by Anne Simpson
What?
First, I’m sorry. I was ferocious.
He smiled. And second?
Well, she said, someone else could do it. It’s true.
I just want to know why it has to be you. I want you to think it through. I’m no expert on this country, but —
You were born here, she said.
That doesn’t mean a lot. Here, any little misunderstanding and people lash out at each other. This is the history of the place you’re in. First there was the slave trade, then the abolition of the slave trade, though you can be sure there were always people wanting to profit off the backs of others. Now, thanks to the British, what’s called Nigeria is really a patchwork of North and South, but the North doesn’t understand the South, and the South doesn’t understand the North.
Sophie thought of her trip to the Kurmi Market in Kano with her mother. Didn’t Nigeria gain independence in 1960? Didn’t that change things? she asked.
He laughed. Then he became thoughtful. There were great civilizations here once, he said. Before the British Empire, before the United States, there were strong and ancient cultures. The Empire of Oyo, of Benin. And long before that, the Nok made the most beautiful sculptures in terracotta. I saw some in Paris.
He was quiet.
So many things were taken, he said. Looted. But there’s enough to know that the Nok must have had a sophisticated culture. No one knows exactly when these sculptures were made, they can only estimate that it was sometime between the fifth century BC and the fifth century AD. He drummed the fingers of one hand on his thigh. I had to go away to be able to see my country, you know? To see it. I hated being away at first, but then it gave me a kind of double vision. I could see in more than one way.
He got up from the bed. We should eat something.
I know, Sophie said, but she stayed where she was.
What I’m trying to say is that we take our countries with us wherever we go. We can’t help it. When you think of A’isha, he went on, you fall back on your idea of justice.
But isn’t it also your idea of justice that she should go free?
Yes.
Then?
It’s like a nest of scorpions, her situation.
I don’t care.
Sophie, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. You have to care. She’s been tried in a shariah court. You get in there and you might get your head bitten off.
But what should I do? I have to do something.
Why you?
Why not me?
He shook his head.
What?
This sense of being chosen for the mission.
She turned her head away.
Soph.
It’s not that, she said. It’s not a mission. At first, maybe it was. I wanted a story, especially one about a woman. Then I met her, A’isha, and I saw her mother, and it changed. It’s that I can’t bear it. I can’t. Sophie faced him. If I see her and talk to her and don’t lift a finger, then what kind of person am I?
He didn’t say anything.
When we talked to her, she said, I got this sense of her being alone. Who will stand up for her? — that’s what I thought.
Everyone is alone, ultimately, said Felix.
Alone, Sophie thought, lying awake, waiting for her father to come home. She could hear the sounds of the refrigerator downstairs in the kitchen, and outside, a couple of motorcycles on the highway, and in the trees between the house and the highway, the sweet piping of a bird she didn’t know, maybe a wren. The sun had gone down long before, but the bird was singing. She felt the night opening up as if it were a peony, many-petalled, and she knew there were other people like her lying awake in their beds, waiting, so the world became large, then larger, then so big she could hardly hold the thought. Who were those other people and what were they thinking as they lay in their beds?
Her father’s car rolled up the gravelled lane, the long curving driveway that brought him to the house, and there was the thump of his car door as he closed it, and his tread on the porch steps, and once he was inside, the sound of his keys being dropped into the bowl on the chest in the hall. She knew he would come upstairs and sit by her and tell her what had happened in his day. When he was there, she wasn’t afraid of anything. She wanted him to sit on her bed until morning, telling her things, just so she could listen to the sound of his voice, but she had to get some sleep and he would leave the door open the way she liked it. He told her he loved her. Then he left and she could hear him talking with her mother in their room down the hall and the bathroom door and the flush of the toilet and the bathroom door and the thread of talk picked up and trailing off and after a while the house was still except for the refrigerator, and the train in the distance as it worked its slow way up the hill and then across the trestle and through town near the hospital. She thought again of other people in their beds, some of them the same age she was, without fathers to come and talk to them, some of them staring at the ceiling in the dark, though it was almost too dark for the ceiling to be seen. Some were afraid. She could feel them as if she were another person, in another bed, in a house somewhere else, alone.
Yes, she said.
9
___
FELIX WENT OVER IT WITH HER, paragraph by paragraph. Sophie wrote and rewrote it, but she was working to a deadline, and in the end it was rushed.
Charles approved the piece and it was printed. Nina called from the Spreading Acacia to say how much everyone there liked it, and other than that, a sprinkling of comments. Sophie was researching the kidnappings of foreign nationals in the Delta when Charles called her.
There’s a problem.
What kind of problem?
Come to the office.
She went. It was late in the day when she arrived, and no one greeted her as they usually did. The woman with the coloured hair clips studiously avoided looking at her.
Charles came out of his office, beckoned her with a wave, and she went inside. Everyone was watching her, the “American” girl, the favoured one who’d probably bought her way into a job or slept her way into it, since she was the only foreigner working in the Lagos office of The Daily Leader. It didn’t matter that she was on a contract, that she hadn’t been given a cubicle, that she didn’t work with the rest of them. Charles’s office wasn’t big, but his desk was huge, made of dark wood, mahogany, or wood veneer made to look like mahogany. The air conditioning was going full blast, and Sophie shivered. He took a stack of papers off a chair and held out a hand.
