Xifeng is smiling and going back to fixing me. Cotton and gauze that is red-black with the oil that was spilling out of me is all over the floor where Xifeng and I are sitting. “The government thinks that if they erase all memory of the civil war, then they will have peace. If your neighbor kills your family, how will you be able to live next to them when the war is over? You will be consumed with anger and rage. You will want vengeance.”
“You will not be wanting to be living next to this person.” I am looking at the hard drives on the shelves at the far end of the trailer, and I am beginning to be understanding what vengeance is. And that there is being war here and maybe war is why I am at bottom of pile of bodies when Enyemaka are finding me. Maybe war is what I am doing in my rememberings when I am hurting people or killing them.
“So if you forget that this happened to you, then you can live next to your neighbor again,” says Xifeng.
“But you are also forgetting that you are having family. You are forgetting that you are having mother and that she is loving you. Maybe you are forgetting you are having brother who is mean to you also. But maybe you are also forgetting that brother is protecting you from bullies and pulling blanket over your head when it is raining in your home.”
Xifeng is looking at my face, and I am understanding that she is proud of me for saying these thing.
“We are bringing these memories to the people.” Xifeng is finishing with the woundings on my stomach and on my ribs, and she is pulling my shirt back down. She is putting her hand on my knee and kneeling in front of me and looking in my face. “Do you see those hard drives over there?” And her finger is pointing to the black boxes piled on top of each other against the walls of her trailer. And I am nodding my head yes, and Xifeng is saying, “Those contain the memories of people who died in the war. People who left behind loved ones. And those loved ones don’t know what happened to these people. We will be going back to those loved ones, and we will show them what happened to the people they lost. We will be restoring memories.”
“It is good that we are doing this.” It is question in my mind, but it comes out as answer when I am speaking.
We are smiling at each other’s faces when I am smelling rotten egg, and before I am telling to Xifeng what is happening, my eyes are rolling up into my head and I am on the ground shaking shaking.
I am seeing little girl sitting on side of bed and she is having tablet computer on her knees and I am saying something to her about needing to wake up and go to school and she is dragging her feet and I am saying, “Come on, now! Chop chop-oh!” and I am hurrying her out of tent and into humid air filled with mosquitoes. Then there is static like I am seeing when I am downloading into my braincase broken memories, and I am on side of a small hill and I am looking out over water and this same little girl is sitting next to me and we are saying something but it is mumbling in my ears, but I am calling her Ify.
Then I am waking up again in Xifeng’s trailer. She is holding me in her arms and rocking me back and forth to be calming me and she is humming a song, and even though there are many many question in my head buzzing like mosquito I am happy and I feel safe and I am thinking that Xifeng is only this way with good person. Never with bad person.
This is how she is telling me that I am good person.
* * *
■ ■ ■ ■ ■
The city of Lagos is giving me too much information in my brain. Too much information about too many people is fighting inside my braincase, and I am breathing regularly again when Xifeng and I and a smaller Enyemaka are finding passage on small boat into Makoko shantytown.
The moon is shining on the water, and the water is shimmering and making quiet sounds that is making me to feel like smiling. Small small drone is hovering over the water and spraying chemical over the surface that is shimmering, and I am knowing that this is to be killing the mosquitoes that are carrying diseases. The drones are sometime looking like mosquito themselves, but they are not stinging people, and I am seeing that they are metal and safe.
As we are moving through the water by the Third Mainland Bridge that is connecting Lagos to the outer islands, we are passing under smaller bridges that are so skinny only one person is walking up or down at a time. But some people are walking fast fast like they are not worrying about falling into the water. I dip my hand, and the water is cold to touch, and Xifeng is watching me and smiling, and I am taking my hand out because I am shy suddenly. And she is trying to hide a giggle by pressing her lips tight together.
She is holding hard drive in her lap with tiny squirming Enyemaka who will be standing guard, and I am holding rememberings in my head. We are soon arriving at a home on stilts that are being driven deep into the water of the lagoon. There is a ladder leading up to the edge of the platform the house is sitting on, and even though the person inside is knowing that we are coming (Xifeng is telling me this), we move quiet quiet. Xifeng is paying boatman, and we are climbing until we get to the platform, and then Xifeng is knocking softly and wooden door is opening slowly and old man with beard like his chin is covered in dandelion seedheads is standing in the darkness. Xifeng puts down tiny Enyemaka, and it is standing outside door to keep watch for trouble. It is linking to me through my braincase, so I am seeing what it is seeing while seeing what I am seeing.
Xifeng and I are walking into the darkness, and I am detecting another person here. An old woman who is looking like she is all wrinkles and who is not moving but who is appearing on my screen as alive. She is having heartbeat and pulse and she is having breath in her lungs.
The man with dandelion beard is speaking to the woman, who is just saying nothing, then. He is walking to Xifeng, and they are speaking quietly. Xifeng is making sure that they are the right people and that she is bringing them what they are asking for.
Then Xifeng is making hand signal for me to come to her. “It is time,” she is telling me.
Cord is coming out of the back of my neck and I am plugging into hard drive, and I am sending rememberings into it. Before we are arriving here, I am sectioning off these rememberings and placing them in mental folder for when I will be needing to upload them. When I am finished, I unplug my cord and it is slithering like snake back into my neck.
Then I am stepping away while Xifeng is finding projector and plugging hard drive into it. Suddenly whole room is filling with blue light, and in the center of the room is a young man and he is wearing soldier’s coat, but it is open and loose on his shoulders. He is eating yams on a plate and he is being with other soldiers like him, relaxing under tent, and I am hearing them speaking and telling joke on each other and laughing with mouth full. Then I am seeing all of the soldiers facing commander and looking to right and seeing soldier and looking to the left and seeing soldier, and I am seeing commander giving them commands and saying they should be proud of what they are doing, and commander is putting hand on person’s shoulder so it is looking like he is putting hand on our shoulder and he is pinning medal onto person’s chest.