Homecoming

I am laying the tiles at a building that cowers beside the intersection between Burrard Bridge and Pacific street when I see a notification. It is Stanley’s beep call. I do not attempt to call back; Big Honcho will see me on the phone and threaten to deduct 45 dollars from my daily wage. That is enough for a week’s vegetables, and Mayme would go crazy. I could suggest that he only does this to me because I’m Black, but Mayme would say it’s a misuse of white guilt and I do not know this because my ancestors were not slaves. So, I wait until lunch break, after I have consumed a burger and creamy ice-cold strawberry milkshake, before returning the call. Stanley’s intermittent calls always leave me weakened. The last time he called, he asked if I was happy.

“Toot . . . toot . . . toot . . . toot . . . ”

“Okwudili,” Stanley’s voice sifts through the phone’s speaker, thick in Igbo accent, dragging the dust and wind and rain from Nigeria with it. The last time he called my name like that was fifteen years ago, at the international airport in Lagos, before I left for Canada. He had given me the usual unsolicited “remember where you came from” advice. The few times we spoke—where he’d pretend to forget I have a wife and daughter and only ask if I had obtained my medical degree—he called me Dili. But there is something different, almost unsettling, about the way he calls my full name now.

“What’s wrong?” I respond in a high-pitched rhythmic tone.

Mayme would laugh if she heard me. She says I am an “inverted bourgeois” because my cloned Canadian accent only appears when I converse with folks in Nigeria, because I want to feel superior. I do not tell Mayme I do it because they expect me to have an accent. Eight years in Canada, an accent is the best proof of successful integration. That, and generosity in dollars.

“Are you happy? Eh, Dili?”

Silence. Where’s that coming from? Years of established formal talks built around a medical degree I flunked shouldn’t lead to this. I have meticulously structured our conversation to that of an emigrant and some relative. We should only talk about the opportunities Canada provides and my struggles to adapt to its society, racism, the weather, furniture, the ills of the Nigerian government, and dead relatives in Nigeria. That’s how it’s been scripted in the law book of conversations between a Nigerian emigrant and his folks back home.

“Ogini?” I finally ask.

Silence.

“Mama awugo. She’s dead.” It is difficult to pin a meaning to these words. It is difficult to attach death in the same line as Mama. Mama has not spoken to me in the eight years I’ve been married to Mayme, and now she’s dead? We’ll never speak to each other. Never. There’s a distortion from his end, a crackling of some sort, like his words have infuriated the clouds in Nigeria. The line goes off. I do not know who ended the call, Stanley or me, but a dead sound plays from the phone speaker, then silence. I stare at my reflections glistening from the grey tiles that proliferate them; there is something ghostly about them.

Now, I am certain I ended the call.

Our daughter is asleep when I tell her.

The Institute for Creative Dying

By Thompson, Jarred

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I repeat Stanley’s words, trying in vain to summon his Igbo accent so that Mayme will understand the gloomy heaviness of the words, but I cry after I say the first word. Mayme is irritated, but she embraces me tightly like I am an apparition that will disappear if she leaves me. I wonder if she would do the same when I die, hug my daughter or perhaps the man who would be her father. Her reaction is different from the average Nigerian wife's. Back home, Mayme would be expected to scream, flog the ground with her body, babbling words of pain and regret, battling tufts of her hair, almost reducing everything in her path to shreds. I mean, it’s my mother who passed away, the woman who gave birth to me, the woman whose breast I sucked before Mayme’s. Her reaction should be theatrical, not composed.

“Your brother called the house this morning after you left for work. He told me you need to return, to say goodbye the proper way.” Her voice is soft and laced with wistfulness. I now understand why she has imprisoned me in her arms; she knows I have to leave. It is the first time in our marriage that we’ll be separated by more than three hundred kilometres. Her hair smells of castor oil. Mayme made time to shampoo her hair even with the dangling news of my mother’s death? This woman gets on my nerves sometimes.

That night, she whispers sweet words to my ears, and I respond to her desires.

“Are you happy?” Mayme asks as I stare at the mould of her breasts, ever so firm, ever so inviting. She’s sitting on me, panting from the exertion that sex births, guiding my face so our eyes meet.

