4

‘You’re lucky, ‘ says the Activities Director at the Good Life Rehabilitation Center.

‘Yes,’ I nod, because I know I’m lucky that a neighbour was at home to hear me fall. And I know that my injuries could have been worse, much worse. And were I not in pain I might have responded more cheerfully; instead I take a deep breath, willing my body into stillness and calm. But today my body wants nothing to do with its old yogi self. I’m feeling exhausted and don’t like the fact that someone has dressed me in a loose fitting T-shirt without a bra. And I don’t like the fact that this sweetly perfumed woman is sure to notice my sour morning breath. So I abandon my deep anahata breathing and turn my head, looking to the tabletop for painkillers.

‘What can I get you?’ the woman offers.

‘Nothing, I’m fine,’ I say, because now that I’ve found my glasses, I can see that she’s not that much younger than me. ‘I just don’t like feeling so disorientated.’

‘It’s because of the drugs, hon, still working their way out of your system. You must try to rest.’ She squeezes my hand gently.

‘Maybe I just need something to take my mind off it.’ I prop myself up so as not to be in such a helpless position.

‘Whenever you’re ready,’ she says, ‘we’ve got lots of activities. We’ve got ragtime music, which is happening as we speak, knitting circle and sewing circle … There’s even speed walking, hula hooping, and the iPad 101, which we’ve just added.’

‘Books are what I’d really love.’ I answer, wriggling my hand free.

‘Have you seen the library?’

‘No,’ I say. The books that I want are my own books, but the woman has already started to enthuse about the library. She proudly lists some authors who’ve come to speak as if I should have heard of them, but I don’t recognize any of the names. I suspect that none have great literary merit. Then the woman’s phone rings and she apologizes for having to leave. I, on the other hand, am relieved. Now that she’s gone, I reach across the bedside table for the one book that I do have and slump back into bed. I know I’m lucky, I know I am, but I don’t like being this fragile and feeling this out of control.

I’d packed the book in my earthquake kit years ago and then forgotten about both, but whoever found me after the fall must have discovered the bag next to the bed and thought it was my regular handbag. Funny how this emergency bag had come with me even though it wasn’t the sort of emergency I’d been planning for. Earthquakes and tsunamis were what I’d expected. But wasn’t that the thing about life? It was always the unexpected, those events not planned for, that got you in the end. I’d never much liked the feel or smell of this snakeskin bag but I’d kept it for nostalgia’s sake. An elderly Hausa trader had sold it to me in Kano and because I’d bought it at the market with my mother, and because the trader insisted that it would bring me good luck, I’d never got rid of it. The good luck I’d hoped for as a child was for God to cure me of my nearsightedness. I’d once read about a girl who’d lost her glasses, prayed for them to be found, only to be surprised when God answered her prayers by curing her eyesight. So this was the sort of miracle that I’d been hoping for. I’d even taken to rubbing the bag like an Aladdin’s lamp until it dawned on me that God might disapprove. Rubbing lamps in hope of magic wasn’t exactly the Christian thing to do. I’d probably jinxed my chances. But perhaps, after all these decades, this might now be the good luck moment that the trader had foretold, for there’s nothing else in the room to keep me occupied – a bed, chair, commode, a dresser with TV, and a tray of African violets on the windowsill. The little mauve flowers sit in a shallow plastic tray that might once have been someone’s lunch tray. And now that the pain is subsiding I close my eyes and focus on my breath. I’m breathing in, breathing out. What a dreadful list of activities on offer at this place. I drift to sleep and imagine skydiving and belly dancing. And then I’m dreaming of racing cars at the Safari Rally where Buttercup and I speed towards the finishing line in a plume of red dust.

I awake to the sound of voices coming from outside. Spanish speaking. Someone mentions a party and then there’s laughter. I’m irritated by how much noise they’re making as I try shifting my torso for a less painful position. I cough to clear my throat then reach across the bedside table feeling around for a glass of water. My hand finds my glasses and the book instead, so I take them and try cheering myself with thoughts of home and the books awaiting my return. I keep the books that used to belong to my mother in my bedroom. All her Beatrix Potters are in the tiny shelves behind the glass doors of the cabinet. The dictionaries and magazines sit at the bottom and everything else lives in between. Caesar wouldn’t have approved. He would’ve said the place was too cluttered.

I was twenty-two when we were married, and Caesar thirty-seven. Caesar was younger than my father, but not by much. He had my father’s confidence and self-assuredness but, unlike father, Caesar was world-travelled and university educated which meant he spoke with scholarly knowledge (not just personal conviction) on what was best for Nigeria, what was best for our continent. I was proud of the way people listened to Caesar – of the way people leant forward so as not to miss a single word he said. Caesar spoke quietly, almost inaudibly at times, which was one of the characteristics that initially drew me to him; but over time this mannerism lost its allure and I began to see it as nothing more than practiced charm. I lost faith in politics and grew impatient with those clinging to my husband’s every word, with the women especially, who flattered him, making him think he could and should become Nigeria’s next president.

Antonio was initially Caesar’s friend. He had come to Nigeria as Brazil’s first black cultural ambassador. He was a photographer and soon beloved by the Lagos elite as much as by those on the streets and villages that he most enjoyed photographing. He was younger than me by several years and a follower of the Candomblé religion – two more reasons (in addition to him being Caesar’s friend) why I didn’t expect to fall for someone like him. But then I also hadn’t expected to be married to someone already married. In the end it was Antonio rather than the preacher that I went running to when I learned about Caesar’s first wife. Antonio was the man who always had time for me, the man for whom pomp and ceremony meant nothing, and the man who asked questions that had nothing to do with the perfunctory. The man that took photographs and believed in the power of art, that believed art could change the world. It was enough sometimes for me just to recall the touch of Antonio’s hand brushing against mine to feel aroused, and then to fantasize about what it might feel like to do more. I imagined many forbidden acts, many places where we might travel together, where we’d dance, laugh, and make love. I imagined being fearless even while wrestling with the fear of betraying my husband (in spite of his betrayal of me) and the fear of being shamed in front of all our friends and in front of Antonio’s sweet wife. Most of all, I feared disappointing my father who’d suffered enough shame with my mother’s death.