Chapter 40Everything about Winston’s death remained unfinished. It was a Nigerian belief that after death, the spirit of the departed hovers around the home for several months. Sometimes a second burial must be performed before the spirit can join the ancestors. Neglect of proper burial rites can incur the wrath of the spirit and bring misfortune to the family. But in their haste and confusion, Sylvia had not followed the proper burial rites. According to local Yoruba custom, Winston’s body should have been taken back to his birthplace and buried under his old home. But they were in exile, they could not return to their ancestral home in China. Winston’s ancestral home had been destroyed. But she didn’t know where to bury him. Here in Africa? In Taiwan? Or in their new home—America?
They were leaving for America in a few days. Sylvia had decided to go to America, to her brother’s house in Minnesota. And so at Donna’s suggestion, for practical purposes, Sylvia cremated Winston’s body.
She should have buried him in an elaborate small mausoleum like they do in China—colorful tiled walls, the headstone facing the direction that would bring good fortune to his grandchildren and great grandchildren. They should have burned paper money, the rough yellow squares with gold-red stamps shriveling in the fire next to his grave to ensure his material comfort in the afterlife. They should have symbolically fed him a bowl of rice with chopsticks, so he would never be hungry in the next life. They should have held incense sticks and bowed multiple times to Buddhist chanting. Would Winston’s spirit be angry with them for not following the appropriate burial rites of their culture? Would he inflict misfortune on them?
Donna said once they arrived in America they could toss his ashes in the sea or river. So his body and soul could return to the earth. She said, “I think Winston might appreciate his ashes returning to the soil to be recycled into new life.” But Sylvia wasn’t so sure. It sounded disrespectful to her, like they didn’t care. How would they be able to pay their respects to him, then, if he was tossed away like that? Instead, Sylvia put his ashes in a lacquered Chinese box and packed the box in her carry-on Pan Am travel bag.
***
The children helped Sylvia sort through Winston’s things in the study. This was his room. They had rarely come in here when he was alive. It always felt like an intrusion. Standing in his study, touching his things—his abacus, reports, rock collection—it was the beginning for Sylvia of trying to understand who he really was.
“What should we do with his rock collection?” Thomas asked.
“You should have it. He loved it, he would spend hours categorizing new rocks he found on his trips in these glass cases,” Sylvia said.
She picked up one of the older, smaller glass rock cases. The wood of the case was old, a lacquered Chinese rosewood. The rocks in the case did not look familiar; she knew they were not from around here. On the side of the case, she saw an inscription engraved in Chinese characters. She looked carefully at the characters. Even with her limited Chinese, she could guess what it said.
For my precious son, from Mama.Sylvia almost choked. She imagined Winston as a boy, clinging to his mother as she was dying. Although Sylvia didn’t know the details of his mother’s death, she realized he had never fully recovered from this traumatic loss. Death, the vagaries of war, the life of refugees, and a cold, unloving father—all of it had stunted him emotionally. Why hadn’t she seen this before in all their years of marriage? Winston had saved Sylvia’s life, but he was incapable of loving her. Love had been taken from him at such a young age. Why hadn’t she been able to help him love again? She saw her marriage now as a missed opportunity. He had starved himself of love, and she could have cured him. She packed the glass cases with his rocks carefully in boxes to ship to America.
***
A week before Sylvia left, Donna and Richard organized a memorial service for Winston at the compound conference center. Colleagues of his on the compound came onto the stage and spoke one-by-one at the microphone. They said so many wonderful things about him.
Another great man has passed. He gave his life to reducing poverty in Africa. He was a man that I have felt honored to know.As they walked out of the conference center, Sylvia looked into the distance—the silver granite rock of the hillside, the tall palm trees standing high above the green bush and the banana trees. She hoped his spirit would rest in peace. She hoped he would rejoin his mother. She hoped he would be reborn into a better life and learn to love.
***
Richard and Elizabeth, who was home for the Christmas holidays, threw a farewell gathering for Sylvia. It was a small group, mostly compound residents and colleagues wishing her well. Even though she had not been close with many of them, during the fifteen years of their lives on the compound, their children had attended the same school, and they had shared milestones together. Soon Sylvia knew she would be completely out of their lives, their acquaintance relegated to annual Christmas cards with exotic stamps. Most of the residents of the compound would eventually return to their homes in Europe, America, or Asia.
As the party dispersed, Ayo stood apart in the garden, leaning against the tree, waiting for her. They were free to be together, finally, after all these years. She thought of her husband. She was leaving for America. But what of this man leaning against the tree, the man she loved?
“I’m coming with you,” Ayo said.
Sylvia looked at him questioningly. She walked toward him under the feathery leaves of the tamarind tree, the long hard pods crunching under her feet.
“To America,” he said. They were standing face-to-face now, close but not touching.
