-> G21 FICTION
 BECOME A SPONSOR OF THE WORLD'S MAGAZINE.
WHY should you advertise here? We'll tell you.
Music Download Universe & Great Ebay Info KATRINA & THE LOST CITY OF NEW ORLEANS by Rod Amis New Orleans is the Lost City of America. Rod Amis, publisher of G21: The World's Magazine, once believed one of the best bartenders in New Orleans, tells the story like no one else could. A portion of the proceeds of this book will go to the New Orleans Hospitality Workers Fund. The cooks, servers and restaurant workers of New Orleans have provided fabulous times and memories for millions. Now we must remember them in their time of need.
Buy the book or get a downloadable PDF Copy now!
 AFRICA FRESH! New Voices from the First Continent
An anthology of African writing only featured on the Internet until now, this book features the collected works of writers for the G21 AFRICA section of G21.net. The eight writers represented here are from around the continent and present an exciting look at cutting-edge fiction and reporting from the first continent today. Buy the book or get a downloadable PDF copy now! |
To read this article in Deutsch, Francaise, Italiano, Portuguese, Espanol, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, copy and paste the complete URL ("http://www.g21.net/fict3.html") and enter it in the box after you click through.
GLIDE STRIDE, PEP STEP Ten Years of Truthspeak 1996-2006 G21 AFRICA MPHUTHUMI NTABENI, South Africa JOIN OUR MAILING LIST. It contains more jokes than not. G21 FICTION NGOZI RAZAK-SOYEBI, Nigeria HOUSE OF CARDS DC STULTZ, United States ON FILM BRAD BALFOUR, United States RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT ROBIN "roblimo" MILLER United States RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT JOHN R. DIENER United States SMOKE & MIRRORS ROD AMIS, G21 World HQ THE PREVIOUS EDITION MEET THE G-CREW! These are the people behind this jam-band every week. HOME TABLE OF CONTENTS & BACK ISSUES BECOME A SPONSOR OF THE WORLD'S MAGAZINE.
WHY should you advertise here? We'll tell you. We know you're lazy. Here's a button for a quick translation of this page. Just click on the flag for your country. You're welcome! OR TRY THIS GOOGLE TRANSLATION SERVICE. |
G21 FICTION - BOOK ME A SEAT ON THE NEXT PLANE OUT - Part 2 of 3: This year's MacMillan Prize for Africa Writing and G21 writer NGOZI RAZAK-SOYEBI, debuts her latest short story in our new FICTION section.CONTINUED from Previous Edition.
Jos, NIGERIA - "I'm fed up with this country! I'm leaving!"
Ngozi Razak-Soyebi That was Ike's decision... to leave.
He decided on a country... Australia.
He decided on a job... anything.
He decided on us... MBT (Marriage by Telephone).
"You will both join me as soon as I settle down in Australia," he said.
He sounded so emphatic I didn't dare ask him when that would be. I recognized then that even he who had chosen a country and a "job" over there couldn't give me an answer to that. He didn't have a crystal ball but I didn't need one to know that the statistics were grim for families torn apart for economic reasons. Only few were ever reunited.
If the truth be known, I didn't want Ike to go to Australia. Even then I had a strong presentiment that we might never be reunited again. In any case, as chances would have it, I became pregnant again for the second time just before he was due to leave. I viewed the pregnancy as a good omen and I tried again to persuade him into abandoning his plans for Australia.
Ike stared at me in horror when I told him about the pregnancy. "It... it's all planned. I'm leaving in two weeks!"
I swallowed nervously. "I know, but... but this changes everything."
His eyes narrowed to slits as his dark gaze dropped to my still flat stomach. "How... how could you let this happen now, Amaka?" he demanded with a hint of irritation in his voice.
I gave him a look that implied that it takes two to tango, you know. Aloud I said, "We've always planned to have more than one child, haven't we?"
Indeed we had planned on four but revised our decision to two after our daughter was born and we realized how expensive and demanding it was to raise a child. We didn't subscribe to the belief of so many people around us that "God will provide," no matter the number of children one had. Most of our people still dwelled on the theological in matters concerning childbearing. We were more practical.
Ike waved a hand in the air as though dismissing my claim. "We could have waited a few more years."
"You di dn't tell me that," I said, trying very hard to put a lid on my anger. "Ekene is two now. Isn't that long enough to have another child?"
"Yes. But... but... " His voice trailed off and he turned away from me.
The atmosphere was so thick I could slice it with a knife. I stared at his broad, rigid back and tried to make excuses to myself for his behaviour.
