Say You’re One Of Them (5 page)

Big Guy shrugged and said, “No, Big Guy no
dey
worry.
Na
you
dey
worry.”

We could tell that Big Guy was disappointed. He pursed his lips so hard that we saw a bit of the red of his nostrils, embers of the anger he was fighting to control. As I said, I didn’t worry because I had seen Fofo in more difficult situations, and I was confident he would calm the man.

“What about de house?” Fofo Kpee said, gesturing at our house.

“What about it?” Big Guy said, without even giving our house a look, though Fofo continued to encourage him.

Its zinc roof was completely covered with rust, and the two rooms had no ceilings. The walls were made of mud and plastered with cement, and in the narrow veranda, there were mounds on either side of the door, for sitting, which is where Fofo wanted Big Guy to be if he didn’t want to enter the house. The eaves were supported by pillars made of coconut wood.

“You like it?” Fofo asked.

“Your house
dey
OK for de business for now,” Big Guy said. “I want leave.”

“You see, you see,” Fofo told him, chuckling. “At least I do one ting well.”

“Well, after, we go build de one
wey
better
pass
dis one . . . bigger.”

“Ç
a ira, ça ira
. . . Tings go work out.”

Big Guy walked away, the disappointment still in his eyes.

“Of course, only dead people
dey
owe us!” he said. “Only dead people.”

“I sure say nobody go die. . . . Well, as de Annang people
dey
say, de dead no
dey
block de way, de killer no
dey
live forever,” Fofo Kpee called out to him, laughing. “See you tomorrow,
á demain o.
And make you greet
ta famille pour
me
o.
”

WE
DIDN’T
KNOW
WHAT
to make of the motorcycle when Big Guy left. We stood around it quietly, as if a long lost member of our family had returned. Fofo Kpee stared at our faces, as if he had given us a puzzle and wanted to see the first sparks of our comprehension.

“Nanfang!” Yewa exclaimed, breaking the spell. “Z
oke˙ke˙ . . . zoke˙ke˙!
”

“Who owns it?” I gasped.

“Us
o,
” Fofo said, and chuckled. “
Finalement,
we get
zoke˙ke˙!
”

“Us?
Zoke˙ke˙?
” I said.

“
Oui o,
Kotchikpa, my son.”

Yewa began to circle the bike in silence, like a voodoo priest at his shrine, her hands held out but afraid to make contact. She had large brown eyes that now shone out from her lean face, as if the machine’s aura forbade them to blink. Her hair was short, like a boy’s, and she wore only pink underpants, her stomach bloated. Her legs stepped lightly, her feet in socks of dust. My palms, dirtied from stoking the cooking fire with wood and making sure the pot of Abakaliki rice didn’t fall off our stone tripod behind the house, began to sweat. I held my hands away from the bike and away from my shorts, rubbing my fingers against my palms.

“We belong to you,” Yewa chanted in a whisper to the machine. “You belong to us, we belong to you.”

“Yeah, daughter,” said Fofo, enjoying our bewilderment. “God done reward our faitfulness. . . .
Nous irons
to be rich, ha-ha!”

The sudden merriment in his voice stopped Yewa. She looked at my face, then at Fofo’s, as if we had conspired to trick her. Fofo Kpee opened his portmanteau, which he carried to the border every day, and pulled out the invoice for the bike from Cotonou City. It was too much for us. I started clapping, but Fofo stopped me, saying he didn’t have enough drinks yet to offer people who might be attracted by the noise. I held my hands apart, palms facing each other as if they were of two opposing magnetic poles, my desire to clap repelled by Fofo’s warning. Then a wave of happiness rose within me, and I ran inside, washed my hands, and put on a shirt and my flip,-flops, as if an important visitor had descended on us. When I came out, Fofo had opened our door and pushed the thing into our parlor-cum-bedroom. He lit a kerosene lantern and put it on a stand near the door to the inner room. The lantern’s rays played above the Nanfang’s fuel tank, outshining its two-tone design like the glow of a setting sun over the waves of the Atlantic.

To lock the front door, Fofo pulled out a plank of wood from under our bed and placed it snugly on the metal latches. Tonight, he tested the lock’s strength, putting his left shoulder on the bar and carefully applying his weight. He sighed and nodded, beaming contentedly at the bike.

