Americanah

Fred was talking about Nollywood, speaking a little too loudly. “Nollywood is really public theater, and if you understand it like that, then it is more tolerable. It’s for public consumption, even mass participation, not the kind of individual experience that film is.” He was looking at her, soliciting her agreement with his eyes: they were not supposed to watch Nollywood, people like them, and if they did, then only as amusing anthropology.

“I like Nollywood,” Ifemelu said, even though she, too, thought Nollywood was more theater than film. The urge to be contrarian was strong. If she set herself apart, perhaps she would be less of the person she feared she had become. “Nollywood may be melodramatic, but life in Nigeria is very melodramatic.”

“Really?” the New Haven woman said, squeezing her paper cup in her hand, as though she thought it a great oddity, that a person at this gathering would like Nollywood. “It is so offensive to my intelligence. I mean, the products are just bad. What does it say about us?”

“But Hollywood makes equally bad movies. They just make them with better lighting,” Ifemelu said.

Fred laughed, too heartily, to let her know he was on her side.

“It’s not just about the technical stuff,” the New Haven woman said. “The industry is regressive. I mean, the portrayal of women? The films are more misogynistic than the society.”

Ifemelu saw a man across the pool whose wide shoulders reminded her of Obinze. But he was too tall to be Obinze. She wondered what Obinze would make of a gathering like this. Would he even come? He had been deported from England, after all, so perhaps he would not consider himself a returnee like them.

“Hey, come back,” Fred said, moving closer to her, claiming personal space. “Your mind isn’t here.”

She smiled thinly. “It is now.”

Fred knew things. He had the confidence of a person who knew practical things. He probably had a Harvard MBA and used words like “capacity” and “value” in conversation. He would not dream in imagery, but in facts and figures.

“There’s a concert tomorrow at MUSON. Do you like classical music?” he asked.

“No.” She had not expected that he would, either.

“Are you willing to like classical music?”

“Willing to like something, it’s a strange idea,” she said, now curious about him, vaguely interested in him. They talked. Fred mentioned Stravinsky and Strauss, Vermeer and Van Dyck, making unnecessary references, quoting too often, his spirits attuned across the Atlantic, too transparent in his performance, too eager to show how much he knew of the Western world. Ifemelu listened with a wide internal yawn. She had been wrong about him. He was not the MBA type who thought the world was a business. He was an impresario, well oiled and well practiced, the sort of man who did a good American accent and a good British accent, who knew what to say to foreigners, how to make foreigners comfortable, and who could easily get foreign grants for dubious projects. She wondered what he was like beneath that practiced layer.

“So will you come for this drinks thing?” he asked.

“I’m exhausted,” she said. “I think I’ll head home. But call me.”

CHAPTER 49

The speedboat was gliding on foaming water, past beaches of ivory sand, and trees a bursting, well-fed green. Ifemelu was laughing. She caught herself in mid-laughter, and looked at her present, an orange life jacket strapped around her, a ship in the graying distance, her friends in their sunglasses, on their way to Priye’s friend’s beach house, where they would grill meat and race barefoot. She thought: I’m really home. I’m home. She no longer sent Ranyinudo texts about what to do—Should I buy meat in Shoprite or send Iyabo to the market? Where should I buy hangers? Now she awoke to the sound of the peacocks, and got out of bed, with the shape of her day familiar and her routines unthinking. She had signed up at a gym, but had gone only twice, because after work she preferred to meet her friends, and even though she always planned not to eat, she ended up eating a club sandwich and drinking one or two Chapmans, and then she would decide to postpone the gym. Her clothes felt even tighter now. Somewhere, in a faraway part of her mind, she wanted to lose weight before she saw Obinze again. She had not called him; she would wait until she was back to her slender self.

