It happened too fast, there was hardly time to process it or sit on it. I had to say yes, it was in my job description to put young women like Lou before my personal needs. Residue from the late notice call I received from my boss four hours earlier swam in my head like confused divers.
Lou. The name melted on my tongue like sugar; it tasted like plantain porridge without pepper. Lou. She was French, twenty-five, and needed a translator to help her tell the world her story on The TruthHorizon Show. I couldn’t say no to the only 2023 Bus Hijack Survivor. I worked for an NGO whose very mission was to help women like Lou. She was lucky. I hadn’t gotten the chance to make the world listen to me because they had called me a whore and liar when I tried to. Their protests drowned out my voice and my name until liar and whore was all that remained. Liar. Whore. Lou was lucky. I would help her be lucky.
Helping her was easy; I could pretend I was a heroine in a red cape, fist raised high to punch through gravity and aim for the sky. I could stand with my legs wide apart and pretend I had the stamina. None of this mattered when I finally walked into the studio. My fist came down to rest by my side and gravity yanked me mid-flight down to the ground where I fell in an unceremonious heap.
Lou's nose was crooked, and there was a scar running down one side of her face, as though someone had carved into her cheek with the tip of a wicked knife. I forgot to smile as I made my way towards the heart-shaped sofa beside Lou. Her curly, natural hair taunted me, and I fought the urge to rip out the strands of my own defiled hair beneath my wig.
The cameras zoomed in on me with precision, watching and recording my every move, waiting for me to slip. My facial expressions were nothing like that of a victim, I was crying too hard, I was trying to put on a show. I could tell these were the things they were watching out for, all the things I had done wrong that time I had tried to tell my story to the world.
Lou’s almond eyes found mine even before I faced her, and there was a truth in her eyes that unnerved me. I know you better than the world does. Her eyes saw too much, they were asking too many questions. She smiled, and that scar lifted to form the Nike logo.
The show presenter wasted no time in introducing me to those monitoring spirits with their all-seeing lenses. I was breathing well until it was time to ask Lou to introduce herself. Every stretch of her accent twisted my insides, and I fought to keep my face neutral while I interpreted in English for the presenter.
Lou taught the French language at a government school in Ojota. It was all she said. She didn't say more than that. The presenter arched one charcoaled brow in a silent question of, That’s all? I turned to Lou to ask her for more details and she said oui in a way that made me feel guilty for asking. The world would always want more, it didn’t matter that you didn’t have much to give. Lou’s facial expressions were beginning to bother me. I didn’t know why.
The news stories claimed she was biracial, was that true?
Oui.
Was it after the bus hijack she began teaching or before?
A pause. An exasperated sigh. One long look at me, then, non.
What was her take on the recent kidnap of—
She held out a finger. It was my own turn to raise my brow. It was hard already, communicating her noncommittal ouis and nons to the presenter who was beginning to doubt my translations. I had the overwhelming urge to scream at Lou, whose face held so much calm, as though we needed her and not the other way around.
“Je suis venu ici pour dire ma vérité.” It was The TruthHorizon Show after all, so I turned to the presenter to interpret Lou’s statement. I came here to talk my truth. The presenter nodded, but the crease on her forehead told me she wasn’t at all impressed.
Lou opened her mouth, and her truth poured out. On the seventh of February, 2023, she’d boarded a bus heading for Badagry. She wanted to see a friend who had just recovered from a major surgery. She’d been asleep when the bus ground to an abrupt halt, and no one had bothered about waking her until the other passengers began to scream.
She sounded like she was telling another person’s story. Her eyes were on me, but they were looking somewhere else. Her mouth was stiff, as though she had told the story countless times and her jaw was simply moving from muscle memory.
Lou’s eyes remained on mine as she spoke until she said she was forced to choose between opening her thighs for one of the hijackers or watching the other passengers die one by one.
