Praise Song for the Butterflies

by Bernice L. McFadden

  No one minded that she slept with her eyes open and bathed from a bucket because losing Pra the way she did had left her with a severe case of aquaphobia.

  “All that will change in time,” Femi promised.

  “But how can you be sure?” Abeo questioned.

  “Because,” Femi offered with a smile, “I watched my sister change. It was slow, it was painful, but it happened, and it will happen for you as well.”

  Abeo nodded. “I see him you know,” she breathed.

  “Who?”

  “Duma. I see Duma.”

  “Hmm. In your dreams?” Femi asked.

  “Yes, there and in the faces of people in magazines, in the faces of strangers on the street, and sometimes I swear I can smell him.” Her lips curled into a snarl. “That scent of his—sweat and beer and peanuts.” She shuddered. “Then there are those times when I can feel his presence, as if he is standing as close as you are to me right now.” Abeo touched Femi’s wrist. “The dreams are the worst, though.” She moved her hand to her earlobe and tugged it fretfully. “I always die in those dreams.”

  Femi frowned. “You die?”

  “I see him and I take off running. I am running and running as fast as I can, but it is never fast enough—he always catches me and kills me.”

  The women sat in silence until Femi clapped her hands against her thighs. “Well, Abeo, you must do in your dreams what you are doing in life.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Face your fears head-on. When you dream of Duma again, you must not run away from him. Run directly to him and then end him.”

  * * *

  Abeo set about getting to know her new family and the tightly knit African community. Along with her new sisters, she attended amateur night at the Apollo Theater and laughed at the comedians’ jokes even though the punch lines often evaded her. She thought it insensitive the way the audience booed the bad acts, and covered her eyes when the infamous Sand Man, dressed in his hobo tuxedo, came trotting out onto the stage with his hook. The Hama family were Methodists who attended the Mother AME Zion Church on West 137th Street.

  Abeo had long ago decided that even after all she’d been through, she still believed in God—but now it was a god of her understanding. That said, she did enjoy the Sunday-morning sermons, the shouting, and the music, and she always left feeling elated.

  Eventually, she made a friend, then two. When the phone rang, sometimes it was for her.

  Femi smiled, full of happiness for her newest child. “Are you ready to call Serafine yet?” she asked one evening.

  A shadow fell over Abeo’s face. “Not yet.”

  “Okay then.”

  Abeo was able to get a job in a hair shop—a corner space without sinks or hair dryers. Boxes of human and synthetic hair lined the walls, stacked halfway to the ceiling.

  “We got all colors,” declared Jasmine, the rotund Cameroonian owner. She rustled through one of the boxes and retrieved a dozen packs of hair. “Blond, blue, warm sunset, Kool-Aid red—this one is a very popular color,” she laughed, shaking the pack at Abeo.

  No appointment necessary. Five chairs, six girls—sometimes twenty fingers worked on one head. All day long, hawkers wandered in and out of the shop:

  “I got that new Will Smith movie, ladies! Five dollars, five dollars!”

  “Heaven in a bottle, sweetheart, take a sniff of this oil. For you—because you’re so beautiful—just three dollars.”

  “Of course it’s real gold!”

  “You don’t want to buy my music? That’s okay. How much do I have to pay to hear your melody?”

  To Abeo, Harlem was like Port Masi—like home.

  The first week, Abeo came home with $245 and tried to pass the entire roll of money to Femi, who smacked her hand away. “Don’t insult me!”

  * * *

  In no time, summer was upon them. The shop door was propped open with an old broom handle. Oscillating fans wafted the heat from one corner to the next.

  Abeo suffered through the heat in long-sleeved shirts camouflaging the history on her arms.

  But then the day came when a woman walked into the shop with a scar as big as a pancake on the side of her face. She sat down at Abeo’s station and talked and laughed as if the disfigurement was as fetching as a beauty mark.

  “I want it braided up and into a bun,” she explained, pulling the green-and-pink scarf from her head.

