“But it’s like being in denial. If it was used like that, then it should be represented like that. Hiding it doesn’t make it go away.” The firm voice.
“Well, if you all hadn’t sold us, we wouldn’t be talking about any of this,” the gravelly-voiced African-American girl said, in a lowered tone that was, nonetheless, audible.
The classroom was wrapped in silence. Then rose that voice again. “Sorry, but even if no Africans had been sold by other Africans, the transatlantic slave trade would still have happened. It was a European enterprise. It was about Europeans looking for labor for their plantations.”
Professor Moore interrupted in a small voice. “Okay, now let’s talk about the ways in which history can be sacrificed for entertainment.”
After class, Ifemelu and the firm voice drifted towards each other.
“Hi. I’m Wambui. I’m from Kenya. You’re Nigerian, right?” She had a formidable air; a person who went about setting everyone and everything right in the world.
“Yes. I’m Ifemelu.”
They shook hands. They would, in the next weeks, ease into a lasting friendship. Wambui was the president of the African Students Association.
“You don’t know about ASA? You must come to the next meeting on Thursday,” she said.
The meetings were held in the basement of Wharton Hall, a harshly lit, windowless room, paper plates, pizza cartons, and soda bottles piled on a metal table, folding chairs arranged in a limp semicircle. Nigerians, Ugandans, Kenyans, Ghanaians, South Africans, Tanzanians, Zimbabweans, one Congolese, and one Guinean sat around eating, talking, fueling spirits, and their different accents formed meshes of solacing sounds. They mimicked what Americans told them: You speak such good English. How bad is AIDS in your country? It’s so sad that people live on less than a dollar a day in Africa. And they themselves mocked Africa, trading stories of absurdity, of stupidity, and they felt safe to mock, because it was mockery born of longing, and of the heartbroken desire to see a place made whole again. Here, Ifemelu felt a gentle, swaying sense of renewal. Here, she did not have to explain herself.
WAMBUI HAD TOLD everyone that Ifemelu was looking for a job. Dorothy, the girly Ugandan with long braids who worked as a waitress in Center City, said her restaurant was hiring. But first, Mwombeki, the Tanzanian double major in engineering and political science, looked over Ifemelu’s résumé and asked her to delete the three years of university in Nigeria: American employers did not like lower-level employees to be too educated. Mwombeki reminded her of Obinze, that ease about him, that quiet strength. At meetings, he made everyone laugh. “I got a good primary education because of Nyerere’s socialism,” Mwombeki said often. “Otherwise I would be in Dar right now, carving ugly giraffes for tourists.” When two new students came for the first time, one from Ghana and the other from Nigeria, Mwombeki gave them what he called the welcome talk.
“Please do not go to Kmart and buy twenty pairs of jeans because each costs five dollars. The jeans are not running away. They will be there tomorrow at an even more reduced price. You are now in America: do not expect to have hot food for lunch. That African taste must be abolished. When you visit the home of an American with some money, they will offer to show you their house. Forget that in your house back home, your father would throw a fit if anyone came close to his bedroom. We all know that the living room was where it stopped and, if absolutely necessary, then the toilet. But please smile and follow the American and see the house and make sure you say you like everything. And do not be shocked by the indiscriminate touching of American couples. Standing in line at the cafeteria, the girl will touch the boy’s arm and the boy will put his arm around her shoulder and they will rub shoulders and back and rub rub rub, but please do not imitate this behavior.”
They were all laughing. Wambui shouted something in Swahili.
“Very soon you will start to adopt an American accent, because you don’t want customer service people on the phone to keep asking you ‘What? What?’ You will start to admire Africans who have perfect American accents, like our brother here, Kofi. Kofi’s parents came from Ghana when he was two years old, but do not be fooled by the way he sounds. If you go to their house, they eat kenkey everyday. His father slapped him when he got a C in a class. There’s no American nonsense in that house. He goes back to Ghana every year. We call people like Kofi American-African, not African-American, which is what we call our brothers and sisters whose ancestors were slaves.”
