Tayo was staying with Kemi in her one-bedroom apartment on Franklin Street. It was one of the few streets in San Francisco that never went to sleep. At all hours of night and day, cars accelerated down the hill, filling the air with exhaust fumes that rose to the level of her second-floor apartment. The noise of engines, brakes and the occasional blaring of horns meant that the night was never silent, nor was it dark. There was always a steady stream of headlights and sometimes the whirling lights of emergency vehicles, their sirens piercing the night with their high-pitched wails. Sleep was hard, but then it always was these days. If Tayo did fall asleep, he dreamt of Nigeria and woke sweating. He had two recurring nightmares: one in which he was drowning in a prison cell and the other where Abdou floated away in the form of a sheet of paper that Tayo could never catch.
People said that after the accident, Abdou appeared fine. When they pulled him from the wreck, he was able to walk and insisted on helping to carry Tayo. The nurses had bandaged Abdou’s facial lacerations, but it was the bleeding inside, the bleeding nobody saw, that later caused Abdou to collapse and die. They said that little could have been done, even had they caught the internal bleeding, but Tayo was not convinced. He knew that he had received more medical attention that day than Abdou. Now, Abdou was dead and there was nothing Tayo could do to bring him back. Tayo was now in America, far from Nigeria, unable to comfort Abdou’s family, and not even able to support his own family.
The plan had been for Tayo to stay with Kemi in San Francisco for a month, enough time to be seen by the medical specialists and wait for his leg to recover. While abroad, he would contact universities and enquire about jobs. Kemi had organised his trip to the U.S., flying him via France. He regretted not being able to fly through London to see Vanessa, even though he knew that not only was it a miracle that he’d survived the accident, but also that he’d been able to get out of the country.
Kemi had insisted that her father use her bedroom while she slept in a room created out of a storage cupboard. Tayo wanted to be the one to use the makeshift room, but she wouldn’t let him. She never said anything to suggest that he was being a burden but he still felt like his stay was a great encumbrance. What father, he repeatedly asked himself, should be relying on a daughter in this way? And then, when he found out that Kemi was working as a nanny to fund her artistic endeavours, he felt even worse. How could his daughter be doing such a menial job while he lived with her, in her flat, doing nothing?
Tayo’s days dragged by with the television as his only companion. He watched the news on CNN and CNBC — morning, afternoon and evening. He watched in the hope of catching some international news, but almost always the coverage was domestic, of child abuse, murders and serial killings, with just one lone ‘global minute’ to cover the rest of the world. Sometimes he thought he should listen to music rather than watch TV, but he couldn’t muster much interest in music these days.
And yet there was plenty of music in the apartment. Kemi owned CDs by African musicians, many of whom he’d never heard of — groups like Les Nubians, and Positive Black Soul. He guessed that this was the music she used to teach her students African dance, and found it curious that his daughter, living abroad, probably knew more about African music than many Africans in Africa. Kemi also owned some of Miriam’s favourites — Sunny Ade and Miriam Makeba, and whenever Kemi played these it brought back memories for Tayo, some happy, but mostly sad. He wondered what Kemi told Miriam about him these days. Sometimes, when mother and daughter spoke on the phone, he would say a few words to Miriam. He would ask her how she was, and she did the same — short and perfunctory, speaking more for Kemi’s sake than for theirs.
Kemi left early every morning for work and returned around six in the evening. She would then leave again to buy cheap food on Polk or Union Street or they would have food delivered to the apartment in paper boxes and Styrofoam cups. Tayo worried that his daughter wasted money on such food. He also feared that Kemi wouldn’t find the right husband without culinary skills. It wasn’t that Kemi didn’t know how to cook, she just didn’t like it, and the fridge was always empty. On the outside though, the fridge was crowded with magnetic letters, photographs of Kemi’s friends, and an assortment of poems and sayings. Her boyfriend, Laurent, could cook, but that was his job. Tayo presumed Kemi saw him during her lunch breaks and perhaps on the occasional evening when she came home late. He never asked.
