Bugs From America by Temi Mosimiloluwa

When Eyimofe told Yewande that he would be returning home for this season’s Christmas and New Year holidays, she decided to keep it a secret from everyone who had been a part of his journey to America. But everyone who had been a part of his journey to America knew something was up with Yewande as she moved through the neighbourhood in what they saw as unrestrained joy. There’d been no electricity for weeks, and everyone in Lugbe Zone 6 moved with a dullness that made their shoulders slouch. Because they had no light, they couldn’t turn on their electric fans at night, and because they couldn’t turn on their electric fans at night, they couldn’t sleep. They woke up in the middle of the night, drenched in a pool of their own sweat. The food in their refrigerators went bad, and they asked themselves why—in spite of all these woes that had befallen them—was Mama Americanah—as she had come to be called since her son left the shores of this country fifteen years ago—why was Mama Americanah happy?

Whenever they saw her, they would say, “Mama Americanah, hope all is well?”

“All is well,” she would say. “My son called me and…”

“And?” they would ask, waiting to hear about Eyimofe’s newest accomplishment. Yewande would then smile at them and repeat old news. That he had a promotion at work, or he’d sent another set of machines like he did with the expensive pressure pots and blender. Although it was still June and his journey home was six months away, Yewande badgered the bricklayers finishing up Eyimofe’s three-bedroom apartment in Dawaki. She brought them food and asked them how much longer it would take because her son in America was…

“Mama Americanah,” the masons and painters and plumbers called. “What’s up with your son in America?”

Yewande, once again, said nothing. She inspected the house, the sliding glass windows and the neatly tiled floor. She tried to see it through Eyimofe’s eyes, smiling at herself because she knew he would be pleased that she had executed this job to his taste. Yewande daydreamed about the time she would drive to the airport, sitting in the passenger seat of Baba Michael’s truck to pick up Eyimofe and his friend, Walter, from the airport to this beautiful house. All the bags full of gifts from America, Baba Michael would pack into the back of his truck. She imagined the look of envy that would fill the neighbours’ faces when they watched her offload these items. Yewande wished, though, that Eyimofe would return with a wife or that would return to take a wife. Two men living in a house like this, she thought, wouldn’t know how to maintain it. A house, especially an expensive house like this, needs the delicate hands and rigorous brain of a woman to turn it into a home. But this matter of woman and friend would wait. For now, all she wanted was to see her son in flesh and blood.

A retired woman in her sixties who lived alone must find things to fill up her free time. Very often, you would find her on the verandah of her house greeting neighbours returning from work, delaying with stories from her youth. But a retired woman overseeing the construction of her son’s house had the luxury of men and women who would listen to her stories. To the ladies she consulted for the interior design, she told them about the love of her youth. To the masons and plumbers and painters, men who smiled at her every word, she told them not to be cowards, that perhaps the love of her youth would be with her today to reap the fruits of her labour if he hadn’t been so spineless. The story she told these men and women began, of course, with the bugs of ‘86. She’d been twenty-three, a student of public administration at the University of Ife and dating the man of her youth, who she’d known since childhood. But in 1986, her last year at the university, her hostel had been infested with bed bugs, and these tiny creatures followed her everywhere. Her father’s wives—all three of them—had called her a dirty girl when they started seeing these bugs in the wake of her return home. “How dare you bring upon us such calamity!” they wailed. They visited the family of the young man like three Shakespearean witches. They warned his parents’ against accepting such a dirty girl into their family. Her father, in the face of these women, was helpless. This, Yewande said, was the last straw that broke the camel’s back in a chain of abuses that had begun since the death of her mother when she was only a baby. Following the verdict of the young man’s parents, who had heeded the warning of the three wives, Yewande moved to Lagos. Yet, these tiny creatures had followed her, causing her numerous embarrassments until, abandoning all she owned, she finally moved to Abuja. It was in Abuja that she met Eyimofe’s father, who died when Eyimofe was only two years old. Even now, she had an irrational fear of bed bugs hiding in the crevices of her bed and sofas.