“Your brother asked if you’re happy, says it’s your mother’s last wish—your happiness. Are you happy?”

I touch Mayme—her soft faux hair, her chubby cheeks, her black lips. Caress her neck. Fondle her breasts. I change our position: her on the bed, me atop. I slide back in, losing her question in the evenness of our gyrating bodies. And when my limb shrinks, she turns away from me. I hear her moans as she touches herself.

I cry silently.

I do not say a word to Mayme until I depart for Nigeria.

The clouds are messy, scattered everywhere like smashed ice cream cones. If Mayme were here, she would yap about global warming and all this leftist bullshit that I don’t care about.

The plane jerks violently. I swallow hard and close my eyes as the seatbelt sign comes on. I search my mind for thoughts of my time in Nigeria, thoughts of my childhood, thoughts of Mama. But all I see is Mayme, the trembling of her lips when she nags, the rows and flows of her hair, the mismatched colours of her uneven eyes, and the blue shade of her nails that resembles my Canadian passport, a by-product of my marriage to her—something she never fails to mention at the slightest provocation.

I resent Mayme. I am not sure why. But I resent her.

I had hoped to see WELCOME TO NIGERIA boldly designed somewhere in the clouds before the landing. How foolish of me.

A young lady in a sky-blue uniform helps me with my luggage from the baggage carousel and volunteers to get me a luggage cart. She smiles like she’s been ordered to. Her hair is neatly twisted into a French ponytail, like Mayme’s, and her uniform is overly starched and glued to her flesh. She tells me I look depressed, like someone concerned with shitty things like the meaning of life. “We don’t do that here,” she says, “it does not matter.”

“I have meticulously structured our conversation to that of an emigrant and some relative. We should only talk about the opportunities Canada provides and my struggles to adapt to its society, racism, the weather, furniture, the ills of the Nigerian government, and dead relatives in Nigeria. ”

She introduces herself as “tall, dark, and beautiful”. Is she flirting with me?

“Are you happy?” I ask her.

“Yes na.” She scoffs. Her nonchalance does not hide the surprise in her eyes.

She says she can help me get a ticket when I plan on leaving the country and that she knows the places to change “currency” at the friendliest rates. She’s too excited, too forward, too extra. She reminds me of someone I cannot remember. I ask for her phone number: I don’t know why I ask, I’m not even sure I want it. She insists on getting mine instead. I bring my hands to my lips so she sees my marriage ring, and maybe it convinces her that I requested her number just because. She asks for mine again. A lot can happen if she calls at the wrong time, at a time when I’m with Mayme. I tip her and leave.

I tip the Aviation security officer that salutes me and yells, “oga.” I tip some other guy in a hazmat suit disinfecting a sneeze guard. I tip a cleaning lady who says, “welcome sir.” At this rate, I will go broke before I get to Stanley’s house.

A figure walks toward me. Grey uniform with a host of golden buttons. Male. Smiling eyes. I know I’d have to tip him too.

I am sitting in a cubicle as I stare at the credit alert message of five thousand dollars from Mayme. It is how she apologises for her insensitivity: she sends me wads of crisp dollars in a large brown envelope (or pays money into my account) like a drug peddler or a pompous husband.

I once told her “I’m sorry” is actually a thing people say when they hurt others, and it mends a relationship better than a bribe. But she scoffed and said, ‘I didn’t become a corporate lawyer to learn fancy apologetic words.’ I said nothing because Mayme is like a hedge maze with landmines buried everywhere; you never know the right path to tread. So, you lie still, fold into yourself, and survive.

It is annoying that the longer I stare at the message, the faster the chills of forgiveness claw their way into the chaos that is my heart. The officer in grey has searched my baggage four times already, and is at it again. He glares briefly and resumes his thankless job.

“Can you get me chocolates?” I say as I hand him a hundred-dollar bill. There is a comical disbelief on his face that lingers for a few seconds.

“Get some for your children too,” I add, giving him another hundred-dollar bill. He hesitates. I fake a smile and nod. In a few minutes, I leave the cubicle and head for the car park with lots of chocolates, the telephone contact of a grey-uniformed acquaintance, and shy of a few dollar bills.

