This true account belongs in the collection Nectar of the Ordinary. I met the individual to whom this story belongs in June of 2008. It was about time I put it on paper.
Thanks,
~a.q.s.
Unexpected Sap: “Nigerian Cab Driver’s Message”
One who carries a message bears the weight to share it. One who receives a message bears the Herculean task to contain it.
Sometime in the very beginning of June 2008 I almost got hit by a cab. Now it would seem an expected hazard of living in New York City but contrary to popular belief, cabs zooming left and right, stopping in the middle of traffic as and when they wish to pick passengers, hardly ever annihilate people. Even those people who are walking with headphones and cannot hear a cab swooshing next to them are safe for the most part. So my almost getting hit by a cab that June—we are talking breaks screeching, the tail-end of the cab swirling, and my shocked self that could not move fast enough out of the way—was not foreseeable. But I was lucky—the cab driver swerved onto the sidewalk missing me and thankfully there was no one on the sidewalk either. I had been waiting for a cab for fifteen minutes and I was late. However, I was not getting in a cab with that driver and nor was I going to wait for another cab. I decided to take the subway.
Earlier that day I had felt dizzy and disorientated. I am easily distracted but not forgetful, yet I had forgotten my phone in my apartment and realized so only when I was getting out of the subway station upon having reached Midtown. I went back Uptown to my apartment and then back to Midtown. All times taking the subway. Then I had to go back up again because I had forgotten a folder! But now I was beyond late—I had to take a cab up and then back down.
I got in the first cab that I had hailed and quickly noted the cab driver was from Nigeria (I had read his name which was written along with his cab registration number, both posted on a transparent divider between the passenger row and the front of the cab, and politely confirmed my curiosity). He drove me uptown—from 68th street to 120th. I was quiet the entire cab ride. Not a word was exchanged between the two of us other than if he was of Nigerian descent. When we reached 120th street I asked him if he could just wait for me until I got something from my apartment so as to not look for another cab. He was hesitant but agreed. I was standing at the same spot where earlier a cab had almost inhaled me.
I returned and saw that he was still standing in front of my apartment building. I quickly got back in his cab, apologized for the delay, and we headed back to Midtown. I couldn’t help saying out loud that I didn’t know what was going on with me; I was never this forgetful. I thought to myself that maybe the heat and humidity was making me dizzy and loopy. He responded, “Maybe too much on your mind.” I replied, “Yeah. Probably.”
Then I humored, “Got any ideas for what to do for that? What do they do in Nigeria when you have too much on your mind?” He repressed an indistinct laugh.
I choose to inform him that my stomach was hurting and I felt vomiting was one road bump away. He looked at me through the rear-view mirror. I hummed, “Don’t worry. Not in your cab.” I further briefed him that I hadn’t eaten anything but I hadn’t been hungry either for a couple of days. Could not eating give you nausea? I self-diagnosed myself with vertigo. Was vertigo contagious? I complained that the pain comes from such an abysmal place inside. He didn’t say anything and then asked, “What is ab.ysmal?”
I explained I had meant deep, never-ending, unreachable regardless of what the word actually meant. We are always redefining what words mean.
I realized that the pain was not even in my stomach—it was much deeper–in my gut right above my pelvis but below my stomach. Yes, abysmal. Some space of me and yet beyond me.
And he almost rear ended his cab into another car. We literally were a hair-width away from smashing the white lexus in front of us given it had stopped suddenly and the cab driver didn’t break in enough time! We pulled over to the side. He apologized over and over again. At this point, I officially gave up trying to get where I was going. I told him it was okay. I was only a few blocks away from my destination and I could walk now and I tried to pay and get out of the cab. Cabs were not happening for me that day.
I asked him how much was the total (since my disoriented state was unable to process the meter and I simply wanted out of the cab).
He responded, “That is what she says.”
I was confused, “I am sorry? Who says? What?”
“She, my soul. She says she feels me sometimes in ways that defy everything. And she is in another continent. And I feel her, too.”
