Being the early afternoon of New Year’s Eve, people were just arriving. And those who could not find parking in the lot were parking right on the road. The go-slow was so thick that traffic wasn’t moving at all. Some people even parked where they were stuck, left their car, and went on to the church.
“Are you kidding?” Sasha shouted out the window at some people in front of them who’d just left their car. They ignored him as they stepped into the grass and kept right on going, wearing their Sunday best, although it was Wednesday.
“Can you get around their car?” Orlu asked.
“I’ll try,” Chukwu said, driving onto the red dirt pathway near the center of the road. There was already a line of cars stuck there and Chukwu opened his window. “Excuse me, sir. Will you . . .”
The man in the passenger seat pinched his face and said, “Na no see way we dey hook here like person wey dey inside rat cage?”
The driver ducked down to see Chukwu. “You think I am fool?” he snapped. The man was old enough to be their father. “I let you in and the whole world will be squeezing.”
“The people in the car in front of me have left it,” Chukwu said. “Just let . . .”
The driver closed his window.
“What is wrong with the people here?” Orlu asked, disgusted.
“It’s not them,” Sunny said. “Chukwu, remember when we all came through here?”
Chukwu nodded.
“It wasn’t this bad, but it was bad,” Sunny told Orlu. “People know that, so they are mean. It’s faster when you don’t let anyone else in.”
In front of them a large truck carrying about fifty people and a great pile of oranges belched out exhaust, and the people in the back coughed and waved at the polluted air. The exhaust soon reached them, and they coughed as Chukwu turned the Jeep on and closed the windows. When the air cleared, he opened them again. Best to save gas by not using the air conditioner.
“If this were a funky train, we wouldn’t be here,” Chichi whispered.
“Yeah, we wouldn’t be here,” Sunny said in a low voice so Chukwu wouldn’t hear. “We’d still be at home because my parents wouldn’t let me travel for so many days without Chukwu.”
Chichi sucked her teeth and opened the door to stretch her legs. Sasha got out and leaned against the car with her.
It was hot and humid, and the shanties that housed a small market were booming with business, selling pure water, plantain chips, and cell phone car chargers. Sunny was looking at the cloudy sky, glad that a few of the puffier clouds were covering the sun, when the idea popped into her head. She had asked Sugar Cream about this very possibility, so she knew a little about it.
“Can Leopard People control the weather?” she’d questioned Sugar Cream one horribly hot day. The entire library had felt as if it would melt back into the earth from which it came. “Or even just temperature? I’d have thought there’d be some juju to at least cool it down in here.”
Sugar Cream had laughed and said, “Can you imagine the world we would live in if we could do that? The entire Earth would be in chaos.”
“Oh,” Sunny’d said, leaning back on her elbows. As usual, she had been sitting on the floor of Sugar Cream’s office. She’d tried her best to ignore the red spider scuttling across the floor a few feet away.
“The weather is the business of Chukwu,” Sugar Cream had said.
For once, Sunny hadn’t needed an explanation. Chukwu was her brother’s name, but he was named after someone much greater. First and foremost, Chukwu was the name the Igbo people used for the Supreme Being. The great deity known as Chukwu was so inaccessible to human beings that one didn’t even pray to it. If Chukwu gave you audience, you probably would have no idea why and you’d be in such awe, it wouldn’t really matter.
“But,” Sugar Cream had said, raising an index finger. “If the weather is already moving in a direction, we can sort of push it along. For example, if it’s breezy, with some effort and consequence, a skilled Leopard Person can make it windy.”
“What kind of consequence?”
Sugar Cream had laughed loudly. “Nothing worth discussing. There’s a reason not many Leopard People play around with changing the weather.”
Now, as Sunny looked up at the cloudy sky, she wondered. She climbed out of the Jeep and walked around to the other side where Sasha and Chichi stood smoking cigarettes.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Chichi said, rolling her eyes. “We’re outside and there’s a breeze.”
Sasha blew out some smoke as he scrutinized Sunny. Then he said, “She’s not here to whine. She’s got an idea.”
