Nigerians in Space

by Deji Bryce Olukotun

  “Hampton,” the coloured guy began. “I’m Constable Viljoen, Senior Detective for the Environmental Crimes Division of Operation Trident. Have you enjoyed your tea?”

  “My name’s Thursday.”

  “Our witnesses say it’s Hampton.”

  “Check my ID.”

  “I did. But the pass-laws are over. We know that what’s printed in there doesn’t have anything to do with who you really are. That’s what we learned in the Struggle.”

  “My name’s Thursday Malaysius.”

  At this Constable Viljoen glanced over at his partner. “What do you think, Mush?”

  Mush shrugged. He got up and walked around the ash desk to Thursday’s side. He pulled open a drawer, and to Thursday’s surprise, pulled the globe from his moonlight lamp out of it. He began tossing it back and forth from hand to hand. His grip didn’t look very steady. Not a cricketer: soccer.

  “I don’t believe,” Constable Viljoen continued, “in beating about the bush, Hampton. Save yourself some trouble. We know more about you than you do at the end of the day. All I need you to do is one simple thing. Identify Timothy Ip in court. That’s it. Will you do that for us? Then you can walk free and forget the whole thing. It’s on the twenty-third of this month. An expedited hearing. We’ll give you full witness protection and then you’re out. If you don’t do it, you’re going to prison.” He leaned his heavy frame back as his partner, Mush, began tossing the snowglobe higher up into the air.

  Thursday was feeling meek, but he wasn’t going to agree until he knew what they had. If he was going down, he wanted the fall to be informed.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Viljoen grunted. “Is that right? You don’t know? You’ve never heard of Timothy Ip?”

  “No.”

  “How about Leon Vermeulen?”

  It was all Thursday could do to cough. If his eyes hadn’t been focused on the snowglobe then he would have given himself away at Ip’s name too. Ip he could deny, Leon never.

  “Leon and I went to school together.”

  “Where was that, Hampton?”

  “Hermanus.”

  “Would it be fair to say you were mates?”

  Blindly: “We were bras.”

  “But you’re not anymore?”

  “No.”

  “What happened, would you say, Hampton? Did Leon take your girl? He had that reputation, we know. We’ve done our homework. Which girl was it? Fadanaz?”

  Fuck, Thursday thought. Fuck it all.

  And the globe was being tossed high now. Up. Down. Sloshing and snowy. It occurred to him that snowmen were conceived of their own blood. That a snowman was blood peeking back at itself. What did that make him? What were criminals?

  “I agree with you, Hampton. You’re no longer bras. He’s dead.”

  “Kak.”

  “Oh, no, not kak. He’s dead. He’s been dead for weeks.”

  “But he’s in Pollsmoor.”

  “He was in Pollsmoor. Just like Mandela was in Pollsmoor. But we needed Mandela at the end of the day, didn’t we, Mush?”

  Mush didn’t toss the snowglobe up this time. He blinked. Maybe an old argument. Maybe a new one.

  “The strange thing is, Hampton, we wanted Leon, too. But we didn’t need him to take down Ip. Because we’ve got you.”

  Thursday tried to soak it in. Viljoen had to be bluffing. Because if Leon ever died, God would be bluffing. He would pop out of his grave without a care for the hierarchy of things.

  “What happened to Leon?” he said skeptically.

  “What do you think?”

  “AIDS?”

  Viljoen leaned back his head and let out a rolling laugh from his barrel chest. “AIDS!” He nudged Mush in the arm. “He says AIDS! In three weeks!” He nudged his partner again, this time while the globe was in mid-throw and the globe flew back over Mush’s shoulder and smashed in a shower of glass and water on the floor. Mush looked even more disappointed than Thursday. The little black cat had survived the fall intact with its whiskers aimed at the door.

  “Sorry about that, Hampton. I know that was, what, Mush, seventy bucks?”

  “One hundred and seventy,” Mush replied angrily.

  “We’ll get you a new one.” He let out another chuckle. “AIDS. Mush, we’ll have to get Hampton one of our outreach pamphlets about HIV. Must not have reached Hermanus.”

