Speak No Evil Read online

  I wipe down the wooden bedframe and then turn my attention to the glass-fronted cabinet on the wall facing the bed. It has not been touched in years and holds a multicolored collection of cups set upside down on their rims. I wipe the dust-caked shelves with my rag but only succeed in smearing gray streaks across the greenish glass. Behind the cups are miniature bottles of whiskey, the kind they hand out on airplanes, all of them full, with unbroken seals. I pick one up and examine it in the afternoon light. Its contents glow golden and a clear air bubble shuttles from the cap to its base. Meredith would say take it so I put it back and close the cabinet. There is no time for that here. But the bottles make perfect sense. My grandfather lived alone in this room with no one to love for twenty-six years. That kind of loneliness takes real strength.

  The boys relax against the mango tree trunks shirtless as they wait for my father to return. I should say something. I want to say something, but nothing comes. We live such different lives with such different worries. Who has time to think about sexual orientation when there is no food to eat, no money for school fees, no doctor in sight when you get sick. My father always says we take everything he and my mother have given us too lightly, that people risk drowning in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean for just one-tenth of what we have. He is not wrong. We have studied the Haitians coming to Florida in the nineties in history class. We even had an assembly with a Syrian doctor who told us how he got his family away from ISIS and into Turkey. But I didn’t choose my life any more than the boys beneath the mango trees chose theirs, any more than my father chose his.

  My father returns just as the sun begins to set and its unraveling colors prompt the frogs and crickets to sing. He pays the boys and instructs Mr. Jacob to give them extra money for waiting so patiently. I watch him from the steps that lead up to the unlit veranda. He thinks they are tough enough to be men, but not me, his own flesh and blood. You should call your mother, he says when he reaches the veranda. We have a big day tomorrow. As he brushes by, his shoes deposit sand onto the newly swept floor.

  5

  There is hot water by the bathroom door, make sure you bathe today, you hear, my father says when he wakes me the next morning. His phone light throws an unpleasant brightness into my eyes. I can’t see his figure behind it but his tone forces me upright immediately. We’re going to see Bishop Okereke this morning. Make sure you wear nice clothes.

  My mother, OJ and I all agree that the worst part of village life is the bathroom. It has a sloping, moldy cement floor, and a fungus-streaked white tub that emits the most hostile odor, even after a dousing with disinfectant. When I was younger, my mother used to hold her breath while she quickly poured water on me and scrubbed my essential areas. When we got older, OJ and I competed over who could spend the least time in this torture chamber, breath held against the smell, and still come out without soapsuds on our skin or in our hair. OJ always won because he made the point of only washing his face and simply splashing water over the rest of his body. For me, clean meant clean. I never wanted to smell.

  A plastic bucket of steaming hot water sits just by the bathroom door made of wood slats held together by a cross beam. The panels are warped from decades of rot. Each year my mother asks my father why he refuses to renovate the house, or at least the bathroom, even after my grandfather has been dead for so long. My father says it’s good not to forget some things. I hold my breath and step inside. Sometimes it seems like he just wants to punish someone, anyone, for a long list of grievances that he has never made clear, which you can never ask about because he keeps his emotions so guarded that any question would be interpreted as an assault. I wonder if dragging us to this village and the nearby town where he spent his childhood is a way of sinking us all into his own personal hell so that we can see how this strange combination of poverty and opportunity, these broken and muddy roads, these crumbling houses, these overburdened men and women walking slowly in these streets singing praise songs to keep themselves going, created the strange combination of love and anger and pride and fear that is my father. He always sat in the passenger seat while we drove around the village so he could fully view what he sometimes called a world of wasted opportunity. With OJ or my mother in the car, he pointed out all the things he would make right if only he had the power. With me now, he says nothing. Occasionally he turns to look at me with the same expression that occupies his face when he has to solve a problem at the office. I sink down in my seat and wish that my mother had come.

