Story selected from Lagos Will Be Hard for You, a finalist for the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing 2024.
There was a statue of the real Jack Daniels in the corner, or so the plaque read, but Jonathan swore that it looked more like one of the U.S. presidents: hat, beard, suit, presence, pose. It had a rainbow flag affixed to its shoulder, so Lotanna, or Lottie as she had come to be called in America, went with the Jack Daniels claim.
It was New Year’s Eve and they were on their third date. 10th Street Station was a basement bar and Lotanna decided she liked it as soon as she stepped in. The walls boasted of old autographed Hollywood posters and portraits, number plates proud of the Land of Potatoes, and when Lotanna found drawings on one of the high beams she thought it must have been by someone who cared a lot about this place but was shy of their talent. It was all mismatched in shape, color, and size. Nothing belonged. Like her. They ordered glasses of IPA and sat near the heater, and she kept glancing at her phone, waiting for the new year to ring so she could go home to her basement apartment.
“Hey. You okay?” Jonathan asked, nudging her lightly.
“Yeah. Just a little rattled that’s all. I’m fine,” she answered, swallowing. Jonathan smelt of ginger.
“What just happened? Did I say something?”
“No, no, it’s not you. There was a thing on the wall. Some graffiti. Look.” She swiped her phone screen and showed him the picture she had taken moments earlier in the bathroom.
“Oh. Sorry about that. Must have caught you by surprise,” Jonathan said, taking her phone from her and zooming in on the photo. Lotanna stared at his hunched frame, at his balding head and elfish ears. Because their first two meetings had been in the company of others, all Lotanna could tell was there was a steadiness in the way he seemed to want to know her. She wondered what Jim had told him.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“That you saw something in the bathroom. You came back and just went quiet and I thought I said or did something wrong.”
“Sorry, yeah. I was processing.”
“Lottie, well, there is no need to. Probably some kids messing around, y’know? Plus this is Idaho. You are bound to run into stuff like this every once in a while.”
“Oh?”
“Idaho will be Idaho. Humans have always migrated. No matter what anybody says everybody belongs everywhere, especially here. Native Americans, Mexicans, Black folks. I particularly love Black people. I wish everyone would just stop being so angry and live in peace. It is all so complicated y’know? The past, the present.”
“Live in peace? You want Black people to live in peace?”
“I want all of us to live in peace. White people need to stop being afraid of Black people and Black people need to stop being angry, y’know?”
“Stop being angry about being carried off from their homeland and being enslaved for generations?”
He raised his hands. “Look, can we not do this? I really like you and I don’t want us to fall into Black versus White or liberal versus conservative and so on before we even hit it off. Let us get to know each other as human beings, y’know? Plus you are African. You are different from the regular Black people here. None of that complex history, y’know? Your history is different.” He took a long swing of his beer and looked knowingly at her.
Lotanna shook her head. She focused on the neon Lowenbrau sign.
“When I went to Ghana four months ago,” he continued, “I visited the slave castles. I learned that Africans were the ones selling their own brothers and sisters to these slave traders. And for what price? Scissors, mirrors, shiny useless trinkets. Y’know? Everyone is complicit. Black, Brown, White, Yellow. It is a cycle. We are just fucked-up human beings. No one has a monopoly on goodness. Or evil.”
The waitress stopped at their table, serving them something in plastic champagne cups. On the house.
The bar was getting more crowded, and yet a chill had settled on the room. A countdown began in the far corner and everyone got on their feet and joined in. Jonathan took her hand and they stood together. When cries of “Happy New Year” filled the room she sipped from her cup, pretending like she didn’t know what he wanted. Instead, she swirled the leached liquid in her mouth, trying to hold on to a fleeting memory of the real thing: another New Year’s Eve in faraway Abuja with real champagne, heady kisses, and by dawn, a diamond ring on the fourth finger of her left hand.
