Page 37 of Death of the Author

37 Interview Bola

My sister Zelu? She may have nakedly revealed it with the robot novel, but all of us have to admit, she always had that thing

in her. What our grand-uncle called a “disease.” He said that’s why Zelu dreamed of being an astronaut and leaving the planet

before her accident. I laugh because now that I think of it, the elders on both sides of the family tended to love Chinyere

and Tolu like royalty. They laughed at Amarachi and me. They thought Uzo was stunningly beautiful. But Zelu? Well, the elders

marked Zelu as the one the spirits watched. And not in a good way. If the spirits pay too much attention to you, they tend

to do things to you.

So Zelu always had the hardest time when we’d visit Nigeria. Especially after the accident. First, the country doesn’t respect

people with disabilities. If you have mental issues that make you less sharp, you’ll get preyed upon. If you can’t run easily

across a street, you’ll eventually get hit. No one is going to give you space or leeway because everyone is struggling already—or at least, that’s the mentality.

I don’t care how it sounds to racists, the poorly traveled, the prejudiced, the ill-informed, or the hostile: Nigeria is a tough place. If there is anything about you that is soft, you won’t survive there long. I have a really hard time looking

people in the eye and demanding what I want. I’m not a hard person, so it’s not easy for me. I can’t shout like Tolu or Amarachi

or Chinyere. I can’t scheme like Uzo. My voice is soft and... my default is nice. I don’t feel good being any other way. So I stay back; I don’t even bother trying to shop when we are there. I let my siblings do it.

It was different for Zelu. She never has any problem dealing with people in Nigeria or looking them in the eye or making demands

or shouting. Zelu is strong like Chinyere. But she’s also weak... in body, with her legs not working and all. Like I said,

there aren’t good places for wheelchair-bound people in Nigeria. Not many. It’s a harder life. Nothing is made with you in

mind. So even going to the market, my God, I don’t know how she could stand it. How must she have felt? On top of this, Nigerians

have a way of viewing people with disabilities of any kind as cursed, like someone did that to them because they’d been bad

or someone wanted to do bad to them. Many fear the bad luck will rub off on them. You’ll never be viewed as sexy or desirable

in Nigeria if your legs don’t work.

But like all of us, Zelu still loved going there. I’ve talked about it with my siblings. We all agree that maybe it’s a certain

type of Naijamerican thing. Some of us just have that unconditional, irrational love. It wasn’t a yearning for Nigerians to

accept us. We all knew that we could never be fully accepted as Nigerians. Why would we be? Yeah, we didn’t want that and we didn’t wish it. But

maybe something in our blood made us love the land, the people, the cultures, the traditions, unconditionally . We knew all the problems, dangers, and contradictions. We knew them firsthand from being there and watching our parents.

Yes, but we still loved. And so we always wanted to go back. Come and go and come and go.

Zelu would fall over when her wheel got stuck in a difficult patch of dirt. She would cry when she had to wait on the side of the road as everyone else ran across it. She’d roll her eyes when the elders called her crippled and cursed. Yet she’d still hear them out. There was one time when I was ten and she was fifteen. This is the story I want to tell you about, because this was when I understood my sister had a gift.

We’d both decided to stay inside the big house in my father’s village. Everyone else had gone to the engagement party of one

of my cousins. Zelu was just not in the mood for it and I had an upset stomach. We spent the morning lazing around, but then

Zelu said, “I need some fresh air. You want to come with me?”

“Ugh, nooooo,” I moaned.

“Come on,” Zelu insisted. “Some fresh air might help. You should move around. We won’t go far. It’s too hot in here, anyway.”

It was too hot. The AC wasn’t working, and outside it was around ninety degrees and super humid. Still, even though the mosquitoes

wouldn’t be that bad in the sun, the biting flies drove me nuts. I told Zelu this.

“Just slather yourself with peppermint oil and you’ll be fine. It cools you and keeps insects away,” Zelu urged me, and I

didn’t like how her tone made me feel like a baby, so I went along.

So we both left the house wearing sandals, shorts, and T-shirts, and stinking of peppermint oil. As soon as we stepped onto

the narrow dirt road that ran through the village, an entourage of about ten little boys appeared behind us. I don’t know

what they were doing or where they were before we stepped outside, but they were here now. It was annoying as heck. My cramps

seemed to flare up just looking at them. Why? Because they were whispering and giggling and pointing as they followed us.

Some of them would speak in Igbo, some in English. They made fun of our accents when we spoke to each other in English and

any attempt we made at speaking Igbo.

“Just ignore their stupid asses,” Zelu said as I pushed her chair down the path, but I kept looking back at them. Then Zelu

pointed. “Ooh, there’s a nice patch of touch-and-die. Run your foot over it!”

I looked from the stupid boys to the patch of bright green fernlike plants growing in front of a row of palm trees. “Fine,” I muttered. I ran my sandal over the plants and they instantly closed up their leaves and dramatically withered. I smiled and Zelu grinned. The boys behind us cackled; our fascination with the local plants was just fucking hilarious to them. As if they didn’t think they were cool, too. “Ugh,” I groaned, rolling my eyes. “Annoying little jerks.”