I was quiet. I told him I wasn’t feeling well and I had to go. The neurons in my brain were haywire.
He asked me, “Do you believe in soul mates?”
I decided not to think but responded with the first answer that came to me, “Yes.”
He inquired on the edge of hope, “Do you have a minute?”
I was already irreparably late, “Sure.”
I could sense he was holding back tears behind his heavy eyelids full of dark lashes. His mouth was slightly trembling. I was in no condition to walk right away anyway.
And then the levies holding his past gave way…
Before he had moved to NYC he was studying in Odessa, Russia (now known as Ukraine) and met a Russian woman and they fell in love. He had been in love once before and she even had a boyfriend when they met—but this was so much bigger than what either one of them had ever experienced before. They started dating. I wish I was reporting that he romantically went on and on about the woman. Instead, all he shared was the way her curly blond-brown hair looks even curlier when she is in a hurry against the wind. She is calm and he likes to watch her speak.
He said he was younger then—his family had sacrificed so much for him to go study in Russia. He didn’t know how he could ever take a white woman home to his village and explain how his soul feels at peace when he is with her. Their time came to an end and it was the most painful–but he was not brave enough to go against his family, what he was explained as “tradition”, and what he felt he owed his parents. He rationalized it with more specific fears: how are we going to work? You live in Odessa and I live in Nigeria. My skin is black. Your skin is white. Money. So he ended it the only way he knew: cold turkey. She tried contacting him but eventually stopped. He had moved back to Nigeria. She left Odessa but stayed in Russia. Then after two years he agreed upon his family’s asking and married a woman his mother knew well and everyone approved. He tried to contact that Odessa woman but couldn’t get a hold of her. She was no where to be found. He wanted to know if she still felt the same and if she did he wouldn’t get married. He couldn’t find her. There was no email then and old phone numbers and addresses had stopped working. He got married and he decided it was best not to have children right away. He remarked that not having children right away is unheard of in his culture but he blamed it on finances–asserted and convinced the wife and his family that they should wait until they had moved to NYC where he would be in a better financial position to support all. He had his engineering degree but he knew he would have to start off at the bottom but he was moving to NYC no matter what. So him and his beautiful Nigerian wife moved to NYC.
Once here, he was hardly here. Away from family pressures he buried himself in work–sending money home (no one now complained about not having children or how his wife and him were managing…as long as they were getting money everyone was proud of him). His wife was no longer happy. He would stay out at bars, with other Africans, just trying to find Odessa again–anywhere and everywhere: in bars, in beer bottles, in songs, in conversations with Russians and Ukrainians. His wife suspected he was cheating since he was so emotionally unavailable. He has never cheated on his wife he told me–but he says he had no desire to–he has only wanted one woman. He has sought help. Read up books. (At this point, while listening to him, I can recall trying to hold back my tears because I knew if I started crying, this big Nigerian man would start crying and I wouldn’t know what to do–my stomach kept churning and churning).
1 year prior to him sharing this story, so in 2007, he decided to relocate the woman in Russia. At this point he had been married for six years. He finally decided to contact the University they both had attended and see if they had any forwarding information for her. And they did. He wrote her a 10 page letter. She sent him an email. She was married as well but still hadn’t had any kids. They began keeping in touch via email and sometimes phone. He said it is not even romantic or sentimental–it is as simple as he can’t live without her–and although they have been “living” without each other, that kind of living is worse than being dead, he exhaled.
And this is when he started trembling. Right there. In front of me, a stranger in his cab. His mouth shook and one big tear drop slid across his dry cheek onto his upper lip. He said he had not contacted her for three weeks because it was not fair to his wife nor her husband. They had done nothing wrong. And he couldn’t go on living like this. He was 15 years younger and made some mistakes because he didn’t have the faith and wisdom he does now–but now–there is a choice to be made. Neither one of them had kids.
And then he looked at me intensely and said, “Have you ever been to any country in Africa? Do you know how it is over there?”