*
Lotanna and Sobechi at age fourteen. Best friends for life, they had promised each other. They were so different. Lotanna was fair, tall, laidback, liked school a lot, and wanted to be a doctor. Sobechi was short, boisterous, and preferred to be at her mother’s hair salon picking apart hair extensions so that the tufts could mimic real hair, ready to be braided in. When they were made seatmates a year ago, the two of them swore they belonged together. Lotanna spent the afternoons after school at ShowYouRite salon with Sobechi, snacking on abacha and ugba, finishing up the tail ends of braids, sweeping up hair when a customer left, and most times, doing homework for both of them. Lotanna’s parents worked at the Ministry of Justice and picked her up every evening. It was perfect for everyone involved. Sobechi’s mother had extra help, Sobechi got to spend more time with her friend, Lotanna didn’t have to go to an empty house till her parents came back, and her parents didn’t have to worry about her while at work.
Sometimes, Sobechi’s brother would join them at the salon. Emeka was nineteen and had no tolerance for the girls’ antics. He came around when there was a delivery from Lagos and helped with the heavy lifting, or when there was some repair or installation to be done. The customers would tell Sobechi’s mother, Ewo, you must be so proud of your son. Such a responsible young man. At this age? The salon workers would admonish him, You must marry a good girl o. She must be hardworking like you. From a good family. All these talents must not go to waste on an anyhow girl. She must be a virgin and born plenty boys for you, you hear?
It was perhaps this, recognizing that her brother was a catch, or that Lotanna was extra shy around him, that put the idea in Sobechi’s head. She touted Lotanna’s qualities to her brother on their walks home, at the dinner table, when they washed clothes in the front yard, or shelled egusi at night. She likes you, I swear. She likes books like you too. She has been getting first position since we were in primary school. We can be real sisters if you marry her. Her desire was childlike, but the intensity of it was not. Everyone ignored her, especially Emeka and Lotanna.
They were in the salon one afternoon, and the girls were weaving the ends of the braids the salon workers left for them. Lotanna was tired and her parents were late. Sobechi babbled on about wanting her own salon when she grew up, how much bigger the salon would be than this one, and that Emeka and Lotanna would visit her with their bouncing babies.
“Gini? What?” Sobechi’s mother looked up from the sales book she had been writing in at the counter. “Which babies? My son and who?”
“Bro. Emeka and Lotiti, Mama. Me I want them to marry.” Sobechi gave Lotanna a conspiratorial smile and turned to her mother. “Won’t their children be so fine?”
“You better shut your mouth, you this stupid child. Anuofia. Thunder fire you.”
The salon workers and girls finished braiding in silence, Sobechi confused at her mother and Lotanna embarrassed. She liked Emeka, the height and depth of her affection being only what a fourteen-year-old could muster, but she wasn’t duped by the expectation of a future between them. He didn’t even notice her, and she lied to herself that she didn’t particularly care. Sobechi’s mother mostly ignored her, but then every adult did. The woman’s venom was new and strange and stinging.
When her father’s car came into view, she walked out of the salon. She stopped to wash her hands with soap in front of the gutter outside and felt a sense of pride overhearing Sobechi admonish her mother.
“Mama, why would you make Lotiti feel like that? I was just joking. Am I not always talking about her and Bro Emeka marrying? Why would you react like that?”
“Don’t ever make a joke like that again. You hear me? You dey craze?”
“But Mama, why? You like Lotiti. She is my best friend.”
“Because their family is Osu. I like her doesn’t mean I want her as a daughter-in-law. God forbid.”
“What does that mean?”
“She is a slave, and we are nwadialas. We are free, her family is not. Osu and Diala can never marry, you hear? Is it because I allowed you to be friends with her? Now leave me alone and face your front. Marry ko, marry ni. You better face your books. You are only fourteen, always thinking of making money or getting married. You better shut up, or I’ll break your head there.” She let out a long loud hiss.