“You would leave Nigeria?” she said. He knew she couldn’t stay here. After Winston’s death, it wasn’t safe. She also had to consider her illness caused by the malaria pills and her children’s future.
“If that’s what it takes for us to finally be together, yes.” He looked off into the distance as he said this to her.
Sylvia wondered if he was becoming disillusioned with his beloved country. She thought of Ayo’s Nigerian doctor friend who had recently left for the UK after a group of armed robbers had descended on his house in town. The man had four daughters and a wife. It was no longer safe here. Nigeria had deteriorated since 1970 when Ayo had come back, medical degree in hand, full of optimism. Now in 1985, the country was worse off, descending into political chaos and violence.
She placed her hand on the side of his face, but she said nothing.
***
A week later, Sylvia drove to Ayo’s father’s house. He stood outside in the carved doorway, waiting for her. It was New Year’s Eve 1985.
“Are you sure…you want to come to America?” Sylvia said, walking up to the rust-stained house. Purple dragonflies darted around them.
He looked at her, his expression confused.
“You could live in England,” she continued. “You’re half English, but you chose to come back to Nigeria. You love your country. I’ve always known this. It means so much to you, perhaps more than us.”
“Not more than us. You’re everything to me.”
“And your work?” Sylvia continued, not entirely believing him. “I know times are hard right now. But you would regret leaving even more. I know you so well. You don’t want to be like them. Running to the comforts of the West. Running away from the problems of your country instead of trying solving them. You would hate yourself for it. And perhaps even me a little too.”
“I didn’t wait all these years for you to not be with you.”
Hearing his words, she closed her eyes. She loved him so much. But would a love like theirs travel well? She felt it belonged here in this time and place, not across the ocean on another continent. She thought of her cousin in Hong Kong who had fallen in love with and married an American. After they had come to live in America, her accent and cultural eccentricities, what had once seemed exotic to her husband in Hong Kong, suddenly became an embarrassment to him. Their marriage had failed within a year.
“Do you really think you could wake up in a comfortable suburban house in America and know that every day children are dying here?” she said.
Ayo did not respond, and she knew she was right.
“Stay here. At least you have somewhere you can call your own.” She drew him close and kissed him.
Sylvia thought of her own nomadic life, her constant running further away from her home, crossing continent after continent—first Europe, then Africa, and now America. She missed Shanghai and Hong Kong. But now she had been gone so long, she couldn’t return. Her children didn’t speak the language. She had to consider their future. She couldn’t go back, so she kept going forward.
Chapter 41In January 1986, the day Sylvia and her children left Nigeria, the air was full of sand. Dust from the Sahara filled the skies so that a pinkish-brown haze hung over the mud huts, the palm trees, and the muddy river. Sylvia said her farewells to the few remaining friends in her life. Richard and Elizabeth came over to her house to stay goodbye.
“Donna and I picked up the journalist at the airport a few days ago. He’s going to quote me instead for the article,” Richard said as he hugged her. “Winston’s death will not be in vain.”
“Thank you, Richard,” Sylvia said, realizing the Englishman must have had a change of heart in the wake of Winston’s death. “You’re a good friend.”
“I also have something for Simeon’s family. Will you give it to his wife?” She handed him Winston’s worn leather satchel stuffed full of naira bills. She had drained their savings account. She had Winston’s life insurance to fall back on, but Simeon’s wife and children had no such thing. “Winston would want them to have it.”
“I’ll give it to Abike,” Richard said quietly.
“Take care of yourself darling, we’ll be thinking of you in America. We might even come and visit, won’t we Richard?” Elizabeth said.
After Richard and Elizabeth left, Ayo came over with the minibus to drive them to Lagos. They packed the van with their belongings.
Sylvia turned to Patience and hugged her, full of tears.
“Come on, madam, you be going to a nice place, America,” Patience said, dry-eyed.
“Patience, I have a gift for you.” She handed Patience another satchel of naira bills, the other half of her and Winston’s savings account. “I want you to go home and retire in your village as a successful business woman.” Sylvia gave her the money.
Patience was stunned as she looked inside the satchel. “No, madam, I can’t accept dis.”
“Take it. I have no use for it. What am I going to do with it? No one will change all these naira bills into US dollars.” Sylvia did not explain that she had just done the opposite—changed all this money from US dollars into naira bills, just for these gifts for Patience and Simeon’s family.
“If you say so, madam. But what am I going to do wit all dis money?” Patience laughed.
“Go home, Patience. It’s time,” Sylvia said. Since she couldn’t go back to China, at least one of them should return home.
Sylvia climbed into the minibus and sat next to Ayo. As she looked back at Patience standing there in her driveway, she said to Ayo, “Take care of her, will you? Make sure she makes it home, back to Cote d’Ivoire.”
“Don’t worry about Patience. She will find her way.”
