Job thought of the child that was growing inside Ifi. He knew nothing of children, how to feed them, how to dress them, how to stop their tears. In spite of this, he had always understood that children must come. Having a child was part of the natural progression of things. For a man his age it was time, yet the thought brought nothing to him. He felt nothing.
“My letters,” Captain said.
Job handed Captain his notepad and pen.
“I’m writing him another letter. He’s been a bad boy, but I forgive him.”
“Good,” Job said. “Fathers should always forgive their sons.” He helped Captain into the bed. “But first, it’s time to sleep.”
Captain looked at him with watery, reddened eyes. “It’s time.”
After his rounds, Job found his way to the break room. Except for the hum of the refrigerator, it was empty and silent. It was a solitude he savored. Glancing one way and then the other, Job opened a foil-covered bowl of soup and warmed it in the microwave. In the past, he’d opened short plastic containers of tasteless Campbell’s soup. Now that Ifi was with him, each night he ate garri and pepper soup. Job quickly lapped the soup up in satisfaction, hoping to finish before a coworker arrived with the questions and complaints about the acrid scent.
During his breaks, away from Ifi’s prying eyes, he would thumb his way through their mail. Each envelope presented a dilemma: how certain was he that his paycheck would make it to his checking account before his payments reached the bill collectors? Until now, it had never been his practice to write out checks at work, but Ifi was at home, and she didn’t need to know about their expenses, or the savings bond with his father’s money.
As always, Ifi’s letter was in the pile, a weekly note to her aunty. Normally, Job stamped the letter and added it to his collection of outgoing checks. But today, he thought of Captain and his unanswered letters, a neat stack in the bottom of one of his drawers. For the first time, he wondered what each short note contained, and why Ifi had chosen not to share their contents with him.
In Job’s absence, Ifi had taken to writing letters, licking and sealing them, and then waiting for Job to return with the stamps that would deliver them to Aunty. It was their regular routine for Ifi to check the mailbox in the afternoons and arrange its contents, along with her letters, on the kitchen counter for Job to collect.
In her first letters, Ifi described the clean streets and the water that did not need to be boiled. Light does not go. Snow is just as it appears in the books, she explained, but only on the first day. And then it soils the legs of your trousers, like the muddy streets in Port Harcourt on wet days. Americans are healthy, so healthy that their bodies do not stop growing. And I am such a queen that my husband will not allow me to lift a finger.
In the next letters, Ifi decided it was best to explain herself. Job has hired a maid—it is even Oyibo woman, an American—because he is so cautious with the baby. Fat red roses fill my garden. In fact, my yard alone is larger than your entire street in Port Harcourt. Instead of the warped walls, riddled with holes; instead of the splatters of paint; instead of the mousetraps and cockroaches, she told Aunty about a big-screen television with one thousand channels, a stereo with a five-CD changer, a three-car garage—all the things she had seen in magazines.
It had started on a flat, gray afternoon as Job and Ifi shrugged their way through the grocery checkout lane. Ifi had seen the glossy magazines: celebrity tabloids with George Clooney and Julia Roberts on the covers, stories about babies born on Mars, and a couple of covers with shiny basketball players, their biceps dancing on the pages. Job picked one up, glanced at it, and murmured something about Hakeem Olajuwon. A misplaced Good Housekeeping magazine was behind it, which Ifi took.
A beautiful home graced the cover, with a manicured lawn, artful shrubbery, and lights that glowed all the way to the arched doorway with Ionic columns on each side. Inside, the pages were filled with cherubic men and women spread on sleeper sofas, attractive and healthy, with mouths flexed into smiles. Every item matched. There was nothing extra, nothing used or soiled. No sandy red grains from the outdoor walkways in Port Harcourt. No mousetraps like the ones that lined the walls of Job’s apartment—because, although she had lived in it for two months, Ifi still considered the apartment his home, not her own. As she glanced at the pictures that afternoon, she knew that one day she would have a beautiful home like the ones in the magazines, and she would do with it as she pleased. A real home. Not an imitation like her fur coat.
