I Do Not Come to You by Chance

by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

  The celestial conversations resumed with even louder fervour. An elderly woman knelt on the floor and started groaning. Some people who required more space to throttle the demons of corruption moved to the back of the hall and started their vigorous striding about. I closed my eyes and waged my own silent warfare. Then I became curious and opened one eye.

  The choir was seated somewhere towards the right of the hall. They looked exceedingly bright in their red satin tops and black bottoms. None of the ladies had her skirt above the ankles; none of the men had his hair barbered to any particular style.

  Soon, the man deemed all demons of corruption uprooted. He stopped pacing and clapped his hands. This time, he asked us to pray against the demons of violence - for peace in the land, especially in Kano State, where there had been recent stirrings of yet another Islamic riot. The congregation grabbed the demons of violence by their throats and resumed mortal combat.

  By and by, one of the choristers seated towards the edge of the group left her seat, advanced towards the man leading the prayers, and stood calmly by his side with her hands folded behind her and her head bent slightly towards the floor. I assumed this to be some sort of handover cue, because the man immediately stopped striding about and started clapping his hands slowly.

  ‘Father, we thank You,’ he began when the hall was quiet.

  He spent a few minutes thanking God for answered prayers. Then he handed the microphone over to the lady.

  The keyboard and the drum and the guitar went into action. The female minstrel asked us to clap our hands.

  ‘I will sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea,’ she sang.

  The congregation clapped and sang along while she led us from one praise chorus to the other. With each new song, the atmosphere sizzled and several people started wailing and flailing their hands in the air. The young man beside me had tears running down his cheeks. The pregnant woman beside me waddled to her feet. By the time the singing had gone on for over thirty minutes, the atmosphere became as charged as an electric field, and I desperately wanted to sing along as well. But being unfamiliar with most of the sacred lyrics, I was constrained to simply hum and clap instead. Then, a gentleman who had the composure of a seasoned surgeon stood up from the front row. As soon as the lead singer saw him, she ended her song and returned to her place at the edge of the shining squad. I was sad to see her go just when I was beginning to warm up.

  The pregnant woman beside me dipped her hand into the black carrier bag and brought out a handkerchief and a plastic fan. She wiped her forehead and fanned herself briskly.

  The preacher opened his Bible and stared intently at the congregation. From the concentrated focus of his eyeballs, I got the impression that he was seeing something that we did not and could not ever see. He tapped the microphone twice to make sure it was working. When he opened his mouth, the voice that proceeded was deep, his language was clear, his tone was godly.

  ‘Welcome to service this morning,’ he began. ‘Please turn round to the person beside you and say to them, “You’re here to have a great time this morning.”

  We obeyed. The pregnant woman beside me stretched out a chubby paw and clamped my hand cheerfully. The prim lad overdid it with a mini shoulder embrace. All over the hall, men and women, boys and girls, were engrossed in cheerful handshakes and happy hugs and merry verbal exchanges. The bustle soon died down and the hall became quiet again.

  The pregnant woman beside me dipped her hand into her carrier bag and extracted a huge meat pie. She opened her Bible with one hand and fed herself eagerly with the other. Her chewing made soft, mushy sounds like footsteps on a soggy carpet.

  The preacher boomed out the hallowed text from the book of Luke.

  There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.

  He leaned towards us with his hands firmly grasping the wooden lectern. He asked us to take a few moments to imagine. He asked us to imagine how Lazarus had stood at The Rich Man’s gate begging for alms. He asked us to imagine how The Rich Man must have felt like a philanthropist because he was feeding a poor man with the crumbs from under his table. I imagined obediently. I was excited at the choice of sermon. Today of all days, they were preaching about poverty and wealth. Just what I needed to hear.

  The pregnant woman beside me dug out a boiled egg from her bag. She shelled it skilfully and pushed the whole white mass inside her jaws.

  The preacher looked back into his book and continued reading.

  And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said . . .

  The preacher switched to a shrill voice.

  ... Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

  He raised his right hand high up in the air, and changed to a deeper voice that ended in an echo.

