Love Is Power, or Something Like That: Stories

Trophy

The first time I met him I shook his hand and nodded when he told me his name, told me about his job and how happy he was to meet me. I had just arrived in the town. It had been a long journey: I was road-grimy, irritable, and looking forward to sleep. I got down from the hired car and a small group of men standing in front of my hotel lobby rushed forward, calling my name. They closed around me, all smiles and jabbing hands and drumming voices, new faces and names. He was with them, a man of medium height — maybe five-eight, same as me — with skin the color of rotted wood. On both cheeks he had tiger-claw scars: long, deep, in quadruplet. I wondered if his tribal marks were the reason his smile was shy, wondered if I would ever meet him again. When he said his name I nodded and looked interested, but did not repeat it, did not memorize it, so his name, like him, the person, the face, was forgotten.

I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed. After a big breakfast in my room I went downstairs to the hotel lobby to meet the president, vice president, public relations officer, and treasurer of Frontrunners Club. These four were the leaders of the men’s social club that had invited me to run a five-day leadership workshop for its members. In my first seminar later that morning I introduced myself to the class, learned the names of my thirty-three students, and talked about my accomplishments. My opening address took longer than I had planned, and the signal for lunchtime — the president’s mobile phone alarm — interrupted me. The class resumed from the one-hour break one hour later. Despite grumbles from the students, I stuck to my lesson notes, I touched on every point I had put to paper. It was early evening by the time I finished, and my throat itched from talking. I needed a beer.

I stopped at the open-air bar opposite my hotel building. Whenever I drank beer, I chose Star. I’d placed my order with the bartender — she wore a short flared skirt, pretty, and she had a cushiony behind, strong calves, small-boned feet — and I was waiting for her to return with my drink so I could crack a joke to soften her up, maybe ask for her mobile phone number, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up. The name, Babasegun, did not mean anything to me. I did not recognise the face. At the expression on my face, his smile slipped, he dropped his hand. “I was part of the welcoming committee that met you at your hotel yesterday.”

“Oh, yes,” I said, remembering. “You’re the secondary school teacher.”

He nodded yes, and stood his ground, so I asked him to sit.

“Thank you, sir,” he said. He walked to a nearby table, picked up a plastic chair, brought it over, set it down, and sat facing me. I extended my hand; his grip was bold.

“Call me Iggy,” I said.

The bartender returned without my beer. She stood by my left shoulder, her hip brushing my elbow. The bar had run out of Star, she said.

“Bring two bottles of Trophy,” Babasegun said.

She walked away, her bottom rolling. “Is Trophy a beer?” I asked.

“Yes, our local brand. They brew it not far from here. It’s cheaper than all those big-name beers. It’s strong, it’s for tough men. And it’s low in sugar, so it won’t give you piles. Try it once and you’ll never go back.” He paused. I glanced at him, caught his gaze swinging away. “You like women,” he said.

“Who doesn’t?”

He flicked his bright pink tongue over his lips. “How long will you be in town?”

“Four days. But shouldn’t you know that already?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m not a member of Frontrunners Club. I used to be, but not anymore. I only came to show support yesterday. I don’t know the details of your program.”

Seconds after he finished speaking there was a low, vibrating sound, and a square of light shone in his breast pocket. Then the phone rang. The ringtone was a Tupac song I loved, a song I had learned by heart maybe twelve, thirteen years ago. At the time I was in my second year of university. I was a shave-my-head, pierce-my-nose, hate-the-East-Coast-and-Biggie 2pac fan. I was still with Comfort, my first girlfriend. I used to rap the song to her, chopping the air with my hands, playacting my martyred hero. These days, whenever I listened to rap, I chose Kanye West. Comfort was now a married woman with two children. Yet the memories flooded in like a sugar rush, floating on that unforgettable tune.

Babasegun pulled out the phone, glanced at the screen, cut the call.

“Still I Rise. Brilliant song,” I said.

