Seeds of Plenty (17 page)

SYLVIA/WINSTON

Chapter 26

As Sylvia watched Ayo with Donna from afar, she began to doubt her decision. But how could she go back to Ayo? He had moved on. But she craved seeing him and began to look for a reason to be by his side again. Events in the tumultuous country around them would set the stage, providing her with the perfect opportunity and excuse.

Nigeria, which at the start of the last decade had been drunk on its sleek oil, now woke up in 1983 with a heavy hangover. After having been drenched in crisp
naira
bills pasted on foreheads and arms while they danced, the people discovered the money was never really theirs. Secret pipelines had siphoned valuable foreign exchange to Swiss bank accounts. Schoolteachers had not been paid in months. After the rigged election, people took to the streets in December 1983.

In Oyo state where Sylvia lived, President Shegari’s Northern Muslim-dominated party had “won” even though the state was mostly populated by Southern Christians, the opposition party. Winston was gone, paying no heed to the unrest in the country, visiting Simeon and other rural farmers. Sylvia heard there had been a riot in the town. She knew Ayo’s clinic would be overflowing with patients, and he would need any help he could get. It was the morning of New Year’s Eve, the day that marked the start of their affair years ago. Suddenly, she had to see him again. A kind of madness compelled her to get into her car and drive through the unsettled streets.

Sylvia turned out of the compound’s white gates. She noticed there were more people than usual clustered alongside the road, and the traffic slowed. Despite the air conditioner, it was hot in the car, and her bare legs stuck to the plastic seats. She kept the windows rolled up. Suddenly, there was a loud bang on her window, and she jumped. She looked up and was surprised to see a boy holding a bag of red apples instead of the usual mangos and pineapples. He shouted out an exorbitant price, the apples smuggled in someone’s suitcase from the UK, banking on desperate expats craving their favorite fruit for the holidays.

Sylvia drove by the new soccer stadium, the steel structure casting a dark shadow on the cardboard and plastic tarp shacks around it. Precious government oil revenues had been squandered on steel and glass while half-dressed children played in the gutters beneath it. Next to the stadium, she saw the carcass left from a car accident—the wheels, steering wheel, seats, and mirrors already scavenged and reused. Somewhere, a legless man was wheeling around in the front car seat, now attached to bike wheels. A young woman was applying lipstick while gazing into the rear view mirror that now hung above a yellow plastic bucket, her sink and bath.

A block from Ayo’s clinic, the traffic stopped moving entirely. She could see the two-story blue and white clinic in the distance, but her car was trapped behind the multitude of cars, mopeds, and carts swarming the road. She got out of the car, not caring that it might be gone in a matter of minutes. She began running toward the clinic, weaving through the crowds and pushing her way through. When she reached the clinic, she was out of breath, her dress drenched in perspiration. She walked through the glass doors and saw Donna sitting behind the small wooden reception table.

***

 

Unaware that his wife was running to Ayo’s clinic in the midst of riots, Winston visited Simeon’s family on the morning of New Year’s Eve. He had brought gifts for the children. The four children smiled at him with dark eyes and white teeth. Simeon’s ten-year old son held up a small white goat in his arms. His son was shirtless, and his brown pants were too large for him, rolled up at the waist and at the bottom. Simeon’s other two children pulled the youngest child in a pink plastic laundry basket around the dirt ground, the little girl with beads in her hair squealed in delight. Abike stood ironing the children’s school uniforms on a wooden plank placed over an empty oil drum, the rusted iron full of burning charcoal. She took pride in ensuring her children were dressed in crisp, clean uniforms every day for school. But today, he could feel the intensity of her rage coming from the hot iron, the way she attacked her ironing with a vengeance.

Now more than ever, he wanted to make it up to Abike, to quell her rage. Winston sat down on a wooden stool next to Simeon. He reached into his bag and pulled out a large manila envelope. This year’s harvest had generated enough to replant next season. But it was still not enough to repay Simeon’s loans, which Winston knew were multiplying with interest. There had been too many failures. Two harvests ago, Simeon’s crop had suffered without the regular supply of fertilizers. This year, despite a decent harvest, the flooded market had driven the price of maize down. Winston knew Simeon was struggling financially.

He placed the envelope into Simeon’s hand. Simeon looked inside and saw folded naira bills, a generous amount of Winston’s own savings. Simeon looked up at Winston. He seemed surprised and then hurt.

“No, no…dis is not necessary,” Simeon said, shaking his head, pushing the envelope back into Winston’s hands.

