Sunday

On Sunday morning her father asked twice whether she had her Bible.

The first time, she showed him. The second time, she showed him again, and he nodded as if this were new and valuable information. He was wearing the gray suit he wore to church and to funerals, and he had polished his shoes to a shine that would not survive the street.

Funke had chosen a blue dress with a yellow head tie. This outfit, she had decided, deserved a day without dust.

They walked down June 12 Street at half past eight. AJ was on the bench at Iloro House with a cup of tea that Chuks had obviously made him, and he stood up when he saw them, which Funke noticed and her father also noticed.

"Good morning, sir," AJ said. "Good morning, Funke."

Her father looked at him, at the bruise that had faded to almost nothing, at the clean shirt, at the hour. "Good morning," he said. "You are greeting her in daylight."

"I was told that was the rule, sir."

"It is the rule." A pause, carefully weighed. "Funke tells me your uncle is a pastor."

"In Benin City, sir. He'll want to pray over me for an hour."

"An hour is not enough for most young men," said her father, and kept walking. Funke, behind him, mouthed that was a joke at AJ, who looked as though he did not entirely believe her.

The first service lasted one hour, which in Lagos counts as a miracle and is advertised as one. The choir sang as if volume were a form of faith, and Funke sang with them, and for an hour she did not think about kidneys or fees. Her father sang beside her, slightly flat, completely sure. That was one of the things she loved about him and would never say.

At six she met her friends at Mama Shola Hot Stuff Restaurant & Grill at No. 1, opposite Prizm. Ifeoma was in her year at medical school and spoke entirely in exam questions. Tolu worked at a bank on Lagos Island and spoke entirely in complaints about the bank. They had been planning this evening in the group chat all day, which meant forty-one messages about where to sit.

They sat outside, under the red grill canopy, with cold zobo, a deep-red hibiscus drink, and a plate of fried plantain, which everyone here calls dodo, between them. Ronke brought the plates while Mallam Sani turned suya sticks by the wall. Mama Bisola, the head cook, brought the jollof, the smoky tomato rice the whole street judged her by, herself and stood over them until they had each said it was the best they had eaten that week. Mama Shola called from the Hot Counter that compliments did not pay the bill. Soldiers from the training camp filled the other tables and argued about football.

"The London one," said Tolu, who had seen AJ on the way in. "Is that the London one?"

"He is a neighbor," said Funke.

"She has used the word neighbor," Ifeoma said to Tolu. "Differential diagnosis?"

"Acute neighbor," said Tolu. "Possibly chronic."

Funke threw a piece of dodo at her.

That was when the street went quiet in a particular way, the way a ward goes quiet when the consultant walks in. A black car had stopped at the end of the street. Two men in black got out first. Then the Warden himself.

Chief Lazarus Ekanem did not walk so much as arrive. On Sundays he wore agbada, a flowing embroidered robe, in cream and gold, and he carried a horsehair fly-whisk that he did not need and used anyway, flicking it at nothing as he came. Thirty-one years at Kirikiri prison had left him, people said, with a gold watch and a copy of every key. Now he owned Prizm, and he walked down June 12 Street like a man inspecting cells.

"Mama Bisola! A round for every table. The soldiers too. The Lord said feed my sheep, and the rulebook says feed the men before inspection." He laughed at his own line, and the soldiers laughed because he was paying.

Then he stopped at their table.

"Ah. My daughter." He said it to Funke, who was not his daughter. "The future doctor of No. 5. Your father is a fine man. A careful man."

"Good evening, Chief."

"I have been telling people about you." He turned slightly, so the tables nearby could hear; he had the instincts of a man who had spent decades speaking to a yard full of people who were not allowed to leave. "My foundation, the Ekanem Foundation for Rising Stars, is giving a scholarship this year. Fees. Books. A monthly allowance. A car to take you to Idi-Araba so your father can stop paying that driver." He beamed. "Free."

The soldiers at the next table applauded. Ifeoma kicked Funke under the table, hard, which in exam language meant say yes, you fool.

"There will be small things," the Warden went on, waving the whisk. "A photograph for the banner. A few words at my functions, when we have important guests. And of course"—he smiled—"when you qualify, you will remember your friends. A doctor's signature opens doors that even keys cannot."

There it was. Funke had seen enough consent forms to recognize the line that mattered, the one written smallest.

She put down her zobo. She smiled the smile she used for difficult relatives.

"Thank you, Chief. That is very generous. But my father pays my fees, and I would not like to embarrass him by accepting what he has already given." She paused. "There is a boy who comes to the clinic downstairs whose mother sells drinking water in sachets at the junction. He is clever. Your foundation should find him. He needs it more than I do."

For one second, the fly-whisk stopped moving.

The Warden's smile stayed exactly where it was. Only his eyes changed, the way a door changes when someone on the other side turns the key.

"Hm," he said. "In Kirikiri we had a saying, my daughter. A gift offered is a gift. A gift refused is a record." He laughed, loudly, and the soldiers laughed too. "Greet your father. And greet your London neighbor. I hear he finds your window at night." He flicked the whisk once more and moved on, a cloud of cream and gold and expensive cologne.

"Are you mad?" said Tolu, once he was out of earshot. "A car, Funke."

"Nothing that man gives is free," said Funke. "He just sends the bill later, to somebody else's address."

But her hands were not quite steady when she picked up her glass, and she did not finish the jollof.

She walked home at a quarter to eight. One of the Warden's men in black was standing at the Afternoon Store, the little kiosk that sold cold water when the power stayed on, drinking a malt drink and looking at nothing. He was still looking at nothing when she reached her gate.

She had not told anyone about the window. Not Ifeoma, not Tolu, not Nurse Adaeze. Her father knew, the way fathers know. AJ knew. And now, somehow, a man who kept a ledger in his head knew too.

At eight the power went. The generators began their choir. Downstairs her father locked the door, and checked it, and checked it again, and for the first time in her life Funke was glad of it.

At nine, Joe-Izzy's first song drifted across the rooftops from Prizm, bright and far away.

AJ had not come yet. Funke stood at the window a long time, watching the street, the bench, the dark gap where the Warden's man had been.

Then, very quietly, she closed it.