“I get someting for vous,” Fofo Kpee said to calm us down. He sank into his bed and dug into the portmanteau and offered us little cones of peanuts and half-melted toffees from his pocket, which we chewed in the wrappers. That night Fofo didn’t tell us stories about which he laughed louder than we did. He brought out a bottle of Niyya guava juice and poured us a drink. “Hey, temps de celebration,” Fofo Kpee said. “We tank God!”
“We bless his name!” we responded.
He raised his cup. “Ah, we no create poverty. . . . Cheers à la Nanfang!”
“Cheers!” we responded, tipping our cups.
It had been a long time since we had fruit juice. Yewa drank hers immediately, in one long endless gulp, tilting the cup so quickly that the juice poured from both sides of her face and dribbled onto her belly, thick red teardrops. I took one gulp and stopped, thinking it would be better to save the juice until dinner, and went to set my cup down on a safe spot between the lantern stand and the wall.
The excitement of that night was such that when we finally descended on the Abakaliki rice and stew of onions, kpomo, and palm oil, we didn’t mind if we found little pebbles in the rice. No matter how thoroughly you picked the rice for stones, you couldn’t get rid of all of them. Now, occasionally, we cracked a pebble, held our jaws, and washed down the half-chewed food with juice. Though Fofo Kpee used to scold me each time he bit into a pebble, because it was my job to pick the rice, that night he didn’t. We were celebrating our Nanfang. And with my stingy sips of juice, I could stand any amount of sand in the rice that night.
When I got down to the last gulp, I stopped and saved it. I had water instead and ate and drank until my stomach filled up, the palm oil in the stew yellowing my lips. Then I downed the rest of the juice so the taste would remain in my mouth until I went to bed.
“KOTCHIKPA, MY BOY, QUICK quick, go prepare de inner room for de Nanfang!” Fofo Kpee told me after dinner.
“Yes, Fofo Kpee,” I said.
“Let the Nanfang stay here!” Yewa appealed to him. She was still jumping up and down, celebrating.
“Ah non, my gal,” Fofo said. “Next room for Nanfang.”
“I shall sleep inside, then,” my sister said, bowing her head to her chest and looking sad. “With Nanfang.”
“Je dis non, Yewa,” Fofo insisted, and tried to change the subject: “I go buy tree new book for you. Your teacher go dey happy well well for you now, yes?”
“I don’t want books,” Yewa said.
“Hmmm, you no want book?” he asked. “D’accord, new crayons? Pencils?”
She shook her head. “I want to sleep avec Nanfang . . .”
“Haba!” Fofo Kpee shut her up.
Yewa sat down on the floor in protest, facing the machine, her back to us. Fofo went over and squatted behind her and caressed her shoulders, while she shrugged and tried to push him off.
“Ah, mon Yewa, mon Yewa,” he sweet-talked her, “you go learn how to write. You be future professor!”
“No,” Yewa said, shaking her head vigorously, as if a bug had just entered her nostril. Yewa was like that when she set her mind on something, stubborn and saying little.
“Ah non, you no want be agbero like me, oui?”
“Leave me alone.”
Fofo leaned over to pour more juice into her cup, but she refused.
“Why you no want be good gal today?” he said. “Well, Kotchikpa no go write for you. Everyone must learn to write. Education est one person, one vote.”
Yewa was silent.
“Yewa, tu es toujours un bébé!” I said, trying to coax her out of her stubbornness. “Crybaby!”
“Leave me alone.”
“Oya, I go buy you sandal for school” Fofo Kpee begged her. She still didn’t get up, so Fofo stood, shrugged, and came and sat on his bed and faced me. “Kotchikpa, je t’acheterai two textbook plus an exercise book, d’accord?”
“Books for me?” I said, excited. “When?”
“Tomorrow. You no go borrow book again for school. Since you like to read, you go dey read every night.”
“Thanks, Fofo Kpee,” I said, and glanced at the new bike, as if to acknowledge that without it coming into our lives I wouldn’t have had what I needed for school.
“Witout education, you children, comme moi, go just rot for dis town, where danger full everywhere. No, I go try make sure say una go dey rich. I go even make sure say una go come be like de children of our politicians and leaders. Una go go school sef for abroad.” He paused, then turned sharply to Yewa. “Hey, mon bébé, no problem if you no want be professor. Abi, you want become international businesswoman, yes? Anyway, you go dey cross dis ocean to Gabon, go come, go come, as if you dey go toilet,” he said, snapping his fingers and pointing in the direction of the ocean.
“Give us a ride on the Nanfang,” Yewa said suddenly, in a petulant voice. I felt she wanted to be granted this, since she couldn’t sleep in the same room with the Nanfang.
“Easy, pourquoi pas?” our uncle said, going over to pour her more juice. “C’est tout?”
“Yes, take us out, Fofo, please,” said Yewa, turning around. She was struggling not to smile, trying to remain angry, as if she still had all the power.
“Oh no, me I be responsible man,” Fofo Kpee said in a cooing voice, and smiled a large smile. His face creased and lessened the tension on his left eye, making the scar on his cheek look artificial. “How me go come risk una life when I never sabi how to drive de zoke˙ke˙ yet? Gimme time . . . I go carry you go anywhere. . . . Bois . . . bois. Drink . . . drink.”
“Allons Braffe! To see Papa and Mama!” I said.
My sister quickly unstuck her mouth from the cup, swallowed, and said breathlessly, “Yes, yes, to Braffe . . . to Braffe!”
“Absolutement,” Fofo said.
“Tomorrow,” Yewa said.
“No . . . impossible.”
“Mr. Big Guy will ride us,” I said.
Fofo shook his head. “Ah non, you want shame me, mes enfants? How me go arrive for Braffe village when I never fit drive my zoke˙ke˙? No, make we wait small. I go learn fast. . . . Even sef, I never get enough money to visit Braffe now.”
“Papa and Mama will be happy to see us and the Nanfang,” Yewa said, and got up and came to sit on the bed with me.
“Grandpapa will give you many handshakes. Grandmama will dance,” I said. “Hey, let’s go on Monday.”
“Kotchikpa, Monday?” Fofo Kpee said incredulously. “No, I go first come your school to pay school fees on Monday. . . . School before pleasure, right, mon peuple, right?”
“Yes, Fofo,” I said. When I looked at my sister, happiness had taken over her face. She started babbling about our family in the village.
We hadn’t seen them for one and a half years, since Fofo came to the village to take us to live with him. Papa, a short chubby man with a stern face, was bedridden, tended by our dutiful and teary grandmother. Mama, a mountain of a woman, with an everlasting smile and restless energy, had already lost her bulk, become emaciated, and couldn’t walk to the farm without resting two or three times under the ore trees by the roadside. No matter how many times we asked, nobody volunteered any information about our parents’ sickness. Our relatives talked in hushed voices about it, a big family secret. However, by eavesdropping, I learned that my parents had AIDS, though I didn’t know what it meant then.