Say You’re One Of Them (14 page)

I wasn’t interested in traveling anymore, though somehow my mind refused to associate my godparents with what had happened that night. I felt better thinking they didn’t know, and took solace in the memory of their visit. Though I no longer felt like following them, I didn’t think they meant us any harm. And though Fofo apologized to us the next morning and said he overdid things just a bit in case life became difficult abroad, I started thinking of how to escape and run back to Braffe with my sister.

ONE
DAY
FOFO
RUSHED
back from work unexpectedly, like in his pre-Nanfang days when he had duped someone at the border and needed to go underground. He jumped off his bike and stormed into the parlor. He quickly locked the door behind him and leaned against it, breathing like one who had escaped from a lion. Uncharacteristically, Fofo had abandoned the Nanfang outside. He didn’t respond to our greetings. He mumbled something about protecting us from evil and started unbolting the windows. A humid gust of wind drifted in and flushed the room of the stuffiness that had filled the place since we sealed the house three weeks before.

“Yes, if dem want kill me,
ye ni hù mì,
” he said to no one in particular. He had his arms akimbo and seemed very proud of this single action of opening the windows. Then he removed his coat and sat down heavily on the bed.

“Fofo, who wants to kill you?” Yewa asked quietly, not moving closer to him.

Since that night when he went naked before us, we were scared to get close to him and said very little to him. He said little to us too. Silence grew between us like yeast, and the room felt smaller, while his presence seemed to expand. We looked forward to his leaving the house, and when he was home, sometimes we pretended to be asleep.

Now I began to speak to him from our bed: “Fofo, are you . . . ?”

“Leave me alone!” he warned, holding his forehead in his palms. “
Vous pensez que
I
dey
craze, huh?”

“No, no, Fofo,” I pleaded.

“I
dey
OK . . . notting
dey
wrong wid me.”

Yewa didn’t say anything. Now she hid behind me, as she did that bad night. The fresh wind filled the room, and we listened to it and the distant wash of the ocean on the beach. After a while, she whispered in my ear that we should go outside, but when I grabbed her hand and wanted to leave the room, he ordered us to sit on the bed. My sister began to sob.

Fofo Kpee went outside to bring the Nanfang into the inner room. He pushed the bike forcefully, like a police officer arresting a difficult criminal. “If I must sell you to be free,” he said to the Nanfang, slapping the backseat, “I shall!”

When we saw him slapping the machine, we expected him to blow up at us at any moment. Then we heard him rummaging in the inner room, his anger evident in the way he threw things out of the way. He was searching for something. He came out with an iron bar we hadn’t seen in a long time.

He went to work with all his energy, climbing on a chair in our parlor-bedroom and chipping the cement mix we had put up a few weeks back, driven by a fury we couldn’t understand. He didn’t bother to move anything or to ask me for help. The brittle fill came flying down in bits and pieces. It was as if the whole place would come crashing down. The whiff of dust streaked the fresh air. And when I coughed, he ordered us to get out of his sight.

We went outside. The late-afternoon sun had gone past the center of the sky and hit the earth at an angle, pouring out of the clear skies without restraint. Looking down the long path to the road, we could see people going about their business, on foot and on bikes, in either direction. We sat quietly under the mango tree, facing the house. I sat on the ground with my back against the tree, my legs straight out before me, Yewa sitting on them, her head on my chest. Its shade wide and cool, the mango foliage wore a two-tone look, like our Nanfang. Some parts of the tree were in bloom, the new fruit and bright-green leaves contrasting with the old. The scent of the fruit, fresh and warm in the sun, filled the air, and the ground around us was sprayed with fine light-green pollen.

“Is he angry with Nanfang?” Yewa whispered to me when we could no longer hear him working inside.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“When we buy him a car, he won’t be angry again.”

“We’re not going to Gabon!”

“We’re not?” she said, turning to face me. “Why, huh?”

“Did you like what Fofo Kpee said the night he danced naked? You liked what he did?”

“No. But he said sorry to us the next day.” She closed her eyes in defiance and turned her back to me. “OK, I’ll go alone, with Mama and Papa!”

It was no use arguing with her.

