My American Suitor

The coming of my American suitor was like the kingdom of God. It was at hand. Mama announced it with the same tone she talked about rapture during her morning cries. ‘Prepare to meet him,’ she said to me, while slicing okras in the living room.
My hands crossed each other on my chest. ‘When?’
‘Didn’t you hear me the first time? He could be here anytime.’ She stood up from our well worn sofa, picked up the waterproof bag that she had brought back from the market and went into the kitchen.
Chi, Uche and NK circled me like moths around an electric bulb. Chi perched beside me on the armchair.
‘Jesus, I can’t believe this. My own sister will soon be an American citizen.’ Chi giggled.
‘And think of it. You can arrange for Uche to come over the moment you are settled.’ Nk gasped.
Uche sat cross-legged on the floor in front of me. His countenance betrayed his effort to conceal his exhilaration.
‘But he hasn’t seen me yet. You don’t know if he will like me.’ I tried to be modest.
‘Why won’t he?’ Mama emerged from the kitchen with a tray full of pumpkin leaves. She sat opposite us and began to slice. ‘I did not give birth to any ugly daughter. It is not ugliness that has prevented your older sisters from getting married. It is stupidity.’
NK and Chi frowned.
‘But you are different.’ Mama sliced swiftly, without a board. I always imagined the knife cutting through her hand, drawing blood. But it never did, not once since I have known her.
There was a knock at the gate, a loud banging actually.
‘Should be your father…’ Mama said, almost in a whisper.
Someone, most likely Uche, went to open the gate. I was half conscious of the things happening around. My thoughts drifted to America, that country of soaring possibilities, where whatever people did, no matter how menial, produced crisp currencies.
I smiled.
‘Ebere!’ Papa’s voice practically pounced on me.
‘Papa!’ my response promptly collided with his call. ‘Welcome, sah!’
‘Where is your mind?’
‘At America…’ Uche was laughing.
Papa’s lips stretched a little wider, but that was not a smile. Or was it?
Nk and Chi had gone inside the room. When I got up to join them, Papa said,
‘Nne, get me water to drink,’ as he sank into the chair where I had been sitting.
In between dunking a silver, steel cup into our drinking water bucket, and delivering it, two hands holding the slim cup, to Papa, I imagined what Johnson looked like.
‘Your mind is really far away,’ Papa remarked.
‘Oh,’ I gasped. ‘What?’
‘Get me another one…’
I probably didn’t return with another cup of water, and at night, I curled up beside chi in our bed, the bulb dim with a low current light and the fan moving almost in slow motion; mosquitoes hovering over my ears, I thought of Sunday, the day I would finally meet my American husband to be. It was my hardworking nature that got me such luck. This was Papa’s opinion. The man who had arranged the marriage had admired how I ran errands for Papa at his Cement shop, how I paid the carriers who took bags of cement to our customers without arguing.
I would have rolled from one side to another, but I was pinned to my position by Chi’s immovable body, snoring gently beside me. I did not sleep that night.
Sunday came swimmingly.
‘Show some flesh. Americans don’t really like conservative girls…’ Nk advised in the afternoon, while I tried out different clothes, discovering that I had nothing befitting to wear.
‘Wear this.’ Chi was willing to let me wear her new pumps, something only the prospect of an American in-law could make her do.
I finally wore ripped jeans and Ankara top. The pumps fit, too. I tried to make it chic. Then I set out.
I did not go with Nk, although she would have wanted me to. ‘It is better to meet him alone for the first time,’ Mama had advised.
As I sat in the waiting room of ABC transport company, Egbu road, Johnson’s voice reechoed in my ears. I loved his language, its timbres and lilt, the way the words glided out into my ears. It was agreeable.
My phone rang. I answered.
‘Yeah, where are you?’
‘Um, inside the park, you?’
‘Come outside!’
‘What?’
‘Come outside. I am not inside ABC park.’ The ‘r’ in park was ostentatious.