  We arrive at Bishop Okereke’s church just as the sun finishes collecting the various colors of the sunrise into one large yellow ball of heat. A handful of people with starved faces stumble from the building, which bears no resemblance to a church. Its long, two-story façade resembles a factory and if not for the phrase, All Are Welcome, in large gold letters above two massive entrance doors, anyone would mistake it for one. Large stacks of interlocking tiles for paving the parking lot form a line in front of the building. A yellow Caterpillar earthmover and faded blue grader sit unused at the far edge of the building. I follow my father up the stairs into a large entrance hall lit by dim and flickering fluorescent lights. A young woman in a white blouse and black skirt with ill-fitting hair extensions sits at a glass table, atop which rests a large registry filled with scribbles indicating the names and calling times of previous visitors. My father signs without saying a word. The woman looks at him, produces two visitor’s tags and then gestures to the granite stairs. There is a seat at the top of the stairs just there, she says, Bishop Okereke will find you shortly.

  Our footsteps echo as we climb. My father slumps into a low black easy chair set beside a fake-wood coffee table from an office furniture catalog. His face betrays no emotion, but I can tell from the way he lets his head fall onto the seat back that he is tired. When he came home like this, we just left him alone because it was unclear what might make him snap. It could be dirty dishes or the music playing a little too loud, or a dating app on his son’s smart-phone that set the world on fire. His blowups did not happen often, but when they did, the consequences were severe and lasting.

  The bishop emerges from a security door opposite the couch. He wears a pin-striped suit with an open-collared white dress shirt and recently shined Italian shoes. His stomach bulges against his belt and his cheeks puff out like Dizzy Gillespie’s. My father snaps to his feet and takes Bishop Okereke’s outstretched hand. The bishop turns to me and with a quick smile says, young man, welcome home. He looks my father up and down. They are the same height, but my father’s slender frame makes him appear taller. So my friends, what is troubling you so much that you had to come all the way here to talk to me, Bishop Okereke says. My father glances at the open door. Bishop Okereke nods knowingly and then gestures toward his office. It’s just that the air conditioner in my office is broken, he says. My father smiles and stands there until the bishop turns and leads the way.

  Bishop Okereke’s office is practically empty except for the white lawn table and the two rickety plastic garden chairs he points to. The windows overlooking the muddy parking lot are covered in an elaborate metalwork security screen that forms a cross. A line of red, white and blue checkered Ghana-Must-Go bags line the wall behind the table. One overflows with clerical garments, another reveals the lumpy contours of books. God has blessed us with a new church, Bishop Okereke says, but we have to do the hard work of decorating. My father mutters, Amen. I stare at the bishop’s hand and his ring finger swelling around his wedding band. I have never had the guts to say it, but I’ve always hated the Reverend Olumide, Bishop Okereke style of preacher. They speak and laugh too loud. They project warmth like an industrial heater blasting the closest thing to them with too much intensity instead of radiating like the sun that simply draws you into its warmth. My father grew up Catholic but he always found the church too somber. I liked the Episcopal services at school, calm and thoughtful, preached in quiet voices and punctuated by elegant hymns. I like the idea of God that Jefferso
n preaches across the pages of our history books—the clockmaker that sets everything in motion but sees no need to intervene. Young man, young man, I hear Bishop Okereke say. My father places his hand on my arm to steady my chair as it rocks. It is the first time he has touched me since the kitchen. I look at my father. He stares directly at the bishop and refuses to return my gaze. Young man, look at me, what your father has told me is very serious, very serious indeed, if it is true, so I’m going to ask you to tell me yourself, have you been engaging in practices of homosexualism. His mouth settles into a prim disapproving line. He shakes his head back and forth slowly as if he wants me to say no, but looks like he is ready to grab my spirit and shake it clean of any faults it may have acquired in its short journey through this world. Answer him Niru, my father says. No, I say directly to Bishop Okereke’s face. It’s a lie, my father shouts and slams his palm on the scratched white plastic. The whole table bounces and wobbles. It’s a lie, he says more calmly a second time. I caught him on his phone. I caught him speaking to other men in some highly disgusting, perverted ways. I saw the filth he keeps on his computer. Of course, he went into my computer. He took everything after he hit me in the kitchen, ripped my laptop from its charging cord, smashed my iPad screen and left the cracked tablet on the kitchen counter. He turns to my father and says, it is good that Reverend Olumide sent you to me. He is right, this demon of homosexuality has become so entrenched in America that you can’t really fight it there, some churches are preaching that love of any kind is good while some of them have lost their way and are appointing gays as clergy. You are right to bring him here, this is a place where the faith is strong and hasn’t been infiltrated by the devil. I grind my teeth and try to breathe through a growing tightness in my chest. Bishop Okereke says, young man, if what your father says is true, will you confess your sins and rededicate yourself to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If so, it is simple and we know which direction we are going. If not—Bishop Okereke falls silent and folds his arms over his chest—what do you say? I say, I don’t know you, so why would I confess anything to you. Niru, my father says. No, it’s okay, your son is correct, he doesn’t know me, but it is not really me you need to know, it is God. Young man, will you pray with me, with us, Bishop Okereke says, stretching his arms across the table. My father grabs his hand and clutches my arm even though I make no effort to hold him in return. Bishop Okereke’s greedy hand flexes its way towards mine. I look at the door. It seems so impenetrable.

