Americanah

Don looked into Ifemelu’s eyes and told her how he had nearly visited Nigeria, just after Shagari was elected, when he worked as a consultant to an international development agency, but the trip fell through at the last minute and he had felt bad because he had been hoping to go to the shrine and see Fela perform. He mentioned Fela casually, intimately, as though it was something they had in common, a secret they shared. There was, in his storytelling, an expectation of successful seduction. Ifemelu stared at him, saying little, refusing to be ensnared, and feeling strangely sorry for Kimberly. To be saddled with a sister like Laura and a husband like this.

“Don and I are involved with a really good charity in Malawi, actually Don is much more involved than I am.” Kimberly looked at Don, who made a wry face and said, “Well, we do our best but we know very well that we’re not messiahs.”

“We really should plan a trip to visit. It’s an orphanage. We’ve never been to Africa. I would love to do something with my charity in Africa.”

Kimberly’s face had softened, her eyes misted over, and for a moment Ifemelu was sorry to have come from Africa, to be the reason that this beautiful woman, with her bleached teeth and bounteous hair, would have to dig deep to feel such pity, such hopelessness. She smiled brightly, hoping to make Kimberly feel better.

“I’m interviewing one more person and then I’ll let you know, but I really think you’re a great fit for us,” Kimberly said, leading Ifemelu and Ginika to the front door.

“Thank you,” Ifemelu said. “I would love to work for you.”

The next day, Ginika called and left a message, her tone low. “Ifem, I’m so sorry. Kimberly hired somebody else but she said she’ll keep you in mind. Something will work out soon, don’t worry too much. I’ll call later.”

Ifemelu wanted to fling the phone away. Keep her in mind. Why would Ginika even repeat such an empty expression, “keep her in mind”?

IT WAS late autumn, the trees had grown antlers, dried leaves were sometimes trailed into the apartment, and the rent was due. Her roommates’ checks were on the kitchen table, one on top of the other, all of them pink and bordered by flowers. She thought it unnecessarily decorative, to have flowered checks in America; it almost took away from the seriousness of a check. Beside the checks was a note, in Jackie’s childish writing: Ifemelu, we’re almost a week late for rent. Writing a check would leave her account empty. Her mother had given her a small jar of Mentholatum the day before she left Lagos, saying, “Put this in your bag, for when you will be cold.” She rummaged now in her suitcase for it, opened and sniffed it, rubbing some under her nose. The scent made her want to weep. The answering machine was blinking but she did not check it because it would be yet another variation of Aunty Uju’s message. “Has anyone called you back? Have you tried the nearby McDonald’s and Burger King? They don’t always advertise but they might be hiring. I can’t send you anything until next month. My own account is empty, honestly to be a resident doctor is slave labor.”

Newspapers were strewn on the floor, job listings circled in ink. She picked one up and flipped through, looking at advertisements she had already seen. escorts caught her eye again. Ginika had said to her, “Forget that escort thing. They say it isn’t prostitution but it is and the worst thing is that you get maybe a quarter of what you earn because the agency takes the rest. I know this girl who did it in freshman year.” Ifemelu read the advertisement and thought, again, of calling, but she didn’t, because she was hoping that the last interview she went for, a waitress position in a little restaurant that didn’t pay a salary, only tips, would come through. They had said they would call her by the end of the day if she got the job; she waited until very late but they did not call.

AND THEN Elena’s dog ate her bacon. She had heated up a slice of bacon on a paper towel, put it on the table, and turned to open the fridge. The dog swallowed the bacon and the paper towel. She stared at the empty space where her bacon had been, and then she stared at the dog, its expression smug, and all the frustrations of her life boiled up in her head. A dog eating her bacon, a dog eating her bacon while she was jobless.

“Your dog just ate my bacon,” she told Elena, who was slicing a banana at the other end of the kitchen, the pieces falling into her cereal bowl.

“You just hate my dog.”

“You should train him better. He shouldn’t eat people’s food from the kitchen table.”

“You better not kill my dog with voodoo.”

“What?”

