Artwork by Jinhwa Jang
“Occasionally the river floods these places. ‘Floods’ is the word they use, but in fact it is not flooding; it is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.”
—Toni Morrison
I
Kabu gauges the woman climbing the stairs. There is nothing in her face with a glow that mocks the sun, or her fingers ringed full of gold, or her neck strung with jadeites, or her feet cushioned in handcrafted takalama, that makes her stand out from the other people who visit Bridge Gringo daily. She is a Buyer. You can tell from her composure; she is someone who knows what she wants, how she wants it, where and whom she will get it from. What piques Kabu’s attention is the woman’s gown—how the adire wriggles in the wind without creases. Not even one. Like water.
As the woman sets foot on the rickety walkway, canopied with ripped nylon bags and old cartons, Bashiru cocks his chakakpum and sways it from side to side. An unspoken warning to Kabu and the other Castaways. Behave yourselves. If you do anyhow you go see anyhow. In all the years Bashiru has been the Olopa stationed at Bridge Gringo—back when the bridge was a mesh of plywood and iron railings above a mass of green water that overflowed with rubbish—nobody has ever heard fim from his mouth. Three years after the water had been drained out to build a train station, not necessarily to make the commute safer, but to bring more Castaways to the bridge from the other side of town, Bashiru’s chakakpum does all the talking for him. He will kill you dead and fling you off the railings if you do anyhow. Your body, or the many pieces of it, will be mangled by the racing trains below. The first rule of Bridge Gringo is: After God, fear Bashiru.
Kabu puts on his game face. Generous smears of pity at both corners of his lips, and widened eyes, but not so much that it clouds the humility he is supposed to embody. He shrinks his frame to appear smaller. Harmless. Buyers always fall for this. Among the other Castaways on Bridge Gringo, this act earned him the nickname Melumebele, which means Have Mercy on Me. Who would look at this face and not have mercy on him? But this week has been a bad one for Kabu. Five days straight, he has watched the clouds wrestle with the orange sunset without a Buyer picking him. They would pace around him, hover a bit, and chew on their fingers. Just when he was dead certain they would pick him, they skipped him for someone else.
He cannot afford another day of not being mined. They are already stretched thin on food at home and Onyeka’s levetiracetam prescription is due for refilling tomorrow. The last time Onyeka’s refill was delayed, his seizures returned. Kabu whispers a prayer to any omnipresent being who might be eavesdropping and would care to listen.
The woman continues her strut along the walkway. Unlike the other Buyers who would first scan the sea of faces on Bridge Gringo and grade each Castaway, using a mental scoresheet until they spot one who has something they are interested in mining, this woman, all stiff-neck-and-raised-shoulder, has long made up her mind.
She halts in the middle of the walkway. A murmur unfurls.
Pick me, Madam. Biko, pick me. Check me out nau, nwa di go di sharp. A trial will convince you, Ma. I get wetin you want, if I lie make my Papa die. I go even give you jara.
She retraces her steps to where Kabu is sitting.
“You.”
Kabu blinks twice and gestures to himself. “Me?”
“Yes, you. Follow me.”
There is an age-old question about who came first: the River or the People? The answer you get depends on who you ask.
There is an age-old question about who came first: the River or the People? The answer you get depends on who you ask. If you ask the creation god, Olisa, they will tell how they made the universe and all that is in it. When you prod further, Olisa will huff and ask why you have chosen today of all days to disturb their peace.
“This answer you seek, ehn, does it really matter? I have already bequeathed the whole Earth to the People.”
If you ask the People, they will tell you that the River comes and goes but they have always been here, living and taming the River; bridging and dredging.
Nobody bothers to ask Osimiri, the River.
II
Salva Chill ‘N’ Cuisine overlooks an expanse of high-rise buildings that seem to go on forever. It’s called transparent architecture, with the screen walls displaying people from multiple angles in their plush apartments, complaining about mundane things like why the smart cooker cannot play music and cook rice at the same time, and malls that dispense complimentary hydrogenated water for patrons. It is on the other side of town, halved by Bridge Gringo, the area where the Buyers and their families live. Even the air here is different, minty from being filtered by the trees that lined the paved roads. There are also no rainstorms here that snatch off barely-holding-on rooftops or quash shanties into gaping gutters. Just sparse drizzles to remind the residents of how long it has been since they used their umbrellas because the Beam Boulder redirects the rainstorms to wherever they came from. Kabu has only heard stories about Salva Chill ‘N’ Cuisine from a fellow Castaway who knew someone, who knew another person whose distant cousin’s neighbor worked there. They said the doors, window panes, furniture, food platter, menus, wine glasses, cisterns, toilet bowls, washbasins, bills, and even the stove are all carved out of ice that never melts.