Yewande had last seen Eyimofe fifteen years ago when he walked past the security checks at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport. A man standing in front of the entrance had asked if they were both travelling and turned her back when she told him no. “Just my son,” she’d said and instantly wished she’d lied. After all, she was dressed in one of her favourite boubous for this trip to the airport and could easily be taken for a woman who travelled, if not to America like her son, then one of the neighbouring countries like Ghana or Cote d’Ivoire. As she watched the man ask Eyimofe for his passport, she told herself that she’d done the right thing because this man would have asked to see her passport. There lay the problem: people like Yewande did not own a passport just for the sake of having one. It had to be needed, just as Eyimofe had needed it in the preceding months. He’d made several trips to the immigration office in Sauka, futile trips that dulled his spirit, and she’d felt pity for him, how devastated he looked every passing morning, cold and frustrated, as he announced yet again that he was off to see if his passport was ready. Without the passport, the American university that had offered him admission couldn’t process the papers he needed to take to the American embassy. If he took too long, he’d told her, it would be hard to secure a visa interview date, and he would have to forfeit his admission and scholarship. Eyimofe was only nineteen and had been studying Pharmacy at the University of Ibadan when he’d called her one day to say he’d gotten admission to an American university with a full scholarship. All he needed from her was her financial support to get his visa. She spoke with her boss and friends and church members, asking if they knew anyone who worked at the immigration office and could help facilitate a quicker processing of her son’s passport.

As she stood in front of the entrance on that morning of his departure, watching him walk away from her, she called him back and gave him one last hug, holding onto him in a tight embrace. She wondered if that would be the last time she would see him. It was what her pastor had said when they’d gone to meet him for a farewell prayer. “You know we might not see him again for a very long time,” he’d said.

“God forbid,” Yewande had said.

Before he passed through the security checks ahead, he turned back and waved at her, her Eyimofe, sweet and kind, and she wondered if this would truly be the last time in a long time that she would see him. As he disappeared among the sea of travellers, she suddenly had a nagging feeling that she’d been a bad mother, that she could have done more to make his trip smoother. She wished she’d given him more than the eighty-five dollars she’d exchanged with the mallams who sat in front of the bureau de change in Wuse. She wished she had more. She wished she knew things about that world so she could fill him up with advice on how to come out on top. It was settled that Eyimofe would stay with the Johnsons, a family friend of her pastor. The Johnsons had been living in America for over two decades and lived two hours away from Eyimofe’s campus. Even then, she knew that the eighty-five dollars she’d given him would not be enough for that first month. That morning of his departure, Yewande perambulated in front of the airport, waiting for a few more minutes for him to call and inform her that he’d checked in successfully. When he called, he said his travelling bag was overweight.

“But we measured it last night now,” Yewande said. They’d both carried his luggage to Chimezie, who sold cooking gas down the street to use his weight scale. “Maybe these airport people have already done wayo wayo on that thing to collect more money from you. What would you drop now?”

“I’ve already dropped the rice,” he said.

“No, drop the spaghetti.”

“They said rice is very cheap in America.”

In those first few weeks after his trip, before classes began, when he had little to do, they spoke almost every day; each call was an update about the little wonders of America. “My days are not defined by NEPA anymore,” he told her. “There’s always light 24/7.” “You don’t have to cross at Zebra crossings because the cars wait for you.” “Strangers smile at you on the streets and always want to talk to you about their dogs.”

“Please let me know if you need anything,” she would say at the end of their calls, knowing she had nothing more to give to him, subdued by how much debt she’d accrued in the wake of his departure. When classes began, he regaled her about education in America. How ever ready the professors were to listen to your opinions as though they truly mattered, how everyone nodded enthusiastically even when one was saying total nonsense, how he was learning to be excited about little things the way his classmates were, humoring a specific American enthusiasm which made them both laugh on the phone. A few weeks after classes began, Eyimofe told Yewande that he was moving out of the Johnsons’ house. He said he’d found an apartment close to campus, which he would share with another student from Zimbabwe. The school, he said, had offered them a bursary to cover the first month’s rent. “Ah, America is good o,” Yewande said. “But how will you pay for subsequent months?”

“I’m working at a fast food restaurant on campus,” he said. He also got free food from the work and the school pantry. A few weeks later, Eyimofe told Yewande he’d found a job off campus, working under the table and cleaning after the elderly. She’d wanted to ask if it wouldn’t affect his visa, but what would she have done if he’d said yes? How would she have supported him? So, all she said was this: “Just be careful, my dear. May God be with you.”