“It was a B minus, not a C,” Kofi quipped.
“Try and make friends with our African-American brothers and sisters in a spirit of true pan-Africanism. But make sure you remain friends with fellow Africans, as this will help you keep your perspective. Always attend African Students Association meetings, but if you must, you can also try the Black Student Union. Please note that in general, African Americans go to the Black Student Union and Africans go to the African Students Association. Sometimes it overlaps but not a lot. The Africans who go to BSU are those with no confidence who are quick to tell you ‘I am originally from Kenya’ even though Kenya just pops out the minute they open their mouths. The African Americans who come to our meetings are the ones who write poems about Mother Africa and think every African is a Nubian queen. If an African American calls you a Mandingo or a booty scratcher, he is insulting you for being African. Some will ask you annoying questions about Africa, but others will connect with you. You will also find that you might make friends more easily with other internationals, Koreans, Indians, Brazilians, whatever, than with Americans both black and white. Many of the internationals understand the trauma of trying to get an American visa and that is a good place to start a friendship.”
There was more laughter, Mwombeki himself laughing loudly, as though he had not heard his own jokes before.
Later, as Ifemelu left the meeting, she thought of Dike, wondered which he would go to in college, whether ASA or BSU, and what he would be considered, whether American African or African American. He would have to choose what he was, or rather, what he was would be chosen for him.
IFEMELU THOUGHT the interview at the restaurant where Dorothy worked had gone well. It was for a hostess position, and she wore her nice shirt, smiled warmly, shook hands firmly. The manager, a chortling woman full of a seemingly uncontrollable happiness, told her, “Great! Wonderful to talk to you! You’ll hear from me soon!” And so when, that evening, her phone rang, she snatched it up, hoping it was a job offer.
“Ifem, kedu?” Aunty Uju said.
Aunty Uju called too often to ask if she had found a job. “Aunty, you will be the first person I will call when I do,” Ifemelu had said during the last call, only yesterday, and now Aunty Uju was calling again.
“Fine,” Ifemelu said, and was about to add, “I have not found anything yet,” when Aunty Uju said, “Something happened with Dike.”
“What?” Ifemelu asked.
“Miss Brown told me that she saw him in a closet with a girl. The girl is in third grade. Apparently they were showing each other their private parts.”
There was a pause.
“Is that all?” Ifemelu asked.
“What do you mean, is that all? He is not yet seven years old! What type of thing is this? Is this what I came to America for?”
“We actually read something about this in one of my classes the other day. It’s normal. Children are curious about things like that at an early age, but they don’t really understand it.”
“Normal kwa? It’s not normal at all.”
“Aunty, we were all curious as children.”
“Not at seven years old! Tufiakwa! Where did he learn that from? It is that day care he goes to. Since Alma left and he started going to Miss Brown, he has changed. All those wild children with no home training, he is learning rubbish from them. I’ve decided to move to Massachusetts at the end of this term.”
“Ahn-ahn!”
“I’ll finish my residency there and Dike will go to a better schoo
l and better day care. Bartholomew is moving from Boston to a small town, Warrington, to start his business, so it will be a new beginning for both of us. The elementary school there is very good. And the local doctor is looking for a partner because his practice is growing. I’ve spoken to him and he is interested in my joining him when I finish.”
“You’re leaving New York to go to a village in Massachusetts? Can you just leave residency like that?”
“Of course. My friend Olga, the one from Russia? She is leaving, too, but she will have to repeat a year in her new program. She wants to practice dermatology and most of our patients here are black and she said skin diseases look different on black skin and she knows she will not end up practicing in a black area so she wants to go where the patients will be white. I don’t blame her. It’s true my program is higher ranked, but sometimes job opportunities are better in smaller places. Besides, I don’t want Bartholomew to think I am not serious. I’m not getting any younger. I want to start trying.”
“You’re really going to marry him.”
