The week slipped by without sight of Victoria. I sent her e-mails, but no one answered. I surfed around, hoping she’d feel my presence on the Internet, but there were no more instant messages from QueenV3.
I got on my bike and rode around napkin-free for the first time in five days. I was so glad my period was over. Not that it was horrible. It was just there, like having a wad of gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe. You can’t take a step without knowing it’s there, but when you scrape it off, you’re finally tip-tapping along like nobody’s business. It doesn’t seem right that boys don’t go through anything remotely like a period. They should go through something.
I was on my way home from the park when I saw Nelson jogging ahead. He was in his blue and gold warm-up suit. I sped up until I was practically on him. He turned around.
“You’re on my heels,” he said.
“I know,” I replied.
He was annoyed, but I didn’t care. He slowed his pace, but I still had to pedal to keep up. He stopped running.
“What do you want, Akilah?”
“I want to know why you didn’t protect Victoria. She’s your sister.”
“You do not understand.” He wouldn’t look me in the face. He started to jog again. He was running away.
I wouldn’t let him go so easily. I called after him, “I understand, all right. You let them mutilate your sister while you did nothing.”
Nelson stopped and faced me. Maybe he was embarrassed that I could holler something like that out in the street. “Akilah, these are not your customs. You cannot understand these matters.”
“’Cause there’s no real reason for what you all did to her. That’s why you can’t explain it.”
I knew Nelson himself had not taken Victoria to that doctor, but he and his father were just as guilty as his mother, grandmother, and aunts. If his aunts had held Victoria down while his grandmother mutilated her at home, he would have sat in the other room with Mr. Ojike, discussing rugby.
Nelson didn’t have an answer and started walking away from me. I didn’t let that stop me from following him. I was going to ride his shadow until he came up with something better than “These are not your customs.”
“You will not leave me alone,” he said.
“Nope,” I answered. “Not until you explain.”
I didn’t anticipate him stopping so suddenly. I couldn’t hit the brakes in time and rammed into him. He hobbled, then dusted himself off. I didn’t care that he was glaring at me. I wanted my explanation.
“So?”
He sighed, blowing a heavy breath on me. I used to live to be this close to Nelson. To feel his breath on me no matter what it smelled like.
“How do I make you understand, Akilah?”
“Easy,” I said. “Tell me something that makes sense.”
He just stood there looking over my head to avoid my eyes.
“Men do not talk of these things, Akilah. This is women’s business.”
He didn’t look so manly.
“Victoria couldn’t tell me why. All she knows is what your mother said. That Nigerian girls get it done to stop the good feeling. You know, from touching yourself. I mean, it’s not like girls have their hands down there touching themselves all the time like boys.”
Nelson was mortified, but I didn’t care. Why should I be ashamed? You’re only ashamed if you’re guilty, and I didn’t have anything to feel guilty about.
“It’s done to keep the girl…”
“From being a nasty girl,” I completed.
“Akilah, when I marry, the girl will be a clean and proper Nigerian girl. She will not be, as you put it, a nasty girl.”
He was making me mad. “Clean and proper?”
“Yes, Akilah. For marriage, a woman must be clean. Proper. Untouched by anyone.”
“And how will you know that?”
“I will know by the way her parents present her to my family and me. Her mother will tell my mother that she is a proper Nigerian girl and that she has been prepared for marriage, to become a wife.”
“You mean all cut up and mutilated.” He was confusing things, talking about getting married. The subject was Victoria and mutilation.
“I don’t know why I tried to explain this to you, Akilah. You are American. And a child.”
A few weeks ago that would have hurt, Nelson calling me a child. Now I didn’t care how he saw me.
“Victoria isn’t trying to be somebody’s wife. She’s a girl. Your sister.”
He sighed again. I wished he had bad breath so I could really not like him, but he didn’t.
“One day you will want to marry,” he told me. “If you were from my village, your future husband’s family would not welcome you into their home if you have been ruined.”
I told him, “You ruin girls when you mutilate them. You ruined Victoria.”
He turned to leave, but this time I let him go. I didn’t even follow him with my eyes. I pushed off on my bike and rode down the street toward my house.