Page 93 of Death of the Author

Zelu frowned. “Me? Or both of us?”

“You,” he said, pointing at her. Then he moved his finger in my direction. “She’scome 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 howIwas 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 couldsee 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.

38

Palm Oil

Zelu stood in the elevator and counted to thirty. Thirty seconds wasn’t that long. Not much could happen in thirty seconds. Except the power in the entire hotel going out. Last night, it had gone off and come back on five times. In Nigeria, the national grid was always shaky. The hotel had its own generator, but that took some seconds to kick in. It wasn’t impossible to get stuck in the elevator during one of these outages. People got stuck in elevators all the time. Or died in them. Or worse. Zelu bit her lip, resisting the urge to press the first-floor button again.

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