I Do Not Come to You by Chance (12 page)

‘Oya, go on and say whatever you want to say.’

I wanted to ask for a more private meeting place. Her glare dared me to make any further requests. I stood there - within hearing of any of her girls, any of her customers who cared to extend an ear - and told her that Ola had informed me that our relationship had no future. I pleaded with her to give me some more time; I was planning to move to Port Harcourt and find a quick job.

She kept looking at me with that curious expression that people have when they are trying hard to understand others who are speaking a foreign language. Then she shrugged an exaggerated shrug.

‘Well, me I’ve decided to remove my mouth. Whatever happens between you and Ola is entirely up to both of you. As far as I’m concerned you people should just go ahead and do what you people like.’

‘But Mama—’

‘I told you that I’m busy and you said I should listen to you. Now I’ve listened and told you what I have to say. I have to go back to work now.’

With that, she turned and disappeared into the smoky kitchen, from where all sorts of tongue-tickling scents were proceeding like an advancing army.

As news of my father’s ill health spread, his bedside became a parade of friends and relatives and well-wishers. Every day, somebody new came to express best wishes, to let us know that we were in their prayers. Sometimes I felt like keeping away until all these people had left. But as opara, it was my duty to receive them, to share the burden of my mother’s faithful vigil at her husband’s side. She went home only once a day - to wash and to change and to visit her shop. She always looked drawn. And when she did not have her skull wrapped up in a scarf, her beautiful hair looked as if it had converted completely to grey overnight.

Aunty Dimma had turned up with a flask of ukwa and fried plantain, which my mother had barely touched. When I walked in, Aunty stood and unfastened thick, crimson lips in one of her sensational smiles.

‘Kings, Kings,’ she crooned in C minor. ‘Opara nne ya! My charming young darling, how are you?’

She trapped me in a backbreaking hug that lasted quite long. I felt a gooey substance on my right ear and hoped that it was simply some stray hair gel from her red-streaked pompadour. She tickled my cheeks with her fingers. Aunty Dimma had always been one for histrionics, but this extra zing told me that she had learned that I had been dumped.

My mother heaved a sigh. Aunty Dimma released me and turned to her.

‘Are you doubting?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you believe God heals?’

Probably because she was a liberated woman, Aunty Dimma usually spoke in a loud, red-hot voice, even when she was not angry. She also had an opinion about everything - from the second-class status of women in Igbo Land to the status quo in Outer Mongolia. And she always made sure that her voice put the final full stop to every conversation. The only factor hindering Aunty Dimma’s complete metamorphosis from liberated woman to full-fledged man was that she had not yet grown a beard.

‘Of course I know God heals,’ my mother replied softly. ‘But I believe that sometimes, God allows sickness to teach us a lesson.’

‘If that’s the case,’ Aunty Dimma said with a smirk, ‘why are you even bothering coming to hospital?’

I dived in.

‘Mummy, what are we going to do about money? Is there anybody else we can borrow from?’

Both women crash-landed to matters arising. So far, we had borrowed once from Mr Nwude’s elder brother while Aunty Dimma had made two medium-sized cash donations that were commensurate with her pocket. All my mother’s jewellery and expensive wrappers had already been sold to provide for children’s school fees in crises past. Crumbs were left in the bank. Very soon, even if the doctors grabbed each of us by our two legs, turned us upside down with our heads facing the ground, and shook us violently, not a penny would drop.

Aunty Dimma’s voice ended the long silence.

‘What about your brother?’ she asked.

‘Which one?’ my mother replied.

‘Which other one do you think? Boniface is there in Aba spending money on foolish girls and buying new cars every day. Why not tell him that Paulinus is in hospital?’

Terrified, I shot a glance at my father, wondering if he had heard. If he had, he would want nothing more than to rise from the bed and empty his catheter bag into my aunt’s mouth. Everybody knew how much he detested Uncle Boniface. I was surprised that my mother did not immediately forbid Aunty Dimma from raising the matter again. Instead, she kept quiet.

I held my breath and watched. She actually appeared to be considering it.

‘After all, what’s the big deal?’ Aunty Dimma continued. ‘Other rich people build houses for their relatives and train their siblings’ children. One of my friends—’

‘Reduce your voice,’ my mother whispered.