But those were the early days. Nothing had yet fractured the bond they shared. Eyimofe was, as always, willing to keep her up to date on his joys and sorrows, and Yewande was, as always, the mother, ready to be present, to listen to him, and to comfort him.

As the demands from school and work grew heavy on his shoulders, their phone calls became less frequent. As she walked on the streets, the shop owners greeted her with envy, for she was the woman who had a son in America. But when she got to church and her workplace, she became the woman whose child was in America and yet had refused to pay back the money she owed. When she saw them, she begged for a future date as she applied for loans from banks and the Ministry of Justice, where she worked as a secretary. But at night, when she was alone, she became aware of her true feelings. She felt that should the sun burn and the wind rage, should the mountains crumble and the earth beneath her feet quake, she would forever be thankful that her son was happy, that he’d made it out. She’d always feared for him, scared that he wouldn’t be able to live a full life here. She stopped going out as often as she used to and sought out people less frequently.

During Eyimofe’s first winter in America, she would often get on the internet and watch as snow piled up in that faraway country, and she imagined him, in layers and layers of clothing, working in such a sorry state. In her dreams, he was often shirtless, getting buried in snow. She would wake up panicking, wishing there was something she could do, hoping he was less busy so she could call him and maybe her words would keep him warm.

The New Year after Eyimofe’s departure came with new prophecies and declarations of a new beginning, and Yewande strongly held onto it. The new year also began with a call from Eyimofe, informing her that he’d sent half the money she owed. “Eyimofe, mo dupe lọwọ rẹ,” she’d said. “Thank you for not allowing my enemies to mock me.” As the silence between them grew, she asked, “But how did you get this money?”

“Mummy, I told you I work. I’ve been saving,” he said.

And so Yewande paid a part of her debt, and before the year ran out, she was completely out of debt. Now, in Lugbe Zone 6, Yewande smiled. Outside, she watched the kids running around and okadas galloping. She opened her doors, and the wind blew her curtains around. She wore more colourful clothes outside. She stood with the women much longer and listened to their stories. She nodded and told them yes, of course, she would put their children in contact with her son so he could also show them how he’d done it. But when she called him, their conversations were always stilted. Did the sun not shine in that faraway land? In the months when she’d locked herself up in the house and had said little, hadn’t he gone on living? Well, he had, and now their mother-child relationship was almost reversed. She stopped herself from calling him on the first day of every month because she feared he would think she was calling to ask him for money. She made sure not to complain about anything that needed fixing in the house. She didn’t want to appear as one of those mothers who only took and took. But little did she know that it was in the struggles of life, in those moments when we share our pains and sorrows with one another, that our hearts become stronger and wider, capable of holding more space for those we love. It was in those moments of care that our bonds grew more elastic, less likely to be broken. But mothers do not give up hope, Yeande told herself. Children get into the real world, and mothers have to adjust. She prayed for him. May America open more doors unto you. May the well of your blessings never run dry. May you always be ahead of your peers. It was always prayers upon prayers, gratitude upon gratitude. And this how it went between them even as she realised certain things she couldn’t quite understand about Eyimofe, things she would vehemently have been against if he were physically with her. When his hair grew too full and tangled and she asked him why he’d allowed it to grow so long, he said it kept his skull warm during the cold. “But at least comb it,” she said, and he responded with a cold, “Okay,” making it clear that he hated being told what to do with his hair. Then, he got his ears pierced, and she said, “All is well.” And then, he went on to tattoo ‘perplexed but not in despair’—her favorite phrases in the Bible—on his chest, and to this she couldn’t say a thing. But she still prayed to God that her son found his way and that the darkness in that world faraway wouldn’t swallow him.

