Patience Is a Subtle Thief, page 11
After Kash went out to the local bar, she started poking around the machine to see what things did, like the lever that controlled the contraption that resembled a foot. She felt ready to start on a piece of fabric. She threaded the machine, held the fabric steady, and she started sewing. When she finished, she noticed the stitching was crooked. She tried again.
Same result.
Then again.
Crooked.
Hours had passed before a breakthrough came: two straight lines of stitching that brought together two pieces of Ankara. She held it up with amazement. It didn’t look like the kind of skirt she would buy, but she had made progress.
She moved on to putting together a buba. She cut the fabric—the line not as straight as the tailor’s but not terrible. She placed the fabric under the needle and began to stitch. She stitched and cut and stitched and cut until she was ready to survey the final product. She held out the shirt. One sleeve was longer than the other, and the sizing looked suitable for a child, but still she was proud. Again she had sewn fabric together on a machine she was teaching herself how to use. She would move on to using rulers to make sure her measurements were correct.
She placed new fabric under the needle, then pedaled.
Suddenly her machine stopped, and her body went stiff.
The lights flickered off, and she realized that NEPA had cut her lesson short.
She hated to think Kash was right. She would resume in the morning. “There will be light again,” she told herself.
THE NEXT MORNING PATIENCE DISCOVERED THAT THE electricity hadn’t returned.
By afternoon, still no light.
She decided to cook for Kash to avoid his criticism about her putting her trust in a “rubbish” sewing machine. When she served him a plate full of bà and egusi, he gobbled down the food as if chewing was too burdensome.
When his room fell dim, he pulled out a kerosene lamp. Patience knew then that there would be no light that day.
“Dear cousin, this is Mushin. As you can see, ko si luxury nibi. When light goes, it goes. We can only pray for it to come back.”
“Maybe by tomorrow, Kash. I was just making progress. I will stay another night.”
“Okay, o, Patience.”
She looked around the room aimlessly and suddenly realized she hadn’t eaten all day long. She remembered the egusi stew. She went into the communal kitchen and lifted the lid on the pot she had left there on the stove.
Empty.
When she had left it there after serving Kash, there was enough to feed two more people.
She looked again.
Even the sides of the pot were smeared clean. She looked around frantically at the empty kitchen as if she would discover the thief hiding somewhere.
She thought of the time it had taken her to make the stew: the long walk to the market, the money she paid to grind the peppers, onion, and tomato, the moment she nearly sliced her finger off as she cut the spinach, her useless efforts to fan herself in a kitchen with no ventilation.
She stared at the empty pot and fought back tears.
She grabbed it by its black plastic handle and stomped back into Kash’s room.
“Kash! Look! Look!” she said, waving the empty pot at him. “I left this on the stove there in your kitchen, remember? Now there’s no food inside. Somebody ate it all.”
“Patience, that’s how people do here. I should have warned you before.”
“Who would do such a thing?
Kash hesitated as if he was hiding what he knew to be the answer.
“Well, Bose, my former girlfriend who lives right there—she loves egusi.” He shrugged.
“That means nothing. A lot of people love egusi.”
“I know her.”
“So you think it was her?”
“I’m thinking so.”
“I should go talk to her.”
“No, no, no . . . about what? Patience, please o, if you want peace, just consider it done.”
Patience bit her short, stumpy nail and walked back over to her pot. “How can a person just take another person’s stew like that?”
“Maybe she was hungry,” Kash said with a shrug.
“I’m hungry!” Patience yelled before plopping down on his stool and pouting.
WHEN LIGHT DIDN’T COME ON THE THIRD DAY, PATIENCE decided to go back to her hostel that evening, though she didn’t want to face her roommate, who had witnessed her walk out on an exam. She opened her room door and flipped on the light switch.
No electricity there either. She didn’t have the energy to care.
At least my roommates aren’t around, she thought. She walked carefully in the dark to her bed, climbed in, and pulled her cover over her head.
14
“TWO WEEKS, NO POWER. CAN YOU IMAGINE? IF YOU SEE how I was sweating at night. See how mosquito just come dey take ovah. Kai! NEPA is so useless.”
Patience had no time to listen to Kash’s complaints about NEPA. She only cared that the light had finally returned to Kash’s place, and it was time for her to refocus on sewing. She had waited with bated breath as she thought often of the day when she had made progress with her machine—a tête-à-tête with her new tool cut far too short.
“I have so much to do,” she said as she sorted through her scrap materials.
“Patience, you and this machine. I hope you thought about that job Emeka and I told you about. That is the only way you will get quick money to see your mum.”
Patience ignored him as she sat at her machine. She removed the black thread and rethreaded it with white. She lifted the foot and lowered it on the white lace she had chosen. She peddled. The sound of the stitching elated her. She kept sewing. She pictured herself making perfect dresses to sell to the fashionable babes at UNILAG.
Then she heard what sounded like an engine on the verge of collapse. She continued peddling her machine, then the needle stopped.
The motor stalled.
The machine shut off.
