Everything Good Will Come (45 page)

“I'm surprised you had time to find your way here,” I said.

“We closed down last month. Our final issue.”

“That's a shame,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, in her usual neutral manner. She downplayed her struggles, so successfully one could almost believe she dismissed them.

“You must eat with us,” I said.

It was a joy to watch her, the way she dipped and separated, and swallowed. She talked between gulps about journalists and activists who had been sentenced following the alleged coup in March. They were charged with being accessories after the fact of treason.

“It's a farce,” she said.

I placed my fork down. “They say the Commonwealth ought to impose sanctions.”

“Commonwealth,” she huffed.

“Don't you think that will work?”

“Our problems are ours to solve, not anyone else's. I'm not one of those who believe in crying to the West. They still haven't got it right themselves. Freedom of speech, human rights, democracy. Democracy, some would say it's for sale. Besides, their leaders are constrained. They can't help us if helping us will hurt their constituents. We will always have to look within for our own solutions. I have faith in Africa, anyway. A continent that can produce a Mandela? I have faith.”

Instead, she looked weary, and I did not entirely agree with her. Intellectuals like her resented foreign intervention. It was the same with the Nigerian elite and foreign aid, always complaining about how patronizing that was, when Nigerians who really needed help could not care less where it came from. Sheri was discovering just how hard it was to get money from wealthy Nigerians. They pledged their support to her charity and then they disappeared. I wasn't sure about the extent of foreign intervention in our local politics—CIA-backed coups and assassinations included—but was it too much to expect other countries to take an interest in our well being, if most of our stolen wealth was invested in their economies?

“Economic sanctions,” Sheri said, “Let's be realistic. Who will they hurt—Brigadier Big Belly or Mama Market?”

“Exactly,” Grace Ameh said.

“You know there are detainees who have nothing to do with politics,” I said.

“I don't understand,” she said.

“Half the people in prison,” I explained.

“I know,” she said. “Most of them are awaiting trial. Some of them die before they ever see a court room.”

I thought I had badgered her enough.

“When do we start our campaign?” I asked.

“As soon as you're able.”

My heart beat faster.

Grace Ameh stayed for a while after we finished eating. She wanted to avoid the lunchtime traffic. I cleared the table when she left as Sheri watched over Yimika.

“You never told me about this,” she said.

“Ah, well,” I said.

“What does Niyi think?”

I wiped the table using circular motions.

“He doesn't know.”

“Will you tell him?”

“Today.”

She laughed. “You're joining the ranks,
aburo
?”

I made my circles smaller and smaller.

“Small by small,” I said.

I washed my hair and braided it into two, sat in a bowl of brine to heal my sutures. I had to shake my head to shift the fuzziness that plagued me since Yimika was born. By the time Niyi returned from work, I was ready.

I watched as he undressed in our bedroom. He hopped out of his trousers, placed them over a chair. As if he remembered I'd asked him not to, he took the trousers off the chair and laid them on the bed. The gesture made me sad. How caustic we were to each other, and we'd wasted time over what we didn't want, and what we didn't like. Was it simply that we knew not to ask for what we wouldn't receive? Our jokes saved our marriage, I realized. When we shared them we were within a safe zone. But we had no jokes to spare now, except the one about the man who had chosen the wrong women twice.

“Grace Ameh came here today,” I said.

“Who?”

“Grace Ameh, the journalist from
Oracle
magazine.”

“What did she want?”

“She wants me to chair a campaign for my father, Peter Mukoro, and others.”

“What did you say?”

“It's a small one.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I said that I will. That I want to. It's the chance I've been waiting for. I'm hoping we can meet once a month... ” My voice trailed off.

He released his tie. “Not here I hope.”

“We can meet at my mother's house. It doesn't really matter.”

He walked toward the bed.

“We've talked about this already.”

“No. We never talked. At least we never agreed. And nothing is safe around here, anyway. Robbers could break in as we speak. The police, the army, whether or not you are looking for trouble, they give it you. I've thought it through. We will appeal to the government. There are women and children involved. Yimika. You know I won't take chances with her.”

He pulled his tie through his collar. Yimika whined in her crib. I could feel my milk in my chest. I rolled my shoulders. I was not ready to feed her.

Niyi undid his cufflinks.

“I care about my family,” he said. “Only my family.”

“So did I,” I said. “Once. But that has changed now. I wasn't worried about my mother. Who are we fooling? The state our country is in affects everyone.”

He didn't answer.

“Are you listening?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“No what?” I asked.

Yimika began to cry. My milk began to leak into my bra. It seemed to be dripping from my armpits.

