On Black Sisters Street (21 page)

“I always thought you did not look very Nigerian,” Ama says finally.

Efe laughs and says, “Today na de day for confessions. What are you, Joyce? Who are you? Where are you from? Really?”

Joyce turns away from the wall. She stoops, facing the women, and begins to work on the center table. When she starts talking, her voice does not have the hard edge that her housemates have become used to. Instead, it is a child’s voice.

“My real name’s Alek.”

Alek: It sounds like a homecoming. Like the origin of life.

SISI

“SO, HOW DID IT GO? WHAT DID THEY SAY? DID THEY GIVE YOU ANYTHING?”
The questions rolled off, chasing one another heel to heel as soon as Sisi entered the sitting room where Madam sat, cigarette in hand, waiting for her. Madam was a huge yellow sun with green combat boots under flared yellow trousers. Her yellowness clashed with the redness of the walls, and Sisi thought the whole effect was rather obscene.

Sisi was tired. Her eyes hurt. She could not tell if they ached from the bright yellows of the woman in front of her or if they ached simply because she was tired. Sleep had never been so desired. She longed for the bed in the room that had been her world since she arrived.
I really don’t want to do this now
, she thought of telling Madam. She wanted the freedom to allow sleep to woo her, to caress her with its softness, until she succumbed. She tried to avoid the yellows and kept her eyes on Madam’s face. It was passive, the face of a woman who was not in a hurry to hear her answer but who nevertheless was not used to being disobeyed. Sisi let her eyes follow the patterns made by the smoke from Madam’s cigarette. The smoke made faces that mocked her. First her mother’s. Then Peter’s.

“They said no. No asylum for me.” She fished in her handbag for
the paper they had given her and gave that to Madam as she repeated herself. “They said no.”

The officer behind the table had told her: “We are not satisfied with your story. This paper here says that you have three days to leave the country.” A stamped document had been slid over to her. She gave it to Madam. She wanted to ask why she had gone to the ministry if the paper meant that she had to return to Lagos in three days’ time.

The gold bangles on Madam’s right wrist jangled and flashed as she took the paper. Without even reading it, she folded it and slid it into her handbag. She looked up at Sisi and, as if she had read Sisi’s mind, said, “This paper is no concern of yours. All you need to know is that you’re a persona non grata in this country. And you do not exist. Not here.” Madam puffed on her cigarette, lifted her face upward, and blew smoke into the room. It sailed up to the ceiling and disappeared.

Sisi would always wonder why Madam went through the process of sending new girls to the castle. Did she really expect them to be granted asylum? And if they were, then what?

Madam half closed her eyes, took another long drag on her cigarette, released flimsy smoke into the room, and slowly opened her eyes. She let them run over Sisi, slowly, thoughtfully. As if she were trying to size her up—a commodity for sale, a piece of choice meat, a slab of meat at the local abattoir. “Now you belong to me. It cost us a lot of money to organize all this for you.” She spread her left hand, palm downward, as she spoke, sweeping at the sofas in the room as if to say that “all this” referred to the sofa. Her cigarette lay snuggled between the middle and index fingers on her right hand. “Until you have paid up every single kobo”—she pointed the cigarette at Sisi—“every single cent of what you owe us, you shall not have your passport back. Every month we expect five hundred euros from you. That should be easy to do if you are dedicated. But I understand that sometimes you may not be able to, so we have set a minimum repayment of one hundred euros. Every month you go to the Western Union
and transfer the money to Dele. Any month you do not pay up …” She let the threat hang, unspoken yet menacing, her left hand plucking at a tuft of hair under her chin. Suddenly, she reached behind her and, from somewhere at the back of the chair she was sitting on, drew out a black rucksack. She threw the bag at Sisi. “Here. Your work clothes. Tonight you start.” With a flick of her right hand, Sisi was duly dismissed.

In her room, Sisi dropped the bag on the floor and sagged into her bed. There would be time enough to discover what her work clothes were. Right now tiredness curbed her capacity for curiosity. She hoped she could sleep, but it was always difficult for her to sleep when she wanted to. She tried to command her body to relax.

Rest, legs
, she ordered her legs. They twitched.

Rest, hands
. Her hands folded themselves under her head.

Rest, eyes
. She shut her eyes.

Rest, mind
. The amount she was supposed to pay every month echoed in her head.
Five hundred. Five hundred. Five hundred. Five hundred
. She tossed and turned. She lay on her side, her hands between her thighs, her eyes still shut.
Five hundred. Five hundred. Five hundred. Five hundred
.

Five hundred euros was a lot of money. If she converted that to naira, it amounted to more money than she had ever dreamed of making in any single month, even working in her bank of first choice. That was five times her father’s salary. Surely, if she was expected to pay back that much, it meant that she was expected to earn a lot more. How much more? She could not get her head around it. Her dreams were within reach of coming true. The gold jewelry, the house for her parents, the posh car. If dedication was all it took, then she had it. Months from now she would discover that dedication was not always enough, that there was a resilience required that she did not have. And she would think that maybe that was what the dream that first night had been about.

ZWARTEZUSTERSTRAAT | ALEK

SHE WAS NAMED FOR HER GRANDMOTHER. TALL. REGAL. A BLACKNESS
that shone as if polished. She did not know the woman whose name she bore, the old woman having died of a rabid dog bite before Alek was born. But her memory lived in the pictures of her around the house. In the stories that were told of her (every man wanted her for a wife; her beauty was unrivaled; she could have been a queen: the way she carried herself was simply regal). In the name that her granddaughter had been given. And in the family’s fear of and utter hatred of dogs.