She looked around the room. Kash’s fan was still going. His overhead light was on. NEPA hadn’t betrayed her again.
She looked back at her machine. She flipped its switch off, then on. Nothing.
“This machine wants to kill me!” she yelled as she firmly smacked it.
“What do you mean?”
“I was just sewing, and then it just switched off. It won’t come on again.”
Kash came over and surveyed it. He put his hands on his hips, then touched it with ease as if sewing machines were his forte. He turned the machine off and on as she had done.
Nothing.
“Well, it looks like your machine is broken.”
“How do you know? It can’t be broken. That tailor just sold it to me.”
“How much did you pay him?”
“I paid him one thousand naira. He wanted three.”
“Did you have to price it down much?”
Patience thought of her exchange with him. “He didn’t object much when I came down on the price.”
“Yepa! Patience. The guy sold you a nonsense machine. I told you this thing looks like it belongs in the bin.”
“Why would he sell me a bad machine?”
“Because that’s what people do when they need to make money with the little they have. They sell you what you wish to be true, and because you want it so much, you won’t question if it’s a lie. This na simple 419.”
Patience got up. She sat, dumbfounded, in Kash’s favorite armchair.
“I will take it back to him.”
“It’s better you just leave it. You don’t know the man. He can cause commotion as if it was you who broke it. Just accept it as a loss.”
“What if he didn’t cheat me?”
“Abeg, this is Lagos. You better start using your brain, o, Patience, before you continue to get duped.”
The tailor had seemed so direct. Like no-nonsense, yet he had sold her a nonsense machine? She couldn’t believe it. She hated him. She hated that she had tried to sew. She felt as though she were back at her school library cramming for a test she didn’t want to take. How would she get the money she needed?
“Patience, that bank job . . . we, too . . . we can sell a whole bank the kind of truth they expect. Are you in?”
15
“OKAY. YOU WERE RIGHT. THIS IS GOOD,” PATIENCE MUMBLED with her mouth full of the most delicious suya she had ever tasted—UNILAG suya.
“Better than your favorite Ibadan suya, right?”
“I won’t say.”
Chike nudged her shoulder, and she was happy to see him happy.
She, too, was delighted and still on a high from the adrenaline she had felt when she snuck him into her room before anyone noticed. By some form of miracle, both her roommates were away. After the complete failure of her sewing venture, she needed to be in Chike’s company.
“You know, there is still so much about you I don’t know,” she said as she bit into another piece of the suya.
“What else do you need to know?”
“Little things . . . what’s your favorite song?”
“‘Jump Around,’ House of Pain,” he said swiftly.
“You already know I can’t choose between Janet Jackson ‘That’s the Way Love Goes’ and ‘Baby’ by TLC.”
“You mean ‘Baby-Baby-Baby.’” Chike pinched her thigh.
“Of course, you must correct somebody about their own favorite,” she said, amused. “What is your favorite book?”
“Animal Farm,” he said quickly.
“Ha! So, I assume you read that one in secondary school too. Why would you choose that one?”
“Why not? The book is about power, manipulation, and wickedness by those who govern the people. We can relate in Nigeria, no? What’s your favorite book?”
“Too many to name, but if I have to choose one, I would say . . .”
“I know you will say a romance novel,” he said, cutting her off.
“No! I mean yes! I love romance, but I was going say a book my mum used to read to me when I was young. Whenever I read that book, I can hear my mum’s voice.”
Chike didn’t respond. Instead he gazed at her, then looked away. He bit another piece of suya.
Patience decided to interrupt the awkward silence. “I know your favorite food is egusi. Speaking of egusi, somebody at Kash’s place finished the entire pot I made. Kash said it was Bose.”
“Really? Somebody actually finished it?” He gripped his chin, confused.
“What? Do you think it was her too?”
“No, I’m just surprised because . . . you can’t really cook egusi well. You know Yoruba girls can’t cook like Igbo girls.”
She slapped his shoulder, and they laughed.
“It’s true. You’re lucky you’re beautiful.”
“You’re lucky you are too,” she said. He leaned in and kissed her, and the rhythm of their lips shifted by the second—tender, deep, then passionate. Patience pulled away. She wanted to know more of him. She needed to know more. She took a breath.
“What is your goal . . . what do you want this whole engineering thing to amount to?”
“I want to take care of my people. That’s it. I want my mum to be okay,” he said with his voice taking on a new depth. “I want Emeka to have better choices than stealing. I don’t know if I can support him completely, but I will try. I want to send my children to good schools and spoil their mum.” He dropped his gaze, putting the mood on pause. Patience couldn’t bring herself to ask him if she was the woman on his mind. She couldn’t face being rejected by him again.
“What is your most important possession?” she said.
“Nothing, really. I don’t know.”
She thought of her mother’s things that she had kept and wondered how a person had nothing to treasure—no tangible thing sustained by hope and dreams.
“Let me show you something,” she said. She walked to her wardrobe and pulled out her suitcase. She rolled it over to the bed where he sat. She pulled out her mother’s sweater.
“Okay. Of course it’s something designer.”