Ike wasn't the beast my subconscious was trying so hard to make him out to be. On the contrary, he was a loving man who had passionately devoted himself and his time to his family and work for so long. Unfortunately, he had transferred that passion now to this burning desire to emigrate and had let it supersede all else, including us. None of this would have mattered if I shared his passion. Regrettably, I didn't.
"So, what are you going to do now?" I asked finally, breaking the silence. My voice challenged him to dare tell me to terminate the pregnancy. I was prepared to claw his back open then.
"Nothing."
"What... what do you mean 'nothing'?"
"It doesn't change anything." His voice was devoid of any emotion. He could have been talking about a newspaper weather report rather than our baby. "I will carry on with my plans."
I stared at him aghast. "And... and leave me here to have the baby on my own?"
He turned to face me then and I could tell from the dark look on his face that he blamed me for this. "What do you expect me to do?" he asked, his voice climbing into the upper register. "Abandon my plans at the very last minute? For heaven's sake, Amaka! I've bought my ticket, I've got my visa... everything. You really don't expect me to throw it all away be - because of this?"
Tears prickled behind my lids as I suddenly had visions of my body going through all those crazy hormonal changes with no one to reassure me they would soon pass. Worse still, I envisaged myself in the cold hospital delivery room surrounded by the not-too-sympathetic faces of the delivery nurses and doctors without Ike there to lend me support.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced my vocal chords to work. "And... and what about me? I... I can't have the baby on my own."
"I will send you money to cover the cost of delivery and every other thing else."
I could have killed him.
Perhaps that would have put a swift end to Australia and made me a widow in the real sense. In the event, I only balled my hands into fists by my sides, drew myself up to my full height, which wasn't much really considering that I was just a mere five foot to Ike's six-foot-two-inch f rame, and said angrily, "I'm not talking about money, Ike, and you know it! I'm talking about me!"
He dismissed my fears with a wave of his hand. "You will be okay."
I glared at him. "Really?"
He nodded, clearly oblivious to the sarcasm in my voice. "You've been through one pregnancy before so it isn't like you don't know what to expect."
Quite like saying that since I'd had a toothache before it would make it any less painful the very next time, I thought, even as the urge to do him bodily harm mounted.
"Besides, Bosah is here with you," he continued, referring to his younger brother who lived with us, "and I will arrange for Mama to come and stay with you before the child is due."
The extended family structure. A replacement for one's immediate family?
"There are lots of families who live apart," Ike added, his voice softening considerably, "and they survive somehow. You know that."
I should have burst into tears then, torn at my hair, begged him to stay... killed him. Instead, I let him go to Australia, a country well over fifteen thousand air kilometres away from home.
Ike went to Australia and that was when everyone moved in on me. In the beginning, they all praised his decision... our families, our friends, our neighbours, the congregation... everyone.
"Good for him!" some enthused. "He won't regret it."
"He is luc ky he has finally left this useless country," said some who dared to be more vocal. "There's nothing in this country."
"Very wise decision," yet others would declare. "This good-for-nothing country kills talent and initiative. He will be better off there."
And so on and so forth.
Didn't anyone have anything good to say about our country? I wondered.
Useless... good-for-nothing... backward; strong, incisive and derogatory adjectives. Was there nothing good and worthwhile to be found here? No future for us and the coming generations?
We all knew it hadn't always been this way, though. We might have been too young back then to recall the feeling but those who could did so with great nostalgia.
"Nothing is the same any more," my father would tell us as he puffed on his pipe. "Back then, we could go to bed with our doors unlocked and not fear being robbed. We didn't have iron bars on our doors and windows or electric devices on our gates. Lagos was relatively safe. I remember walking home, not once but several times, from my office at Ebute-Metta to my house in Surulere at night, a distance of over five kilometres, without fear of being attacked or robbed."
Papa hadn't stopped there. He had a lot to say about the economy, too. "The economy boomed back then." He waved his pipe in the air to punctuate his point and we watched, enthralled as the smoke coiled its way heavenwards. I could never think of Papa now without recalling his pipe and the sweet, cloying smell of tobacco.
"I made fifteen pounds from my job as a railway worker and I would give your mother two pounds for housekeeping. Even then, she would still have some money left at the end of the month to spend on herself. Back then, a tin of milk cost a mere shilling, about ten kobo in today's currency."
That usually drew laughter from us. Ten kobo for a tin of milk? Hardly conceivable, it seemed to us.
