Indigo (4 page)

Jerry finished his dinner and got up from the table at five thirty-five. He put his jacket back on and picked up his folder of meeting materials. There would be time to spare, but he did not want to come back into his flat after getting the chief custodian into the copy room. Jules would clean up and leave the flat by seven, locking it and making his way to Moroko where he lived. Jerry had been to Jules's house once or twice and knew it was a terrible, dark place, two small rooms housing Jules and his wife and children. Jerry paid Jules well—at three hundred naira a month he was the highest paid of all the stewards in the building—and since he worked for a single man he had the easiest job. Whenever Jerry had a dinner party he paid Jules overtime.

Since he was going out on school business, Jerry took the van, starting the engine and waving to the security guards as he drove out through the gate. It would take the chief custodian ten minutes to walk to his bus stop, so Jerry drove slowly, circling out past the Eko Hotel and then back to where the chief custodian stood.

“Good evening, sir,” he said, climbing quickly into the van. “Tonight we will find our thief.”

Jerry turned the van around and drove, this time all the way out to Bar Beach, while the chief custodian snuggled down onto the van's floor, pulling a blanket from the seat and covering himself.

“I don't want to go back too soon,” said Jerry.

“No, sir,” came a muffled reply.

The Bar Beach road wasn't crowded so Jerry pulled onto the shoulder, looking out over the sand dunes and trying to see what progress the sea had made in taking back the reclaimed land. All of Victoria Island, the land where the school and the flats stood, had once been underwater, yet now it held some of the most expensive homes in Lagos, with rents and purchase prices doubling and tripling every year. Jerry looked out at the water and the ships as they moved into Apapa, the Lagos port. Nigeria was such a difficult, troublesome country that even after three years he marveled that he was living in such a place. Before Charlotte's death he had been content with his school administrator's job in Oregon. Ironically it had been Charlotte who had sometimes said that their lives might benefit from a change. And after her death, it was for Charlotte that he had taken the job in Abidjan, in the Ivory Coast, for Charlotte that he had moved to Lagos when the opportunity arose.

“Sir?” said the chief custodian, and Jerry put the van in gear, driving back toward the school. When he got there he waved to the night guard, then pulled the van up close to the school's back entrance. When no one was looking he slid the van door open and pulled the blankets off the chief custodian's back. They got into the air-conditioned room easily and unnoticed.

“What about your dinner?” Jerry asked.

The chief custodian laughed, rubbing the sweat from his arms and face, so Jerry went back to his flat after all, to see what he could do about getting some food. On his way he met one of the teachers, who told him that there had been a call. “The Ministry of Internal Affairs,” the teacher said. “Someone wants to see you again tomorrow.”

Back in his flat the after-dinner cleanup was finished and, though it was barely six, Jules was already gone. Jerry took a plate from the cupboard, then found the leftover curry and rice and put it in the oven to heat. If the ministry had called, then he was sure that he was expected at some specific time but the teacher had not told him one, and for some reason that made him imagine the minister's secretary, her slow walk, her half-shut eyes, all her weight down low. Surely it was she who had called.

When the food was ready Jerry walked back over to the copy room, but when he opened the door he thought for a moment that the chief custodian was gone.

“Joseph?” he said.

“Yessir,” came a voice, this time not muffled by wool but echoed in tin, and when the lower door of the copy machine swung open the chief custodian smiled up. He had the blanket over him and had placed an empty toner can under his head.

Jerry left the food on the floor and thanked the chief custodian for giving up another night at home. And by the time he went outside again the lights from the surrounding buildings, huge blocks of flats housing government officials, had come on.