He looked at me, smile spreading across his features. “You like Tupac?”

The phone rang again. On impulse I sat forward, raised my hands in front of my face, and shaped my palms into blades. Karate chopping the air, I rapped along.

Somebody wake me I’m dreaming, I started as a seed the semen

Swimming upstream, planted in the womb while screaming. .

Babasegun joined in, eyes wide, teeth glinting. Our voices rang out in unison.

On the top, was my pops, my momma screaming stop

From a single drop, this is what they got—

The call ended, the song stopped. I tried to keep a straight face but my teeth kept pushing through my lips. I wanted the phone to ring again.

“So,” I said into the silence. “Now you know. I love Tupac.”

“My man!” Babasegun said in a drawling, mock-Yankee tone, and raised his right hand, fingers spread in a West Coast W.

As we talked I saw him clearer. He wore open leather sandals, neat blue jeans, and a white T-shirt with “Mombasa” stamped on the front in red letters. He told me about his wife and three sons aged eight, six, and three. About his father, who died of lung cancer the same month his twelfth grandchild — Babasegun’s first son — was born. Who left behind seven widows and a reputation for hard partying that was unsurpassed in the town.

The bartender returned with our drinks and two glasses in a tray. She set the tray on the table, placed the bottles in front of us, and arranged the glasses. She bent forward to uncap his beer. Frost escaped from the bottle’s mouth. She grasped my bottle by the neck. “Wait,” Babasegun said.

She looked at him. So did I.

“Iggy, this is Wunmi. She’s new in town. She just came three weeks ago. If I wasn’t married, there would have been trouble o. Wunmi is a very nice girl.”

“And pretty too,” I said, grinning at her.

“Hear me, Wunmi.” He held her gaze, his face stern. “Iggy is a special guest, a VIP from Poteko. He has come to do important work here. Treat him well, make him feel at home. I want the two of you to be good friends.” He switched to Yoruba. Something he said made the bartender clench her dark, full lips. She threw a sideways glance at me and said, “Welcome, sah.” She uncapped my beer, picked up the tray, flounced away. I watched her go.

“If you want to fuck her, the ball is now in your court,” Babasegun said.

He owned a car, an old boxy Saab. Gray, rain-colored, upholstered in black vinyl. The tape player was a museum piece: the dials were Soviet-era utilitarian, and its sound was tinny, elemental. The glove compartment was crammed full of audio cassettes. He leaned across to pop it open, dug his hand into the pile, drew out several cassettes, and examined them under the screen light of his Samsung phone. “I have many, many Tupac songs,” he said, and belched.

To the sound track of nostalgia, he drove across the road, through the gate of my hotel, and stopped in front of the lobby, where we agreed he would pick me up the next day at seven.

“Communication Tools in Leadership” was a topic I planned to finish in three hours, but my seminar ran on for five and a half hours. This time it wasn’t my fault: many of the club members couldn’t spell words younger than they — Tumblr, hacktivist, phish — so I had to teach some basic Web lingo. Several times during the seminar I calmed myself with the thought of the handsome fee I would collect at the end, and the bargirl with pretty feet, the move I intended to make on her tonight.

The class dispersed at nine minutes to six, and I walked the short distance to my hotel. I got to my room to find that there was no power, and I needed hot water for my shower, so I spent another hour in the hotel manager’s office trying to convince him to switch on the generator, which he finally agreed to. I was on my knees in the bathtub shaving my buttocks when my room phone rang. I rinsed off and hurried out of the bathroom to pick the call. The receptionist announced Babasegun.

“Send him up,” I said, then dropped the receiver, crossed to the room door to unlock it, and tiptoed into the bathroom, dripping soapsuds.

When I re-emerged, he was sitting in a straight-backed chair in front of the TV, which showed Al Jazeera. A redhead with a British accent was talking about Israel in a war correspondent’s voice, and spread out behind her, a polite distance away, kept in line by an unseen cordon, was a crowd of chanting, gesticulating Arabs.

