New York, My Village Read online

  NEW YORK, MY VILLAGE

  A Novel

  Uwem Akpan

  [A writer] should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

  — ERNEST HEMINGWAY

  Contents

  Chapter 1: Santa Judessas vs Lagoon Drinkers, huh?

  Chapter 2: Both God and utere, the vulture, can never abandon the corpse

  Chapter 3: Daddy, when is Thanksgiving?

  Chapter 4: I loved Starbucks

  Chapter 5: A Native American cop peered into my food

  Chapter 6: Why really did the dogs die?

  Chapter 7: Trails of Tuskegee

  Chapter 8: Nigerian food. Fulton Street. Brooklyn

  Chapter 9: Like the tuke-tuke buses of Benin City

  Chapter 10: It melted on my tongue like butter

  Chapter 11: We’ve got your back

  Chapter 12: I’d give anything to participate in a Jewish liturgy

  Chapter 13: Make your prayer sessions longer

  Chapter 14: I’ve totally lost interest in Argentine soccer

  Chapter 15: Ikud, the tortoise, knows how to embrace his wife

  Chapter 16: Niece of Mr. Gross or Niece of Reverse Oreo

  Chapter 17: My son is playing with you

  Chapter 18: Ujai, agwo nwuaan Annang, agwo uko

  Chapter 19: The frenzied imagination of an old man

  Chapter 20: The Handmaid Sisters of the Child Jesus

  Chapter 21: Screw you all

  Chapter 22: The breakup hurt

  Chapter 23: America was meaningless

  Chapter 24: “Call White America’s Bluff” Thanksgiving Mass

  Chapter 25: Bless her heart

  Chapter 26: Punishment of an unpatriotic un-Biafran Biafran

  Chapter 27: If she hears you quarrel with your BFF, she’ll be gloomy

  Chapter 28: I Wish I’s in Heaven Sitting Down

  Chapter 29: I love quad biking on the beaches of Swakopmund

  Chapter 30: Canepa’s lawyers had sent me a strongly worded letter

  Chapter 31: The eye must learn to behold the sun

  Chapter 32: Kelly King Rice, or Better Than Sex Rice?

  Chapter 33: Lead us through that beautiful valley

  Chapter 34: Riskier than cooking for them

  Chapter 35: Thank you, my landlord

  Acknowledgments

  NEW YORK, MY VILLAGE

  CHAPTER 1

  Santa Judessas vs Lagoon Drinkers, huh?

  NOTHING WAS GOING TO STOP ME FROM ENJOYING NEW York to the marrow, as we say back home in Ikot Ituno-Ekanem in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. I was the managing editor of Mkpouto Books in Uyo, after I left my job as a literature lecturer at Ikot Osurua Polytechnic. With a Toni Morrison Fellowship for Black Editors I was on my way to Andrew & Thompson, a publishing house, to understudy their operations for four months. I would also use that time to edit an anthology of stories by minority writers on the Biafran War, the fiftieth anniversary of which was going to be the following year. This ethnic war rang deep in my soul: I was born a year into it, 1968, hence my mother naming me Ekong, which means “War.”

  It was to be my first time in America. I had seen a lot of America on TV and spoke American English, so it was not going to be that complicated. Better still, we had dozens of Americans, Europeans, Asians, and Latinos in our local church, Our Lady of Guadalupe; they worked in the oil fields of the Niger Delta. Though they lived in walled fortresses, the church was our meeting point, where our children and theirs attended the same First Holy Communion classes and were featured in nativity and passion plays.

  I had wanted to travel with my wife, Caro, but her bank job got in the way. So our consolation was that I would be back for Christmas. As the visa interview at the American Embassy in Lagos approached, I had already sorted out my accommodation in New York. Usen Umoh, a childhood friend, who was a super in the Bronx, had warned me that looking for housing in NYC was a mess and invited me to stay with him. But after learning he lived with his wife and two kids in a one-bedroom apartment, I was not keen. Worse still, Molly Simmons, who would be my supervisor in America, hinted that the Bronx was also a little dangerous and suggested I “live near things, so you could really enjoy your short stay.” I made the mistake of relating this to Usen. Offended, he complained to the entire Ikot Ituno-Ekanem village that I was looking down on him.

