October, 2014, Kano

“Please fasten your seat belts and prepare for landing.”

From the take-off at JFK Kennedy International Airport, I had dreaded the voice announcing our arrival. This, coming home, was never my idea, but thanks to Andrea’s continual insistence on seeing my family and Aunty Ngozi’s frequent calls, we are here. Home is a closed chapter in my life. A chapter I only open when I flip through the pages of my cheque book to send money through Western Union; a kind gesture that has extended into a monthly chore.

It is raining outside. October rains, drumming on my seat’s window and welcoming me in their own way. Mama loved the torrential October rains because they drained up quickly and washed the tarred streets in shiny gleams. She never liked the light November rains because they clogged up the gutters, flooded everywhere, and brought her down with a cold. 

The aeroplane jerks before stopping at the end of the runway. 

“Obi, we are here. We are finally here,” Andrea whispers and gives my right hand a gentle squeeze.

The rain tapers down as we move to Immigrations towards the Immigration.

“Next person, please,” the woman at the counter says. “Your name?”

I step forward and present our shiny leather-jacketed passports. “Mr. Obi Mgbelu and Mr. Andrea Patterson.”

“Are you brothers, friends, colleagues, research partners?” 

“We are partners,” I say. 

“Business partners?”

“We’re married,” Andrea cuts in. 

His Manhattan accent made the we’re married sound so normal. The woman pauses. I breeze through a prayer, that no one overheard Andrea.

“I’m sorry, but such marriages are not recognised in Nigeria.”

“You know…”

I nudge Andrea to stop before he creates a scene. 

“Madam, how is the family?” I ask the woman, all tooth and smile, and slide a crumpled five-dollar note to her. 

“Ahhh, we cannot complain. Thank you, sir!  You know what, I will document that you are visiting as very close friends. Meanwhile, enjoy your stay. Next person, please.”

“My American Boy!”

I turn and spot Aunty Ngozi. She is waving at us in the waiting area. She is wearing a lemon Ankara gown. Aunty Ngozi is Mama’s younger sister. She lived with us while I was growing up. She taught me how to read and write. She would bribe Ugo, my elder brother, with Kreme Crackers so he would not tell on me for messing with her lipstick and eye shadow. Aunty Ngozi was the only one who fought and made sure my parents did not revoke my scholarship. They had wanted Ugo to go in my name because  I was still young and would win many scholarships in future.“

“Aunty Ngozi!”

Her hug has not changed in all these years, still tinged with the vanilla perfume she makes herself. She sniffles to hold back the tears. 

“How are you, Aunty?” 

“We are managing.”

Managing for Aunty Ngozi means that the government has delayed her salary. Mama always teased her about how she complained of delayed salaries, but kept mum when they were paid.

“Why didn’t you come back for your father’s burial?” Aunty Ngozi asks me the same way she did when she caught me sneaking into her room to read her Mills & Boon novels. More of a reprimand than a question.

“I was defending my thesis, Aunty.” 

The lie rolled off my tongue without bumps. I had chosen to stay back. My professors offered to postpone my defence, but I declined. 

“Aunty, I want you to meet Andrea,” I say, tactfully changing the subject.

“Andrea Patterson,” Andrea shakes Aunty Ngozi. “Obi has told me so much about you.”

“He is my very close friend,” I whisper to Aunty Ngozi, quoting the Immigration woman.

“Welcome, Andrea. This one has not told me anything about you o.”

“Aunty Ngozi!”

We hurried to the taxi Aunty Ngozi had hired. The driver is standing by the door, smoking half a cigarette. He helps us with our bags and shoves them inside the boot. 

Just like Mama says, the tarred streets had shiny gleams from the October rains. The lanky cowboys with their aquiline noses and sunburned skin still crammed the roadside. They urge their unwilling cattle to move and occasionally lash out at them with long kobokos. 

Kano still maintained its perfect blend of flat-topped brick houses and scattered clusters of markets and dye pits. The Central Mosque’s gate is still crowded by beggars. However, in the midst of this normalcy, one cannot help but notice there are more soldiers patrolling the streets. The taxi driver had to stop at the countless checkpoints to pass the soldiers.

I look at Andrea, eyes glued to the open window, soaking it all in. The same way he looked on the night I met him, six years ago, at the Pan-African Studies Centre’s Annual Dinner. He was too tall, too handsome. We talked and argued throughout the night, mostly about Baldwin, until he finally asked Do you like-like men?, to which I responded, Only on weekdays. We moved in three months later and got married three years later.  