Aunty Uju said with mock exasperation, “Ifem, I thought we had passed that stage. Once I move, we’ll go to court and get married, so that he can act as Dike’s legal parent.”
Ifemelu heard the beep-beep of an incoming call. “Aunty, let me call you back,” she said, and switched over without waiting for Aunty Uju’s response. It was the restaurant manager.
“I’m sorry, Ngozi,” she said, “But we decided to hire a more qualified person. Good luck!”
Ifemelu put the phone down and thought of her mother, how she often blamed the devil. The devil is a liar. The devil wants to block us. She stared at the phone, and then at the bills on her table, a tight, suffocating pressure rising inside her chest.
CHAPTER 15
The man was short, his body a glut of muscles, his hair thinning and sun-bleached. When he opened the door, he looked her over, mercilessly sizing her up, and then he smiled and said, “Come on in. My office is in the basement.” Her skin prickled, an unease settling over her. There was something venal about his thin-lipped face; he had the air of a man to whom corruption was familiar.
“I’m a pretty busy guy,” he said, gesturing to a chair in his cramped home office that smelled slightly of damp.
“I assumed so from the advertisement,” Ifemelu said. Female personal assistant for busy sports coach in Ardmore, communication and interpersonal skills required. She sat on the chair, perched really, suddenly thinking that, from reading a City Paper ad, she was now alone with a strange man in the basement of a strange house in America. Hands thrust deep in his jeans pockets, he walked back and forth with short quick steps, talking about how much in demand he was as a tennis coach, and Ifemelu thought he might trip on the stacks of sports magazines on the floor. She felt dizzy just watching him. He spoke as quickly as he moved, his expression uncannily alert; his eyes stayed wide and unblinking for too long.
“So here’s the deal. There are two positions, one for office work and the other for help relaxing. The office position has already been filled. She started yesterday, she goes to Bryn Mawr, and she’ll spend the whole week just clearing up my backlog of stuff. I bet I have some unopened checks in there somewhere.” He withdrew a hand to gesture towards his messy desk. “Now what I need is help to relax. If you want the job you have it. I’d pay you a hundred dollars, with the possibility of a raise, and you’d work as needed, no set schedule.”
A hundred dollars a day, almost enough for her monthly rent. She shifted on the chair. “What exactly do you mean by ‘help to relax’?”
She was watching him, waiting for his explanation. It began to bother her, thinking of how much she had paid for the suburban train ticket.
“Look, you’re not a kid,” he said. “I work so hard I can’t sleep. I can’t relax. I don’t do drugs so I figured I need help to relax. You can give me a massage, help me relax, you know. I had somebody doing it before, but she’s just moved to Pittsburgh. It’s a great gig, at least she thought so. Helped her with a lot of her college debt.” He had said this to many other women, she could tell, from the measured pace with which the words came out. He was not a kind man. She did not know exactly what he meant, but whatever it was, she regretted that she had come.
She stood up. “Can I think about this and give you a call?”
“Of course.” He shrugged, shoulders thick with sudden irritability, as though he could not believe she did not recognize her good fortune. As he let her out, he shut the door quickly, not responding to her final “Thank you.” She walked back to the station, mourning the train fare. The trees were awash with color, red and yellow leaves tinted the air golden, and she thought of the words she had recently read somewhere: Nature’s first green is gold. The crisp air, fragrant and dry, reminded her of Nsukka during the harmattan season, and brought with it a sudden stab of homesickness, so sharp and so abrupt that it filled her eyes with tears.