As Lotanna walked to the car, she had the distinct feeling of being watched. A few months ago, the Further Maths teacher had called her forward to explain the use of 3-bit and 4-bit equivalent forms to her classmates. There was a collective hush, and Sobechi was suddenly behind her shoving her out of the classroom. There was a stain on her skirt. Though her mother had told her that night it was nothing to be ashamed of—this bloody rite to womanhood—it became second nature to hesitate before she stood up, to look over her shoulder and sigh with relief when she was in the clear, or ask a girl around to check for her as her menstrual cycle was still infrequent. It was what she felt now, a dark stain spreading at her back.
On the drive home her parents, concerned at her solemn face, asked what was wrong.
“What does Osu mean, Mum? Sobechi’s mum said we are Osu.”
Her parents looked at each other. Her mother cleared her throat and turned to fully face her while her dad tightened his grip on the wheel and eased into traffic.
“It means nothing. Don’t mind her. We are Christians and all that is wiped away by the blood of Jesus. You are a child of God. You are not going back there, okay? We will find another arrangement.” Lotanna’s mum turned to her dad. “Didn’t know that woman was like that.”
“Mum, she said I am a slave. I don’t understand.”
“Turn this car around!” her mother said.
*
“Are you sure you are not mad? It is important that I can be honest with you from the beginning, y’know?”
Jonathan was smiling sheepishly at her, a little bit drunk and very wide-eyed. The din had gotten louder, the bar filling up with Idahoans looking for more excitement during the first minutes of the New Year. But the city was cold and empty, and this year’s Potato Drop event ended with a fireworks accident. It was an ominous sign and the newcomers were now trying to shake it off with saccharine cheer, alcohol, and a recap of last night’s game. There was free popcorn and waving at phone screens. Lotanna felt swindled by the loneliness in the room. She came here to escape the quiet, but the earth gave way under her and her mind started a familiar descent into despair.
“No, I am not.”
“When are you going to tell me about your research for your PhD? Jim made it sound like you are doing the most fascinating thing in the world. I really want to know.”
“It is on wound healing.”
“Sounds great. What about it?”
Lotanna cleared her throat and signaled the waitress for a refill. It was one of her irritating habits, not answering questions directly. They watched a table across the room, where there was the start of a brawl. She unlocked and locked her phone.
“You want to call your family in Nigeria?”
“Not yet. They will call me when they have some time. They’d be busy now. It’s morning for them.”
“With what? It is the New Year.”
“Well, my mum would be fretting over the caterers. Making sure the nsala soup is perfect and the pounded yam has no lumps and the goat meat is soft enough to tear with teeth. My dad will be on the phone with his cousins talking about how many cartons of Guinness to bring to the party and how no one else has fresh palm wine since Pa Ikenna the palm wine tapper had his bicycle accident. And then they would go over to my great-grandfather’s house in the evening and have a blast with the rest of the family.”
“Wow. You must miss it.”
“I do. I am an only child. Had a best friend as a teenager. Didn’t work out. So I was pretty lonely growing up. But the first day of January was the one day I wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry about that. I grew up in a very large family on our family farm. Up in Salmon. Three brothers and three sisters, cousins and aunties and uncles and nosy neighbors everywhere every single day.”
“Well. Yeah.”
“Do you want kids? Eventually? A family, y’know?”
“Sometimes.” Lotanna turned away from him, her fingers rhythmically drumming on the edge of the table.
She could feel him scrutinize her, the first signs of defeat hovering over him.
“I’ll be back.” He stood up, and his chair scraped against the cement floor.
*
Still sheathed in the intact amniotic sac, Lotanna slipped out of her mother’s body to the graphite birthstone in her great-grandfather’s shrine. The midwife pierced the bubble with her finger. The cry of the newborn filled the air and assured her payment for the night.
“It is a girl, our chief. A lucky child. She came out complete, pure.” The elated midwife cut the umbilical cord. Another woman put it in a calabash and left the room. “Ewo, this girl will be very beautiful. A beauty queen sef.”
Lotanna’s grandfather said nothing and looked at the crying baby. The midwife thoroughly examined her. Her mouth, her nostrils. She bent her tiny legs and flexed her elbows. She pressed on her hips, her belly. She lifted her chest to her ears. Then, she helped the child into the gentle arms of her mother, and both women watched the baby latch on to an exposed nipple already dripping with milk.
