“Yes, I know you did not open it intentionally,” Ifi said.
“What kind of news do you suppose would be delivered by hand?” Mrs. Janik asked. She stabbed the space missing a stamp with a bony finger. “And whyn’t she just go up to your door and hand it to you like a real woman?”
“It’s a patient,” Ifi said, but the uncertainty in her voice gave itself away immediately. “And why must it be from a woman?”
“Named Cheryl.”
“Cheryl.”
“Maybe she’s a prostitute.” The look of horror on Ifi’s face only gave Mrs. Janik a slight pause. Ifi could only think of Job’s magazine on the night of their honeymoon. “Well, maybe not a prostitute,” Mrs. Janik continued. “Maybe just a woman who does things with men for money.”
“A prostitute,” Ifi said.
“You tell me, honey.” Mrs. Janik rifled through the two letters in her own hands. “I wouldn’t worry about it. All men are dirtbags,” Mrs. Janik said. “That’s why I didn’t get married. What would I want with one? I say you kick him to the curb.”
Ifi put the letter in her pocket. “I am not worrisome.”
“Ain’t you going to read it?” Mrs. Janik asked.
As she prepared the meal for the day, Ifi meant to forget about the letter. While slicing greens and spinach, the letter remained off to the side on the countertop. “He will find the letter,” she told herself. “He’ll look at it, and whatever he says will make sense.” But then, just when she heard Job’s key in the door, she slipped the letter into the tie of her wrapper.
Immediately Ifi could tell that he was in a stormy mood; she was too. Just like most mornings he returned, stripping down to his underwear and splaying each article—from the white lab coat to his socks and his briefcase—on the living room couch. Today, he did it all with his face creased into a frown. There were no chairs, so they ate the slightly scalded soup standing over opposite sides of the countertop, Job with his hairy belly sagging over his underwear. As they ate, Ifi imagined every possible scenario of sliding the letter to him and watching as he read it carefully, listening as he offered an explanation. But she would not; therefore, he did not.
Later, in the bathroom, Ifi crouched on the toilet, silently reading the letter.
Dear Job,
Whether you like it or not, we did get married. And that means I’m entitled to some help. I don’t ask for help from anyone. But this is a big deal. Just talk to me. Please.
Love,
Cheryl
Ifi punched the wall, upsetting a mousetrap and staining the wall with peanut butter. Suddenly she remembered. Just after she had arrived, there had been that phone call. Why hadn’t she questioned him about it? What a fool she had been. Nothing more than an ignorant housegirl in a big man’s house. She cried. There had never been plans for her to be educated, to become a nurse. He was shifting his money to each of his mistresses. He has brought me to America for this?
He was still asleep on the couch. Her hands fumbled with the buttons of the phone dial. Aunty would advise her well. Ifi had never placed a longdistance call from America. Job had explained that the cost was far too expensive. And if Aunty were to receive such an expensive call, at such an hour, the only explanation would be a death. She set the phone back in its cradle. She would handle this on her own. After all, she was no longer a young girl. Ifi placed the letter on his slack chest, went to their bedroom, and began to pack her belongings: the jeans, the Nebraska sweatshirts, the yellow dress.
There was a knock at the door. It was Mrs. Janik. “I just came to offer you my support,” Mrs. Janik said. “We women just can’t put up with the abuses men give us. He can go back to his prostitute. He can keep her diseases to himself.” She leaned in. “You know there’s an AIDS epidemic. And it’s because of men like him.”
Job turned on the couch.
“You just tell him you don’t want to have anything to do with him. You pack your things, and you can come over to my place.”
Job turned again, slowly.
“Yes,” Ifi said.
Mrs. Janik waited expectantly. She tried to glance around Ifi into the room.
“I will do it when he wakes,” Ifi said.
Mrs. Janik arched an eyebrow. “Listen, you tell him this isn’t Africa. I was reading about them men. Twenty wives! Well, he can’t do that here. He can’t own a woman in America. We got our own minds and our own money to do what we want.”
Ifi nodded. “When he goes to work,” she said.
