I tried to listen to these blind animals, to interpret their smells and to answer the question as to where I myself was headed. I asked every new refugee if they had seen or heard anything about my father. But he remained gone. It was as if those soldiers had torn him apart with their laughter. I tried to speak to you, Alemwa, but I could not hear your voice. It was as if all of the eyes in the city, all these belching machines, made it impossible for me to feel your breath. I have never been as alone as I felt those days and nights in Lagos. I was so alone that I sometimes secretly touched people that I passed in the street. Occasionally they shouted out at me since they thought I was a pickpocket.
I ran, the whole time I ran, even when I was sleeping my legs continued to move. I started looking for the man who was going to help me, but it turned out that he was the one who found me. I was at an outdoor restaurant, loitering in the shadows outside the gate where furious guards chased away all beggars and people who disturbed the wealthy as they were getting out of their chauffeur-driven cars. Suddenly I felt that stinking breath. I flinched and turned around, ready to strike if someone was preparing to attack me.
The man who stood there was small, his face was pale. He was white with a thin moustache. He was breathing right in my face. His smile should have warned me since I had learned that laughing people can kill with brutal precision; I had seen smiling people commit acts of violence and betrayal. But perhaps it was because I was so tired that I didn’t care about his stiff smile, or perhaps it was because I could not hear your voice warning me. He asked me what my name was and then told me he was from Italy. His name was Cartini or Cavanini, I can’t remember any more. He was an engineer and he had been in Lagos for four months and was about to return home. His work was something to do with steam or coal-driven heating plants, I don’t even know, he was speaking so fast and his eyes travelled up and down my body, up and down, and I remember thinking that this was the man who was going to help me.