Winston took the money back, embarrassed. He had hurt Simeon’s pride. He suddenly wished he had not tried to do such a thing. The gesture had been full of good intentions, and he knew Simeon appreciated this, but it still recalibrated their friendship. He knew it had humiliated Simeon, signaling they were not on equal footing.

Winston got up, embarrassed, and took his leave. He put the small white goat, a gift to him from Simeon, in the back of his jeep. He saw Oluwa standing in the distance, watching them.

“Be careful, sah,” was all Simeon said as Winston got into his jeep.

The armed escort drove Winston along the deserted road. Winston looked out the window and felt the isolation. There were no towns along the road, just the bush on both sides. The late afternoon sun lit up the red earth termite mounds, some ten feet high—spiraled towers and castles of dirt, full of underground tunnels. Winston couldn’t stop thinking of Simeon’s face when he had offered the money. He noticed Simeon’s goat was skittish in the back of the jeep, jumping from corner to corner. This nervousness was contagious and Winston felt on edge. He knew bloody skirmishes had occurred between the Muslims and Christians in the towns. He was glad to have the armed escort, but he didn’t know if this was a false sense of security.

After seeing no one for a full hour, he saw something in the distance, a few empty oil drums set out in the middle of the road, some soldiers dressed in camouflage, a military check point. But something didn’t seem right. Why in the middle of nowhere was there a military checkpoint? Perhaps a response to the riots and violence in the town, he hoped. The armed escort slowed the jeep.

***

 

The soldier at the checkpoint asked Winston and the armed escort to get out of the jeep and open the trunk. It seemed to be a routine military checkpoint, and in any case, Winston thought, the armed escort was no match against the military. He was merely meant to scare off a few crazy villagers.

Another soldier looked in the trunk and picked up the skittish white goat trying to make its escape.

“Keep it, Happy New Year from me,” Winston said, hoping this would be the end of the search. He was worried the soldiers would find the envelope full of cash in his bag. He had shoved the bag under the passenger seat as they had approached the checkpoint.

“Tank you, ma friend,” a tall, thin soldier said smiling. “Anyting else you want to give me, eh?” When he smiled, the tribal tattoos on his cheeks, ripples on his skin, seemed to disappear.

Winston shook his head.

“Are you sure?” the tall soldier opened the front door of the jeep and peered inside as if he had been tipped off about the envelope of money.

“You trying to hide something from us, you
O’Ebo
?” the soldier said as he searched the car further. Because of his height, it took some effort for the soldier to reach under the seats, but he soon found the bag. He looked in the bag and pulled out the manila envelope. The soldier’s eyes grew large when he saw the amount of cash stuffed in the envelope.

“Keep it too. Another New Year’s gift from me,” Winston said, suddenly feeling nervous.

“You weren’t going to share dis wit me and I thought we was friends. I am hurt, ma friend,” the soldier said, holding the cash in his hand.

With his other hand, the soldier hit him in the face. Winston fell to the ground, his mouth full of dirt and the taste of his own blood. With the salty tang of blood in his mouth, Winston suddenly felt afraid. He knew once blood started flowing, who knew if they would stop. These men liked the smell of blood and the scent of fear on their prey. Winston’s armed escort reached for his gun, but another solider hit him in the stomach, and he fell to the ground. They put Winston and his armed guard in the back of their truck.

“We taking you to de station for dis deception. Take you to see de boss,” said the soldier with the scars.

Winston realized his folly. He should have just given these men the envelope up front. Now, they were going to mess with him.

The soldier drove Winston to the “station,” a stifling, three-room cement house under a tin roof. The inside “office” was more for show. Most of the soldiers hung out under the cool of the large tree outside. The soldier introduced him to his captain. Winston sat down at the desk. The Captain, a large overweight man, sat down opposite him and asked for his passport. Winston reluctantly gave his passport to him, but the thought occurred to him that this could be last time he would see it. Being stranded in a country on the verge of political violence without proper identification was not his idea of how to spend New Year’s Eve. His passport served as his ticket out of here. He thought of the road they had built on the compound next to the lake, long and wide enough for airplanes to land and takeoff for immediate evacuations.

The Captain read his passport cover page,
Taiwan, the Republic of China,
as he smoked a cigarette. Old cigarette butts were scattered on the cement floor below him.

“China?” he asked. “My brotha he go to China. He is soldier too. He met Chinese girl. She come here with him.” The Captain spoke with a scratchy, raspy voice, typical of a chronic, long-term smoker.