“I’ll come over and get you,” Mrs. Janik said. She leaned in farther and whispered to Ifi, “It’s probably better that way. We don’t want him to get violent or anything. If there’s one thing I won’t tolerate, it’s a wife beater.”
Ifi nodded and let the door close on Mrs. Janik. When she turned around, Job was sitting up. The letter was on the floor. Mrs. Janik was right. Who knew what such a man was capable of? In three quick strides, she walked to him and stepped on the letter, hiding it.
“Which man beats his wives?” Job asked. He yawned and stretched.
“The Mexican.”
“With the nine children? The wife that’s a prostitute?”
“Yes.”
He laughed. Ifi’s laugh was an imitation of his.
“Imagine what that crazy old lady has to say about us,” he said.
“What do you think she says about us?”
“Never mind her. She is a useless woman.” Job said these last words with a yawn as he rolled over.
But Ifi wanted to know, and it made her angry that he hadn’t bothered to answer her question. It bothered her that he could so easily dismiss Mrs. Janik. Mrs. Janik was right; Ifi would not be deceived. She wondered what he would do when he woke to find that she was gone.
For the first time, she slipped on her shoes and coat and went next door to Mrs. Janik’s place. Like Ifi’s building, the concrete was broken, and the front door hung on its hinges with a torn-out screen. There were three buttons, and Ifi found the one labeled Janik. She punched the button several times, but there was no answer. Just as she was beginning to lose her resolve, Mrs. Janik stuck her head out her window at the top of the building.
“Hiya!” she said. “It doesn’t work. I’ll let you up. Gimmie a second.” She arrived at the door in moments, breathing heavily, her rear stooped out behind her. “Come on in, sweetie.” She threw the door open and Ifi followed.
“Where’s your stuff?”
“I’ll get it later, when he goes to work,” Ifi said. But she dreaded going back. She never wanted to see him or that dump again.
“Well darling, you don’t have to worry. I wouldn’t let that dog lay a hand on you.”
“Darling,” Ifi said softly. She cringed. It was a word she could only understand in the context of lovers, lovers who were quarreling.
They proceeded up the steps, three tall wooden flights of stairs that wound up the old building. The hallways smelled musty. As they passed each landing, Ifi could see used, dirty newspapers.
Mrs. Janik lived on the top floor, even at her age. It occurred to Ifi that she wasn’t exactly sure how old Mrs. Janik was. She hadn’t yet learned how to tell the age of a white person. Before Mrs. Janik opened the door, Ifi could immediately smell the strong scent of cats. Once inside, she glanced around, looking for the offending animals. But she couldn’t find them. Instead what she saw was an orderly, windowless room with a harsh overhanging light that illuminated row upon row of dusty porcelain figurines along shelves pushed against every inch of wall space. Small porcelain children, dogs, birds, cats. Ifi leaned in and sniffed one of the cats.
“I can’t ever seem to keep the dust from coming in,” Mrs. Janik said. She picked up a duster from a drawer and proceeded to swat at each figurine, succeeding only in stirring and rearranging the dust with each whisk. It was no use.
Mrs. Janik showed Ifi around, pointing out the kitchen, the bathroom, her bedroom, and a small closet with a sewing machine. It was th
e same story in each room: shelves lined with tiny porcelain figurines with matte finishes from the fine layer of dust. “You can sleep in the guest room,” Mrs. Janik said once they stood outside the sewing room. “You can have it as long as you like. I’ll even pull in a cot for you to sleep on.” Then, for good measure, she happily added, “We women have to stick together.”
Mrs. Janik poured them cold tea in small cups from the back of her cabinet. They sat around a wooden table in uncomfortable wicker chairs. It reminded Ifi of staying with Job’s family for those three months. Tea after church on Sundays, the white wicker chairs, and the way Job’s sister, Jenny, and his mother would regard her with a look that was a mere shrug between disgust and acquiescence. The Ogbonnayas were of the haves who no longer had, those who had once lived in wealth and then found a way to lose it all. Even then, Ifi knew that they were settling on her, a girl without even a first degree. The only thing she had was her good name.
“Ifi,” Mrs. Janik said now, “you haven’t had your tea. Drink up. It’ll get cold.”
Ifi sipped the cold tea.