Under that mango tree, my mind went back to thoughts of running away. Though I had no concrete plans and didn’t know whether it would be possible, the very idea of leaving lifted my mood that afternoon.

I was no longer sure about escaping to Braffe. Suppose I got there and my extended family was as fixated on Gabon as Yewa was and no one understood my change of mind? Who would believe me if I told them what Fofo had done that bad night? Or what if our siblings had been put through this already and didn’t complain? Again, I was concerned about how to escape with Yewa. How could I convince her to follow me when she was still excited about traveling?

For a moment, I thought about telling Monsieur Abraham that our uncle had gone crazy, about the late-night lessons and my plans to escape. But I was too ashamed to do that. What would he think of me? What if my classmates got wind of my uncle’s craziness?

I hated our house now and felt we could have sat out there forever, without wanting to go back in. The front door and the windows were open like the petals of a trap that would slam shut once the prey stepped inside. The angular sun shaved some of the shade off the veranda, catching one of the open windows, its metal gleaming like bait.

“Let’s not argue with him, so he won’t be mad at us,” I said to my sister. “Let’s go inside.”

“I want Mama.”

“Get up!” I said, and pushed her off my thighs.

We tiptoed to the door and peered in. Fofo lay sprawled out on the bed, like a monster dragged ashore by fishermen. His eyes weren’t completely shut. The scar on his cheek looked like a worm journeying from his eye to his mouth, or vice versa, eating his good humor. We sneaked into our bed and lay there, looking up at the roof. Though he had worked very hard all afternoon, he only succeeded in making gaping holes near the roof. They were many and ugly, rough and dreadful, like an unfinished haircut. It was worse than the space we used to have before we sealed it. Our walls now had long cracks, as if Fofo Kpee had made a mural of lightning on them. In some places, the plaster that covered the mud wall had come off, revealing a moldy interior. The smell of crushed stone lingered.

From the way he was sleeping now, we knew he would never have the energy to tackle the inner room. He didn’t talk to us when he woke up, and his face was subdued. He seemed even beyond the babble that had occasionally become his lot in those days.

I made food for myself and my sister because he refused to eat or drink. We ate quickly without talking. He just lay on his bed and stared at the holes he had created, as if whatever was upsetting him would reach in through them to hurt us. He lay faceup, his hands clasped under his head, his elbows up, his legs crossed. One moment he was as still as a corpse, and the next he startled at any sound.

That night we slept better than we had in a long time because of the holes he had made. We didn’t have any lessons.

BIG
GUY
VISITED
US the following day. He appeared unceremoniously, storming in without knocking. Fofo was lying on his bed. Big Guy came in ordinary clothes and looked unkempt and worried. As if he had been expecting him, Fofo didn’t stand up to receive him or even look at him. Actually, once he saw Big Guy, he sprawled out so the man couldn’t sit on his bed. Our visitor ignored him too, turning his attention to us.

“
Mes amis,
hey, how you
dey
today?” he said, slipping into a big smile, flashing us a thumbs-up.

“Fine,” we said.

He sat on our bed, in between us.

“I can see Fofo
dey
feed you well well.”

He plucked at my sister’s cheeks playfully. I hated the fact that what he was saying was true. We looked well fed these days. Our faces had become rounder, our cheeks had filled out, our ribs had disappeared, and our tummies had lost their bloatedness.

“I get good news for you
o,
” Big Guy said. “We go travel next week.” He rubbed his palms against each other as if he were praying to us. He pointed at Fofo, who shot him a wicked look, then glanced away. “We
dey
almost ready, OK . . . or, Mary, you want travel quick quick?”

“Today!” she said.

“Talk
am
again, bright gal!” Big Guy exclaimed, giving Yewa a high five. “You know better ting.”

Fofo turned and glared at us, and Yewa turned to me, uncertainty clipping her earlier abandon.

“Pascal . . . today?” Big Guy said, turning to me.

I pretended I didn’t hear him. An awkward silence filled the room.

“See, de children
dey
ready,” Big Guy announced to Fofo Kpee gleefully. “No disappoint dem now
o.
It too late. No be so, Mary?”

“Yes.”

“Who be the wife of Fofo David?”

“Tantine Cecile.”

