‘Is that good?’
‘No.’
Valentine’s Day the following year, the year I accepted I was beautiful, I bought him a pair of Air Jordan sneakers and he got me a collection of books – Zadie Smith’s White Teeth and Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles series – I’d wanted for a while. At dusk, we walked by the shores of Bar Beach, our feet soaking in the sand, listening to a cassette of my favourite songs he’d compiled on his Walkman.
On our way home, we passed a woman selling roasted corn by the roadside who looked about my mother’s age. Emeka wanted to buy corn.
‘Is she your girlfriend?’ she asked him. He nodded with a timid glance in my direction. ‘She’s so beautiful. Such a lovely smile, nwa mama. Take care of her o.’
In my bed that night, I stared at my face in the mirror, and for the first time, I liked it.
12
Mentor
‘The country has to work for everyone,’ I said to Rayan in the lunch room as November 2014 drew to a close. Speaking up the first time had unshackled my tongue. Perhaps I’d stopped caring about what I said because I’d fully accepted my status as a ‘visitor’, ready to leave when the time was right.
America burned with uprising – on the streets and in the media. British news shows, anchors and commentators discussed the issues as purely an American problem.
‘We should be grateful these things don’t happen in the UK,’ Rayan said after the riots broke out in America in reaction to the grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer who’d shot Michael Brown.
‘What things?’ I asked.
‘Race issues,’ he said with such contemptuous disdain I was tempted to burst into laughter.
‘You think there are no race issues in the UK?’
‘There’s barely any racism in the UK.’
‘You’re joking?’
He wasn’t.
‘Of course, there are occasional issues,’ he obliged, ‘but here we treat people according to their behaviour and not their skin colour. And of course, there’s the issue of class. But you have to admit that we’ve progressed beyond Dickensian England and towards a more equitable society.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, giving it some thought. ‘I think it’s impossible for the country to move on from the issue of class or race when its very structure is set up to reward that – the very hierarchy of the British system is titular and then you look at the influx of migrants from former colonies and how that has influenced their treatment. Racism is well and alive here whether we like to admit it or not.’
‘I disagree. Focusing on race or blaming it for all the issues in society is why many don’t progress and it creates unnecessary tension and conflict. Look at London, it’s such a multicultural city. Look at the both of us and where we are.’
Not for the first time, I thought how British he was in his desire to avoid ruffling feathers, and how easily he’d been convinced not to be on his own side.
‘Looking at America,’ Rayan continued, ‘it’s clear to me that all racial conversations serve to do is ignite and, quite literally, burn society to the ground. Imagine if people blamed the events on that young man’s response to the police – he could have simply not run.’
‘People have been shot even when they did that,’ I responded calmly, watching his face for anything that would suggest a change of heart. He blinked and I realised he was not the type to question his beliefs deeply. They were like cards hidden at the back of his pocket – produced when questioned but never deeply perused.
‘Well,’ he said slowly. ‘Our police have never gone about shooting people and that’s why we’re not America.’
Of course, that was also false, but I was too exhausted to burst his carefully constructed bubble. Instead, I tweeted:
For the first time, the replies spun out of my control. People raged at me to move back home or go face the butt of a gun in America. I tweeted again:
When a rally was organised, I considered taking time off work to join.
‘It’s a waste of time,’ Rayan said. I’d developed a soft spot for him despite our differing opinions – we were both trying to make the best of life in a country that could never be ours.
Leonidas walked by then. ‘You should spend more time with Rayan,’ he said to me. ‘He would make a great mentor for you.’
It reminded me of Emeka and the conversation we’d had at my mother’s new flat not long after Akin came into our lives.
‘Mentorship, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, can be defined as “the guidance provided by a mentor, especially an experienced person in a company or educational institution”. AND a mentor is an “experienced and trusted adviser”,’ I read out to Emeka.
‘That’s the British definition,’ he said, amused. He found it bizarre, hysterical even, that I’d taken a bus to Lagos Island and scoured bookshops until I’d purchased bulky hardback copies of the Oxford English and Merriam Webster dictionaries to prove my point, but he understood my frustration.
ASUU were on strike again, and our days were once again supine and purposeless. Emeka was meant to have graduated from university that year, but the strikes meant an extra nine months at the very least. But frustrating as this latest strike was, the origin of my frustration was Pastor Kamsi.
Without classes to provide plausible exoneration, church had returned to the frenetic schedule of the previous strike, Pastor Kamsi insistent that without these activities the youth would be led astray. And for my refusal to attend the weekly Sisters’ Vigil sessions, he’d adopted me for forceful mentorship. He insisted the youth appear in church daily, and that I accompany him for his meetings and man the front desk at his office.