  When Abeo was done, the woman, Beatrix, grinned at her reflection, applied a coat of gloss to her lips, handed Abeo a twenty-dollar tip, and sauntered out into the heat like a queen with a new crown.

  That evening over dinner, Chipo, Femi, and the girls listened intently as Abeo described Beatrix’s scarred face and blithe attitude.

  “Sister, are you saying she wasn’t even wearing foundation?”

  “No.” Abeo sank her fork into the belly of the deep-fried snapper and yanked away a chunk of flaky white meat. “Just mascara and lip gloss.”

  “Were the people in the shop not staring at her, sister?”

  Abeo nodded. “Some people stared, but she didn’t seem to care. I did catch her winking at one person who kept peeping at her.”

  “Aah, that is a brave woman!”

  When Chipo cleared his throat, the women quieted and gazed at him expectantly. “Scars are proof of survival, they shouldn’t be hidden—it’s a story someone may need to see in order to believe that beyond their pain and suffering, there is healing.” Chipo was a man of few words, but when he did speak, he was always profound.

  Abeo was inspired. She arrived to work the next day in a short-sleeved shirt. Eyes skirted over the marks on her arms, but not a question was asked until a black American girl plopped down at her station, crossed her shiny legs, and huffed, “You’re African, right?”

  Abeo nodded.

  The girl aimed a lacquered orange fingernail at her right arm. “So those are like tribal scars?”

  Abeo thought about it for a moment and finally responded, “Yes, they are.”

  44

  Femi’s nephew Dayo Chebe was thirty years old and married to a nursing student named Connie, who had agreed to become his wife for five thousand dollars. He supported himself by driving a taxi, but was planning to go back to school to become a mechanical engineer once his citizenship came through.

  Cinnamon-colored, tall, and pudgy, Dayo was hardly ever without a smile. His wry and witty sense of humor kept friends, family, and passengers in stitches. He was well-known and well-loved in and out of his community.

  He slept on the couch in the Harlem apartment he shared with his pretend wife. She had a boyfriend named Carl who referred to Dayo as “my brother from another mother” and the two greeted one another with high fives and fist bumps.

  A few months after Abeo had moved in with Chipo and his family, Dayo came by for dinner and was so taken with Abeo that he couldn’t stop staring at her, which made Abeo so uncomfortable that she excused herself from the table, her plate of jollof rice barely touched.

  It was a bad habit, this staring. Ukembans tolerated it, but Americans hated it—hated being watched. Even if he was admiring them, they took it as an insult. It wasn’t such a problem back in Ukemby. People saw something they liked or didn’t like and they gawked until they were satisfied.

  Once, when Dayo was still new to America, he was on a downtown bus, sitting across from a group of teenagers who were telling yo’ mama jokes and laughing so loudly that the driver threatened to throw them off. A lover of humor, Dayo had watched openly, soaking up every single word.

  At one point, a short, chunky boy of fifteen or so narrowed his eyes at Dayo and barked, “Yo, what the fuck you looking at?”

  His response was innocent and honest: “You.”

  After that, Dayo found himself in his first American fistfight.

  Yes, he’d stared at her arms, at the faint and fading scars and the raised and golden ones shaped like lightning bolts. But he’d spent so much more tim
e gazing at her pretty face and soft eyes. Truth was, he had a few scars of his own, the remnants of a rambunctious childhood and strict parents. One day, he mused as Abeo hurried away from the table, they might share their war stories and laugh at what had tried to kill them and failed.

  After that meal, Dayo began dropping by the apartment more frequently, often arriving unannounced and offering his services. “Do you need me to hang that picture? Replace the shelf bracket?” All the while his eyes were latched onto Abeo, who did not welcome, encourage, or appreciate the attention.

  Dayo was perplexed.

  “Am I not handsome?” he questioned Femi after Abeo scurried off to her bedroom. He raised his arm and sniffed his pit. “Do I not smell good?” He blew into his palms. “Did Listerine fail me?”

  Femi laughed and placed a consoling hand on his shoulder. “She needs time.”

  “Why?”

  “That is for her to explain, not me.”