From the front seat, Aunty Ngozi stretches her neck backwards so she can share the latest goings-on. She told me how they banned women from wearing hijabs in public places after a woman was caught hiding bombs underneath hers, how the level of bottled drinks keeps lowering, how egg rolls now have a quarter egg, and you only get a yolk if you are lucky. 

“Madam na one thousand five hundred naira,” the taxi driver announced as we turned into Aunty Ngozi’s street.

“Na money wey go kill you! Look at this yeye man. I thought we agreed on one thousand naira. Your big eyes have seen American people, okwai?!”

“Ehen, I deserve my share of dollars,” the man says, flashing his chipped tooth.  

“With this, your anakilija of a car,” Aunty Ngozi spits out and flings a couple of worn-out naira notes at the taxi driver.

Aunty Ngozi lives on Sabongari alone. The street has changed in the ten years I have been away. It used to be a mishmash of uncompleted buildings so tightly packed they appeared to caress one another. During my last visit, my Aunty Ngozi jokingly warned me not to spit out through the window as it might land on an unsuspecting neighbour’s head. The street now has posh bungalows and meticulously tiled storey buildings with well-tended hedges piled along high fences.  

Aunty Ngozi’s daughters are playing in the yard when we open the gates. They stop immediately they sight their mother and rush to welcome us.

“Mummy! Uncle America!” They chatter excitedly as they snatch up our bags. 

“Oge and Neche, where is your brother, Emeka?” I ask.

“He’s not back home. Brother Emeka is in university now o. Big Boy.”

I unwrap the presents I bought for Aunty Ngozi and her children in the parlour. The girls run off to share the pack of Snickers with the neighbours’ children while Aunty Ngozi tries on her new shoes and wonders how to pair them with the necklaces and scarves. 

“Andrea and I are married,” I say to Aunty Ngozi. We are alone in the parlour. 

“You mean Andrea, the man you came back with?” 

“Yes,” I swallow hard. “We have been married for three years and I couldn’t have been happier.”

“Hmmm…”

“Aunty Ngozi, I’m sorry…”

“So you got married and did not tell your Aunty Ngozi?”

“Wait, what? You are not shocked?”

“Nnam, why will I be shocked? You think I did not know all the times you were doing lovey-lovey with Uthman when you come to visit?”

We burst out laughing. 

“Aunty! Where is Uthman now?”

“He worked his way to a government job in Abuja after you travelled.”

“How is Mama?”

“Nnam, I will not lie to you; she’s a shadow of herself.”

“You know she still blames me for everything that happened. And I do agree with her.”

“Please don’t say that again. Blame you for what happened? Are you God?”

Aba

I look through the car window that is covered with dust. How things have changed. The potholed streets, the air, the gutters overflowing with empty pure water sachets felt strange. There is no clue to remind me that I used to leave here, I used to walk these roads, discovering appian-ways, scouting for bottle tops to redeem for free drinks. 

“Nwam’ abatago!” My mother hollers as she sees us from the kitchen windows. 

Mama ushers us into the house. She tightens her wrapper as she opens up the window, while complaining about her rheumatism. She flashes a smile with each wimp. She has mastered this act of camouflaging dire situations and pretending that all was well.

“Let me go and get your food. Ngozika, come and help me in the kitchen.”

It is rice and stew with goat meat. Mama still cooks her stew in the same watery way that flooded the rice. The food is peppery, and the enamel plate gave it another layer of flavouring. 

“So how did America treat my son?” 

“Very well, Mama. How are you?”

“We thank God. So, who is this black-white man with you?”

I look at Andrea and then at Aunty Ngozi before I say, “He is my husband.”

Aunty Ngozi looks away. This is not what we discussed. The plan was to come see Mama, give her the things I brought for her and then return to America. She does not need to know, Nnam. This is your happiness, you don’t need to share it with her. But seeing Mama pretending that everything is fine between us– as if she did not called me every day after Ugo died to tell me that I was the one that killed my brother, that Ugo would not have been hit by an okada if I had given him my scholarship, as if she did not send me a video of Papa on his dying bed telling me not to step foot at his funeral because I killed his okpara– riled up something in me. 

November, 2015

Kano 

“Please fasten your seatbelts. We are about to take off.”

I close my eyes and remember Mama’s dismissive look when I told her about Andrea. It is the type of look a mother gave to her other son. A look that clarified the degree of my insignificance; how I did not and could not matter to her. She just scoffed, turned to Aunty Ngozi to ask her if she brought kilishi for her. 

The clouds are simmering above simmered, signalling the arrival of November. There is always a kinship between me and November rains; Mama never wanted both of us. The early morning mist covers the aeroplane’s windows, but I can still make out the figure of Aunty Ngozi and her daughters, all waving and smiling.