She sat.
Your article about A’isha Nasir, he said. I’m afraid we’re into some trouble.
What do you mean?
The publisher has already spoken publicly on your behalf. He’s had to apologize.
For what?
Maryam was right. It is a touchy subject.
Oh dear. But you approved it, you said it was all right. I received word that the office of The Daily Leader in Kaduna was firebombed.
What? Was anyone hurt?
We don’t know a great deal at the moment, but as I understand it there was no one working at the office. It happened the evening before last. No one was hurt, except that one of the protestors was involved in a scuffle, but I’m told he will be fine.
It was burnt to the ground? The whole office?
Part of the office, and a chemist’s shop below the office. Charles took off his glasses and pressed his fingers under his eyes as if they hurt him. It seems they’ve taken umbrage to what you wrote. He put his glasses back on.
She couldn’t absorb it. Umbrage, she thought.
It’s serious, he said. Quite serious.
What did I say? I mean, it was an article about A’isha and the fact that she’d been sentenced to be stoned to death. Sophie’s mind raced.
Charles reached behind him for the folded newspaper on top of the filing cabinet. He smoothed it out on his desk and adjusted his glasses.
This is really more of an op-ed piece, as you say in the U
S —
I’m not American.
He waved his hand. You ask about the man who committed adultery with A’isha. You ask why punishment should fall disproportionately on the woman. You mention that mercy should be shown —
But is it merciful to kill A’isha? Sophie pushed back the cuticle on her thumb.
He sighed. It’s true we live in a world that upholds free speech as the ideal.
She waited.
Still, we have to be judicious. You’re not from here, and so you have to be even more careful.
But you didn’t come back to me with any changes except those few small ones, she said. Before we went to print.
I thought it was all right. I really did. But I misjudged the way things are in Kaduna, Minna, Kano — the North.
She pushed back the cuticles on her index finger, on her middle finger. She pushed hard, so it hurt.
He shook his head.
What should I do? she said.
He swivelled in the chair. We need a public apology. They want to see a contrite — Sophie, you must understand.
Maybe I was too forthright, she said. I guess it’s something to keep in mind for other —
He shook his head. I’m going to have to let you go.
Let me go?
I’m sorry. It’s for your own sake.
Her mouth was dry.
It’s worse than you can imagine. It’s not only you who stands to lose a job, but that’s the least of it.
Oh, God. They’re not going to fire you, are they?
She put her hand out to the shining surface of the mahogany desk, the heavy, oversized desk that was his pride and joy. His laptop, his printer. The ugly desk chair, split on the seat, in which he was leaning back, glasses on the top of his head, eyes shut.
I will make myself scarce, he said. It will be called a leave.
She’d had her interview with him in this same office, many months before. How nervous she’d been. And he made her feel comfortable, asked her how she liked Nigeria.
Oh, she liked it, yes. She loved the markets. One of her favourite things to do was to eat suya on a stick.
Bush meat. He laughed, the deep honk of a bass trombone.
She liked him right away. And now it was because of her that his job was threatened.
She wanted to flee, although she couldn’t very well go running out of his office.
The only thing I’m concerned about right now, he was saying, is that we offer an apology, that we stop this in its tracks.
I’ll go and do it now, she said.
No, I’ve written it. I want you to read it so you know what I’ve said.
He put a paper in front of her. This, he said.
She looked at it, but she couldn’t read it. She blinked, but the words spidered up and down instead of staying still.
It looks fine to me, she said, trying to keep her voice even.
Good. He took the paper back.
I want you to go home and stay there. Go by taxi.
Now? She looked at him.
Sophie, he said. It is not safe for you. In fact, I have been warned that everyone in the office should go home this evening and stay put. We’ll all have to lay low for the time being, but you’re the one in the most danger.
She stood up.
If you get any threats, anything like that, I want you to get in touch with me at this number. Don’t use your own mobile. He gave her a pink Post-it note.
Sophie took it from him slowly.
This will pass, Sophie. By next week, they’ll be on to something else.
She knew she should go. He was already busy with papers on his desk.
What about A’isha? she asked.
Pardon me?
Charles was always polite, even when he wasn’t really aware of her.
Sophie swallowed. What will happen to A’isha Nasir? she said. I don’t want anything to happen to her because of me.
FROM THE COOL OFFICE, Sophie stepped into the blaze of late afternoon. She was not going to bother with a taxi. Two women sidestepped Sophie, who stood without knowing what to do. A yellow dog sniffed her legs. She began walking, barely avoiding a ditch filled with murky water. A man carrying a huge cooler on his head was nearly caught by the mirror of a passing taxi, but he moved nimbly out of the way, while the driver swung his arm out of the car, showering him with abuse. At every roadside stall, the faces of vendors were hidden in the dusky shadow of umbrellas, some so faded that their original colour could no longer be discerned: a woman selling soap, milk, custard powder; a boy selling phones; a girl with an infected eye, sitting on a wagon, begging, with a ripped cardboard sign that read, simply, Plese; a mother with a sleeping baby; someone selling limp green leaf. One man was laughing, bent over, and another man was slapping him on the back. Staccato of horns. A strong smell of fresh paint, the sticky, pervasive odour of sweat as she passed someone, the mouth-watering smell of shish kebabs, a wave of perfume wafting after a woman in a tight coral-coloured dress.
