Americanah

“Oh, that’s a bit tatty,” Emenike said. He had changed. His voice had taken on an unfamiliar modulation, his delivery slower, the temperature of his entire being much lower. “We could go to that new place in Kensington, it’s not that far.”

“I’m not sure Obinze will find it very interesting, darling,” Georgina said.

“Oh, I think he’ll like it,” Emenike said. Self-satisfaction, that was the difference in him. He was married to a British woman, lived in a British home, worked at a British job, traveled on a British passport, said “exercise” to refer to a mental rather than a physical activity. He had longed for this life, and never quite believed he would have it. Now his backbone was stiff with self-satisfaction. He was sated. In the restaurant in Kensington, a candle glowed on the table, and the blond waiter, who seemed too tall and handsome to be a waiter, served tiny bowls of what looked like green jelly.

“Our new lemon and thyme aperitif, with the compliments of the chef,” he said.

“Fantastic,” Emenike said, instantly sinking into one of the rituals of his new life: eyebrows furrowed, concentration sharp, sipping sparkling water and studying a restaurant menu. He and Georgina discussed the starters. The waiter was called to answer a question. It struck Obinze, how seriously Emenike took this initiation into the voodoo of fine dining, because when the waiter brought him what looked like three elegant bits of green weed, for which he would pay thirteen pounds, Emenike rubbed his palms together in delight. Obinze’s burger was served in four pieces, arranged in a large martini glass. When Georgina’s order arrived, a pile of red raw beef, an egg sunnily splayed on top of it, Obinze tried not to look at it as he ate, otherwise he might be tempted to vomit.

Emenike did most of the talking, telling Georgina about their time together at school, barely letting Obinze say anything. In the stories he told, he and Obinze were the popular rogues who always got into glamorous trouble. Obinze watched Georgina, only now becoming aware of how much older than Emenike she was. At least eight years. Her manly facial contours were softened by frequent brief smiles, but they were thoughtful smiles, the smiles of a natural skeptic, and he wondered how much she believed of Emenike’s stories, how much love had suspended her reason.

“We’re having a dinner party tomorow, Obinze,” Georgina said. “You must come.”

“Yes, I forgot to mention it,” Emenike said.

“You really must come. We’re having a few friends over and I think you’ll enjoy meeting them,” Georgina said.

“I would love to,” Obinze said.

THEIR TERRACED HOME in Islington, with its short flight of well-preserved steps that led to the green front door, smelled of roasting food when Obinze arrived. Emenike let him in. “The Zed! You’re early, we’re just finishing up in the kitchen. Come and stay in my study until the others come.” Emenike led him upstairs, and into the study, a clean, bright room made brighter by the white bookshelves and white curtains. The windows ate up large chunks of the walls, and Obinze imagined the room in the afternoon, flooded gloriously with light, and himself sunk in the armchair by the door, lost in a book.

“I’ll come and call you in a bit,” Emenike said.

There were, on a window ledge, photos of Emenike squinting in front of the Sistine Chapel, making a peace sign at the Acropolis, standing at the Colosseum, his shirt the same nutmeg color as the wall of the ruin. Obinze imagined him, dutiful and determined, visiting the places he was supposed to visit, thinking, as he did so, not of the things he was seeing but of the photos he would take of them and of the people who would see those photos. The people who would know that he had participated in these triumphs. On the bookshelf, Graham Greene caught his eye. He took The Heart of the Matter down and began to read the first chapter, suddenly nostalgic for his teenage years when his mother would reread it every few months.

Emenike came in. “Is that Waugh?”

“No.” He showed him the book cover. “My mother loves this book She was always trying to get me to love her English novels.”

“Waugh is the best of them. Brideshead is the closest I’ve read to a perfect novel.”

“I think Waugh is cartoonish. I just don’t get those so-called comic English novels. It’s as if they can’t deal with the real and deep complexity of human life and so they resort to doing this comic business. Greene is the other extreme, too morose.”

“No, man, you need to go and read Waugh again. Greene doesn’t really do it for me, but the first part of The End of the Affair is terrific.”

“This study is the dream,” Obinze said.

Emenike shrugged. “Do you want any books? Take anything you want.”

“Thanks, man,” Obinze said, knowing that he would not take any.

Emenike looked around, as though seeing the study through new eyes. “We found this desk in Edinburgh. Georgina already had some good pieces but we found some new things together.”

Obinze wondered if Emenike had so completely absorbed his own disguise that even when they were alone, he could talk about “good furniture,” as though the idea of “good furniture” was not alien in their Nigerian world, where new things were supposed to look new. Obinze might have said something to Emenike about it but not now; too much had already shifted in their relationship. Obinze followed him downstairs. The dining table was a riot of color, bright mismatched ceramic plates, some of them chipped at the edges, red wine goblets, deep blue napkins. In a silver bowl at the center of the table, delicate milky flowers floated in water. Emenike made the introductions.

“This is Georgina’s old friend Mark, and this is his wife, Hannah, who by the way is completing her PhD on the female orgasm, or the Israeli female orgasm.”

“Well, it isn’t quite that singularly focused,” Hannah said, to general laughter, warmly shaking Obinze’s hand. She had a tanned, broad-featured succoring face, the face of a person who could not abide conflict. Mark, pale-skinned and rumpled, squeezed her shoulder but did not laugh along with the others. He said “How do you do” to Obinze in an almost formal manner.

“This is our dear friend Phillip, who is the best solicitor in London, after Georgina of course,” Emenike said.

“Are all the men in Nigeria as gorgeous as you and your friend?” Phillip asked Emenike, swooning mockingly as he shook Obinze’s hand.

“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 still 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.