Laurent was a nice enough man but not, in his view, suitable for his daughter. The fact that he was a chef was bad enough, but he also didn’t have a degree. Tayo wondered if this was the price he now paid for encouraging Kemi to have a mind of her own. He was pleased, at least, that Laurent did not visit the apartment or stay overnight.
‘You should get out, Daddy,’ Kemi insisted as the days passed.
He told her that he did, even though it was obvious that he rarely left the apartment. He wanted to return to Nigeria. Here, in Kemi’s San Francisco, he didn’t belong. One day he’d gone to buy his daughter some tea. He’d been walking along Polk Street when he passed a shop selling international papers and spotted a story about Nigeria on the front page of Le Monde. He didn’t buy the paper — he was careful with the dollars Kemi gave him, but he sat down on the bench outside and read what he could from the front cover on display. The news was not good: falling oil prices and continued government corruption. ‘No hope for Nigeria,’ he’d muttered, covering his head with both hands. The next thing he knew, someone was tapping his shoulder and when he looked up, a middle-aged woman was handing him a bagel. At first, he was puzzled, then shocked. It was not even a whole bagel that she gave him, but part of one, half-eaten.
‘You need to see a therapist,’ Kemi insisted. ‘You’re suffering from depression.’
‘I’m perfectly fine,’ he replied. What right did she have to say such things? Besides, he did not believe in therapists and nor should she. Therapy was a Western thing, a fad, and a waste of money. If he didn’t want to go out, why should he? His leg had not healed, his country was in chaos, and he was trapped in America.
Yet still, Kemi persisted. ‘You’re depressed,’ she said, ‘and you need to do something about it. You should contact the universities, plan for your future.’
‘Don’t tell me what to do, Kemi. I’m not going to stay here any longer than I have to if that’s what you’re concerned about.’
‘I’m not concerned about that. I’m worried about you.’
‘It’s not your responsibility to worry about me. You’ve already taken care of the medical expenses.’
‘You could see my therapist.’
‘I should do what?’
‘You could see my therapist,’ Kemi repeated.
‘You have a therapist? For what?’
‘Oh, for goodness sake, daddy!’
‘What do you need one for?’
‘Do you think it was easy to live without a father for so many years and then to watch you and Mum divorce?’
‘But…’
‘It doesn’t matter why I see a therapist. The fact is I do and it helps me.’
‘Well, I really don’t understand.’ Tayo shook his head in despair.
‘And you wouldn’t!’ she shouted, thrusting her hands into the air in a gesture that shocked him in its resemblance to something her mother would do.
‘You hardly know me. You sent us off to England, never caring what happened to your wife or daughter. All that mattered was your work.’
‘So is that what your mother tells you?’ Tayo asked, struggling to contain his anger.
‘She didn’t have to. I could see for myself.’
‘And this is how you speak to your father now. With no respect.’
‘Respect! Is that all that matters? What about love? I’ve always wanted to be close to you, but all the time you just talk about respect, bloody respect. Well no, if you must know, I don’t respect you. I don’t respect what you did to us; I don’t respect how you left us, how you always thought about work first. Now you come here and I try to help, I try to make suggestions, even Laurent tries and …’
‘Listen, don’t talk to me about Laurent.’
‘Why? Because he’s white?’
‘No, because in our culture …’
‘In our culture, in our culture? Whose culture! The one you made up?’
‘In our culture, Kemi. You listen to your father!’
‘Don’t you dare shout at me!’
Tayo glared his daughter, shocked. Never before had he seen his daughter behave so disrespectfully.
‘You always wanted me to marry an African, didn’t you?’ she persisted. ‘Nothing is good enough for you, is it? I teach African dance, I search for my roots, I try to help you by making suggestions, but nothing is good enough. Nothing!’
Tayo said nothing as she stormed out of the room. Let her be, he thought. But he couldn’t let her go and cry on her own. A few moments later he was tapping gently on the bathroom door behind which he could hear her crying.
