Say You’re One Of Them (13 page)

“
NON
,
DIS
ONE
CANNOT
defeat me!” Fofo Kpee shouted one evening during a nap, which he had insisted on, to ease his fatigue before giving us lessons. “
Mes enfants
no
dey
go anywhere!
Pas du tout.
”

Yewa and I looked up from our books and exchanged glances.

“
N’do˙
ye ma jeyi ofidé!
” Fofo Kpee repeated in Egun, this time his body moving with the force of his voice. Yewa held on to me and opened her mouth, but I put my hand over it and pushed her behind me. Our uncle turned and twisted as if he were fighting a lion. When he almost fell out of his bed, he awoke and sat up, hurriedly rearranging his loincloth around his waist. Though we were all sweating, his now came down in waves. He had never spoken in his sleep before, so his words caught us off guard. Though I didn’t say anything, I was afraid and confused and folded my hands in front of me.

“I’m OK,
pas de problem,
” he said when he recovered and caught us staring at him. “Why you
dey
look me like dat?”

“You spoke in your dream,” I said.

“No be me,” he denied. His voice wore a touch of anger. “Make we do school,
d’accord?
Mary, why you
dey
hide behind him to look me like say I
dey
talk Wolof?”

“I don’t know,” Yewa said, shrugging.

“Sure? Or you no want study tonight?”

“We want to study tonight,” I said. “Maybe she’s frightened by your dream.”

Fofo stood up and stretched.

“My dream? Which dream?” He laughed a stern laugh and sighed. “No fear.”

I couldn’t tell whether he knew what he had said in his dream or not. And because of the anger in his voice now, I didn’t ask him. He tried to act normal, yet he couldn’t shake off the fright in which he had awakened. He kept shutting his eyes tight and opening them wide as if that would wipe away his dread. Then he started pinching his scar and shaking his head. He was more nervous and restless than he was the night our godparents came to see us. I was afraid, but I pretended to be strong so as not to frighten my sister. The nightmare should have served as a warning to me that our dream could unravel.

“You have not eaten anything,” I said gently as I placed a bowl of food before him.

“Who told you I want to
manger?
” he said, pushing the bowl aside. He brought his gin out from under the bed and took two long gulps straight from the bottle and cleared his throat. “
Peutêtre,
maybe
je veux
go Gabon
aussi.
” He chuckled an empty chuckle. “Maybe I should come take care of you. . . . Ah
non, il faut que
man be strong!”

“You are going to miss us?” my sister said, her voice as abrupt as a town crier’s.

“
Oui, c’est ça,
” he conceded, and shrugged, without looking us in the face. The liquor had cleansed his voice of anger. Now the more he drank the steadier his demeanor became, though it didn’t stop the sweat. “Yeah, make I no worry, I suppose.”

Yewa went over and placed herself in between his legs.

“We’ll miss you too. Won’t we, Pascal?” my sister said.

“We will,” I said. “Fofo, don’t worry. We’ll be OK with Mama.”

He didn’t say anything. He just sat there, looking down, hugging Yewa, and stroking her head like Mama did. My sister climbed up to sit on his lap, and the silence seemed to last an eternity. The sweat from Fofo’s face dripped on my sister, but it didn’t matter. We were getting used to the heat and the perspiration that came with it. All I could think about was how he would miss us. I began to think seriously for the first time about missing him too. I started to miss his jokes and his care for us.

Some indescribable guilt arose within me, and I saw myself as an ingrate for wanting to go away. I couldn’t look at Fofo’s face, and he couldn’t look at our faces. I wished Yewa would say something or do something crazy to shatter the silence. But she just sat there with a sad look, and the fact that she didn’t disrupt this silence deepened my guilt. Who would Fofo talk to when he came back from work? Who would cook for him or wash his dishes? How should we pay him back for his care and for finding these godparents who had helped our parents in Braffe and would send our other siblings to Gabon? I made up my mind to tell our parents everything Fofo had done for us since we arrived here. And when he had children, I promised myself, I would do all I could to show love to my cousins. I started thinking about how we would insist that our godparents allow us to come back to visit him. I would write him letters every week, telling him about our lives. Maybe he would be able to visit us.