At work, she felt an encroaching restlessness. Zoe stifled her. It was like wearing a scratchy sweater in the cold: she longed to yank it off, but was afraid of what would happen if she did. She thought often of starting a blog, writing about what she cared about, building it up slowly, and finally publishing her own magazine. But it was nebulous, too much of an unknown. Having this job, now that she was home, made her feel anchored. At first, she had enjoyed doing the features, interviewing society women in their homes, observing their lives and relearning old subtleties. But she soon became bored and she would sit through the interviews, half listening and half present. Each time she walked into their cemented compounds, she longed for sand in which to curl her toes. A servant or child would let her in, seat her in a living room of leather and marble that brought to mind a clean airport in a wealthy country. Then Madam would appear, warm and good-humored, offering her a drink, sometimes food, before settling on a sofa to talk. All of them, the madams she interviewed, boasted about what they owned and where they or their children had been and what they had done, and then they capped their boasts with God. We thank God. It is God that did it. God is faithful. Ifemelu thought, as she left, that she could write the features without doing the interviews.

She could, also, cover events without attending them. How common that word was in Lagos, and how popular: event. It could be a product rebranding, a fashion show, an album launch. Aunty Onenu always insisted that an editor go with the photographer. “Please make sure you mingle,” Aunty Onenu said. “If they are not advertising with us yet, we want them to start; if they have started, we want them to increase!” To Ifemelu, Aunty Onenu said “mingle” with great emphasis, as though this were something she thought Ifemelu did not do well. Perhaps Aunty Onenu was right. At those events, in halls aflame with balloons, rolls of silky cloth draped in corners, chairs covered in gauze, and too many ushers walking around, their faces gaudily bright with makeup, Ifemelu disliked talking to strangers about Zoe. She would spend her time exchanging texts with Ranyinudo or Priye or Zemaye, bored, waiting until when it would not be impolite to leave. There were always two or three meandering speeches, and all of them seemed written by the same verbose, insincere person. The wealthy and the famous were recognized—“We wish to recognize in our presence the former governor of …” Bottles were uncorked, juice cartons folded open, samosas and chicken satays served. Once, at an event she attended with Zemaye, the launch of a new beverage brand, she thought she saw Obinze walk past. She turned. It was not him, but it very well could have been. She imagined him attending events like this, in halls like this, with his wife by his side. Ranyinudo had told her that his wife, when she was a student, was voted the most beautiful girl at the University of Lagos, and in Ifemelu’s imagination, she looked like Bianca Onoh, that beauty icon of her teenage years, high-cheekboned and almond-eyed. And when Ranyinudo mentioned his wife’s name, Kosisochukwu, an uncommon name, Ifemelu imagined Obinze’s mother asking her to translate it. The thought of Obinze’s mother and Obinze’s wife deciding which translation was better—God’s Will or As It Pleases God—felt like a betrayal. That memory, of Obinze’s mother saying “translate it” all those years ago, seemed even more precious now that she had passed away.

As Ifemelu was leaving the event, she saw Don. “Ifemelu,” he said. It took her a moment to recognize him. Ranyinudo had introduced them one afternoon, months ago, when Don dropped by Ranyinudo’s flat on his way to his club, wearing tennis whites, and Ifemelu had left almost immediately, to give them privacy. He looked dapper in a navy suit, his gray-sprinkled hair burnished.

“Good evening,” she said.

“You’re looking well, very well,” he said, taking in her low-cut cocktail dress.

“Thank you.”

“You don’t ask about me.” As though there was a reason for her to ask about him. He gave her his card. “Call me, make sure you call me, eh. Let’s talk. Take care.”

He was not interested in her, not particularly; he was simply a big man in Lagos, she attractive and alone, and by the laws of their universe, he had to make a pass, even if a halfhearted pass, even if he was already dating her friend, and he expected, of course, that she would not tell her friend. She slipped his card into her bag and, back home, tore it into tiny bits which she watched float in the toilet water for a while before flushing. She was, strangely, angry with him. His action said something about her friendship with Ranyinudo that she disliked. She called Ranyinudo, and was about to tell her what happened, when Ranyinudo said, “Ifem, I’m so depressed.” And so Ifemelu merely listened. It was about Ndudi. “He’s such a child,” Ranyinudo said. “If you say something he doesn’t like, he will stop talking and start humming. Seriously humming, loud humming. How does a grown man behave so immaturely?”