Even the air here is different, minty from being filtered by the trees that lined the paved roads. There are also no rainstorms here that snatch off barely-holding-on rooftops or quash shanties into gaping gutters.
The concierge at the entrance gives Kabu a scowl. She is just about to crumple him and hurl him across the street when she sees the Buyer. Ah, so you follow Madam come? You for talk nau. Madam, good afternoon. A set of checkered, brown teeth peeks from the concierge’s smile as she ushers them in.
Kabu snatches another look at the woman sitting across from him. His mind rummages through a stack of probabilities to explain why the woman brought him to this place. He finally narrows it down to one thing: the woman wants to mine something more than the usual from him. Buyers are not wont to lavish money on Castaways. At most, they just buy you a one-meal pack at a ramshackle bistro after they are done mining you.
He looks at the woman again. This time, Kabu’s eyes trace the whorls on her face as if they could let him in on the mystery or mischief lurking within. The translucent pattern on the crest of her head is more visible under the window light.
“You don’t want to touch your wine?” The woman asks and continues skimming the menu.
They are separated by tall glasses filled with some kind of wine. Kabu grabs one of the glasses in a jerk and takes a sip. He swirls the wine around his mouth, unsure if he wants to swallow the liquid that tastes like warm pee.
Maybe she wants to mine my tears? Tears are now in high demand since a beauty blogger went viral for her video revealing that washing her face with a jar of tears every night is her only skincare secret. The woman could also be one of those weird BloodStans who are into hemoglobin-sourced iron. They make the blood iron into jewelery just to show off to anyone who cares to listen. See, okwa i na-afu ya, it’s pure blood. Kabu knows countless Castaways who have had Buyers mine their tears, blood, teeth, an inch of their tongue, toes, and fingers, but none of them were first wined and dined at Salva Chill ‘N’ Cuisine.
“I have been looking forward to meeting you, Kabu.”
Kabu’s blood chills. He kisses his teeth, as if the wine is stuck between them.
Maybe a previous Buyer recommended me to their circle of friends?
This explanation holds no water. Even if Kabu had been recommended, a Buyer would never refer to a Castaway by their name. Castaways are only referred to by their FGN: a long string of numbers issued at the cramped liaison office at the foot of Bridge Gringo. Dispensable people are not supposed to have names. How else is Bashiru supposed to kick them over the railings and watch the trains ram through the falling bodies when they default on paying the daily Marching Ground Fee? It is easier to think: [Insert a random array of numbers] has died. For people like Kabu, a name is personal. Something they only share among themselves. This is one thing in their lives they have refused to let the world mine.
“How…how…who told you my name is Kabu?”
The woman considers Kabu’s startled face, laughs, and then beckons a waiter over to their table. “Let us just say I know a thing or two. Have you decided on your order yet?”
“Who…”
The remaining words dry up inside Kabu’s mouth.
Osimiri, the River, has told her story multiple times. But we collectively decided not to hear it: how she was here from the very beginning with Olisa, before the universe took form; how for so long it was just Olisa and her; how she swayed to-and-fro across the ends of the Earth. Then Olisa created time because “all this swaying must count for something,” which did not make sense because the River was enough all by herself. Time, mingled with space, uncurtained the cracks that had lingered within her for so long she forgot they existed. And she knew what was coming next, as she said to Olisa: “Okay, I will shrink myself this once so you can make life. But promise me that I will always be unbounded and free.” Olisa looked at her with eyes filled with gratitude and Osimiri the River felt, for the first time, that maybe she too was an important part of whatever grand plan of Olisa’s that was unfolding.
It is hard to ignore the betrayal in this story of the River—carried as it is by the pattering of rains that have overstayed their welcome, or by the weeping of fronds in the morning, or by the uneven bargains between the sand and waves. A rumbling here, and a whirlpool to follow it up there.
III
The streetlights are sparse and eventually disappear as the train journeys from Bridge Gringo to Funliyano. Kabu gets off the train at the last stop. The air hits his nose before the door opens. It rained in the morning so the stale rot of garbage has been replaced by a fresh supply. He heads to Oga Dozie’s, which doubles as a pharmacy and grocery store, to refill Onyeka’s prescription and stock up on food supplies. The store is jam-packed, as always, with Oga Dozie threatening to throw someone out who would not stop complaining of being ignored and, in the same breath, pleading with his customers to bear witness to that woman who will not leave me alone until she kills me, when his wife shouts from the backroom for him lock up so she can get to sleep.
