Voice of America (11 page)

“Rice,
eba,
anything—I don’t care, the point is to fill the stomach,” he replied.

He turned to me and began to ask me about the program I was watching on cable. He was familiar with the program and told me the name of his favorite character. He laughed at the Trix yogurt commercial and completed the slogan—“Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids.”

My father called to tell us that dinner was served, and we moved to the dining table. Uncle Siloko asked for a fork and a knife to eat his
fufu.
Our visiting relatives often used their
fingers to eat
fufu.
He fell on the food with gusto. He licked his lips and remarked that the soup tasted so good. He asked my father if he was the one who had made the soup, or my mother. Dad said that he was the one who cooked most of the time. He said that Mom was still at work; she was a licensed practical nurse and would be coming back late.

“You know, even when you were in boarding school, you were a remarkable cook. I remember the magic you performed with a tin of Geisha canned mackerel and a pack of Uncle Ben’s rice,” he said to my father. He picked his teeth and covered his mouth as he burped.

“And you, Siloko, what were you? Were you not the expert writer of love letters? Or have you forgotten how we used to bribe you with a tin of condensed milk to help us compose those special lines that never failed with the girls?”

“Ah, don’t even go there,” Uncle Siloko said. “I wrote the letters, but you guys got the girls.”

Dad closed his eyes and began to recite in a voice that seemed to be from the past: “I write to ask if you are swimming perfectly in the ocean of good health, if so doxology. The lungs in my body flapped with joy when my orbs rested on your beautiful form. My heart is perambulating, and time and ability and double capacity has forced my pen to dance automatically on this benedicted sheet of paper. Please do not say no so my medulla oblongata does not stop functioning, until we meet, accept this blue blood on paper as a sign of my unquenchable love.”

“So you still remember that after all these years?” Uncle Siloko asked my father. My father’s eyes twinkled, and they appeared to be glowing. Uncle Siloko went upstairs and came down with a bottle of red wine.

“There is beer in the fridge; why did you bother to buy a bottle of wine?” my father asked.

“American beer does not fill the mouth like our Nigerian brands Gulder and Star; besides, red wine is better for the heart, or have you forgotten we are not getting any younger?” They both laughed and began to drink. Dad turned to me and asked if it was not my bedtime, but Uncle Siloko told him to let me stay around, and added that the best way for me to acquire Nigerian wisdom was by sitting at the feet of elders.

I heard the lock turn downstairs; it was Mom, returning from her job. She soon came upstairs. As she walked in, her eyes turned to where I was sitting.

“Oh, you are still awake,” she said, looking up at the clock. I was about to respond when she looked toward the dining table and saw Dad with Uncle Siloko. She smiled and stretched out her hand, but Uncle Siloko brushed the proffered hand away and gently embraced her.

“Ah, you are the powerful Nigerian woman that has succeeded in taming my rascally friend?” he asked, laughing loudly.

“To God be the glory,” Mom said, using one of her stock phrases that sounded like words out of a hymnal.

“Ah, who said I have been tamed?” Dad said mockingly, puffing out his chest.

“None is so hopelessly tamed as he who thinks he’s not been tamed,” Uncle Siloko said, and laughed.

“Do not mind my husband,
jare,”
Mom said with the kind of jollity I had never heard in her voice.

“Come have a glass of wine, I’m sure you’ve had a tiring day,” Uncle Siloko said to Mom.

“Ah, my wife hardly ever touches alcohol,” Dad said.

“Haba,
you chauvinistic Nigerian man, have you forgotten this is America? Let the woman speak for herself.”

“Well, it is not that I hate alcohol, it is the smell that I dislike. You know I grew up with my grandmother in Sapele, and she used to sell
ogogoro,
what the colonialists called illicit gin. She stored it in big blue rubber jerry cans behind the door of her room. One day I went into the room, opened the gallon, and took a little sip. It burned my throat a bit but tasted so good, so I took another sip and then a large gulp. I did not know when I passed out. My grandmother came into the room and with one look noticed what had happened and forced a large quantity of palm oil down my throat. I threw up, but did not wake up until the next day. Since that day, I’ve never really liked the smell of alcohol, but that has not stopped your friend here from drinking his beer.”