“We must buy new doors for de house,” Fofo Kpee said.

“Windows also,” Yewa blurted out, her attention still wrapped around the Nanfang as if the windows were part of it.

“Yeah,
pas du problem,
” he said, and started locking up the two little square wooden windows on either side of the door. “We go change
les choses lo˙pa lo˙pa,
many tings, I tell you.”

There were two six-spring beds on either side of the room and a low wooden table in between. I slept with Yewa in one bed, while Fofo had the other bed to himself. Our clothes were in cartons under the beds, but Fofo’s important clothes hung at one corner of the room, from a
bambu
pole suspended from the rafters by two ropes. Because the room was small, the bike stood, poking its handlebars and front tire into the wardrobe, like a cow whose head is lost in the tall grass it’s eating. In the evenings, when we gazed into the roof, its rusty texture looked like stagnant brown clouds, no matter the brilliance of our lantern. On very hot days we could hear the roof expand with little knocking sounds.

Now we drew closer and gawked, and smelled and felt the Nanfang’s body. Fofo had to shout at me twice to warn me about bringing the lantern too close to the machine. The smell of newness overpowered the stuffiness of the room. Yewa pulled at the clear plastic that covered the seats and lights and mudguards, until Fofo warned her not to remove them.

“I get someting for
vous,
” Fofo Kpee said to calm us down. He sank into his bed and dug into the portmanteau and offered us little cones of peanuts and half-melted toffees from his pocket, which we chewed in the wrappers. That night Fofo didn’t tell us stories about which he laughed louder than we did. He brought out a bottle of Niyya guava juice and poured us a drink. “Hey,
temps de celebration,
” Fofo Kpee said. “We tank God!”

“We bless his name!” we responded.

He raised his cup. “Ah, we no create poverty. . . . Cheers
à la
Nanfang!”

“Cheers!” we responded, tipping our cups.

It had been a long time since we had fruit juice. Yewa drank hers immediately, in one long endless gulp, tilting the cup so quickly that the juice poured from both sides of her face and dribbled onto her belly, thick red teardrops. I took one gulp and stopped, thinking it would be better to save the juice until dinner, and went to set my cup down on a safe spot between the lantern stand and the wall.

The excitement of that night was such that when we finally descended on the Abakaliki rice and stew of onions,
kpomo,
and palm oil, we didn’t mind if we found little pebbles in the rice. No matter how thoroughly you picked the rice for stones, you couldn’t get rid of all of them. Now, occasionally, we cracked a pebble, held our jaws, and washed down the half-chewed food with juice. Though Fofo Kpee used to scold me each time he bit into a pebble, because it was my job to pick the rice, that night he didn’t. We were celebrating our Nanfang. And with my stingy sips of juice, I could stand any amount of sand in the rice that night.

When I got down to the last gulp, I stopped and saved it. I had water instead and ate and drank until my stomach filled up, the palm oil in the stew yellowing my lips. Then I downed the rest of the juice so the taste would remain in my mouth until I went to bed.

“
KOTCHIKPA
, MY
BOY
,
QUICK
quick, go prepare de inner room for de Nanfang!” Fofo Kpee told me after dinner.

“Yes, Fofo Kpee,” I said.

“Let the Nanfang stay here!” Yewa appealed to him. She was still jumping up and down, celebrating.

“Ah
non,
my gal,” Fofo said. “Next room for Nanfang.”

“I shall sleep inside, then,” my sister said, bowing her head to her chest and looking sad. “With Nanfang.”

“
Je dis non,
Yewa,” Fofo insisted, and tried to change the subject: “I go buy tree new book for you. Your teacher go
dey
happy well well for you now, yes?”

“I don’t want books,” Yewa said.

“Hmmm, you no want book?” he asked. “
D’accord,
new
crayons?
Pencils?”

She shook her head. “I want to sleep
avec
Nanfang . . .”

“
Haba!
” Fofo Kpee shut her up.

Yewa sat down on the floor in protest, facing the machine, her back to us. Fofo went over and squatted behind her and caressed her shoulders, while she shrugged and tried to push him off.

“Ah,
mon
Yewa,
mon
Yewa,” he sweet-talked her, “you go learn how to write. You be future professor!”