  People should know when they are conquered, OJ used to say when he would pin me to the floor and tickle me until I couldn’t tell whether I was laughing or crying. There is nothing you can do, give it up, it’s easier that way, OJ would say. You can’t win, so just let go, he said once when I said I wanted to punch my father in the face. I had only punched one person before, on the soccer field, in eighth grade. It was only later that evening, at home, after I realized that my punishment meant I wouldn’t play again that season, that I felt my fingers throbbing and I realized the full impact. Forcing my hands beneath a full flow of first hot water, then burning Listerine, I began to shiver. The idea that I had the potential to wound and destroy inside my body was overwhelming. It unfolded faster than rational thought, underneath a heavy sky and the Cathedral high above. The other boy had an expression of total surprise and anticipation that second before my fist hit his face. That was real power. That is the kind of power that my father understands. What scares me is that he might even appreciate it if I tried to punch his face. He would certainly return the blow without any reservations, even in front of the Bishop. He operates by the doctrine, kill your problems dead so they can’t bother you anymore. Sometimes this means violence, sometimes charm, sometimes prayer. Altogether it means Meredith is right and I’m screwed. There is no escaping what my father has brought me here for. There is nowhere to go. Bishop Okereke says, you will come for night vigil in two days’ time, then we will see the best way forward.

  Mr. Jacob takes us back to the church two nights later. The church lot is half-full when we arrive and guarded by two young men wearing bright yellow reflective vests and armed with large sticks. The ground vibrates from the generators that power the lights in the unfinished church. It stands out against the darkness that covers most of the town and surrounding villages on the hillsides. My father walks solemnly in front of me with his head bowed as if heading to a funeral. I keep my hands in my pockets and remove them every so often to wipe my palms on my slacks. I am nervous. I have been to one all-night prayer vigil before. Reverend Olumide holds them on the last Friday of each month for people to pray their concerns, praise or thanks through the night. My father never goes, but my mother attends at least two each year—one during her birthday month and the other on what would have been my sister’s birthday. She always bakes a cake to complement the other potluck dishes and snacks brought by members of the congregation. There are military-style cots lined against the sanctuary walls so that church members can take a break from prayer to rest and recuperate, but the night I went hardly anyone seemed interested in sleep. Reverend Olumide had plugged in an electric kettle at the back and laid out tea, instant coffee and powdered milk so that prayer warriors could keep focus. That night we held each other’s trembling hands as we prayed together beneath purposefully dimmed lights. If there was sweat it came from passion; if someone fainted, they were moved by the spirit.

  Bishop Okereke’s sanctuary is not finished and yet a sizable number of people perch on plastic chairs beneath slow-spinning ceiling fans wobbling on long thin supports hanging from the exposed iron rafters. No cots line the unplastered back walls. No coffeemaker hisses in the background. Instead the generator grumbles and the room swelters with heat it absorbed during the day. A multitude of voices in murmuring prayer rise towards the ceiling where they hang over the soft chords of a highlife guitar and soft hits from the drummer’s crash cymbals. The full band is already soaked in their own sweat from singing and praying while dancing to the spirit. Bishop Okereke stands on a makeshift plywood riser in his open-collared shirt and no suit jacket. He sees us enter and motions to my father to find a seat in the last empty row of lawn chairs. A few members see his hand signals and break from their prayers to watch us parade down the center aisle. My father keeps his head low until we reach our seats.