The Captain was not smiling, he didn’t seem angry either, so Winston couldn’t tell if this coincidental family connection was going to be fortuitous for him. Winston wondered what the Captain’s brother was doing in China, but this was the Cold War. No doubt Communist China was doing its bit to build “relations” with African countries especially oil-rich ones like Nigeria. Winston didn’t bother to explain that he was from Taiwan, the “other China.”

The Captain tossed the passport on his desk, and to Winston’s dismay, the passport seemed to get lost in the piles of loose papers and bits of oil-stained newspaper once used to wrap the Captain’s breakfast. This Chinese woman, Winston realized, whether she had been nice or not nice to the Captain’s brother, would decide his fate. She was his only ambassador at this point.

“Let me show you your five stah hotel for tonight,” the Captain said, coughing. His voice sounded brittle to Winston. He walked down the short hallway. They passed a cell crammed full of people—the small size of the cell offering barely enough standing room for the crowd. The Captain led Winston to the other cell.

“We prepared dis one just for you,” the Captain said. “Courtesy of your good friend.”

Winston looked up. This was the first time the Captain had mentioned any other accomplice in his situation.

“What friend?” Winston asked.

“Let’s just say we have a friend in common, you and me.” The Captain chuckled.

Winston thought only of Oluwa
.
He had arranged for this? Had he seen the envelope of money Winston had tried to give Simeon and then alerted the Captain to rob him? The money would be payment to the Captain for locking Winston up, serving Oluwa’s larger goal to be rid of Winston.

The Captain pushed him into the cell. Winston surveyed his dismal accommodations. The cell was empty. There was a small window up high with bars. The only furniture in the room was a wooden stool and a lidded red bucket in the corner of the room that reeked of urine. The Captain then shouted someone’s name. A girl came hurrying in with a bucket of Fanta and Coca-Cola bottles. The Captain handed the girl a stapler. A stapler? What were they going to do to him? But the girl took the stapler and, with the back of the metal, opened a soft drink bottle for Winston. Another soldier came into the cell and threw Winston his suitcase with his toothbrush and change of clothes. Then the barred metal door slammed loudly, and the Captain, soldier, and girl took their leave.

Winston was left alone in the cell. He wasn’t sure what had happened to his armed guard. Was he in the cell next to him? Winston felt unbearably hot. There was not much air in the cell. The smell of urine coming from the bucket and the cell itself made him feel sick. He sat down on the stool against the wall strewn with the pockmarks of bullets. Would this be his end, languishing in a Nigerian cell arranged by Oluwa and his juju doctor? He might not make it through the night. He tasted the flavor of his own blood in his mouth. He washed this down with the sweet orange taste of the Fanta soda.

 

Chapter 27

Sylvia walked through the mass of people overflowing into the hallway, the familiar sour, metallic smell of blood and ammonia greeted her. She noticed some new rusty-red stains on the floor.

“Sylvia,” Ayo said, their eyes met. “You came.” He showed her into his office at the back of the clinic.

“I came to help out.”

“I’m glad to see you,” he said softly. “I’ve missed you.” They looked at each other briefly, and she blushed. He was so close to her, she wanted to touch him, lay in his arms again.

“I’ll end it, if you come back. She’s nothing to me,” he said as if reading her mind.

“I should go get changed. I’m sure there’s a lot of work to do,” she said, suddenly upset. How could he make love to someone and say it was nothing?

Donna poked her head in his office. “Ayo, they need you in room four. Bleeding won’t stop.” Did he ask all his lovers to become volunteers?

He touched Sylvia’s shoulder lightly and left.

Sylvia went to the staff room and changed into a nurse’s uniform. She looked down the hallway. Donna was busy in reception writing down patients’ symptoms in the spiral notebook with the triage nurse, Sylvia’s old job. Sylvia tried to avoid Donna, working instead on attending to the patients already checked in. The lacerations on some of children were grotesque, innocent bystanders in the riots. She helped stitch up some of these wounds as best as she could. Others would require surgery.

“Winston told me you were a nurse,” Donna said, coming in to her room to watch her work on patients. “That’s great that you put yourself to work out here unlike the other wives just sitting by the pool.”

“I’m not much into sitting by the pool,” Sylvia responded as she finished up stitching a girl’s arm.

She hadn’t expected a compliment from her, but then again, maybe Donna did not know they were rivals in any way, or perhaps she didn’t care given her casual attitude toward sex and relationships. But Sylvia still thought to tread carefully as the woman was also Winston’s colleague. The less said, the better, she thought. She ignored Donna and focused instead on another child, picking out pieces of glass from a wound on his leg with a pair of tweezers.

“Well, I can see you’re busy. Just wanted to say I admire your work,” Donna said as she left the room.