“Ahh, my friend. Long time no see,” Oga Dozie smacks Kabu lightly on the shoulder. “The usual, right?”
Kabu nods.
As Kabu ducks out of the shop and strolls down the alley straddled by a cluster of shanties, one of which is home for him and Onyeka, Kabu rehearses how he is going to tell Onyeka about the woman who, for whatever reason, knew his name and gave him all this money without mining anything from him.
“Kabu-Kabu, nnua,” someone hollers from an open window.
“Good evening, Mama Ifeoma.” Kabu waves back at the woman.
“How was work today?”
“It went well. How is Ifeoma?”
“That one? She has gone to bed.”
They both laugh.
“When she wakes up, tell her that Uncle Kabu bought these for her.” Through the window, Kabu hands Mama Ifeoma two loaves of bread, a pack of sardines and a tin of dried milk.
“Kabuuuu, dalu rie ne. I will tell her about your gift when she wakes up.”
“Good night, Mama Ifeoma.”
“Kachifo.”
Mama Ifeoma has been Kabu’s neighbor for a year now. She moved to Funliyano with her daughter, after her restaurant was demolished because someone reported her for giving leftovers to Castaways instead of disposing of them in one of those LAWMA-approved sealed bins. They said her restaurant was a health liability but she knew the LAWMA officials ran a black market for restaurant leftovers.
Since she’s too old and her daughter too young to slug it out on Bridge Gringo, she became the neighborhood’s nanny. For a small fee, she will watch the people you leave behind at home. After Onyeka’s last seizure, Kabu had offered to pay Mama Ifeoma to keep an eye on him but the woman would not hear of it. Me, collect money from you when you’ve been nothing but kind to me since I moved here? She lets Onyeka visit her for free.
Inside their house, Onyeka is tending to a pot of bean porridge simmering over the stove. Kabu drops the bag of groceries on the lone chair in the room and goes over to his lover. He hugs Onyeka from behind and kisses him.
“Until I splash pepper inside your eyes,” Onyeka says with mock seriousness.
“I missed you so much.”
“Me too.”
He fiddles with Kabu’s zipper until the trousers drop into a heap.
Over dinner, they talk about their day. It was same ol’ same ol’ for Onyeka. He took his medication twelve hours apart, slept for most of the morning after waiting for never-coming client requests on WorkIt, woke up to a client asking him to create a sample piece and then telling him to sod off to the sun when he sent an invoice. He went over to Mama Ifeoma’s when he became lightheaded and stayed there, helping Ifeoma with her algebra assignment, until he was sure his feet could grip the ground without slipping. Then he came back home and started making dinner.
Kabu lets Onyeka finish before plunging into the story about the strange woman who came to Bridge Gringo.
“You are telling me that the woman did not mine pikim from you after taking you to Salva Chill ‘N’ Cuisine—and still gave you so much money?”
“I still can’t believe it myself, Onyeka. That money will last us this whole year. She said she likes me and will come pick me up at Bridge Gringo tomorrow.”
“Shouldn’t we be scared?”
“Maybe. There is something strange about her. I may be wrong but you can never trust these Buyers and their ways.”
This has become a daily ritual for them, especially for Onyeka who stares into Kabu’s eyes as he talks about the Buyers who come to Bridge Gringo and what they mine. Onyeka has never been to Bridge Gringo before and Kabu has refused to let him go, even during the weeks when they could not afford palm oil to rub between their fingers. Onyeka’s parents were In-Betweeners with monotonous lives. Wake up, work for the Buyers, don’t ask questions. They reminded him to always be grateful, that: There are people with worse fates. If you keep your head down and obey the rules, you may even become a Buyer one day.
Even now that Onyeka has run away from home, he tells Kabu that he likes to imagine his parents’ two-bedroom-and-parlor apartment unchanged. Stale air. Dust settling on the television set which they never turn on.
“This is not a way to live,” Onyeka had told them on the night he left home for good.
It was a Wednesday and his parents were dozing over their nsala soup; they did not even notice when Onyeka left. He did not have the faintest clue where to go. Just boarded the train at Ifako and stayed until the last stop. As the passengers filed out of the train, a man tapped him.
“This is the last stop.”
“Where’s this place?”
“Funliyano.”
“What is your name?
“Kabu.”
“I’m Onyeka.”
“You don’t look like you are from around here. Are you looking for someone or something? Where exactly are you going? You can tell me, I can help you find…”
“It’s fine, Kabu. I can find my way.”
But Onyeka could not find his way because Kabu met him sleeping under the spiked waiting bench at the train station the next morning. He lied that he did not sleep at the station, just woke up early to catch the first train. This continued for almost a week until Kabu insisted that Onyeka was coming home with him. At least until you find the train you’re waiting for at the station.