‘Kemi, please.’ he said, ‘Let’s not talk this way.’ He tapped again but still no answer. He left for a while, pacing up and down, listening to her sobs and wondering what to do next. Then she left the apartment, slamming the door behind her. Not knowing what else to do, he went to the bathroom where she’d just been. The smells of Kemi reminded him of Miriam—the soaps, shampoos, and perfumes of these two women, the women he had wronged. Why was he so incapable? So inept? What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he love another person the way one was supposed to? Mama, Miriam, Christine, Vanessa, Kemi, and even Hawa had despised him. It would be better that he went away and left everyone in peace.
Later that evening when Kemi finally returned and he saw that she was fine, he told her that he was taking a walk. The fog had rolled in and the air hung damp and cold. He didn’t bother with a coat. He walked as fast as he could, ignoring the pain in his leg, past Fort Mason, past the Marina, and up to the Golden Gate Bridge. How easy it would be to jump. Just jump! While he calculated the odds of certain death—the height, the fact that he had never learnt to swim — a car whizzed past playing Michael Jackson’s music. Tayo turned and saw a little girl waving from the open window. He thought of Kemi and turned from the water.
Kemi was on the phone when Tayo got back.
‘I have no idea where the hell he is,’ she was saying.
Tayo pushed quietly on the door handle to let himself out again, but then he paused with his hand still on the door, listening.
‘I don’t want to call the police, Laurent. I know he’s just off somewhere sulking. He doesn’t care. He won’t even speak to his friends and he doesn’t know that Mum’s the one sending all this money to pay for his medical bills. He doesn’t give a shit.’
Miriam sending money? Tayo stepped back into the apartment, shutting the door noisily. After Kemi had hung up, he asked who she’d been on the phone with. She didn’t want to talk about it, but later that night Tayo found a way to start a conversation.
‘You know, Kemi, when I was young, we didn’t talk about our girlfriends or boyfriends to our parents,’ he began, ‘and I forget sometimes that you were not always raised in Nigeria as I was, but I don’t disapprove. And you must understand that I have nothing against white people, nothing at all. Thinking about race is the American way, not ours.’
‘So you wouldn’t mind if I married someone white?’
‘To be honest, I’d be more concerned if you married a Nigerian. There are so many crooks about these days. And besides, you’re not the first person to fall in love with a white person, you know.’
‘You did?’ Kemi looked up, curious.
‘It was before you were born, Kemi.’ Tayo shrugged, regretting having brought it up. ‘Vanessa was someone I met at Oxford.’
‘Did you think of marrying her?’
‘I suppose we did, but then I met your Mum and…’
‘And?’
‘And then…well that’s all.’
‘You don’t have to worry about what I’ll think, Daddy,’ Kemi said. ‘This is Vanessa Richardson, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. Was,’ Tayo added, trying not to show his surprise.
‘It wasn’t hard to guess, Daddy,’ Kemi smiled. ‘You’ve mentioned her several times since you’ve been here.’
‘Have I? I really didn’t think…Well, she’s married now, so …’
Kemi looked at him, waiting for him to say more. He met her gaze and when he said nothing more, she nodded with grown-up understanding.
‘Sometimes I wonder how Laurent’s parents really feel.’ Kemi mused.
‘You’ve met them already?’ Tayo asked.
‘They lived for a little while in Liberia, you know. Laurent’s father worked with Médecins Sans Frontières. His father is very nice, but it’s his mother … well, maybe all mothers are protective of their sons. Do you think that’s so, daddy?’
Tayo shrugged as if to say he didn’t know, but he did. Mama had been that way.
‘I’d like Laurent’s mother to accept me.’
‘And she should, my love. She should.’ Tayo said, squeezing Kemi’s hand. ‘What parent wouldn’t be delighted to have you as a daughter-in-law?’ He sighed and, resting his head on Kemi’s shoulders, he shut his eyes.
‘I hope you know that I didn’t mean any of those nasty things I said this afternoon,’ Kemi whispered, placing a hand on his lap. ‘I love you Daddy, very much. I even respect you,’ she smiled.
He squeezed her young hand, fighting back the tears. These were his first tears since his arrest. His daughter knew nothing about his arrest, and hopefully never would.