“But you can come with us,” Yewa suggested, relieving me of my shame. “Mama will not mind. Maybe you can live with Fofo Vincent or Fofo Marcus or Fofo Pierre.”

“Or Fofo David and Tantine Cecile,” I said eagerly.

“We can take the Nanfang along,” my sister said. “Once you buy a car in Gabon, you can sell it.”

“No, I’ll learn to ride it there,” I said.

“But if you don’t come with us,” she said, “it’s OK. I’ll buy you a Lexus and Benz. . . . I’ll send you money too.”

Fofo Kpee looked at her sorrowfully and dipped his finger into the bucket of water by his bed and flicked a drop in my face. “Will you miss me, Pascal?” he taunted me.

“Yes, Fofo Kpee, yes,” I said, nodding. “I’ll build you big houses like those in our godparents’ pictures.”

“
Non,
I go come Gabon! Wid you.”

Nobody said anything. The three of us looked at each other, and then we began to laugh until we cried. Though we were chatting now, it felt very surreal, solemn. Fofo opened his mouth as if to say something but gave up. He snatched his bottle from the table and poured gin into his mouth as though he needed a big gulp to drown whatever he had wanted to say in his stomach.

Then he poured the drink into our cups in large doses and said we needed to celebrate his coming to Gabon. We drank gleefully, until our eyes sparkled and the
payó
bit our guts. A boost of energy swept through my body, my sister became very talkative, and sleep went very far away from us.

WHEN
WE
THOUGHT
HE was going to begin the lesson that night, he got up slowly, as if he had been taken over by voodoo, and went to the lantern, where he always stood to prepare us for our trip. He removed his
wrappa
and threw it over the table onto the floor. He was stark naked, like us. At first, we wondered if maybe it was an accident. Then we thought maybe he was drunk, though we had never seen him drunk before. But when he didn’t pick up the loincloth, we became concerned. He looked like a man who had stolen from the open market and was about to be stoned. My sister had both hands over her mouth, to keep herself from letting out a sound, her eyes wide and unfocused. In embarrassment, I began to look up at the roof.

Fofo Kpee poured water into a bucket and started dabbing himself with his towel. The sight of him cooling himself with very little water, like camel riders crossing the Sahara, was unbearable. His lightheartedness was gone, and the room became very quiet except for the wind outside and the sound of him putting the towel into the water bucket and wringing it. He kept babbling and had become oblivious to our presence.

We were scared, and Yewa drew close to me. Fofo looked like a man in pain, a man who couldn’t take the heat anymore. I began to wonder why he couldn’t stay outside, where there was fresh air. Do the people of Gabon walk around naked and sleep in airtight rooms? Is it so hot there that we have to learn to behave like this? But when I remembered the beautiful beaches and houses in the pictures our godparents showed us, I convinced myself that that wasn’t the case. Since he was now coming with us to Gabon, did he have to be this dramatic to catch up with our preparation? The whole thing was like a bad dream from which we must quickly awake.

“Hey, children,” he said, finally looking at us, sounding funny again, “
j’espère que
shame no
dey
catch you to see Fofo
comme çi
.” He left the lantern and came toward us. “When
una
dey small,
una
no shower wid your parents for Braffe?”

“We did,” we said, still trying to look away.

“So why you
dey
behave like small chicken now? Person who fit cross de sea done become big man
o.
. . . In de boat
il faut qu’
everybody
dey
mix wid everybody,
vous comprenez?
Even dat your sister, Antoinette, if she
dey
remove her dress make sure confusion no enter your head
o.
”

“She’s going to be naked?” my sister asked, alarmed.

“Impossible!” I said.

“Not really,” Fofo said. “But if you see her change her dress,
na
one of dose tings.”

“No,” she said.

“When you get sister for family,
na
like dat . . . but we be family,
oui?
” We nodded reluctantly without saying anything. “And no shame if
una
see your godparents’ nakedness. No big difference
dey
between
ome˙nno˙to˙
le˙
. Naked people
nulopo lo˙
wé yé yin . . . partout.
Your godparents dey run a world organization. You go see all kind of people for Gabon. You go see white people, colored people, tourists who support de work of your godparents. Do whatever dem want—go beach wid dem, go hotel wid dem . . . if dem want take
una
go Europe, follow dem. Even if
una
no like dem,
soiyez patience,
no condition
dey
permanent . . .”