“Israel has bombed Gaza again,” Babasegun said.

“No politics, I need to relax — had a long day,” I said. “Beer plus a woman is all I want.”

I picked up my boxer shorts from the heap of clothes on the bed. I put them on and dropped my towel. My skin lotion and antiperspirant roll-on were beside the TV on the fridge. I asked Babasegun to toss the lotion.

He rose from the chair, reached for the lotion, glanced at me. “Only women and sissies rub cream.” He underhanded the lotion bottle to me, an amused expression on his war-mask face.

I ignored his bait, which I found offensive, too familiar too soon. I put on my chinos trousers, drew on my white linen short-sleeves, then walked to the fridge, picked up the roll-on, and smeared my armpits. While I snapped the buttons on my shirt closed, he walked toward the door.

The Saab stood alone in the hotel parking lot. Without a word we entered, Babasegun started the engine, drove through the hotel gateway, and swung the car right. I turned to him in surprise. This was the road into town.

“Are we going somewhere else?”

“Yes,” he said, eyes on the road.

“What about Wunmi? I wanted to talk to her today!”

“Don’t worry, there’s time for that. But first you need to see more of my town.”

The new place had an open-sided pavilion in front, where we sat. At the back was a long building from which poured cheering voices and TV football commentary. The bartender that emerged at Babasegun’s shout was a pudgy, sweating man. He frowned at us in greeting, acknowledged Babasegun’s order with a grunt. He brought the beers and glasses but forgot the bottle opener. It took him twenty minutes to return with that, by which time we had discovered that the glasses were crusted with dried beer foam. Babasegun spoke roughly to him about his bad service. He picked up the glasses and stomped away.

“The idiot is watching football,” Babasegun said. “It’s Man United and Chelsea today. That’s why everyone’s inside, that’s why he’s behaving like that.”

“Sorry, not a big fan of football,” I said.

“Me too — can’t stand it. If I had remembered the match was today we would have gone to a bar that has no TV.”

“It’s okay here,” I said. “As long as he brings us clean glasses.”

“The problem is, he won’t return for the next hour. Do you mind drinking from the bottle? Or should I go and get the glasses?”

His car key and mobile phone were on the table. “Watch these for me, some of the people who come here are thieves.” Then he left.

Beside the front steps of the pavilion a suya mallam stood over a basin of blazing coals. Smoke swirled about his face, rose from the roasting meat, a cloud of aroma. I called him over and ordered some suya. “With plenty of onions and pepper,” I said as he walked away. I watched him baste the skewered meat with groundnut oil, then place it on the wire grille. Oil dripped from the meat, coals burst into flame. After a few minutes he removed the meat from the grille and sliced it up, flapping his fingers now and again. He sprinkled the meat with ginger-and-chili powder, garnished it with sliced onions and diced tomato, then packed it in newspaper. He approached the table and placed the wrap before me, then strode away, counting my money.

Babasegun’s phone rang.

The first two times, I sat back and enjoyed the music. The third time I reached over, picked it up, looked at the screen. The caller was “JK.”

Babasegun arrived with the glasses as the phone rang for the seventh time. He frowned at the screen. He filled his glass to the brim with beer and took a long drink, smacked his lips and licked foam off them, then poured a refill.

“Who’s JK?” I asked.

He froze with his hand around the Trophy bottle and stared at me, face searching for an expression. Releasing his grip, he raised the hand to rub his mouth. Then his gaze moved past my face, over my shoulder, into the distance, from where his voice came.

“Joke,” he said. “Her name is Joke.”

She was persistent, this Joke. Every time she called, he cut the phone off. He talked about his wife, who was a small-goods trader; about his three sons, who were his world entire; about his university days, when he had high hopes he would one day hold a better job than what he was now stuck with. The phone kept ringing: his monologue was interrupted by short bursts of Tupac’s rap. One line, repeated over and over. Somebody wake me I’m dreaming.

