Ifemelu asked Dike to take the phone to his room.
“Mom wants me to wear this really ugly shirt.” His tone was flat, dispassionate.
“I know how uncool that shirt is, Dike, but wear it for her, okay? Just to church. Just for today.”
She did know the shirt, a striped, humorless shirt that Bartholomew had bought for Dike. It was the sort of shirt Bartholomew would buy; it reminded her of his friends she had met one weekend, a Nigerian couple visiting from Maryland, their two boys sitting next to them on the sofa, both buttoned-up and stiff, caged in the airlessness of their parents’ immigrant aspirations. She did not want Dike to be like them, but she understood Aunty Uju’s anxieties, making her way in unfamiliar terrain as she was.
“You’ll probably not see anybody you know in church,” Ifemelu said. “And I’ll talk to your mom about not making you wear it again.” She cajoled until finally Dike agreed, as long as he could wear sneakers, not the lace-ups his mother wanted.
“I’m coming up this weekend,” she told him. “I’m bringing my boyfriend, Curt. You’ll finally get to meet him.”
WITH AUNTY UJU, Curt was solicitous and charming in that well-oiled way that slightly embarrassed Ifemelu. At dinner the other night with Wambui and some friends, Curt had reached out and refilled a wineglass here, a water glass there. Charming, was what one of the girls said later: Your boyfriend is so charming. And the thought occurred to Ifemelu that she did not like charm. Not Curt’s kind, with its need to dazzle, to perform. She wished Curt were quieter and more inward. When he started conversations with people in elevators, or lavishly complimented strangers, she held her breath, certain that they could see what an attention-loving person he was. But they always smiled back and responded and allowed themselves to be wooed. As Aunty Uju did. “Curt, won’t you try the soup? Ifemelu has never cooked this soup for you? Have you tried fried plantain?”
Dike watched, saying little, speaking politely and properly, even though Curt joked with him and talked sports and tried so hard to win his affection that Ifemelu feared he might do somersaults. Finally, Curt asked, “Want to shoot some hoops?”
Dike shrugged. “Okay.”
Aunty Uju watched them leave.
“Look at the way he behaves as if anything you touch starts smelling like perfume. He really likes you,” Aunty Uju said, and then, face wrinkling, she added, “And even with your hair like that.”
“Aunty, biko, leave my hair alone,” Ifemelu said.
“It is like jute.” Aunty Uju plunged a hand into Ifemelu’s Afro.
Ifemelu drew her head away. “What if every magazine you opened and every film you watched had beautiful women with hair like jute? You would be admiring my hair now.”
Aunty Uju scoffed. “Okay, you can speak English about it but I am just saying what is true. There is something scruffy and untidy about natural hair.” Aunty Uju paused. “Have you read the essay your cousin wrote?”
“Yes.”
“How can he say he does not know what he is? Since when is he conflicted? And even that his name is difficult?”
“You should talk to him, Aunty. If that is how he feels, then that is how he feels.”
“I think he wrote that because that is the kind of thing they teach them here. Everybody is conflicted, identity this, identity that. Somebody will commit murder and say it is because his mother did not hug him when he was three years old. Or they will do something wicked and say it is a disease that they are struggling with.” Aunty Uju looked out of the window. Curt and Dike were dribbling a basketball in the backyard, and farther away was the beginning of thick woods. On Ifemelu’s last visit, she had woken up to see, through the kitchen window, a pair of gracefully galloping deer.
“I am tired,” Aunty Uju said in a low voice.
“What do you mean?” Ifemelu knew, though, that it would only be more complaints about Bartholomew.