EACH TIME she went to a job interview, or made a phone call about a job, she told herself that this would, finally, be her day; this time, the waitress, hostess, babysitter position would be hers, but even as she wished herself well, there was already a gathering gloom in a far corner of her mind. “What am I doing wrong?” she asked Ginika, and Ginika told her to be patient, to have hope. She typed and retyped her résumé, invented past waitressing experience in Lagos, wrote Ginika’s name as an employer whose children she had babysat, gave the name of Wambui’s landlady as a reference, and, at each interview, she smiled warmly and shook hands firmly, all the things that were suggested in a book she had read about interviewing for American jobs. Yet there was no job. Was it her foreign accent? Her lack of experience? But her African friends all had jobs, and college students got jobs all the time with no experience. Once, she went to a gas station near Chestnut Street and a large Mexican man said, with his eyes on her chest, “You’re here for the attendant position? You can work for me in another way.” Then, with a smile, the leer never leaving his eyes, he told her the job was taken. She began to think more about her mother’s devil, to imagine how the devil might have a hand here. She added and subtracted endlessly, determining what she would need and not need, cooking rice and beans each week, and heating up small portions in the microwave for lunch and dinner. Obinze offered to send her some money. His cousin had visited from London and given him some pounds. He would change it to dollars in Enugu.
“How can you be sending me money from Nigeria? It should be the other way around,” she said. But he sent it to her anyway, a little over a hundred dollars carefully sealed in a card.
GINIKA WAS BUSY, working long hours at her internship and studying for her law school exams, but she called often to check up on Ifemelu’s job searching, and always with that upbeat voice, as though to urge Ifemelu towards hope. “This woman I did an internship with her charity, Kimberly, called me to say her babysitter is leaving and she’s looking. I told her about you and she’d like to meet you. If she hires you, she’ll pay cash under the table so you won’t have to use that fake name. When do you finish tomorrow? I can come and take you to her for an interview.”
“If I get this job, I will give you my first month’s salary,” Ifemelu said, and Ginika laughed.
Ginika parked in the circular driveway of a house that announced its wealth, the stone exterior solid and overbearing, four white pillars rising portentously at the entrance. Kimberly opened the front door. She was slim and straight, and raised both hands to push her thick golden hair away from her face, as though one hand could not possibly tame all that hair.
“How nice to meet you,” she said to Ifemelu, smiling, as they shook hands, her hand small, bony-fingered, fragile. In her gold sweater belted at an impossibly tiny waist, with her gold hair, in gold flats, she looked improbable, like sunlight.
“This is my sister Laura, who’s visiting. Well, we visit each other almost every day! Laura practically lives next door. The kids are in the Poconos until tomorrow, with my mother
. I thought it would be best to do this when they’re not here anyway.”
“Hi,” Laura said. She was as thin and straight and blond as Kimberly. Ifemelu, describing them to Obinze, would say that Kimberly gave the impression of a tiny bird with fine bones, easily crushed, while Laura brought to mind a hawk, sharp-beaked and dark-minded.
“Hello, I’m Ifemelu.”
“What a beautiful name,” Kimberly said. “Does it mean anything? I love multicultural names because they have such wonderful meanings, from wonderful rich cultures.” Kimberly was smiling the kindly smile of people who thought “culture” the unfamiliar colorful reserve of colorful people, a word that always had to be qualified with “rich.” She would not think Norway had a “rich culture.”
“I don’t know what it means,” Ifemelu said, and sensed rather than saw a small amusement on Ginika’s face.
“Would you like some tea?” Kimberly asked, leading the way into a kitchen of shiny chrome and granite and affluent empty space. “We’re tea drinkers, but of course there are other choices.”
“Tea is great,” Ginika said.
“And you, Ifemelu?” Kimberly asked. “I know I’m mauling your name but it really is such a beautiful name. Really beautiful.”
“No, you said it properly. I’d like some water or orange juice, please.” Ifemelu would come to realize later that Kimberly used “beautiful” in a peculiar way. “I’m meeting my beautiful friend from graduate school,” Kimberly would say, or “We’re working with this beautiful woman on the inner-city project,” and always, the women she referred to would turn out to be quite ordinary-looking, but always black. One day, late that winter, when she was with Kimberly at the huge kitchen table, drinking tea and waiting for the children to be brought back from an outing with their grandmother, Kimberly said, “Oh, look at this beautiful woman,” and pointed at a plain model in a magazine whose only distinguishing feature was her very dark skin. “Isn’t she just stunning?”