The presenter shifted uneasily in her seat. The tension was digging its claws into our skin, but it was I who felt the pain more. Lou’s truth stung harder when her eyes found mine again and she said, alors j’ai regardé.
I didn’t wait for the presenter’s reaction. I was ashamed and terrified of what I would have seen, because I felt Lou's shame. I was familiar with the pain in her voice, I could still taste the coppery scent of blood, that thick metallic tang of sweat and blood. A cologne of horror and terror.
Lou was bold, and I hated her for it. It wasn’t right, that she was allowed to speak so freely about her experience and I hadn’t been. Still, I held her gaze as she continued.
I am not a survivor, you should know this.
They pleaded and prayed and cursed, but I shut my thighs tight and closed my eyes. I couldn’t shut my ears, and their screams live rent-free in my head, and their faces are forever burned into my memory.
I tried to remember how to breathe again, but I only remembered the sack over my head, the stretch of black and oblivion spreading out on my eyelids as the lack of air sat on my nostrils.
I had lied to survive, whored out myself to buy myself more time. They kept me, never let me go, until the day I was sure I was ready to gamble with fate.
Lou was still talking, and even as I wanted to yell at her to swallow back her truth, I kept translating.
When it was all over, I bolted for the door. I was in the washroom when Lou found me. She’d pressed a small envelope under the door and waited. I knew the envelope couldn't be anything good, but I wanted to know what was inside.
My son’s picture tumbled out from the envelope. Lou seemed to hear my heavy breathing from the other side of the door because it creaked, as though she were leaning on it.
“He gave it to me after escorting me out of the bush.”
For a moment, the words didn’t register in my head. But when it did, I twisted the doorknob and she staggered into the washroom.
“You speak English.” I told her, a naked fury swirling in my eyes. I could have sworn it took the shape of the man who had broken me.
Lou chuckled, and that wicked scar lifted to form that brand logo again.
“I never said I couldn’t.”
“You said you needed a translator.” I wanted to reach out and shake her shoulders until the nuts in her head rolled back into place.
“And that meant I couldn’t speak English? Anyone could need a translator.” I didn’t like the way her brown eyes bore into mine. She had no right to look at me as though I was her kinswoman-in-pain.
“Who gave you this picture?” I waved it in her face for good measure. Something broken in me was breaking all over again.
“He loved you.”
“Shut up.” I snapped. The real thing I wanted to say was, would you love one of your kidnappers?
“He asked me to find you, to tell you he still thought of you. Your son is in safe hands.” Lou’s head looked like a mango I wanted to squash in my hands. She was talking nonsense.
“I asked you to shut up. You don’t know me. You don’t know him, either. He would have watched them defile you!” My voice sounded foreign in my ears.
“He was the reason I made it out alive. He asked me to tell you that he wished he’d met you in another life. I waited two years to do this, don’t look at me like that.”
“He told you what he wanted you to know. Did he tell you he wouldn’t let me go even after I had offered myself to him?” I asked her, my nose flaring and my lips trembling.
“He told me he had been a monster once. He told me his name, he was sure you would react this way.” I understood Lou then, why her eyes had searched mine throughout the show. I understood now why I had found her face uncomfortable to look at because she was everything I wished I could be. Bold. Beautiful. Despite the scars and the trauma.
“Tell me.”
“Emerie Cornelius.”
There. I couldn’t fight it anymore.
“Your son lives with his sister. The address is inside the envelope too.” Lou stretched her hand to lift my chin.
“He told me he kept you for four years because he was too scared to let you go. He said he wanted to run away with you.”
“Why did you decide to tell your truth in French?” I asked her.
She dropped her hand and put it on my shoulder instead.
“It is the language of truth and guilt. I wanted to be sure it was you before approaching you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Emerie said the only way I could confirm you were the one was if you spoke French.”
“And did that work?”
“You’re the only one I know who speaks French as if you’re keeping malice with it.” Lou turned up her crooked nose.
Emerie had said the same thing.