As Lotanna’s father lovingly watched his wife and child, her grandfather whispered into the steamy nothingness of the ancient room. “She will have a hard life. I cannot take that away from her. She will go to school, she will have comfort, and she will have the love of this family. But I cannot wash this mark off her life.”
His words carried a familiar bitterness.
*
Her phone lit up and vibrated. She dug into her bag, looking for her earbuds. She gave up and pressed green. Her mother’s face filled the screen.
“Hey, Mum. Happy New Year!” Lotanna said in Ibo, startling Jonathan.
“My sweet girl. How are you? Your video is blurry o.”
“I dey. Sorry, I am outside. The network isn’t great here. Are you guys on your way to Nna’s house? I like this your headtie o.”
“This style is called stadium. I am ready to go. I am just waiting for your daddy. I don’t understand how a man can take more time to dress up than a woman. You should taste the white soup. Fantastic. Won’t I package some and do sharp-sharp delivery to America like this?” Her mother moved around the kitchen, switching the camera view to show an assortment of food. “Wait, where are you?”
“I wish. I am at a bar. This is where I spent my New Year’s Eve o.”
“Lotanna, why now? Is there no church there for watch-night service? Even if it is one day. Can’t you show God honor for even one day?”
“Mum, abeg. Please. Besides, I am on a date.”
“You are with a man? Like a man-man?” her mother exclaimed, switching to English. She usually did this when she was surprised.
“Mum. Ibo please,” she said, chagrined.
Jonathan gave her a wide smile.
“Sorry. You did not tell me you had a man,” her mum said, switching back to Ibo.
“I don’t have a man. I am on a date.”
“Thank God o. Is he Igbo?”
“Abeg. Please. Where will I find an Igbo boy in this place?”
“It’s good. I don’t even think God’s will for you is an Igbo man. This is good news. You have not mentioned anybody after Chidi. After all these years. This is good. Is he oyinbo? Or where is he from?”
“Can I talk to Daddy?”
“Answer me first. How old is he? Is he a Christian? What church does he go to? Can you turn the camera on to him? Just small. Do it stylishly abeg. Is he so white-white that you can see his green veins? Or is it blue? If you slap him will he turn red? Is he circumcised? You know what they say about men that are not cut?”
“Mum!”
“Can’t I ask questions again? Ah, see. Your father is here.”
Her father’s face came into view, his statement red cap complimenting her mother’s head tie.
“Daddy. Ndewo. How are you? See you looking sharp. Who will know that you are seventy-something years old like this? Look at you. Only you. After you, you again.”
If he wasn’t her father, if he was a random man she met on the street, she would still like him. Lotanna loved her father, but she liked him too. They’d be friends even if they were not family. Her father taught her to relieve the pressure in her ears during plane rides. He checked in on her every night of her teenage years, touching her legs to make sure they were not cold, and if they were, he would put a hot water bottle under her blanket. He used matchsticks to teach her to count, add and subtract. He drove her to have her hair braided, and he would stay with her, chatting with the salon girls, telling them to be gentle with her tender scalp, buying everyone iced Coke and roasted corn. Her mother didn’t like shopping, so they made market runs together every Saturday. She played physician with him, injecting his arm with toothpicks and listening to his heartbeat with an old stethoscope he had bought when she was born. Her mother often joked about how her father would listen to her heartbeat when she was a baby while she was asleep. He wanted to make sure his omalicha remained alive. She showed him the love letters petulant adolescent boys wrote her in secondary school. He would correct their spellings and unsatisfactory metaphors with a red pen and score them a percentage. In memories of her childhood, it now seemed that every time she looked into the distance, her father was there. When she turned around to find him if they got separated in a crowd, he’d already found her first. She loved him. She liked him.
“Look at me, your gentleman daddy. How are you? Happy New Year.” He moved closer to the camera. She could see the skin tags on his face. She used to pinch them. “Wait. Is that Fela in the background? Are they playing Fela where you are?”