Sophie turned wildly when someone honked at her. When she moved out of the way of the car she walked straight into a nattily dressed businessman, banging against the rectangle of his briefcase. She bought some packaged milk with a picture of a mountain on it, snow at its peak, the stuff they filled with preservatives, and dropped it into her string bag as she threaded her way back to the apartment, working her way around a stalled car and men offering advice, avoiding a straggle of children in school uniforms. Girls with perfectly white blouses, dark blue skirts, and braids tied at the ends with ribbons.
She bought as many newspapers as she could find on the way home: The Nigerian, The Nation, The Green and White, Newsday, The Record. There it was, the picture of the rubble outside The Daily Leader office building in Kaduna, and the fallen corner of the structure, prominently displayed in every one of the papers. She stood in a doorway, quickly flipping through each article. Her phone rang and she ignored it. They called her by name in two of the articles. One of them said her article on A’isha Nasir was misguided; one stated that she had followed feminist ideology into perilous territory; one said that a white person had no right to discuss issues concerning Nigerians.
Miss Sophia MacNeil, a newly arrived expatriate on Nigerian soil, seems to possess no common sense —
Sophie MacNeil made it clear that A’isha Nasir is a hapless victim of newly instituted shariah laws in Niger State.
In the midst of the uproar, American reporter S. MacNeil has been keeping a low profile. The Daily Leader did not offer comments on the story, though its publisher, Franklin Ojukwe, provided an apology —
She leafed through them so quickly that sections fell away, and a boy returned them to her, crumpled. She thanked him, but her face must have shown her panic. Did the boy read? Had he seen what they’d written?
Despite the torching of the office of The Daily Leader in Kaduna, blame should not fall upon the shoulders of anyone but the thugs who caused the damage. Surely there have been enough outbursts? Let our nation be free of terrorist tactics!
SOPHIE DRAGGED HER WAY up the stairs to the apartment, her phone ringing its stupid drum roll. She turned it off and let herself inside, bolting the door behind her.
Where was Felix? Right, he’d gone to see Simon. He’d finished the screenplay about the wealthy young woman abducted from the hospital. Why didn’t Sophie write screenplays about voluptuous heiresses?
She set down the box of milk on the counter, took her phone, and went into the bedroom. Curled herself into a comma on the bed. What was the sense of coming here? She picked up the phone. Where was her mother? She was in Abuja with Uncle Thomas and Aunt Monica, yes, but her mother didn’t answer when she called and Sophie didn’t leave a voice mail. She threw the phone down on the bed, pulled up the sheet, thrust it away. Hot, hot, hot. She would have to say, sooner or later, that she’d failed, that it had been foolish to try, that even with the best of intentions she’d done what Felix had been afraid she’d do. She had walked into
the middle of a scorpion nest.
She closed her eyes.
A’isha was in a courthouse, a rustic building with no louvres in the windows. She was alone, without a lawyer, while the judge sat above her on a raised platform. A’isha Nasir. The judge had a fan made of white feathers, which he moved languidly in front of his face. Didn’t he see? The court was on fire, yet no one rushed to leave the building. They continued to stare at A’isha, whose hijab was touched with flame, and Sophie realized that someone would have to roll her on the floor of the courthouse to put out —
The phone rang and she woke with a gasp.
Yes? Hello? she said.
A voice, a man’s voice. She didn’t know what he was saying. Hausa. A volley of words, shot at her. The voice switched into English.
I will come to where you are.
She sat up straight, listening to the voice. What was the matter with him? She couldn’t understand him, couldn’t do anything, couldn’t turn off the phone.
I will kill you, American whore, daughter of —
She turned off the phone. Someone wanted to kill her. If someone wanted to kill her, she should hide, that’s what she should do. She fitted her feet into her sandals. Why was it so difficult to get her feet into the straps of the sandals? When she stood up, it seemed that the floor was rushing up to meet her, as if she were on the deck of a ship. She sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, got up more cautiously. She found herself in the hall, and then in the kitchen, phone still clutched in her hand.
Someone was buzzing the apartment to be let in, she realized. She wasn’t going to answer it. It kept buzzing, buzzing.
She wedged herself into a corner of the kitchen, and crouched down on the floor, staring at the strap on her sandal. There was her phone in her hand. She dropped it on the floor and put her arms tightly around her body. If she just stayed there she would be all right, a knotted tangle of herself. But someone could still see her, if he crawled over the balcony of the neighbour’s apartment, leapt from there to the balcony —
Pounding at the door.
Soph, yelled a voice.
Felix?
Can you open the door? You’ve got the deadbolt on and I can’t get in. I tried buzzing you downstairs.