Americanah

  “Low-fat soy milk, NPR, fast Internet,” Ifemelu said.

  “Good customer service, good customer service, good customer service,” Bisola said. “Folks here behave as if they are doing you a favor by serving you. The high-end places are okay, not great, but the regular restaurants? Forget it. The other day I asked a waiter if I could get boiled yam with a different sauce than was on the menu and he just looked at me and said no. Hilarious.”

  “But the American customer service can be so annoying. Someone hovering around and bothering you all the time. Are you still working on that? Since when did eating become work?” Yagazie said.

  “I miss a decent vegetarian place?” Doris said, and then talked about her new house help who could not make a simple sandwich, about how she had ordered a vegetarian spring roll at a restaurant in Victoria Island, bit in and tasted chicken, and the waiter, when summoned, just smiled and said, “Maybe they put chicken today.” There was laughter. Fred said a good vegetarian place would open soon, now that there was so much new investment in the country; somebody would figure out that there was a vegetarian market to cater to.

  “A vegetarian restaurant? Impossible. There are only four vegetarians in this country, including Doris,” Bisola said.

  “You’re not vegetarian, are you?” Fred asked Ifemelu. He just wanted to talk to her. She had looked up from time to time to find his eyes on her.

  “No,” she said.

  “Oh, there’s this new place that opened on Akin Adesola,” Bisola said. “The brunch is really good. They have the kinds of things we can eat. We should go next Sunday.”

  They have the kinds of things we can eat. An unease crept up on Ifemelu. She was comfortable here, and she wished she were not. She wished, too, that she was not so interested in this new restaurant, did not perk up, imagining fresh green salads and steamed still-firm vegetables. She loved eating all the things she had missed while away, jollof rice cooked with a lot of oil, fried plantains, boiled yams, but she longed, also, for the other things she had become used to in America, even quinoa, Blaine’s specialty, made with feta and tomatoes. This was what she hoped she had not become but feared that she had: a “they have the kinds of things we can eat” kind of person.

  Fred was talking about Nollywood, speaking a little too loudly. “Nollywood is really public theater, and if you understand it like that, then it is more tolerable. It’s for public consumption, even mass participation, not the kind of individual experience that film is.” He was looking at her, soliciting her agreement with his eyes: they were not supposed to watch Nollywood, people like them, and if they did, then only as amusing anthropology.

  “I like Nollywood,” Ifemelu said, even though she, too, thought Nollywood was more theater than film. The urge to be contrarian was strong. If she set herself apart, perhaps she would be less of the person she feared she had become. “Nollywood may be melodramatic, but life in Nigeria is very melodramatic.”

  “Really?” the New Haven woman said, squeezing her paper cup in her hand, as though she thought it a great oddity, that a person at this gathering would like Nollywood. “It is so offensive to my intelligence. I mean, the products are just bad. What does it say about us?”

  “But Hollywood makes equally bad movies. They just make them with better lighting,” Ifemelu said.

  Fred laughed, too heartily, to let her know he was on her side.

  “It’s not just about the technical stuff,” the New Haven woman said. “The industry is regressive. I mean, the portrayal of women? The films are more misogynistic than the society.”

  Ifemelu saw a man across the pool whose wide shoulders reminded her of Obinze. But he was too tall to be Obinze. She wondered what Obinze would make of a gathering like this. Would he even come? He had been deported from England, after all, so perhaps he would not consider himself a returnee like them.

  “Hey, come back,” Fred said, moving closer to her, claiming personal space. “Your mind isn’t here.”

  She smiled thinly. “It is now.”

  Fred knew things. He had the confidence of a person who knew practical things. He probably had a Harvard MBA and used words like “capacity” and “value” in conversation. He would not dream in imagery, but in facts and figures.

  “There’s a concert tomorrow at MUSON. Do you like classical music?” he asked.

  “No.” She had not expected that he would, either.

  “Are you willing to like classical music?”