Lotanna cocked her head. She hadn’t noticed. When they first arrived, melodies of a sad White man repeating everybody knows and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” were on replay. Now the familiar titular song of the genius’ 1977 album was playing. Her father played the sax in a band with his Old Boys since she was a child. All the band did was perform Fela songs. When she was a teenager, her parents would take her to garden buffets and beer parlors, and she would cringe with embarrassment as her mother wiggled her buttocks in front of a makeshift stage. Her father would grin with delight at his wife and a familiar aloneness would begrudge Lotanna. Would she ever have what they had? This shedding of self, this lack of composure, all in the name of love. It was only last year, weeks before she left Nigeria, that she joined her mother on the dance floor, gyrating and crooning, Zombie o, zombie. zombie no go go, unless you tell am to go, zombie. Order!
“I’m impressed. They are playing Fela in that your Idaho.”
“I am too. And it is not my Idaho abeg. Anyway, Happy New Year to you Daddy—”
“She is with a man!” Her mother hollered in the background, unable to contain her excitement.
*
Lotanna was the youngest undergraduate student in her cohort at the pharmacy department at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, and the winner of many awards in orientation week: Most Beautiful Fresher, Fresher with The Highest J.A.M.B Score, Most Likely to Finish With A First Class, Freshest Fresher, Most Wanted Fresher. Lotanna, the one with all the boys vying for her attention. The girl yellow like mami water. No single mark on her body. E be like say sun never touch am before. Figure eight. Breast dey. Hips dey. Yansh dey. I think that is her real hair o, the thing dey reach her waist. She was the happening babe.
It became a contest, a conversation topic about who would eventually get with her. Guys would visit, taking turns delivering gifts to her hostel: cakes with too much icing, stuffed bears with sad eyes and a red heart sewn into their forever-open palms, jewelry she tested against her skin to know which was fake, packets of Brazilian and Indian weaves, pencil drawings of her made by Fine Art majors looking to make a buck. Male students weren’t allowed in the female hostels till 5:00 p.m. and Lotanna’s roommates would make jest and count down till their room was open for business. Older students offered to show her around. The brilliant ones tried to help her with coursework. The rich ones promised her a good time. The religious ones ached for the redemption of her soul.
So it was the most unlikely scenario that she got with Chidi. He wasn’t even a student. He was a broke corper observing his national service year in the university as a junior accountant. Nobody knew how they met. Nobody saw them together until nobody saw them apart. Rumor had it that they fucked everywhere: the slanting steps of Auditorium I, the open roof of the Environmental Design and Management building, the narrow path to the Spider building, and on the slabs at Motion Ground where photographers convinced roaming students to pose for pictures. Rumor had it that she had jazzed him with bitter-leaf soup. One of her roommates started this. That Lotanna had rinsed her underwear and used the water to cook the first time Chidi visited their room. Rumor had it that she was mami water, a beautiful water spirit that chose Chidi for her pleasure.
Lotanna did not care. She moved in with him in her second year. He had stayed back in Ife for her, working a miserable bank job on the university’s campus, and when he decided he wanted to get married in her final year, she wasn’t surprised. He was about eight years older than her, and he had gotten into a PhD program in Birmingham. After her final exams, he sent her a plane ticket to Abuja. That weekend, on New Year’s Eve, he proposed to her at Jabi Lake, and she allowed him to come in her for the first time.
Her parents were hesitant. She was only twenty-one. But when she finished with the highest GPA the pharmacy department had ever had, her parents invited Chidi’s family for the Ikụ Aka ceremony—to come knock on their door.
*
The time was 12:28 a.m. A man approached their table.
