He smiled knowingly. Then asked, “How long she staying?”
“A few months.”
“Long time. You showing her around?”
“I don’t know,” Ifi said.
For a long time he thought. “Yeah, I guess there ain’t a lot to do here.” After a moment, his eyes flashed eagerly. “Last year we went on a field trip to see the cranes.” He twitched eagerly. “The sandhill cranes. They come from all over the world. All over. And they stop just to rest and get fat before they go the rest of the way. Take her there. People come from all over the world to see.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. They dance, they sing, they eat. Sounds corny, but it was cool. I mean, why they want to come here? And yeah, they come here, but at the same time they know this ain’t the place for them. It’s temporary.”
“Then this can never be home for them,” she said softly, sadly.
“No,” he said, “and it was never meant to be like that.”
“I see.”
“They’re like people, ain’t they?” he asked.
“Yes,” Ifi said, thinking of Job and her small boy. “Like some.”
Reflecting again about the night of the party, she fixed a hard gaze on the withered exterior of the wooden house across the street, remembering the way Jamal’s family had been driven every which way by the police. Yet today, a collection of boys lounged on the porch as if nothing had happened. Jamal’s family was not calamitous. They were resilient. “What happened to the old lady and the chef?” she asked.
Jamal shrugged. “She fine. Gave her a ticket for disturbing the peace, then dismissed it and sent her home the same night. She so proud of herself though, been talking about it to everybody, trying to get petitions for police brutality.” After a moment, he nodded. “She a tough old lady.”
“And the chef?”
“Not so good. Nobody had the money to bail him, so he sat it out. Came out of there angry and mean.”
“That’s sad,” Ifi said, thinking of the chef’s special barbecue recipe.
“Yeah, well.” Jamal shrugged.
Just then, a Buick pulled up the block, humming and shaking from the weight of blaring speakers. A honk sounded. Through the car’s windows, Ifi could see that some of the boys looked to be in their late teens, but at least two were old enough to be in their twenties. One of them rolled the window down and peered at Ifi and Jamal. A boy in the car catcalled and licked his lips at her. Heat burned her cheeks. When she turned away, she found Jamal examining his shoelaces.
“Are these your friends?”
He looked as embarrassed as she felt.
“Are these the boys you helped that night?” How can he speak to them once more? she wondered.
“They won’t bother him again. I promise.”
Ifi glanced up and down the street, but there was no sign of Job’s car. Finally, her eyes returned to Jamal, a skinny boy with ashy knuckles and uncombed hair, a mere child. “Jamal, why do you roam with such boys? They are too old for you. Too much trouble.”
“You ain’t my mama,” he said stubbornly.
Another honk blared, and he cut across the grass into the street, hollering and hooting. Before jumping in, he pounded the hood of the car with his fists, and the guys inside roared and set off a series of honks.
Ifi sighed. Only trouble can follow.
Binoculars were on the short list of items to bring. Unfortunately, they forgot the cold. As a result, Job’s nose dripped. Shocks of cool air rippled, and Ifi clutched her skirt to her knees, heels digging into the damp earth. Purple ash split the sky, and the sun was just beginning to rise, casting a brilliant orange pool on the water. It was the time of day that Job only witnessed from a patient’s open window; today, he would share it with Ifi, Aunty, Emeka, Gladys, and their children. And then tomorrow and the day after, he would work double shifts to make up the lost money.
A shallow, braided stream no more than six inches deep rippled. At its surface, the Platte River was a dark blue with sharp folds, like seams. Cars were staked along the edge of the dirt road. Already a crowd had gathered, spread out on blankets and lawn chairs. Others stood in a line along an old wooden bridge, a child or two dangling sneakered feet between the gaps in its struts. A few pickup trucks had lowered their gates, and inside, couples were cocooned in one another’s arms with flasks of hot coffee drawn to their lips, their eyes eerily large behind binoculars.