  “Willing to like something, it’s a strange idea,” she said, now curious about him, vaguely interested in him. They talked. Fred mentioned Stravinsky and Strauss, Vermeer and Van Dyck, making unnecessary references, quoting too often, his spirits attuned across the Atlantic, too transparent in his performance, too eager to show how much he knew of the Western world. Ifemelu listened with a wide internal yawn. She had been wrong about him. He was not the MBA type who thought the world was a business. He was an impresario, well oiled and well practiced, the sort of man who did a good American accent and a good British accent, who knew what to say to foreigners, how to make foreigners comfortable, and who could easily get foreign grants for dubious projects. She wondered what he was like beneath that practiced layer.

  “So will you come for this drinks thing?” he asked.

  “I’m exhausted,” she said. “I think I’ll head home. But call me.”

  CHAPTER 49

  The speedboat was gliding on foaming water, past beaches of ivory sand, and trees a bursting, well-fed green. Ifemelu was laughing. She caught herself in mid-laughter, and looked at her present, an orange life jacket strapped around her, a ship in the graying distance, her friends in their sunglasses, on their way to Priye’s friend’s beach house, where they would grill meat and race barefoot. She thought: I’m really home. I’m home. She no longer sent Ranyinudo texts about what to do—Should I buy meat in Shoprite or send Iyabo to the market? Where should I buy hangers? Now she awoke to the sound of the peacocks, and got out of bed, with the shape of her day familiar and her routines unthinking. She had signed up at a gym, but had gone only twice, because after work she preferred to meet her friends, and even though she always planned not to eat, she ended up eating a club sandwich and drinking one or two Chapmans, and then she would decide to postpone the gym. Her clothes felt even tighter now. Somewhere, in a faraway part of her mind, she wanted to lose weight before she saw Obinze again. She had not called him; she would wait until she was back to her slender self.

  At work, she felt an encroaching restlessness. Zoe stifled her. It was like wearing a scratchy sweater in the cold: she longed to yank it off, but was afraid of what would happen if she did. She thought often of starting a blog, writing about what she cared about, building it up slowly, and finally publishing her own magazine. But it was nebulous, too much of an unknown. Having this job, now that she was home, made her feel anchored. At first, she had enjoyed doing the features, interviewing society women in their homes, observing their lives and relearning old subtleties. But she soon became bored and she would sit through the interviews, half listening and half present. Each time she walked into their cemented compounds, she longed for sand in which to curl her toes. A servant or child would let her in, seat her in a living room of leather and marble that brought to mind a clean airport in a wealthy country. Then Madam would appear, warm and good-humored, offering her a drink, sometimes food, before settling on a sofa to talk. All of them, the madams she interviewed, boasted about what they owned and where they or their children had been and what they had done, and then they capped their boasts with God. We thank God. It is God that did it. God is faithful. Ifemelu thought, as she left, that she could write the features without doing the interviews.

  She could, also, cover events without attending them. How common that word was in Lagos, and how popular: event. It could be a product rebranding, a fashion show, an album launch. Aunty Onenu always insisted that an editor go with the photographer. “Please make sure you mingle,” Aunty O
nenu said. “If they are not advertising with us yet, we want them to start; if they have started, we want them to increase!” To Ifemelu, Aunty Onenu said “mingle” with great emphasis, as though this were something she thought Ifemelu did not do well. Perhaps Aunty Onenu was right. At those events, in halls aflame with balloons, rolls of silky cloth draped in corners, chairs covered in gauze, and too many ushers walking around, their faces gaudily bright with makeup, Ifemelu disliked talking to strangers about Zoe. She would spend her time exchanging texts with Ranyinudo or Priye or Zemaye, bored, waiting until when it would not be impolite to leave. There were always two or three meandering speeches, and all of them seemed written by the same verbose, insincere person. The wealthy and the famous were recognized—“We wish to recognize in our presence the former governor of …” Bottles were uncorked, juice cartons folded open, samosas and chicken satays served. Once, at an event she attended with Zemaye, the launch of a new beverage brand, she thought she saw Obinze walk past. She turned. It was not him, but it very well could have been. She imagined him attending events like this, in halls like this, with his wife by his side. Ranyinudo had told her that his wife, when she was a student, was voted the most beautiful girl at the University of Lagos, and in Ifemelu’s imagination, she looked like Bianca Onoh, that beauty icon of her teenage years, high-cheekboned and almond-eyed. And when Ranyinudo mentioned his wife’s name, Kosisochukwu, an uncommon name, Ifemelu imagined Obinze’s mother asking her to translate it. The thought of Obinze’s mother and Obinze’s wife deciding which translation was better—God’s Will or As It Pleases God—felt like a betrayal. That memory, of Obinze’s mother saying “translate it” all those years ago, seemed even more precious now that she had passed away.

