I didn’t know at that time where Italy was. I didn’t even know where Africa was, that there were continents in the world separated by great oceans. I had heard about Europe and its riches and I had heard about America but no one had told me there were no direct paths leading to these places. Maybe Europe was a city like Lagos, but without the furious guards at the gate, a city where all doors were open, where even someone like me could enter without fear of threats or assault.
He asked me if I wanted to come along, what my price was, if I was alone. I thought it was strange that these questions came in the wrong order. He asked me for my price before he even knew if I was for sale. Perhaps he thought all black women could be bought, that there was no dignity in a land where almost everyone lived in poverty. But even though he asked the questions in the wrong order I went with him.
He had a car. I thought we were going to a hotel but he drove to a large villa that lay in a fenced-off area with other villas and dogs who barked in identical ways and guards that all looked like each other and bright lights in front of each house that almost burned. We went into the house. He asked me if I wanted to have a bath and if I was hungry and the whole time his eyes travelled up and down my body. I was wearing a blue dress that had torn in one seam. When I sat and ate at the large table in the kitchen he reached over and touched me through the hole in the seam and I remember that I shivered. He asked me for my price. I had not answered him since a person cannot have a price. This must have been what made me hate him.
I already knew what was coming. When I was thirteen my mother told me it was time for me to get used to what men wanted from women and had a rightful claim to and that it was one of her brothers who was going to show me. I didn’t like him. He had a wandering eye and wheezed when he breathed. It was a horrendous experience, like being torn apart by someone kicking their way into my body. Afterwards I cried but my mother said that the worst was over now and that it would get better, or at least not any worse.
