On Black Sisters Street (19 page)

Ama had smiled in response, at a loss. Of course she wanted better. Did she deserve it? Why not? She did not want to spend the rest of her life cooking and dishing food. Not knowing where Oga Dele’s speech was going, she kept mum and waited for him to land. He had mentioned his wife often enough for her to know that he was married, so he could not be asking her to be his wife. Plus, he often spoke about his daughters. “Fine fine gals so,” he would say of the girls he said were eleven and twelve. “Any man wey mess with dem in future I go finish am. I go kill de man. I go squash am like ordinary mosquito, I swear!” He would touch the tip of his tongue with his index finger and point to the ceiling to show that he would make good his threat. Nobody who heard him doubted him. Could he be looking for a mistress? Ama hoped not. The last thing she needed was a valued customer, whom she did not fancy, making a pass at her. She would not know how to deal with it.

But Oga Dele was not walking that road. “If you wan’ make easy money, if you wan’ go abroad, come my office for Randle make we talk. But only if you dey serious o. If you no dey serious make you no waste my time and yours. You hear me so?” He rubbed his knees and raised his bulk from the chair.

Ama nodded. “I hear you, Oga Dele.”

“I no wan’ food today. Na jus talk I wan’ talk,” he repeated solemnly.

He gave Ama his complimentary card and asked her to come and meet him at the office the following day, once the canteen was closed. Most people ate at home on Fridays, so the canteen traffic would not be great. Ama guessed, rightly as it turned out, that she could be at his office by eight.

Dele’s office was as wide as the man himself. It was huge and made Ama wonder how big his house must be. Its size reassured her—somewhat—that in coming to see him she was making the right decision. There was a comforting elegance in the depth of the rug on the floor, in the wall clock that showed the time in different zones, and in the three slim mobile phones on his executive table. Dele sat behind the table, swiveling on his chair like an excited child.

“I dey happy say you come.” He swiveled as soon as she walked through the door. His smile rumpled up the three wide marks etched into each cheek.

When she had told Mama Eko she would be late coming home because she had an appointment with Dele, Mama Eko had not told her not to go, but she had not minced words in telling Ama she was unhappy about the meeting. “Ama,” said she, “what are you going to him for? Why would he want to send you abroad? Does he not have relatives who need his help? Lagos is full of men with money, full of
big
men with heavy wallets. They are like sand in Lagos.
Fa dika aja. A di acho fa acho
. But the problem is that nobody knows how they make their wealth. What does Dele do? Who does he work for? He has the time to come to the canteen at least once a day, five days a week, yet he drives expensive cars and wears the latest lace. You know how many ritual killings are carried out here every day?”

Mama Eko piled gory stories one on top of the other. Severed heads found under the bridge in Ojuelegba. The policeman who apprehended a driver with a busload of little children he was ferrying to a secret location in Benin City to be killed for a moneymaking ritual. The passenger in a bus who was discovered to be carrying a little boy’s head in his travel bag. He was beaten to a pulp by an irate mob, and then a car tire was thrown around him and set on fire to kill him. The mob applauded as he died.

“People disappear every day, and men without obvious means suddenly become rich. I’m not saying Dele is a ritualist oo. Look at
my armpit, I have no hair there,
nekwa abu m n’aji adiro ya
. I’m not calling anyone a ritualist. I’m just saying look before you leap. I’ve spoken. Count your teeth with your tongue,
welu ile gi guo eze gi onu
, and tell me what you come up with. He comes to the
buka
when other men are at work. Wears gold, gold, everywhere. You are a grown woman. You make use of your senses. Me, I’ve spoken.”

“I go straight to the point,” Dele told Ama, ushering her into the chair opposite his. “You no be small gal. Na woman you be. Mature woman. I go tell you wetin it be. I need women. Fine, fine women like you make dem go work for abroad for me. For Europe. For Belgium.”

“What kind of work?” Ama wanted to know. What sort of job did he need women to go to Europe for? Everybody wanted to leave the country; why should he be wanting people to leave? Ama knew people who would give their right arm for an opportunity to work abroad. People with university degrees. She did not even have that. Mama Eko’s words started to drift into the corners of her mind. She was amazed at how much she remembered of the speech to which she had paid scant attention, convinced as she was that Mama Eko was an alarmist, like most women of her generation, and that Dele did not have the haunted look of men who chanted strange rituals over lobbed-off heads.

