The Silences of Abidjan

The taxi slows in front of the courtyard. The walls are the same, eaten by rust and time, but a new sign has sprouted above the gate: “Clinique de l’Espoir.” Kofi remains seated, his hand on the handle, the taxi engine still vibrating beneath him. He hasn’t been here in seven years. Seven years spent building a life in Brooklyn, convincing himself that leaving was a victory. But this morning, in the ochre light of Abidjan, he understands that some roads lead you nowhere but back to your beginning. His mother lies in a room that smells of bleach and crushed moringa leaves. She is sleeping, or pretending to. The nurses come and go, whispering. Kofi sits on the white plastic chair, the one that squeaks at the slightest movement. He looks at her hands, resting on the sheet—hands that have kneaded foutou, washed mountains of laundry, stroked his head when he cried for no reason. Those hands never held a book, but they have written his story in every fold of skin. He remembers the day he announced his departure. She didn’t cry. She simply turned her back and began peeling yams, the knife striking the white flesh like a metronome. Kofi had interpreted that silence as indifference. He carried it with him to New York, that mute anger, lodging it in a corner of his gut. He fed it with every unanswered phone call, every letter left without a reply. But today, in this hospital room, he begins to decipher something else. Yesterday, he found a tin box in his mother’s wardrobe. Inside, yell