“Igbo men take care of women real good,” Aisha repeated. “I want marry. They love me but they say the family want Igbo woman. Because Igbo marry Igbo always.”
Ifemelu swallowed the urge to laugh. “You want to marry both of them?”
“No.” Aisha made an impatient gesture. “I want marry one. But this thing is true? Igbo marry Igbo always?”
“Igbo people marry all kinds of people. My cousin’s husband is Yoruba. My uncle’s wife is from Scotland.”
Aisha paused in her twisting, watching Ifemelu in the mirror, as though deciding whether to believe her.
“My sister say it is true. Igbo marry Igbo always,” she said.
“How does your sister know?”
“She know many Igbo people in Africa. She sell cloth.”
“Where is she?”
“In Africa.”
“Where? In Senegal?”
“Benin.”
“Why do you say Africa instead of just saying the country you mean?” Ifemelu asked.
Aisha clucked. “You don’t know America. You say Senegal and American people, they say, Where is that? My friend from Burkina Faso, they ask her, your country in Latin America?” Aisha resumed twisting, a sly smile on her face, and then asked, as if Ifemelu could not possibly understand how things were done here, “How long you in America?”
Ifemelu decided then that she did not like Aisha at all. She wanted to curtail the conversation now, so that they would say only what they needed to say during the six hours it would take to braid her hair, and so she pretended not to have heard and instead brought out her phone. Dike had still not replied to her text. He always replied within minutes, or maybe he was still at basketball practice, or with his friends, watching some silly video on YouTube. She called him and left a long message, raising her voice, going on and on about his basketball practice and was it as hot up in Massachusetts and was he still taking Page to see the movie today. Then, feeling reckless, she composed an e-mail to Obinze and, without permitting herself to reread it, she sent it off. She had written that she was moving back to Nigeria and, even though she had a job waiting for her, even though her car was already on a ship bound for Lagos, it suddenly felt true for the first time. I recently decided to move back to Nigeria.
Aisha was not discouraged. Once Ifemelu looked up from her phone, Aisha asked again, “How long you in America?”
Ifemelu took her time putting her phone back into her bag. Years ago, she had been asked a similar question, at a wedding of one of Aunty Uju’s friends, and she had said two years, which was the truth, but the jeer on the Nigerian’s face had taught her that, to earn the prize of being taken seriously among Nigerians in America, among Africans in America, indeed among immigrants in America, she needed more years. Six years, she began to say when it was just three and a half. Eight years, she said when it was five. Now that it was thirteen years, lying seemed unnecessary but she lied anyway.
“Fifteen years,” she said.
“Fifteen? That long time.” A new respect slipped into Aisha’s eyes.
“You live here in Trenton?”
“I live in Princeton.”
“Princeton.” Aisha paused. “You student?”
“I’ve just finished a fellowship,” she said, knowing that Aisha would not understand what a fellowship was, and in the rare moment that Aisha looked intimidated, Ifemelu felt a perverse pleasure. Yes, Princeton. Yes, the sort of place that Aisha could only imagine, the sort of place that would never have signs that said QUICK TAX REFUND; people in Princeton did not need quick tax refunds.
“But I’m going back home to Nigeria,” Ifemelu added, suddenly remorseful. “I’m going next week.”
“To see the family.”
“No. I’m moving back. To live in Nigeria.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? Why not?”
“Better you send money back. Unless your father is big man? You have connections?”
“I’ve found a job there,” she said.