Far from home

Chapter four

Chidi came to the compound on a Friday evening.

He came with a bag of garden eggs and a bottle of palm wine and the air of a man who had

rehearsed being casual for several hours. Emeka let him in and then made himself extremely

scarce, which was so obvious that Ada almost laughed.

They sat on the veranda — the same veranda where, when they were nineteen, they had sat

side by side and talked for six hours straight about everything and nothing and discovered, to

the terror and delight of both of them, that they could.

"You never told me why you left," Chidi said. Not accusing. Just asking.

"I told you why I left."

"You told me the version you told everyone. The scholarship. The opportunity. The

future." He poured palm wine into a cup and held it out to her. "You did not tell me the real

reason."

She took the cup. "The real reason was the same reason. The scholarship was real. The

opportunity was real."

"And us?"

She looked out at the compound. The mango tree was dark against the evening sky.

Somewhere down the street, a generator had come on — NEPA had taken light again, as NEPA

always did.

"We were twenty-one," she said.

"People have stayed for less at twenty-one."

"People have also gone."

"Ada." His voice was the same. That was the worst part — his voice was exactly the same.

Low and patient and carrying that particular quality that had always made her feel, when they

were young, that she was the most important thing in whatever room they were in. "I'm not

asking you to account for yourself. I'm not angry. I just —" He stopped. Started again. "I just

want to understand."

She thought about it. The honest answer. The one she had not given to anyone in seven

years.

"I was afraid," she said, "that if I stayed, I would become someone I didn't want to be. My

mother's daughter, yes. My father's daughter, yes. But I was afraid I would become only that.

That Lagos would claim me so completely there would be no room for whatever else I was."

"And now?"

"Now I think Lagos was always going to claim me. It doesn't matter where you go. There

are places that are inside you before you are inside them."

He was quiet for a moment. The night was warm. A lizard crossed the wall behind them,

moving fast in that soundless way lizards moved.

"My father used to say that," Chidi said. "He said Lagos is not a city. It is a condition."

"He was right."

"He was right about a lot of things." He paused. "He also said you were the finest girl on

this street and I was a fool to let you go."

Ada looked at him. He met her eyes without looking away.

"You didn't let me go," she said. "I went."

"I know. But I also didn't fight hard enough."

"Chidi —"

"I'm not saying this to complicate anything," he said quickly. "I know you've just come

back. I know your father is sick. I know everything is already complicated. I'm just —" He

spread his hands. "I'm saying it because I should have said it seven years ago and I didn't, and I

am too old now to keep not saying things."

She thought of her father, earlier that afternoon, looking at the ceiling. I was wrong. Too

old to keep being wrong.

This street, she thought. These people. They were going to undo her.

"Let me think," she said.

"Take all the time you need."

"Don't be too agreeable. It makes me suspicious."

He laughed — that laugh, that specific laugh she had carried across an ocean for seven

years and pretended she had forgotten. "Some things don't change," he said.

"No," she agreed, looking out at the mango tree, at the bougainvillea, at the rusted gate. “Some things don't”.