I was preparing to complain when he rose, snatched the phone off the table and said, “A moment, please,” in a fierce, breathless voice, then marched off.

He strolled back nearly a quarter of an hour later. I said: “I finished the suya. It’s best while it’s hot. I couldn’t just sit here and let a good thing go to waste.”

He stopped in front of his chair, gazed at me, then squeezed closed one eyelid and pushed out his lips in a pout. “Okay. But I’ll get you back!” He bent down and grasped his kneecaps, then fell back into the chair with a groan. He stretched his legs under the table and his foot struck mine.

“What’s going on between you and Joke?”

His neck stiffened. “None of your business!”

I shrugged, looked away, raised my glass and sipped.

“I don’t like talking about it,” he said.

Staring at the tabletop, I ran my fuck-you finger around the rim of my glass.

“She’s my student,” he said with a sigh. “We’ve been seeing each other for two years now, but I’m trying to end it. She doesn’t want to stop.”

“Your student! Interesting. What class is she in?”

“Senior Secondary Two.”

“How old?”

“Sixteen.”

“You lucky dog!”

A smile softened his face. “She’s a bad girl, don’t let her age fool you,” he said.

“So why do you want to end it?”

He parted his lips to speak, but at that moment a wild cheer burst from the barroom, drowning out everything. Manchester United had scored.

When the celebration ended, I repeated my question. “Because,” Babasegun said, drawing out the word. He breathed in, breathed out, slow and steady. “She will soon put me in trouble. She’s fucking everybody, small boys, big men, even some of my friends. The way she’s going, she will soon catch something. She has aborted two times already. If she gets pregnant again, how will I know it’s mine?”

“That bad?”

“Yes, she is. Rotten.” Then he added quickly: “She was already that way before.”

My curiosity was piqued by this spoiled young thing hidden away in a dead-end town. I wondered what she looked like, wondered how wild she really was. I wanted to know her.

“Let me help you,” I said, and smiled at Babasegun, my cheeks aching with stiffness. “Let me take her off your hands. Let me make her forget you. Introduce me.”

Babasegun threw back his head and laughed. His cheekbones swayed, his tribal marks shifted, his foot knocked my shin under the table. He poured beer and drank, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Bad boy!” he said, slapping the tabletop, rattling the bottles. “I knew you liked women, I knew you were my kind of guy. My man! ” He stretched out his arm and we bumped fists. Then he turned serious, said:

“If I introduce you, forget it. She’ll never do anything with you. She’ll think I sent you to trap her. The only way you’ll get her is on your own. But I can help.”

He gave me her mobile phone number and told me the best way to approach her. Be upfront about what you want, he said. Don’t woo. Tell her to come and see you at your hotel.

That night, when he dropped me off at the hotel gate, I leaned into the passenger-side window and thanked him for being a good friend, one willing to share his beer and his girl. Then I asked the question.

“Are you sure you’re through with her? You’re sure you won’t go back?”

“I’m sure,” he said. “I’ll never go back.”

The following day, after my class, about three o’ clock, I called her.

“Hello? Who’s this?”

“My name is Iggy. Is this Joke?”

“Yes.”

“Hello, Joke.”

“What do you want?”

She sounded different than I’d imagined. Colder, bolder. My heartbeat quickened. Her voice was attractive, husky and refined. Not your average small-town girl’s.

“Actually, erm, I’m new in this town.” I coughed to clear my throat. “I got your number from a friend who met you when he passed through here some months ago. He said you’re a nice person to hang out with.”

The phone line crackled, sounding like Babasegun’s car player when the tape ran out.

“Joke? Are you there?”

“What’s your friend’s name?”

The fierceness in her voice caught me off guard. I said the first name that came to mind.

“Chinua. His name is Chinua.”

Bush-fire static. I could feel the gears clicking in her head.