‘One of my friends, her elder brother is paying for her daughter to do a Masters degree in London . . . almost ten thousand pounds. How can you people have a brother who’s so rich and you’re struggling like this?’

My mother pondered some more.

‘These nouveau riche, money-miss-road people,’ she responded at last, ‘they have a way of getting on someone’s nerves. Look at Boniface who lived with us just yesterday. All of a sudden, small money has turned his head upside down. At Papa’s burial, didn’t you see how he was moving up and down with security guards as if he’s the head of state? The boy didn’t even finish secondary school.’

Aunty Dimma looked at my mother and laughed. She finished laughing, looked at my mother again, and began another round of laughter.

‘Point of correction,’ she said, ‘his money is not small at all. The cost of his cars alone can pay off all of Nigeria’s international debts. You can go on calling him big names like “nouveau riche”. You own the big grammar, he owns the big money.’

She laughed some more.

‘So what are you suggesting?’ my mother asked now, her voice still well below normal speaking range.

‘Ozoemena, humble yourself. We’re talking about Paulinus’s life here. I have his cellular number, but I think it’s best to talk to him face-to-face. You don’t have to go yourself.’ She nodded at me. ‘Send Kings.’

‘To Aba or to Lagos?’ my mother asked.

‘He’s mostly in Aba. Only his wife and children stay in the Lagos house. I hear she doesn’t like Aba.’ Aunty Dimma snorted. ‘It’s probably too backward for her.’

‘What kind of marriage is that? How can they live so far apart?’

‘Marriage? Hmm. The girl was a professional mistress before she finally settled down. What do you expect? She just generally eats his money and takes care of his children.’

‘So do you people think I should go and ask him for the money?’ I interrupted, trying to corner them back into action.

‘I think so,’ Aunty Dimma replied. ‘This money that is causing you people sleepless nights is ordinary chewing gum money to some other people. At the end of the day, he’s your flesh and blood.’

She gave me more details about where to find Uncle Boniface’s office in Aba.

‘Just ask anybody,’ she said. ‘Tell them you’re looking for Cash Daddy.’

The streets of Aba were flooded with refuse. The stinky dirt encroached on the roads and caused motorists to struggle through narrow strips of tar. Touts screamed at the tops of their voices and bullied commercial drivers into stopping so that they could extort small denominations from them towards bogus levies. A stark naked schizophrenic with a bundle of dirty rags on her head, danced merrily in the middle of a T-junction. As the okada snaked through the logjam of vehicles towards Unity Road, I nearly fell off the saddle when we rode past two charred human remains sitting upright by the main road.

‘Why are you behaving like a woman?’ the okada driver laughed.

Next to Onitsha, Aba was the hometown of jungle justice. The people of Aba did not want to depend on their government for everything. They had taken the nobleman’s advice literally and asked themselves what they could do for their government instead of what their government could do for them. They had chosen to assist her with the execution of justice. Therefore, when a thief was caught red-handed - whether for picking a pocket or napping a kid - people in the streets would pursue him, overtake him, arrest him, strip him naked, secure him in an upright position, place an old tyre round his neck, saturate his body with fuel, and light a match. The tyre would ensure that the flames continued until all that remained of the felon was charcoal.

My aunty had not been wrong; the okada driver had known exactly where I could find Uncle Boniface.

‘Oh, you mean Cash Daddy?’ he asked. ‘Is it his office or his hotel or his house that you want?’

‘I’m going to the office,’ I replied.

Being something of a celebrity in this part of the country, I knew more about my uncle from the grapevine and from tittle-tattle than I knew from his being my relative. It was still difficult to correlate the stories of immense wealth with the ne’er-do-well lad that lived with us all those years ago. But then, it was not today that Uncle Boniface started making grubby bucks.

Back in the day, my mother had come up with a novel idea. Tired of sending her girls out to buy drinks on behalf of thirsty customers while they waited to have their measurements taken, or to pick up ready clothes that were having finishing touches put on them, she bought a freezer for her shop so she could make soft drinks available for sale whenever her customers wanted. That idea turned into a major source of income since more and more people who lived on the street soon sought her out as their provider of cold drinks. My father then suggested that Uncle Boniface could go down to the shop after school, to help manage these extra customers.