  As Ifemelu was leaving the event, she saw Don. “Ifemelu,” he said. It took her a moment to recognize him. Ranyinudo had introduced them one afternoon, months ago, when Don dropped by Ranyinudo’s flat on his way to his club, wearing tennis whites, and Ifemelu had left almost immediately, to give them privacy. He looked dapper in a navy suit, his gray-sprinkled hair burnished.

  “Good evening,” she said.

  “You’re looking well, very well,” he said, taking in her low-cut cocktail dress.

  “Thank you.”

  “You don’t ask about me.” As though there was a reason for her to ask about him. He gave her his card. “Call me, make sure you call me, eh. Let’s talk. Take care.”

  He was not interested in her, not particularly; he was simply a big man in Lagos, she attractive and alone, and by the laws of their universe, he had to make a pass, even if a halfhearted pass, even if he was already dating her friend, and he expected, of course, that she would not tell her friend. She slipped his card into her bag and, back home, tore it into tiny bits which she watched float in the toilet water for a while before flushing. She was, strangely, angry with him. His action said something about her friendship with Ranyinudo that she disliked. She called Ranyinudo, and was about to tell her what happened, when Ranyinudo said, “Ifem, I’m so depressed.” And so Ifemelu merely listened. It was about Ndudi. “He’s such a child,” Ranyinudo said. “If you say something he doesn’t like, he will stop talking and start humming. Seriously humming, loud humming. How does a grown man behave so immaturely?”

  IT WAS MONDAY MORNING. Ifemelu was reading Postbourgie, her favorite American blog. Zemaye was looking through a stash of glossy photographs. Doris was staring at her computer screen, cradling in her palms a mug that said I ♥ FLORIDA. On her desk, next to her computer, was a tin of loose-leaf tea.

  “Ifemelu, I think this feature is too snarky?”

  “Your editorial feedback is priceless,” Ifemelu said.

  “What does ‘snarky’ mean? Please explain to some of us who did not go to school in America,” Zemaye said.

  Doris ignored her completely.

  “I just don’t think Aunty Onenu will want us to run this?”

  “Convince her, you’re her editor,” Ifemelu said. “We need to get this magazine going.”

  Doris shrugged and got up. “We’ll talk about it at the meeting?”

  “I am so sleepy,” Zemaye said. “I’m going to send Esther to make Nescafé before I fall asleep in the meeting.”

  “Instant coffee is just awful?” Doris said. “I’m so glad I’m not much of a coffee drinker or I would just die.”

  “What is wrong with Nescafé?” Zemaye said.

  “It shouldn’t even be called coffee?” Doris said. “It’s like beyond bad.”

  Zemaye yawned and stretched. “Me, I like it. Coffee is coffee.”

  Later, as they walked into Aunty Onenu’s office, Doris ahead, wearing a loose-fitting blue pinafore and black square-heeled mary janes, Zemaye asked Ifemelu, “Why does Doris wear rubbish to work? She looks like she is cracking a joke with her clothes.”

  They sat around the oval conference table in Aunty Onenu’s large office. Aunty Onenu’s weave was longer and more incongruous than the last, high and coiffed in front, with waves of hair floating to her back. She sipped from a bottle of diet Sprite and said she liked Doris’s piece “Marrying Your Best Friend.”

  “Very good and inspirational,” she said.

  “Ah, but Aunty Onenu, women should not marry their best friend because there is no sexual chemistry,” Zemaye said.

  Aunty Onenu gave Zemaye the look given to the crazy student whom one could not take seriously, then she shuffled her papers and said she did not like Ifemelu’s profile of Mrs. Funmi King.

