Mindscape
By Angela Nwosu
Just when I thought I had finally settled my life
into a reliable pattern, something happened. Perhaps
it might just be seen as nothing really and
therefore no problem at all. But that ‘something’
created a chain of other little problems, or so it
seems. Maybe it has created a long chain of thoughts
connected to a long procession of memories.
Memories are not bad if they bring smiles and light
up your life like a Valentine candle. They are not
bad if you cuddle them like pillows and let warm
tears of joy act as a motivation to make your life
better. No, not at all. Memories are not bad when
they act as an alternative to grim reality. But they
are not so good when they make goose pimples of
shame break out all over you. Shame, goose pimples?
Yes, the type that break out when you remember
things you shouldn’t have done, mistakes you could
have avoided; when you think you let your loved ones
down; when you remember that you did not defend your
dreams with all your might. Then memories are not so
good, but when, because you think they are not so
good, you try to drown them in different illusions,
that might lead to more goose pimples – of shame,
not the type that occurs because two hearts are
melting into a thrill.
It happened on that night when there was a
snowstorm. I was lucky to be off duty. Even after
living through many winters, that night felt like
all of creation was going to be eaten by the snow.
They fell furiously like a prelude to an apocalyptic
disaster. But then Philly braved the storm for me,
or so he claims. I had every reason to trust him
though. A year ago, we had both survived the abyss
of self-nihilism. We had both risen from the ashes
of our destruction. We became friendly and, later,
as sometimes happens when two people see each other
often enough, we became lovers. I was grateful
because I wouldn’t have known where to begin. When
you lose a lot of time out of the world – the normal
world, that is – getting back is usually hard. Even
after regaining myself, there were times when I
quickened my steps because I felt a trail of
laughter chasing me or I felt my flesh tingling with
desire for a shot of illusion. Philly kind of made
things easy. Maybe he too felt like me, like
once-lost-always-lost-so-why-not-make-out-with-this-fellow-who-had-been-down-the-abyss-like-me?
Philly had been drifting long before my own chaos.
His father Dele was a ‘lost’ Nigerian and his mother
a wandering, beautiful Latino woman. They had him in
Philadelphia and named him Philly. But they soon
found out they were not ready to settle down, so
they put him in a foster home and drifted apart from
each other – as wide as they could. Philly got out
of foster homes faster than one could empty a bowel.
He got into all kinds of street problems until he
hit zero. That the two of us have experienced zero
created a bond between us.
So, when he said he came to be with me that terrible
night, I kind of believed him. I made coffee and we
laid in bed talking light stuff – mostly about other
people or things outside of ourselves. He worked in
a factory and I worked as a waitress, so we also
talked about our working lives. In the middle of
that light talk, a gripping thought in the form of a
question possessed my brain. You must know how it
feels when sometimes you wake up in the morning
thinking you must remember something, like a song, a
word, or just a name. Usually, you don’t get it that
first time and it stretches into days; then, when
you relax a bit, forget a bit or all the way, it
comes! Only that then it may not be important
anymore.
So this thought gripped me as Philly began to get
all cuddly, letting the chill think for him. Even as
he thrust in and out talking love stuff, I felt I
was not there and wondered how he could feel
something when I felt nothing. He was soon snoring
and I felt a brief anger, but that passed because I
was in a feverish grip. As I moved to the kitchen, I
mused about how a thought can be more powerful than
lovemaking.
I opened my medicine chest. I was frantic. My
prescription bottle was there, apart from the other
bottles as if to proclaim its hold on my life. Did I
take my drug that night? “Did you take your drug?” I
asked myself. I couldn’t answer, and I felt sweaty
and dizzy. I had this fear that I
was
falling into a mountain of black snow. I feared that
with one silly mistake jeering voices would dance in
my head and my walls would close in on me and Philly
would leave me because I refused to be injected by
the joy liquid, and my ancestors would rise up from
their graves and judge me…and….
My ancestors. My ancestors? I held the bottle and
began to read the words without seeing them. I
didn’t need to because the words blurred and became
memory stuff. You know, like walking backwards
through your life. I was hearing my mama’s voice –
the pride with which she told her friends how she
breastfed her first child and daughter and how she
was never sick.
“You mean she has never fallen sick?”
“Would I be lying about such a thing?”
“So you don’t go to hospital?”
“We do, but not because of her. She hates the smell
of hospitals.”
“That’s strange. Who did she reincarnate amongst
your ancestors?’