“You’ll like it here.” Mrs. Janik pointed to a spread of home decorating magazines, selecting one. “I noticed you reading one the other day,” she said. “I read them too.” Then she looked around the room and beamed. “See? I’m the queen in my home. Tomorrow we’ll go and get you whatever it is you want to eat at the grocery. And you don’t even have to cook it.”
How could she be queen of such a place? This could not be Ifi’s home. Her eyes rested on the magazine cover, the gloriously furnished room with its skylights and sleek leather furniture. This was the home she would make for herself. This was the place she left Nigeria for.
“Don’t worry. You can stay as long as you like,” Mrs. Janik said. “I know you’re not like them.”
Ifi nodded as Mrs. Janik made her way to the kitchen. She’d heard her reasoning before. Mrs. Janik had explained that the black woman across the street was a prostitute. After all, there is no way a girl her age could afford to live on her own, and so many men come in and out of her home. Ifi had seen the men before, all tall and narrow, like the woman. For the first time, she realized that they could merely be her brothers and uncles. She felt ridiculous. Surely there was a logical explanation for Job’s letter. Suddenly, all Ifi wanted was to leave. Soon Job would wake for work. She would start another letter to Aunty tonight. It would ease her mind. Already Ifi was crafting the letter in her mind, imagining the details of the magazine, describing the skylights and the finish of the wooden furniture. She gazed anxiously at the magazine. There were so many that Mrs. Janik would not notice. She slipped it under her wrapper.
“I have to go,” she said when Mrs. Janik returned.
“What?” Mrs. Janik frowned.
“After he leaves, I’ll return.”
“Okay,” Mrs. Janik said. “I guess it makes sense. We don’t want to make a scene when he gets violent. God knows I can’t stand gossip.”
Job was still asleep when Ifi made it back to the apartment. She returned to the bedroom and sat staring at the suitcase with the clothes in it. Nothing was hers. Not the yellow dress, not the Nebraska sweatshirts or jeans. He’d bought them all. After a while, she put the clothes back and sat gazing out the window. A thin veneer of frost outlined the panes. The colors outside were muted, ash gray. She hated this place.
Job’s snores rose from deep within his belly. Ifi stared into his face, watching as his nostrils widened with each inhalation. She picked up the letter from the floor and placed it in her pocket. She fixed their food.
At mealtime, they ate silently. After hesitating, Job asked, “What do you write about to Aunty?”
“I tell her,” Ifi said truthfully, “whatever it is that she would like to know.”
Job left for work. Twenty minutes later, Mrs. Janik knocked at the door. Ifi didn’t answer it. She put the light out, switched off the radio, and crawled into bed. She reminded herself of how a simple explanation from Job would suffice. Any explanation. When the knocks finally stopped, she rose one last time and set the letter on the couch, where Job would place his briefcase on his return.
CHAPTER 5
WHEN JOB ARRIVED HOME FROM WORK THE NEXT MORNING, THE phone was ringing. He cringed at its sound, hoping it wasn’t Cheryl. It was only Emeka. Emeka’s breath caught on the phone. Gladys was in the delivery room. “My boy is coming,” Emeka said with triumph. “He is here.”
Although they left in the same car, it was as if Job and Ifi arrived separately. By the time they made it to the maternity ward, the contractions had stopped, and the baby had been delivered: he was dead. His body was cold and colorless in the incubator. His features were immovable, like a waxy ball of clay carved with a fine needle. A patch of wet, dark curls was splayed across his crown, as if someone had pressed a palm onto his head.
Each of Emeka’s daughters waited in a line, and one by one they peeked over the glass at the lifeless baby. The room was respectfully somber. And there was Gladys. To one side of her bed was a photograph recently taken, the one Job imagined them sitting for the evening he had collected Ifi from the airport. Emeka and Gladys were surrounded by their daughters, all striking in their likeness to both parents, the youngest in ribbons and hair baubles. Even the eldest daughters stood in the picture, women who in their silly youth could not yet embody Gladys’s grace.