“No,” Yewa said, shaking her head vigorously, as if a bug had just entered her nostril. Yewa was like that when she set her mind on something, stubborn and saying little.

“Ah
non,
you no want be
agbero
like me,
oui?
”

“Leave me alone.”

Fofo leaned over to pour more juice into her cup, but she refused.

“Why you no want be good gal today?” he said. “Well, Kotchikpa no go write for you. Everyone must learn to write. Education
est
one person, one vote.”

Yewa was silent.

“Yewa,
tu es toujours un bébé!
” I said, trying to coax her out of her stubbornness. “Crybaby!”

“Leave me alone.”

“
Oya,
I go buy you sandal for school” Fofo Kpee begged her. She still didn’t get up, so Fofo stood, shrugged, and came and sat on his bed and faced me. “Kotchikpa,
je t’acheterai
two textbook plus an exercise book,
d’accord?
”

“Books for me?” I said, excited. “When?”

“Tomorrow. You no go borrow book again for school. Since you like to read, you go
dey
read every night.”

“Thanks, Fofo Kpee,” I said, and glanced at the new bike, as if to acknowledge that without it coming into our lives I wouldn’t have had what I needed for school.

“Witout education, you children,
comme moi,
go just rot for dis town, where danger full everywhere. No, I go try make sure
say una
go
dey
rich. I go even make sure
say una
go come be like de children of our politicians and leaders.
Una
go go school
sef
for abroad.” He paused, then turned sharply to Yewa. “Hey,
mon bébé,
no problem if you no want be professor.
Abi,
you want become international businesswoman, yes? Anyway, you go
dey
cross dis ocean to Gabon, go come, go come, as if you
dey
go toilet,” he said, snapping his fingers and pointing in the direction of the ocean.

“Give us a ride on the Nanfang,” Yewa said suddenly, in a petulant voice. I felt she wanted to be granted this, since she couldn’t sleep in the same room with the Nanfang.

“Easy,
pourquoi pas?
” our uncle said, going over to pour her more juice. “
C’est tout?
”

“Yes, take us out, Fofo, please,” said Yewa, turning around. She was struggling not to smile, trying to remain angry, as if she still had all the power.

“Oh no, me I be responsible man,” Fofo Kpee said in a cooing voice, and smiled a large smile. His face creased and lessened the tension on his left eye, making the scar on his cheek look artificial. “How me go come risk
una
life when I never
sabi
how to drive de
zoke˙ke˙
yet? Gimme time . . . I go carry you go anywhere. . . .
Bois
. . .
bois.
Drink . . . drink.”

“
Allons
Braffe! To see Papa and Mama!” I said.

My sister quickly unstuck her mouth from the cup, swallowed, and said breathlessly, “Yes, yes, to Braffe . . . to Braffe!”

“
Absolutement,
” Fofo said.

“Tomorrow,” Yewa said.

“No . . . impossible.”

“Mr. Big Guy will ride us,” I said.

Fofo shook his head. “Ah
non,
you want shame me,
mes enfants?
How me go arrive for Braffe village when I never fit drive my
zoke˙ke˙?
No, make we wait small. I go learn fast. . . . Even
sef,
I never get enough money to visit Braffe now.”

“Papa and Mama will be happy to see us and the Nanfang,” Yewa said, and got up and came to sit on the bed with me.

“Grandpapa will give you many handshakes. Grandmama will dance,” I said. “Hey, let’s go on Monday.”

“Kotchikpa, Monday?” Fofo Kpee said incredulously. “No, I go first come your school to pay school fees on Monday. . . . School before pleasure, right,
mon peuple,
right?”

“Yes, Fofo,” I said. When I looked at my sister, happiness had taken over her face. She started babbling about our family in the village.

We hadn’t seen them for one and a half years, since Fofo came to the village to take us to live with him. Papa, a short chubby man with a stern face, was bedridden, tended by our dutiful and teary grandmother. Mama, a mountain of a woman, with an everlasting smile and restless energy, had already lost her bulk, become emaciated, and couldn’t walk to the farm without resting two or three times under the
ore
trees by the roadside. No matter how many times we asked, nobody volunteered any information about our parents’ sickness. Our relatives talked in hushed voices about it, a big family secret. However, by eavesdropping, I learned that my parents had
AIDS
, though I didn’t know what it meant then.