ROLA
January 1998 — Brooklyn
The room was small.
I stood in the doorway, still wearing my jacket because it was cold even inside, and looked at the space that was supposed to be our new home. I had expected something from the movies — big windows and tall ceilings and furniture that matched. Mummy had said America would be better. She had said we would have a good life.
This did not look like a good life.
One room. Maybe three meters by four meters, though I wasn’t good at measurements yet. A window on the far wall that looked out at something — I couldn’t see what from the doorway. Two beds pushed against opposite walls, their frames metal, their mattresses thin and covered in faded floral sheets that didn’t match. A mattress on the floor between them, no frame, just a mattress lying there like someone had forgotten to finish setting up.
The kitchen was a corner. Not a separate room, not even a separate area — just a corner with a hot plate and a small refrigerator that hummed too loud, like it was working very hard to do very little. There was a counter the size of a school desk, and above it, three cabinets with doors that didn’t close all the way.
The bathroom, Uncle Chidi explained, was down the hall. Shared with the other families on this floor.
“How many other families?” Mummy asked.
“Four. Maybe five. It depends.”
“Depends on what?”
Uncle Chidi just shrugged.
I walked slowly into the room, looking at everything, trying to understand. The walls were painted a color that might have been white once but was now something yellower, sadder. There were marks on the walls — scuff marks and stains and, in one corner, what looked like words written in pencil that someone had tried to erase but hadn’t fully succeeded. The ceiling had a brown stain in the shape of Africa, and I wondered if that was a sign, if the building itself was trying to tell us something.
“It’s temporary,” Mummy said. She was still standing in the doorway, as if crossing the threshold would make this real in a way she wasn’t ready for. “When I find a good job, we will move somewhere better.”
“When is that?” Toba asked.
“Soon.”
That word again. Soon. It meant nothing and everything. It meant Mummy didn’t know but didn’t want to admit it. It meant we were supposed to be patient and grateful and not ask too many questions.
I walked to the window and looked out.
The view was not a street, the sky, or even a small patch of grass. It was a brick wall. The side of the building next door, so close I could count the individual bricks if I wanted to, so close that if I opened the window and stretched out my arm, I might be able to touch them.
In Lagos, our compound had a courtyard. It wasn’t fancy — just a patch of dirt with a few struggling plants and a coconut tree that produced fruit every few years when it felt like it — but it was open. I could see the sky from anywhere in the compound. I could watch clouds move overhead and guess what shapes they were making. I could feel the sun on my face and know, at least, that I was not trapped.
Here, I would have to press my face to the glass and look straight up to see even a slice of sky. And what I would see would be gray. Gray like the airport. Gray like the buildings. Gray like everything in this country.
“Rola.” Mummy’s voice was tired.
“Yes, Mummy.”
“Come help me unpack.”
I turned from the window. Toba was already opening one of the bags, the small suitcase with the broken wheel, pulling out clothes and trying to find places to put them. There was a closet — I could see a door in the wall that must be a closet — but when Toba opened it, it was barely big enough to stand in. Maybe four or five hangers could fit. Maybe.
