“She’s going to be naked?” my sister asked, alarmed.
“Impossible!” I said.
“Not really,” Fofo said. “But if you see her change her dress, na one of dose tings.”
“No,” she said.
“When you get sister for family, na like dat . . . but we be family, oui?” We nodded reluctantly without saying anything. “And no shame if una see your godparents’ nakedness. No big difference dey between ome˙nno˙to˙ le˙. Naked people nulopo lo˙ wé yé yin . . . partout. Your godparents dey run a world organization. You go see all kind of people for Gabon. You go see white people, colored people, tourists who support de work of your godparents. Do whatever dem want—go beach wid dem, go hotel wid dem . . . if dem want take una go Europe, follow dem. Even if una no like dem, soiyez patience, no condition dey permanent . . .”
“But you’re coming with us,” I cut in, uncomfortable with what he was saying. Yewa was shaking her head in disagreement.
“Whatever de case,” Fofo said, “make good use of l’opportunité. Don’t worry. No big deal for all dis . . . gbòjé!”
The dread that had hung around him since he awoke from his nightmare went away now. Apart from his nakedness, he looked very normal. His whole body glowed with sweat except his bushy pubic hair, out of which hung a limp penis, its head smooth like mango skin, its body wearing a tube of tiny rings of flesh, like the neck of an oba in an odigba.
Suddenly, Fofo Kpee parted his legs and grabbed his genitals as if to push them back into the bush.
“You naked, I naked, why you fear?” he said like one reciting a poem. “You have it, I have it. My own big, your own small, right? Say ‘hén, Fofo,’ s’il vous plaît!”
“Yes, Fofo,” we stammered, and nodded.
“Let talk about sex, mes bébés,” he began to sing, and wriggled like a madman. “Let talk about vous and moi.” He balled one hand into a microphone, the other still grabbing his genitals. He skulked around the room as if he were on stage; he jumped onto the table, then jumped down. He moonwalked until his back grazed the clothes in the wardrobe. He stopped suddenly, with one leg raised in frozen posture. “You know de song?”
“No,” we said.
“You want touch my ting? Come on, do it, allez, touchez moi.”
He was now coming toward us.
“No, no!” I said, and we backed away.
My sister was silent. She never spoke again that night but shielded her privates with her hands and moved behind me.
“Oh, you want touch your ting, mes enfants?”
“No,” I said.
I felt a numbness around my groin, and my heart began to pound. I didn’t feel the heat anymore, though I noticed more sweat was pouring from my body. My penis seemed to have shrunk completely, and my balls became one hard nut. I knew immediately this was different from my fofo’s ordinary clowning. I was afraid.
“Or you want touch white man, Mary, huh?” he said.
Yewa shook her head.
When he turned his gaze on me, I said, “Maybe we should not go to Gabon . . .”
“Shut up, bastard!” he exploded, and shook his head and downed more payó. “You want drink, abi?”
“No.”
“You want woman?”
“No.”
“Just don’t disgrace me for foreign land o . . . you hear?”
“No.”
“Non?”
“Yes, Fofo.”
We stared at each other for a while. “Good, at least,” he said, “you no dey hide your face anymore. Gbòjé, gbòjé!”
He held the cap of his penis by his fingertips and stretched it downward until the rings of flesh disappeared. He spun and released it like a cone. It didn’t turn but returned weakly to its perch on the balls. He continued to do this until his penis began to get bigger. He giggled and tied his wrappa around his waist again and sat on the bed.
“Would you like some food?” he said.
“No,” I said.
“Sure, Mary? Some Gabon food, cornflakes, Nido, huh?”
“I want to sleep,” she whispered.
That night I tried to convince myself that I was drunk, that none of this had really happened. In spite of the heat, I put on my shorts and turned my back toward Fofo and lay with my hands between my legs, trying to protect myself even in sleep. My sister simply wrapped herself up in the bedspread. I was repulsed by thoughts of traveling to Gabon. I no longer felt at home in our place. It was as if every piece of furniture had been stained by Fofo’s performance that night. My mind sank deeper into shame and fear as I remembered all the things we had bought since we started thinking of going to Gabon. For instance, I hated the very shorts I was wearing and thought of taking them off, but I couldn’t bring myself to sleep naked that night. I hated the Nanfang and vowed never to ride on it again.
For the first time, I sympathized with Paul—and wished I could have vomited, like him, all the good food I had ever eaten in the past few months. I wondered how he and Antoinette were doing. Did they know something we didn’t know? Did they go through their orientation before visiting us? Who would be giving them this lesson? Big Guy?
I wasn’t interested in traveling anymore, though somehow my mind refused to associate my godparents with what had happened that night. I felt better thinking they didn’t know, and took solace in the memory of their visit. Though I no longer felt like following them, I didn’t think they meant us any harm. And though Fofo apologized to us the next morning and said he overdid things just a bit in case life became difficult abroad, I started thinking of how to escape and run back to Braffe with my sister.
ONE DAY FOFO RUSHED back from work unexpectedly, like in his pre-Nanfang days when he had duped someone at the border and needed to go underground. He jumped off his bike and stormed into the parlor. He quickly locked the door behind him and leaned against it, breathing like one who had escaped from a lion. Uncharacteristically, Fofo had abandoned the Nanfang outside. He didn’t respond to our greetings. He mumbled something about protecting us from evil and started unbolting the windows. A humid gust of wind drifted in and flushed the room of the stuffiness that had filled the place since we sealed the house three weeks before.
“Yes, if dem want kill me, ye ni hù mì,” he said to no one in particular. He had his arms akimbo and seemed very proud of this single action of opening the windows. Then he removed his coat and sat down heavily on the bed.
“Fofo, who wants to kill you?” Yewa asked quietly, not moving closer to him.
Since that night when he went naked before us, we were scared to get close to him and said very little to him. He said little to us too. Silence grew between us like yeast, and the room felt smaller, while his presence seemed to expand. We looked forward to his leaving the house, and when he was home, sometimes we pretended to be asleep.
Now I began to speak to him from our bed: “Fofo, are you . . . ?”
“Leave me alone!” he warned, holding his forehead in his palms. “Vous pensez que I dey craze, huh?”
“No, no, Fofo,” I pleaded.
“I dey OK . . . notting dey wrong wid me.”
Yewa didn’t say anything. Now she hid behind me, as she did that bad night. The fresh wind filled the room, and we listened to it and the distant wash of the ocean on the beach. After a while, she whispered in my ear that we should go outside, but when I grabbed her hand and wanted to leave the room, he ordered us to sit on the bed. My sister began to sob.