“But you’re coming with us,” I cut in, uncomfortable with what he was saying. Yewa was shaking her head in disagreement.

“Whatever de case,” Fofo said, “make good use of
l’opportunité.
Don’t worry. No big deal for all dis . . .
gbòjé!
”

The dread that had hung around him since he awoke from his nightmare went away now. Apart from his nakedness, he looked very normal. His whole body glowed with sweat except his bushy pubic hair, out of which hung a limp penis, its head smooth like mango skin, its body wearing a tube of tiny rings of flesh, like the neck of an
oba
in an
odigba
.

Suddenly, Fofo Kpee parted his legs and grabbed his genitals as if to push them back into the bush.

“You naked, I naked, why you fear?” he said like one reciting a poem. “You have it, I have it. My own big, your own small, right? Say ‘
hén,
Fofo,’
s’il vous plaît!
”

“Yes, Fofo,” we stammered, and nodded.

“Let talk about sex,
mes bébés,
” he began to sing, and wriggled like a madman. “Let talk about
vous
and
moi.
” He balled one hand into a microphone, the other still grabbing his genitals. He skulked around the room as if he were on stage; he jumped onto the table, then jumped down. He moonwalked until his back grazed the clothes in the wardrobe. He stopped suddenly, with one leg raised in frozen posture. “You know de song?”

“No,” we said.

“You want touch my ting? Come on, do it,
allez, touchez moi.
”

He was now coming toward us.

“No, no!” I said, and we backed away.

My sister was silent. She never spoke again that night but shielded her privates with her hands and moved behind me.

“Oh, you want touch your ting,
mes enfants?
”

“No,” I said.

I felt a numbness around my groin, and my heart began to pound. I didn’t feel the heat anymore, though I noticed more sweat was pouring from my body. My penis seemed to have shrunk completely, and my balls became one hard nut. I knew immediately this was different from my
fofo
‘s ordinary clowning. I was afraid.

“Or you want touch white man, Mary, huh?” he said.

Yewa shook her head.

When he turned his gaze on me, I said, “Maybe we should not go to Gabon . . .”

“Shut up, bastard!” he exploded, and shook his head and downed more
payó
. “You want drink,
abi?
”

“No.”

“You want woman?”

“No.”

“Just don’t disgrace me for foreign land
o
. . . you hear?”

“No.”

“
Non?
”

“Yes, Fofo.”

We stared at each other for a while. “Good, at least,” he said, “you no
dey
hide your face anymore.
Gbòjé, gbòjé!
”

He held the cap of his penis by his fingertips and stretched it downward until the rings of flesh disappeared. He spun and released it like a cone. It didn’t turn but returned weakly to its perch on the balls. He continued to do this until his penis began to get bigger. He giggled and tied his
wrappa
around his waist again and sat on the bed.

“Would you like some food?” he said.

“No,” I said.

“Sure, Mary? Some Gabon food, cornflakes, Nido, huh?”

“I want to sleep,” she whispered.

That night I tried to convince myself that I was drunk, that none of this had really happened. In spite of the heat, I put on my shorts and turned my back toward Fofo and lay with my hands between my legs, trying to protect myself even in sleep. My sister simply wrapped herself up in the bedspread. I was repulsed by thoughts of traveling to Gabon. I no longer felt at home in our place. It was as if every piece of furniture had been stained by Fofo’s performance that night. My mind sank deeper into shame and fear as I remembered all the things we had bought since we started thinking of going to Gabon. For instance, I hated the very shorts I was wearing and thought of taking them off, but I couldn’t bring myself to sleep naked that night. I hated the Nanfang and vowed never to ride on it again.

For the first time, I sympathized with Paul—and wished I could have vomited, like him, all the good food I had ever eaten in the past few months. I wondered how he and Antoinette were doing. Did they know something we didn’t know? Did they go through their orientation before visiting us? Who would be giving them
this
lesson? Big Guy?