“I can’t remember any Chinua from out of town,” she said. Her voice softened, took on a faraway quality. “Chinua, Chinua. . no, I don’t think I’ve met any Chinua who doesn’t live here. Are you sure that’s who gave you my number?”

I released a long hiss of breath into the phone. “I got your number from a friend, and his name is Chinua, that’s all. Can you come and meet me?” I said the name of my hotel and my room number. “There’s something important I want to discuss with you.”

“What is it?”

“Not on the phone.”

“All right, when do you want me to come?”

I tried to speak but my throat was dry. I held the phone away from my mouth and coughed till I tasted rawness. I dabbed at my eyes with my knuckles, then raised the phone and said, “Come now.”

“Today?”

“Yes. I’m waiting for you.”

“Well, I’m not far from your hotel,” she said. Short pause. “Give me an hour.”

I was standing in the bathroom doorway when the phone line went dead. I walked to the bed, sat at the edge. One hour. Joke. Babasegun was right. He was a stand-up guy, he had delivered. A song rose in my head. Somebody wake me I’m dreaming.

The TV showed NN24. I pointed the remote control, changed the channel to MTV, and then raised the volume until the walls vibrated with music. On the screen, Lady Gaga in an Andy Warhol fantasy. Sterile. I glanced around: the room was a mess. I rose, swept everything off the bed — my dirty clothes, the pile of porn DVDs I watched at night on my laptop, the two books I’d brought along but hadn’t yet begun reading, the TV remote control, and my skin lotion — and arranged the sheets.

The next evening, Babasegun called my phone to give directions to a new bar, where we agreed to meet at seven. This was the third time he had phoned me, and I could tell he was more comfortable spending money on beer than on phone credits. He had so far refused to let me pay for my drinks; he always picked up the tab. On the phone he spoke in a rush, his greeting curt and his sentences short. Rude. He dropped the call while I was still speaking.

I left my room at a few minutes to seven and flagged down a motorcycle taxi in front of the hotel gate. I arrived at the rendezvous four minutes late. The Saab was parked by the roadside. The bar was outside. It was smaller, seedier, and more exposed than the bar opposite my hotel. Babasegun sat on a long wooden bench, which he shared with two men. He smiled when he saw me. He wore a tailor-made shirt in green and yellow nsibidi print. There was an opened bottle of Trophy on a stool in front of him. An empty bottle lolled at his feet.

“I don’t like this place,” I said as I settled beside him on the grime-patinaed bench. “Let’s stick to the bar near my hotel. I’m sorry, I know you want to show me around, but I really need to settle that Wunmi business.”

Babasegun looked at me with surprise. “What about Joke? I thought you met her yesterday?”

“No. She didn’t come, she stood me up.”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious.”

Babasegun drank from his glass, wiped his mouth backhanded. “That’s strange, very strange,” he said under his breath. His hand palmed his scarred cheek in slow circles. “You sure she didn’t find out that you know me?”

“I don’t know. If she did, it’s not from me. I called her, we spoke, and we agreed to meet. She did not show up. I’ve been calling her since last night to find out what happened, but she’s not answering—”

I stopped and listened; the hairs at the back of my neck prickled. I turned around to find an old woman standing close, watching me. Her eyelids were black with kohl. Her cotton-white hair was cornrowed. Her stringy arms, which rested akimbo on her hips, were covered with crude tattoos of names, dates, the birth details of her brood. Under the smell of mothballed fabric she gave off, I caught a whiff of catfish guts.

“Yes?” Babasegun said.

I waited for her to speak, then realized he was waiting for me.

“Yes what?” I asked, and, in a whisper: “Why is she staring at me?”

“Iya owns this bar. Tell her what you want to drink.”

I avoided her red, tired eyes. “Trophy,” I said. She made no move to leave.

“Iya’s catfish peppersoup is the best in town,” Babasegun said.

I nodded. He addressed her in Yoruba. She walked away.