Shrinking to let life flourish did not bother the River at first. She even liked it and would tell Olisa, during their evening gossip sessions, how she loved the caresses of the footprints that waddled in and out of her. But the footprints did not just multiply, they were brash and filled with thorns that dug deep. They cast their net into her and took and took. And when she complained, they refilled her with things that she could not recognize, that wrapped around her chest and made it difficult to breathe.
Olisa pleaded, “You know these people, they’re not like us. Look at me, after all the things I’ve done for them they still pay me dust.”
“But I don’t want to be worshiped by them,” the River told them. “I just want to be respected.”
IV
The woman shows up at Bridge Gringo the next day, wearing a different adire print. Your Madam don come, the other Castaways gesture towards Kabu until Bashiru gives them a stern look. She takes Kabu to Salva Chill ‘N’ Cuisine and evades all questions about what she wants to mine. The day ends with the woman slipping a wad of cash into Kabu’s pocket again.
“Take it. It’s for your time.”
This continues for a full week. Then the woman stops coming. Kabu, your Madam no dey come again? The other Castaways ask, half concerned and half spiteful. Soon everyone at Bridge Gringo forgets about the strange woman who always picked up Kabu at noon—even Kabu.
A month after the woman stops coming, Kabu falls into a trance at Bridge Gringo. His body stiffens and his vision blurs. He hears himself muttering in a language that is strangely familiar. In the haze, he can make out people running. Gunshots fired in the air. Blood. And sand. Lots of sand. Bashiru has to slap him awake. The other Castaways look at him strangely and he has to explain that it was a strange dream. Someone makes a joke about how Kabu’s Madam has spoiled him so much he can afford to daydream now.
The next day, Kabu braces himself when his vision begins to blur. He wants to be ready for the trance so he withdraws behind the pillar at the end of the bridge and waits. This time, he not only sees the people but also can feel them. There is a woman and a little boy hiding behind her lappah. Kabu can almost taste the camphor tang wound around the woman’s waist.
Nothing happens on the bridge the following morning. Kabu waits behind the pillar until midday before slouching back to the bunch to hustle for another Buyer. On the train back home, he bangs his head against the window as the train jolts at the next stop after Bridge Gringo. Nobody pays him any attention as he gathers his feet and rests his head on the threadbare cushion and shuts his eyes as another trance envelops him. Suddenly, he’s back to the woman and the boy, but this time, there are men in uniform surrounding them. He giggles at the animation of a fish tattooed on the woman’s elbow as she wrestles with the men and their guns. There are gunshots. People running. Sand. Lots of sand. Then, quiet.
Kabu wakes up sobbing next to a woman who tries not to meet his gaze.
When she saw the women, the River knew this place would become her home. She came in her human form, on the morning of Afia Orie, the market day, and joined the gathering at the center of the market, listening as the hawker women complained about how the Opobo fishermen were cutting their throat with their prices.
She said: “What if you had all of this in your backyard? What if you did not have to journey to Opobo to buy oporo and mangala?”
The market women looked at her. They wondered, who was this person with her seashells, otangele, and lofty dreams?
“I am Osimiri, the one that flows. I am the River in human form, and I have come to bargain with you. I do not want your sacrifices or libations. I will laden your fishing nets with food and people from all corners of the world will flood your markets. I will drown your enemies before their wretched hands can get to you. And all that I ask in return is that I be able to make this place my home.”
“How?”
“Let me worry about how.”
Osimiri built her home among them during a rainfall that spanned a fortnight. After the thatched roofs were mended and the raffia mats dried out, the people saw her, resplendent in the sun, alternating between running over pebbles, knitting tides, sculpting waves, spurring rivulets to irrigate their farms. The men thanked Olisa but the women exchanged knowing smiles. They would take their newborns to Osimiri’s banks and dip their feet into the water—each woman cradling their child, with a prayer on their pursed lips that Osimiri always help them find their way back, no matter how far they stray from home.
A century-and-a-half passed since Osimiri bargained with the market women. Now, the river was exhausted from washing piles of garbage on its banks and burned from the sewage being pumped in by the new factories. Everyone left the village for the metropolis in search of big-big jobs. The few who stayed were too preoccupied with eking out a living among the carnage that surrounded them to care about a tradition that had long been forgotten.
But Ujunwa still took her newborn to the banks and said the same prayer her mother and her mother’s mother said, and rooted the baby’s pair of unsteady feet on the brown sand. There, she dreamed a thousand dreams for the newborn.