Rain Dance

By Uwazuruike, Allwell, Amah, Munachim

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“Oga, America don do you well, but make you sef try help other people japa, make we follow post ‘Welcome to a New Dispensation’ picture for WhatsApp,” Stanley’s driver smiles and says. He talks like we are old friends even though this is our first meeting. Mayme would call him ridiculous; people should know their place.

I do not contest or bother to correct him; I just nod. Stanley sits behind me and whispers to someone on the phone; he filters his husky voice to make it soft. There’s a little cackle in between their dialogue, but it is abrupt and too formal. He is rolling his eyes like he is tired of the conversation, but he is sounding like he’s not. He has been on that call for half an hour, and has forgotten that he hasn’t said a word to me. I know an affair when I see one.

We park in front of Stanley’s house. No one tries to get down the car as we wait for Stanley. Stanley’s house is an enormous storey building with funny-looking tiled roofing and cream and grey walls that somehow blends perfectly. There are beautiful paper-mashed flower vases throughout the compound—and poorly watered flowers in them. The building is divided into four flats, each with a crown-like veranda closely resembling that of one of the hotels on Pacific Street.

The call is going on forever, and I am getting impatient. He has not talked about Mama; he has not even shown a sign of grief. All he does is smile and talk bullshit to some woman at the other end. The audacity to dangle his promiscuity like it’s a shiny award. If I had an affair with a woman, say the woman from the airport, I’d be ashamed and secretive, not waving it in the face of everyone.

The driver is grinning and talking about a place we’ll go to chop life. I wonder why he’s so happy.

“Did you even cry for Mama? Do you love her enough to cry?” I say, disgust laced richly in my tone. The silence that follows is tortuous, worse than Stanley’s call; it is snuffed out by a beep that shows Stanley has ended the call. He steps out of the car and orders the driver to take my luggage to the guest room.

I help.

Stanley’s wife pouts her lips and presses the Coconut Candy bar to her nose the way Mama does when she takes the communion bread; Mama does it because she wants to be sure that she’s not swallowing rotten cake in the name of consuming Christ’s flesh. Because she does not trust any unsealed edible food that comes through Lagos Wharf, not since the Biafran War.

“Is it organic or inorganic?” she asks. I stare at Stanley for help. Surely, he does not also believe that I bought them in Canada. Stanley says nothing. My “I’m not too sure, possibly organic” seems to satisfy her however, and we graduate to her trying to impress me with her knowledge of Europe—despite Canada being in North America—and highfalutin pronunciations that leave me confounded. Her Igbo accent is so trimmed that the few times they break into her speech, it sounds like a joke. She attempts to slash down the mound of fufu I roll and quickly offers me water when I cough after I taste the egusi soup. She laughs when I say the soup is “spicy” and calls me “Americanah” in a singsong tone that is both critical and envious. It feels good to be the centre of attention for once. She shows me the guest room and fits my luggage perfectly in a corner, asking if the room's temperature is okay.

“Nwaanyioma,” I greet, expressing my gratitude. I would probably have called her many more beautiful names like Mama did when she introduced her to Stanley and ordered that they become Man and wife, but her eyes are not red and itchy and puffy from grief. It’s like they’ve made a pact not to grieve for my mother.

Stanley digs his finger into the blue diamond patterns on the bed cloth, messing up its smoothness. He seems not to notice the whirlwind of silence that worsens with each moment he spends with me. I cough and sneeze and turn. Still, he says nothing and does not leave. The silence is infuriating: “How’re the twins?”

“Fine.”

Stanley’s reply is curt; he does not even look at me. He should give me more information, tell me about the twins’ school, the prizes they’ve won, the outlandish funny things they’ve said, how much they’ve grown. These are his children I asked about. It’s an excuse to flaunt his wealth, talk about their expensive private education, how spoilt they are because of the privileges his wealth allows them, the usual Nigerian rada-rada. But he continues poking the bed like a hen digging for food.

“How did she die? Mama.”