“Both of us work. Both of us come home at the same time and do you know what Bartholomew does? He just sits in the living room and turns on the TV and asks me what we are eating for dinner.” Aunty Uju scowled and Ifemelu noticed how much weight she had put on, the beginning of a double chin, the new flare of her nose. “He wants me to give him my salary. Imagine! He said that it is how marriages are since he is the head of the family, that I should not send money home to Brother without his permission, that we should make his car payments from my salary. I want to look at private schools for Dike, with all this nonsense happening in that public school, but Bartholomew said it is too expensive. Too expensive! Meanwhile, his children went to private schools in California. He is not even bothered with all the rubbish going on in Dike’s school. The other day I went there, and a teacher’s assistant shouted at me across the hall. Imagine. She was so rude. I noticed she did not shout across the hall to the other parents. So I went over and told her off. These people, they make you become aggressive just to hold your dignity.” Aunty Uju shook her head. “Bartholomew is not even bothered that Dike still calls him Uncle. I told him to encourage Dike to call him Dad but it doesn’t bother him. All he wants is for me to hand over my salary to him and cook peppered gizzard for him on Saturdays while he watches European League on satellite. Why should I give him my salary? Did he pay my fees in medical school? He wants to start a business but they won’t give him a loan and he says he will sue them for discrimination because his credit is not bad and he found out a man who goes to our church got a loan with much worse credit. Is it my fault that he cannot get the loan? Did anybody force him to come here? Did he not know we would be the only black people here? Did he not come here because he felt it would benefit him? Everything is money, money, money. He keeps wanting to make my work decisions for me. What does an accountant know about medicine? I just want to be comfortable. I just want to be able to pay for my child’s college. I don’t need to work longer hours just to accumulate money. It’s not as if I am planning to buy a boat like Americans.” Aunty Uju moved away from the window and sat down at the kitchen table. “I don’t even know why I came to this place. The other day the pharmacist said my accent was incomprehensible. Imagine, I called in a medicine and she actually told me that my accent was incomprehensible. And that same day, as if somebody sent them, one patient, a useless layabout with tattoos all over his body, told me to go back to where I came from. All because I knew he was lying about being in pain and I refused to give him more pain medicine. Why do I have to take this rubbish? I blame Buhari and Babangida and Abacha because they destroyed Nigeria.”
It was strange, how Aunty Uju often spoke about the former heads of state, invoking their names with poisoned blame, but never mentioning The General.
Curt and Dike came back into the kitchen. Dike was bright-eyed, slightly sweaty, and talkative; he had, out there in the basketball space, swallowed Curt’s star.
“Do you want some water, Curt?” he asked.
“Call him Uncle Curt,” Aunty Uju said.
Curt laughed. “Or Cousin Curt. How about Coz Curt?”
“You’re not my cousin,” Dike said, smiling.
“I would be if I married your cousin.”
“Depends on how much you are offering us!” Dike said.
They all laughed. Aunty Uju looked pleased.
“Do you want to get that drink and meet me outside, Dike?” Curt asked. “We’ve got some unfinished business!”
Curt touched Ifemelu’s shoulder gently, asked if she was okay, before going back outside.
“O na-eji gi ka akwa,” Aunty Uju said, her tone charged with admiration.
Ifemelu smiled. Curt did indeed hold her like an egg. With him, she felt breakable, precious. Later, as they left, she slipped her hand into his and squeezed; she felt proud—to be with him, and of him.
ONE MORNING, Aunty Uju woke up and went to the bathroom. Bartholemew had just brushed his teeth. Aunty Uju reached for her toothbrush and saw, inside the sink, a thick blob of toothpaste. Thick enough for a full mouth-cleaning. It sat there, far from the drain, soft and melting. It disgusted her. How exactly did a person clean their teeth and end up leaving so much toothpaste in the sink? Had he not seen it? Had he, when it fell into the sink, pressed more onto his toothbrush? Or did he just go ahead and brush anyway with an almost-dry brush? Which meant his teeth were not clean. But his teeth did not concern Aunty Uju. The blob of toothpaste left in the sink did. On so many other mornings, she had cleaned off toothpaste, rinsed out the sink. But not this morning. This morning, she was done. She shouted his name, again and again. He asked her what was wrong. She told him the toothpaste in the sink was wrong. He looked at her and mumbled that he had been in a hurry, he was already late for work, and she told him that she, too, had work to go to, and she earned more than he did, in case he had forgotten. She was paying for his car, after all. He stormed off and went downstairs. At this point in the story, Aunty Uju paused, and Ifemelu imagined Bartholemew in his contrast-collar shirt and his trousers pulled too high up, the unflattering pleats at the front, his K-leg walk as he stormed off. Aunty Uju’s voice was unusually calm over the phone.
“I’ve found a condo in a town called Willow. A very nice gated place near the university. Dike and I are leaving this weekend,” Aunty Uju said.