Voice of America (23 page)

“But that is not even the main issue; she can become your girlfriend in due course if you know how to play your game very well. You could tell her that you have a giraffe farm, and that you ride on the back of a tiger to your farm,” he continued.

“But she is soon going to ask for your photograph, and you know we have no giraffes here and the last we heard of a lion was when one was said to have been sighted by a hunter well over ten years ago,” Jekwu said. “You should ask her to send you a ten-dollar bill, tell her you want to see what it looks like, and when she sends it, we can change it in the black market at Onitsha for one thousand naira and use the money for
ogogoro.”
Jekwu took a drink and wiped his eyes, which were misting over from the drink.

“If you ask her for money, you are going to scare her away. White women are interested in love and romance. Write her a letter professing your love for her and asking for her hand in marriage—tell her that you would love to come and join her in America, and see what she has to say to that,” Dennis said.

“Promise her you’ll send her some records by Rex Jim Lawson if she can send you ‘Do Me Right Baby,’” Lucky added.

“A guy in my school once had a female pen pal from India. She would ask him to place her letters under his pillow when he slept. At night she would appear in his dreams and make love to him. He said he always woke up in the mornings exhausted and worn out after the marathon lovemaking sessions in the dreams.
We do not know how it happened, but he later found out the girl had died years back.”

We were all shocked into silence by Dennis’s story. Ambo turned up the volume of the radio, and we began to listen to the news in special English. The war in Palestine was progressing apace, blacks in South Africa were still rioting in Soweto, and children were dying of hunger in Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Onwordi said nothing. He smiled at our comments, holding the letter close to his chest somehow like hugging a lover. He thanked us for our suggestions and was the first to leave Ambo’s shop that night.

T
WO WEEKS LATER,
Onwordi walked into the shop again, smiling and holding an envelope with an American flag stamp close to his chest once more. We circled him and began to ask him questions. She had written once again. She thanked him for his mail. She was glad to know he lived in a village. She was interested in knowing what life was like in a typical African village. What kind of house did he live in, how did he get his drinking water? What kind of school did he attend, and how had he learned to write in English? She said she would love to see his photograph, though she did not have any of hers that she could share with him at the present time. Postal regulations would not permit her to send money by mail, but she could take a picture of a ten-dollar bill and send it to him if all he really wanted was to see what it looked like. She also said she was interested in knowing about African talking drums—did they really talk? She said she looked forward to hearing from
him again. We were silent as we listened to him, and then we all began to speak at once.

“I was right about her being interested in you; otherwise why would she request for your picture without sending you hers?”

“This shows that women all over the world are coy. She was only being cunning. She really wants to know what you look like before she gets involved with you.”

“You should go and borrow a suit from the schoolteacher and go to Sim Paul’s Photo Studio in the morning when he is not yet drunk and let him take a nice shot of you so you can send it to her.”

“How about you borrow the schoolteacher’s suit and Ambo’s shirt and Dennis’s black school tie and Lucky’s silk flower-patterned shirt and Sim Paul’s shoes and tell the schoolteacher’s wife to lend you her stretching comb to straighten your hair if you can’t afford Wellastrate cream; then you’ll be like the most handsome suitor in the folktale.”

“Who is the most handsome suitor?” Onwordi asked. “I have never heard that folktale.” Jekwu cleared his throat, took a sip from his
ogogoro
and Coke, and began his story.

“Once in the land of Idunoba there lived a girl who was the prettiest girl in the entire kingdom. Her beauty shone like the sun, and her teeth glittered like pearls whenever she smiled. All the young men in the kingdom asked for her hand in marriage, but she turned them down. She turned down the men either because they were too tall or too short or too hairy or not hairy enough. She said that since she was the most beautiful girl in the kingdom, she could only marry the most handsome man. Her fame soon got to the land of the spirits, and the most wicked
spirit of them all, Tongo, heard about her and said he was going to marry her. Not only was Tongo the most wicked, he was also the most ugly, possessing only a cracked skull for a head. He was all bones, and when he walked, his bones rattled. Before setting out to ask for the hand of the maiden in marriage, Tongo went round the land of the spirits to borrow body parts. From the spirit with the straightest pair of legs, he borrowed a straight pair of legs, and from the one with the best skin, he borrowed a smooth and glowing skin. He went round borrowing body parts until he was transformed into the most handsome man there was. As soon as he walked into Idu on market day and the maiden set eyes on him, she began following him around until he turned, smiled at her, and asked for her hand in marriage. She took him to her parents and hurriedly packed her things, waved them good-bye, and followed the handsome suitor.