Stanley finally holds my gaze. “They said she woke up one morning and insisted on going to join you abroad. To see her son whom she had not heard from in Eight years. She walked a few kilometres before she got tired.”

“Before she died,” I say. I wonder if Mama would still be alive if I had never left this country. I wonder if he blames me for Mama’s death: I blame myself a little. My cheeks are burning; I want to lie in a pool and swim and wash until my skin peels off, and swim, and cry, and cry, and beg Mama for forgiveness. But I am an Igbo man, and we deal with grief by not dealing with grief. We organise a party. Spray money everywhere as if to quantify our love. Kill cows and invite friends. Wear printed T-shirts.

“Are you happy?” Stanley asks. I swallow hard to halt the giggling in my throat. I do not answer; I never answer that shit. What does that even mean, happiness? Will happiness give me a large condo in the Maldives or put a burning cigar in my hand as I watch the sunset from the veranda of a tiled building I own? Will it stop me from thinking of trust fund deficit whenever I hear my child’s name? Will I be able to say shut-the-fuck-up to Mayme? What does it mean? I did not abandon Nigeria for Canada because of happiness. I do not know what happiness looks like; neither am I looking for it.

Stanley turns to me and grabs my shoulders, “She wants us to be happy.”

I shake Stanley’s hands off my shoulders, “Is this your definition of happiness? Infidelity? A hollow pleasure?” I whisper. I tell Stanley how he has failed as a brother and a father, I tell him how Papa will roll in his grave and Mama's corpse will shake because he has spat on Mama’s choice of a wife. I tell and talk and talk, because devouring Stanley’s guilt legitimises my decency, and I feel like Mayme.

I am untainted and sanctified and fluffy; I can even float.

10.

Stanley’s driver drops us off at the local airport by 6 am. He greets me for the eleventh time and praises the beauty of the native attire I am wearing.

“ I wonder if Mama would still be alive if I had never left this country. I wonder if he blames me for Mama’s death: I blame myself a little. ”

Stanley had given me a newly sewn outfit last night, along with a large brown envelope containing bundles of crisp five hundred naira notes. I estimate that the money is about two thousand dollars worth.

The driver waves and smiles and helps me with my luggage. He keeps us company until we board our flight to Owerri. I do not tip the driver; he reminds me of the lady in sky blue uniform.

11.

I call Mayme when we land at Owerri. Her tongue softens when I say her name. It takes time before my name, or what she says is my name, crawls out of her mouth and into the speaker. “Lee.” She says it indifferently, but she sounds pensive.

We let silence speak the words our mouth cannot; we let it tell the tales of her pleas and my forgiveness. Mayme might have been my citizenship insurance at first, but now, she is my wife, the woman I love. I let myself slip into a vain wistfulness about what could happen if she were here. She catches herself, and her voice toughens. She talks about the neighbours and their loud music and the delayed response of the police when she complains. She talks about relocating to America and how I’m the only thing keeping her in Canada. She talks about her new case, a bitter divorce case. She talks about the difficulty of single parenting; she tells me she feels like a single parent. She talks of the need for a vacation similar to mine.

Mayme says our daughter was racially abused. A classmate joked that my mother had gone to join the panthers when she told the class of Mama’s death. And the class teacher laughed. I say it’s no big deal because I find the comparison accurate; Mama was fierce and strong-willed and terrifying; it is strange that her dying wish would be her children’s happiness, when all her life, her demands had always taken precedence over our happiness. Mama refused to speak to me for eight years because I married a person she did not approve of. Well, stranger things have happened, but it is only proper she incarnates as a panther.

Mayme says I talk like that because I am ignorant of the struggle, because I have always been free. She tells me of her ancestors who chose drowning instead of slavery.

I stare wide-eyed at the speaker before I return it to my right ear. My head is a thundercloud; a day in Nigeria has winded out all my tolerance for Mayme’s nonsense. “They are Igbos,” I scream, “they are fucking Igbos!”

“You think I don’t know that?” She maintains a calm voice. But I am so animated; I’m sure if she sees me, it’ll become a joke she’d recount in courtrooms and cackle as though she had never seen anything funnier. Before I can stop myself, my accent rushes out like a leaking dam, and it is not Canadian. It is similar to Stanley’s. “They are Igbos. I am Igbo. They are my fucking ancestors! A shared struggle doesn’t grant you kinship!”