“Hey, you believe things like that? Well, one of her
paternal aunts did find out. She is supposed to be
Agbo, her paternal grandmother. Come to think of it,
Agbo was sickly all her life and she had vowed that
when she came back to life again, she would never be
dependent on drugs. Do you think….”
“Of course, of course…”
And now I was shivering with fear over a drug.
Philly called out to me. He wanted to know what was
happening, but what could I say to him – that I
recalled a familiar memory all of a sudden in years
or that I remembered an aspect of who I was because
I was gripped by sudden fear?
“I am good,” I said to him.
“It’s cold, girlie. Come to bed. Come get your
sleep.”
I smiled a foolish smile, wondering why men get all
tender at night – all tender when a
need
arises, that is. But I was getting all needy too,
because going back to that past put me in a confused
state I was trying to avoid so that I could live one
day at a time without having to deal with looming
shadows. I wanted to move on without clusters, but
just thinking of that name was unnerving. I hadn’t
thought about a name in years. I was getting really
needy now because I felt like forgetting the whole
weary business. So, when Philly reached for my
nipple, I pushed it deep into his mouth. And when he
knew me again, this second time, I abandoned myself
to the sheer pleasure of union – grateful that he
had braved the storm, thankful for the warmth.
Days
later, I was still waiting like someone in a trance
not knowing where dreams ended and reality began. I
woke up one morning trying hard to remember a dream
and, when I did remember, it turned out it was an
event that was shown on television the day before.
Living was getting really blurry, but I managed to
still do stuff like work, eat, and mope. I was in
that not-so-sweet state when Philly called again. He
wanted to know if he could come over, and I really
boiled over. I wanted to scream and say I was tired
of just lying in bed talking light stuff, tired of
hardened nipples and dripping warmth. I wanted to
scream and say he should go jump into a river, but
instead I counted up to ten, took a deep breath and
said “hello.”
“Hey, my gal, you sound low. Can we get together?”
“I’m cool, but can we space out for sometime?” It
must be my voice, which must have sounded odd to
him. He said okay and hung up. I didn’t let any
guilt stay on my conscience. I needed to think, yet
I dreaded going back. It seemed as if these thoughts
will be the end of me, but that name from last
time…that name stuck.
My father used to always boast that he was a
self-made man. Whenever he was angry at us, he would
launch into a tirade on how he “made it” as an
orphan without help from any one. Despite these
occasional outbursts, however, he had one single
(most powerful) passion: to give us the very best. I
was lucky that even though he had no formal
education, he did not discriminate against me as a
girl. In fact, he swore he would give me more than
the best. He did give us all more than the best, my
four brothers inclusive.
In the course of my growing up, my education had
impressed on me that those great men who fought for
our country’s independence and those who went to the
white man’s country at about that time had shattered
the myth of white superiority. They told us that
people were the same everywhere and that we all come
from the same source. But as I grew up, I perceived
a new attitude. Time was when going out of the
country was mostly for the purpose of further
studies or business. Folks came back home. In fact,
folks burnt to return home! Then the time came when
leaving the country was motivated by survival, a
passion for escape and acquiring a “been-to”
attitude.
We weren’t badly hit. My father’s entrepreneurial
spirit had helped him build up a business empire.
But some folks simply did things because others were
doing them. So, when two of my father’s friends sent
off their children to study abroad, it was as if
they had invited him to a competition that he must
win.
I didn’t want to go, didn’t see why I should go.
There were good schools at home. I pleaded with my
mother, forgetting she really had no say in the
matter. The “been-to” fever had gripped her long
before my father was hit. She began to call me
“been-to” and, even before I got my paperwork ready,
everyone knew I was leaving the country. Our house
became a tourist attraction of sorts. It was as if I
had mutated into the eighth wonder of the world.
People gave me addresses of relatives I should look
up and the ones I should find, as if I was on a
special or communal mission. Friends advised that I
marry a white man because “the white people’s vision
of life is about flowers and picnics.” There were so
many voices to get lost in. But my father’s was
dominant. I was to go into the world and conquer. I
was to study law or medicine and forget my dream of
becoming a dancer. Dance was frivolous pleasure, not
a credential for lucrative employment. I became
weary of all the visits and voices and I began to
dream of getting away from the madness. I felt
betrayed by the fact that everyone pretended not to
notice I was in turmoil. Couldn’t they see that all
I wanted was to remain at home, to be near my mother
and play with my brothers and dream of my own
future? I guess no one believed that I wasn’t happy.
