Refuge (23 page)

They ate their breakfast at six o’clock in the cell. Prisoners on kitchen duty pushed a large trolley with huge pots past the entrance and each inmate was given a spoon and a metal bowl filled with stodgy porridge. Once empty, the plate and spoon were given back to the kitchen staff, monitored by the warders. No one was allowed to leave the cell until the porridge was finished. The bland oats stuck in Ifasen’s throat and made him feel nauseous. He forced it down, gagging, and was always the last one to leave the cell. For the rest of the morning he felt ill and lethargic. He realised that this was the purpose of the breakfast routine: to keep the prisoners compliant and sluggish during the day.

Lunch was also eaten in the cell: six slices of brown bread each, with a dollop of sweet jam on top. Only supper was held in the huge mess hall. It was here that Ifasen felt most vulnerable. All the awaiting-trial prisoners sat on benches at long tables, with only a few warders to control them. Food was stolen, fights broke out and enemies were made with a single glance. Everyone was alert and skittish, aggressively protecting their plate of unappetising food while looking for an opportunity to steal a piece of cutlery, to exchange food for cigarettes, to sell some drugs.

When Ifasen had first arrived for supper he had sat down at an open table. A prisoner with a twisted scar across the side of his face had sat down next to him. ‘Go sit with the other cockroaches,’ he told Ifasen, without looking at him.

‘Sorry? What do you mean?’ Ifasen blurted it out, immediately regretting his question in case it seemed a challenge. But the man was unmoved. He simply pointed his dirty fork towards a table next to the bins.

The table was surrounded by men with dark complexions. Foreigners. They hunched their shoulders, concentrating on their plates of food. Ifasen nodded, understanding, and stood up. The man grunted wordlessly and carried on eating. Ifasen picked his way across the room, cautious not to bump into anyone. He sat down at the table, next to a squat man with a bald head and thick glasses. He could smell the rotten odour from the unwashed bins.

‘I’ve been told to sit at the cockroach table.’

The bald man shifted away from him, dragging his plate with him. ‘I am Hutu,’ he said, as if talking to himself. He added nothing further.

Génocidaire, Ifasen thought darkly. Probably a member of the Interahamwe, trying to hide away in South Africa, but caught like all the other unfortunates in the dragnet. And now terrified that his identity will be disclosed. I have nothing more in common with you than I do with anyone else here, Ifasen thought, watching the man spoon the strips of translucent cabbage into his mouth with stubby hands.

Ifasen plunged his fork into the uninviting slop on his plate. Here in hell, he thought, even the cockroaches have a hierarchy.

T
HE NIGHTCLUB SEEMED
cavernous, its small entrance hiding the true expanse of tables and darkened corners. The lighting was dim and the stained wooden furniture added to the gloom. Flickering colours shone from the television sets dotted about the interior. Richard walked uncertainly between the tables. A young woman with dark satin skin put her drink down and peeled off from the bar, deliberately crossing his path. She looked him up and down before cutting back around him and returning to her roost.

He stood in the middle of the room, looking lost among the sea of chairs and hunched figures. Abayomi waved her hand towards him and his face opened. Her lips moved but he could not hear her.

When he reached her, she rose to greet him. Richard’s hands hovered on either side of her waist, not touching her. She kissed him on each cheek. He hunted for the lingering scent of sandalwood and oil; instead he picked up a hint of shampoo and flowery perfume. He was disappointed with the polite distance in her greeting kiss. And to find that she was not alone.

‘This is my friend, Sunday,’ Abayomi said, turning to face the skinny man beside her. ‘This is Richard.’

‘Here be your
obobo canda
,
sista
,’ the man said.

‘Sunday talks in riddles and Lagos slang,’ Abayomi explained. ‘You must ignore him, Richard, please.’ Her tone was more earnest than the levity of the situation warranted. Richard eyed the sinewy man with suspicion.

Instead of being chastened, Sunday made a show of standing, grating his chair backwards on the floor. He put his hand out to Richard. ‘
Oyinbo!
They call me Sunday, because with me making money is so easy every day feels like it’s a Sunday.’ Abayomi gave him a withering look. ‘I see your
throway
face,
sista
,’ he remarked from the side of his mouth, his eyes twinkling.