She became a regular subscriber to three different interior design catalogs, picking them up from the newsstand during their weekly outings to the grocery store. As her body grew larger each month, the intricacies in the design of her imaginary palace grew bolder. There were low-swinging chandeliers, crown molding, bay windows, and bougainvillea wrapped all along the red brick exterior.
Yes, Ifi wrote in another letter, there are already four bedrooms, but because my husband is considering the inclusion of a home library to store all of his medical diagrams and journals, we are discussing with contractors the possibility of adding a fifth room.
Aunty, she concluded, you would not recognize me for the skinny girl who left home.
Leaning into his open locker, Job folded the letter into squares. As the doors clanked shut around him, he collapsed on the hard wooden bench, stunned, puzzling over the descriptions of a home he didn’t recognize. He folded each square into successive squares until the letter was as small as a business card. Then he unfolded it and stared at the broken lines of Ifi’s longhand against the seams of the folds. What could she mean? They did not have four bed-rooms—but perhaps she was counting the kitchen, the living room, and the bathroom. They did not have maids, but perhaps she had a difficult time explaining to her aunt that in America, one relied on machines for help instead of the poor. She had also described a music system, and indeed they had one, a small portable radio with bent wires that worked as well as a brand-new machine. But what puzzled him was the television. Job did not own a television, nothing like it. There must have been a mistake.
At first the sound of his name was a faraway echo, until suddenly the charge nurse was peering into Job’s face. “Job, it’s a phone call, for you,” she said. “But I hope you keep in mind our policy about personal calls. In case you’ve forgotten, this is a place of business. I’m not picking on you, so don’t get that idea. I’m only saying that you can’t make personal calls to friends. You understand? And if it’s long distance, we’ll have to send you a notice.”
Grinning dumbly, he nodded furiously. Still clutching the letter, Job stumbled into the reception area, his hands shaking, his mind attuned to the new problem at hand. Ifi did not have the number to his workplace. He had made sure of it. No one knew where he worked, not even Emeka and Gladys, and for good reason. What would they say? Panic swelled in his chest as it occurred to him how easily his supervisor could have answered the phone and given away his secret. As he glared at the glowing switchboard, his hand paused over the phone. How could he explain? A miscommunication, he would say, a jealous attendant. He was not a nurse’s aide. He was the doctor. And the television, he thought, remembering the letter. That I can buy if I want, but there is no need. It is a foolish waste of money. He repeated these words to himself, the whisper in his head faltering as it rose in fervor.
“Job?” The voice was soft and airy. He was so caught up in his worry that at first he didn’t realize the voice belonged to Cheryl. He was only immediately grateful that it was not Ifi or Gladys or Emeka. It must have been this note of gratitude in his tone that she registered as his pleasure, because her words sounded light with relief. “It’s me,” she said.
Job swallowed, regaining his composure. “How did you get this number?”
“I have my ways.”
He moved the phone away from his ear.
“You hang up, Job, and I’ll just call you back again and again until you speak to me.”
He peered ar
ound the bend of the reception desk, hearing the clatter of voices and footsteps down the hall. He softened his voice. “Leave me alone.”
“You don’t answer my calls, my letters—what am I supposed to do?” A pause. “Just hear me out.”
“I cannot speak to you now. I am at work.”
“Then I’ll meet you somewhere.”
Now a sound cut into the call, another call illuminated on the switchboard. He glanced at the clock. Soon the day shift would arrive, and he would have to stand among the other nurses as the charge nurse gave a report of the night’s activities. He had to end the call fast, or there would be too many questions. Of all the secret places to go, Job could only think of his abandoned parking lot, where nightly he changed from suit to scrubs as he passed from the world of his imagination into the world of reality. He gave her the directions.