Sunny nodded. “I do,” she said. “Well, it’ll only work if one of you guys can do it. I know I can’t.” She glanced at Chukwu, who was fiddling with the stereo. Orlu was behind him reading the Book of Shadows, his brow furrowed with concentration.
Sunny nodded her head toward the sky. “It’s supposed to rain later today. Can you make it rain now? Either of you?”
They were silent as they considered. It didn’t take long. “If it rains, people will return to get their cars,” Sasha said.
Sunny nodded.
“But only if it rains hard. A deluge that covers the roads,” Chichi said.
“Exactly,” Sunny said. “Can you . . .”
“Of course, we can,” Sasha said. “But it’s the consequences that bother me.”
“What’ll happen?” Sunny asked. “It can’t kill you, right?”
“No, no,” Chichi said. “Water no get enemy.”
“Water is life,” Sasha added. “Aman iman.”
Chichi was quoting Fela, Sasha was quoting old proverbs and speaking in some Arabic type language; Sunny was completely lost.
“Sunny, get in the car,” Sasha said, bringing out his juju knife. He lowered his voice. “Talk to your brother and Orlu for a while. We’ll be right back.”
Chichi poked her head in the Jeep window. “Chukwu, we’re going into the market to find something real to eat. Do you want anything?”
Chukwu shook his head. “Just want to get the hell out of here.”
“Orlu?”
“Nothing,” he muttered, his eyes still on the book.
Sasha and Chichi quickly walked away, without a glance back. Sunny climbed into the car and sat beside Orlu. She wanted to explain to him what was going on, but Chukwu was right there. Orlu seemed too preoccupied with the book, anyway.
“Daddy warned me not to take this way today,” Chukwu moaned. “I completely forgot. With all that craziness last night, I was distracted. We should have been there by now.”
“Don’t worry,” Sunny said. “We’ll get there.”
“So close yet so far.”
A half hour had passed, and they’d only moved up about twenty feet thanks to two cars that were pushed off the road because they’d run out of gas. Drops of rain started falling just when Sasha and Chichi returned carrying bags of chin chin.
“That’s all you got?” Chukwu asked as Chichi got in. “What took so long?”
“There wasn’t much to eat,” Chichi quickly said.
Sasha slowly climbed into the passenger seat. He looked ill, his face sweaty. Sunny frowned as he sat with his legs pressed together. He smiled weakly at her. Chukwu looked at him, frowned, and asked, “What is wrong with you?”
“Just gotta pee,” he said.
“Then go do . . .”
The rain started hitting the car in large droplets. Then it began coming down like a waterfall.
Orlu looked up for the first time from the book. He looked at Sasha and then Sunny, and Sunny nodded.
“Turn the car on,” Chichi shouted.
As soon as Chukwu did, she closed her window. They all followed suit as the car was pounded with rain. Sasha groaned and jumped out of the car. “Can’t hold it!” he
screeched. Sunny turned away as he stood in the rain right there beside the Jeep and relieved himself.
When he finished, he got back in the car, still looking strained. He pressed his legs together. Whatever he had done, it had only been him who did it. She couldn’t imagine Chichi suffering the same problem. That would have been more complicated.
“What kind of rain is this?” Chukwu asked, leaning forward. Outside, they could see people running for shelter and to their cars. All around them, vehicles were starting and the paved double road ran with sludgy red mud. For several minutes, it was chaos. Women in their best church clothes took off their heels to hop into cars or beneath canopies. Men in church-appropriate suits and caftans jumped into driver’s seats. The cloudburst above was like nothing Sunny had ever seen. And poor Sasha kept having to pee and pee. He was soaked from jumping outside to urinate and then getting back into the Jeep. Needless to say, Chukwu was perplexed and deeply annoyed by Sasha’s problem.
“Did you eat some bad mango?” he asked, reaching beneath the seat and pulling out a blue battered towel. He threw it on Sasha’s seat.