  Bishop Okereke reads from the Igbo Bible, standing center stage with the large brown book in one hand and his handkerchief in the other. I watch his lips move and feel his words ripple through the congregation. I can make out words and some phrases, but he reads quickly and I am lost. My father plays with his hands and picks at his cuticles as he rocks back and forth like a man praying at the Western Wall. I’m not going to give any big sermons tonight, that is for Sunday, Bishop Okereke says. Now is the time for prayer and devotion, for renewal. I invite you to begin your personal journey with God through this night as you are able, those wishing for private spiritual counsel should see one of our prayer warriors. I have never seen my father so agitated. At services he is normally calm; it often looks like he is half-asleep except that he maintains a completely upright posture with his head tilted upwards towards the sound of the word. OJ calls it meditation. But he is not like that here and he has not been calm since the moment we landed in Nigeria. It isn’t a positive energy, either. I can feel him scattered, apprehensive, uncertain every time he and I have to share the same space. I’m still me, I want to say to him, your son, but that would hardly help if I am currently everything wrong with the world. How can a man like my father who has done everything right suddenly be saddled with this problem? He has taken our name—the name of a drunken widower and an illiterate older brother—and through sheer force of will made it trusted by people around the world, he has told us. But in the mornings I watch him circle the compound with the slow walk, stopping for a moment each round at his father’s resting spot near the orange tree to mutter some words towards the cracked cement slab beneath which he thinks all his dishonor has d
isappeared. Now I am here and it causes him so much pain. I can see that.

  Everyone can see that. And that makes it worse for him. That he has to ask Reverend Olumide for help, that he has to sit in Bishop Okereke’s office, that we have to be here now searching for the center of balance on these wobbly plastic chairs arranged in unkempt rows across this hot cement floor is my fault. If only I hadn’t said anything to Meredith, if I only hadn’t listened to Meredith, I would still be fine—maybe not entirely fine—but before was so much better than this. If I could just make this go away.

  My father springs from his seat and charges down the aisle towards the Bishop as the congregation rises and plastic chairs scrape against the cement. He stands first in line before the Bishop, who without a word, gestures towards the door behind the raised plywood podium. My father follows. I half-stand and then return to my seat. I touch my forehead to the chair in front of me.

  I feel a hand on my shoulder. Wake up, wake up, Niru, my father says. He stands above me, his shirt soaked through with his sweat, eyes red and a soiled white towel scrunched in one hand. Listen, it’s time, he says. Are we leaving, I say. My father shakes his head. He says, it’s time that we . . . He doesn’t finish. My mouth dries out and my legs grow weak. I have expected this. I have known it is coming, but I’m not ready. My father says, come on now, we haven’t got all night.

  There are four people waiting for us in the back room, Bishop Okereke, two women with dull cream-colored fabric draped over their heads, and a small brown man holding a bloated leather-bound Bible with a worn strap positioned standing in a circle at the center of the room. The light bulbs overhead flicker with the fluctuating current from the generator. The room has no windows but a small fan oscillates in the corner. It isn’t enough to dispel the heat. Their foreheads shine with sweat. The chamber smells heavily of body odor and cheap perfume. My father pulls the door shut behind us as Bishop Okereke gestures to a spot in the center of the circle, then he squeezes into a corner and bows his head. He does not look at me. Let us pray the Our Father together, Bishop Okereke says, stretching his hands towards his companions. They grip hands and form a trembling circle around me. My father’s mouth moves, but I hear no sound. My voice mingles with theirs as our prayers fill the tight space. My shirt grows sticky with my sweat. Please kneel down, young man, Bishop Okereke says. His companions draw closer to me with their hovering palms. My father remains in the corner. Kneel down young man so we can pray over you as God has called us here to do. Do not be afraid, God is in control.