The school board president's house was at the edge of Victoria Island, about fifteen minutes away. Perhaps the one predictable moment of the day would be what happened at this meeting. Still, as the principal drove there he reminded himself that his job meant everything to him, that he was dedicated to doing it right. He continued to miss Charlotte, his sister-in-law was right about that, but he was most sorry for what Charlotte was missing by not being here with him now, to see Africa, to have such an adventure as this. These were the thoughts he had every night. The joy in Jerry Neal's life came twofold, from work and from imagining Charlotte. He knew what would be said at this meeting and he knew what his responses would be and how he would feel about it in the morning. When Christmas vacation came perhaps he would go home for a while, or, more likely, he would visit Europe by himself, but imagining Charlotte seeing all those sights too. And when he returned he would be ready, once again, to continue it all. He remembered a time not so long ago when to continue anything, without Charlotte by his side, took all the strength he had.

The school board meeting was scheduled for seven the following morning, so though Jerry had not returned to his flat until midnight he was back in his office by six, going over his papers and wondering how best to discuss the issues at hand. On his way to the office he had stopped at the copy room but the chief custodian was gone, and when he found him in the courtyard he was told that the night had been uneventful, the thief had not come. The chief custodian vowed to stay again, but the principal really thought that the thefts were taking place during the day.

“Listen,” he said. “Let's just lock the rest of the toner up, bring it out when we need it and have you there to put it in the machine. That way at least we'll keep what we have.”

“Yessir,” said the chief, but he disapproved of the plan. Catching a thief was preferable to stopping thievery, and locking up the toner would only add to the atmosphere of suspicion and guilt.

The major focus of the school board meeting would be the same thing that had dominated the committee meeting the night before: what to do about the eight new teachers and their improper visas. As he had with the committee, Jerry would tell the school board what had taken place at the ministry, and he would have his secretary telephone the ministry as soon as it opened so that he could clarify the previous afternoon's call. As he wrote, preparing each aspect of the issue carefully, Jerry felt the pure pleasure he got from running such a school. The issue was a thorny one but he would conquer it in the end. It was, after all, the unpredictability of his work that drew him, the improbability of a thing occurring only a moment before it did.

Members of the school board filed in slowly, but by seven-fifteen the president had called the meeting to order, and the first monotonous items on the agenda were introduced. Jerry paid little attention during this part of things. He knew the minutes of the previous meeting would be accurate, that the charts and tables he had prepared were ready for those who wanted them. For Jerry this was a time to relax, to prepare himself for the meatier issues that were at hand.

Just as Jerry began to settle into the rhythm of the meeting, however, someone moved to suspend the normal agenda and get right to the matter of the visas. Then the school board president addressed Jerry directly. “You've been around too long to make a mistake like this,” he said. When he spoke, the other board members turned in their chairs.

Jerry waited a moment, looking at the man. He respected the school board president as a man who handled his job at the American Embassy in much the same way that Jerry ran the school. He was a no-nonsense kind of man, and Jerry was momentarily embarrassed to understand that the president saw his handling of the visa problem as a mistake. He nevertheless looked at the man evenly. “When I was in San Francisco I was convinced by the Nigerian consul general that the law had changed,” he said. He was angry to have been taken by surprise by the suspended agenda and by the president's comments, and he would have continued strongly, but just then his secretary came into the room, telling him that he was wanted in the outer office. Jerry didn't suffer interruptions gladly, but he remembered that he had asked the secretary to get the ministry on the phone, so he stood and followed her out of the room, contenting himself only by staring calmly into the president's face and by saying that perhaps he could come back with a firmer statement on how to clear the matter up.

But when Jerry got to the main office and picked up the phone, all he heard was a dial tone, and when he looked at the secretary she shook her head. “No,” she said. “In your private office.” Had someone from the ministry actually come out to the school to see him then? he wondered. Surely it wasn't the minister.

Jerry went quickly down to his private office door, pausing only to straighten his tie. He had an automatic smile on his face but when he opened the door and saw who was waiting for him his smile collapsed. Nurudeen was there with a man who was probably his father, a well-dressed man standing with one hand on top of that empty toner can.

“I'm sorry,” the principal said, “but I'm in the middle of something; all this will have to wait.”

