The indicator was flickering even during afternoon. VACANCY, red letters, a bulb out so it looked as though the smile had been tired. I was paying attention to it since I had no place to go after working.
The bus driver screamed out destinations, the road was breathing and my phone lay silent against my pocket. Noiseless phones prolong days.
I was standing in front of the mango tree across the street and observed people getting in the building. It was not really a hotel. It was a one of those ancient Lagos houses which had acquired new names to survive. It was the dust-color paint. The staircases moaned as people went up them.
We do not like person, miss road, like you, said a voice.
I turned. There was a man on a plastic chair close to the gate. He was with a little radio and a ledger on his knee. His eyes were smiling, not his mouth.
“I’m fine,” I said.
He nodded. Ok, all right till evening.
I laughed without meaning to. “Is this place cheap?”
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He tapped the ledger. “Cheap is a word. Fair is another. Come, let me show you.”
The smell of the air in the house was of soap and stale rain. The corridor was narrow. The doors were very near to each other as individuals waiting to be informed.
Somewhere, a kettle whistled. Some other place one was humming a hymn, deep and slow.
This one is free, said the man, opening a door.
The room was small. A bed. A chair. The window was facing another wall. Light entered, gentle and kindly.
I sat on the edge of the bed. The bed sank down and embraced me. I dropped my shoulders in advance of telling them.
“I’ll take it,” I said.
Smiling this time the man had his mouth.
“Name?”
“Kola.”
“Welcome, Kola. I’m Musa.”
That night, rain came. The type that comes without knocking. I was lying on the bed and heard it addressing the roof. My phone buzzed once. One of my sisters messaged: You home? I typed back, Yes.
It felt true.
I encountered my neighbor at the hallway in the morning. She was carrying a basin and a towel. Her hair was twisted, and civilized and clean.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Morning.”
“You’re new.”
“Yes.”
“I’m Sade.”
“Kola.”
She smiled. “The water is stubborn today.”
“Water has character,” I said.
She laughed. “True.”
We met like that for days. Small talk. Small smiles. The morning news quarreled with the radio down below. Musa also carefully swept the front. People came and went. Some rooms stayed closed. There were some doors that opened and never closed.
One of the nights the light was turned off. The generator did not answer. In the corridor we sat shadows learning our shapes.
“NEPA again,” Sade said.
“They like suspense.”
She leaned against the wall. “How long you go stay?”
I remembered my old room, which I certainly left as I heard too much shouting there. I considered my work where I was paid later and earlier. “I don’t know.”
Yes, it seemed to me that was a good answer; she nodded. “I came for one week. That was six months ago.”
“Why you stay?”
She looked down the corridor. “There was space.”
“For?”
She shrugged. “Breathing.”
We sat. A person was coughing somewhere behind a door. A baby cried, then stopped. It began to rain again, light this time.
Musa knocked an entire week later, at my door. “Kola.”
“Yes?”
Tomorrow you have to pay your room rent.
“I know.”
He hesitated. “There is a problem.”
My stomach tightened. “What problem?”
The owner desires front rooms. He says he has family coming.”
“Is my room front?”
“No. But rules strut with money at the strut.
I sat on the bed. The room watched me.
“Two days,” Musa said. “I can give you two days.”
“Thank you.”
That night, I did not sleep. The empty hole at the window was throbbing through the red light on the wall. I counted sounds. I counted breaths.
I counted what I did not have.
In the morning, Sade knocked. “You okay?”
“They want me to leave.”
She frowned. “When?”
“Two days.”
She was quiet. Then she said, “Come.”
We went downstairs. Musa looked up, surprised.
“Morning,” Sade said. “I want to change rooms.”
Musa blinked. “Change?”
“Yes. I’ll take Kola’s room. He’ll take mine.”
I opened my mouth. “Sade—”
She raised her hand. “My room is front. Let the owner have it. Your room can wait.”
Musa smiled, slow and wide. “That can work.”
“But—” I said.
She leaned close. “I told you. Space.”
We moved that afternoon. Her room was bigger.
It had a window which faced the street. This was easily read at the bed. VACANCY, even steady, all the bulbs alive.
We sat at the window that evening and ate bread and groundnuts. The city passed under us, noisily, bustling, as ever.
“You didn’t have to,” I said.
She shrugged. “Doors open. Doors close.”
I watched the sign glow. People went under it, and some of them stopped and some did not.
The term was less heavy than ever. Not empty. Just waiting.
The rain was suspended outside. Inside, the room felt full.