The drive to Lagos would take two or three hours, depending on the traffic. Sylvia sat next to her ex-lover while the armed escorts drove the minibus to the airport in the capital. The children sat in the back row. It reminded Sylvia of when Ayo had rescued her from running away all those years ago. The night they had first met. Only Lila had been a baby back then, and now she was almost a teenager, watching, probably aware of Sylvia’s sins. And this time, Sylvia was really leaving. Their Pan-Am flight to New York departed at midnight, but they would reach the airport before dark. The sun was setting, and they were almost there.
Her leg almost touched Ayo’s. There was not much space, but she kept her leg taut, away from him. Was she doing the right thing, telling him not to come with her to America? Could she live without him? She turned and looked at his profile—the eyelashes, the angular jaw, the broad shoulders, and the deep brown of his skin. Ayo stared intently ahead, watching for any signs of armed robbers. She noticed his neck muscles were tight as he craned to look at the darkening sky. She wanted to touch his neck, the place where she knew he held all his stress.
***
When they reached the airport, a group of suspicious men mobbed them as they got out of the van. Ayo and the armed guards waved them off. The airport had an air of lawlessness as if air travel was the new medium for pirates. There were rumors of gangs of robbers hiding underneath the airport, snatching suitcases as they came up the conveyor belt. Recently, robbers had also attacked planes taxiing on the runaway, driving their jeeps up to the planes and opening the baggage holds from underneath. Armed robbers also frequently killed people on the road to the airport, a shot in the head for your car or the money in your wallet.
While the driver unloaded the luggage, Ayo escorted Sylvia and the children through the crowd of modern pirates filling the airport hall. At the check-in desk, the Pan-Am representative informed them the flight to New York had been delayed due to mechanical problems. They would fix the plane with parts flown in on a later flight coming in that night. Their flight would not leave until morning. Sylvia thought she might never really leave Nigeria. Something would happen, something would prevent her.
Ayo told the armed escorts to drive them to the Sheraton, one of the few five-star Western hotels in Lagos. On the cement walls surrounding the hotel, a vendor had hung an array of stolen silver hubcaps for sale. Shacks used to crowd the alleyways behind the hotel, but the owners had bulldozed them off the property. They didn’t want the guests to see or smell the shantytown from their windows above. Nevertheless the bits of cardboard, wood, and tin were slowly growing again.
It was a new hotel, built only a year before, and the air-conditioned, chandelier-lit marble lobby was a welcome respite after the long, dusty drive to the airport. At the front desk, Ayo paid for three rooms—one for the children, one for Sylvia, and one for himself. The armed escorts would sleep in the minibus.
The four of them had dinner downstairs in the restaurant. Even though the hotel was new, it already showed signs of tropical decay. The white napkins, although painstakingly starched, were frayed at the edges. The children wanted to order ice cream, but the waiter said, “de ice cream machine it done broken.” There was something about the humidity that rusted machine parts quickly, and the remoteness that made them difficult to replace. Things from the West simply aged rapidly in Africa. They were not cut out for the weather or the grittiness of the orange dust.
Still, the hotel restaurant was full with delayed passengers. The loud chatter of the other guests distracted Sylvia from the silence at their table. She felt uncomfortable sitting with Ayo and the children as if they were a family, it didn’t seem right. It was like a glimpse of what could have been. Her teenage children were full of animosity toward Ayo. When he spoke to them, they did not say much, only nodding or shaking their heads. They probably knew of Ayo and her betrayal of their father. They would never accept Ayo as a father now. Sylvia knew then she had made the right decision.
That night, Sylvia lay awake in her room. They had three adjoining rooms with Sylvia’s in the middle. She heard the regular breathing of the children. She got up and quietly closed the door between their rooms. Her husband had been killed. Tomorrow, she was leaving her lover forever for a new country. She stared at the closed door separating her room from Ayo’s. She could see the light was still on under the door. She knew he was not sleeping. But she also knew he would not come to her room.
She thought of the years she had known him, worked by his side, the affair. For almost a decade of her youth, she had loved him, and she felt that in this life she would only love once. She was thirty-five years old now. Would another man love her like this? She didn’t know if life could be that generous.
She got up and knocked on the door to Ayo’s room. He opened the door, but he was not surprised to see her.
She sat down on the bed and lay down, fully clothed. He lay down next to her and put his arm around her, but he did not touch her. She closed her eyes. She could hear his heart beating next to hers. She recalled the first time they had made love against the wall of the mechanical room under the swimming pool. She tried to remember every detail—her grass skirt, his hands—so that the first and last night would be intertwined in her memory.
***
The next morning at the airport Sylvia said good-bye to Ayo on the tarmac. They embraced and he held onto her tightly, not letting her go. She took in the bittersweet smell of him, the feeling of being in his arms, the touch of his skin. When she climbed up the stairs, she turned back to look at him. He waved at her, but he was not smiling. She gazed beyond the airport at the green bush, the orange dust, the white egrets, and the twirls of smoke. Then she turned and walked onto the plane.