our benefactors and hoped that he wouldn’t vomit at their next stop. I didn’t understand that it was natural for someone from the desert to react that way to the sea, and I was upset that he had embarrassed our parents. I thought even Yewa, the youngest of us children, comported herself better than he did.
That night, it wasn’t too strange when Fofo Kpee started calling us Pascal and Mary. The next day, he came to our school and changed our names in the school register to Pascal and Mary Ahouagnivo. And, remembering how much Mama loved the names, we became impatient with our schoolmates who kept using our old ones. Yewa bit the ear of one girl who taunted her with her old name, and, though the teacher thrashed my sister with koboko, the point had been made.
THE NEXT DAY, AFTER Big Guy came with a photographer to take our pictures for our passports, Fofo brought in people to change our wooden doors and windows to metal. He said because of our changing lifestyle and his Nanfang, it was important that our home be as secure as possible.
The workers painted the metal doors and windows tar black, and they stood out in our gray cement-plastered walls like the eyes of black pea beans. He bought huge padlocks and dog chains and added the padlock keys to his Nanfang key bunch. But the new keys were too long and threatened to tear holes in his trouser pockets, so he threaded them on a chain that he wore around his neck like a metallic talisman.
One Saturday, he stayed home instead of carrying people across the border, and dug a pit behind our house and extracted clayey sand. With water and a bit of cement, he and I mixed it, put it on a tray, then began to seal the space between our roof and the walls of the parlor. He stood on a chair inside, and I passed up the tray of the mix to him again and again while Yewa played outside, molding mini clay people. Our activity startled the lizards, geckos, and rats, and they kept scrambling out of their resting places and fleeing outside until I was no longer surprised. Fofo whistled and hummed songs most of the time. After each round of filling, we went outside, and Fofo got on a chair and worked on the outer wall, kneading the mud with his knuckles and smoothing it with wet palms.
“Fofo, why are you leaving those openings?” I asked when I saw that he had left an opening on each wall.
“Because I no want kill anybody wid heat,” he said. “E hun miawo hugan.”
“Heat? What about the windows?”
“No need to open window wid de holes. You dey ask beaucoup de questions, son . . . even de holes too big. Abeg, give me mix.”
I passed him the mix, and he reduced each opening to the size of a man’s foot. Standing on the floor inside, we couldn’t see the outside through the holes, not just because they were too high but because they were close to the roof. It was impossible for sunlight to come into the room through them.
“But, Fofo, when are we going to use the roofing sheets? Are you going to change the roof soon?”
Yewa came into the parlor and stood silently behind us, but we didn’t pay her any attention. My uncle’s fast and furious pace dictated the work, and our conversation seemed to only whet his appetite for speed.
“Don’t worry, de sheets are for our ohò yóyó,” Fofo Kpee said.
“New house?” I asked.
“Papa and Mama want build new house for us . . . cement house. Real ohò dagbe.”
“When are we going to see Papa and Mama?” Yewa cut in.
We stopped talking and turned to her for a while. She had come to show us her creations, which had fallen and broken. She carried the mess close to her heart, in open palms, like shattered pieces of a jewel. She said it was supposed to be a rider and a passenger on a Nanfang.
“In a few days we dey go Braffe . . . ,” Fofo Kpee said.
“No, I mean Papa and Mama of Gabon,” Yewa insisted. “I wanted to give this toy to Mama when she comes.”
“No worry, Mary,” said Fofo Kpee. “Yi bayi dogó, and no let dem break again. . . . Mama and Papa of Gabon reviennent soon.”
WHEN WE FINISHED, FOFO swept the parlor and gathered the wet mix