On their way to his home, which was across seven rivers and seven hills, she was so busy admiring his handsomeness that she did not grow tired and was not bothered by the fact that they were leaving all the human habitations behind. It was only when they crossed into the land of the spirits, and he walked into the first house and came out crooked because he had returned the straight legs to their owner, that she began to sense that something was wrong. And so she continued to watch as he returned the skin, the arms, the hair, and the other borrowed body parts, so that by the time they got to his house, only his skull was left. She wept when she realized she had married an ugly spirit, but she knew it was too late to return to the land of the living, so she bided her time. When Tongo approached her for lovemaking, she told him to go and borrow all the body parts he had on when he married her. Because Tongo loved her
headstrong nature, he agreed. Each time they made love, he went round borrowing body parts, and when they had a child, the child was a very handsome child and grew into the most handsome man.”

We all laughed at the story and advised Onwordi to work at transforming himself into the most handsome man. Ambo advised him to dress in traditional African clothes as, from what he knew about white people, this was likely to appeal to her more.

“So what are you going to do?” we asked Onwordi, but he only smiled and held his letter tightly as he drank.

The next time
Music Time in Africa
was on the air, we had our pens ready to take down the names of pen pals, but the few that were announced were listeners from other parts of Africa, and we all felt disappointed.

We waited for Onwordi to walk in with a letter, but he did not for quite some time. We wondered what had happened. When he finally walked in after some days, he looked dejected and would not say a word to any of us.

“Hope you have not upset her with your last mail?” Lucky said. “You know white people are very sensitive, and you may have hurt her feelings without knowing it.”

“This is why we told you to always let us see the letter before you send it to her. When we put our heads together and craft a letter to her, she will pack her things and move into your house, leaking roof and all. As the elders say, when you piss on one spot, it is more likely to froth.”

“But exactly what did you write to her that has made her silent?” Lucky asked. Onwordi was silent, but he smiled liked a dumb man who has accidentally glimpsed a young woman’s pointed breast and ordered more drinks. “Or have you started
hiding her mail from us ? Maybe the contents are too intimate for our eyes. Or now that you have become closer, has she started kissing her letters with lipstick-painted lips and sealing the letters with kisses?” Ambo teased. But nothing we said would make Onwordi say a word.

O
NWORDI WALKED INTO
Ambo’s shop after a period of three weeks, holding the envelope that we had become used to by now and looking morose. We all turned to him and began to speak at once.

“What happened—has she confessed that she has a husband, or why are you looking so sad?”

“Has she fallen in love with another man? I hear white women fall out of love as quickly as they fall in love.”

“If you have her telephone number, I can take you to the Post and Telegrams Office in Onitsha if you have the money and help you make a call to her,” Ambo suggested.

Onwordi opened the envelope and brought out a photograph. We all crowded around him to take a closer look. It was the picture of the American girl Laura Williams. The portrait showed only her face. She had an open friendly face with brown hair and slightly chubby cheeks. She was smiling brightly in the photograph. Our damp fingers were already leaving a smudge on the face.

“She is beautiful and looks really friendly, but why did she not send you a photograph where her legs are showing? That way you do not end up marrying a cripple.”

Onwordi was not smiling.

“So what did she say in her letter, or have the contents have become too intimate for you to share with us?”

“She says that this is going to be her last letter to me. She says she’s done with her paper, and she did very well and illustrated her paper with some of the things I had told her about African culture. But she says her parents are moving back to the city, that the farm has not worked out as planned. She also said she has become interested in Japanese haiku and is in search of new friends from Japan.”

“Is that why you are looking sad, like a dog whose juicy morsel fell on the sand? You should thank God for saving you from a relationship where each time the lady clears her throat, you have to jump. Sit down and drink with us, forget your sorrows, and let the devil be ashamed,” Jekwu said.

We all laughed, but Onwordi did not laugh with us; he walked away in a slight daze. From that time onward we never saw him at Ambo’s shop again. Some people who went to check in on him said they found him lying on his bed with Laura Williams’s letters and picture on his chest as he stared up into the tin roof.