The noise from the TVs replaced the din of the bus, as everybody hushed and turned their attention to the screens. Everyone in the toilet line looked back to catch the action—except Jubril, who had reopened his eyes and was thinking about how to overcome this latest hurdle. He wanted so much to be part of the crowd in every way. It was no longer about whether Allah would punish him for watching TV. It was just that his conservatism stiffened his neck, and he kept his back to the screen. Jubril wanted to relax and let his guard down. But, now, wherever he looked he seemed to be confronted by faces. It was like driving against traffic. He tried to look at the ceiling but could not even manage that. Feeling that his predicament was written all over his face and that it might draw attention to him, Jubril stared at his canvas shoes. He looked so hard that he could have counted each tiny thread, but he did not actually see anything. Fear rose and spread over him like goose bumps. The fingers of his left hand became sweaty and trembled. His cut wrist was numb, and he tried to move his elbow into a more comfortable position.
When he tried to turn around to face the TVs, he could only make it halfway, like a clogged wheel, and found himself looking out a window, a welcome distraction. He poured his gaze into it.
The sun had gone down. The crowd outside the bus was not as restless as before. More refugees had crowded onto the few verandas. Some people sat wherever there was space in the park, clutching their belongings, expecting other buses. Everybody looked tired, and even the chatter was subdued.
Out on the savannah, as if in a dream, some of the evergreen trees seemed to swell as they let out gentle sprays of bats into the twilight. High in the sky the bats mixed and mingled and flew in one direction, toward the park, as if blown by the wind. It looked like a giant shapeless figure with many legs atop the evergreen trees. They gradually filled up the sky. After a while, it was like a big black wave, stretched out, bobbing, shrieking through the dusk.
Someone tapped Jubril on the legs. He looked down, then quickly away. It was the pregnant lady, seated on the floor, breast-feeding her baby. Her name was Monica. She had escaped with just her baby. Her big eyes were red from crying, and her face was swollen with sleeplessness. She held on to her infant with all tenderness. She was wearing a long white dress that someone had given her in the course of her flight. Two sizes too big, it seemed to provide the extra cloth she needed to nurse in.
“Haba, my broder, you no fit even watch TV?” Monica teased Jubril, an uneasy smile washing over her face.
“Me?” Jubril mumbled like the chief, pretending to watch the bats outside.
“You alone dey suffer for dis riot? Or you want tell me say your situation bad pass de sick man wey police comot for dis bus?”
Jubril nodded. “Yes.”
Though he had resigned himself to being in close proximity to women on this journey, the sight of a woman breast-feeding did not settle well with him. He did not like the fact that she was smiling at him or talking to him while doing this. He could not look down, for that would mean seeing her breasts. He did not want to talk with her, return the smile, or do anything to encourage her attention. Yet he tried to be gentle in his response. This woman had to be handled more carefully than the TV, he thought, because she was directing her attention to him and demanding a reply.
He wanted to move away, but where could he go? He looked back, making a conscious effort not to look at the TV, to search for Madam Aniema. He held his left hand like a visor over his eyes, to shield them from the TV’s images. The sight of Madam Aniema’s white hair and the memory of her kindness countered the discomfort that was beginning to build in his heart because of Monica and Tega and Ijeoma.
“Ah ah, which kind shakara be dis now,” Monica continued, and touched his leg again. “You dey cover your face as if sun dey for Luxurious Bus. You too proud. Abi, sadness dey do you like dis? Your situation no bad pass my situation o. Dem done burn my house; and my husband and my two children, I no see dem o. Only dis baby remain. But I no lose hope. But why I no go smile? Why I no go watch TV? Look at you: I dey talk to you, but you no even want look my face? You alone want go toilet?”
“No,” Jubril said, embarrassed, the word escaping from his mouth before he could stop it.
Monica chuckled, happy that at least she could get a rise out of him. “I see, maybe you get dysentery.”
“Mmmh,” Jubril groaned.
“Na wa for you o!”
The passengers seemed relieved to watch TV, and a certain peacefulness and order reigned: almost everybody was looking in the same direction. It was the first sign of unity Jubril had witnessed since he boarded the bus. Now, he could hear Emeka whispering sharply at people to bend or get out of the way so he could see the TV properly.
“No worry, de toilet line dey move like snail,” Monica whispered to Jubril. “At least, make de TV dey entertain you. You dey too serious for dis trip. . . . See, even my baby dey suck breast and dey watch TV. . . . Cheer up.”
“Mmmh.”
“No mind dis chakara boy!” Tega whispered to Monica. “Forget him. See how he dey pose wid one hand for pocket?”
Once the comment about his hand was made, Jubril turned and faced the TV sets, like everybody else—but with eyes closed. His pocketed wrist was hidden from the view of the women, and he pretended that he did not hear the comment about it. He shut his eyes so tight that there were wrinkles on his face. Closing his eyes was a split-second decision, a compromise that gave him peace. He was reassured that no one else would bother him for not looking in the right direction. A bit of his alienation from the others melted, and he felt more connected to his surroundings. The fact that the women did not bug him again was proof enough of that.
“Yes, now you dey act like a human being,” Monica said after a while, thinking that he was watching TV. She moved the baby from one breast to the other.
“Stop whispering over there!” Emeka said.
“Who make you crass plefect for dis bus?” Ijeoma hissed, as if she had been waiting to do so. “Yeye man, you no get TV for house? You be de dliver? Abi, conductor? Abi, you want brame women again?”
If Jubril had opened his eyes, he would have seen the TVs beaming beautiful foreign images. The clips they were watching could have been from one of those huge multinational TV empires. But since the logo had been wiped off—pirated pictures, you would say—by the local or national channels that broadcast them, you could not really tell.
Jubril could hear his fellow passengers laughing and making comments about the pictures. Emeka had been silenced, so people reacted freely. They hummed along with the jingles and were connected to the global village of advertisements, sports, fashion, and news. These images washed away, or washed over, the sadness and tension and anxiety of the refugees. It was like fresh air, and, though Jubril could not see the pictures, he could feel the good mood growing around him, like mushrooms in the dark; he knew people were being entertained, like Monica was saying. Though he forced himself to wear a stock smile, his eyes were still closed. The more relaxed he felt, the greater the temptation to open his eyes became. He did not give in. He closed his eyes so tight that a dizziness swam before them, then a dull pain pressed against them. He was like the blind and used his ears to decipher the situation around him. The voice of Monica stood out, annoying and too close for comfort.