by Chika Unigwe
Her husband would not cry, for men do not cry. He would sit on the chair facing the door, so that he saw everyone who came in and everyone who left. He would sit there and look at the mourners coming and going, trying to see behind the tears those who wished him ill. For it was not normal that his daughter should die just as she was starting to do well. Only that morning she had sent them money, the largest amount ever, strengthening his resolve to ask for a car. Somebody, somebody who envied him his fortune, must have had a hand in this. So he watched the mourners with the eyes of a hawk. And when they said, “Ndo, sorry for your loss,” he would nod, slowly, as if his head were twenty times its size, the head of a masquerade.
Once it left Ogba, Sisi’s soul found its way to a house where she had never been. A house in Aje, a magnificent duplex. It was just after seven o’clock, and the Lagos sky was dark, a violent shade of black, like ink. The darkness was thick and quiet, but inside numerous lights were on, and Dele was talking loudly into a telephone.
“Yes, yes, Kate. I trust you. I trust say you go take the necessary steps. Dat gal just fin’ my trouble. She cost me money. How much money you pay de police? I know. Yes. Tell de gals make dem no try insubordinate me. I warn all da gals, nobody dey mess with Senghor Dele. Nobody! You treat these gals well and wetin dey go do? Just begin misbehave. Imagine! All my gals, I treat good. I dey tell dem before dem comot. I dey dey straight wit dem. Me, I be good man. I just dey try to help poor gals. Yes, I know. Na good worker we lose but gals full boku for Lagos. I get three lined up. Latest next week, dem visa go ready. Dem full for front, full for back. I swear, dem go drive oyibo mad. Na beauty-queen statistics dem get. You sabi as my gals dey dey nah, no be gorillas I dey supply. Na beauty queens! Gals wey carry double Jennifer Lopez nyash. Who talk say na Jennifer Lopez get the finest buttocks? Dem never see my women.” He boasted and laughed, and his breasts, which were almost womanly, shook with laughter. Two mounds of flesh going up and down. And up and down. Humph humph humph humph. A hippopotamus.
Sisi imagined Madam laughing at the other end of the phone, in her room, perhaps, the door shut. Sisi stood still and listened to him. He was leaning on his L-shaped bar, a glass of whiskey in his left hand, the hand that was not holding the phone. Her soul zoomed around the bar, flew beyond it, went through a door, and found itself on a stairway. It went up the stairs and turned the knob on the second door on the right of a wide corridor. In the room, there was a bunk bed. On the beds, two little girls lay asleep in pink cotton nightgowns, their braided hair on either side of them like miniature angel wings. They were chubby, the way angels were drawn in children’s Bibles, and Sisi almost felt sorry for them. But then she saw the likeness of Dele in them, remembered whose daughters they were, and she went to them, first to the girl on the upper bunk, and whispered something in her ear. Then she went to the lower bunk, lifted the hair to get to the ear, and whispered the same in that ear. Anyone who knew Sisi well might say that she cursed them. They might say that she told them, “May your lives be bad. May you never enjoy love. May your father suffer as much as mine will when he hears I am gone. May you ruin him.”
For Sisi was not the sort to forgive. Not even in death.
Sisi’s soul bounced down the stairs and began its journey into another world.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
WRITING ON BLACK SISTERS STREET HAS BEEN A LEARNING EXPERIENCE FOR me. I am, in the first place, grateful to those whose story it is: the nameless Nigerian sex workers who allowed me into their lives, answering my questions and laughing at my ignorance.
This book was written with the help of a grant from the Het Vlaams Fonds Voor de Letteren. It would have been, undoubtedly, more difficult to concentrate if I had not had the grant. Thank you.
I am grateful in no small measure to Johan De Koning, who wanted a “big” book and reminded me of the virtues of patience. Thank you, Johan, for introducing me to Faulkner, whom I ought to have known but did not.
My parents-in-law, Jose Branders and Rene Vandenhoudt, gave me the gift I needed to get this work done: time, by taking the children off my hands. Thank you so, so much.
Thanks to Maggie Wilkinson, friend and early draft reader, who also took the children when she could.
Thanks to the Zingiziro Triumvirate: Brian Chikwava (for sending me in search of the Narrative Arc), Monica Arac de Nyeko (for refusing my thanks “because this is what friends do”), and Jackee Budesta Batanda (for Emma’s War).
I am grateful to all those who read the earliest drafts and asked the right questions: Tolu Ogunlesi; Ike Oguine; Trevor Wadlow; Stella Okemwa; Patrick (Stella’s friend); Katrien Lodewyckx; and my BFFL, Amaka Omenka (for loving the chapter on Efe and wanting to read more).
Thanks to Bart Cabanier, who checked an extract for me. And to Peter Gevers for reading and rereading and finding everything I missed.
Thanks to the Sudan connection: Gomai, David Lukudu, and John Oryem. While Daru is a fictional city, they gave me much needed insight into life in southern Sudan. I only hope that I have represented the area well. I apologize if I have not.
Thanks to Ellah Allfrey and to Harold Polis for their guidance, and for pushing me to challenge myself. Thanks to David Godwin for being the perfect agent and a wonderful man, to Millicent Bennett for being a dream editor, and to Basorun Richard Adeolu for opening my eyes to hidden things. Ose pupo.
Thanks to Hans Schippers for being a friend in the first instance, and for being unstinting with his time and knowledge.
And to my family: Mom and Dad, Jane, Winnie, Nnamdi, Maureen, Okey, and BG, you are the best.
And finally to Jan, for the many years we have shared and the many more ahead.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHIKA UNIGWE was born in Enugu, Nigeria, and now lives in Turnhout, Belgium, with her husband and their four children.
She holds a Ph.D. from Leiden University and is the recipient of several awards for her writing, including first prize in the 2003 BBC Short Story Competition, a Commonwealth Short Story Award, and a Flemish literary prize for “De Smaak van Sneeuw,” her first short story written in Dutch. In 2004 she was short-listed for the Caine Prize for African Writing. Her stories have been on BBC World Service and Radio Nigeria.
Her first novel, De Feniks, was published in Dutch in 2005; it is the first book of fiction written by a Flemish author of African origin.