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someone like him go?

3
“It’s Not Just These Local Thugs I Have to Think Of….”
    Sade was dancing in their tiny kitchen, listening to her Discman and waiting for the rice to boil, when Papa arrived. On weekdays he had only an hour to rest between his day work at the Refugee Center and night work driving a cab. Sade had once asked how his head didn’t burst from listening to so many sad stories at the center.
    “An information officer needs a head like a good oven,” he said. “It gets very hot. You have to let the stories cook inside without the oven exploding.”
    His image had made her smile. Papa had become a good cook in England. On weekends he took charge of the kitchen, usually making a big pot of stew and black-eyed beans on Sunday, which lasted them for a few days. Sometimes he boiled yams, fried plantains, or made egusi soup. He had learned to cook as a student, but Mama hadalways presided over the kitchen at home. Papa tried getting Femi to help. But Femi’s interest never lasted long, and he would rather slip away to watch television. Later, if he complained that Papa had used too many red peppers, Papa would say that Femi should have stayed to check him. Femi’s standard retort was “You wouldn’t have listened to me anyway.” During the week, however, Sade prepared supper. Trying to involve Femi usually meant an argument. It was easier to leave him alone. Only patient Mama had known how to charm him.
    The three of them sat at the small table in the kitchen to eat. Sade imagined that suppertime reminded Papa of his newspaper office in Lagos. She and Femi were the cub reporters with Papa in the editor’s chair between them. He never accepted that “nothing happened.” Even Femi knew this. Today he told Papa there had been an accident in school and a teacher’s finger had been nearly cut off.
    “Who said it was an accident?” Sade interrupted. “Fla—I mean, Mr. Gordon said there was an incident, not an accident. Weren’t you listening in assembly?”
    Femi gave her one of his blank looks.
    “I don’t have any more news,” he said to Papa.
    “Did you two walk home together?”
    It was the question Sade had been waiting for. She stared at Femi. Let him give Papa his excuses before she swung in! But Femi remained silent as a stone. Papa looked from one to the other, his eyes glinting behind his spectacles.
    “You disappoint me,” he said quietly.
    His words cut Sade. She was ready to deny, to accuse.But her complaints suddenly boiled dry. What was the point? Papa had heard the soundtrack before. The only thing he hadn’t done yet was to beat Femi.
    “Bad things can happen anywhere, Papa,” Sade heard herself say as Papa’s gray tufted eyebrows rose like untidy flags. “Bad things can happen even at the school gate. We meant to walk together—but sometimes things go wrong. Like today—I was late because my English teacher was talking to me about writing a play. You should let Femi have a key, Papa! He was waiting outside the flat alone and Mrs. Beattie took him in. She said it was her ‘Christian duty.’ It was so embarrassing!” Sade knew that Mrs. Beattie’s holier-than-thou words would irritate her father. She waited for the storm.
    But it didn’t come as she expected. Instead, peering at her over the straight gold rims of his glasses, he said softly, “You know it’s not just these local thugs that I have to think of….” His voice trailed. He didn’t need to say anymore. Sade fell silent. The gunmen who murdered Mama in their driveway in Lagos had long arms. How could she ever forget the voice over the phone?
    If we get the family first, what does it matter?
    She knew that Papa, who had always been so open in speaking out, now wrote his articles about Nigeria under a made-up name. She knew why Uncle Dele had taken a job in an art college outside London. Papa’s younger brother had been in England longer than any of them. He had been active in the Nigerians for