Augustine
had this new girlfriend whom he called his “shorty”. Her name was
Glory. She was older than him and she worked as a receptionist at
a hotel on Victoria Island. The hotel was four-star and French-owned.
The hotel management didn’t encourage people like us to walk in.
Security guards hovered around the gates, ready to pounce on us,
but Augustine seemed to know them. He raised his fist and called
them “Chief” or “Oga”. They nodded in response. He asked one of
them to get Glory. We couldn’t walk into the lobby so we stood on
the cement ramp outside between the casino and the banquet hall.
A curved ixora hedge bordered the ramp. A popular police band song
was playing: “Guantanamera”. Moments later, when Gloria came out
walking in time to the music, my mouth fell open. This was the chick
he was calling his “shorty”? She was practically a palm tree. Her
legs could have reached my shoulders and she wore high heels. She
was in a black skirt and waistcoat. Her hair, which had to be fake,
was halfway down her back.
Augustine had said she had recently been attacked.
An area boy had tried to grab her handbag outside a Chicken George,
but she refused to let go. The area boy pushed her into a gutter
and ran off. Passersby pulled her out and said how lucky she was
that he hadn’t stabbed her. Glory just sat on the side of the street
and howled. She was putting serious pressure on Augustine to leave
Nigeria, now. She said she could help him get a visa, through her
expatriate connections, but she needed him to buy her a plane ticket.
“How now,” she said, coming to a stop. The breeze
was strong enough to lift her hair weave and we had to raise our
voices. Cars and taxis crawled up and down the ramp.
I strained my neck. Close up, she had pimples on
her forehead and her lips were lined black. She was most unattractive.
Augustine introduced me as his cousin and she bent to hug me, as
if we were friends.
“Oh, he’s so cute! How old is he?”
Her perfume was strong, yet I could smell her hair
weave, which had a similar odour to sour milk. Chicks usually responded
to me as if I were one of them. Glory wasn’t my type, but if she
were not careful I would rummage through her belongings, I thought.
Augustine said I was twelve.
“What’s your name?” she asked, rubbing my head.
“Idowu,” I said.
She looked at Augustine. “But he’s Yoruba. How
can he be your relative when he is not from our side?”
Augustine’s people were from Warri. They had English
names. His parents were called Eunice and Enoch. He mumbled an explanation
about me being related by marriage as we walked away from the ramp.
People who talked about tribes amused me. Who the hell cared where
our forefathers were from?
The hotel was full of prostitutes, packed with
them, and they were dressed in western attire. They could easily
pass for proper elite. What gave them away were the crooked-legged
walks they acquired from parading up and down the diplomatic district.
Glory called them va bene, not ashawo, as everyone
else called them. So many of them ended up in Rome, she said. She
did not dislike them as much as the other staff did. If the oyinbos
at the hotel were not screwing someone out of their money, what
were they looking for in a place like Lagos?
“That’s why I love you,” Augustine said. “You’re
egalitarian in your thinking. Very enlightened.”
“Ega what?” she said and smacked his shoulder.
She was too old. We found a bench by the car hire
service, near a mosque, beauty shop and magazine store. Kuramo Waters
were before us. Behind us was a red brick bazaar where Hausa traders
sold arts and crafts. Above us was what looked like an air conditioner’s
yansh trapped in an iron cage. It blew hot over my head
and dripped water occasionally.
“But you know I love you,” Augustine insisted,
stroking her arms as she sat there pouting.
“Then buy me a ticket,” she said.
He said he was saving up and it would take time,
then he began to compare her to beauty pageants as she rejected
his praises.
“You’re my Miss Nigeria,” he said.
“At all,” she said.
“My Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria.”
“At all.”
“My Face of Africa…”
She gripped his hand like a wrestler. “Face of
Africa? Please, don’t remind me of that. You know they are holding
the next contest here?”
“Eh?” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “The preliminaries will be held
here and I am not allowed to participate because I’ve passed the
age limit. Can you imagine? And if you see the monster they chose
last year, you will run. One girl with a square jaw, like this,
and a shaved head. Face of what? Who wants to be that? It is the
ugly girls they want. The ones with flat noses. They look like lesbians.”
She pronounced the word “lex-bian”.
He reached for her hair weave. “It doesn’t matter.
You would win if you were allowed to enter. Who is finer than you?”
The Face of Africa girls were not bad at all. What
they had in common was that they were not rich. The last Nigerian
who won was offered a modeling contract for a hundred thousand dollars.
She went to live in New York. The rest had to return to their hovels
or wherever they came from. The winner had never held a passport
before. She was taller than Glory and her body was tight. Any girl
who could manage a haircut that low had to be beautiful. This one
didn’t have a dent in her head, but a chick that tall was beyond
me. If I wanted to have sex with her, where would I begin?
Glory’s phone rang. “S’cuse me,” she said, flipping
it open with her fake nails. “’lo? Yes? No. No. I’m otherwise occupied.
I said I’m otherwise occupied. Yes. Later.”
She returned the phone to her pocket as Augustine
watched her.
“Who were you speaking to?” he asked.