Today, Gladys was drowning in hospital sheets, her face turned toward the sunlight that poured in through the windows. She looked bloated, like flayed dough. Yet somewhere, hidden, was her effortless beauty. Seeing her there, exhausted yet beautiful, Job felt the familiar tug to his chest.
One of Emeka’s daughters was peering at the baby, her gaze incredulous. Her smallest finger darted forward and hooked into the baby’s nostril. She wiggled it around. No one noticed right away, except for Job.
Thinking about it after the fact, Job was struck by how quickly everything happened. How immediately after, Emeka had pulled the little girl to his body and embraced her tightly, and gently said, “Your brother.” How suddenly, almost thoughtlessly, Emeka’s arm had sliced through the air and thwacked the back of her head, hard, like he was catching a falling pebble. Her chin had butted forward, connecting with the rim of the incubator. Her lip had split open. Blood seeped through the crack into the space between her teeth, and a pink film washed over them. Her shrieks filled the room.
For a moment, no one knew what to do except for Emeka, whose arms were tightly wound around her body. He kissed her forehead. “Come now,” he said. “Stop this crying. Stop this.”
In answer, the girl shrieked, “Mommy!” She flung her body at her mother.
Several nurses entered the room. They saw the split lip, now an angry lump. Their gazes were a collection of fury, but they didn’t know where to look or how it happened. Maybe the girl fell. Maybe it was one of her sisters. Or maybe it was him.
Gladys kneaded her fingers into her forehead. A haggard, insistent sound from deep inside her chest hissed, “Go.” She turned to Emeka. “Ngwa, get out!”
At first, no one left the room. Then, gradually, each made their way toward the door. One of the nurses attempted to pry the daughter loose from Gladys, but she was unrelenting. The nurse looked at Ifi. “Go with your aunt,” she said.
For the first time, the little girl stopped crying. “That’s not my aunt,” she said through hiccups. “Mommy says to call her Aunty, but she’s not my real aunty.”
“Well, you don’t have to call her Aunty if you don’t want to,” the nurse said.
“Good,” the girl said. Then after a moment, she reconsidered. “But I want to.” The nurse finally had her hand, but the girl took it back. She glared accusingly at the woman and took Ifi’s hand instead. They walked out of the room together, her cries softened to a just-audible hum.
Job was already waiting with the line of girls in their jeans, denim skirts, and cotton tights, when Emeka finally emerged from the room. He stalked past
the row and Job followed. Emeka had made a bad impression, and Job couldn’t help but feel vindicated. After a look at the open doorway, he imagined Gladys on the other side of it, swallowed by grief. He was immediately ashamed.
A circuitous route of glowing corridors and elevators took them outside to the parking lot. Emeka climbed into his car, a shiny SUV with panels of glowing lights on the dash. At first Job waited outside, thinking that once Emeka straightened up and collected himself, he’d go back to the room, to his wife, to his life. Instead he started the car, and Job was forced to occupy the passenger seat.
“Where are you going?” Job asked.
“We are blessed to have the sun on such a day,” Emeka said with cheer.
It infuriated Job. Why must he pretend now? Better to apologize and beg for mercy. “You be careful, my friend,” he said. “Those nurses will call police for what you did to that child.”
Emeka laughed, tightly.
“And what of Gladys?” Job asked.
“Oh, she’ll be fine.” He nodded vigorously. “They’ll be fine.”
After the second circle around the parking lot, it was obvious they had nowhere to go.
“Let us get a drink,” Job said. “It will calm you.”
“You think so,” Emeka said. A look of spite was on his face, a look that Job recognized almost immediately from the little girl. He glared at Job, but turned out of the parking lot. They made their way up tree-lined streets until they approached the cluster of buildings that was Omaha’s downtown. All the bars were closed at that early hour, so they drove until they hit Highway 6. The roads were mostly empty, occupied by scattered fence posts and morose-looking cows with shining marble eyes peering out onto the road.
A billboard alerted them to the only building for miles, the Cattle Crawl. It was a stout brick building surrounded by a ring of rusted cars and trucks. After a moment, they climbed out of the car. The light was on, a flickering pink neon sign that said Come Right In. A man was just putting his cigarette out when he saw them. He shifted his considerable heft to hold the door open and let the two pass.
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