  “Tell me what happened,” Thursday snapped.

  Viljoen described, in detail, the weapon that had killed Leon, a thin plastic blade that was a signature for hits arranged by the smuggler Ip. Ip had contacts inside and was known, crudely, as the Swordmaster. It was that word—sword—that rattled Thursday. Viljoen might have been a bully but he wasn’t creative enough to have invented the story. He remembered how deftly Chung had chopped at that guy’s belly, how routinized the entire slaughter had been. Dead! Here he’d been living his life in Observatory, getting dragged through Leon’s garbage and he’d been dead all along. He could have skipped town. He could be back in Joburg, or in Norway with his backpacker, free as a bird.

  But beyond that it was worse. Beyond that was the fact that he missed Leon and wanted someone to take his place. Leon had bullied him into blindness and he didn’t know which way to go.

  Viljoen was saying that Leon had been found dead, as all victims in prison are found, in the morning, with everyone looking innocent.

  “But why?” Thursday breathed. “What did Leon do?”

  Viljoen glanced at his partner. “Sounds pretty concerned for an old bra, don’t you think? I thought they weren’t friends anymore. Did I hear him say that, Mush?”

  “He did. He said ‘we were friends.’”

  “Thanks, Mush.” To Thursday: “Doesn’t say much, Mush. But he remembers. He remembers everything. Down to the letter. It’s a matter of time before he takes my job. Let’s end this, Hampton. Have you heard enough? Will you appear in court? It’s free. I’ll throw in a new lamp. No? Is that a no? That’s your decision, Hampton. Then I’ll keep talking. When you say ‘yes’ I stop.”

  He cracked his knuckles. Leon had been arrested for shooting the dog, as Chung had said, and had been implicated in a large shipment of fresh abalone to Ip. The abalone had been stolen from a farm and had been traced back to Observatory from Hong Kong. Viljoen gave no indication he’d made the connection that Thursday was with Leon on the day Leon was arrested. Mush was harder to read, impassable. He could have been lamenting about the lamp; he could have been replaying a soccer game in his head.

  “I can’t help you,” Thursday said.

  Thursday nearly missed it, but Mush gave the tiniest squint in Viljoen’s direction. Viljoen stood up instantly. “Your tea’s getting cold. Want a refill?”

  Thursday hadn’t had a sip. Viljoen picked up the cup and saucer and could be heard telling a clerk to microwave it. Mush’s fist shot out across the desk and clocked Thursday in the jaw. Another jab came out of nowhere and Thursday fell over the chair to the ground.

  “You’re lying,” Mush said, straightening his collar.

  Viljoen returned, seemingly unaware, and bent down to help Thursday off the floor. “Lose your balance, Hampton? Must be thirsty. Not to worry, your tea will be right along.”

  Thursday rubbed his jaw, feeling it swell up. Now Mush, who was as reserved as ever, circled around the desk. Thursday flinched in anticipation of another punch, but Mush pulled open a drawer and took out a packet of paperclips. Viljoen eagerly snatched the packet, emptying it onto the desk. “You’ve got to understand that about the Triads. We’ve had a devil of a time trying to break up these smugglers because they’re not organized. Being a Triad is usually nothing more than saying you’re a fruit seller at the market.” He started moving the paperclips around to demonstrate his point. “You’re selling fruit and the guy next to you’s selling fruit. Every once in a while you get together to make a big purchase of bananas”—he piled some paperclips together—“to lower cost
s. But once that’s over you’re back on your own. The advantage is that if the stall next to you runs out of fruit, you’re fine. Take one out and there are three more where they came from. These guys are not Godfathers. They’re more like entrepreneurs in the gray and black markets. Sometimes above the line.”

  The clerk arrived with the tea. There was another cookie on the saucer. Chocolate, which Thursday could never bite through after that shot to his jaw. He couldn’t imagine chewing. There was the scent of bergamot.

  “Earl Grey,” Viljoen observed. “Froofy for my tastes, but one shouldn’t complain.” He shoved the paperclips together. “When Ip came along, everything changed. All the bananas in a bunch. We don’t need much. A witness against him, a witness for just about anything. Could be murder, could be petty theft, and we’ll let you go, Hampton. Simple.”

