An African Affair (20 page)

Lindsay nodded. Before she left, Vickie impulsively reached out and squeezed Lindsay’s shoulder.

“Be careful.”

“I’ll try.”

Several days went by before Lindsay was ready to begin her investigations. There was enough daily news to keep her busy, and she needed some time to recover. She only wrote what she had to—Olumide’s statement of regret and his promise to find the responsible parties, the public funerals for Fakai and his associates, the few surprisingly mild demonstrations against the government. Maureen’s funeral was postponed because despite Vickie’s optimism, her remains were not released quickly.

During this time, James treated Lindsay with a level of affection she had not seen before. He seemed shattered by Maureen’s death, and they comforted each other. He came over every night and little by little the tender moments of physical comfort began to change into something closer to desire. They both felt the irrepressible yearning of the living even while mourning the dead. It was no surprise to either of them one night when James suggested they skip the meal and go upstairs. She followed him willingly, locking her bedroom door and leading him to her bed. He unbuttoned her linen shirt and threw it on a chair, then fumbled over the clasp on her slacks.

“You have to be an engineer to open these things.”

She undid it herself, tossing them onto the chair. She reached up and kissed him, pulling his face toward hers. He seemed to know how to give her pleasure, as if this wasn’t their first time together. She savored every moment, every touch.

When they finished, James draped his arm around her and she snuggled into him, luxuriating in the feeling that she was truly desired by this man she had wanted for so long. But she also felt a tinge of guilt that such happiness should come so soon after her friend’s death—maybe even because of it. She pushed the thought away.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

“Not anymore,” he answered.

“I mean for food.”

He smiled. “I could eat something.”

She dressed quickly and went down to the kitchen. Martin looked at her knowingly, but only asked if he should start dinner. She told him that she would cook it herself and that he could take the rest of the night off. She opened the refrigerator and saw what he had been planning: chicken, wine, onions. She rummaged in the cupboard and found a jar of bottled mushrooms and decided that there was enough to put together a passable coq au vin. She bustled about preparing the meal as James came downstairs and watched. When they sat down to eat, he praised it with enthusiasm, marveling at her ability to cook an elegant French meal in Lagos. Later they moved into the living room and put on some music—Miles Davis, James’s favorite. They sat close together.

“I’ve been thinking,” she murmured. “You said you’d be ready to leave Lagos soon. I was wondering if you were going to come back after the funeral.”

Did she imagine it, or did he stiffen?

“I’m not sure,” he answered.

“Well, I need to stay for a while. But at some point, I’ll be ready to leave for good. Maybe I could get assigned back to London, if that’s where you’re going to be.”

He didn’t answer for a few seconds. Then he got up and walked to the stereo to change the music.

“Let’s not talk about future plans right now.” He smiled at her. “I want to thank you for the conversation, the music, the great meal. And by the way,” he added, sitting down next to her again and replacing his arm around her, “I think that the coq was very well suited to the vin.”

Lindsay laughed. “I love you,” she said impulsively. He smiled again, but didn’t reply. Then, circling his face with her hands, she asked lightly, as if half teasing, “Do you love me?”

“Of course I love you,” he said. “What’s not to love?”

James had already left when Lindsay awoke anxious and sweating under the thin sheets. She knew she had only been dreaming, but it had felt so real. Usually she didn’t remember her dreams, but this one was so vivid. She couldn’t forget it, and the longer it stayed with her the more vulnerable and frightened she became. Finally she reached over to her night table and pulled out her notebook:

Writing it out had helped dissipate enough of its power to allow her to shake it off and start her day. She showered, had breakfast, and then set out. She hadn’t arranged for John to drive her. In some ways, she preferred driving herself. It gave her more independence and she didn’t have to worry about John divulging her itinerary to anyone. She climbed into the car and set off to see J.R.

His house looked the same, except that there were more men hanging around. They were young and tough-looking. Their faces registered no interest as they asked her what she wanted. She assumed that they were bodyguards. One disappeared for a few minutes, and then J.R. walked into the room dressed in his usual loose cotton pants and a tie-dyed blue and white dashiki. He greeted Lindsay warmly.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” he said, without a trace of pidgin, holding both her hands in his.

He looked at her with concern and her eyes teared up.

“You’re one of us now,” he said. “You can tell our story from the inside.”

She smiled weakly. She was relieved that he seemed to trust her.

He told her The Next Step was devastated by the deaths of Bayo and Fakai. He expressed surprise that so far, the reaction to Fakai’s death was more grief than rage. Olumide was more entrenched than ever. Still, the dictator was worried enough about the group to make overtures to their leadership asking for some sort of compromise. In fact, in an attempt to co-opt them—and to show he had nothing to fear—Olumide had given permission for a Next Step rally in the sports stadium. J.R. was worried about possible riots. He had the delicate job of inspiring and solidifying their followers without challenging the government outright. He worried that Olumide could use any lawlessness as an excuse to wipe out hundreds of their people in one place.

“You must come to the rally, Lindsay. You must tell the other journalists. We want this government to know that the world will be watching.”

Lindsay promised she would be there. She asked if he had heard anything else about the bombing that killed Maureen. J.R. leaned back in his chair and took a long swig of beer. Finally, he leaned forward, speaking very softly.