***

 

Later around five o’clock, they all climbed into Ayo’s car. Sylvia never explained that she had foolishly abandoned her car by the roadside. But they didn’t get that far down the road before an angry mob surged forward. Ayo deftly sped the car backwards down the road, but the crowd followed with sticks and metal pipes, whatever they could find. Ayo’s new Peugeot, imported and a sign of entitlement, was an easy target for people angry at those robbing them blind. He swerved backwards into the clinic, honking at the gatehouse. His guards, armed with machine guns, let them in and then quickly shut the gates, dispersing the crowd by firing a few shots into the air.

***

 

When Sylvia woke up the next morning, lying on the cot in Ayo’s office, the country had changed overnight. She could hear the faint sound of military parade music coming from the next room. She worried about her children. Were they safe? They were supposed to have gone to the New Year’s Eve party at the clubhouse as a family. Had Winston made it back to the compound?

Sylvia looked over and saw the two chairs Donna had slept on were empty. Sylvia hadn’t slept much of the night. She had heard the sounds of Ayo’s voice, low and muted, as he did the rounds in his clinic all night long, but somehow she must have drifted off in the early hours of the morning. She looked at herself in her compact mirror and rummaged through the contents of her purse for lipstick, anything to make her look less tired and disheveled.

“You’re awake,” Ayo came into the room, he seemed worried. “There was a military coup last night. Soldiers descended on the Presidential palace and took over the government, but so far no one has been killed.”

“Can…can we go back?” Sylvia said, her voice wavering. She had heard all those stories about expats in Iran after the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, having to flee with whatever clothes they had on them. What about her children? And where was Winston? She felt the juju doctor’s misfortune descending on her and her family.

“Don’t worry. Your children will be safe in the compound,” Ayo said, but he didn’t attempt to put his arms around her and instead kept a formal distance. “We’ll go back immediately. The guards said the streets outside have calmed down since hearing the news. People are keeping a low profile.”

Donna peered in, holding a short-wave radio. “I can’t find any more news except the little we heard on the BBC. All the local stations are just playing military marching music.” Her hair was tied up in the same ponytail, and she wore no makeup.

They got in Ayo’s car again. Donna sat up front while Sylvia climbed into the backseat. Ayo drove through the streets, and everything was eerily quiet. They made decent progress along the road, driving quickly through the empty streets.

“Do you think the people will welcome the military takeover?” Donna said.

“Oddly enough, yes,” Ayo said. “I know it’s contrary to what you think. But honestly, I think everyone is fed up with so-called democratic government. Shegari’s presidency has been the most corrupt ever. People are upset. In spite of the oil, the economy and the ordinary people’s lives are worse off.”

“I realize that. But how do you know these guys aren’t going to do the same thing? I mean steal money from the state’s coffers. Especially now since the people have relinquished their right to boot them out,” Donna said.

“We don’t know. In the past, military leaders have set up free elections and given up control. But yes, it’s quite possible, they could hang on, and this could be the beginning of a long line of despots.”

“You’re willing to take that chance?”

“I suppose I’ve lost all my idealism. Not sure if democracy worked. Not sure if military dictatorship worked. They were both terrible,” Ayo said, sounding defeated. “I’m in the business of worrying about the sick, the children, the injured. Nothing seems to improve under either rule.”

Sylvia was quiet, listening to how easily they spoke to each other. She felt jealous and left out of the conversation. She saw something that perhaps Ayo and Donna didn’t know yet. Despite his casual attitude toward Donna, Ayo had found his equal in her, something Sylvia felt she could never be.

“This country has so much potential to be great,” Donna said. “The people are entrepreneurial, and you have some of the best minds in Africa. If only we could stop the few trying to rob it blind.” Donna’s face seemed to light up as she talked about Nigeria.

Sylvia looked over at Ayo. He seemed buoyed by Donna’s enthusiasm for his country. It would bond them in some inexplicable way, she feared. Suddenly, Sylvia felt claustrophobic in the car with them, she had to get out.

***

 

Ayo dropped Sylvia off first, knowing she was concerned about her children. She got out of the jeep quickly, barely acknowledging Ayo or Donna. The children heard the car pull up, and they ran to the door, looking worried.

“Where were you Mama?” Lila said angrily. “We missed the New Year’s Eve party because of you.” She was eleven years old, and Thomas was nine.

“Madam, we wait and wait for you. But you not come, so I put de children to bed,” Patience explained.

“Winston hasn’t come home yet?” Sylvia said as she entered the living room.

Patience shook her head, and the children suddenly looked frightened. He was supposed to have returned yesterday for the party.