When I told Ronke, my best friend, that I wasn’t
thrilled about going, she looked at me with
skepticism and replied with a very long “Reeaaly?!”
There was a send-forth party. People were happy to
have free food and drinks on me, but for me it was
like the final seal of my destiny.
At first, I worked hard to convince myself that I
could like it here, in the USA. I took refuge in the
fact that it was just for a short time, after which
I would go back to my country. It was Fall, and the
yellow leaves, dancing in the seductive breeze,
gladdened my heart. I buried myself in books, saying
that it was better to be busy than let the unnatural
solitude in my new environment take over my life.
There was something sad about the atmosphere,
something about it that bred ill-tempered spirits.
Maybe it was the ghost of slavery or the spirit of
history. There was something definitely funereal
about the atmosphere, and the people went about like
soulless robots as if to be natural was a taboo.
Ironically, the word “fun” was always in the air.
“Hey, we could do fun things this weekend.” “Let’s
go have fun.” And the opposite word was always
“boring.” “That lecture was boring.” “Why are you
such a bore? Come on, you are still very young, have
fun!”
I spent a lot of my free time trying to find the
difference between “fun” and “boring,” and after a
few outings I felt they were both the same really.
Everything bored me. The news on the radio and the
television always left me wanting to throw up –
about someone being killed or maimed or raped or
kidnapped or a baby’s head being bashed into a wall
or a man sexually abusing his daughter. All these
for fun, or from boredom? I was sick. Home seemed
like virgin land in comparison, regardless of all
our leadership problems.
Maybe I was still living in my dream, creating
several conflicting realities. I began to see the
faces of my country people at restaurants, to hear
their voices and their conversations in my
consciousness. I had stopped caring a long time ago
whether folks were black or white. They were just
folks to me. But now I saw and heard my country
people almost everywhere. What was I becoming – a
walking memory? At night, their voices would pursue
me in my dreams without giving me any chance to run.
I couldn’t run back into myself, could I?
Uju was telling her friend how her husband moved to
the
USA
without her. Kelechi, her husband, made her
understand it was better he prepared for her. Not
that he thought of her as special but just that
settling was hard, more so as he came in as an
illegal immigrant. Uju did not
mind at all. The way she saw it, her spouse being
over there was almost the same as her being there
herself. After a few years, her husband began to
visit once in a while, but Uju decided she wasn’t
going to have any baby until she joined her man.
Three years and three abortions later, she finally
found herself beside her husband in the land of
freedom and possibilities. For days, she felt she
was floating in a dream cloud. She called everyone
back home to say she had arrived safely and that the
place was indeed like paradise. After the euphoria
of arrival, she channeled her resources to making
the American babies. But they never came.
Desperation took over. There were series of fasting
to break curses, meetings with spiritualists, and so
many other things – all to no avail. Seven years
later, the heart of the marriage just stopped
beating. She was reminded that Kelechi, being the
only male in the Azaga family, needed to perpetuate
the lineage. The reminder came from Kelechi’s
sisters, who got their brother another wife.
“That was awful,” said her friend. “And you did
nothing, just wasted more than a decade of your
life?”
“I did nothing. I took refuge in the Lord.”
I did not see the Lord in her refuge. She had
emptied several glasses of beer and was tearing open
a second cigarette pack. That was not refuge, but I
guess I could understand a lonely soul.
Back home years ago, we were taught in church that
there was a purpose to everything
because God is infinite wisdom. So, in every
situation we learn to give thanks. Bad luck has a
purpose. When my own bad luck came two years later,
two years of battling with solitude and
displacement, I had thought it was some sort of
green light for escape.
Father’s business crumbled one night when armed
robbers burnt down the factory building, after
bloodily looting the place. He was concerned that he
might not be able to pay my fees again for some
time. Could I hang on a few months for him to sort
out things? I said fine, not wanting to seem too
eager to propose my immediate return home. Things
did not get better, so I said I was coming home, but
my father would not hear of it. He said I should do
everything in my power to stay back so that shame
would not kill him first. He gave me the phone
number of his cousin, whom he said could help.
When I called, the voice that answered the phone was
cheerful enough for me to be encouraged. He even
joked about family stuff. But as soon as I mentioned
the reason for the call, there was tension. Oh no,
he said, I must have the wrong number because he was
not the Maduka that is related to Mr. Enu. He said
he was from South Africa and his name was Masela,
then he hung up. My tight room became even smaller
that day. I felt that I was lost.