  Tuesday Ita, an older “brother,” who lived in New Jersey, would have allowed me his spare room, as he had done for many of our villagers, but Molly made New Jersey sound like some distant violent Third World city. I had never met Tuesday, though we all loved him for paying the tuition for a host of orphans and digging wells for clean water in the eight surrounding villages. I was only seven years old when his late uncle who worked with American Red Cross/Catholic Charities brought him to America in 1975, five years after our civil war. But it was Tuesday, an anesthesiologist, who settled the quarrel between Usen’s extended family and mine in the village over my “rejection” of Usen. He accomplished this by leaking the news of Usen’s secret party plans to welcome me to NYC during Thanksgiving.

  I felt more than honored, and was relieved that village relations were restored.

  On the phone, Molly, who was the publisher and editor-in-chief, had the sweetest and most reassuring voice I had ever heard, though Caro did not like her one bit and insisted I put the phone on speaker as we enthused about the pleasures of putting a book together and discussed the overlap between my job at our Mkpouto Books and her role at her publishing house. Anyway, we were relieved Molly knew someone who knew an old gentleman, Greg Lucci, who was ready to sublet a furnished one-bedroom apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, three blocks from Times Square. The white lady, who had seen the place, said it was romantic because the bath was in the kitchen, like in the old movies. She said the rent was also great, half the market price.

  IN EARLY APRIL, a day before my visa interview, I flew out of Akwa Ibom International across southern Nigeria to Lagos. That evening, in my pretty Yaba hotel, after a quiet meal of atama and garri, I unzipped my sky-blue waterproof folder to ensure I had everything for the interview. Though the embassy website asked for only my passport, the invitation letter, and proofs of accommodation and financial resources, conventional wisdom said you could be asked any question by the consular officer. So I also had the originals of my birth certificate, baptismal card, certificate of origin, driver’s license, letters from the university, the National War Museum, and the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture vouching for the importance of my work in memory preservation, my expired marriage certificate, divorce certificate plus two police reports attesting I had been a victim of domestic violence, a clearance letter from the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, a certificate of ownership of our new home in Ikot Ituno-Ekanem plus its architectural design, a Certificate of Minor Chieftaincy Title from Afe Annang, transcripts from secondary school through my master’s program, three years’ worth of tax documents, membership cards of professional associations, etc.

  Next, I stood up and walked around the room, rehearsing my answer to the most important question everyone said the consular officer would ask: What proof could I offer that I would return to Nigeria after my fellowship? Usen, whose wife, Ofonime, flunked four interviews before she could join him in the Bronx, had helped me build my answer around my coveted position at Mkpouto Books, my excitement over grooming local writers, the books I had published so far, and my ongoing war research by way of recording oral interviews of our Annang war victims, which had to be done in Annangland, not America. Molly also said I should add that her company was thinking of establishing a professional relationship with Mkp
outo.

  By the time I finally slept that night, my mind was already in New York. I scrambled up many times before the hotel service woke me at five a.m. I had no appetite, though they were already serving their complimentary breakfast at that hour.

  Thirty minutes later, I was dutifully seated in a Benz Uber, eager to beat Lagos traffic for my eight a.m. appointment on Victoria Island. My folder lay beside me as I responded to all the text messages from Nigeria and abroad wishing me good luck as if I were going to court or taking a bar exam. I restricted myself to answering only texts from Caro, Molly, Usen, and Father Kiobel Baribor—our beloved parish priest and friend—because I was beginning to be restless; though my driver had said the traffic would be okay, it was dangerously building up. I called Caro to say how tense I was. She said it was unbearable for her. After she sobbed and said three Hail Marys slowly into the phone, which brought tears to my eyes, Usen sought to distract me by asking for pictures of “the poor man’s skyscrapers of Victoria Island”; I snapped and sent them to him. He asked to see how I was dressed; I took a selfie of my charcoal-colored senator outfit and black shoes for him and Caro. He grumbled that I looked too glum; I said I was saving my smile for the embassy.