Sunday did not pause for a retort and continued addressing Richard animatedly: ‘You see, my friend, with me business is like resting on a Sunday, while someone else does the work for you.’ His smile was broad, although his face seemed sallow and gaunt. Sunday’s effusive overconfidence made Richard feel more comfortable and he shook the man’s hand with a firm grip.

‘Oh no,’ Abayomi said, ‘the reason you are called Sunday is because that is the name your poor parents gave you,
dundi
. And the reason your poor parents gave you that name was because they could think of nothing more original for another unwanted son. It is the day you were born on, nothing more.’ She tried to look stern, but Sunday was already chortling at her solemnity.

‘We say in Yoruba, Mr Richard man, that a family name is not cooked or eaten: one’s life is the thing of importance.’

Richard pulled his chair out and sat down, looking at Sunday quizzically. Abayomi came to his rescue: ‘You will find that Sunday is given to speaking in proverbs. His Yoruba culture is full of it. It allows him to say things while pretending that he did not. In truth, there is only one proverb that is of any importance: we say
bí a ti nrìn la se nkoni
. It means that the way you walk determines the way you are received. If Sunday took this more to heart, he’d understand that first impressions last. And that he walks with a crooked back.’

Sunday slapped the table and grinned at Richard, as if Abayomi had just complimented him with a witty story of his exploits. Despite the obvious self-serving nature of the man, Richard felt drawn to his lack of petulance or pride.

‘
Chineke! Tory don wowo
. The cricket is never blinded by the sand of its burrowing,’ Sunday said, switching to English. Richard thought for a moment about the meaning of the proverb before also laughing out loud. The preposterous frankness of the statement was stimulating. Sunday clapped his hands at his guest’s enjoyment. ‘You see,
babi
… he likes it. We will be friends. There is nothing more to be said. Together we will conquer the world,
oyinbo!
’ With that, Sunday pushed the small earphones of his music player into his ears and disappeared into the gloom.

Left alone, Abayomi seemed uneasy, looking about her as if to see who was watching them. Richard’s hand rested palm-open on the table top, as if imploring her to touch him. She put out her hand and briefly pushed his fingers closed. Although a gentle rejection, his whole body still flushed at the fleeting contact. Their last sexual encounter had been even more adventurous than the first and his mind filled with sultry images from their afternoon together. He had been more at ease, as if they already knew each other intimately and he felt less conscious of his own body, giving himself over to the experience more absolutely.

Afterwards, he had found himself thinking of Abayomi more and more. Initially, his thoughts concentrated on her body, the way she played with him. But his mind increasingly wandered away from their mock-intercourse, as if the physicality was insufficient to sustain his focus. He returned instead to their discussions, to the things she told him, the way she smiled at him and hooked her finger into his. The detail of her every interaction captivated him – the way she focused on his eyes when he spoke, the way she spoke to him without ego or self-distraction. Before separating, she would leave the hint of something more to come: a kiss just a little closer to his lips, a hand that was allowed to brush along the top of her cropped pubic hair. These suggested that, given time, she would let him come even closer. He knew that he could not pull away now. His waking fantasies centred on spending whole nights with her, waking up and walking together to coffee houses that spilled onto the streets. It was the unattainable ordinariness that lured him.

He had been pleased by her invitation to join her for a drink, hoping that she, too, sought his company beyond the confines of the massage studio. Her phone call had thwarted his ability to concentrate for the rest of the day and he’d spent the afternoon in distracted excitement. Amanda had accepted the altered evening plans with no questions about his supposed business meeting. The subterfuge was easy.

‘I know I asked you to come,’ Abayomi said now, her lips pressing together as she spoke, ‘but now I am not sure that you should be here, Richard. It is because I wanted to thank you for your advice … for my friend who was arrested. He will be in court on Monday morning again. As you said, they say he will now get bail.’ Though she was delivering good news, her expression remained troubled.