Aunty rocked the baby in her lap in sudden muscle spasms that could only be a result of the cold. At least she didn’t complain, not exactly, not about the cold or the smell of the river or even the noise of the honking birds. Instead, with a shudder, she loudly compared the sunrise to urine that had missed the commode. Emeka laughed, hard and loud, in a crackle that burst the air. Other couples glared at them, as if the birds could hear him over their own noise. Emeka’s youngest, cradled in his lap and kneaded together by his arms and legs, whispered for him to quiet. Gladys told the girl not to disrespect her father. Then she sent Emeka the same withering glare she had on her face when they had all arrived in a caravan, one car containing the Ogbonnaya family and the other Emeka, Gladys, and their two youngest daughters.
Coming to this place had been Ifi’s idea, an idea that Job still had yet to understand. There was nothing spectacular about this event. Nothing at all. Days earlier, as he had pulled the car up to the curb, she stood out on the steps, the mail in her hands, waiting for Job to come home. Seeing her waiting expectantly, like a good wife, had pleased him. Then his pleasure quickly dissipated. She offered him the mail and told him about the sandhill cranks—that’s what Ifi had called them—and Mrs. Janik’s visit that morning with the bread that Ifi had foolishly thrown away.
Before he could hear another word from her, Job stalked right past Ifi and retrieved the bread from the rubbish bin, where it was split into two halves. There was nothing wrong with the bread. For nearly two decades, because of his frugality, he had survived on his own in America while others could not keep their lights on. Ifi would have to learn the same. He dusted the bread off, warmed it in the oven, then sliced it and ate it with his coffee, dipping it in long enough to soften its edges before swallowing the moist chunks whole.
Aunty agreed that things went to waste in America, that it was the American way, though she refused to sample the bread. To prove his point, Job had been forced to eat the entire loaf on his own. Afterwards, he visited Mrs. Janik to offer his thanks. While there, he asked her about the sandhill cranks, and Mrs. Janik told him about romantic trips out into the prairie to see the sandhill cranes twice a year, and how it was world renowned, something every American needed to do once. Just the perfect occasion to show Aunty the America the Americans knew.
When Gladys and Emeka agreed to come along, it was settled. The whole idea had pleased Job. It would be an opportunity to talk to Emeka about meeting Cheryl the following morning, Sunday. For Ifi, it would give her a chance to develop her friendship with Gladys so Ifi would find no reason to consort with troublemakers any longer. Gladys could teach Ifi about proper clothes and the proper way to wear her makeup and which Americans to speak to and which to avoid. Perhaps if this information comes from a fellow woman, Job thought, my wife will not be so stubborn.
All morning, Job had debated how to corner Emeka and ask him about Cheryl. This was their first time out since the big fight, and Job still burned with fury at the way Emeka had laughed off his rage. In spite of this, when he had called, Emeka acted as if nothing had happened. When they had first arrived on-site, Emeka made some silly joke about Job’s twenty dollars buying his daughter candy. To illustrate his point, he called the girl over to him. A wet, sticky string of licorice dangled from her mouth, and she gazed suspiciously at Job. To rub salt in the wound, Emeka ordered the girl to share some of her candy with her uncle. Job almost spat in his face, but he kept his composure and corrected Emeka, saying that it was, in fact, two hundred dollars, and that Emeka could spend it how
ever he pleased. Gladys, who up until then hadn’t paid attention to the two, fractured their heated exchange with her own severe expression.
Since that time, Emeka had been avoiding Gladys’s furious glares. Her anger was so satisfying that now as he sat thinking, Job wound his fingers around Ifi’s and pulled her closer, feeling the heat of his breath moisten the skin of her forehead. It did not occur to him to wonder what the source of Gladys’s anger was. He had not felt so warmed and calm in such a long time, and thinking this, Job pushed away his worries of the last few weeks: Emeka, Ifi and the criminal boy, Aunty, Captain’s death, and even his meeting with Cheryl. He would hear what she had to say later. This problem, he decided, I will worry tomorrow.
Hundreds, maybe thousands of cranes, gray like dust, roosted along the river and clumsily made their way out past a fan of trees, their deafening cries like rusty horns. One at a time, their stick legs lifted, shaking the water free before bursting into the air. From a distance, patches of tremendous lush greenery weaved through the brown fields. Up close, the ground was damp and dark from melting snow. Mostly the fields were flat, but occasionally a crest or a rise gave the appearance of valleys that went forever into the distance.
