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Authors: Leye Adenle
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his gaffe.
There was no one to turn to, so I waited and counted the mosquitoes I killed while the blood they sucked stained my palms.
The door flung open and a plain clothes officer stood in its frame. That was when I realised it hadn’t been locked. He grunted something, which I understood to mean he wanted me to follow him. He led the way deeper into the dark belly of the building and the mosquitoes followed, not done with the blood of a foreigner. He stopped, and in the darkness, I bumped into him. We were in front of the last door on the corridor. He knocked softly, almost cautiously, three times, and waited. Cool air wrapped around my ankles and slipped up my trousers. Itcame from under the door where there was a slither of light.
I didn’t hear anyone respond but my escort opened the door, stuck his face into the crack, and barely audibly said, ‘He’s here, sir.’
‘Bring him in,’ someone said from the inside. It was the voice of the boss.
Sweat on my forehead turned icy as I stepped into his office.
‘Sit down, please, Mr Collins,’ he said. He was behind a cluttered table, elbows on wood, perusing some open files in front of him.
As I sat, I spotted a name plaque on the desk: INSPECTOR IBRAHIM. Now we knew each other’s names.
‘What a night, eh?’ he said.
I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say to that – or if I was expected to say anything, but in my mind I agreed: what a screwed up night.
‘You must wish you were back home right now.’
This time he smiled and it felt OK to respond. I nodded.
‘Well, we also want to get you back home quickly. We just need to clear up a few things.’
I wondered if by home he meant England.
‘Where are you staying?’
‘Eko Hotel.’
‘Yes? Nice hotel. I’ve stayed there myself. So, what are you doing in Nigeria?’
Good question. Why was I here? It was a bullshit assignment, to be honest, not the sort of thing I had in mind when I changed careers. We could have hired a local stringer; that was Ronald’s first attempt to get out of it. But then the Walrus wouldn’t have been able to let it slip at his club that he had a team in Nigeria covering the election – ‘the team’ comprising a grand total of me.
The initial excitement of getting the job had waned before Icollected my visa at the Nigeria High Commission – the Walrus might soon have milked the bragging rights and then the trip would no longer be ‘workable’. I didn’t start getting excited again until I was strapped into my economy class seat, being instructed to ‘switch off all electronic devices’. Then it was suddenly all too real, and the suppressed thrill burst out in one unrestrained moment marked by an unconscious smile that I caught in my reflection in the aircraft window. After that I was sober – enough to question myself.
I was going to Nigeria, a country sufficiently dangerous to warrant a Foreign Office travel warning and I was going in election season when political parties would be at war. And I’d asked for the job. When I was showing off my Nigerian visa in the office, Jen, my best buddy at work, took one look at my passport and asked, ‘Are you going because of Mel?’ We had drinks later that evening, and we talked about the Mel situation. I was being honest when I told her yes, I wanted to go to Nigeria because of Mel, but not in the way she thought. It was over. I had accepted that. But I felt I knew the country like one knows an old relative, and there was nothing wrong with taking the opportunity to go there.
There was another reason that also had to do with Mel, but I didn’t tell Jen because she wouldn’t have understood. Early, when we started dating, Mel asked how many countries I’d been to. I counted fourteen. ‘Only Europe,’ she said and she looked at me with a deadpan stare, as if she’d just discovered something significant about me. I asked her how many countries she’d been to: four continents and fifty-two countries. A
There was no one to turn to, so I waited and counted the mosquitoes I killed while the blood they sucked stained my palms.
The door flung open and a plain clothes officer stood in its frame. That was when I realised it hadn’t been locked. He grunted something, which I understood to mean he wanted me to follow him. He led the way deeper into the dark belly of the building and the mosquitoes followed, not done with the blood of a foreigner. He stopped, and in the darkness, I bumped into him. We were in front of the last door on the corridor. He knocked softly, almost cautiously, three times, and waited. Cool air wrapped around my ankles and slipped up my trousers. Itcame from under the door where there was a slither of light.
I didn’t hear anyone respond but my escort opened the door, stuck his face into the crack, and barely audibly said, ‘He’s here, sir.’
‘Bring him in,’ someone said from the inside. It was the voice of the boss.
Sweat on my forehead turned icy as I stepped into his office.
‘Sit down, please, Mr Collins,’ he said. He was behind a cluttered table, elbows on wood, perusing some open files in front of him.
As I sat, I spotted a name plaque on the desk: INSPECTOR IBRAHIM. Now we knew each other’s names.
‘What a night, eh?’ he said.
I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say to that – or if I was expected to say anything, but in my mind I agreed: what a screwed up night.
‘You must wish you were back home right now.’
This time he smiled and it felt OK to respond. I nodded.
‘Well, we also want to get you back home quickly. We just need to clear up a few things.’
I wondered if by home he meant England.
‘Where are you staying?’
‘Eko Hotel.’
‘Yes? Nice hotel. I’ve stayed there myself. So, what are you doing in Nigeria?’
Good question. Why was I here? It was a bullshit assignment, to be honest, not the sort of thing I had in mind when I changed careers. We could have hired a local stringer; that was Ronald’s first attempt to get out of it. But then the Walrus wouldn’t have been able to let it slip at his club that he had a team in Nigeria covering the election – ‘the team’ comprising a grand total of me.
The initial excitement of getting the job had waned before Icollected my visa at the Nigeria High Commission – the Walrus might soon have milked the bragging rights and then the trip would no longer be ‘workable’. I didn’t start getting excited again until I was strapped into my economy class seat, being instructed to ‘switch off all electronic devices’. Then it was suddenly all too real, and the suppressed thrill burst out in one unrestrained moment marked by an unconscious smile that I caught in my reflection in the aircraft window. After that I was sober – enough to question myself.
I was going to Nigeria, a country sufficiently dangerous to warrant a Foreign Office travel warning and I was going in election season when political parties would be at war. And I’d asked for the job. When I was showing off my Nigerian visa in the office, Jen, my best buddy at work, took one look at my passport and asked, ‘Are you going because of Mel?’ We had drinks later that evening, and we talked about the Mel situation. I was being honest when I told her yes, I wanted to go to Nigeria because of Mel, but not in the way she thought. It was over. I had accepted that. But I felt I knew the country like one knows an old relative, and there was nothing wrong with taking the opportunity to go there.
There was another reason that also had to do with Mel, but I didn’t tell Jen because she wouldn’t have understood. Early, when we started dating, Mel asked how many countries I’d been to. I counted fourteen. ‘Only Europe,’ she said and she looked at me with a deadpan stare, as if she’d just discovered something significant about me. I asked her how many countries she’d been to: four continents and fifty-two countries. A
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