Mayme begins to cry, and I am finally calm.

Mayme orders me to return quickly because that country has turned me into something I am not. Touché. She scolds me for not calling earlier to appreciate her for the money. She calls me a “fucking ungrateful nigga”. She ends the call before I can reply, and my heart breaks.

Mayme loses bits of me.

12.

Welcome to Umuakiri, to my home.

You won’t believe what it means. Mayme laughed when I told her that it means children of the toad. Mama says the name is due to our peculiar wide bulgy eyes. My Father disagrees; he says the people of this village never stay in a place and enjoy hurdling around like nomads. Perhaps, he was right because he hurdled out of life weeks later.

The heat is pinching our scalp, and I’m doing my best to be still and not scratch my body like Stanley; the driver said the AC worked and charged us twice the price, but we’re almost home and everywhere still smells of heat and decay. I don’t clean the sweat that drapes from my forehead nor protect my nose from the dust: it is the only way I can convince myself that I fit in. Most of the houses have aged like fine wine; they’ve gotten taller and more colourful, with shinier roofs; a few still hold on to past glories. I don’t remember the tall fences and gates and buildings; a few of the fences even have “SORO SOKE” written on them—even that got home before me. The village is adorned with Mama’s obituary posters—at least that culture survived the test of time. But this place has changed, children no longer chase after cars, and more trees have disappeared or lost a chunk of themselves. I expect to hear the ringing sounds of mortars and pestles, the groaning of farmers, but the whole place is overwhelmed with the noise of small generators. Urbanisation has raided my village and left it naked, devoid of the memories that used to hang everywhere. My fondness for this place dies with each house we speed past. The few who see us hold malice in their eyes, which tell grim tales of the terrible thefts, tales Stanley never told. It is easier to love this place when you don’t stay here. They do not wave; I don’t either.

This is not home; home is where family is. I will be gone as soon as I say goodbye to Mama.

13.

Mama’s corpse arrives in a black BMW SUV, accompanied by convoys of eight black SUVs with red-tinted glasses. Stanley has outdone himself. Stanley’s family arrives too, dressed in Igbo traditional attire designed with Mama’s face. We sit through the pastor’s preaching of the promise of an afterlife with Mama, an eternal life with mama. He succeeds in making it sound less scary than it should be. We sit through the long-winded encomium, well crafted, oiled with tears and catarrh, the endless rhetorical questions to God. These tales, however incredible, ascertain how little I know of Mama. They say Mama is nice, submissive, soft, meek and resolute. The Mama I know is only one of those things, the last one.

The coffin is open, and everyone queues to take one last peek at Mama. She is blackened, indifferent, clad in a fashionable white gown she’d never be seen in when she was alive. She looks subdued, defeated. Stanley prohibits leaving flowers or anything in the coffin, but I leave a tear on her face. “Ka odi,” I whisper to her.

The wailing begins when Mama’s coffin hits six feet. Stanley’s wife takes the lead, and other women follow. It’s like a rehearsed choir ministration with bellows of bass and soprano rushing at each other; it is a perfect mourning scene. It is oddly beautiful. And I wish Mayme was here to contribute a unique symmetry to the whole thing.

Stanley and I sit on a couch on the veranda of the family house, surrounded by male relatives and friends. Stanley talks about Mama, of the sacrifices she made for her children—the usual sacrifices common in every ode sung of a mother. I barely remember. Even the sparse broken memories seem unreal like they are implanted, ripped from the writers of the apocryphal odes. Everything seems unreal.

Stanley says Mama was happy.

The crying ends some minutes after the grave swallows Mama’s coffin and red sand is left as evidence of some activity. Stanley’s wife is ordering women to serve drinks here, food there, meats everywhere. She’s good at it; Mama chose well. Mayme should be here too.

14.

Mama’s name cuts through every curtain that separates our father’s parlour. Her name, said with a teary tone, attracts more drinks. Stanley tells me of the girl Mama married for me in my absence the previous year. He promises to introduce us that night. It seems disrespectful to Mama, so I say nothing. Stanley says Mama would love our meeting; I say nothing. He says she will make me happy.