Papa would admonish us with a look. "This is no laughing matter," he would say severely. "Your mother, God rest her soul, would turn in her grave if she knew that the same tin of milk now sells for sixty naira." He would pause and shake his head sadly. "Life was so much easier back then. Inflation was low and salaries could go a long way. Our youths were in schools and not on the streets. Our streets were safer and cleaner, too. Back then, the atmosphere was so clean we could even smell the sea salts from the ocean winds in the air we breathed."
Papa's memories of our country was different from what we saw happening around us. "Hardly anyone ever left th e country for good back then," he would add. "One only ever travelled out to study or for a holiday. There was hardly any incentive to go and slave in the white man's country when a dollar back then was equivalent to one Nigerian pound."
We didn't dare laugh then. Papa would have given us a severe tongue lashi ng if we had.
I grew up wanting to believe Papa's stories, but everything I saw around me was so different from the memories he struggled so hard to keep alive. Our streets were filthy and unsafe and I saw fear, suspicion and uncertainty on the faces of the people I passed each day.
I wouldn't dare walk a distance of one kilometre at night nor would I ever dare go to bed without bolting and locking my doors securely. The atmosphere was so polluted now we breathed in more of smoke than the fresh ocean breeze Papa spoke of so fondly.
My grandmother had a different story to tell each time we went to visit her in the village. "Nothing is the same any more," she would say. "Back then, there was a season for everything. Now, the rains don't come when they should and, when it does come, it is either too short or too heavy.
"The birds don't migrate early any more, either, and our streams... " she would pause here and purse her lower lip in sad reflection, "... our streams are dark and shallow and our fishes do not survive any more."
Unlike Papa, who never put the blame on any one person or thing, my grandmother blamed the big bird in the sky - the aeroplane - for these environmental changes.
"We hear them when they fly over our roofs," she would say in a whisper as though she feared "they" might swoop on her for daring to divulge this vital piece of information. "They fly over our farmlands and streams, spraying them with evil dust. We know their plans; they want to drive us out of our homes so they can take over our lands and build more of those tall buildings and factories like they do in the towns."
We laughed at Grandma's explanation for the changes in the environment. Unlike Papa, she didn't mind when we laughed.
Papa and Grandma were not a delusional old man and woman. Their stories might have been embellished a little to make the storytelling all the better. After all, we all knew hyperbole was the cornerstone of most good storytelling. Nevertheless, we also understood that, in general, that was the land they had lived in. The land they remembered. A land that was perfect or near perfect.
They could never comprehend a land that was useless, good-for-nothing, backward and unsafe. But that was the land we lived in now. The land we knew. The land Ike had escaped from.
Perhaps Ike had indeed made the right decision to leave, I thought. Perhaps he was better off there. Perhaps he would climb the ladder of success there faster than he would have here.
I longed to believe all these notions and I couldn't wait for his first letter home to arrive.
Ike's letters, when they finally began to arrive, were filled with fire, hope and enthusiasm.
My dearest wife (he wrote in one of his letters),
I trust that this letter meets you all in good health. Over here, I'm fine. Indeed, I haven't felt this fine in ages.
You won't believe how great this country is. The people are so warm and friendly. The weather is great and the views are breathtaking. Everything works here, too. Electricity, water, telephones... everything. Best of all, my dear, there is a great deal of opportunity here. There is so much I can do.
I'm so glad I took the decision to come here. I feel certain that you will be able to join me in a few months...
I looked forward to Ike's letters. It reduced the sense of desertion and the feeling of helplessness I had felt on his departure, and it made me happy to know that he felt alive again. I dismissed that persistent, nagging inner voice that wanted me to believe that it was his bullish nature at work agai n.
He called, too. "We're so far away and international calls are so expensive," he explained, "but I'll call you whenever I can."
I didn't mind. I looked forward to his letters but I enjoyed talking to him more. It made the separation easier and it strengthened my belief that we would all be together soon.
I learned more about Australia from Ike's letters than I probably would have from a book. I learned that the people there were called Aussies; that they still recognized the British monarch as sovereign even though their currency was called the Australian dollar. I learned, too, that they were the world's smallest continent but sixth largest country; that their unemployment rate was a mere 5.2% and that, surprisingly, the capital wasn't Sydney, like I'd always thought, but Canberra.
The more I learned about Australia, the more my country paled in comparison. In a way, I guess Ike's letters helped foster my belief, like almost everyone else, that our country was backward, unsafe, useless, good-for-nothing, unkind to its citizens and lacking in general infrastructures.
In the end, I guess we all believe what we choose to believe.
CONTINUES in the next Edition of your World's Magazine. Please come back.
© 2006, GENERATOR 21.
E-mail your comments. We always like to hear from you. Send your snide remarks to rod@g21.net.