I Do Not Come to You by Chance (17 page)

‘Speak to me!’

After several minutes, he concluded his deafening conversation with someone called Long John Dollars. Then he dialled another number. The second phone call, about some money in his Barclays Bank Docklands account, kept him occupied until we finished our meals. Then he leaned over and opened the refrigerator by his bed. He pulled out a packet of McVitie’s milk chocolate biscuits and a tub of Ben & Jerry’s vanilla ice cream. He dumped the items casually on the stool in front of Charity.

‘Stay here and demolish these goodies,’ he commanded her.

My sister’s face lit up. When we were children, my father usually returned from work with these sorts of imported treats. Gradually, they had gone out of reach of the common man. I could not remember the last time I had eaten any McVities biscuits.

‘We’re going upstairs but we’re coming back now,’ Cash Daddy continued.

He headed out of the room.

‘Kingsley, follow me,’ he said without looking back.

I obeyed.

We went on to the fourth floor. He removed a key from his trouser pocket and opened a door. He stood aside to let me pass, then locked it behind us. It was the first time I had seen him open a door - or perform any other minor task, for that matter - without assistance from his numerous attendants. It was a weird sight, like seeing a United States president, say Bill Clinton, leaning over the bathroom sink and washing his socks.

This room was similar to his office. It had a mahogany desk with a budget of papers on top, and a worktop lined with fax machines, computers, and telephones. I spied a Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation letterheaded sheet amongst the pile on the table. There were several other letterheaded sheets that I could not make out.

I sat in front of the desk. Cash Daddy dragged a chair beside mine and sat with his knees massaging my own knees. He looked serious, like a doctor about to inform me that I was in the last stages of colon cancer.

‘I was at the hospital to see your daddy,’ he began. ‘I’m happy that he’s getting better.’

‘Thank you very much, Uncle,’ I replied. ‘We’re really happy, too. And we’re also very grateful for all your financial support. Thank you very much.’

He scrunched up his face as if I had just looked him up and down and called him a blob of fat.

‘Kings, what do you mean by thanking me? What do you mean by that? There’s no need for you to thank me for anything. When the eye weeps, the nose also weeps. After all, you’re my brother. We’re family. Is that not so?’

There was a pause.

‘Is that not so?’

I nodded. There was a longer pause.

‘Kings,’ he said at last, ‘you must be wondering why I asked you to come and see me, is that not so?’

I nodded again. He nodded as well.

‘You see all these boys here . . . all these boys around me?’

I did.

‘They’re all working for me.’ He thumped his hand on his chest. ‘I put food on their tables, I put clothes on their backs, and I make sure that they’re well sexed. And guess what? None of them, not one single one of them, is related to me in any way. Kings, I’ve been thinking about it and I’ve decided to help you.’

Wow. Perhaps he knew someone who was a top shot in the Petroleum Corporation. Perhaps the person was his very close friend. Perhaps the person had told him that he was looking for suitable employees and had asked him for a personal recommendation. Once again, ‘long-leg’ was about to work in my favour.

Cash Daddy leaned forward.

‘You see, there are two main things people like me have used successfully in business. One is the love of money. The other is a good brain. I can see that you’re the sort of person that will do very well in business. You, you’re a smart young man. I don’t know if you love money but I know . . . I can see . . . that you need it. I want you to come and work for me.’

He paused and stared as if expecting me to say something. I decided to tell the truth.

‘Cash Daddy, please, what do you mean? I’m not sure I understand you.’

He threw back his head and laughed.

‘Kings, I know you’re a smart boy, I know you understand me. Tell me, what do you think about what I just said?’

‘What sort of work do you want me to do?’ I asked, rephrasing my thoughts.

‘Oh . . . different things. At the beginning stage, some minor errands. There are one or two basic things you’ll need to learn. No matter how big some of us look today, all of us started from somewhere. I don’t know if you’ve heard about Money Magnet? He was my godfather in this business. I started by driving him around in his cars before I hit it and decided to launch out on my own.’

He leaned even closer and placed his hand on my shoulder.

‘You see, I have other urgent things to focus on in the near future and I need a smart person who can watch over things for me. Kings, I need you. I’d like you to move into my house as soon as possible and start.’

At that moment, a giant fly could have flown into my mouth, laid her eggs on my tonsils, and I would still not have noticed. The way he was talking so casually, you would have thought that he was simply asking me to run down to the shops and buy a packet of Nasco biscuits.

‘Uncle Boniface, are you actually asking me to join you in 419?’

He laughed.

‘You’re saying it as if I asked you to kill somebody.’ He slapped my thigh playfully. ‘Relax. One doesn’t refuse the food being offered without first opening the pot. I’ve been in this business for many years now and I can tell you there are two things I will never do. I will never take another person’s life and I will never follow another man’s wife. Those two things . . . never. You can call it whatever name you want, all I’m saying is that you should come and work for me.’

At times like this, I wished I was well versed in the art of using swear words. I remembered my visit to the church - the sermon and the way The Rich Man had spoken to Lazarus. I became angrier. Did Uncle Boniface think that because he gave my family crumbs from his massive fortune, he could think of me in such an insulting manner?

‘Uncle Boniface, I’m sorry,’ I replied, bolder than any man had the right to be in the presence of his benefactor. ‘I’m not cut out for this sort of business. I’m a graduate, and I intend to get a good job and later further my education. I’ve always wanted to study as far as PhD level and that’s what I’m—’

I stopped talking when Cash Daddy upgraded his laughter to a guffaw.

‘Kingsley,’ he asked, struggling to regain his breath, ‘what was it you said you studied in school?’

‘I read Chemical Engineering.’

‘Very, very good. That means you must know a lot of mathematics. ’

I did not dignify him with an answer.

‘Are you good with numbers?’