“Well, once bitten, twice shy,” Uncle Siloko said in a sober tone, but then quickly added, “If you try and you do not succeed, try, try again.” This time the three of them laughed together.

Turning toward me, Dad said, “You have picked up enough wisdom for one night—you had better go to your bed.” Mother looked up at me in mock horror and rolled her eyes, appearing surprised that I was still awake. I left them and walked to my room. As I brushed my teeth, I could still hear their laughter from the sitting room.

That weekend, my father’s friends and relatives came from Dorchester, Upper Marlboro, and as far as Virginia. I was told to call all of them “Uncle” as a way of showing respect, even though I could not say exactly how they were related to me. Uncle John Oba, the most jovial of the lot, who would usually introduce himself by saying, “My name is John Oba or Oba John, whichever you prefer,” was the first to arrive. He came
in carrying two cartons of Guinness Draught. I knelt down in greeting before him, but he looked unhappy and had no jokes for me today.

“Oba John or John Oba, which should I call you today?” Dad called out to him, smiling and stretching out his hands.

“I don’t know, Uncle; I don’t know who I am anymore. That foolish African American girl Sheniqua wants to ruin my life.”

“Our lives are in God’s hands; no human has the power to destroy them,” Dad responded.

“She called up the INS and told them that the marriage I contracted with her was fake. She told them that I paid her for the purposes of getting a green card.”

Uncle Siloko, who was taking a nap upstairs, soon walked into the sitting room. He had showered and shaved and was wearing a blue cotton dashiki. Father introduced him to John Oba as his friend the professor. Uncle Siloko objected to being called a professor; he said he was only a visiting lecturer. That still makes you a professor, John Oba said, and shook his hand while bowing slightly.

Soon the others arrived, Uncle Sunny and Uncle Ikpanwosa, who had shortened his name to Ik. The conversation turned once again to Uncle John’s problem.

“What really happened, or should I say, how exactly did this happen?” Dad asked him.

“I did not know that the
yeye
girl had opened over four credit card accounts in my name. She has all my information, including my social—you know my mail goes to her house, a few of my clothes and shoes are there too, you can never tell when the INS will visit just to be sure we are living together. When they sent the applications for the cards to her address, she filled them out
and blew the money, she maxed out all the cards, and I did not even know about this. It was only when I tried to open a charge account with Sears and my application was denied that I sensed something was wrong. I sent off for my credit report that same week and discovered what she had done. I was very angry and rushed to her house and confronted her. I called her names. At first she seemed contrite; then she got angry and swore she was going to send my sorry ass back to Africa. This is the same girl who I’ve been paying four hundred dollars every two weeks.”

“I think you overreacted. You know what we say in Nigeria—when you want to kill a tsetse fly perched on your scrotum, you approach the task gingerly,” Dad said.

“Do you mind if I say something?” Uncle Siloko asked.

“Haba!
Siloko, you do not need anyone’s permission to say something, or aren’t you one of us anymore?” Dad said.

“Money is at the root of this problem, and money can be used to resolve it too. Just call her, apologize, and offer her more money—tell her you are increasing her biweekly payment by an extra hundred dollars, and you’ll see what happens.”

“But she’s already called the INS, and they’ve written to me to appear before them within ninety days.”

“Have you forgotten what we say in Nigeria, that the same people who invented the pencil also invented the eraser? Just the same way she called them, she could still call them back and tell them that she lied, that she was only angry with you. You can even convince her that she should go with you to their office.”

This seemed to cheer Uncle John and every other person up. Drinks were opened, the music of Dombraye Aghama was slotted into the tape player. Uncle Sunny soon changed the topic to Nigeria.

“So, Professor, do you think these soldiers—I mean the khaki boys that are ruling the country—do you think they’ll ever hand it over to politicians?”

“When soldiers overrun any place, they rape and loot, and that is what they are doing to Nigeria. They are raping and stealing the country blind, along with their civilian supporters. If not for them, what would I be doing in this cold country?” he asked.

“But it was the civilians that invited the military to overthrow the democratically elected government. I don’t think we are ripe for democracy,” Uncle Ikpanwosa added.