Babasegun drank from his glass and then balanced it on his knee. “Now tell me what you told Joke,” he said.

As I prepared to speak, his phone rang.

“Speak of the devil.”

“Her?”

“Yes.”

“Will you answer?”

“No.”

I held out my hand. “Give it to me, let me speak to her.”

He hesitated. The phone stopped ringing. I waited, my hand outstretched. The phone rang again. He handed it over.

“Hello, Joke,” I said.

“Why are you doing this to me?” she yelled in my ear. “Tell me what I did!”

“This is not Babasegun. It’s me, Iggy.”

“What?”

“I called you yesterday, remember, the hotel? You were supposed to meet me.”

“Why are you with Baba’s phone?”

“He gave it to me to answer. He doesn’t want to talk to you.”

I could hear her breath whistling. On the horizon, far up in the starless sky, lightning sparked. The air was still, so clean it stung my throat. Babasegun watched me.

“Help me ask Baba what I did to him.” Her tone had softened.

“No, I can’t,” I said in a harsh tone. I felt the urge to hurt her, to poke her in broken places. “But I can tell you why he doesn’t want you anymore.”

The expression of alarm on Babasegun’s face made me feel better; I clamped my hand over my mouth to stifle my laughter. He threw me a weak, gloomy smile.

“Why?” Joke asked.

I could say it was because she fucked around; that he was afraid she would give him a baby or a disease; that he was tired of her — and all of those reasons would be true. But she was half woman, half child, and infatuated. For Babasegun’s sake I had to let her down easy.

“Look, Joke, you’re his student. He shouldn’t have done anything with you. He wants to stop it now, before it’s too late.”

She laughed: a mirthless bark. “That’s not the reason. Ask him to tell you the real reason.”

“Okay, I’ll ask him.”

“I mean now. Ask him now. I’ll wait.”

I lowered the phone, turned to Babasegun, and rolled my eyes. “Joke says you should tell me the real reason you want to break up with her.”

He arched his eyebrows into question marks. “The real reason?” he said in a loud voice. “She’s been talking too much, she’s been telling her friends about us, and now my wife has heard. The other teachers are becoming suspicious. If they find out, I’ll be in trouble. There are other reasons I won’t mention — no need to open our nyash in public. She knows we have to stop. She’s just being stubborn.”

I heard the angry buzz of her voice as I raised the phone. “—big fat lies!” she screamed into my ear.

“What he said seems reasonable, Joke.” I held the phone away from my ear, looked around to make sure we were alone — the two men who shared the bench with us had left — and put the phone on loudspeaker. Her voice leaped out, rat-tat-tating.

“Don’t believe him! He said I’m telling people about us, that his wife found out because of me? Am I the only girl he’s friending in that school? I know like five girls, one of them is even my classmate! How come his wife didn’t hear about them? Then he’s talking about teachers — that he will get in trouble. Let him not make me laugh! Which of the male teachers are not doing what he’s doing? Which of them don’t have girlfriends?”

I set the phone on the bench between me and Babasegun. He stood up. “I’m coming,” he whispered, and hurried away like a man with a full bladder. Ha ha, I thought.

“What? What is he saying?” Joke asked.

“Nothing.” I drummed the bench with my fingers, and then said quickly, before she started up again: “Now, Joke, calm down, I’ve heard you. But all the things you’ve said don’t change the fact that Babasegun doesn’t want to be with you anymore.”

“Listen well, brother,” she said, her voice unsteady, “when he was chasing me two years ago, I refused, I didn’t want to do anything with him, but he didn’t stop, he worried me until I agreed. Now that he has got what he wanted he wants to throw me away just like that? No way, never! We will continue what we’re doing.”

There was a movement behind me. Babasegun approached with Iya, who bore a tray from which rose wreaths of steam. I picked up the phone, turned off the loudspeaker, held it to my ear.

“I don’t know what to say,” I said. “I can only advise you. You can’t force a man when he says he’s had enough.”

