On Black Sisters Street (20 page)

SISI

THE MINISTRY OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS BUILDING WAS A CASTLE THAT
looked as if it had been there since the beginning of time, erected for life. It made Sisi think of chandeliers and heavy drapes and rooms with uniformed servants. Outside it, people stretched out like columns of ants in front of a huge metal gate, the type of gate one would find in the more prosperous suburbs of Lagos, protecting the mansions of the very rich. Many of the people outside the ministry huddled inside jackets, hiding their heads inside the collars as if they were spies. There were a few with suitcases, many more with huge travelers’ bags. They could have been at a car park, waiting to go on a trip. She tried to block the voices that came to her head—her mother’s, mainly, telling her that she was disappointed. Asking her if she would really sell her body for a chance at making some money. Instead, she tried to crowd her head with visions of a future in which she would have earned enough to buy her father a car, buy her mother a house in Ikoyi, and buy herself a good man who would father her children and give her parents the grandchildren they had always dreamed of before they were too old to appreciate them. With the amount of money she imagined she would earn, there would be no limit to her purchasing power. She would even be able to buy her father a chieftaincy
title in their village. Buy him some respect and a posture that belonged to a man his age.
Back home, everything is for sale
.

She joined the line, standing behind a tall black man hugging a brown leather attaché case close to his chest. It looked as if whatever was in the case was something he was prepared to protect with his life. His face looked like worn leather but retained the vestiges of an earlier handsomeness that reminded her of a Hollywood star. Some African-American guy who was in this film she had seen—Poitier. Sidney Poitier! That was who he looked like. She wondered what this man’s story was. She wished she could ask him, but she did not know whether he spoke English. And if he did, what would she ask? “Are you genuine? What’s your story? You want to hear mine? Would you like to trade stories? Mine for yours?”

She ran her tongue across her teeth and dislodged a strand of ham stuck between two front teeth. It brought back to her the memories of a breakfast so scrumptious, she wished she could parcel it and send it to her mother to eat. White sandwiches so soft they melted in your mouth, jam, ham, two boiled eggs, and tea with milk that was not rationed.

The line moved at a languid pace, and she watched as people disappeared into the mouth of the ministry. Finally, it was her turn. With a smile, the guard directed her to a room with glass sliding doors and wooden benches that reminded her of the church pews at St. Agnes in Lagos. She wondered if the smile was ridiculing her. Mocking her story. She entered the room. There were about twenty people waiting, most with tired faces. She tried to smile at a young white couple as she sidled in next to them. The woman had on her knees a little boy in a checked sweater and black denim trousers. He had a runny nose and was whimpering. The mother said something to the boy, kissed him quickly on the head, and dug in her handbag for a pack of cookies, which she gave him. The toddler smiled and
proceeded to hastily tear open the pack. The man whom Sisi presumed was his father stared straight ahead as if in a world of his own, detached from what was going on around him. Sisi wondered what was in his mind, what weight he carried around his neck that stiffened it so that he could not turn and smile at his son when the little boy tugged at the collar of his maroon jacket. Sisi watched the boy stuff his mouth one cookie at a time, dropping little bits onto his mother’s thighs. She did not brush off the crumbs but instead left them, as if they were badges of honor, to gather on her gray skirt: specks of cream on a gray polyester cloud.

Sisi let her thoughts be consumed by the boy and his antics, so there was no space in her head to think of her family. Or of Peter. She had thought that leaving him would be easy—after all, they had no future together—but she was starting to realize that she could not have been more wrong. She saw him whenever her eyes were closed. And even in this room, right now, she could swear she smelled him, that she could smell the mentholated powder he always rubbed on his back for pimples and for the heat. She missed their moments of intimacy, and when she let her thoughts stray she wondered if she was wrong to have given him up. She stole a glance at her watch. The leather band was worn and stained in places. She would have to buy herself a new wristwatch as soon as she could afford it. Maybe one with a slim gold band. She was in Europe now, and everything was possible, she told herself. She might even buy an extra one and send it to her mother. She imagined her mother’s joy at owning a gold wristwatch.

She would never buy a gold wristwatch. Not for herself. And not for her mother, either. She would enter shops and ask to be shown this gold watch. That other one. She would try them on and put them down, saying they did not suit her. Her wrist looked chunky in that. Too thin in the other. She would wave aside the smiling salesclerk’s assurance that the watches fit. But right now she was unaware of this.

Sisi shut her eyes and replayed the events of the past two days in her head. She had to make this work, she told herself. There was no turning back now, no room for regrets. It seemed that the misgivings she had dumped with her pumpkin in Lagos had managed to find their way back to her. She ignored them. She heard her number called and got up. She was directed to a small room. She had to walk through a high door manned by a policeman with steely eyes. He had thick curly hair that came down to his eyes, and he had to flick the hair out of his eyes before he could run a long security stick down her body. His face was impassive, bored. Satisfied, he waved her on.

“Good afternoon, madam.”

“Good afternoon.”

The man she was standing in front of flashed her a wide smile, as if pleased to see her. “First we have to take a picture of you,” he explained as he stood her in front of a camera and took pictures. The front. The side. Then he held her right hand and took fingerprints, each finger, until he had all five fingers smeared with ink like some sort of a welcome ritual. Then he had her stamp her inked fingers on a sheet of paper.

