Free Every Day Is for the Thief: Fiction by Teju Cole Page B

of the cheapest of the four-door sedan cars on the American market, but nonetheless a fine car to have in Nigeria. The container arrived in Apapa only in the third week of December. But the field in which we are waiting is not at my aunt’s school. This is an older school belonging to their family friend Mr. Wuraola. They have decided against sending the container all the way across Lagos. Instead, they plan to off-load the container at Mr. Wuraola’s field in Surulere and then use small school buses to carry the goods to Ojodu. The reason for this is to avoid attracting the unwanted attentions of hoodlums in the neighborhood, for whom the sudden appearance of a large container might be an invitation to robbery.
    There is a Yoruba word: tokunbo . That is the term for the secondhand imported consumer goods that flood the Nigerian market. It means “from over the seas.” This word is also a Yoruba first name, given to those who were born in foreign countries before being brought back home. That is the primary use of the word, but the other sense, the adjectival one, has become common. Tokunbo cars, tokunbo clothes, tokunbo electronics. A word that was once a mark of worldliness now has a mildly pejorative air about it. The importation of used goods is vital to the domestic economy in Nigeria, as the manufacturing industry is not well developed. But in addition to those goods destined for the market, there has also been a steep rise in imports by private citizens for personal use.
    Our wait in the field in Surulere is only the latest in a long series of delays. Already, hundreds of dollars have been spent on bribes and unofficial taxes. The previous day, we received a dressing-down from a customs officer at the port who was enraged that his colleague had left him out of the take. And the container is two weeks late. Two weeks and four hours. Then it arrives. Godot is here, says my uncle. Godot’s been rigged to a flatbed trailer, brought through the highways and winding streets from Apapa to Surulere. The trailer pulls into the field. The black goat stops eating and looks up. He gets to his feet and goes away, through the main gate. We don’t see him again. The men under the tree get up from their half slumber. The container is opened quickly, and we started unloading it. We begin with the smaller boxes and work in a chain to transfer them from the container into the little vans. Many are schoolbooks for the various grades. Others contain everyday objects like dish soap, parboiled rice, and lamps. Aunty Folake and Mr. Wuraola supervise the work. Mr. Wuraola, with his red T-shirt tucked into his khakis, looks exactly like a middle-aged American.

    When about half of the boxes have been brought down, the driver of the trailer and his assistant set up a winch and an incline. One of the school bus drivers gets inside the Civic and very gently eases it out of the container down into the field. It gleams, looks as good as new compared to the other cars, which have suffered the streets of Lagos. That is when they come in. Three of them. Even from the distance it is obvious that this is trouble. We stop arranging boxes. Two of the drivers immediately go to the far end of the field to meet them and to keep them from getting too close to us. Mr. Wuraola turns to his workers and says:
    —How did they get in? How did they get in?
    We all look at each other. Our hands hang limp at our sides. Mr. Wuraola paces near the car in his khakis and red T-shirt. Aunty Folake says:
    —But what do they want?
    Mr. Wuraola says:
    —How did they get in? I told you men to keep the gate closed.
    —It was closed, sir, says one of the drivers, but it wasn’t locked. They must have reached inside and undone the latch and removed the padlock.
    The three of them look in our direction and start moving past the men who have gone to meet them. When we are within earshot they stop and one of them raises his voice:
    —Eyin ti l’owo, awa naa gbodo l’owo