Japa Returned

The flight from Manchester landed at Murtala Muhammed at ten past six in the morning, and the heat hit Kemi Adeleke like a slap.

She stood at the top of the stairs with her hand over her mouth. Lagos was the same. The same warm wet air, the same smell of jet fuel and frying dough, the same roar of a city that never slept and never apologised. She had forgotten the particular sweetness of it, the way her lungs seemed to open.

"Welcome to Nigeria," said the immigration officer, without looking up.

"Thank you."

"First time?"

"No." Her voice cracked. "I used to live here."

She was thirty-one. She wore a navy trench coat, too heavy for the weather, and carried two suitcases: one black, one plaid, both bought in a hurry at Manchester airport the night she heard the news. Inside the black one was her funeral dress, her nursing badge, a bottle of pills she had stopped taking, and a framed photograph of a man with a stethoscope round his neck.