Secretly, the boy soon perfected the art of opening the cloudy-green ginger ale bottles without distorting the metal corks. After selling the real contents to customers, Uncle Boniface preserved the corks and refilled the empty bottles with an ingenious brew of water and sugar and salt. Then he replaced the metal corks and sold the repackaged water. Sales from the improvised soft drinks naturally ended up in his pocket. Whenever the bottles were being served to those who wanted to drink right there in the shop, he yanked the corks with the opener and made a hissing sound from the corner of his lips at the same time.

My mother watched her customers’ faces convert to confusion when they took a sip from their drinks. She listened as more and more people started complaining and tried to figure out the mystery. Then, in a moment of passion and infatuation, Uncle Boniface boasted about his exploits to one of the shop girls. This amorous Belle felt scorned when her beloved Beau diverted his attentions to another girl. In a bout of feminine fury, she squealed.

My mother returned home on the day of the shocking discovery and narrated the incident to my father.

‘Are you sure this boy is a human being?’ he asked with horror. ‘Are you sure he’s normal?’

‘I flogged him in front of everybody in the shop,’ my mother said. ‘I’m sure he has learnt his lesson.’

‘Flogging? Is it flogging that you use to cure evilness?’

‘I think it’s his age,’ my mother excused her brother. ‘Young people tend to play a lot of silly pranks.’

‘The boy is wicked,’ my father said with certainty. ‘This is pure, undiluted Satanism. I’m very uncomfortable about him being around our children.’

To this day, the blame for the demise of that aspect of my mother’s business had been piled totally on Uncle Boniface’s head.

The okada stopped in front of an unassuming bungalow that was visible behind a high, wrought-iron gate.

‘This is his office,’ the driver said.

I dismounted and paid.

Seven men and two women were waiting in front. A security man in an army green uniform was leaning on the wrought-iron bars, with his back towards them. Inside the compound was a line up of five jeeps with uniformed men sitting in the drivers’ seats. There were two Honda CR-Vs at each end and a Toyota Land Cruiser in the centre.

One of the waiting women walked closer to the gate and stood directly behind the security man.

‘Please,’ she begged. ‘Please, I came all the way from Orlu. I can’t go back without seeing him.’

The security man ignored her.

‘I won’t spend long at all,’ one of the men begged. ‘Just five minutes. I and Cash Daddy were classmates in secondary school. I’m sure he’ll recognise me when he sees my face.’

The security man did not twitch.

‘My brother,’ the second woman beseeched him, stretching her hands within the bars and touching the security man gently on the shoulder. ‘My brother, please, I’ve—’

Abruptly, the security man turned.

‘All of you should get out and stop disturbing me!’ he barked. ‘Cash Daddy cannot see you!’

He was about to turn away when I moved forward.

‘Excuse me,’ I said.

‘What is it?’

‘Good afternoon. Please, I’m looking for Mr Boniface Mbamalu.’

The plebeian was clearly relishing his morsel of authority. He wrinkled his nose and screwed up his eyes, as if examining a splodge of mucus on the pavement.

‘Who?’

‘Mr Boniface Mbamalu. I’m his sister’s son.’

‘Cash Daddy?’

‘Yes.’

He looked at me from top to bottom.

‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘No, I don’t. But I’m his si—’

Suddenly, there was commotion. The security man forgot that I was standing there and rushed to unlock the gates. The five jeeps simultaneously growled into action. I turned towards the entrance to the bungalow and identified the reason for the commotion. Uncle Boniface, a.k.a. Cash Daddy, was on his way out.

Like my mother, Uncle Boniface was tall. But now that he bulged everywhere, the distance between his head and his feet appeared shorter. He was wearing a pair of dark glasses that covered almost half of his face. His belly drooped out of the cream linen shirt that he wore inside a distinguished grey jacket. He swaggered, looking straight ahead and swinging his buttocks from one side to the other each time he thrust an alligator skin-clad foot forward. Clearly, fortune had been smiling on him.