I continued saying nothing.

‘Go on, tell me. Are you good with numbers?’

‘Yes, I am,’ I answered as a matter of fact. ‘I’m very good with calculations.’

‘Do you know how to write one million naira? Do you know how many noughts it has at the end?’

‘It has six zeroes,’ I rattled off without even thinking.

‘Apart from when you were using a calculator in your classroom, have you ever written down one million naira in any single transaction before? Have you ever calculated money you wanted to spend and it came to a total of one million naira?’

He did not wait for me to respond.

‘So, after all this your education - the one you’ve done so far - what have you gained from it? With all the big, big calculations you did with your calculator in school, has it made you to calculate those same amounts of money in your own pocket? Or in your own bank account? Or in different currencies?’

He hissed. The sound was a fine blend of disdain and amusement.

‘You know something? Me, I don’t have a problem with poverty as far as it’s a choice somebody has made for himself. But look at you. Very soon you’ll be standing by the street with a tin cup in your hand - begging. Mind you, no one gets a mouthful of food by picking in between another person’s teeth. All your book . . . is that why you were wearing headmaster shoes the other day? Is that why your sister looks like somebody who hasn’t eaten since Christmas Day? Is that why your mother is wearing the cloth that other women were wearing in the sixties?’

He hissed again.

‘Just look at my sister. Today at the hospital, she was looking almost thirty years more than her age. Has all your book put food on your table? How many people are you feeding every month? How many people’s salaries do you pay every month? Eh? Tell me.’ He sneered. ‘See your mouth. You say you don’t eat rats but you just want to taste only the tail. Please don’t close my ears with all this your rubbish talk about education. Me, I don’t believe in film tricks. I believe in real, live action.’

The more he spoke, the more I found myself sitting straighter in the chair. He sounded almost as convincing as the multiplication table.

My father was learned and honest. Yet he could neither feed his family nor clothe his children. My mother was also learned, and her life had not been particularly improved much by education. I thought about my father’s pals, most of whom were riding rickety cars . . . about most of my university lecturers with their boogiewoogie clothes and desperate attempts to fight off hunger by selling overpriced handouts to students. Yet Uncle Boniface - our saviour in this time of crisis - had not even completed his secondary school education. However, my father’s hallowed words of time past rose up and sounded a piercing siren in my head.

‘Uncle Boniface, you can make all the fun you want, but in the long run, even the Bible says that wisdom is better than silver and gold.’

This time, he guffawed so long that it seemed as if the fat on his face might melt and start dribbling onto the floor. He started choking and struggled to catch his breath.

‘Ah, you think, me, I don’t know Bible myself? Or haven’t you heard the story of the poor wise man?’

I had no idea what he was talking about. Was this part of his infinite repertoire of Igbo proverbs, or was this a story from the Bible? Did he mean the story about The Rich Man and Lazarus? As far as I could remember, it never said anywhere that Lazarus was wise.

He saw the confusion on my face.

‘Ah, ah? I thought you’re the one who went to school. You’re the one who knows everything, including Bible? OK, wait.’

Using my knees as leverage, he pushed himself up. He strode confidently to the bookshelf and pulled out a leather-bound Bible. He returned to his seat and dropped the holy book in my lap.

‘Open Ecclesiastes,’ he instructed.

I did.

‘Turn to chapter nine.’

I did.

‘Read from verse fourteen to sixteen.’

I obeyed.

‘There—’

‘No, no, no. You don’t need to read it out. Read it to yourself.

Me, I already know it. It’s you with all your book that needs to hear it.’

I closed my mouth and read with my eyes only.

Unimpressed, I finished at verse sixteen. Was it not Shakespeare who said that even the devil can cite scripture for his own purpose?

‘People like you can go to school and finish your brains on book, but it’s still people like us who have the money that feed your families.’

He laughed. His laughter was beginning to gnaw at my nerves.

‘Uncle Boniface, please. My father would never approve.’

‘Kings, we’re talking about money,’ he said with irritation. ‘Let’s leave poor men out of this conversation.’

With that, Uncle Boniface had exceeded the speed limit in his derogatory comments. He had no right to talk about my father in that manner.

‘Uncle Boniface, my father might be poor,’ I said with rising anger, ‘but at least he will always be remembered for his honesty.’

‘Is honesty an achievement? Personality is one thing, achievement is another thing altogether. So what has your father achieved? How much money is he leaving for you when he dies? Or is it his textbooks that you’ll collect and pass on to your own children?’

I sat staring at this braggart in disbelief. My father once said that people who did not go to school were perpetually angry with those who did. This man was a barrel of bile. An authentic devil in disguise. I decided to leave before a thunderbolt would come and strike the building. I rose and tossed the Bible on the executive desk.

‘Uncle Boniface, I’m sorry but if you’ve finished, I’m going.’

He laughed gently, like an apostle who was under persecution by people who understood very little about his life-transforming message.

‘Take your time. Don’t be like the grass cutter who likes eating palm nuts but doesn’t like climbing palm trees. I might be a very rich man, but from time to time, I can also exercise patience.’

I stomped out of the room and slammed the door behind me. I rushed downstairs and into the bedroom where Charity was still chomping on the chocolate biscuits. She had polished off the ice cream.

‘Let’s go!’ I ordered.

Charity opened her eyes like an astonished kitten. Then she must have seen the urgency in my face because she stood up hurriedly, still clutching the remaining biscuits. The other two girls did not remove their eyes from the MTV screen. I grabbed Charity’s arm and fled.

At last, the doctor decided that my father could go home. He said that his condition was stable, that he would regain the use of his muscles and speech gradually, even though it might take as long as two years for him to fully recover. Since we could not afford additional physiotherapy, the hospital educated us on the sort of exercises he could do at home. They also advised us to get him a walking stick.