“I said listen to me! I know Baba well, he doesn’t want to stop, he just wants me to beg!”

The bench creaked as Babasegun sat down. Iya placed a Trophy beer, a glass, and a chinaware bowl in front of me. A big-headed, black-skinned catfish bobbed in the broth that filled the bowl to brimming. I looked away when Joke spoke.

“I know what I’m saying. This is not the first time he’s told me it’s over. If he really wants to stop, how come he calls me every time he needs me? When I call him he won’t pick up his phone, but whenever he wants me to do something he will start calling me! He’s been doing this for more than a month, since September, telling me it’s over, refusing to answer my calls. But last Sunday he called me in the morning, he picked me up from my house, we did it in the backseat of his car before he dropped me at church. If you don’t believe me, ask him!”

A wave of exhaustion washed over me. This conversation would go on forever if I allowed it. It was now clear there was no hope for me here.

“I believe you,” I said.

All I wanted at this moment was to dig my teeth into catfish flesh, to eat my peppersoup and drink my beer. As if she read my thoughts, Joke said: “You answered his phone so you deliver this message to him. I have gone out with men who are not ashamed to be with me, so I don’t need him, that common schoolteacher, with his ugly tribal marks! I have never asked him for money, never collected one kobo from him! Ask him. Even the times he made me pregnant, I removed it with my own money. I don’t need him!”

“Okay, I agree, you don’t need him. Can I tell him you will never contact him again?”

The phone burned against my cheek, overheated from talking. The air smelled like rain. Babasegun was eating my peppersoup.

“Joke?”

“I can’t!” she wailed. So loudly that I winced and jerked my head away. Then I returned the phone to my ear.

“Why can’t you?”

“I don’t know, I don’t understand.” Her voice was choked. “Every time I see Baba my feelings get stronger. When I’m not with him I’m always thinking about him. Anytime we quarrel, anytime he refuses to answer my call, I become useless. Because of him I can’t stay with one boyfriend. None of them can be like him. It’s like something is tying us together. Baba knows what it is. He knows what he has done to me. Let him release me. I will go, I will stop begging, I will stop calling his phone, but let him release me first.”

I looked at Babasegun eating my peppersoup, and wondered about him. Whatever he had done to her, he had done it well.

“I’ll talk to Babasegun,” I said, and glanced again at him. He was ripping off catfish chunks with his teeth and fingers. He shook his head in warning, his jaws munching. “I have to go now. But don’t worry, I’ll tell him what you said.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Can I call you later? To get Baba’s reply?”

“No. I’ll call you. Bye.”

I held out the phone to Babasegun. He grasped it with the thumb and pinkie of his left hand, and dropped it in his lap. He licked his fingers, one after the other, sucking the nails. A pile of bones lay beside the peppersoup bowl. He followed my gaze.

“You have to eat it while it’s hot,” he said with a tomcat grin. “I couldn’t just sit here and watch you waste a good thing!”

It started to rain on the drive to the hotel. A few fat drops at first, which struck the earth like bird shit. Then churning wind, dust spraying the windshield, sand gritting in my eyes and between my teeth. The water came in hard, a pounding roar. We had wound up the windows; the glass was misted over. Few cars appeared out of the muffled night. Raindrops glinted in the truncated beam of the Saab headlights. Babasegun was hunched forward, his nose almost touching the steering wheel, his hands latched tight around it. I hoped he could see where he was going, because I couldn’t.

I looked up when I heard him curse, but it was too late, the pothole was right in front of us, a rite of passage. The front of the car dipped, the underside scraped the road, and the tires spun, throwing up waves of muddy water. Babasegun yanked the gearstick and throttled the car. The engine whined, the car bucked like a rodeo bull, and then clambered out of the pothole. Moments after my shout of joy, the engine coughed, shed horsepower, stalled, and then fired up again. The chassis lurched forward. The engine grumbled and hissed and spewed angry white steam clouds. Then the car rolled to a stop, raindrops drumming the roof.