  45

  For their daughter’s eighteenth birthday, Femi and Chipo decided to throw her a big party. The dance hall they chose was an ancient space that had not been properly maintained. The paint was peeling and cracked, the floor tiles were loose or missing, and the bathrooms were dingy, dark, and mildewy. But Femi didn’t see any of it—to her it looked like a palace. They rented the space for five hundred dollars, and family and friends devoted two days to decorating the hall.

  On the evening of the event, the elder men and women, adorned in their finest frocks and sharpest dashikis, crowded the dance floor alongside teenagers sporting sneakers, jeans, spandex dresses, and incredibly high heels.

  Abeo watched from behind the long rectangular tables weighed down with tin pans of food, kept warm with Sterno cans. Foot tapping to the rotation of highlife, R&B, and rap music, she spooned food onto paper plates.

  “May I have this dance?”

  Dayo had approached from the rear, startling Abeo. She dropped the spoon and it bounced to the floor, sending grains of rice everywhere.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, snatching up a roll of paper towels and dropping to his knees. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” He brushed the rice into a pile and scooped it up.

  Dayo excited and terrified Abeo. She so wanted to have a boyfriend; both of her new sisters were giddy in love. To everyone in Abeo’s new world, the pairing of men and women was the most natural thing one could do, so why did it seem so unnatural to her?

  Femi said the years of abuse—sexual and otherwise—had indeed distorted her perception of men, but that she need not worry, in time she would learn to trust again.

  Abeo didn’t feel that time alone would solve her problem. She was uncertain she could ever have a man in her life, because Duma wouldn’t make room for him. True, Duma no longer had control of her body, but he still colonized her mind and terrorized her dreams.

  Abeo knew that only death could truly emancipate her. What she didn’t know was which one of them would have to die.

  Dayo tossed the soiled paper towels into a nearby garbage can and then turned earnest eyes on her. “Will you dance with me, please?”

  Abeo glanced around wildly for help.

  When she still hadn’t responded to his request, Dayo announced, “I cannot take no for an answer. If you refuse me, I will die.” And with that, he collapsed dramatically to the floor.

  Abeo laughed in spite of herself. He was silly, that Dayo. Silly and persistent. How could she deny him?

  “Get up,” she giggled. “The floor is filthy.”

  They danced a foot apart. Dayo anticipated her every move and his eyes never left hers. After their dance, he escorted her back to the table, fetched her a cup of punch, and lured her into light conversation, which he littered with corny American jokes, causing Abeo to laugh until her sides ached.

  “Wow, you carry the sun in your smile!” Dayo exclaimed.

  Abeo blushed.

  That night, Dayo made Abeo feel like a princess in that broken-down palace of a dance hall.

  He began to call her in the evenings and they talked for hours about his job, America, and New York. But when Dayo probed about her life in Ukemby, Abeo quickly changed the subject.

  After weeks of asking, and at Femi’s insistence, Abeo finally agreed to go to the movies with Dayo. She watched him in the darkness and marveled at the strong outline of his chin, his thick eyelashes, and his white teeth. He was really quite handsome and Abeo felt a strange stirring inside of her. Toward the end of the film, Dayo reached over and touched her hand. Abeo flinched and almost jerked away, but she forced herself to remain still, and after a few minutes found that she liked the feel of him against her flesh.

  The next time they were at the movies and Dayo reached for her hand in the darkness, Abeo’s fingers curled welcomingly around his.

  Once, he bought her a sunflower from a street vendor, and when he presented it to her, Abeo found herself flooded once again with feelings of self-doubt. The distress burned brightly on her face.

  “Don’t you like it?”

  What did he want from her? There were a million women in New York City who he could chose from, so why her? “Of course I do,” she stammered.

  She shared these haunting insecurities with Femi, who folded her arms around Abeo’s shoulders. “The heart wants what it wants. Dayo’s wants yours.”

  “But I’m . . .” she struggled for the right words, “I’m not clean.”