Dele laughed a deep laughter that invited Ama to join in, but she did not.

“What kin’ job I go dey wan’ fine fine women to do for me? Na for to wash clothes? Ugly woman fit wash clothes, too! I no need fine woman for dat. I tink say you na mature woman. Why you wan’ disappoint me?” He laughed loud, exposing incongruously small teeth with silver fillings. Black gums.

Ama looked at him. “Stupid fucking man. What do you think I am? I look like
ashawo
to you?”

Dele laughed. And laughed. “I wan’ help you you begin abuse
me. You get life! Plenty fire for your voice. Any man wey get youna real pepper soup him get, I swear!”

Ama watched him laugh and heard Brother Cyril call her a lazy good-for-nothing and she pooled saliva in her mouth and released it, aimed at Dele. It missed its target and landed with a
plop
on a sheet of paper in front of him. Dele hit the table with a massive palm, stood up, eyes blazing, stomach wobbling. “Make you never, ever try dat again. You no know me oo. Make you never try dat kin’ behavior again. I don warn you!”

Ama hissed, turned, and walked out. What did he take her for? She wanted a better life, but not that badly.

But.

Wait.

Maybe.

What if.

So?

At night when she tried to sleep, mosquitoes buzzed in her ear and kept her awake, and being unable to sleep, she thought. But. Wait. Maybe. What if. So? And one night she thought, and thought and then she laughed. Maybe she was going crazy.

Brother Cyril had taken what he wanted, no questions asked. No “please” and “may I” or “could I.” And a discarding of her when she no longer sufficed. And strange men taking and paying for her services. And it would not even be in Lagos. But overseas. Which earned you respect just for being there. It was not like she would be standing outside nightclubs in Lagos Island, hoping that she would not run into someone who might recognize her. So. Why not? Mama Eko’s was nice. Mama Eko herself felt almost like a mother. A proper working mother. But Mama Eko could not give her the kind of life she dreamed of. She could never save enough from working in the
buka
to set up her own business. So why not?

She gave herself two days.
Two bloody days
. And then she went
back to see Dele. “I am down with it,” she said, relieved by the option of choice.

“Wetin?” Dele shook his head in confusion.

“Yes, I said. I will do it. I go do am.”

“You go do wetin? Me, Dele, offer you sometin’, you insult me. Who you tin’ say you be?” He opened a magazine, and his face disappeared behind it.

“I dey sorry, Oga Dele.” Not contrition but fear of a lost opportunity made it a whisper.

A ruffling as he turned pages. Maybe he had not heard. So again: “I dey sorry, Oga Dele.”

“Sorry for yourself. No disturb me. Abeg, I no wan’ abuse today, so make you just leave my office.”

Did he want her to bloody kneel down? She said she was sorry again. Could not tell what had come over her that day. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. She would say it as often as she had to. She would say it until he relented.

But. Wait. Had she no shame? No. Not today. Fuck! So.

“Sorry, Oga Dele.”

He put the magazine aside. Did she know how many girls were lining up for the chance he gave her two days ago?

“Sorry, Oga Dele.”

Did she know how many girls had come to him, begging to be one of his girls?

“Sorry, Oga Dele. Sorry, sir.”

He got up from his chair, toddled out from behind the table, and hugged her. “I forgive you. I like you, I swear! And dat na de reason wey I go forgive you your abuse of last time. You be fire!” He pulled Ama close, and she could feel his penis harden through his trousers. “I shall sample you before you go!” He laughed. A laughter that stretched itself into a square that kept him safe. Lagos was full of such laughter. Laughter that ridiculed the receiver for no reason but kept
the giver secure in a cocoon of steel. It was not the sort of laughter that one could learn. It was acquired. Wealth. Power. Fame. They gave birth to that kind of laughter. And then: “I like you. If to say I be Muslim, I for marry you. Make you second wife. But na Christian I be. And I be good Christian. One man, one wife.” He sounded regretful. “But I must sample you. I must. I swear! See as little Dele just dey stand. Little Dele like you. I like you, too. You na my kin’ woman!”