“I’m Alex, the manager. I’m so sorry, ma’am. I swear I have never seen that sign before. I asked every member of our staff here and they didn’t even know what it meant. It’s not one of the popular racist signs. I’m so so sorry. This establishment is anti-racist and we strive to make this a safe space no matter who you are or where you come from. Can you see the rainbow flag?” he said, pointing to the Jack Daniels statue. He had a surprising voice, uncracked and velvety, a perfect E on the treble staff, like Priest Nnamdi in her Catholic diocese back home. His white beard had veins of silver in it and stopped at his large belly. Jonathan was looking at him, one arm crooked under his chin with a serious expression on his face. “Also, your boyfriend here told us you are Nigerian, so we played something earlier for you. Fela from Nigeria.” He pronounced Fela as fella.
Lotanna gave him a dry laugh.
“Don’t worry, we will get rid of it first thing tomorrow,” the manager continued. He turned to Jonathan. “And thank you for reporting this to me, sir. This is the only way real change is going to happen, people speaking up, and not letting these microaggressions go unnoticed.”
“Thank you.” Lotanna nodded at him.
“Thanks, man. And a happy new year. Have a good one, ” Jonathan said and got up to pull him into a half hug. The manager patted his back thrice.
When he disappeared behind the bar, she turned to Jonathan.
“Microaggressions.” She stared at him. “Why did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“I didn’t ask you to do that. What did you think you were doing? Fighting for me? Being the hero?”
“No, no, that is not what I was doing. I was trying to—”
“You realize how that puts me on the spot right? That singles me out?” Her voice was low, too low.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. That wasn’t my intent. I went to tell him to get rid of it. I didn’t tell him to apologize.” He held her hand. “What if the next Black person sees it, y’know? The damage has been done here, but maybe it doesn’t have to happen again.”
Lotanna averted her gaze and picked up her drink. The glass was empty. A large group of customers left the bar and the door was open long enough for her ears to get cold.
*
Chidi’s family was ostentatious in the display of their intentions. They arrived at her parents’ house with cartons of Guinness and Seaman’s schnapps. Crates of Coca-Cola, Fanta, and Maltina. Yams as thick as a wrestler’s thighs were stacked high in a pyramid, and fifteen hearty fowls had their legs bound. Bags of salt and sugar were heaped atop each other and the leashed goat bleated continuously, insistent on his refusal to be supper in the coming days.
Lotanna’s father broke kola and poured libation. He welcomed his guests.
Chidi’s uncle, Mazi Arinze, spoke on behalf of the family. Their son had seen a beautiful flower in the courtyard of Lotanna’s family, and they were here to ask if they could pluck it.
Lotanna, veiled with her other cousins, danced into the living room. Lotanna’s father unveiled each woman, asking Chidi who the flower was. When Chidi chose her, Lotanna’s heart fluttered.
Her father asked if she knew him, and when she said yes, he asked her permission to receive the bounty of gifts his family had brought. She nodded, only looking at Chidi, suddenly shy. Everyone cheered.
After the party made merry with food and drinks and highlife music, Lotanna’s father advised them to come back in three months, giving both families enough time to investigate. Investigations were about everything: each family’s history, if disease or madness or infertility lurked in the lineage, and if the men or women in the family frequently divorced their spouses. The list was endless.
*
Five weeks later, Lotanna was visiting her aunt, Big L, in Lagos when she woke up to six missed calls from her father and another fifteen from Chidi. She called Chidi first.
“Nkem.” It was his appellation for her. Mine.
“Chidi. I was sleeping. Ndo. How was work?”
“My uncle called me this afternoon.” He hesitated. “Lotanna, you didn’t tell me.”
She sat up and rubbed her eyes.
“Tell you what?”
“That your family is Osu.”
“Why does that matter? It is 2014. Who cares?”
“Nkem. Who cares? My family cares.”
“Then tell them.”
“Tell them what?”
“Tell them you don’t care.”
“I . . . I can’t just do that.”
“I don’t understand. What is happening? You can’t do what?”
“Do you understand the gravity of this?”
“Chidi we are Christians. Why does it matter that hundreds of years ago my ancestor was offered to some god nobody worships anymore?”
“Lotanna. My family is angry. My uncle is so angry that he keeps going on about how he unknowingly allowed an Osu to break kola in a gathering where free-borns were. That is an abomination.”
