Page 95 of Death of the Author

“I guess,” Zelu said.

Auntie Mary kissed her teeth. “I should have stomped on that boy’s shoe. Idiot.”

They got in her auntie’s SUV, which was driven by a short, dark-skinned man in a white kaftan and pants. “Good evening, ma,” he said, glancing at Zelu.

“Meet Mohammed,” her auntie said. “Our family driver. He’s read your book many times.”

“After the Koran, it is my favorite,” he said.

Zelu laughed, flattered.

Her auntie and uncle’s house was the type of place that characters in Nollywood movies always pulled up to. A white mansion with marble stairs and too many spacious rooms sprawled out in the gated neighborhood of Victoria Island. It was one of the few places where you would see white people, joggers, and people walking dogs on the side of the road. Her uncle was the president of one of Nigeria’s biggest cell phone companies, and whenever the family visited Lagos, this was where they’d stay. Since she’d come alone this time, she had an even greater excuse to stay here instead of the palace in Ikare-Akoko. She’d been coming to this house since she was little.

“Let me look at you with my own eyes,” her uncle Ralph said. He was a small man, standing at about five foot five, but his huge personality more than made up for it. He was the type of man everyone gravitated toward when he entered the room. He’d traveled all over the world many times for business and pleasure, made loads of money, and spoken not only with Nigeria’s presidents but with several other leaders around the continent. He moved about the world with open eyes full of curiosity, confidence, and wisdom.

Zelu stood before him in the harsh light of the living room. “Turn around,” he said, seated in his plush brown leather armchair.

She did.

“Fucking amazing,” he said, grinning. “Such a marvel! Don’t listen to what anyone says. You are revolutionary.”

The contrast of her uncle’s words with what those men had told her in the hotel lobby an hour ago was jarring. “Really?” she asked in a small voice.

He looked at her with a knowing gaze. “Is it a question to you?”

She shrugged. He got up and came to her. He knelt down to look at her exos.

“Honey,” her auntie said. “Come on. Leave her alone.”

“Oh, you know you want to do the same thing,” he snapped as he examined the structures, poking at them a bit. “Is it easy to walk with them?”

“Now? Yes. But at first, it was really tough. I had to build up muscles I didn’t even know I had and get used to the sensation and everything. And it was scary and risky, too.”

She let her chest puff out a bit. Her siblings never wanted to talk about this part of it. What she’d accomplishedwasimpressive—shewas impressive.

“You were in that chair for so many years. You had to get used to being upright again, right?” he said. “That, in itself, must have been awful.”

“Mm-hmm, such a paradigm shift,” her auntie added, getting up to look, too.

“To be honest, I think I lost myself for a little while. Plus, my parents were against it. Everyone was.”

“Of course they were,” her uncle said, standing up. “You’ve been shrugging off the house they built around you since you wrote that book, and this was the last straw. They don’t know what to do now. You rewrote your narrative.”

Zelu blinked, stunned by how concisely he’d summed up what she’d been struggling to put into words for years. Shit, he was right.

“Don’t worry. Just keep doing what you are doing,” he said, patting her shoulder.

“And hold your head higher,” her auntie added. “Do you want to eat now or take a nap first?”

That night, her belly full of jollof rice, stew, chicken, plantain, and akara, Zelu rested in her bed, more relaxed than she’d felt in a long time. She could hear her auntie and uncle downstairs playing music and laughing with some friends.

Tomorrow she’d return to the hotel, and then the next day she’d finally journey with her uncle Onyemobi, Hugo, Marcy, and Uchenna to her father’s village in the southeast to see her father’s grave. This trip had had its bumps and bruises so far, but it was turning out to be what she needed. She no longer felt so scattered. Plus, it was so good to get out of the United States, away from its self-centeredness, its superiority complex, its vapid noise, and the constant pestering about book two. Even if some of that hype was here in Nigeria, the distance had definitely taken the edge off it.

She closed her eyes and tried to see the shape of the second book with her mind; she was certainly in the right place, physically, to start truly making headway. But she felt the spark she was trying to grow shrink away from her mind’s touch. Not yet. Still. She could practically hear her editor, agents, and fans groan with impatience.

Dammit.

She opted to use a wheelchair when they exited the airport in Port Harcourt. She laid an old pink-and-blue Ankara cloth Uchenna had brought over her legs as well. That was her uncle Onyemobi’s idea. He was actually her cousin, but was close to her father’s age, more like an uncle than a cousin. “The less attention you draw to yourself here, the better,” he said. “We want to safely get there, relax, and then leave before anyone even knows we are there.”

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