He hung up.
I found my way outside. Then it was my turn to call.
‘Hello, please where are you?’
‘Across the road. Just look across the road.’
I looked across the road. There was a middle aged man standing next to an old woman. Apart from them, every other person was essentially in a hurry to walk past or cross over.
‘I can’t see you…’
‘Oh, I can see you. Are you the one on Ankara top?’
‘Yes!’
I looked across the road. The middle aged man waved. Something moved from my heart to my waist and sunk into my hip bones. My heart raced. This could not be him.
The middle aged man started to cross the road, the old woman tagging along. I held my breath.
‘Ebere?’ he said when he came close to me.
‘Yes,’ I nodded in unbelief.
‘Pleased to meet you…’ he brought out a hand to shake me. I regarded the hand coldly.
‘Oh, I get it. We should hug, not shake…’ he came closer and hugged me with his side.
You know that smell that you perceive in your old grandmother’s house, the smell of a moldy room, of old, brittle papers and family history. That was the smell that oozed from him.
‘Meet my mum.’ He turned to his mother and said something in their incomprehensible dialect. His mother grinned and nodded in my direction. Her front teeth were all gone.
I nodded.
Then we stood still for an awkward minute or so. Why, this man was almost my father’s age. And what was wrong with his left eye? His eyelid looked swollen and covered the eye. His skin was pale, his teeth sticking out from his mouth even when it was closed. He was tall, slim, but without the kind of firm body that characterizes African Americans.
‘So, we should go and meet your parents or something.’
I nodded. He and his mother led the way, instead of me. They looked like displaced refugees. Something like a jute sack rested on his mother’s head. Who where these peasants?
‘You are supposed to give us direction,’ he turned to say. I could sense in his demeanor, an undercurrent of impatience.
‘Of course, yes…’ I quickly rearranged my face into something warm, cheery.
I waved down a taxi and said, ‘Drop.’
‘No, no… not drop. Drops are expensive. Or will you pay?’ He said with a nervous smile.
I swallowed. ‘I will pay.’ I was firm. I discussed the prize with the taxi man and I got into the passenger’s seat.
They got into the backseat.
‘I’m so tired. We practically stood all day. ABC fare is unaffordable. We had to board molue.’ He was speaking from the back.
I could hardly breathe. Such hardship!
‘Is there somewhere I could change dollars?’
I ignored the question, a suffocating pressure filling my chest.
The taxi man replied to his question. I can’t tell what he said. And the rest of the journey was a blur to me.
When we alighted from the taxi, I counted five hundred naira and paid. He did not protest. He simple looked away, as if scanning the environment.
It was Uche who opened the door for us, his eyes roaming about, sizing up the strangers and then me. There were questions in them.
‘Where is Papa?’ I asked him just to navigate my discomfort. I knew Papa was in the living room waiting.
When we got in, Papa looked at us, mouth agape. He shook hands with the visitors with exaggerated hospitability. It was Mama that I pitied. When she came out of the room and saw the visitors, she greeted them and then, bewilderment lodged in her eyes, she turned to me.
‘Where is Johnson?’ her voice was the weight of a whisper, a desperate, harsh whisper.
When I pointed at the middle aged man, she sank into the sofa mournfully. Chi and Nk looked like they had seen a ghost when they saw the visitors.
‘Good day, ma. Good day, sir,’ they chorused, their eyes frozen oval shapes.
I went into the room, allowing them to discuss this and that. When Chi and Nk came into the room, they did not say a word to me. It was as if they avoided me. I changed my clothes, picked up the dress I would wear to the shop tomorrow and went to iron it.
The next time I went to the living room was like an hour later. Mama had a hand wedged under her chin and Papa sat pensively.
‘What about Johnson?’ I asked.
Mama shook her head. ‘They have gone.’
That was it. The coming of my American suitor and his departure were like rapture. They both happened unannounced.