Sylvia looked up frantically at the clock on the wall. It was ten in the morning.

“Maybe he is on de way,” Patience said, trying to reassure her.

Sylvia turned the TV on. But there was nothing on except the usual colored stripes accompanied by loud, military marching music. She left it on anyway.

She picked up the phone and called Richard.

“Yes, I know there’s been a coup…Winston hasn’t come back yet…Yes he was supposed to come back last night…A search party?…Do you think he’s in trouble?…No, I will try not worry…Yes, sit tight.”

She hung up and collapsed on the couch, too tired and anxious to even shower. Patience brought her some tea and toast.

“Madam, you need to eat,” Patience said in a maternal way. “Don’t worry, everyting will be OK. God will be watching over him.”

“Thank you, Patience,” Sylvia said, grabbing Patience’s hand. “What would I do without you?” There were tears in the corner of Sylvia’s eyes as she held Patience’s hand. She had been through it all with her—the baby, the spirits, the unraveling marriage, the affair, the juju doctor’s spell. Patience had been her friend, her family, the one person that had remained steady and constant in her adult life in Africa. If Patience left her, she would be at a loss.

“Patience, do you like it here?” she asked, suddenly. “I mean, would you one day go home back to Cote d’Ivoire?”

“I cannot go back dere, eh.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I left to go to school in Abijan. But I failed. Only my people dey don’t know dat. Dey tink I am a successful businesswoman here in Nigeria. Dey tink I have plenty plenty money. I send dem most of my salary. I can’t go home. It’s a lie. I have no money.”

They both were exiled from their homelands, condemned to wandering a stranger’s land.

“You look tired, madam, you should go rest,” Patience said.

“Call me Sylvia, not madam.”

“I can’t, madam, it no feel right eh,” Patience said as if she were wary of crossing the imaginary employer-friend boundary. Sylvia realized Patience was her friend, but was she Patience’s friend? She had relied on Patience for everything in her life, but had Patience relied on anything from her except her salary?

Disappointed, Sylvia retired to her room. It had been a long day. Sylvia drifted into a quasi-sleep state and had terrible nightmare. It was about Winston. There was blood everywhere. It was another terrible hallucination, one of the many that had seemed to haunt her recently. When she woke up, she felt sick to her stomach.

***

 

Winston did not sleep much that night. His two companions, a giant flying cockroach and a tailless lizard, kept him awake much of the night scuttling around in the cement cell. The lizard chased the cockroach, hoping to make a meal out of it.
He listened in the darkness to their battle. He heard the crowd fighting in the cell next to him. Was his armed guard in there too? He knew the prisoners had been crammed together in that tiny cell to accommodate him, an
O’Ebo
. Yet he still wasn’t about to open up his cell to them either.

Sometime close to midnight, he heard people cheering outside. He thought it was just the usual New Year’s revelry. He didn’t know the military had just captured the President and set up shop in the palace. At sunrise, he heard the roosters crowing, and someone opened his cell door.

“It’s time to celebrate, ma friend.” A man he didn’t recognize dressed in civilian clothes came in, smiling, giving him a cold beer for breakfast.

He led him out of the cell. The Captain was nowhere to be seen. The cell next door was empty of its prisoners, the iron door left open.

“Where is everyone?” Winston said as he drank the beer eagerly.

“Everyone is happy. Dat President Shegari robber has been overthrown,” the man continued. “De Captain and his soldiers are loyal to Shegari. Dey fled. Before de military come and arrest dem.”

Winston nodded, stunned at his sudden freedom.

Winston slowly made his way to the door outside. He figured any sudden movement might cause fingers to bear down on triggers.

“I need my passport,” he said, looking through the papers on the Captain’s desk. Some beer had spilled onto the passport, but otherwise it was mostly intact. Winston put his passport back into the front pocket of his shirt. He thought a passport from Taiwan held no currency in the counterfeit passport business. Who would want to go there? If it had been an American or British passport, it would not have made it through the night simply lying on the Captain’s desk.

“Your man is waiting outside for you,” the man said, pointing to his now unarmed guard waiting by the big tree. Winston was relieved to see him.

“My jeep?” Winston asked the man.

“Oh dat, I dunno what happened to it. I tink the Captain and his men take it when dey run in de night.”

It didn’t matter to Winston, at least he was alive, nothing had happened to him. If it hadn’t been for the coup, he wasn’t sure what Oluwa and the Captain might have had in store for him. He was safe and free for now. He and his guard managed to find a ride home on the back of a local pickup truck, sitting on top of a mound of cassava tubers.