“There is something I think you should know. We don’t think this bomb came from one of Olumide’s people. Why would he want to make Fakai a martyr?”

“But if he didn’t do it, who did?”

“There is another group. We don’t know much about its members, but it is run by the Hausas in the north.”

“Are you thinking the blast was connected to religious extremism?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think this has anything to do with religion. These people are like shadows, we never see their faces. But we know they raise money just as Olumide does, trading drugs. Some say that it is their competition over control of the trade that makes them want to get rid of Olumide and take power themselves.”

“Who says that?”

“Word from the street. That is all I can tell you.”

“But why kill Fakai? He was the best bet to get rid of Olumide.”

“Yes, but he was a Christian, not a Muslim, so they didn’t trust him. Also, if he ever got power, he would have cracked down on the drug trade. They needed to get rid of him. They figured that would provoke massive riots and that would justify another army coup to force Olumide out of power and put their man in. We think this group has a lot of influence in the military—maybe even one of its leaders is a highly placed government minister.”

J.R. said that the plan had so far fallen short of its goal. There had been sporadic rebellions, angry crowds, but no real riots. People were too beaten down by the pressure of their own lives, fear of the police, and the difficulty of just surviving in Lagos. The Next Step, which might have been expected to galvanize the protests, was both weakened and wary of playing into the hands of the northern group.

“They are smart and they are dangerous. They don’t only export illegal drugs to Europe, they also kill us here in the south.”

“How do you mean?” Lindsay asked.

“I mean they take medicines that the doctors need for the hospitals in Lagos and they divert them to the north. We have no morphine, no antibiotics. They care only about their own.”

“Olumide is a Yoruba. He’s from the same tribe and the same religion as the people in Lagos. Why doesn’t he do something about this?”

“He doesn’t care about his people; he cares more for power. But even if he did, he can’t find this group. No one knows who they are.”

“So how do you know?”

J.R. laughed harshly and clasped his hands over his head as he stretched backward. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just hear things. You want a beer?”

Lindsay shook her head, thanked him, impulsively kissing him on the cheek, and headed for the car.

She drove back toward Ikoyi, her mind racing. If J.R. was right, then the group that killed Maureen also killed Eduke by stealing the medicine from Lagos that might have saved him. She had to stop them the only way she knew how—by reporting the story as hard as she could and publishing it for the world to see.

James didn’t come back that afternoon. He left a message with Martin that he had an urgent meeting about a statue he had bid on and had to leave for Ibadan. He said he’d be back the next day and would stop by in the afternoon. That night, after reading over her notes, she sat alone in her living room, sipping white wine, missing Maureen, and wishing James were with her.

After another restless night, Lindsay decided to pay a visit to Lagos Hospital, this time as a reporter. As she was leaving, Martin stopped her.

“Madam, you go again without a driver?”

“Yes,” she said, pushing open the door. She knew Martin thought she’d be safer with John driving, but she knew what he didn’t—that the one time she had been kidnapped, John had been driving. Anyway, if they wanted to harm her, John wouldn’t be able to stop them. Maureen’s murder had scared Lindsay, but it had also freed her. Death could come at any time. She couldn’t worry about it or she would be paralyzed.

When she arrived at the hospital, she approached the front desk where a young woman in Western dress was absorbed in listening to music through earphones. The woman neither looked up nor acknowledged Lindsay’s presence, but Lindsay could hear the faint strains of a song and noticed that the woman was keeping time with her foot.

“Excuse me,” Lindsay said, forcing a smile. “Who are you listening to?”

The woman ignored her. Lindsay spoke louder.

“Is that Papa Wembe?”

The woman looked up.

“Papa Wembe, man? You know for nothing. That be Bayo.”

“I know Bayo. I mean I knew him.”

The woman turned off her tape recorder and turned to Lindsay, her face showing a hint of animation.

“No lie?”

“No lie. I went to the Juju House. I saw the show. I talked to him. He was great. I wept when he died.”

The woman looked at Lindsay, taking in her elegant linen pants and crisp shirt, and, finally, her notebook. Looking suitably impressed, she apparently decided to do her job.

“What you be here for?”

Lindsay told her that she needed to talk to someone in charge of ordering medicine.

“You sit dere,” the woman said, gesturing to a molded plastic chair.

Thirty minutes later, a grim-faced woman in a soiled nurse’s uniform came out to escort Lindsay to the medical administrator, a distinguished-looking middle-aged woman dressed stylishly in a beige cotton suit. Her hair was braided into a fanciful Lagos style called “Moon/Star,” dozens of tiny braids tucked and molded into twists and arches on top of her head. After introducing herself and showing her press credentials, Lindsay said: “I’m writing a story about the Nigerian health service and I’m visiting hospitals in the various regions. One of the things I’m interested in is whether or not medical care is pretty evenly distributed throughout the country or better in cities than in the villages, things like that.”

The administrator looked wary, and Lindsay guessed what she would be thinking: that Lindsay’s apparent naïveté, her earnestness, the very starch in her crisp blouse were reasons not to trust her. But the administrator answered—albeit with the evasiveness of a true bureaucrat.