Those were the years of anxiety, and they slowly crept past as his achievement grew. If Yewande had once given much thought to what people might say about his tangled hair and piercings and tattoos, now she really believed he would always be a light unto them, someone who should show them the validity of their dreams, the future unto which their arms were stretched out to. He now had his bachelor’s and master’s and worked as a health consultant in Philadelphia. What was next if not to take up a wife? She particularly had her eyes on Mopelola, her pastor’s first daughter, who had just returned from the UK and was working at GIZ. Mopelola was a calm and respectful young lady who often curtsied whenever she saw Yewande. Late last year, Yewande had exchanged their numbers, but now she didn’t know what had become of that. It was shortly after this failed match-making that Eyimofe told Yewande that he was travelling to deliver a speech at a conference in New York. Later, she would wonder if it was retirement that had made her become so idle, to look up this conference on the internet. She was shocked to find that his speech was centred around the health of men who had sex with men. And when she saw the video later, she watched him as he introduced a man he called his partner—the same Walter she’d always known as his housemate, the same Walter she’d always been happy to talk to. The camera zoomed in on Walter in a grey sweater, waving around and smiling from left to right. Although she’d always known there was something her son had escaped, she never allowed herself to believe it was this. She thought now how far away he was from her, how untethered he was from her. She began to talk him into visiting, even building a home here. God forbid, she thought, that something happened in that faraway country where he would always be a stranger; he needed something that was sure would always be his own. “You need to have a property back home,” she’d said. “Home will always remain home.”

It was November now and the house was fully completed. Yewande visited it every afternoon. She walked from room to room, making sure everything was in place. Eyimofe said he was returning with his friend, and she had to pretend and act as though all was well, and Walter was just a friend. “How would your friend cope here?” she asked. “Because I cannot cook oyinbo people’s food o.”

“Mummy, Walter can eat anything.”

“Okay o. Just let me know if you will need me to come with Baba Michael’s truck in case you are bringing heavy stuff with you,” she said, wanting to know what gifts Eyimofe would bring with him.

“No, that’s not needed,” he said. “My apartment has been infested with bed bugs. So, I’m doing away with most of my stuff.”

“Jesu!” Yewande shouted. “Ìdun! That’s the worst thing that can ever happen.”

“I’m throwing out most of my stuff except the essentials,” Eyimofe said.

Essentials? What was essential? She wanted to tell him that nothing except your body was essential in the wake of a bed bug infestation, that bed bug infestation meant starting over again in a new place. She wondered if American bed bugs were milder, softer, or kinder because they grew up in relative ease. Or were they as ferocious as the ones that had infested her hostel in 1986? Would she allow Eyimofe to bring them into this house she had equally laboured over? When she now imagined him, all she saw was him with a briefcase full of crawling bed bugs. She saw them crawling all over the city, and it made her shudder.

“What are the essentials?” she asked.

“A few clothes, really,” he said, almost flippantly, and it infuriated her. “There’s always this muscle massager thing for you. And just a few other things.”

A few other things? she thought. He hadn’t even thought through what and what not he would be bringing, what could and couldn’t have been infested.

“They stay on clothes,” she said, hoping he could hear the annoyance in her voice.

“Oh I’m gonna press them. It will be fine.”

A quiet moment passed between them, and then a solution came to her, and she hated how easily it did. He would do what she had done when she moved from Lagos to Abuja, he would leave everything behind. “I don’t want you to infest the new house,” she said. “I will move the essentials here to the house in Dawaki. You will arrive here, quarantine yourself, then we will work out how to rid you of these creatures before you come to be with me in Dawaki.”

“Mum, what are you saying?”

She was quiet for a while. She heard movement, then a whisper. It must be Walter. He too, she thought, must have his own essentials.

“Mum?” he called.

“Eyimofe,” she said.

“Are you joking right now?”

“You will arrive in the house in Lugbe until all is clear,” she said with a tone of finality. And as she said this, she wondered if there was ever a reason enough to keep a man from his own house? To stop a man from reaping the fruits of his labour? She knew countless stories about brothers who oversaw the building of a sibling’s house who lived abroad and took over the house. Now, it was she, a mother, doing this takeover. She wondered, of all things she knew about her son, of all the things that had caused her sleepless nights, it was this, bugs from America that bothered her the most.

Temi Mosimiloluwa holds an MFA from the University of Tennessee. His work has appeared in Ake Review and The /temz/ Review, and has received support from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and Tin House. He lives in Salt Lake City and is currently at work on a novel.

12 September 2025