Thankfully, within minutes the go-slow began to move. Within a half hour, they’d outrun the strange weather and were cruising down the road. Sasha’s peeing fit continued but decreased the farther they got from the Redemption Church Camp and soon, exhausted from the agony to his bladder, he fell into a deep sleep.
A half hour after that, they entered Africa’s biggest megacity, Lagos.
24
THIS IS LAGOS
So many people. All in a rush.
In Lagos, people were perpetually on alert because anything could happen at any time. The roads were narrow, overcrowded, and littered with street traders and beggars of all kinds. There were so many rickety golden-yellow danfo packed with people. Even the air quality was different. At times it smelled like burning cedar wood, rotten medicine, garbage, exhaust. It was noxious. Was it even air? Sunny felt like she was breathing fumes, better yet, juju powder.
By the time they reached Victoria Island, her nose was running like crazy and she’d gone through half her box of Kleenex. Maybe Lagos really was dusted with juju powder. It was a crazy idea, but she had to wonder. She’d been to Lagos with her family many times before her initiation into Leopardom and never had this problem. She’d never had any type of allergy . . . other than being allergic to the sun.
When they entered the gated community where Adebayo’s aunt and uncle lived, it was like driving into yet another world. A world of super wealthy people. Sunny had been to this part of Victoria Island before when the family had visited one of her father’s friends. She’d felt displaced in the same way back then, and she didn’t exactly come from poverty, either. Coming here after the crazy drive through Nigeria’s many worlds of poverty, wealth, rural and city, trees to concrete jungle was even more unsettling. It was as if they’d left Nigeria and entered the cushiest part of the United States. The houses here were huge and gluttonous in the way that they were in the wealthiest suburbs of New York.
The streets were paved and pothole-free, clean and lined with flowers. A white woman walked a tiny white dog. A man in a jogging suit walked fast, sweating like crazy as he shouted into his cell phone in Yoruba.
“Okay, we’re going left,” Chukwu said into his phone. Adebayo was guiding him. “Oh . . . okay, I see it. White with the yellow Hummer in front.” He laughed hard. “You can drive that? Ah-ah.”
“Ugh,” Chichi said, disgusted. “I’ll bet half these people work for the government and oil companies.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Chukwu asked, holding the phone aside.
Sasha laughed hard and shook his head.
Chichi only looked salty.
“Okay,” Chukwu said into his phone. He laughed loudly, playfully dropping into Pidgin English. “I dey road now, I dey come to your big, big house. I dey yahn you so that na go dey ready for me, o!” He listened for a moment and then laughed hard. “Okay, o!” Still chuckling, he ended the call. “Adebayo is ready for us.”
Sunny didn’t feel elated at arriving. The closer they got to the house, the closer they got to their destination. Tomorrow was New Year’s Day. What did the New Year have in store for her?
Adebayo was waiting for them in front of the house as they drove onto the large curved driveway. He was wearing costly jeans and a brand-name T-shirt. Sunny rolled her eyes; he didn’t normally dress so flashily. And the neighborhood must be incredibly safe. Sunny couldn’t remember seeing this type of home that was not surrounded by a concrete gate.
Adebayo and Chukwu hugged and slapped hands. Then Chukwu introduced his friend to Sasha and Orlu. When he came to Chichi and Sunny, the smile on Adebayo’s face wavered. His whole demeanor was false. How much did Adebayo understand about Sunny and Chichi’s involvement in the destruction of his confraternity? Was that understanding conscious or subconscious? Judging by the way he quickly turned his back on them both, he recalled something. Sunny was glad. It would be a long time before she forgave him for introducing her brother to the Red Sharks and slapping him in the face that night, if she ever did.
“Welcome. Come in,” Adebayo said, putting his arm around Chukwu’s shoulder. “Let me show you everything.”
The house was enormous. There were two kitchens, one for the mistress and master of the house and one for the house girls. Both had fully stocked and functioning refrigerators, cabinets, and cupboards, and both were used mainly by the house help, all of whom had traveled home to visit relatives until January second.