“Kai!” Babasegun exclaimed, and smacked the steering wheel with the flat of his hand. He turned the key, rattled it — nothing.

“We’re in the middle of the road.” I turned my head to see if headlights were approaching.

Babasegun muttered under his breath. He set the gearstick in neutral, threw open the door and stepped out, wedged his shoulder against the doorframe and strained forward, guiding the steering wheel with his right hand. I remained seated. If he didn’t ask, I wouldn’t offer.

By the time he slid into the driver’s seat and pulled the door shut, he was drenched. Water rolled down his face and neck, his arms, dripping onto the seat, pattering the rubber floor mat. He turned to me and said, “We’ll have to leave the car here. We won’t find okadas at this time, not in the rain. We’ll have to walk to the taxi park behind Town Hall. It’s not far.”

He gave the car a quick onceover, then placed his hand on the door handle. “Ready?”

“For what?”

“To go, it’s getting late.” He drew his mobile phone from his right hip pocket and looked at the screen. “It’s past eleven.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “There’s no way I’m going out in that rain.”

“Ah!” Babasegun sank back into his seat, raised his hand and rubbed his cheek. “This kind of rain doesn’t stop for hours — we’ll be here all night if we wait.” I remained silent. “Please,” he said. “I’ve already stayed out too late. My wife traveled yesterday. My boys are alone at home.”

“I can’t go out in that rain. You can leave me. I’ll lock up and return your key tomorrow.”

“I can’t do that, I can’t leave you here,” Babasegun said in a sullen voice. He rested his forehead against the side glass. “This rain won’t stop today. Look, it’s getting heavier.”

It was. The car was hemmed in by walls of water.

“Is that your final decision? That we should wait out the rain?”

“I have to. I’m sorry.”

“Okay, I give up.” He reached for his phone and punched in a number, then held it to his ear. “Answer, answer,” he muttered under his breath, tapping the steering wheel with his free hand. “Hello?” he said in a relieved voice. “Joke?”

I stared at him in amazement.

“I have a problem. My car broke down and I’m stuck in this storm. Long story, I’ll tell you later. The children are alone at home.

Mama Wasiu traveled. Can you go to my house right now? The key is where I usually leave it, under the big flowerpot.”

He listened. I strained to hear.

“Send them to bed. You sleep in my room,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning. Don’t forget to take along your school uniform so I can drop you off. Your toothbrush is in my toilet bag. Okay, bye.”

He tossed the phone on the dashboard, and stared out through the windshield, silent. I too remained silent, thinking. Then I cleared my throat.

“Tomorrow’s the last day of my workshop,” I said. “The club is organizing a farewell party at the bar opposite my hotel. Starts at five.”

“When are you leaving?” he asked.

“Early the following day — car’s already booked. It will pick me from the hotel at eight.”

He was silent a moment. “At least we can agree on one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“You like Trophy.”

“I do! I’m a fan now.”

He laughed. Lightning flashed. I caught a glint in his eyes. And then his profile, black in the dark.

He asked, “What about Wunmi? Do you still want her?”

“Yes. I meant to ask your advice about that.”

“Okay then, listen up. .”

His plan worked. Wunmi was everything I wanted — especially with the knowledge that the first time was the last. My only regret was that I couldn’t chat about it afterwards with Babasegun over a cold bottle of Trophy, or over the phone.

Babasegun did not attend my farewell party and he did not pick up my calls. The last time I spoke with him was in that car, the black vinyl-upholstered Saab that in my mind was linked forever with Tupac’s music. Two men in a dead car in a rainstorm in a sleeping town, chatting long into the night, until we grew drowsy from the sound of our voices, until I climbed into the backseat and curled up in sleep, and woke up the next morning to find a bright new sun staring at me through the rain-washed windshield, and Babasegun gone.