An African Affair Read Free Page A

rattan couch surrounded by plump brown and orange tie-dyed pillows, resting her feet on a brown leather ottoman decorated with gold-stitched geometric designs. A stack of clips was piled before her and she began reading them.
    “I’ve got a lot of background material here,” she said. “You’re welcome to read whatever you want.”
    “Thanks, Linds,” Maureen answered. “I’ll look through it, but I did a lot of research in London.” She paused, then smiled. “You seem as cool as a cucumber.”
    “You should have seen me when I first arrived. I stared out the cab window at the open sewers and crowded streets and thought, ‘This is terrible, but soon I’ll be in Ikoyi, where the foreigners live.’ As we kept driving, the houses got bigger and nicer, but the smell never changed and the garbage mounds were just as high. And then the driver pulled into our driveway and I realized that this was as good as it gets.”
    “Well, you can’t really complain,” Maureen said, gesturing to take in the spacious room. “You live better than ninety-five percent of the locals.”
    “More like ninety-nine percent. When I saw the servants’ quarters, where our steward Martin lives with his family, I actually cried. Two small rooms off a dark hallway running along the outside of the house. There was no electricity and the outhouse was just a hole in the ground. I tried to imagine what the British colonialists were thinking when they housed the people who worked for them, what it said about how they viewed them.
    “So I had Martin’s quarters painted and wired for electricity. They have the right to the same blackouts we have, right? I put in fans, installed a bathroom, and paid some local guys to cart away the garbage. I felt great for about a week. Then one day I was standing in the garden and I saw a huge pile of garbage floating right past the house. Those guys had just dumped it all in the creek. Soon the garbage was piled as high as before. Only now I don’t notice it so much.”
    Martin came into the room as they were talking. A slight man of forty-two, he was dressed neatly in his customary brown trousers and white shirt. He had the slightly self-effacing manner of someone who had worked as a servant for most of his life. Though not formally educated past sixth grade, he had learned Western customs and had almost erased the pidgin English he’d grow up with.
    “Good morning, madam,” he said, tilting the blinds to protect the furniture from the sun.
    “Good morning,” she answered cheerily. “Martin, this is my best friend, Maureen. Maureen, this is my savior, Martin. Not only does he cook and shop and make my life here possible, he’s also my best source of information on everything from politics to local events.”
    Martin looked abashed. “I know nuttin’ about politics,” he said uncomfortably. “Welcome to Lagos, madam,” he said, raising his eyes to look at Maureen. “You arrive okay? No big palaver at the airport?”
    “Yes, yes, it was fine,” Maureen said, trying to shake his hand, but he ducked his head and quickly withdrew into the kitchen.
    “Actually, it was horrible,” Maureen said to Lindsay. “The immigration guy sits up so high you strain your neck while being interrogated.”
    “They do that to make you feel like a supplicant. So what did you say?”
    “I didn’t. I just quietly showed my passport and answered their questions in a matter-of-fact way,” Maureen said. “Unfortunately, that seemed to work, because here I am.”
    “Sometimes I get through it by imagining I’m in a movie,” Lindsay said. “And it is kind of like that, isn’t it? The guards, with their eyes curtained by dark shades, the demand for papers and visas, the long delays while they wait for the bribe you end up fumbling for.”
    “They make you show your return ticket to be sure you plan to leave, like it’s so wonderful here, you might want to stay forever.”
    “Once I was in, I knew what to do