Somehow, the passion to succeed injected me with new
energy, and I thought my bad luck would turn out to
be positive in the end. Working and studying was
hell, but I did not want to bother my family. I was
managing when the frantic, desperate letters began
to come. The bad luck must have done something to my
father. He began writing for me to send money so he
could educate my brothers. My brothers too began to
call, saying they wanted to come over. I sent them
all I had, until I could no longer afford to remain
in school. I decided to let school wait for a year
or two and concentrate on work. But the letters kept
coming. I kept giving because I felt guilty of what
I could not explain. Maybe it was my mother’s letter
– I sought encouragement from her, but her words
left me gaping with shock: “Girls your age now own
estates in Nigeria. Maybe you should cross over to
Italy!” Was poverty indeed a sin? I became acutely
aware once again of the lonely atmosphere – the
forlorn houses trapped in chaotic orderliness, the
deserted roads, the different shades of crime. Here,
loneliness was like candy. Everyone had their own
brand of lonely candy. I was breaking. By the time
Danny came into my life, I was a perfect bar of
despair.
The faces and the conversations still pursued me in
my dreams, and I began to wonder if I was not
existing on another planet.
Bonny too came here with big dreams, which included
bringing all his family members over. It did not
take him long to realize that his master’s degree in
Business Administration back home was not regarded
as anything here. He could not afford the cost of
graduate education here, so he soon found himself
doing two jobs and writing back home that all would
go well. The pressure began to mount. He was
constantly being reminded of his responsibility to
his family and to himself, such as starting a
family. By the time he added two more jobs, he
barely had time to eat and sleep, not to talk of
keeping in touch with family. And after three
decades, he was telling his friend, Brighten, he was
all screwed up.
Brighten’s story is similar to Bonny’s, but he says
he is already working on a solution. He wants to
commit a crime that would help get him deported,
whereupon he would start a revolution back home.
“A revolution, against who?” Bonny wondered.
“Against oppression and degradation. It’s time we
stand up for our right. Our leaders can set things
right, but because we always shrug as if we can take
in everything they keep testing our will.”
“Why are you saying ‘our’? You’ve been absent for
too long.”
“No, I always follow the news from home. In fact, if
there is a way of measuring my loyalty, you could
say I never really left.”
Bonny nodded, but he was not quite convinced. He
told Brighten of the ethnic problem back home and
how his “revolution” might complicate things.
“Something will crop up” was how Brighten ended the
conversation.
Because my life was walking backwards, with dreams
and reality clashing, I became like a body of
fleeting images. And the voices too, the faces – all
of these brought back Danny. The words came as if
something was being reported. Danny, the first son
of a rich Texan, came into my life on a breezy
morning. He was a dashing white guy with the bluest
of eyes. He talked fast and laughed a lot. But when
he was not laughing, he was dreaming. He found me in
a bar of despair and decided to turn me into a
flutter of joy. Something in me opened up as he
cleared my filial guilt away. One day, I tasted the
stuff on his tongue and we both began to fly and
dream. We were free, and we felt no pain, no sorrow.
Danny took me all over Europe, showing me castles
that we claimed by just being young and different. I
no longer remembered anything – family, work, study.
Everything went away and melted into the world we
were trying so hard to forget. One day, Danny forgot
forever. He took the stuff and told me we were one,
then he slept and s-l-e-p-t.
His father got me arrested, saying I had bewitched
his son. I was eventually released when the fact
came out that Danny was the one who had initiated me
into white madness. My eyes opened to my rottenness
and I went into a home – to become straight again.
And now the voices. The voices from my people made
me see again and I felt a longing for my family, a
longing I thought was dead.
I began to eat in my dreams. My country’s cuisine
came to me in different forms. First came ofe onugbu
with nni ji. I ate ravenously, and my family’s grave
opened up and my ancestors came out with scrolls and
taught me who I was. But I looked at them without my
eyes and heard them without my ears. One of them
stood up and brought me another kind of food – obe
ewedu and amala. I savored the food, and my
great-great-grandmother taught me that the
ingredients for both meals were basically the same
even though they are different. Hunger ravaged me
again and tuwo shinkafa and a variety of other foods
came up, with each naming itself: “I am okodo.”