I began to answer but he was too eager to say what he had to say and I didn’t get a chance to begin my response.
“If I could tell my African brothers one thing, I would tell them this. I would tell my African brother that the people he is sacrificing for will die—my mother and father have passed away–I have no one to answer to now and am forced to live the life I choose for them. I would tell my African brother that our Africa was Africa because it was based on love that gives life meaning and now we have turned that love into obligation and duty and what we now call love is destroying ourselves and our countries. And to ask each–have you noticed the pressure to have children? It now exists for all the wrong reasons. Where I come from, men don’t leave their wives because they feel like they have a duty to take care of them. Women don’t leave their husbands because they have started living for their children–they don’t even care if the husband is out and about doing whatever: they have convinced themselves that duty is tradition forgetting the only tradition that matters is love.”
We sat there quietly. I can’t recall for how how long, probably no longer than five silent minutes.
He asked me how was my stomach.
I responded it was better.
He wiped his moist eyes. He sighed. I sighed. We looked out on the street. I wondered how many people in America feel free enough to love who they want. I realized I was hungry. Finally. He whispered into the humid New York air, “Anyway, that is what she always says, that she can feel me despite my being so far from her–and it is different than just thinking about someone. The insides hurt from a deep space.”
I asked him what was he going to do next?
He said that for the first time he will put faith into practice. He does not think it is right to bring children into this world consciously when you don’t have the solid foundation of love–whatever your definition of love might be. He was not going to speak to the Odessa woman until he had gotten a divorce and figured out how he would continue to provide for his wife (if she wanted to stay in NYC or move back to Nigeria)—but he could not continue to live with her. He mumbled it shouldn’t be too hard given how unhappy she is with him.
I had questions but I didn’t think he would have answers for questions which he was himself still formulating.
“It hurts her more that I am not available. She is miserable. That is why she keeps insisting to have children, so she can have someone to love more sincerely (she would be too busy taking care of the children to worry why I am working too much or not around or so absentminded) and they will love her back how she deserves to be loved,” he elaborated, perhaps his attempt at answering my silent questions but that is not what I had wanted to inquire.
Silence again. I got ready to get my wallet out and he said I didn’t have to pay for the second half of the trip. I smiled. “So, this is how they do in Nigeria, huh?” He laughed out loud, which made me smile.
As I was stepping out of the cab he thanked me and then said more to himself than me, “Life is too short. And we are too afraid. Sometimes you have a child by chance and other times not having one gives you another chance.”
Thereafter I walked at least forty blocks to let the entire interaction sink in and jotted the following on a tissue paper I picked up from a restaurant where I finally had an early supper, after my long walk.
What to make of men from broken continents–Africa to Asia–who have forgotten their ancestors sacrificed their spirits for the freedom to love and be, opportunities wrapped in a love that can salvage countries raped of their essence…where sacrifice is the new cloak for cowardice…the fate of colonized countries is in the hands of exceptions to the rule…
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praise.
reads as sweet as the wide sargasso sea.
love.
angel
@angel – oh angel. you can’t say that! but only YOU can say that.
thank you. I never got a chance to read wide sargasso sea, can you believe that?! One time the movie was on TV (I watched it in and out) and you know how I feel about books into movies…
oh how i love angel for directing me to your blog. funny she mentioned that book. i got it for christmas, but i haven’t cracked it open yet. think that’s a sign…TWICE!
beautiful…simply beautiful.
@tish – Tish thanks for stopping by. Angel is….well…an angel….
Yes, we must finally read Sargassso Sea!
it’s a great story…especially the way you have described the emotions of the cab driver.most of the people view them just as robots…facilitating others to get from place A to B. But you have portrayed them as human beings who are carrying an ocean of emotions of hope, love and disappointments….and sometimes they also need help to move from point A to B…in order to carry on their lives…
yes…ocean of emotions we are so unaware of…in others and ourselves…from point A to B…
thank you for this insight.