Toufah by Toufah Jallow

Author:Toufah Jallow [Jallow, Toufah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2022-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

I didn’t intend to avoid Anderson. But hours turned into days, days into weeks.

When I’d told Anderson about Pa Mattar, I’d felt relief and connection. Telling him about being raped had also felt right in the moment, but afterwards insecurity flooded through me. Would knowing about the rape change what he thought of me? Would I still be the same person in his eyes? And rather than let myself find out for certain whether things had changed, I avoided him.

It seemed like he was avoiding me too. I received no calls or texts from him after the message checking about whether I had got home okay.

Finally he called. “What’s up?” he said.

“I was thinking you’d decided you didn’t want to reach out,” I told him.

“But I did reach out. I sent you that text, and you didn’t reply.”

“Well, I thought you would reach out after that,” I replied.

“Look, I think we should meet and talk,” he said.

And so we did.

“I was afraid you’d feel differently about me, see me differently,” I told him as we sat in the same living room where I’d shared my secret weeks earlier.

Anderson said, “I thought I should let you share what you wanted to share, to tell me what you want to tell me. I didn’t think it was my place to ask more. And it doesn’t change what I think about you, other than making me respect you even more.” For the first time, I considered the possibility someone would respect me for surviving rather than blame or shame me for having been raped.

In the days that followed, we settled back into our routine of conversation and jazz and darts. About a month later, we were playing darts when one of Anderson’s friends approached. “Hey, we should go out for a drink,” he said to me after we’d chatted for a bit. I don’t remember now exactly what I said, but I shot him down and the man drifted away.

After we finished playing, Anderson drove me home through the dark city streets. I don’t remember what we were talking about, but there was a moment where we were both silent. And then Anderson spoke. “I’m very angry about what happened to you,” he said.

I started to cry. “Sometimes I feel like he’s winning,” I said. “Like, if his goal was to break me, to make it so that I can’t connect to people, that maybe he’s achieved that.”

Anderson reached out, put his hand on my hand. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s going to be okay.”

I don’t know why, but I believed him.

Over the weeks that followed, Anderson and I continued to spend time together. Though we didn’t talk at length again about what had happened to me, he found ways to help me see Jammeh not as a larger-than-life monster but as small and pathetic. “Look, you can see the outline of a bulletproof vest there,” he said as we looked at a photo of Jammeh. “If he’s so powerful, why

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