“Just kidding!” Elena said. Elena was smirking, her dog’s tail wagging, and Ifemelu felt acid in her veins; she moved towards Elena, hand raised and ready to explode on Elena’s face, before she caught herself with a jolt, stopped and turned and went upstairs. She sat on her bed and hugged her knees to her chest, shaken by her own reaction, how quickly her fury had risen. Downstairs, Elena was screaming on the phone: “I swear to God, bitch just tried to hit me!” Ifemelu had wanted to slap her dissolute roommate not because a slobbering dog had eaten her bacon but because she was at war with the world, and woke up each day feeling bruised, imagining a horde of faceless people who were all against her. It terrified her, to be unable to visualize tomorrow. When her parents called and left a voice message, she saved it, unsure if that would be the last time she would hear their voices. To be here, living abroad, not knowing when she could go home again, was to watch love become anxiety. If she called her mother’s friend Aunty Bunmi and the phone rang to the end, with no answer, she panicked, worried that perhaps her father had died and Aunty Bunmi did not know how to tell her.

LATER, Allison knocked on her door. “Ifemelu? Just wanted to remind you, your rent check isn’t on the table. We’re already really late.”

“I know. I’m writing it.” She lay faceup on her bed. She didn’t want to be the roommate who had rent problems. She hated that Ginika had bought her groceries last week. She could hear Jackie’s raised voice from downstairs. “What are we supposed to do? We’re not her fucking parents.”

She brought out her checkbook. Before she wrote the check, she called Aunty Uju to speak to Dike. Then, refreshed by his innocence, she called the tennis coach in Ardmore.

“When can I start working?” she asked.

“Want to come over right now?”

“Okay,” she said.

She shaved her underarms, dug out the lipstick she had not worn since the day she left Lagos, most of it left smeared on Obinze’s neck at the airport. What would happen with the tennis coach? He had said “massage,” but his manner, his tone, had dripped suggestion. Perhaps he was one of those white men she had read about, with strange tastes, who wanted women to drag a feather over their back or urinate on them. She could certainly do that, urinate on a man for a hundred dollars. The thought amused her, and she smiled a small wry smile. Whatever happened, she would approach it looking her best, she would make it clear to him that there were boundaries she would not cross. She would say, from the beginning, “If you expect sex, then I can’t help you.” Or perhaps she would say it more delicately, more suggestively. “I’m not comfortable going too far.” She might be imagining too much; he might just want a massage.

When she arrived at his house, his manner was brusque. “Come on up,” he said, and led the way to his bedroom, bare but for a bed and a large painting of a tomato soup can on the wall. He offered her something to drink, in a perfunctory way that suggested he expected her to say no, and then he took off his shirt and lay on the bed. Was there no preface? She wished he had done things a little more slowly. Her own words had deserted her.

“Come over here,” he said. “I need to be warm.”

She should leave now. The power balance was tilted in his favor, had been tilted in his favor since she walked into his house. She should leave. She stood up.

“I can’t have sex,” she said. Her voice felt squeaky, unsure of itself. “I can’t have sex with you,” she repeated.

“Oh no, I don’t expect you to,” he said, too quickly.

She moved slowly toward the door, wondering if it was locked, if he had locked it, and then she wondered if he had a gun.

“Just come here and lie down,” he said. “Keep me warm. I’ll touch you a little bit, nothing you’ll be uncomfortable with. I just need some human contact to relax.”

There was, in his expression and tone, a complete assuredness; she felt defeated. How sordid it all was, that she was here with a stranger who already knew she would stay. He knew she would stay because she had come. She was already here, already tainted. She took off her shoes and climbed into his bed. She did not want to be here, did not want his active finger between her legs, did not want his sigh-moans in her ear, and yet she felt her body rousing to a sickening wetness. Afterwards, she lay still, coiled and deadened. He had not forced her. She had come here on her own. She had lain on his bed, and when he placed her hand between his legs, she had curled and moved her fingers. Now, even after she had washed her hands, holding the crisp, slender hundred-dollar bill he had given her, her fingers still felt sticky; they no longer belonged to her.