“No . . . it was my mum’s. She left it behind, and I found it at our old place.”
“So you kept it?”
“Yes, I kept it, and I look at it often, and I try to picture her wearing it or maybe wearing something like it.”
“You know what? Whenever I think of my dad, I think of him wearing the only suit he had,” Chike said, staring off. “He was so sharp even in his one suit.”
He gestured as if he wanted to say something else but thought twice. Then he spoke. “My dad used to tell me, Oge adighi eche mmadu. That is, time and the tide waits for no one. It’s not easy, but we have to make sure we are moving forward and not living in the past.”
Patience looked at him and wondered if that advice was for her. Move forward? Was he telling her to forget about her mum? No, she thought. Surely he understood why she couldn’t. She decided not to ask because she feared he would confirm her suspicions.
She dug back into her suitcase and pulled out her mum’s letter to her. “I’ve never let anyone else read this,” she said as she handed it to him. “Be careful with it.”
Chike unfolded the pages gently. While he read the letter silently, Patience recited it word for word in her head.
My dearest Patience,
I really tried, but sometimes in life we have to accept when we lose. But like my own mother used to say, one loss doesn’t quantify a total journey. I named you Patience because you took your time. Twelve hours of labor before you arrived. Can you imagine? There was no other name for you. Please understand that the same patience you had in my womb and the endurance I had the day I gave birth to you will remain our link. One day we will meet again and when we do, you will know what I’ve added to our lives. Let your daddy keep you for now.
Love,
Mummy
“Your mum still loves you wherever she is.”
“Aunty Lola said the same thing. She helped me fill in the gaps . . . she said my mum took my dad to court to get custody of me again. That explains why my mum wrote that she really tried. Aunty Lola promised to help me get my birth certificate at least.”
“Patience, don’t put too much hope in another person. If you can’t do it yourself, well . . .”
“We all need help from time to time.”
“Yes, but people make promises, then they act like you are crazy when you come to collect what they promised.”
Aunty Lola was her mum’s best friend. She had to come through for her.
“What do you think my mum meant in her letter—‘you will know what I’ve added to our lives’?”
“I don’t know. Only your mum can answer that question.”
“Exactly,” she said.
It’s the reason she’d held herself in place. There could be no forward movement without answers.
She decided not to say anything else, because she knew Chike understood differently.
“So, are you finished quizzing me? Did I pass? Is my taste good enough for you?” he said.
“You did okay.”
“Just okay?”
“Just okay,” she said.
They kissed again, and this time she did not pull away.
16
“INNOCENT, PULL SOME OF THE HIBISCUS TO PUT INSIDE the house.”
Aunty Lola wafted the air with her large straw fan as she and Patience sat in the middle of her flower garden in back of her home. Patience watched as she gave occasional orders to Innocent, her houseboy, who weeded the plants and hacked away at the surrounding grass and hedges with a large machete.
“You really love flowers,” Patience said.
“I do. I really do. In my former life I was probably a florist.” She smiled, and Patience admired her perfectly positioned teeth. She tried to remember her mother’s teeth. She couldn’t.
“What about my mum?” she said. “Did she like flowers too?”
“Ah, Folami. I don’t think so,” she said as she smiled tenderly. “She liked fashion like you. She liked winning, of course.”
Patience beamed when she thought of her mother as a symbol of victory.
“That was one of the things your father didn’t appreciate about your mother. He thought she was too ambitious.”
“Aunty, can I ask you? My dad . . . do you know . . . ? Why is he so . . . ?”
“Why is he so hard?”
“Yes. Why is he so hard?” Patience wasn’t sure if hard was the right word, but it was close enough.
“I only know what your mum told me. I know his parents died. His aunty raised him—that same aunt who gave your mum hell. He grew up poor. You know . . .” she said as she began to fan herself again, “poverty can be like a mental disease that affects people in two ways: either you succumb to it for the rest of your life or you spend your days searching for ways to be rid of it. And for those lucky enough to escape poverty, there can be an obsession to never return there.”
“But why ruin other people with ambition? Ruin my mum?”
“Some men cannot accept a woman who wants to do big things. Or they want to be the first to achieve something.” Aunty Lola’s face fell. Patience wasn’t sure what to make of her expression. Aunty Lola turned her gaze toward Innocent, who had moved on to watering the soil with a large silver canister.
“Not too much water, ehn, Innocent,” she said. “Patience, just focus on UNILAG, get your degree, and God will reunite you with your mum one day.”
“But, Aunty, what about my birth certificate? Have you started looking for it?”
“Innocent, trim that area there,” she said. “My darling Patience, I’m trying. Just remain focused.”
The sudden sound of heels hitting the backyard pavement made them turn toward the walkway. It was Bimpe and Mr. Shola, Aunty Lola’s driver, making their way toward them.
“Patience, you’re here again?” Bimpe said.
“She came by to see me, and so?” Aunty Lola said playfully.
“Good afternoon, Sa,” Patience said to Mr. Shola, not knowing how to respond to Bimpe.
“Good afternoon, Patience. Madam, mo n lọ.”