  A witness. Thursday thought of the smuggler Ip had butchered. The memory of the man clutching his stomach, hands full of his own insides, was more real than any other he had. It was why he couldn’t eat Chinese anymore. It was why he was starting to think, with Mush about to launch another punch at him, that he might turn Ip in. Still, he needed time to think it through and denied it, causing Mush to squint, and they went through the whole routine again, this time with a crippling punch to his abdomen.

  “Sit up straight, Hampton, it helps,” Viljoen said, tossing him a handkerchief when he returned. “We’ve got two guys who say they gave you a ride to Observatory with a cooler full of abalone. We know you have a connection with Leon and, now, with Ip,” he added. “We’re going to put you away for—how much is it Mush at the end of the day?”

  At the end of what day, Thursday thought. My day? Why did Viljoen make it sound like the day was always in danger of ending?

  “Five.”

  “Five,” Viljoen repeated, somewhat disappointed. “I thought it was ten.”

  “Five under the terms of the statute.”

  “You heard him, Hampton. Five. If we get DNA from the perlies, that doubles, right, Mush?”

  “Right.”

  “Kak,” Thursday groaned.

  “Not very creative is he, Mush? Kak, this. Kak, that. All we need is one, Hampton. One chip of shell and you’re in for ten. Any shell in that apartment of yours? Any sand get stuck between your toes? I’ll tell you what. We won’t look for those shells if you work with us. You’re small, Hampton. You’re not even a fruit seller. We want Ip, not you. Let’s help each other. As far as I can tell, these men have used you. You’re nothing to them. Why are they anything to you?”

  Two other men were in the holding cell and they had both been beaten badly. They were sitting in the corner, facing the wall, staring at a crack where a rat poked its head out when one of them snored. Upon close inspection, Thursday realized they were the Rastas who had given him a ride from Observatory all those months back. One of them suddenly turned to face him when he approached. His lip was swollen and he had a shiner with dried blood at the rim of his eye socket.

  “How was that clam suppa, Hampton?” he asked. Thursday found himself backing away. “Don’t be ’fraid, Hampton. Georgie miss you.”

  So these were the witnesses Viljoen had against him, the ones who had turned him in. Strange that Viljoen would put him in a cell with them. However irrational it was, Thursday was also bothered that he had looked after their stinky dog Georgie at the beach and now they were going to testify against him. It seemed ungrateful. But that might have been the pain in his jaw doing the thinking.

  Deciding he could offer a deal to the Rastas, Thursday mustered the courage to approach them until Mush appeared at the cell gate with a key. The Rastas immediately protected their heads with their arms. Mush drew a black sjambok and hit one in the side a few times. Then he kicked the other one until he began to cough blood on the floor and shout in Xhosa. When Mush finished with them he took a long, blank look at Thursday before exiting the cell, and blinked both eyes. He’d had no expression when he was beating the men, nor had he said anything. There’d been nothing at all, and that was what terrified Thursday the most, for what if that nothingness came after him? He didn’t sleep a wink that night and his jaw hurt so much he couldn’t put any food down.

  Viljoen was appealing to his reason and self-interest, to the fact that the people Thursday trusted had betrayed him again and again. There was every reason to turn Ip in. The police were probably finding the abalone in his apartment as he sat there in the cell. If Leon hadn’t survived Pollsmoor, there was no way Thursday could survive it. Leon was a man who drove things, who made things happen. If Pollsmoor could chop Leon up then it would do much worse to Thursday. He didn’t know what that death would be, but he had the feeling that someone inside the mang would have the patience to think of it.

  For a fleeting moment he thought that Ip would protect him if he kept quiet. But then he remembered that Ip had killed Leon. And even though Leon had ratted on Thursday and threatened him and manipulated him, he knew that if he went under Ip’s wing any longer he would be through and through a coward. If he came out of Pollsmoor he’d have nothing. He needed other people—he understood that—but he would be no good to anyone if he was owned. Leon was gone. It was only him now. Only him.

  The rat skittered back into its crack when a guard came and called his name. His real name.