Alek had inherited the shiny blackness. The legendary beauty. The height. The darkened lips. But she was not imperial. Her grandmother’s regality had completely passed her by, leaving her with a tomboyishness that both disappointed and worried her mother.
Do not play football, Alek. It’s not ladylike. Do not play ’awet, it’s for men only. Do not sit with your legs spread like that, Alek, it’s not ladylike. Do not. Do not. Do not. Do not
. Sometimes the
do not
s were screamed at her in frustration. At other times they were whispered to her, fervent pleas of a despairing mother who tried to get her interested in other things. Taking her along to milk cows. Finding chores for her in the kitchen. But Alek had her eyes elsewhere. The udders of the cows distressed her. The kitchen was unbearable.

When her period arrived, at twelve, her mother took her aside. She gave her a list of things boys were never allowed to do to her. “Do not let them touch you.”

“But why not? What’s wrong with touching, Mama?” She was itching to go out and play; that insufferable Ajak would be showing off on the skipping rope. But she, Alek, had practiced all week and could skip better than Ajak. Oh, she could not wait to show her. To wipe the smirk off her face. She hoped her mother would not see that her
asida
lay unfinished. She had no appetite for it. She did not like the food much.

“Not that kind of touching.” Her mother shifted on her stool. How to tell this? How to explain herself? She shifted again. “Touching … in a different way.”

“How different?”

“Do not let them see you naked. Okay?”

“Never!” Why should she want a boy to see her naked? The idea. How could her mother think that?

The mother smiled, relief washing over her face. “Girls who let boys see them naked are not good girls. Nobody will give any cow to marry them. Save yourself for the man who will marry you. Marriage first. And then the touching.
E yin nyan apath
, be a good girl, my daughter. Promise me.”

“I’ll be a good girl. I promise,” Alek said. She got up, but her mother motioned to her to sit down.

“Your food. Eat it up.”

Alek groaned. The lump of porridge on her plate winked in mischief.

IT WAS MARCH. IT WAS DRY. IT WAS DUSTY.
IN THE NIGHT I COULDN’T SLEEP
because of the cold. But also because we were leaving Daru for a refugee camp.
Her father, Nyok, hoped they could get resettled somewhere
close to Khartoum. And, eventually, a migration to the United Kingdom or America.
I was fifteen. I did not want to leave
.

She had learned to write on the kitchen walls. Ignoring the food on fire, ignoring her mother’s admonishment that the kitchen was not a classroom. And that nobody would pay cows for a girl who let her food burn.

The SPLA—the Sudan People’s Liberation Army—which had been guarding the predominantly Dinka town, was withdrawing. There was a rumor that the
janjaweed
militia was making its way to Daru. To sniff out the SPLA members. And to cleanse the city of its Dinka population. People were disappearing. They would have to travel light, Nyok said. They might not be able to hitch a ride. Not with four of them: Alek, Ater—her younger brother—Nyok and Apiu, the parents.
I liked going to Khartoum. It was a different world. High-rise buildings. Lots of cars. And women with henna on their feet and hands
. The elaborate designs intrigued her. They seemed to have their own lives. To move. Alek often wondered what it would be like to be hennaed all over. (But she would be careful not to get the henna around her cuticles. Henna around the cuticles spoiled the beauty of it. It made the cuticles look dirty, as if the women had spent hours digging up crops and had not bothered to wash their hands.) But this was not a shopping trip. Or a sightseeing trip to the museum. This was a fleeing from home.

In the morning, breakfast and a bath. And an argument. Apiu did not want Nyok in his white
jalabiya
. “In this weather, your gown will be brown before we have reached the end of our street.”

Nyok would not be moved. “I shall wear white.” Solidly said. A voice not to be argued with.

A normal day.
I was upset at having to leave
. Then a scream.
Aiiiiii! Aiiiiiiii!
Loud enough to etch cracks into the walls of the house.
Aiiiiiiiii! Aiiiiiii!
Paralyzing in its horror. Nobody moved.
I dropped
the bundle Ma had given me to carry. Covered my ears with my palms. Too late. Too late
, she thought.

“We’ll survive,” Nyok said. A promise. A voice not to be argued with. “Everybody into our bedroom!”

The children in the clothes cupboard. Husband and wife at the bedroom door. Locked. A sigh of relief. Maybe the soldiers would pass them by. Alek peeped through the keyhole. Dust. Darkness. The key in the lock stole the light and whatever she might have been able to see. Her father’s voice. Talking to his wife. Everything. Will. Be. Fine. Then a
boom, kaboom
. The door knocked off its hinges. A gasp (her mother? probably). Loud footsteps that could belong only to soldiers.

Splintering of glass. The mirror beside the door, the only breakable thing in the room. The soldiers laughed.

“Where are they?” A rough voice. “Where are the rebels? Bring them out!”
Brrgghh
. A kick against the cupboard door. Alek held her breath. Did she dare exhale? She reached out for her brother. His hand, slithery with sweat, slipped.

“There is nobody here, sir, just my wife and me.” Polite. Politeness never led anyone astray. Maybe, just maybe, it would sway the minds of the intruders. Alek prayed.

“Nobody here, sir, just my wife and me!” A voice mocking her father’s.