We walked down the narrow dirt road, past a few more houses, and that’s when our grand-uncle come out from between two leafy

bushes. A tall, rail-thin bald man with a patch of rough white hair in the middle of his bare chest, he wore nothing but old

shorts. No shoes, no shirt. Our father said his name was Ikechukwu, but Ikechukwu insisted we call him Uncle Pious, which

he pronounced “Pee-us.”

“ Ah, kedu? ” he greeted, coming up to us.

“ O dinma, ” I said, but his eyes were already on Zelu. I immediately wished we hadn’t come outside. I laugh, but I’m serious. You can

always tell when an elder is about to say some shit. He was looking at Zelu with piercing dark brown eyes, and they didn’t

leave her for a second.

“How come you never come to visit me?” he asked.

Zelu frowned. “Me? Or both of us?”

“You,” he said, pointing at her. Then he moved his finger in my direction. “ She’s come to my house twice already.”

“You have?” Zelu asked me, looking surprised.

“I mean, yeah. I like my walks.”

“Ah,” Zelu said, nodding. “Walks.” She looked at Uncle Pious. “I haven’t been out much since we got here. These dirt roads

aren’t easy for me.” She patted the arm of her chair.

He waved a hand. “You’re out now, aren’t you?”

“And I’m here talking to you, aren’t I, Uncle?” Zelu countered.

“How... how did you do this thing to yourself?” he suddenly asked.

I instinctively started pulling her back so we could leave, but she grabbed the wheels, holding us there.

“To myself?” she asked. “You think I did this to myself? On purpose?”

“Your father called me weeks after,” Pious said, squinting down at her. “He said you were still in the hospital. I have never

heard him sound like this. You were playing with your friends and now you are this. Were you not thinking about how this would

make everyone feel?”

“No,” Zelu snapped. “I was thinking about how I was feeling.”

“Well, maybe you should have thought less about yourself, my dear.” He sat back in his chair and looked at Zelu, waiting,

as elders in the village do. Elders enjoy a level of respect that even we Naijamericans can’t breach. We stood there, tongue-tied,

stunned, furious, whatever, but we were quiet. Respect. Your. Elders. I could see Zelu’s shoulders shaking as she fought back the American in her.

A pebble bounced off the back of her shoulder, and then came the giggling. Zelu’s already pinched face squeezed even more,

and she turned herself as much as she could to the little boys behind us. “I get my hands on any of you and I swear I will

tear off your arms,” she hissed.

“Eh heh, see these little demons.” Uncle Pious chuckled. He said something in Igbo to the boys and they suddenly looked absolutely

terrified. They turned and ran away. “Useless children.” He looked at me and spoke in Igbo again.

“I’m sorry, Uncle, I can’t speak Igbo.”

“Still?” he asked.

“No.”

He glanced at Zelu and then looked back at me. “You are incomplete. Cannot speak your father tongue.” Then to Zelu, he said,

“And you are even more incomplete. You can’t walk.”

“You look like you weigh ten pounds,” Zelu muttered. I kicked the chair’s wheel, pressing my lips together to hide my smile.

“So you did not understand what I said to them just now,” he said, the corner of his lip turning up.

We both shook our heads.

“I have lived here all my life,” he said. When he continued, his voice took on that even rhythm that indicated we were about to be told a tale. I leaned on Zelu’s wheelchair. “I used to be a boy like that. Walking about, getting into trouble, seeing who would offer me something to eat, even though I’d just eaten at home. But even back then, there was that name that would make you run if anyone spoke it...”

And Uncle Pious was off. I don’t remember the whole story. It was something about a boy who’d seen something one night in

his bathroom mirror and then under his bed and then in the schoolyard. And when he told people about it, no one took him seriously.

Then one rainy night, he disappeared from his bedroom. People said they’d see that boy standing in the road sometimes at night,

sometimes in broad daylight. And then he’d take your head. Something like that. I remember that Pious was smiling as he told

us this, but it wasn’t a nice smile. After that visit, I was so scared, even during the day, that I didn’t go for any more

walks.

Uncle Pious had told those boys he’d seen the kid in the road that morning. When he finished speaking, I was ready to flee

home. But Zelu? She was leaning forward, intoxicated by the awful story. Uncle Pious had probably told us the tale to scare

us, to be kind of mean. He was a mean guy. My father even said so. “Even when he was younger, he’s always been that old man

who relished making you feel like trash, while spurring you to do better,” my dad said. “Mean-spirited, through and through.”

But I did notice him note Zelu’s interest. I think it annoyed Uncle Pious that he hadn’t gotten to her as he had me.

All of Zelu’s fury at our uncle had gone. You could see her chewing on the story, listening to it echoing and growing all around her, expanding within her. My mind has always been very logical, methodical. It’s what makes me a good engineer. I can make connections when there are connections to be made. But Zelu? She could connect the invisible. She would listen, and as she processed what she heard, things would appear to her that weren’t there before. She could put all of this into words, so everyone could see it. I was always glad she had this ability. With what happened to her, she needed it. But I never saw it as a magic that would move the world the way it has. None of us did.

Talking to you about it now, Seth, I wish I could sit with her and ask her more about it in this way.