By the time Job arrived, Cheryl was already balanced along the side of the building, her back hunched over a cigarette. Illuminated by the dusted clouds, Cheryl seemed much smaller to him than he remembered all those years ago. Instead of the denim skirt with the frayed ends, she wore tight jeans and a heavy overcoat. He gazed about the lot looking for a second or third helper, like the day of the marriage. But there was no one, just Cheryl quickly putting out her cigarette on the back of her snow boot. As he edged the car to her and climbed out, his throat smarting from the cold, she straightened up. Losing his footing on the snow, he caught himself just before he reached her. She greeted him with a smile.
“You’ve changed,” she said.
“You are the same,” he said, though it wasn’t true. She was smaller, thinner; that much was true. But there was something else about her that was different. He just couldn’t put his finger on it. The hair was still red, mostly, except for the silver lines that reached along the contours of her forehead, where her hair was neatly parted. As she grinned at him, the smile still revealed the small boy’s teeth. What is it that has changed about her? he wondered. And then it dawned on him: She was wearing rouge. Her pale cheeks were accented by powder. There was a flip to her otherwise limp hair. She was even wearing earrings, shiny pieces that caught the morning light. Cheryl had tried to make herself presentable for him. Indeed, much had changed since the morning of their courthouse wedding. What she had now that she didn’t have for him then, Job realized, was respect. Recognizing this calmed the nervous shake of his hands, and he loosened his grip on Ifi’s letter in his pocket. “Hurry now. What is it you want?” he asked with confidence.
“All right, you’re here. You’re finally here,” she said, taking a deep breath. “And now I’m nervous.” Her smile dropped as Job backed away from her in his impatience. “But you’re leaving. All right, out with it, Cheryl,” she said to herself. “I’ve called you here to ask for a loan.”
He waited for the tears, the wails, the moans, the big show. But there was none. Instead, Cheryl lifted her eyes and said, “I will pay you back, every cent, when I get caught up. I mean this as business, an arrangement. I’ll pay it back. No games. Here.” She knifed through a big tote bag, pulling up papers. “This is the deed for the house. This is the letter from the mortgage lenders. I will gladly give you whatever you need as collateral. Your name is on it too, see? As soon as I make the next payment, your name will come off. You hold the papers until I give you a return.”
“You have used my name to steal?”
“Christ, I thought I told you on the phone.” The papers in her hands scattered, fluttering to the snowy lot. “Shit.” She reached for the papers and stumbled, losing her grip on the tote bag. Without thinking, Job reached to catch the bag before it hit the snowy pavement. In doing so, Ifi’s letter left his hand and ended up among Cheryl’s belongings on the moist concrete. Now Cheryl had his letter and he had her bag. Their hands awkwardly met in an exchange.
“My ex—the first one—ruined my credit. I was dumb and seventeen when I first met him. I let him take advantage of me, and I was stupid enough to let him do it again. Then my brother, Luther, he says we should refi the house. He says we should use your name to get the money, since my credit was so bad. Then, soon’s we get the money, he takes it and bails.” Cheryl sighed. This time when she looked at him, her eyes were wet. “You know what it’s like to have your own family do that to you? You know how stupid it feels?”
Job had no words. His own siblings would never do such a thing to him. But then he thought of his father and the money that he had put into the savings bond, all the years of his father’s earnings thrust in earnest at Job’s education. For a moment he floundered, guilt rising in his chest. But he shook it off. With the marriage and now the baby, the thought of going back to school just then was impossible. He would go back in good time. Joking around as a boy, not understanding America, that was what had prevented him from becoming a doctor. But now he was a man. His thoughts turned to Ifi’s letter and the description of the television set. What did one need with a thousand channels anyway? With resolve, he repeated the mantra that had kept him afloat over the years. He would use his father’s money as intended and become a doctor. Only now was not the time.
“I tell Luther I’ll call the police,” she continued, “and he says he’ll tell them about me and you, our arrangement.” She squinted at Job, and suddenly he felt complicit in her thievery. “Me and you,” she said again, slowly, “that we frauded the government with our marriage.”
“Won-der-ful!” Job sighed.