“And even then,” Adebayo said as he gave them the full tour, “my aunt and uncle won’t be back from London until the sixth.”
The mansion had ten bedrooms, so they all had their pick of rooms. Sunny chose one on the third floor with a small balcony. It had a thick sliding glass door and a heavy-duty lock that she tested before choosing the room. It was a bit dusty and smelled as if it hadn’t been occupied in some time, despite the gorgeous satin sheets, dreamlike bed with a canopy, and soft luxurious deep-blue rug. This wasn’t surprising since only Adebayo’s aunt and uncle lived here. Their children were at university overseas and the house help stayed in the small house out back.
“So wasteful, isn’t it?” Chichi asked, coming in.
Sunny had put her things on the small plush lavender couch beside her bed and plopped onto the cool sheets. She sighed and grinned at Chichi, who rolled her eyes and sat on the floor. “I am so hungry.”
“Me too,” Chichi said. “I’ll bet there’s a whole market in all five of the refrigerators in the house.”
“There are only two fridges.”
“Same thing.”
There was a knock on her door. “Come in,” Sunny said.
Orlu had taken his shoes off and put on a fresh T-shirt. “I’m in the room across the hall,” he said. “After your bat incident, it’s probably best if I stay close.”
“She can take care of herself,” Chichi said. “And she’s got me. I’m next door.”
Orlu grunted, sitting on the couch.
Chichi smirked and pointed at the door. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two . . .”
The door opened. “Sunny, you in here?” Sasha asked.
“Aren’t you supposed to knock?” Chichi asked.
Sasha cut his eyes at her as he leaned against the wall, shutting the door behind him. He was carrying Udide’s Book of Shadows. “I’m in the room downstairs near the front door,” Sasha said. “Someone’s got to stand guard, right? Especially with your . . . condition.”
Sunny rolled her eyes.
“I put up a perimeter, too,” Sasha added.
“Good idea,” Orlu said. “Hopefully no one notices all the lizards that’ll be on the outside walls.”
“Yeah, it’s not the most discreet juju, but it’s powerful. Nothing will come in without me knowin
g. Like last night.” Sasha looked at the door, locked it, and moved inside. He sat beside Chichi, and Orlu got up and sat beside Sunny on her bed. Sunny scooted up. They were all face-to-face, and for several moments, they didn’t speak.
“We go tomorrow,” Sunny said.
“Yeah,” Orlu said.
“The market in J. City,” Chichi said. “It’s the biggest in Lagos. We can take a kabu kabu.”
Sunny frowned. “But Ajegunle is . . .”
“Relax, I know how to deal with ‘one chance’ robbers and any other kind of stupidity,” Chichi said, holding up a hand.
Ajegunle District, nicknamed “The Jungle” or “J. City,” was the worst part of Lagos. Sunny’s father described it as a slum, saying that it was full of garbage, poisonous water, filthy shantytowns built on muddy land and in some places islands of garbage. It was a place of rough, rough commerce.
“One chance” robbers were all over Lagos, but they thrived in Ajegunle and with vehicles that were heading to Ajegunle. “One chance” robbers were guys who drove kabu kabu or danfo. Their vehicles would be nearly full, so the drivers would advertise that they were giving people “one more chance” to get in at a reduced price. When the victim got in, he or she would be set upon by a bunch of thieves. Sunny had heard all kind of Lagos horror stories. And of course, there was the added danger of her being albino, and thus the target for ritual killers.
“Can’t Adebayo just drop us off?” Sunny asked. Even as she spoke, she knew it was a stupid request.
“And bring all that attention to us with that hideous Hummer?” Chichi asked.
“And like your brother, Adebayo can’t know where we are going, either,” Orlu added.
“They can’t,” Sasha said, shaking his head. “Not even a little.”
They were quiet again.
“It’s New Year’s Day, the markets will be empty,” Sunny said, her throat tight. “It’ll be easier for strangers to notice us, too.”
“Some will,” Chichi said. “But they aren’t Chukwu and Adebayo.”