Now, he’s travelling through Nigeria’s ugly political and economic past, and he’s laughing like it is funny; others are laughing too, about things that would only elicit anger and indictments in Canada. In this country, they laugh too freely. I used to be like this.

Loud traditional music booms from the tens of speakers standing at strategic positions. We eat. We drink. We dance. We scream. We drink some more. We mourn.

I am drunk, I am light as feathers, and I float into a strange room. I meet the girl Mama married for me, and my soul stoops. Young and naked. Tall, dark, and beautiful. I take her hand, and she takes my lips. We sink into the bed and swim. Gently and ardently. Desperate and exhilarating. We resurface when we are exhausted; she makes my chest her cushion. The sacredness of the night is almost ruined by the screams of small generators. There are no chirping crickets or drumming birds or howling spirits, but somehow, I am at peace, I am secure, and it is the first time I have felt that way in a long time. I mourn my old life here. It was not filled with splendour, but at least I knew where I fit in, where I belong. But now, I am not so certain.

I think of arguments to water down my unfaithfulness, ranging from grief to conflict of identity, to loneliness, to nostalgia, to a lack of identity. But all of that is bullshit. Maybe not. Maybe I’m just awful. Maybe I was angry or too drunk. Or she was available: she seemed fragile and grateful and stared at me with awe and respect, and I felt powerful and in control like Mayme, and it felt good. Whatever, it does not even matter.

I watch her sleep and listen to the whistling of her nose. Strange music, but it is therapeutic, and I play along with the beads on her waist. I have been in Nigeria for a few days now, but this is the memory I will hold on to.

When the sun comes, I leave for Lagos—

15.

—with Stanley and her. We are holed up in Lagos for two weeks, and I find myself here. I am assertive and optimistic and flamboyant—and funny. I am happy. On the day I depart, I fold all those bits of me and pass them to her in warm hugs and long salty kisses. I do not tell her to stop crying. I do not even know her name; I don’t want to because despite everything good that she offers, she’s not Mayme, and I did not choose her. I cannot choose her. But I profess love for her. I lie with a trueness that will destroy Mayme’s heart.

16.

Mayme is enamoured with the beads I brought from Nigeria. She wants to know the history behind them: some tradition, some culture, some spirituality, a story. Anything that makes it more interesting than it actually is, so she can tell them to her friends when she displays them. I tell her they are not meant for display but for her waist. She says it’s bullshit.

It’s been a week since I began avoiding the girl’s calls. It’s been two since I got back to Canada. We are stretched out on the bed, in darkness, when Mayme tells me that I’ve changed. She says I spice my words with Igbo when I speak to our daughter and I whistle strange songs after we make love. She says she does not know why I insist she adorns her waist with beads before we make love. She still has not asked about the burial. I say it is grief; she says I am too enthusiastic for it to be grief, too happy.

One day, I’ll tell Mayme about the girl, “tall, dark, and beautiful”.

One day, I’ll tell Mayme how much she’s changed, or maybe she had always been like that. I’ll tell her how much she holds her blackness as a sacred weapon and attacks everyone at convenience, how her ancestry has become a holy grail that purifies her so that nothing she says or does is ever wrong. I’ll tell her these things because I was once happy beside Mayme, and I want to be happy again, beside her.

Because I fit in perfectly, squeezed into Mayme’s past, and present, and future, alongside my daughter—

I. Fit. Perfectly.

I do not belong here, I know, but I fit in. Yes, I was happy in Nigeria, lying beside the nameless girl, fiddling with the beads that jiggle above her hips, but what is happiness if not ephemeral satisfaction, if not invented laughter masking grief, if not smiling and suffering, suffering and smiling, if not hope and faith and love assuaging pain and hurt and failed dreams. What is happiness if not intentionality, a chosen reckless path that causes the abandonment of all other things—good or bad or evil? What is happiness if not these things?

I continue to whistle strange sounds and ignore her ravings. Before the sun comes, love will heal my conflicted heart. I know it.