“No, I can't allow that,” he said. “I am sorry.”

No one's “no” was more final than Niyi's, but I pressed further. I was not looking for a compromise. He had to change his mind. I was desperate enough to force him. From childhood, people had told me I couldn't do this or that, because no one would marry me and I would never become a mother. Now, I was a mother.

“I'm not the same,” I said.

“What?”

“I'm not the same as I used to be. I want you to know.”

I shook my blouse down. My milk had stained it.

I listened to many voices that night. One told me I would be dragged to one of those far-off prisons: Abakaliki, Yola, Sokoto, where harmattan winds would brittle my bones. I hushed that. Another told me I would never see Yimika again; that she would grow up, like Sheri, without a mother, Niyi would replace me and I would fall sick from heartbreak. I let that talk and talk before I hushed it. When the last hush was hushed, I listened.

I, alone, had beaten my thoughts down. No one else had done that. I, believer in infinite capabilities, up to a point; self-reliance, depending. It was internal sabotage, like military coups. Wherever the malice came from, it would have to go back. Yimika began to cry. I checked her but she wasn't wet. I rocked her back to sleep. My eyes grew heavy and I shut them. I could agree with Niyi; at least the tiredness would go away.

“Everyone has at least one choice,” my father said, whenever I talked about women in home prisons. He was shocked. How could one make such a false and simplistic comparison? Likening a handful of kitchen martyrs to people confined in Nigerian prisons. Some prisoners set free would choose to stay on, I argued. My point was about a condition of the mind. Most days, I was as conscious of making choices as I was of breathing. “I raised you better,” my father said. “You think,” I said.

Yimika was dressed in her white christening gown. Sheri cradled her. I offered a calabash of kola nuts to my father-in- law. He picked one, split it in half and took a bite. My mother-in-law sat next to him, also chewing. I was wearing traditional dress: a white lace blouse, and red wrapper tied from my waist down. Around my neck were coral beads and on my head was a scarlet head tie with gold embroidery.

Because of my mother's death, only family members were invited to Yimika's naming ceremony, but they filled our living room. I placed the calabash on an empty stool and bit my kola nut. It was a gesture of affirmation for our prayers. Initially, all I could taste was bitter caffeine, then I tasted a slight hint of sweetness at the back of my tongue.

A few china bowls were laid out on the dining table: honey and salt for sweetness in Yimika's life, water for calmness, peppercorns for fruitfulness, palm oil for joy. She had received four names: Oluyimika, God surrounds me; Omotanwa, The child we waited for; Ebun, Gift; Moyo, my middle name, I rejoice.

Niyi's grand aunt began to pray in Yoruba. She was the oldest in the family and the other family members responded, “
Amin
,” each time. I joined the prayer for my daughter, then added a prayer for the place she'd arrived, that leaders would find their way to children, and our customs would become kinder. After our last amen, Niyi's grand aunt poured libation and raised a glass of Schnapps to her mouth, to salute her ancestors. Her lean body stiffened as the alcohol shot down her throat. She adjusted her head tie. It was time to eat.

In the kitchen, one of Sheri's cooks sat on a chair with a wooden mortar between her knees. She scooped lumps of pounded yam from it using a calabash quarter and wrapped them in cellophane. Blue bottle flies swarmed the sink where someone had knocked a can of mango juice over. A second cook served fried meat onto small plates. They worked together like big band players, rehearsed and indifferent.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“It's done,” the first cook said.

They were not ready. As I left the kitchen, my mother-in- law hurried toward me.

“What about the food?” she asked.

“They're almost finished, ma,” I said.

“The guests are hungry.”

“Don't worry, ma,” I said.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Upstairs, ma,” I said.

I could not wait. There were babies who stayed in their mother's wombs too long. By the time they were born, they were already dead. There were people who learned to talk on their death beds. When they opened their mouths to speak, they drew their last breaths.

The staircase in my house had never been a staircase. Often, I walked up imagining I was making an ascension, into heaven even. I was rising above a miscarriage, my mother's death, casting off malaria fever, rage, guilt. My mother-in-law's disapproval, I cast that off, too. My peace surpassed her understanding.

Niyi gave me a wave when I almost reached the top. He was making sure everyone had wine. I tried to steady my smile. What story would I tell him for making him less than half a man? That would be a k-legged story.

In my bedroom I removed my head tie and retired it among my jars of pomade and perfume. Along the parting between my braids, white hairs stood out.

Sheri walked in. “People are... what's happening here?”

I wondered how to tell her. Downstairs, the people began a thanksgiving song:

My joy overflows
I will give thanks every day
My joy overflows
I will rejoice every day
Will you?