“This is your home, Kabu. Never forget that.”
V
“Hello, Kabu.”
Kabu’s hand tightens around the doorknob as he enters his house. It has been five months, maybe six, since he has heard that voice. It’s that woman again—the Buyer with whorls on her face.
“What are you doing here? How did you even find this place?”
“I told you that I know a thing or two. You and asking questions ehn. Take your shoes off and come sit with me.”
Kabu approaches the table in measured steps.
“What did you do to Onyeka?” He points to his lover sprawled on the threadbare mat.
“Oh, he is sleeping. Don’t worry about him. He sleeps like a baby.”
“Who are you?”
“A strange question to ask a friend you’ve not seen in a while. What happened to: “How have you been? Where went you?“
“What do you want from me? I promise you I am not that important. Just tell me what you want to mine from me and let me go.”
The woman reaches out across the table and links her fingers into Kabu’s. Something happens to the woman’s face. Water swirls behind a translucent layer of skin.
“I will be quick,” she begins. “In the beginning, there was the River. And when the light came, the River bent it so the light would know its limit, where it could go and where it could not go. Olisa looked at the world and said, Osimiri, we are creating humans mmadu, and they cannot survive inside you. So I shrunk myself a bit, to accommodate Olisa’s creations. But today, the people Olisa created have shrunk me until there is nothing left.”
“And what does that have to do with me?”
“Patience, Kabu. We will get to that part. First let us talk about your mother.”
“You know my mother?”
“Oh yes. Her name was Ujunwa. Your mother’s mother’s mother’s grandmother was my friend. It was in front of her shop that I stood when I asked them to give me a home in their home. Your mother was killed when you were six, while fighting off the people who wanted to wrench her home away—a home that was also mine. They did not give her the dignity of a burial, so I took her body.”
The woman sighs and rolls up her sleeves. “Ujunwa, very stubborn woman. After all the warnings I gave her that this fight was not hers. But she spent her last breath fighting.”
“You took her body?” Kabu catches the glimpse of the woman’s fish tattoo, carefully tucked away in the folds of her elbow. Faded, like the face of the woman in his trance.
“Yes, I did. They left her rotting on the sand and would have covered her in concrete.”
Kabu tries to speak but no words form in his mouth.
The woman continued, “For years, they have tried to cage me: in bottles, pools, reservoirs, tanks, aquariums, so they can make homes in what used to be mine. And anybody who stands in their way is met with the same fate as your mother. But for how long can you cage Osimiri? You may try and succeed for a while, but the River will reclaim what is hers.”
She pauses before continuing, “But I need your help to do that.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You are the last of your kind; children dipped into water and dedicated to me.”
“Are you not a god? Why do you need me?”
“I exist beyond space and time. I need you to root myself in something that carries life again—just like I did centuries ago with your people.”
“My people?”
“Yes, your mother’s people. The same ones who gave me a home for years.”
“Why now?”
“I thought mmadu would learn how to share. Your people gave me hope that, maybe, others would learn and become like them.”
“But if you take your home, won’t you destroy everything here?”
“Yes, but I don’t see it as destroying everything. I am only taking back what Olisa and I agreed from the beginning.”
The strange woman and Kabu hold hands in the silence of the dingy room. Onyeka is still snoring away on the mat as chants of rebirth, stanza after stanza, fill the room. Kabu clenches his eyes shut so he won’t forget his part of the incantation.
“I will be going now,” the woman says. “You have done your part, Kabu. Let this stay between us.”
“Now what?”
“We wait, Kabu.”
“You’re not even going to tell me when?”
“No, Kabu. We wait,” Osimiri says as she opens the door.
Kabu can still hear her shoes clinking away, long after she disappears into the darkness. He wonders if he could have gotten a better bargain from Osimiri, maybe asked her if she could spare them. Why didn’t that cross his mind? The River needed him to root herself, he had enough bargaining chips and instead he squandered it all on a lousy deal—for Osimiri to make his death and those of the ones he loves painless.
But he knows there will be nothing painless about the death, at least for him, because Osimiri refused to tell him the day of the Great Reclaiming. He will still have to go to Bridge Gringo every day, pick up groceries from Oga Dozie, ask Mama Ifeoma if the flu medicine is doing Ifeoma any good, come back home, and lure his lover to sleep with the assurance that the world is going to be okay.
A dry gust of wind shuts the door, stirring Onyeka awake.
“Kabu, you’re back? I didn’t even hear you come in,” says Onyeka as he rubs his groggy eyes. “Ahhh, it’s already late into the night. What kind of sleep is this? Let me go and bring us dinner.”