Someone whispered, “They’re dancing,” and a collective gasp escaped. Both feet touched down in a leap, wings outstretched. In turn, one after another, the cranes shot forward with their wings thrown like flipped umbrellas.
Job thought it was Gladys’s voice that whispered, “They’re dancing,” so he glanced her way, but she was only watching the sleeping boy in Aunty’s lap. For the first time, it occurred to Job that Gladys had yet to visit with the boy, even to touch him. And even then, he couldn’t remember a single time that he’d witnessed her with the baby in her hands. A tear moistened her face in a shimmering path. His eyes fixated there. A memory came to him. Many months earlier in the hospital room, overlooking Emeka and Gladys’s newborn son’s lifeless body in the incubator, Gladys had looked nearly defeated. She still yearns for her dead son, Job thought. Why hadn’t he ever put it together before? But she had seemed so strong. It was Emeka whose face had contorted into various poses. It was Emeka who had seemed so weak. Their eyes met, Gladys’s and Job’s, but she did not wipe away her tear. He was suddenly overcome.
Exactly how he did not know, but on the way back to the cars, Job found his strides matching the rhythm of Gladys’s instead of Emeka’s. He forgot everything. He forgot about his decision to discuss Cheryl and to figure out a plan of action. He forgot his decision to stomach his pride in favor of counsel. Together, in silence, Job and Gladys watched the backs of the others grow smaller and smaller as the distance grew between them. When they were far enough behind the others to not be heard, Gladys spoke. “You talk to him,” she said. “What does he say?”
In the distance, Emeka suddenly flipped his youngest daughter up onto his shoulders, and she squealed. Licorice slipped from her fingers onto the damp, muddy earth, and she howled in horror. As she twisted in an effort to reach her candy, he flung wild promises at her until the cries finally subsided. He told her he would buy her the whole store. He would ask the candy maker for the ingredients, and her mother would bake it in the oven for her and fill the shelves in her bedroom with ropes and ropes of licorice.
At this, Job couldn’t help but laugh. But when he glanced back at Gladys, the same pained expression was on her face. He wondered how to answer her. What can she mean? he thought. Does she know of Emeka’s women? Well, she would be angry. Job would have to promise to chastise Emeka. And then things would move on. It was the best counsel he could offer. Some men simply must stray. Still, he couldn’t help but believe in his heart that Gladys could do better. If Gladys were Job’s wife, he would never stray. A man with Emeka’s stupidity simply didn’t deserve a classical woman like Gladys.
“Job, my brother,” she said, “we have known you for many years, since you first arrived in this country, no?”
“Yes,” he said quietly.
“Is it not us who taught you how to walk when you first came to America?”
Job cringed. Even after all these years, this was the foolish thought that Emeka had taught his wife. Job fought the urge to retaliate against Emeka, to tell Gladys that he came to this country walking, that he came walking because he would never make the mistakes that his brother had made. Emeka, so much like my own senior brother, the fool. Emeka was the joke, and one day everything would collapse around him. Gazing at Ifi, Job wondered if that was happening right now. Deep in his gut, he felt a pleasure that he refused to shrug off. Gladys, he admitted to himself, is a woman!—in fact, the same age as himself. Ifi is a mere child.
Instead of telling Gladys that her husband knew nothing, that he was the fool, Job reminded himself that Gladys was only repeating what Emeka had said to her. Surely she couldn’t believe it. After all, when he first came to America, Gladys and Emeka were the only two people he knew. For many years. Indeed, Gladys had always treated Job like her own brother, cooking meals for him, bringing him beer, sharing in the surprise and pleasure when he announced his plans to marry and when he announced that his first son was born.
In the Nigerian way, she did not come right out and ask for her favor immediately, but as the conversation developed, it became obvious that she was in need of Job’s aid in some way. “You know, my brother, things are hard here in America,” Gladys said. She leaned into him just a bit and ran a finger past her tired eyes.
Job agreed with her. As he watched her, he was again humbled by her beauty, her grace. She was a tall woman with smooth chestnut skin, shapely thighs, hair plaited into a neat bun—the kind of woman Ifi would surely become with a little more time and patience.