“Any children?”

“Yves and Jules.”

“Your city for Gabon?”

“Port-Gentil.”

“Excellent. Pascal, you
dey
too quiet today. Mama
dey
like your maturity. And Tantine Cecile
dey
look forward to see you. . . . Say something,
abeg,
son. . . . Antoinette and Paul
dey
greet you. . . . You no want travel today like your sister?”

I didn’t want to talk to him. Once he mentioned my Gabon siblings, I became angry and imagined him dancing naked before them. It was my strongest memory of our preparations. I was as uncomfortable as if he were sitting naked with us. Though I didn’t know that Fofo had come to detest the Gabon deal, I secretly enjoyed the cold shoulder he was giving Big Guy. And though I knew that Big Guy was just teasing us about leaving that day, I couldn’t bring myself to share in the joke. I prayed that Fofo would just tell him to go to hell with his plans.

But both men’s eyes were fixed on my face. Fofo’s face was solemn, pained, and the other face had a frozen smile that seemed to need my reaction to thaw into a full one. I didn’t know where to look. My throat felt like sandpaper, and my lungs burned as if they had no air. The room seemed to shrink, and I dug my fingers into our mattress. I tried to smile to hide my feelings, but I didn’t know whether my face cooperated or not.

“Yes, he would like to travel today,” Yewa answered for me.

Fofo looked at her sharply. Big Guy broke into a full smile. I breathed again, my forehead moist with sweat.

“Your
fofo
like Gabon,
oui?
” Big Guy asked her, as if to score an added point against Fofo, having won the standoff.

She nodded. “Yes.”

Big Guy began to tickle her, making her snicker as if she had water in her throat. He explained that we would soon begin school in Port-Gentil. He said schools in Gabon were as beautiful as schools in France, that we would catch up with classes as soon as we got there. Though he tried to be friendly, plying us with sweets and rubbing our heads and dancing to entertain us, there was something hollow about his performance that day. He wasn’t wearing his immigration uniform, but the stiffness I had seen in him when he came with our godparents hung over him. After a while, even Yewa didn’t like his exaggerated excitement anymore. Though she kept answering his questions, she did so with single-word answers, as if she had intentionally struck a compromise between Fofo’s discomfort and Big Guy’s need to fill up his awkward visit with chatter.

Then Big Guy resorted to laughing a big laugh, as if the whole world had suddenly become funny. Yewa only smiled at him, without a sound. He laughed until his frame buckled over, and he sat on the floor; he laughed until he began to sound unnatural. He made funny faces and rolled his tongue to keep Yewa’s interest. It was as if Big Guy was learning to be a clown, like Fofo, while Fofo was learning to be serious, like Big Guy. It was a badly acted play, and we sat there, a captive audience. Though he turned on the boom box and Lagbaja’s “Konko Below” battered the room, Fofo lay there, unmoving, like a fallen statue.

After a while, Big Guy yawned and went to sit with Fofo Kpee. Fofo sat up abruptly, as if he needed to protect himself. Big Guy put his arm around his neck.

“Smiley,
mon ami,
you
dey
take tings too serious.”

“I done make up my mind,” Fofo said, his face tight like a rock, his pinched lips like its eroded precipice. “
Efó!
”

“
Non, abeg,
no talk
comme ça
o,
” Big Guy said. “I only
dey
joke yesterday. . . . I mean, if you no want work for our
NGO
anymore, it’s OK. Be fair to yourself,
au moins
. We no reach point of no return yet, so you still fit change your mind. But, no rush your decision.”

Fofo looked at him without saying anything for a while. “
Peutêtre,
we should suspend de plan for now.”

“You’re bound to feel like dis at de beginning.
Moi aussi,
I no like de plan at de beginning. It be like say you
dey
exploit de young, but actually you
dey
help dem. Dem go get plenty chance abroad. Already, we
dey
give dem food tree times daily . . . clothes, shoes, books . . . are dese bad tings for dem?”

“Maybe.”

“You no get
liva o
. . . coward, huh?”

“Show me person who no go fear?”

“
Mais pourquoi?
Why?” Big Guy patted him on the back. “
Abeg, courage, oui?
”