  “Why did you say ‘she never looks at her steward when she speaks to him’?” Aunty Onenu asked.

  “Because she didn’t,” Ifemelu said.

  “But it makes her sound wicked,” Aunty Onenu said.

  “I think it’s an interesting detail,” Ifemelu said.

  “I agree with Aunty Onenu,” Doris said. “Interesting or not, it is judgmental?”

  “The idea of interviewing someone and writing a profile is judgmental,” Ifemelu said. “It’s not about the subject. It’s about what the interviewer makes of the subject.”

  Aunty Onenu shook her head. Doris shook her head.

  “Why do we have to play it so safe?” Ifemelu asked.

  Doris said, with false humor, “This isn’t your American race blog where you provoked everybody, Ifemelu. This is like a wholesome women’s magazine?”

  “Yes, it is!” Aunty Onenu said.

  “But Aunty Onenu, we will never beat Glass if we continue like this,” Ifemelu said.

  Aunty Onenu’s eyes widened.

  “Glass is doing exactly what we are doing,” Doris said quickly.

  Esther came in to tell Aunty Onenu that her daughter had arrived.

  Esther’s black high heels were shaky, and as she walked past, Ifemelu worried that the shoes would collapse and sprain Esther’s ankles. Earlier in the morning, Esther had told Ifemelu, “Aunty, your hair is jaga-jaga,” with a kind of sad honesty, about what Ifemelu considered an attractive twist-out style.

  “Ehn, she is already here?” Aunty Onenu said. “Girls, please finish the meeting. I am taking my daughter to shop for a dress and I have an afternoon meeting with our distributors.”

  Ifemelu was tired, bored. She thought, again, of starting a blog. Her phone was vibrating, Ranyinudo calling, and ordinarily she would have waited until the meeting was over to call her back. But she said, “Sorry, I have to take this, international call,” and hurried out. Ranyinudo was complaining about Don. “He said I am not the sweet girl I used to be. That I’ve changed. Meanwhile, I know he has bought the jeep for me and has even cleared it at the port, but now he doesn’t want to give it to me.”

  Ifemelu thought about the expression “sweet girl.” Sweet girl meant that, for a long time, Don had molded Ranyinudo into a malleable shape, or that she had allowed him to think he had.

  “What about Ndudi?”

  Ranyinudo sighed loudly. “We haven’t talked since Sunday. Today he will forget to call me. Tomorrow he
will be too busy. And so I told him that it’s not acceptable. Why should I be making all the effort? Now he is sulking. He can never initiate a conversation like an adult, or agree that he did something wrong.”

  Later, back in the office, Esther came in to say that a Mr. Tolu wanted to see Zemaye.

  “Is that the photographer you did the tailors article with?” Doris asked.

  “Yes. He’s late. He has been dodging my calls for days,” Zemaye said.

  Doris said, “You need to handle that and make sure I have the images by tomorrow afternoon? I need everything to get to the printer before three? I don’t want a repeat of the printer’s delay, especially now that Glass is printing in South Africa?”

  “Okay.” Zemaye shook her mouse. “The server is so slow today. I just need to send this thing. Esther, tell him to wait.”

  “Yes, ma.”

  “You are feeling better, Esther?” Doris asked.

  “Yes, ma, Thank you, ma.” Esther curtsied, Yoruba-style. She had been standing by the door as though waiting to be dismissed, listening in on the conversation. “I am taking the medicine for typhoid.”

  “You have typhoid?” Ifemelu asked.

  “Didn’t you notice how she looked on Monday? I gave her some money and told her to go to the hospital, not to a chemist?” Doris said. Ifemelu wished that she had noticed that Esther was unwell.

  “Sorry, Esther,” Ifemelu said.

  “Thank you, ma.”

  “Esther, sorry o,” Zemaye said. “I saw her dull face, but I thought she was just fasting. You know she’s always fasting. She will fast and fast until God gives her a husband.”

  Esther giggled.

  “I remember I had this really bad case of typhoid when I was in secondary school,” Ifemelu said. “It was terrible, and it turned out I was taking an antibiotic that wasn’t strong enough. What are you taking, Esther?”