The afternoon sun had turned the compound into an oven.
I sat in the doorway of our small parlor and leaned my head against the wooden frame. The heat coming off the zinc roof was oppressive. It smelled of heated metal and dry timber. It made the air shimmer above the red laterite earth of the courtyard.
My stomach gave a wet, hollow growl. It was a painful reminder that my last meal had been a piece of bread yesterday morning.
< Caloric reserves critical > Gemini whispered in the back of my mind. < Suggestion: Minimize movement. >
I ignored the voice. I was watching the drama unfolding in the center of the yard.
My father, Tashi, was losing a battle.
He stood near the metal gate with our landlord, Pa Che. Pa Che was a small, wiry man from Mankon who always wore a heavy knitted cap despite the heat. He stood with his arms folded across his chest and a chewing stick clamped firmly between his teeth.
They were speaking Pidgin, the language of the street, but the tone was all business.
"Massa, I beg you," Tashi said. He wiped a stream of sweat from his neck with the back of his hand. "Just give me until month ending. The money is coming. I have a deal at the main market."
Pa Che didn't blink. He removed the chewing stick from his mouth and spat a stream of brown kola nut juice into the dust near Tashi's feet.
"Tashi," Pa Che said slowly. "Na so you talk last month. You say deal dey. You say money dey come. But na only hunger dey for this compound. If you no fit pay the rent, you go pack your load."
Tashi looked desperate. His eyes darted around the yard as if looking for an escape route. He shifted the broken Hitachi radio from his left arm to his right.
"I want to sell this," Tashi said, holding up the radio. "It is a good machine. Japan make. It will bring money today."
Pa Che laughed. It was a dry, rasping sound. "That dead cargo? Who go buy am? That radio never talk since Christmas."
"It is not dead!" Tashi lied. "It is just a small wire. A connection problem."
I knew I had to move. If Pa Che walked away, Tashi would take the radio to the scrap dealer. He would get five hundred francs. He would drink it. We would starve.
I pushed myself up. My knees felt like water. The malaria had faded, but the weakness remained. I walked out onto the veranda. The concrete was hot against the soles of my bare feet.
"Tara," I said.
I spoke in our Dialect. The village tongue. It was a signal that what I was about to say was for his ears only.
Tashi spun around. When he saw me, his face hardened. He didn't want the landlord to see his sick child. It made him look weak.
"Go back inside," he snapped in Dialect. "Do not shame me here."
"I am not sick, Father," I replied, keeping my voice low and steady. "Give me the box. I can make it talk."
Tashi stared at me. The air between us grew heavy. In the Grassfields, a child does not instruct his father. A child listens. But I held his gaze. I didn't look like the ten-year-old he knew.
Pa Che looked between us, sensing the shift in the air.
"Weti yi di talk?" Pa Che asked in Pidgin, suspicious. "The small pikin want put mouth for big man talk?"
Tashi hesitated. He looked at the radio. He looked at the landlord. He looked at me. He was cornered.
"If you spoil it further," Tashi hissed in Dialect, "I will make you regret it."
"Give it to me," I said.
He walked over and handed me the radio. It was heavy in my arms. I sat down on the edge of the veranda, placing the black plastic box on the concrete between my knees.
I pointed to the pocket of his trousers. "The knife."
He handed me the small penknife he used to peel oranges.
The yard went quiet. Even the neighbor's chickens seemed to stop scratching in the dirt to watch.
I took a deep breath.
Gemini, I thought. Steady my hands.
< Motor control override engaged. >
The shaking in my fingers stopped. It felt unnatural, like my hands were wearing invisible gloves made of stone.
I flipped the radio over. The battery cover was long gone. I could see the rusted springs and the colorful tangle of wires inside. To anyone else, it was a mess. To me, with the Gemini overlay, it was a map.
I saw the break immediately. The negative lead had corroded and snapped off the terminal.
I used the knife to scrape the green rust away. Scritch. Scritch. The sound was loud in the silence.
I twisted the copper wire around the metal terminal. It held, but barely. It needed a seal.
I looked around the yard. A blue plastic bread wrapper lay in the dust near the drain.
"Match," I said to my father in English.
Tashi blinked, surprised by the command, but he pulled a box of matches from his pocket and struck one.
I held a piece of the blue plastic over the flame. It curled and blackened. A drop of molten plastic formed. I guided it over the wire connection.
Drip.
It hissed as it hit the metal, sealing the wire in place. The smell of burnt plastic filled the air. It was sharp and chemical.
I blew on it gently. I waited five seconds.
My head was spinning. The focus required to keep my hands steady was burning through my last reserves of energy. Black spots danced in my vision.
"Oya," I whispered.
I pushed the power switch.
For a heartbeat, there was silence. Tashi let out a sigh of disappointment.
Then came the static. Kzzzzzhht.
And then, music.
It was loud. The heavy bass of a Makossa song thumped through the speaker. It was clear and strong.
Pa Che jumped back. He took the chewing stick out of his mouth and stared. "Eh! Wonders shall never end."
Tashi froze. He looked at the radio. Then he looked at me.
He didn't smile immediately. He stared at my hands. Then he looked at my face.
There was a moment of silence that lasted too long. It was a specific kind of silence. It was the silence of a man wondering how his ten-year-old son knew how to weld plastic and fix circuits without being taught.
I saw the question forming in his eyes. Who showed you this? Is this normal?
I knew I had to break that look. If he started thinking I had "four eyes" that I was using witchcraft he might become afraid of me. A frightened father is a dangerous thing.
I let my shoulders slump. I made my face look innocent and tired.
"I watched the mechanic at the junction do it," I lied in Dialect. "It was just a loose wire, Papa."
The explanation seemed to settle him. The fear in his eyes was pushed aside by a sudden, overwhelming wave of greed.
He snatched the radio from my lap.
"You see?" Tashi shouted, turning back to Pa Che and switching to his loud, confident Pidgin. "I told you it is a Japan machine! My son has eyes like his father!"
He danced a little step, holding the radio high like a trophy.
Pa Che shook his head, impressed despite himself. "Na true. The thing get life."
"Four thousand," Tashi said, extending his hand.
"Three thousand five," Pa Che countered.
"Four thousand. Last price. You hear the sound? It is strong."
Pa Che reached into his pocket. He counted the notes. One thousand. Two thousand. Three. Four.
Tashi grabbed the money. He shoved it deep into his pocket. He didn't look at me. He didn't ask if I was okay. The money was already burning a hole in his pocket, calling him toward the betting house down the street.
"I am going to the market," Tashi announced. "I will bring rice. Nkem, go and sleep."
He turned and walked out of the gate, his step light and bouncy.
I sat on the concrete. The music was gone with him.
Pa Che stood there for a moment longer. He looked at the gate where my father had vanished, then he looked down at me.
He didn't speak Pidgin this time. He spoke quietly.
"You have heavy hands, small boy," Pa Che said.
I looked up at him. "I just fixed the wire, Pa."
He grunted. He chewed on his stick, his eyes dark and unreadable. He knew it wasn't just a wire. He knew a child shouldn't have that kind of focus. But he said nothing more.
He turned and shuffled back to his room, his slippers slapping against his heels.
I was alone.
The adrenaline of the moment drained away, leaving me trembling. My stomach cramped violently.
< System Alert: Immediate glucose intake required. >
I pulled my knees to my chest and closed my eyes.
We had money now. Tashi would gamble, yes. But he would bring back rice. He had to.
I sat in the silence of the compound, waiting for the sun to go down, waiting for the food that would keep the supercomputer in my head from killing me.