Nurudeen had Jerry's thermos in his lap and on his face was a look of pure pain, as if his stepmother were even then twisting away at him.

“We are here on a matter of great urgency,” said the man. “We would not have asked your secretary to call you from your meeting for anything less.”

Jerry knew that his secretary would not have dared call him from the meeting for anything less, so he stood there quietly a moment, calming himself so that he would not speak rudely. Finally he said, “If you would like I can see you just as soon as this meeting is over.”

Nurudeen's father was wearing tribal clothes, white robes and a beautifully embroidered cap. He was short, but quite handsome. He wore thick glasses and he seemed about ten years younger than Jerry Neal. His demeanor was formal. “My son is under a great deal of strain,” he said.

Jerry was about to repeat his suggestion that they talk when the meeting ended, but Nurudeen's father raised his hand. “I am, however, not here exclusively about my son. I am here also on behalf of my brother, who is the minister of internal affairs. It was he who put Nurudeen up to the tricks that have occurred.”

Jerry paused, a little vertigo settling in. “The minister told your son to steal my lunch?” he asked slowly. Then he added, “Nurudeen said it was your wife.”

Nurudeen tensed in his chair but his father remained calm above him, placing one smooth hand on his shoulder. “A boy in trouble will grasp at improbable straws,” he said. “Could I trouble you for a moment alone?”

Jerry knew that several of the school board members would be irritated by his absence, but how could he dismiss such a claim? He looked at Nurudeen and then spoke softly, saying, “Son, you go on up to class. If you ever steal anything again you are expelled from this school, is that clear?”

Nurudeen nodded, so Jerry opened the door for him. And once the door was closed again he sat down, offering Nurudeen's father the chair his son had warmed.

“Now,” he said. “How could this be possible? What would make you say such a thing?”

Though Nurudeen's father had taken the offered seat, he held both hands in front of him, shaking his head. “Please,” he said, “it will all be clear to you soon. Isn't it about time that we get started for the ministry?”

The principal sat forward. “He's expecting me now?”

“Of course,” said Nurudeen's dad. “You didn't get his call?”

Nurudeen's father stood, and Jerry went back into the staff room.

“Our little drama is coming to a head,” he said, standing in the doorway and pretending to be amused. “It seems the ministry has sent a car. I've been asked to go back down there now.”

Some of the board members wanted details, but the president waved Jerry away. “Good,” he said. “We'll be pleased if you can get this thing straightened out today.”

Jerry Neal smiled, but when he turned back toward his office he saw Nurudeen's father going out the other door, past the secretary and out to the school's front gate. He didn't like the man and he tried to remind himself, one more time, that he was in this business for the fun of it, for the surprises of each new day.

Still, though he tried not to hurry, when he got outside the confounded man was already in his car and was pretending impatience, about to have his driver pull away.

Though Nurudeen's father had been slightly cordial in Jerry's office, once inside his automobile he seemed to concentrate on the outside world. Jerry carried the teacher files with him, and since it was clear that Nurudeen's father preferred not to speak, he opened the files and went over everything once more, making sure that there was no detail about which he was unsure. The traffic was light so the trip went quickly, but when they got close to the Federal Secretariat everything stopped again. Jerry looked out the window and could see that there were police cars around. He could feel a certain lively excitement in the morning air.

“It is better for us to walk,” said Nurudeen's dad, so Jerry gathered his files and slid across the seat, getting out after the man and straightening his jacket as he stood.

“Ah, masta,” said a voice, and Jerry looked to see the ironing-board boy. It was he who had opened the car door.

“You sold me a piece of junk,” Jerry said. He felt real anger and he glared at the boy. “The legs are too long and the top is warped.”

“Oh no,” said the ironing-board boy, but Nurudeen's father had not waited, so Jerry didn't speak again. He followed the man toward the ministry, and it really did appear as though something strange was going on. The path ahead of them was crowded, a murmur floating above it like a chant.