“Chidi, what the fuck? You are talking about my daddy? An abomination?”
“Lotanna, you never told me!”
“Why does it matter?” Her hands shook.
“I know you and your family are very progressive. It all makes sense now. When I first visited and they allowed me, your much older boyfriend, to sleep in the same room overnight with their eighteen-year-old daughter, I was stunned. But they just wanted a husband for you at any cost.”
“Are you crazy? Chidi? Are you mad?”
“I’m going to call you later. I can’t do this now.”
“Chidi? Chidi?” She was crying.
“Please Nkem. Stop crying. Lotanna, my family won’t let any of their sons intermarry with Osu. It is not possible.”
“Your family? Or you? Because if it is your family and not you, you can do something about it. What is this?”
“I think you should talk to your parents, Lotanna.”
“No. You talk to me. Tell me whatever it is.” Her door opened slightly, and her aunt peered in. She was crestfallen.
“I have to go, Lotanna. Ndo. I’m sorry. ” And he was gone.
Her aunt Linda came to the bed and knelt. She held Lotanna’s hands.
“Baby L, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Your husband’s people follow the old ways. They found out that we are Osu. You need to call your father. He has been trying to reach you. Baby L, his family canceled your engagement o.”
She stared at Big L, dazed, and she fought the urge to look over her shoulder, to look at the dark stain spreading at her back.
This dark stain will make her run, from her father and mother whom she loves so much, from the old railway and oil wells of Aba, from the noise and smog of Lagos; this dark mark will lead her to apply to six graduate programs in a country she had no affinity for and she chose the furthest one: Boise State University.
“I don’t think this is going to work between us.” Lotanna still had her empty glass in her hand and she peered into it.
“I know that. I can see that.”
“Oh.” She looked at him, startled.
“And that’s okay.”
She continued to stare at him.
“But will you tell me about your research? Wound healing?”
“Oh.” She put down the glass. “Well, I always have a hard time doing this. I recently participated in a three-minute thesis thing where you are supposed to explain the core of your research in just three minutes. I was a disaster. I got home and threw up.”
“Ouch. I’m sorry. I am five years old. Try.”
“What?”
“Explain it to me like I’m five, y’know?”
“Okay?” As she cleared her throat, the waitress came back to ask if they wanted refills. Lotanna asked for water and the check. When she had taken a big gulp, she came to a question. “When you were learning to ride a bicycle did you fall down?”
“Hell ya.”
Lotanna raised her eyebrows.
“What?”
“You are five years old. You are not supposed to curse,” she said, and for the first time in the night, a smile crept on her face.
“Ya, ya.” Jonathan grinned. “Yes, I fell many times. In fact, I have many scars.”
“Did you ever go to a hospital?”
“No. I mean, they were never that serious, y’know?”
“Why?”
“Why what?
“Didn’t your parents take you to a hospital every time you fell off your bicycle?”
“Well, that would be just wasteful. The injuries were never that serious, y’know? They always went away after some cleaning and sticking a Band-Aid or something on it.”
“How did your parents know it was just going to go away? The wound you sustained? How did they know it was not serious? That you didn’t need to go to the hospital this time?”
“Umm, I don’t know? It didn’t look serious.”
“Exactly. Our skin is, for lack of a better word, magnificent. It is the largest organ of the body and it protects you. Millions of years of evolutionary behavior have taught us to trust our skin—that if we left it alone, it would repair itself, heal itself. My research is making sure we can continue to trust our skin. Simply put, I look into non-healing wounds and try to find out why they are not healing. Those results tell us what to do when next we come across similar circumstances in another wound. Particularly pharmaceutical interventions.”
“Wow. I like the word trust. Ya.”
“You also said something about the wounds not being as serious. Your parents made that judgment because they could see the wound. They saw blood, a laceration, or a puncture, and thought, this will heal. If days later there is swelling or pus or it is still bleeding, then they start to think, this is serious. It seems like a simple thing, but seeing the wound helps us make judgments about it. So most of my testing documents the aesthetic qualities of wounds. Non-healing wounds in this case. So we can continue to judge with your eyes what is serious and what is not.”