“I know, that’s what I said. But I tell him I can’t make the payments, it’s too much. He says, ‘The money’s gone’—he lost it on a score—‘so sell the house. Be done with it.’ But I can’t.” She stopped and looked at him. “Job, I can’t. I can’t sell the house. It’s all I got. And I’m sorry that I dragged you into this, but now I’m trying to do it the right way, so I’m asking you for a small loan so I don’t default. I promise I’ll pay it back.”
“How should I help a thief like yourself? Are you sick? What is wrong with your head?” Job backed away again, the words leaving his voice in a splutter. What am I doing here? he wondered. Why have I agreed to speak with this charlatan? Was it fear? Perhaps. After all, she was an American. He remembered that day, standing in the hallway of the county clerk’s office with Cheryl’s two accomplices making their way toward him. Job looked around again, catching nothing but the ripple of a cold wind off the façade of the brick office buildings. She is only a woman, he reminded himself.
“I’m not a thief,” Cheryl said firmly. She sucked in a deep breath. “Besides, you, you’re the only person I know who is capable.” At the conclusion of her words, her eyes trembled.
“Capable.” Job frowned. He didn’t understand.
“Yeah. I mean, you’re a doctor. You can afford a small loan, right?”
He stopped backing away for a moment and took in the word: capable. How could someone like her, born and raised in this rich land of opportunity, her father’s land, have nothing, be nothing? It was strange to him, an American in her homeland, appealing to him, a foreigner, for help. Yes, he agreed with her words. He was capable. Perhaps, in a strange way, it had taken her words to remind him of this. He was a man after all. He could do anything. It was only a matter of his desire at the moment. Anything, he said to himself, thinking of Ifi’s letter and the television set. If he wanted to, he could buy a television set with one thousand channels.
Job frowned at Cheryl—her shoulders were bowed, her papers a clumsy sheaf. With grit he murmured, first to himself, “I am capable.” Then he repeated himself for Cheryl to hear. “I am capable,” he said carefully, “but why must a man like myself help a crook like you?” Still, even as he said the words, he remembered the savings bond, his father’s money, and he knew that he would help her.
Not long before Job was to arrive home from work that morning, there was a knock at the door. It was Mrs. Janik, standing in the entryway, its wide window overlooking the patches of frost outside. With ragged curls in her hair and a few mis
sed rollers still dangling, she clasped her hands together and apart in excitement. She had no children, no husband, and lived alone next door, an American life that would shame a Nigerian woman. Perhaps it was with pity that Ifi received her, or perhaps it was simply loneliness. Either way, one thing was certain: In Nigeria, a doctor’s wife would never associate with such a woman. It would shame her. Still, every afternoon, when it was Mrs. Janik’s ritual to hurry outside just as Ifi checked the mail, Ifi would wait every time Mrs. Janik hurried down the steps to purse her lips together and shout a breathy, “Hiya!”
And then:
That Chinese lady, the one with three teenage boys across the street. They have filthy character. They invite prostitutes into their home. With their mother right there, they sleep with all of them at once. But is it any surprise? The apple don’t fall far from the tree.
And the black girl over there. C level of Apartment 3. Yeah, over there. She’s a drug addict, a prostitute to support her habit.
And the Mexican with the toolbox—a liar, a thief, an illegal. And his wife is a prostitute too. None of them nine kids is even his.
Ifi didn’t exactly believe Mrs. Janik. But she didn’t exactly disbelieve her, and so when Job returned from work most mornings, as he furiously chewed chunks of meat or swallowed balls of garri, she repeated these stories with the certainty of a firsthand witness.
“We’s the only two civilized ladies in this neighborhood,” Mrs. Janik said, concluding her monologue for the day.
“Yes,” Ifi said.
She started to let the door close between the two of them. There were dishes to wash, a soup to prepare. But Mrs. Janik stopped her with a single envelope.
“Someone put it in my mailbox, but it’s addressed to your husband.”
“Is it?” Ifi snatched the letter from her. It had already been opened.
“Some kinda mistake, huh?” Mrs. Janik laughed in her horsey way. “I mind my own business, but I just wasn’t looking. I usually assume a letter in my mailbox is addressed to me.”
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