  “Thursday Malaysius.”

  “Yeah.” Thursday walked over to the gate, expecting to see Mush with his sleeves rolled up, ready to swing. Maybe this was beating time. Maybe it was his time to moan in the corner.

  “Sign here.”

  The officer passed a sheet towards Thursday covered with fine print. He was too tired to read it. “What is it?”

  “Release form. Just sign it.”

  Thursday signed and the officer unlocked the bars of the cell while Thursday composed his answer to Viljoen in his head. He would turn Ip in with conditions. Protections and such, and money to survive. He wanted those things.

  He was marched out of the cell block, past the front desk, and right onto the bright morning street bustling with traffic. There were no cops there. Viljoen was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he saw an assured young black woman wearing a suit. She had finely braided black hair and a nose as wide as Thursdays with a stud in it. Her lashes were very long, very curled.

  “I’d like to see the release form,” she said.

  The cop produced it. She read through it and crossed out two lines with a pen. “This is old language. It shouldn’t be on here. Initial, please, Thursday.” Thursday initialed next to the crossed-out lines. “Thank you.”

  Then she heeled across Main Road, Thursday keeping up, and stopped in front of a gunmetal hatchback. “Get in. I’ll explain on the way.” The doors locked on their own once he was inside. His eyes were still adjusting to the brightness of the day and he half-expected that rat from the cell to peer out of the air vents and gnaw on him. “I’m Constance Makeka. I’m an advocate and I paid your bail. I was hired by someone you will meet shortly. It’s best to keep quiet until we get there.”

  By this, Thursday understood he shouldn’t ask if Ip had paid for her.

  “You’re not free at the moment, so don’t think about running away. That’ll make things worse. I rifled a habeas corpus demand through while Mush was gone, but once he gets in he’ll be sorting through the paperwork and he’ll try to call you in on a twenty-four-three.” Anticipating his next question, she added: “That’ll be in about a week.”

  They got onto the M5 and exited at the Kenilworth race track, then they drove until they arrived at a small shopping center near a railway line. There was a stationery store, an art shop, and a bar called Pineapple Jam. They went inside and there was the smell of stale beer and sour tequila. On top of this scent a deep fryer was sending out the aroma of fries. The tables were brightly painted and there were fake vines and birds, with a crude cabana thatch over the bar. They were the only ones in the bar besides the mopey waiter, which was probably for the best at eight
-thirty in the morning. If you were drinking at that time, the rest of the day would be nothing but a struggle.

  “We’re early,” the lawyer said. “My client will be here in fifteen minutes.” She got up and ordered some things from the waiter. Thursday was so ravenous that he hoped she had ordered for him, too. With freedom the pain in his jaw was already melting away.

  It dawned on him that he was about to see Ip, so he began reformulating the demands he had intended for Constable Viljoen so that he could use them on Ip. It was easier because he could use out-and-out blackmail. If Ip touched him, he’d tell Viljoen about the sword killing. Simple.

  Ip wasn’t the next person that opened the door, though. It was a teenage girl. He heard the growl of a motorcycle as it downshifted and the engine cut. She was about Thursday’s height, wearing takkies and a pair of stretch jeans that showed long legs, and a flat, small bottom. Her chest was pert, not big but blessed, would likely remain that way her whole life. Her face confused him. He wanted her to be Chinese but she was not; her hair was thick and smooth like Ip’s, but her skin was darker, her lips fuller, and her eyes were either gold or brown. In the sunlight maybe he could see them better. In the sunlight he would understand why he was breathing so fast.

  “I ordered you some flatbread and a coffee,” Constance said to the girl, suddenly matronly. “Did you want sour cream?”

  “Extra.”

  The lawyer called the waiter over and ordered the extra sour cream. Finally the girl turned to look at Thursday. Gold in the eyes, he was sure of it. “My dad told me about you, Thursday. That you were good.”

  This was the girl, he thought, the girl that Chung was in love with! Never had he considered that she might be half-coloured or half-black, that she’d be like him. He felt a rush of flirtation, and he made his posture more confident. Her accent wasn’t coloured, though. She used the word mos so many times that he had to filter them out as he listened.