“I am ukpo.” “I am acha.” “I am abacha.” “I am
fufu.” “I am ojojo.” I ate them all. Then I saw my
father and he told me that I was all that food and
all that food was me.
As I walked back into my life, doing my work and
pondering, I stopped feeling hungry. When I was
asked to eat at work, I would say I had eaten. When
I got home, I would pace up and down thinking. Then,
one day, it clicked. The letters. I remembered the
letters. Long long ago, I had stopped opening them,
now I held this particular one and read. It was from
my youngest brother.
Dear sister,
I
write to let you know I am in great shock. Mama,
papa and the rest are dead. Just like that. I had
gone to the east to buy market because I sell
second-hand clothes now. I left them all healthy,
but now I am all alone. They are not the only ones
though. Something happened at the military
cantonment and bombs started going off in the air
killing people. The bombs shook houses out of their
foundations, the bombs sent fire into many lives and
people ran towards the canal. You remember the canal
that runs through the back streets at Ejigbo? Well,
it opened its hungry mouth and drowned half of our
people. Papa said it was better they stayed home.
They did until the building caved in. You are all I
have now. Please tell me what to do!
I held the letter in my hands. I could not keep it.
I just stared into space and my eyes dripped of
long-bottled tears. Much later, anger reached back
into my heart and bitterness filled my mouth. I
began to scream and break things. I was blind. I was
blind with sorrow. But because I could not cry
forever and because I could not die on my
bitterness, I began to think of what to do. I will
go HOME. And I thought wildly that Philly would help
me raise money. I quickly called his apartment. No
answer. I called his friend, who called himself
Child of Love for a reason I never cared to find
out. Child of Love told me Philly had gone to
Philadelphia. He said Philly saw something in the
book of Revelations and decided he had been named
for a reason. My legs began to shake as I felt a new
wave of loneliness.
“Did he leave any address?” I asked Child of Love.
“No, hon, but in case you need some love, Child of
Love can….”
I dropped the phone, feeling really lost now. At
night, another wild thought entered my head, and I
began to read the news about home. I began to live
for the daily news, and one day it was as if I
finally found light. “Nigerian Government Wants Her
People Back Home” ran a headline. I read the news as
if my life depended on it. Believing I would get
help, I called the number.
“Yes?”
“I want to come back home….”
“He hen, what is your tribe?”
“Tribe? I am a Nigerian.”
“We are starting tribe by tribe, but forget that for
now. Tell me about your credentials.”
“Credentials? I am a Nigerian eager to be home.”
“No, no, please don’t rush me. I never forced you
out of the country. By 'credentials' I mean what
have you been doing there? Which universities have
you attended there, how many more degrees did you
acquire? How many white families did you network
with? Do you have any children by white men? You
know, we are trying to build a new world here at
home….”
I was dazed. But I was also desperate, so I launched
into what I thought was a pathetic story about my
life. I even added something about prostitution to
deepen my picture of despair because I thought that
would get me home fast.
“He hen. Well, young lady, I will call you back, but
let me just tell you this: we have enough
ashawo back home.”
I waited, despite the sarcasm. I waited until the
headline hit me: “Brains Wanted to Redress the
Drain.” People like me were asked to please stay
back. “Nigeria has enough problems
at
the moment to care about misfits and another set of
‘area children.’
This time, I didn’t scream. I just moved on to the
next wild thought. Inspired by Brighten’s idea, I
wore a notice the next day that read: “Arrest me,
please, for I deserve a long life of sanctuary.” But
it was winter and people cared more about protecting
themselves from the chill than paying attention to
loonies.
That night, I dreamt of Iyi Odo – the river of
clarity. I had been there only once in my life when
I visited my village. But now I swam in the water
all clad in white with a red band on my head. I saw
Adugbe, the river goddess. I also saw Mkpitime. I
was at the threshold of Adugbe’s shrine, but even as
I was willing I couldn’t get in. Several things
weighed me down. Mkpitime came to my side and patted
me on the shoulder. “If you don’t eat sorrow, how
can you drink joy?”
I did not understand the words, but they gave me
hope. The next day, I tried to get attention again –
without success. I changed the words: “Please help
me, for I must return to Earth.” Still nothing. “If
you don’t eat sorrow, how can you drink joy?” The
words renewed me. I felt hope again. I will wait
until summer, and if summer does not give me some
answer I will just wait for anytime. Anytime is
better than no time. Anytime is certainly better
than forever.
The
end.
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