  I GOT OUT NEAR Walter Carrington Crescent, near the lagoon, which emptied a few streets away into the Atlantic Ocean. The heat of the dry season had woken up, too. It was going to be a hot, dusty day. The taxi berth was already like a mobile open market, as if nobody had slept the night before. There were all kinds of businesses: folks hawking stationery, groups running locker depots to house your phones and bags because you could not enter the embassy with them, photographers taking last-minute passport photos, restaurateurs serving assorted Nigerian breakfast dishes as though it were a mini–food carnival. The police here were more energetic than those at any country’s independence day celebrations. And there were too many folks in this neighborhood walking their huge muzzled dogs, as though to advertise a new fad, because I could not believe there were no smaller dogs in Victoria Island.

  But, as I deposited my phone, what intrigued me the most was the number of touts trying to sell me colorful pamphlets on how to nail American visa interviews. I wore down the crowd haggling for my attention to two ladies who trailed me through the half-mile-high security no-vehicular zone leading to the embassy.

  “Uncle, do everyting to get the Latina visa interviewer!” counseled a lady in bright red culottes, carrying a huge bag of pamphlets on her head. “She dey merciful. We dey call am Santa Judessa. She dey wear blue-rimmed glasses. She be our personal person for de embassy.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Avoid de white man, Lagoon Drinker,” her partner in an immaculate white dress said. “Dat one just dey drink water nonstop as if liquid no dey America. He dey bully our people too much, especially if you want visit New York, his village.”

  “Mbok, I’m headed to New York!” I said.

  “Please, just say you dey go New Jersey or Connecticut,” the other said.

  “Thanks, ladies, I love your humor,” I said, chuckling confidently. “Let’s see: Santa Judessas vs Lagoon Drinkers, huh? Sounds like an exciting soccer match!”

  “Uncle, dis Yankee embassy no get funny bone inside o,” the former warned me, sweeping her braids off her face. “Soon you go see how inside embassy be … meanwilee, make you give us tip na.”

  “Tip?” I said.

  “You look like first-timer,” she said.

  “Yes, I am,” I said.

  “Then give us small change, little appreciation for decoding de color game for you!” the other one said impatiently. “Abi, we done give you valuable info to get visa to go make dollar nyafu nyafu for America!”

  “I didn’t ask you for anything, did I?” I said.

  “Good, just buy our pamphlets, then,” the culottes lady said. “Uncle, we no be beggars. We no be touts. Just serious External Visa Processors, EVPs!”

  I impatiently pushed past them, pointing to my folder to signal I had everything I needed. They apologized and went to find someone else.

  By the time I arrived at the embassy, the angry sleepless gritty dust that filled the air had settled on me. And then I began to sweat. By ten a.m., after more than an hour at the processing line, I received my number and was among the first batch to enter the large interview hall. I took my seat and put my folder on my knees as the embassy apologized via a public-address system that due to “technical difficulties the interview lines are going to be a bit slower than usual.” I clenched my jaw and went through all the documents again.

  My neighbor, a beautiful and tastefully dressed woman in her thirties, shuddered. She brought out her tesbih, Muslim prayer beads, closed her eyes, and started to rub them between her fingers. She was naturally fair-skinned, and her hands were covered with delicate black hennas designed like gloves. The other neighbor, an old man with a gold tooth, would not even answer my greeting, as though I were a bad omen. Yet he smiled often. He was in a black-and-white-striped cotton dashiki and matching cap. People were already lining up to use the restrooms, others to drink from the water fountain. And there were those who were too cold because of the powerful air-conditioning. When the old man complained, the guards said if he could not stand this little breeze, he should tell his interviewer he would not survive the American winter.

