of tiny rings of flesh, like the neck of an oba in an odigba.
Suddenly, Fofo Kpee parted his legs and grabbed his genitals as if to push them back into the bush.
“You naked, I naked, why you fear?” he said like one reciting a poem. “You have it, I have it. My own big, your own small, right? Say ‘hén, Fofo,’ s’il vous plaît!”
“Yes, Fofo,” we stammered, and nodded.
“Let talk about sex, mes bébés,” he began to sing, and wriggled like a madman. “Let talk about vous and moi.” He balled one hand into a microphone, the other still grabbing his genitals. He skulked around the room as if he were on stage; he jumped onto the table, then jumped down. He moonwalked until his back grazed the clothes in the wardrobe. He stopped suddenly, with one leg raised in frozen posture. “You know de song?”
“No,” we said.
“You want touch my ting? Come on, do it, allez, touchez moi.”
He was now coming toward us.
“No, no!” I said, and we backed away.
My sister was silent. She never spoke again that night but shielded her privates with her hands and moved behind me.
“Oh, you want touch your ting, mes enfants?”
“No,” I said.
I felt a numbness around my groin, and my heart began to pound. I didn’t feel the heat anymore, though I noticed more sweat was pouring from my body. My penis seemed to have shrunk completely, and my balls became one hard nut. I knew immediately this was different from my fofo’s ordinary clowning. I was afraid.
“Or you want touch white man, Mary, huh?” he said.
Yewa shook her head.
When he turned his gaze on me, I said, “Maybe we should not go to Gabon . . .”
“Shut up, bastard!” he exploded, and shook his head and downed more payó. “You want drink, abi?”
“No.”
“You want woman?”
“No.”
“Just don’t disgrace me for foreign land o . . . you hear?”
“No.”
“Non?”
“Yes, Fofo.”
We stared at each other for a while. “Good, at least,” he said, “you no dey hide your face anymore. Gbòjé, gbòjé!”
He held the cap of his penis by his fingertips and stretched it downward until the rings of flesh disappeared. He spun and released it like a cone. It didn’t turn but returned weakly to its perch on the balls. He continued to do this until his penis began to get bigger. He giggled and tied his wrappa around his waist again and sat on the bed.
“Would you like some food?” he said.
“No,” I said.
“Sure, Mary? Some Gabon food, cornflakes, Nido, huh?”
“I want to sleep,” she whispered.
That night I tried to convince myself that I was drunk, that none of this had really happened. In spite of the heat, I put on my shorts and turned my back toward Fofo and lay with my hands between my legs, trying to protect myself even in sleep. My sister simply wrapped herself up in the bedspread. I was repulsed by thoughts of traveling to Gabon. I no longer felt at home in our place. It was as if every piece of furniture had been stained by Fofo’s performance that night. My mind sank deeper into shame and fear as I remembered all the things we had bought since we started thinking of going to Gabon. For instance, I hated the very shorts I was wearing and thought of taking them off, but I couldn’t bring myself to sleep naked that night. I hated the Nanfang and vowed never to ride on it again.
For the first time, I sympathized with Paul—and wished I could have vomited, like him, all the good food I had ever eaten in the past few months. I wondered how he and Antoinette were doing. Did they know something we didn’t know? Did they go through their orientation before visiting us? Who would be giving them this lesson? Big Guy?
I wasn’t interested in traveling anymore, though somehow my mind refused to associate my godparents with what had happened that night. I felt better thinking they didn’t know, and took solace in the memory of their visit. Though I no longer felt like following them, I didn’t think they meant us any harm. And though Fofo apologized to us the next morning and said he overdid things just a bit in case life became difficult abroad, I started thinking of how to escape and run back to Braffe with my sister.
ONE DAY FOFO RUSHED back from work unexpectedly, like in his pre-Nanfang days when he had duped someone at the border and needed