  Femi squeezed her. “Child, you are as clean as if you just arrived here on this earth. The things that were done to you were not of your choosing. God knows that and He does not judge you for it, and if Dayo really cares about you, neither will he.”

  * * *

  The first time Dayo tried to kiss her was in the elevator of her apartment building. Abeo reacted like a prizefighter, dodging his lips and then shoving him so hard, he fell against the wall.

  “I’m ruined!” she screamed.

  A stunned Dayo slowly righted himself. “I don’t know exactly what that means, Abeo, but—”

  “It means I can’t have sex with you,” Abeo stated bluntly.

  “What?” Dayo blinked. “I-I never said I wanted to have sex with you, Abeo.” He heard himself—the tone, the words—and realized too late that he sounded like an ogre.

  He pressed the emergency button on the panel and the elevator came to a shuddering halt. “No,” he said, wrapping his arms around his head. “No, that came out wrong. Of course I want to be with you, but only when you’re ready.”

  Abeo had backed herself into a corner. Her statement still hung between them and Dayo had to ask: “Why would you say something like that about yourself?”

  Rape was what sex was for Abeo, so how could she possibly make love, or be made love to? She couldn’t have this conversation with Dayo, not now, maybe not ever.

  He skinned back his teeth, an indication that he was about to say something silly, something that would bring a smile to Abeo’s face. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “So, uhm, you do have the, uhm, required equipment, don’t you?” His attempt to make light of the situation fell flat at Abeo’s feet.

  “Please press the button that will make the elevator move again,” Abeo ordered sternly.

  “Aww, Abeo, please don’t shut me out. Talk to me. Please.” Dayo moved toward her. “I want to understand, Abeo. I care for you so much that I want to know . . . what happened to you in Ukemby?”

  Abeo waved her hands. “You do not want to know this, Dayo. Believe me, you do not want to know this.”

  Dayo pressed further until Abeo finally roared: “I was trokosi! I was TROKOSI! Okay? Are you happy now?”

  For a second, Dayo’s heart, as if attached to a bungee cord, dropped into his stomach and then ricocheted back into his chest before dropping again. He would have never suspected that this was the secret Abeo had been keeping from him. He knew of trokosi, familiar with it only because of Femi’s sister. Before that, he had always considered trokosi something of a myth or a story par
ents told their young daughters to keep them in line. Now here was Abeo, a cautionary tale come to life.

  What was he to do now, turn and run away? He couldn’t even if he wanted to—with their heartstrings entangled as they were, he was already bound to her soul; he knew he loved her enough to wait on her body. He could only hope that Abeo felt the same.

  He cleared his throat and took a measured step toward her. “Abeo Kata, if ruined means perfect then that’s what you are to me. I can’t change what happened in your past, but I promise you, if you allow me, I will do all that I can to create a future for you that will more than compensate for all that was taken from you. Now, I’m sorry that your journey into my life was such that you had to endure so much suffering. But if that is the road God had you travel in order for our paths to cross, then we have no choice but to accept the purpose it has served and be grateful for it.”

  46

  Six weeks after Dayo took her into his arms, Abeo called Serafine. They met on a warm summer day at a McDonald’s near Dayo’s apartment. He’d wanted to come along for support, but Abeo declined. “No, I need to do this on my own.” But she did agree to call him if things went awry.

  Serafine arrived twenty minutes late. Abeo’s french fries were cold and the ice in her cup of soda had melted into water.

  Serafine rushed into the fast-food restaurant dressed in a pale-blue, sleeveless shift dress. Her gray hair was hidden beneath an auburn pixie wig. It looked to Abeo like she had lost some weight.

  Serafine whipped the shades from her face and looked frantically around.

  “Auntie Serafine!” Abeo called from across the restaurant.

  “Goodness!” Serafine exclaimed, rushing toward her.

  At the table, she snatched a napkin from Abeo’s tray, rubbed a clean spot on the already-spotless table, and carefully set down her designer purse.

  “Why in the world would you choose McDonald’s of all places?” Those were her first words. Not: How have you been? Are you well? I miss you. I’m sorry.