  You did not push your luck with these folks, these our compatriots in sharp uniforms and boots. These guards moved about the packed hall like they ran America.

  BEHIND THE GLASS WALL, I could see six interview booths. In front of them were thirty or so seats reserved for the next batch to be interviewed. These were as solemn as jury chairs. But, as soon as only two interviewers arrived and took their places in the booths, I knew we were in for a long day. Someone complained that in London and Beijing, America always filled the booths. Another said they had enough interviewers, too, in Sydney and Riyadh, and were nicer. Another said we should thank our stars things had really improved these days, unlike ten years ago when our people used to literally sleep outside the embassy because the consular officers did everything to delay the lines. When security moved toward our murmuring section, we all hushed and avoided their eyes.

  Though I could tell one interviewer was a white American, I could not ascertain whether he was the dreaded Lagoon Drinker. I was also too far away to figure out the rim color of the glasses of his lady counterpart, to determine if she was Santa Judessa, the Latina. It took a long time for security to move a group forward and even longer for the interviews to begin. And when they did, I studied the patterns of rows being relocated by security to the pre-interview zone, without understanding what was going on. Sometimes it was this row, and then that row.

  It was pure voodoo.

  What I could see very well, though, were anxious people approaching the booths like their knees were popping with fear. You could tell who was triumphant by their smiles and thumbs-ups. Some got their visas within a minute and waved the pink slips with details on when to pick up their passports. Some succeeded after a tug-of-war between them and the interviewers. Others failed. There were shrugs; there were tears. Two families who broke out in total confrontation with the interviewers were escorted out by security, the children wailing like their parents had died. As more folks from the lady’s booth were celebrating, I suspected she was Santa Judessa. The only problem was you did not choose your interviewer. You said your prayers.

  By two p.m., my nose was running because of the cold and hunger. The old man went to the restroom, returned almost immediately, and tried to negotiate a seat exchange with me. Since he spoke no English and I neither understood a word of his native tongue nor knew what language it was, someone behind us volunteered to interpret. The old man wanted to be interviewed by Santa Judessa, too, not the white man. I said no and explained it was too early to tell who would interview whom, since we were still very far from the booths. He said his dead grandmother had assured him in the restroom he would get the lady if I relinqu
ished my seat. He said his doctor had told him he needed a serious checkup in the U.S., so he could not afford to fail the interview. He opened his file to show me batches upon batches of frayed receipts for medications he had been taking since 1980 and a health insurance card listing him as a dependent of a son in Jamaica, New York.

  I was about to oblige when security arrived, a man and a woman. They said we could not change seats, even if I agreed. “You eider obey ASAP because America na country of laws,” the lady warned, “or we go bundle you out!” The interpreter translated the message; my neighbor sat down immediately, with hands in between his legs. I was helping him rearrange his receipts when the security man asked whether he would promise not to cause any more trouble. He nodded and looked up smiling, tears coming down his cheeks.

  FINALLY, AT 3:07 P.M., they invited my row to move into the pre-interview section, skipping five rows. And they pulled ours out from the direction I did not expect, so that the old man was ahead of me and the Muslim lady behind. I did not mind the disorientation, so long as we were moving.

  At the booths, the white man wore a blue suit. I knew he was Lagoon Drinker because three bottles of water stood in front of him. The lady’s blue-rimmed glasses assured me that she was our beloved Latina. She wore a white dress and her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She had a calm friendly demeanor, something not even the officiousness of diplomacy could distort. In the short twenty minutes since we took our new seats, she had enhanced her image further by giving four visas out of six while Lagoon Drinker gave none. As I scudded forward from seat to empty seat, I could hear snatches of the interviews. However, the thing I heard the most clearly was when the interviewer said, “Next!” and in the same twenty minutes, I had looked over my documents seven times and changed the order of them four times. The Muslim woman beside me was exhaling and groaning each time we moved forward.