Richard could not be sure whether she wanted him to offer to attend at court. To do so would be to take the next step; it would bind him even more closely to her. ‘Would you like me to be there?’ he heard himself say. He was disappointed with himself for succumbing so easily, but even more deflated by her quick response.

‘No, thank you, Richard. You are kind to offer. It will not be necessary, I’m sure.’ Distress still played across her face and Richard felt an urge to insist. ‘But thank you for coming,’ she added.

He struggled to respond, wanting to be sincere, but scared of displaying too much of his burgeoning emotion. ‘I am happy to be here,’ he eventually said. ‘And I am pleased that your friend will soon be out on bail.’

He looked at her long and earnestly. For the first time, even in the dim light, he noticed small blemishes on her skin, about her neck and cheeks, and the sweep of make-up under her eyes. Yet these subtle failings made her all the more haunting, her humanness and vulnerability drawing him in. He looked away, overwhelmed by the intensity of his feelings.

The large television next to the bar was screening a soccer match under way. The players ran frenetically around the field chasing after the white ball. From the scoreline on the bottom of the screen, Richard could make out that Nigeria was playing Cameroon. The score was nil-nil. The commentator was shouting animatedly about something. A group of men at the bar added their voices to the melee, as if the referee would hear their protestations.

‘Abayomi …’ he said, turning back to her, playing with her name in his mouth like caramel. ‘You told me the first time I met you what it means, I think. But it sounds almost … a bit intimidating.’ He hesitated, unsure. But she smiled.

‘It is a Yoruba name. Although my family is Igbo, my maternal grandmother was Yoruba. She gave me my name. I use it because it is the dearest to me. It means “she who gives great pleasure”.’ There was a glint to her eyes and Richard tried to smile without appearing to leer. ‘In my culture,’ she continued, her face hardening a little, ‘our names mean something. In yours, though, killers hide behind ordinary, meaningless names, like John and George.’

Richard ignored the jibe. ‘Why do you say that you use it because it is dearest to you?’ he asked. ‘I don’t understand that.’

‘Oh, in my culture, we all have many, many names. My Igbo name is Okeke, meaning that I was born on
Eke
, market day. I suppose you could say that Abayomi is my middle name. Then my aunt gave me the name Ndulu, which means “dove”, because a white dove circled our compound the day I was born. My father called me Lotanna when I was young, perhaps as a joke in the beginning, but then it stuck: it means “never forget your father”. It is a joke because the name is supposed to mean “never forget your God”, but it is taken to mean “your father” as well. It is complicated Nigerian humour. But it became my name at school and my old school friends still call me that. There are other names as well.’

She paused, looking directly at him. ‘Our cultures are very different. You must not forget that, Richard. Please. You are a good man, but you do not always understand. For example, in my world both names and words are important. They say that we can catch fish with the net of words that we weave. In my world, the same thing can also be very different things. One thing spoken can be many things meant. Please remember that.’

Her look became almost tender as she continued. ‘Our names signify status as well. My father’s name was Jideofor. This name is very complex and is filled with meaning, all related to conscience and morals.
Jide
means “to have” or “to hold”; the
ofor
is the symbolic staff of truth or peace in Igbo. So the person who holds the staff is the one who has the clearest morals. People swear by the
ofor
when they want to emphasise the truth of what they say.’ She paused and looked at him meaningfully. ‘Sometimes they hide their lies behind it as well.’

Richard felt that he could listen to her speak for hours. ‘I so enjoyed talking to you that day in the coffee shop,’ he said. ‘Hearing your … history, your history and the history of a part of Africa I know nothing about. I wanted to ask you so many questions. About your life. About what it was like growing up in Nigeria. About your childhood.’

She laughed. ‘Oh, I’m sure that parts of it were very similar to yours. Our cultures are different, yes, but children are all the same underneath.’

Richard sat forward, resting his chin on his fist. ‘Please, go on.’

‘Well, my parents were very protective, putting up rules that we snapped like reeds with our hands. “You can’t go out after dark.” “You must be home before nine o’clock.” “I don’t want you to talk to that boy again.” And we hid under our blankets and waited for them to fall asleep. Then we got dressed, climbed down the banana trees onto the compound wall and dropped into the grass on the other side.’