“My husband has sent every relative to school. He has paid for every business, repaired every home in Nigeria. Because of our success. My entire town remembers my husband when there is sickness. But, you know, we need to grow our family here in America. Isn’t that so?”
Job agreed. He told her about the money he’d sent to his relatives and in-laws. He told her about his father’s construction business, his mother’s hair salon, his junior brother and sisters’ expenses for school, and the family of his wife. As he spoke to her, he turned up his palms and gazed at his hands, finding the shine of gnarled, hardening flesh.
“Some people are not grateful for the sacrifices we make in America,” Gladys said. “They don’t know because we are too humble to announce them to the world.”
Job agreed, his eyes settling on Ifi up ahead.
“Money for everything. For clothes, for car, for school, for light.” She sighed.
Isn’t it plain? he thought. She is asking for the money her husband is too proud to ask for. Job would give her whatever she needed. Whatever she asked for. Delight filled him. After all these years and all of Emeka’s boasts, his beautiful wife was here begging Job for money. Hadn’t Emeka admitted that Gladys was spending their money on juju so that she could finally have her son? How much had they spent? What was left of their fortune? Emeka had needed the two hundred dollars Job gave him, but he was too proud to accept it on his own, so he had tossed it to his daughter. In his excitement, Job threw out the first words that came to mind. “Stop sending money to native doctors,” he said. “What good has it accomplished?”
Gladys said nothing at first. Instead, her pained expression hardened. “My sister has three sons. Me, I only have girls, six daughters. Not even one boy. My girls are intelligent and beautiful. Still, all the money in the world cannot make his family respect me.”
Up ahead, Emeka lifted his child off his shoulders and tickled her. Mid-swing he turned back, his eyes settling on Gladys and Job. For a second, Job was sure he saw an anxious frown flicker across Emeka’s face before he returned to his daughter.
“Stop wasting your money on juju,” Job said again, thinking of the two hundred dollars he’d lost. Throwing such money away wasn’t easy. He would suffer for it. Just the same, he would give her wh
atever she asked. How can I say no to Gladys? he thought. No one can say no to Gladys. “Times are hard in America, but we must help one another,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. Her face suddenly filled with anxiety. She stared deep into Job’s eyes and then turned away.
How much? Job wondered. Three hundred? One thousand? Again, he felt startled by her beauty—her eyes, her lips, the fullness of her cheeks.
“My brother, are you hearing me?” It was the second time that she had asked her question, and Job realized he had been caught up in her beauty.
“Yes,” he said with finality. He waited for her to announce the number.
“Your wife will not understand,” she said. “This business happens in Nigeria, but it is not understood in America.”
Job frowned. What can she mean? he thought. A-ah! This woman’s pride. “No problem,” he said. “I’ll dash you.”
Now Gladys frowned. Again, she stared hard at him. “Dash me?” Her gaze softened. “Yes, that is exactly what this is,” she said. “Just one,” she answered, “before my time has passed.”
A balloon of pleasure rose in his chest. He still didn’t quite understand, but he nodded in agreement anyway.
“Job, I have always known that you would do anything for me.” Her glance hardened as it settled on her husband, but when her face returned to Job’s, her lips turned up in a smile. She moved girlishly, swinging her roundish hips.
His stomach flipped. “Yes, of course,” Job said. “Anything.”
By the time they’d made it to the car, Gladys and Job had agreed to meet at a restaurant after his shift at the hospital the next morning. In his elation, he forgot about his meeting with Cheryl at exactly the same time across town.
CHAPTER 13
EXTRACTING ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS FROM HIS SAVINGS ACCOUNT IN the early hours of Sunday morning had been a challenge. In his haste, Job forgot that the bank was closed, arriving only to press his face against the dark window before being forced to stop at four separate ATMS to collect the entire amount. At the time, he had ignored the shame in the pit of his stomach. Now that Aunty was visiting, there was not a cent of extra money. This was his father’s money, money now meant for his son’s future. Still, as long as it would take, he would work harder and pay every cent back. Now, he nervously clasped the damp stack of bills in the pocket of his lab coat.
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