Americanah

“You’ll have to come to Nigeria and see,” Emenike said, and winked, in what seemed to be a continuous flirtatiousness with Phillip.

Phillip was slender and elegant, his red silk shirt open at the neck. His mannerisms, supple gestures of his wrists, fingers swirling in the air, reminded Obinze of the boy in secondary school—his name was Hadome—who was said to pay junior students to suck his dick. Once, Emenike and two other boys had lured Hadome into the toilet and beat him up, Hadome’s eye swelling so quickly that, just before school was dismissed, it looked grotesque, like a big purple eggplant. Obinze had stood outside the toilet with other boys, boys who did not join in the beating but who laughed along, boys who taunted and goaded, boys who shouted “Homo! Homo!”

“This is our friend Alexa. Alexa’s just moved into a new place in Holland Park, after years in France, and so, lucky us, we’ll be seeing much more of her. She works in music publishing. She’s also a fantastic poet,” Emenike said.

“Oh, stop it,” Alexa said, and then turning to Obinze, she asked, “So where are you from, darling?”

“Nigeria.”

“No, no, I mean in London, darling.”

“I live in Essex, actually,” he said.

“I see,” she said, as though disappointed. She was a small woman with a very pale face and tomato-red hair. “Shall we eat, boys and girls?” She picked up one of the plates and examined it.

“I love these plates. Georgina and Emenike are never boring, are they?” Hannah said.

“We bought them from this bazaar in India,” Emenike said. “Handmade by rural women, just so beautiful. See the detail at the edges?” He raised one of the plates.

“Sublime,” Hannah said, and looked at Obinze.

“Yes, very nice,” Obinze mumbled. Those plates, with their amateur finishing, the slight lumpiness of the edges, would never be shown in the presence of guests in Nigeria. He stil

l was not sure whether Emenike had become a person who believed that something was beautiful because it was handmade by poor people in a foreign country, or whether he had simply learned to pretend so. Georgina poured the drinks. Emenike served the starter, crab with hard-boiled eggs. He had taken on a careful and calibrated charm. He said “Oh dear” often. When Phillip complained about the French couple building a house next to his in Cornwall, Emenike asked, “Are they between you and the sunset?”

Are they between you and the sunset? It would never occur to Obinze, or to anybody he had grown up with, to ask a question like that.

“So how was America?” Phillip asked.

“A fascinating place, really. We spent a few days with Hugo in Jackson, Wyoming. You met Hugo last Christmas, didn’t you, Mark?”

“Yes. So what’s he doing there?” Mark seemed unimpressed by the plates; he had not, like his wife, picked one up to look at it.

“It’s a ski resort, but it’s not pretentious. In Jackson, they say people who go to Aspen expect somebody to tie their ski boots up for them,” Georgina said.

“The thought of skiing in America makes me quite ill,” Alexa said.

“Why?” Hannah asked.

“Have they got a Disney station in the resort, with Mickey Mouse in ski gear?” Alexa asked.

“Alexa has only been to America once, when she was in school, but she loves to hate it from afar,” Georgina said.

“I’ve loved America from afar my whole life,” Obinze said. Alexa turned to him in slight surprise, as though she had not expected him to speak. Under the chandelier light, her red hair took on a strange, unnatural glow.

“What I’ve noticed being here is that many English people are in awe of America but also deeply resent it,” Obinze added.

“Perfectly true,” Phillip said, nodding at Obinze. “Perfectly true. It’s the resentment of a parent whose child has become far more beautiful and with a far more interesting life.”

“But the Americans love us Brits, they love the accent and the Queen and the double decker,” Emenike said. There, it had been said: the man considered himself British.

“And the great revelation Emenike had while we were there?” Georgina said, smiling. “The difference between the American and British ‘bye.’ ”

“Bye?” Alexa asked.

“Yes. He says the Brits draw it out much more, while Americans make it short.”

“That was a great revelation. It explained everything about the difference between both countries,” Emenike said, knowing that they would laugh, and they did. “I was also thinking about the difference in approaching foreignness. Americans will smile at you and be extremely friendly but if your name is not Cory or Chad, they make no effort at saying it properly. The Brits will be surly and will be suspicious if you’re too friendly but they will treat foreign names as though they are actually valid names.”