“My sister,” she said.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Look,” she said, raising her hand. “Don’t come
here and accuse me of all sorts. I’ve told you before, this body
is not for sale. I don’t give it up easily. I’m not a va bene.
I may not have money, but I am coming from somewhere. My father
was a famous footballer in this country. If not for his leg injury…”
“Okay! Okay!” he said.
She herself was like a footballer. She was all
thighs. Her calves were as thick as her thighs and so were her ankles;
there was no in or out. A simple “are you sure?” and now, she wanted
to give her life history. All that talk was like his bragging about
sex anyway. If her father was that famous, she wouldn’t have to
say he was.
Augustine was a mugu, big time, or too
much in love to care. He had probably paid for her nails and her
phone. How they would qualify for visa interviews, I didn’t know,
but rather than sit there as he continued to toast her, I excused
myself and decided to explore.
The arts and crafts bazaar was open. Oyinbos
were shopping there for souvenirs like ebony busts, bronze masks
and malachite ashtrays. No self-respecting elite would buy any of
that. From what I’d observed, they preferred to surround themselves
with objects that reminded them of Europe.
I saw a woman with an oyinbo man who looked
old enough to be her grandfather. Her T-shirt was tight and short,
and her bobbies stuck out. He had a hooked nose and his hair was
wet with sweat. So was his shirt. He carried a brown briefcase that
seemed to weigh him down.
“Is good the eh, eh, art effects?” he asked.
“Yes, of curse,” she said. “They have a lot of
artifacts here. Any artifact you want, you can boy.”
Nigerians. Why did we always change our accents
whenever we spoke to foreigners?
“Is eh, eh, hex pensive?” he asked.
An illiterate would have been more articulate.
“Oh, my gourd, no,” she said, patting her chest.
“They are not expensive at all if you convert to naira. They won’t
cost you much.”
From his appearance, he didn’t seem to be worth
much, wherever he was coming from, but that was the trouble with
the naira. Anyone could come to Nigeria and become rich, once they
converted their currency to ours.
The Hausa traders called him “Oyinbo!”
He refused to acknowledge them, as if he was too
scared to be without her protection. They came out of the bazaar
and beckoned at him, “Oyinbo! Oyinbo! Oyinbo!”
“Heave,” he cried out as their calls grew louder.
He clutched his briefcase to his chest. Eve? That
was her name? He was most likely French then. I’d heard they had
problems with their Hs.
“Oyinbo! Oyinbo! Oyinbo!”
the traders kept shouting.
“Heave,” he cried out again.
She hurried over to rescue him. He was now using
his briefcase as a shield against the Hausa traders as she shooed
them away.
Heave indeed. The new wing of the hotel was to
my left. Other women walked in and out and I tried to guess which
ones were the prostitutes. It was hard to tell. They all moved with
such pride. I counted about three suspects who were accompanying
oyinbo men and then got bored of watching. Oyinbos were
strange.
When I returned, Glory was ready to leave. She
hugged me again.
“You’re so cute,” she said, with regret.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You must come and see me again. I’ll give you
a non-alcoholic cocktail.”
I noticed those pimples on her forehead again and
her black lipstick. Did she emit an odour? That had to be her secret.
She was also attracting the attention of a few Hausa traders in
the bazaar, one with tribal marks on his cheeks. He polished a beaded
necklace with a rag as he watched her.
“What about mine?” Augustine asked, stepping forward.
“Be patient,” she said, wriggling her fingers.
I almost vomited. Her hands looked like crabs.
He hugged her and the top of his head barely reached her neck. He
wouldn’t leave until she’d walked back up the ramp. Her hair weave
was like a horse’s tail and her heels were shredded.
“Come,” he said, turning towards me. “Are you trying
to chase my girlfriend or what?”
“Me?” I asked, smacking my chest. Of all questions!
He pushed me. “Is it because she said you were
cute? Is that it? Oh boy, do you know how old she is? Do you think
she is your rank? Are you mad? Who told you she likes you? Look,
take time o! Relax yourself well, well! You’d better have been expecting
a non-alcoholic cocktail from her. If you were expecting more than
that, you must be very stupid.”
Their roles were reversed. He was meant to be the
deceitful one, not her. What was going on? It was like an invasion
of extraterrestrial creatures, when they took over your mind and
controlled your inner thoughts.
“You’re crazy,” he said. “Because I brought you
here to see her? Where would you have been allowed to enter a hotel
like this without me? Your head is not correct. You think you can
take my girlfriend from me?”
“She’s not my type,” I said.
“What?” he asked, squinting.
“She’s not my type, jo. Anyway, I have a
girlfriend.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“You’re lying. What is her name?”
“Fausa.”
He smiled. “Is she fine? Is she fine?”
“Very.”
“But Glory is fine, too, eh?”
I nodded. We couldn’t help our attractions. I couldn’t
explain mine to Auntie Florence. Glory’s father was a famous footballer,
he said. The bobo had suffered an injury early in his career and,
instead of retiring, he carried on playing until he was eventually
crippled. Now, Glory had to fend for the family. You had to praise
her for that.  |