He smiled at Ama, and Ama smiled back. No more but, wait, maybe. Just a wanting to make money and own a business and show fucking Brother Cyril that she did not need him. Did not need her mother. Did not need their fucking blinding whiteness standing in her way.

MAMA EKO WAS NOT CONVINCED BY HER STORY THAT DELE WAS SENDING
her to Europe to work as a nanny to the three-year-old daughter of a rich Jewish family, and she told her so. “Me, I have never been to
obodo oyibo
, but I am sure they have enough nannies for their children there without having to import one from Africa. Count your teeth with your tongue. I’ve spoken. I’ve said my own.”

“The ones from Africa are cheaper, Mama Eko, they don’t charge as much as the
oyibo
ones do,” Ama countered, worrying that Mama Eko would discover her lie.

Mama Eko said, “I don’t trust that Dele. Not one little bit. I joke with him and laugh with him, he is my customer, but I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him. I don’t trust that man at all at all. I wish I could make you stay, but I can see that you are determined to go. Since I can’t stop you, I want you to promise me that you’ll look after yourself.”

“I will. I am a big girl, Mama. Don’t worry about me.”

There were tight hugs and maybe even a few tears, and just before Ama left for the airport Mama Eko sneaked a tiny gold crucifix into
her hand. “May God guide you,
nwa m.
” Ama was touched. Nobody had ever cared for her in that way, had given her a sense of totally belonging, but even that was not enough to stop her from anticipating with delight the start of her new life.

Antwerp welcomed her the day she arrived, engulfing her in a sunny summer embrace that shocked her, as she had thought Europe was always cold. She would hear later that the summer of 2000 was one of the hottest summers Belgium had ever seen. Her hair itched under the long extensions that came down to her midback, and she regretted the corduroy trousers and matching jacket she had chosen to travel in. They were a parting gift from Dele. He had told her the airplane could get cold and there was nothing like corduroy for keeping warm on a cold plane. It did get cold on the plane, and she was glad for the warmth of the corduroy suit, but no one had warned her that once she got off the plane temperatures could get fevered. In all the stories she had heard about abroad, she had never heard it said that it could be so hot she would wish she had worn a sleeveless dress.

She had nothing loose to change into, having brought along only clothes that would keep her warm in the cold of Europe: sweaters and thick trousers and shawls that she had bought at the secondhand market. She was not at all prepared for this heat that got between the skin and clothes like the heat of Lagos.

“I can lend you something to wear,” Efe, the woman who brought her lunch, offered. “We are almost the same size, after all.” She rubbed sweat off her forehead. She disappeared and came back later with a dress. “This should be long enough. You’re not much taller than I am.”

“Thank you,” Ama said, accepting the tie-dyed gown Efe had brought her: a riot of colors she could not discern running into one another, and which Ama found, quite frankly, distressingly ugly.

When one of the girls with whom she shared the house asked about her parents, she said that they were long dead. Her mother had
died at birth, her father a few years after in a car accident, so that she did not really know them; when she looked at pictures of them it was like looking at pictures of strangers. She was raised by a generous aunt. Later, she wondered if she had, in telling this lie, articulated a wish for her mother and Brother Cyril. In bed, she thought about her real father. She created features for him by peering in the mirror, excluding traits she had inherited from her mother: the eyebrows that were almost joined, the nose that looked almost European, the hirsute legs that needed waxing at least once a month. Those were unquestionably her mother’s. Which meant that her father had:

1. Slightly bowed legs
   
2. Naturally light skin
   
3. Long eyelashes
   

This did nothing to stop the wanting, did not stop the peering into strangers’ faces for signs of likeness. And when Joyce told her that her father used to let her play with his baton, Ama wished her own father had raised her. Maybe her life would have been different. Maybe it would be different if she found him. But she had no idea how to. Later, after Sisi’s death, she would decide that even if she could, even if there was a chance of someone finding him for her, she would not seek him out. Mama Eko loved her with a mother’s love. That would do for her. As for Brother Cyril, he could fucking jump off a bridge, her mother holding on to his shirttail. She did not bloody care.