Another man with black hair took her into another office and listened as she poured out her Liberian story. She made sure she did not forget any detail. Yes. She was sure her name was Mary Feather-will. Yes. She was Mandingo. Yes. Her family had been killed and there was a price on her head. Could she have a tissue, please? She was sorry for crying. Yes. Her life was in danger. No. She did not think she would survive a day in Liberia. No. She had no other family alive. No. She knew no one in Belgium. The man bent over his computer and typed as she spoke, stopping occasionally to ask her to verify a fact, a piece of information. His voice was patient. Once their eyes met, and she saw something in his eyes that convinced her he knew she was lying. Yet she did not stop. She stuck to her story. Yes. Yes. She was born in Monrovia. No. She did not have a passport because she
had left the house in a hurry and was really scared for her life. No. She did not have any form of identification. No. No driver’s license; she did not know how to drive. No. She had no birth certificate. She had taken nothing from the house. She was running for her life. No. No family pictures. She had not thought of taking anything from the house but herself. Her security was the only thing she had thought about. No. No dates. She could not be sure of the exact dates the killings occurred.

At last he looked up from the computer. Ran his fingers through his hair. Printed out the statement, asked her to sign it, and gave her a number. “Wait in the waiting room,” he instructed.

ZWARTEZUSTERSTRAAT

AMA IS STILL TALKING
.

“I am in Europe. I am earning my own money. I’m even managing to put aside some. That should make me happy. I didn’t leave any sort of life behind to come here. Mama Eko is the only person I really miss. One day, when I make it, I’ll go back and build her a mansion! I don’t have a child like you, Efe. Nobody I love without reservations. Or somebody who loved me like that. Mama Eko is the only one who comes close.” She tugs at the crucifix again. There is a tenderness to her tugging.

“And I haven’t got anyone at all. If I make it here, it’s for me,” Joyce says.

“We’ll make it oo. There is no ‘iffing’ about it. How can we come to Europe and go back empty-handed? God forbid bad thing!” Efe says. She thinks again of Sisi. “Poor Sisi. She no even stay long enough.” The thought subdues them. Nine months is not long enough to realize any of the dreams that have brought them to Europe. Even if they were not privy to Sisi’s dreams, they know that they are all bound by the same ambition, the same drive. What grandiose plans did Sisi have that would never be completed?

Madam has not said anything, but the women know that they are not expected to work today.

None of them will go to the Vingerlingstraat today to stand in front of the glass showcase, strutting in sexy lingerie, lacy bras, and racy thongs to attract customers. It is a demanding job, their job, and not one that can be combined with grief. Sisi’s death has sapped them of energy and left them floppy, like rag dolls.

They often talk about it: the strutting and waiting to be noticed by the men strolling by, wondering which ones are likely to tip well and which are not. From their glass windows, they often watch the lives outside, especially the men’s. It is easy to tell those who have stumbled on the Schipperskwartier by mistake. Tourists with their cameras slung around their necks, mostly Japanese tourists who do not know Antwerp, seduced by the antiquity of the city and deceived by the huge cathedral, they wander off and then suddenly come face-to-face with a lineup of half-dressed women, different colors and different shades of those colors. They look and, disbelieving, take another look. Quickly. And then they walk away with embarrassed steps. Not wishing to be tainted by the lives behind the windows.

Those who know where they are and why they are there walk with an arrogant swagger and a critical twinkle in their eyes. They move from one window to another and, having made up their minds, go in to close a sale. The street starts filling up at around nine o’clock. Young men in their thirties with chins as soft as a baby’s buttocks and pictures of their pretty wives in their leather wallets, looking for adventure between the thighs of
een afrikaanse
. Young boys in a frazzled eagerness to grow up, looking for a woman to rid them of their virginity. Bachelors between relationships, seeking a woman’s warmth without commitment. Old men with mottled skin and flabby cheeks, looking for something young to help them forget the flaccidity time has heaped on them. Vingerlingstraat bears witness to all kinds of men.

The women often discuss their customers, dissecting the men and heaping them into one of two categories. The good ones. The miserly ones. They lack the patience, or perhaps the inclination or inventiveness,
to find any in-between men. The ones who are neither good nor miserly. Etienne is one such good customer. Etienne with the garlic-scented smile and hair slicked back, wet with gel, so that they constantly speculate on the jars and jars of gel he must go through.

Etienne is a generous tipper, but you would not tell just by looking at him. He is proof that looks do not always tell the real story about people. Etienne is small and always wears trousers that are too tight for him. Trousers that look like he has owned them since he was fourteen and which make the women joke about the state of his genitals. Not what you would expect from a man who doles out money left, right, and center as if he is scattering rice grains to his pet chickens. He is one of Joyce’s regulars. He calls her “Etienne’s Nubian Princess.” Joyce cannot stand him, the way he calls her “Mama!” when he comes, digging into her waist with his nails, his breath smelling of garlic. She cannot stand the way his gel leaves stains on her pillowcase so that she always has to wash it once he has been. But she smiles whenever she sees him, a reminder that her life has changed, that her affection is for sale. Etienne is, more than any other customer, the motivation for her to leave the Vingerlingstraat. He makes her fear that she has forgotten the person she used to be and that, if left for too long, she may never find that person again.

Joyce does not like to think about her past, preferring to concentrate on the future, on what her life will be once she leaves Madam’s establishment. But the past is never far away. She has discovered that it never leaves us completely, no matter how hard we try. The past is like the juice from a cashew. It sticks. And whatever it stains, it stains for good. It is always breathing over our shoulders, and all it needs is an incident, an event, to make it rear its head. And so it is that today, with Sisi’s death still recent and unreal and the other women opening up the lives they always kept under wraps, telling the truth, Joyce finds her mind taking her back to life before Joyce was born. She brings out the rag tucked in the waist of her trousers and starts walking around
the room, wiping the walls with a furious agitation. “I was not named Joyce, you know. It’s not my real name. And … and I am not even Nigerian.” She has her back to Efe and Ama. Her rag moving in violent circles. This time Efe does not try to stop her. Like Ama, she just watches her.