“No country is ever ripe for democracy. Democracy has to grow and ripen wherever it finds a fertile ground. Even here in this country, it is because the people worked for it—that is why they have a democracy.”

Uncle Sunny asked about Uncle Siloko’s family and how soon they’d be coming to join him in Maryland.

“As soon as I get my first salary and settle in a bit, I will get a place and move them over here,” he said.

Everyone talked about how cold Minnesota was and swore that they could never live there. This seemed true to me, because even though the heater in our house was set to the high eighties, they all still wore their coats indoors and folded their arms around their chests.

Dad, who had all the while been in the kitchen preparing
fufu,
invited all of them down to the dining table. The visitors began to eat; it was only Uncle Siloko who asked if I was not going to join them.

“Haba,
how can she sit with men like us to eat? If not for the fact that we are in America, would she be sitting here with us?
She would be with the womenfolk in the kitchen, adding more firewood to the fire,” my dad said, and all the men laughed.

Uncle Sunny, who worked in the state correctional facility, commented that there was an increase in the number of inmates in the state prison who had Nigerian names. He said that they were mostly young people born here in America to Nigerian parents. He complained that most of them did not even speak any Nigerian language.

“And do you know they are all inside for drug-related offenses?”

“It has to be drugs or credit card fraud,” Dad said. “Did you not hear the story of the old white lady in D.C. whose house was burgled, and she called the cops and told them she suspected that some Nigerian boys who lived in the opposite apartment must be responsible. The cops laughed and told her that Nigerians do not dirty their hands with petty burglary—‘When Nigerians steal, they steal big,’ the cops said and left.” Everyone laughed, and then there was silence. The visitors soon left.

Later that night I heard Uncle Siloko speaking with his wife on the phone. He was telling her how he could not wait for her and his daughter to join him. He said that Maryland was just like Nigeria, and not isolated like Minnesota. They spoke for a very long time, and sometimes his voice dropped to a low whisper.

Things appeared not to be going well for Uncle Siloko in his new job. He complained to Dad about his students. They came to class with a hangover and hardly made comments or responded to his questions. The worst part was that he had been assigned a female professor, Ava Wilson, as some kind of mentor but more of a supervisor. She was to visit his class and watch his teaching, and she would look at his graded papers. He said that
to make matters worse, he had found out that after insurance deductions, his take-home pay was going to be quite small, and not enough to take him home. And then he added that that was not even the worst part. He was not assigned a proper office but had to share a large hall with a bunch of teaching assistants. Dad told him not to worry so much, that it was only a matter of time before things settled down a bit. I suspected Uncle Siloko was not going to be making any contributions toward the rent, and this turned out to be true.

Uncle Siloko began coming back late from the school. He refused to eat and would go straight to his room, and within a few short minutes I would hear his loud snores from upstairs, though I was sitting at the dining table downstairs doing my homework. He would not stay and talk with Dad the way he used to, and each time they talked, he always brought up the name of Professor Ava Wilson. It was tax season, and a busy time for Dad. He was the one who filed taxes for most of our Nigerian relatives and other West Africans. It was the only time of the year that he worked, and I had learned over the years not to disturb him during this period.

Even Mom, who was hardly ever home, began to notice Uncle Siloko’s absences.

“I hardly see your friend these days, is his job taking all his time?”

“He’s very busy at his job,” Dad answered curtly and went back to looking at W-2 forms.

It was time for my social studies project, and I was at a loss for a topic to work on. It was not a good time to talk with Dad about this. I do not remember how Uncle Siloko heard about my assignment, but he offered to help and fell into the project
with lots of enthusiasm. He proposed that I title my project “Nigerians in America.” I would talk about the culture of Nigerians in America. I would talk about their foods, music, dances, language, clothes, and all the things that had followed them from Nigeria and how they were still stuck with these things. He suggested that I wear some beads on my hair on the day of my presentation, and play some Nigerian music. My project presentation went very well, and Mr. Lobb, my teacher, gave me extra credit for being detailed. I was grateful to Uncle Siloko but didn’t have a chance to thank him because he was hardly ever at home.