The Other Hand

solemn.
    “No,” he said. “Because you is our friend.”
    The guard, he did not know what to do.
    “I’ve seen bloody everything now,” he said.
    Finally he stood up and made room for Sarah and Charlie to sit beside me. They hugged me while I cried, and the other passengers turned around in their seats to stare at this miracle, and the aeroplane flew all of us into the future at five hundred and fifty miles per hour.
    After some time they brought us peanuts, and Coca-Cola in tiny cans. Charlie drank his too quickly, and the Coca-Cola came out of his nose. After Sarah cleaned him up, she turned to me.
    “I did wonder why Andrew didn’t leave a note,” she said. “And then I thought about it. It wasn’t Andrew’s style. He didn’t really like to write about himself.”
    I nodded.
    “Anyway, he left me something better than a note.”
    “What?”
    Sarah smiled. “A story.”
    At Abuja they opened the aeroplane doors, and heat and memory rolled in. We walked across the tarmac through the shimmering air. In the terminal building my guard signed me over to the authorities. Cheerio, he said. Best of luck, love.
    The military police were waiting for me in a small room, wearing uniforms and gold-framed sunglasses. They could not arrest me because Sarah was with me. She would not leave my side. I am a British journalist, she said. Anything you do to this woman, I will report it. The military police were uncertain, so they called their commander. The commander came, in a camouflage uniform and a red beret, with tribal scars on his cheeks. He looked at my deportation document, and he looked at me and Sarah and Charlie. He stood there for a long time, scratching his belly and nodding.
    “Why is the child dressed in this fashion?” he said.
    Sarah looked straight back at him. She said, “The child believes he has special powers.”
    The commander grinned. “Well, I am just a man,” he said. “I will not arrest any of you at this time.”
    Everybody laughed, but the military police followed our taxi from the airport. I was very frightened but Sarah gripped my hand. I will not leave you, she said. So long as Charlie and I are here, you are safe. The police waited outside our hotel. We stayed there for two weeks, and so did they.
    The window of our room looked out over Abuja. Tall buildings stretched back for miles, tall and clean, some covered in silver glass that reflected the long, straight boulevards. I watched the city as the sunset made the buildings glow red, and then I watched all night. I could not sleep.
    When the sun rose it shone between the horizon and the base of the clouds. It blazed on the golden dome of the mosque while the four tall towers were still lit up with electric lights. It was beautiful. Sarah came out onto the balcony of our room, and she found me standing there and staring.
    “This is your city,” she said. “Are you proud?”
    “I did not know such a thing existed in my country. I am still trying to feel that it is mine.”
    I stood there all morning while the heat of the day grew stronger and the streets grew busy with car taxis and scooter taxis and walking sellers with their swaying racks of T-shirts and head-scarves and medicine.
    Charlie sat inside, watching cartoons with the air-conditioning on, and Sarah laid out all of Andrew’s papers on a long, low table. On each pile of papers we placed a shoe, or a lamp or a glass, to stop them blowing in the breeze from the big mahogany fans that spun on the ceiling. Sarah explained how she was going to write the book that Andrew had been researching. I need to collect more stories like yours, she said. Do you think we can do that here? Without going down to the south of the country?
    I did not answer. I looked through some of the papers and then I went and stood on the balcony again. Sarah came and stood beside me.
    “What is it?” she said.
    I nodded my head down at the military police car waiting on the street below. Two men leaned against it, in green uniforms with berets and sunglasses. One of them looked up. He said something when he saw us, and his colleague looked up too. They stared up at our balcony for a long time, and then they lit cigarettes and sat in the car, one in the front seat and one in the backseat, with the doors open and their heavy boots resting on the tarmac.
    “You know it is not a good idea to collect stories,” I said.
    Sarah shook her head. “I don’t agree. I think it’s the only way we’ll