“Wow.”
“I love my work, but the day-to-day of it is not wow. I’m usually looking at skin cells and pus. There is nothing wow about it.”
“You should use this pitch every time, y’know? I’m not as smart as you and I got it.”
“Thank you. I will.” She finished her glass of water. She dug into her bag and put her credit card on the check. “I really should get going.”
“Ya. Well, it was nice meeting you again.”
“Yeah.” She wrapped her scarf around her neck.
“And I’m sorry.”
“About?”
“I didn’t know what to do, y’know?”
“Are you talking about the manager?”
“All of it, y’know? My comments earlier. I just wanted to get to know you without race or politics being an issue.”
“Race is not politics.”
“I know, I know. I see what you mean. But I didn’t know what to say or do when you saw that thing in the bathroom. I thought I could fix it by going to the manager. But I guess I shouldn’t have.”
“It’s okay, Jonathan.” The waitress picked up their cards.
“Lottie, what should I have done?” he asked. “And I know that maybe I shouldn’t be doing this too—like it is not on you to fix it or teach me the right thing—but what should I have done when you showed me the graffiti? What would have been the right thing? Should I have apologized and shut up? Or let you take the lead on that kind of conversation?”
Lotanna slowly got on her feet. He did the same. When she was done buttoning her puffer coat, the waitress was back with their cards. They walked toward the exit, and he held the door open for her.
It was snowing. The night was quiet and a thin blanket of white covered downtown Boise. Lotanna pulled on her gloves and Jonathan pulled his beanie down to cover his ears. The year was no longer new.
“Can I walk you, at least halfway?” he asked her.
“Yes. Yes, please.”
“Thank you. We can be friends, y’know? At least? I’m funny as hell, I think. And you can go on and on about your research with me.”
She looked at him. He was tall and the gray of his eyes pierced her as he towered over her. Her phone vibrated. It was a text from her mum.
I hope he is a Christian. Have you met his family? Omalicha send me a picture. Your daddy says you should make sure he is a kind man. A man of his own convictions. Love you, my sweet girl.
“I don’t know what you should have done, Jonathan. About the graffiti. I don’t.”
“Okay.”
“But you did something. Perhaps that is what is most important.”
He was quiet. They turned past the traffic light, onto Idaho Street.
“I’m sorry for the comments earlier too. Accra was a lot, y’know? I guess I had been waiting to talk about it with someone who kind of understood. Who was familiar? That castle. It scared me. What we human beings can do to each other.”
“Was there anything you liked about Ghana?”
“Oh ya. A lot. The food. The people were kind. There was live music every evening at the hotel. I could go on and on. Ghana was chill—good vibes—y’know? Somehow, I was less anxious there.”
“Okay. Let’s start from there. Tell me all the things you liked.”
“Maybe another time? Have you tried skiing yet?”
Lotanna did not answer, stopping abruptly and facing the sweeping windows of Zion Bank, staring at their reflections in the glass. Vehicles zoomed past them in the background. A truck wheezed past too, full of teenagers in the truck bed chanting happy new fucking year. Jonathan stood quietly beside her, and they both watched the mist of their breaths visibly swell, whirling into one.
Ayotola Tehingbola (she/her, b. 1993 in Lagos) is a lawyer, photographer, writer, and translator. Her writing has appeared in Witness, CRAFT, Passages North, Quarterly West, and others, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net Anthology. She was shortlisted for the 2023 Graywolf Press African Fiction Prize for a debut novel, and is a three-time recipient of a Glenn Bach Award for Fiction. Tehingbola has been supported by the Lagos International Poetry Festival, Hudson Valley Writers Center, GrubStreet Center for Creative Writing, Alexa Rose Foundation, Idaho Commission on the Arts, and Kimbilio for Black Fiction.
Read more from the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing 2024 Finalists.
