”

  “Don’t tell me what I should be. I’m your father. I’ll tell you when you’re good and ready.”

  “I’m ready now.”

  Wale pulled up to the driveway, and Dayo went and unlatched the gate without being asked. He closed it when his father had pulled in and parked the bakkie. Wale didn’t say much for a while. In the kitchen he began taking some pots out of the drying rack and hanging them above the range oven.

  “You’ll be ready when you quit consorting with criminals.”

  “I’m not a criminal, Dad. I went in there to help Okeke. He asked me to go. I didn’t even know the guy.”

  “You knew him well enough to smoke his drugs and take his money. Don’t try to get out of it now.”

  “I kept quiet because I knew you wouldn’t listen to me. I don’t smoke dagga and I never will. This is about you now, not me. What are you so afraid of?”

  “Me?” Wale pointed a thumb at his chest. “I’m not afraid of anything. I have lived my life with dignity. I’ve sent you to school. I’ve given you a home and security. In Nigeria any honest father would have disinherited you for what I caught you doing. You’re lucky to be here.” He put away the last of the pots and started down the hallway. “I have to go to the Observatory. I’ve got a tour.”

>   Dayo stood in front of his father, impeding his path. “Dad, I will not let you go. Let me know why you hide so much! What really happened? You made the Ibeji gang up, didn’t you?”

  “Ibeji is real. I’ve connected them to crimes all over the world. I see their hand in everything. Coincidences, moments when their name has turned up.”

  “But you told me that it was Mom who forced us to leave.”

  “Your mother was part of their syndicate. She joined them. That’s why I’ll always be at the top of the list. Because she’ll never forgive me for walking out on her.”

  Dayo was shaking his head. “When will you tell me the truth, Dad? I’ve looked them up. Ibeji are a bunch of dolls. They’re not a gang!”

  Wale smacked Dayo hard across the cheek. The boy was pushing it. He was asking when he should be explaining; and to bring in his mother was to cross the line. Somehow, Wale thought, in his providing and protecting, he had spoiled the kid. “Your mother’s name is not to grace your lips again.”

  “Why the hell not? She’s gone, right? What does it matter?”

  The belt slid off with ease, slipped right out of the loopholes, and into Wale’s palm. He held it there, limp at his side, like a bullwhip. “Your mother was an addict and a criminal,” he breathed. “She did this to us. Give me the note that Mrs. Craxton gave you. I can forge another appointment slip with the numbers on it. There are fours, sixes, and eights on it. Then I’ll have all her letters.”

  Dayo didn’t move. “No, I’m calling UNHCR about that guard.”

  Spoiled, spoiled, spoiled. A twenty-year-old body with the mind and posture of a child. Dayo was beyond the limits, within reproach. And, like the Zulu Christ, like the beater of the beaten and the downtrodden, Wale took a step back before snapping the leather forward, quick, into Dayo’s neck, and back again, at his bottom, his palm, and when Dayo had crumpled to the floor, his flesh. Wale had transformed his wife into a malevolence of such proportions that he could never allow her true memory to be dredged up again, or he would crumble beneath it. Here she was again, her personality bubbling up in his son, inquiring, doubting, questioning his authority. His blood. My blood. Wale understood, now, why the guard had whipped the man: for their protection. For his protection.