ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Twenty-Three)

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Twenty-Three)

ByMoyo Okediji

Josephine was embarrassed when I informed her that her white uniform was soaked with blood at the back.

She immediately opened the door and jumped into the bus. As she entered the bus, she realized that the seat from which she got up was already soaked in blood also. She became confused. She didn’t know whether to sit on the bloody seat, but as she hesitated, I gently led her down to the seat. Just as her uniform, the seat was already stained. No further damage could be done. What was most important at that point was her health.

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY (Part Twenty-two)

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY (Part Twenty-two)

ByMoyo Okediji

I almost lost control of the steering wheel when Gina told me that the woman sitting patiently by the door of the buka was her mom. Her back was turned to us, and it was not until the bus jerked forward noisily that she turned towards our direction.

“She is gorgeous,” Josephine said.

Gina, with a scared look on her face, did not want to step down. She was sitting next to me in front of the bus, and her mother looked directly at us with some suspicion.

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Twenty-two)

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Twenty-two)

ByMoyo Okediji

“You’re kidding me, right?” I asked Steve when he said that Gina was probably in my room. He extended his bottle of beer to Rufus who yanked off the top with his teeth and handed it back.

“Why sounding so alarmed?” Steve asked. “If you asked me, I’d say let’s swap places.”

“What!” I said, alarmed at his suggestion.

“You can stay in my cold room tonight,” Steve, “and I can use your warm room.”

“Is that British custom?” I asked sarcastically.

Did he wink? I couldn’t quite tell in the dark. He said, “The British have no custom. Only Africans have customs.”

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Twenty-One)

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Twenty-One)

ByMoyo Okediji

When Steve offered us a cigarette, I took one out of the pack he extended.

It was from one of the packs he brought from Britain a couple of months earlier.

I was not good with cigarettes. But I was also not good at saying no to cigarette offers. All my friends smoked. And I loved to hold a stick of cigarette stylishly and watch the smoke rise from the tip of the ashes.

We sat there in the dark, watching the moon, smoking, silent. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning crashed across the sky, followed by a ripping sound of thunder. Instantly, the moon and the stars disappeared, and the sky was an endless black canvas coughing out intermittent flashes of jagged lights filled with throbs of thunder.

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Twenty)

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Twenty)

ByMoyo Okediji

Josephine came out of Rufus’s room and sat next to him.

“I didn’t know you were around,” I told her.

“I came out when I heard your voice,” she said.

“You must have been pretty scared when the guys who took Papa Ru’s things came,” I said to her.

“No,” Josephine responded. “I came in about thirty minutes ago. I missed everything. My friend at the school of nursing didn’t come to class today, so I went to find out what happened to her. Turns out she is sick.”

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Nineteen A)

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Nineteen A)

ByMoyo Okediji

Today I got this email that took me back to 1985. Listen:

“Dear Moyo,

I am sure you may not remember me but I remember you most days. My name is Donald [deleted] and, at the beginning of 1985, when I came to University of Ife as a young recent graduate from Camberwell School of Art you realised I was well out of my depth and kindly took me into your home.

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY,1981 (Part Nineteen)

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY,1981 (Part Nineteen)

ByMoyo Okediji

I had never seen Papa Ru in such a subdued mood. Nothing could have slugged him harder than the thought of Kongi maltreating him. He used to boast that it was because of Kongi that he returned to Nigeria from Britain.

Kongi had attended an event that Rufus produced for the BBC in London in 1979. And after the event, Rufus said, “Kongi met me backstage and asked, ‘Young man, what are you doing here, with all this talent that you have? You need to return to Nigeria immediately and contribute to the development of your country.’”

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY 1981, (Part Eighteen)

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY 1981, (Part Eighteen)

ByMoyo Okediji

Gina was looking at me directly in the eye as she began to turn the button that reclined the car seat. The moon came out of a clump of clouds and highlighted half of her face, as she pressed her back against the front seat, flattening it almost completely on the back seat. Her teeth, as she smiled at me, looked perfectly even, and they sparkled like diamonds in the dark.

“You are a handsome man, Uncle Mo,” Gina said. “Your mom must be very beautiful.”

“Thanks, Gina,” I responded. “My mom is beautiful indeed, but everybody thinks his mother is beautiful.”

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Seventeen)

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Seventeen)

ByMoyo Okediji

I was already tipsy when Gina screamed.

But the performance on the stage continued as if nothing was happening. Obaseki got up and went into the ushers’ chamber. I tried really hard to see what was happening at the other end of the arena, to get an idea of what was happening to Gina. I really couldn’t see her. But because Joshua, who was assaulting Gina, was wearing a white suit, he was relatively visible, next to Gina, who, going by what she wore during the day, was in a red gown. But it appeared that Gina was already on the floor, and Joshua was kicking her, as she continued to scream while it seemed he continued to hit her.

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Sixteen)

ENGLISHMAN IN BENIN CITY, 1981 (Part Sixteen)

ByMoyo Okediji

“Hold it, hold it,” Obaseki said, “here come your people.” He gestured with his nose in the direction of a couple of flickering lights in the dense darkness.

“What is going on there,” I asked?

“That’s Joshua’s spot,” Obaseki said. “He just arrived. And he has company. Most probably Gina.”

I was drunk, anyway, so I asked for one more bottle of beer.

“We are out of ready-made snails,” our attendant explained. “We can make some for you by order. But I recommend you try our ram. There is no better ram in the world than ours.”