  But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

  The preacher stepped away from the pulpit. Using wild gesticulations of the arms and legs, he retold the story of how the two men had ended up in eternity - one in heaven and the other in hell. He asked us to imagine how The Rich Man must have felt, seeing the very same man he had fed crumbs to, relaxing in Abraham’s bosom. He asked us to imagine the joy Lazarus must have felt about seeing his personal fortunes change so sharply. He paused for some seconds to allow us time to visualise. I looked round at the congregation. From the mischievous, gleeful expressions on their faces, I suspected that several of them, rather than imagining Lazarus enjoying a better world, were imagining The Rich Man burning in hell.

  I wondered why The Rich Man had gone to hell. Was it because he was a bad man or because he was rich? Had the poor man gone to Abraham’s bosom because he was poor or because he was good? The preacher did not say. My father was poor. And like Lazarus, he was likely to be the one found in Abraham’s bosom.

  ‘It’s all stolen money,’ he often said with a voice stuffed full of pride, whenever he saw yet another person who had built a house or bought a new car. ‘How could he possibly afford that on a civil servant’s salary? At least ‘I’ll always be remembered for my honesty. Nobody can say I stole a farthing.’

  I did not think anybody would have been blind enough to accuse my father of stealing public funds. Anybody could see that he did not have any farthings. Uncle Boniface, on the other hand, was foul-smelling rich. Popular gist held that he was a 419er, living large off funds he scammed from unsuspecting foreigners who believed the yarns he spun through emails and faxes. Each time his name was mentioned, my father would go into a tirade.

  ‘I don’t know why you people even mention his name,’ he would say to my mother. ‘You people need to realise that such a person is a disgrace to have in one’s family.’

  The pregnant woman beside me brought out a small bottle of water from her bag. She sipped in small, hushed gulps.

  The preacher returned to Luke and to the deep voice. To further illustrate The Rich Man’s sorrow, he knelt down on the cement floor, placed one of his palms upwards in the other, and switched to a high-pitched voice. He mimicked how The Rich Man had begged Papa Abraham to allow Lazarus to fetch him a drop of water and how the patriarch had declined. He described how The Rich Man had requested that Lazarus should go on an errand to warn his family of this place. For one split second, I assumed that he had been there while it all happened.

  Suddenly, the preacher
’s voice evaporated. The electric fans stopped swishing, the lights stopped shining, and the hall became still as death. One of the omnipresent hitches with the National Electric Power Authority supply had struck. In keeping with their more popular acronym - Never Expect Power Always - power had been cut. Some of the men seated in the front row rushed out while the preacher attempted to continue his sermon undeterred. I heard the men pulling the generator starting cord somewhere outside the building. The engine whirred and then died almost immediately. They tried it again, and again, and again. Each time it fired up, each time it was quenched. Had they run out of fuel? Had the engine gone kaput? The men returned to the church hall. One of them approached the preacher and whispered. At that, he stepped away from the pulpit and continued his sermon - without the assistance of any amplifier.

  The pregnant woman beside me brought out some white tissue paper from her bag and wiped her lips and her hands, making sure to work the tissue into the cranny between each of her fingers. She resumed fanning herself with the plastic fan.

  ‘My brothers and sisters,’ the preacher beseeched us, throwing his arms out in front of him like the antlers of a mighty stag, and shaking his head slowly from side to side, ‘verily, I say unto you: In this world, all that really matters is Jesus. Forget about money, forget about fame, forget about all that this world has to offer. All you need is to focus on making heaven. Nothing else is important.’

  Despite myself, I laughed. Did this holy man really know what he was talking about? My family was almost destitute, my mother-in-law-to-be had run out of patience with me, my father was wearing an expensive illness. Yet here he was telling me to forget about money and the world. Was this man joking?

  The pregnant woman beside me poked a podgy, egg-white-perfumed finger into my shoulder.

  ‘Let me pass,’ she said. ‘I want to use the toilet.’

  I looked at her protruding belly, which was positioned threateningly close to my face, and struggled with the urge to ask her why she did not simply dip into her carrier bag and extract a potty? Grudgingly, I muffled my inner imp and moved my knees aside to allow her past. Her stout thighs got stuck in front of me. Eventually, I had to stand for her to go through.

  I did not hear the rest of what the good man said, and not just because the preacher was not using a microphone. Each time there was a pause, I assumed that the sermon was over. Still, he continued. It was when the congregation raised its voice in communal prayer that I realised that, finally, he was finished. He returned to his seat in the front row just as the pregnant woman returned to her seat. The offering basket was going round now, and again, I had to stand to let her through. When the raffia basket arrived in front of us, she dipped into the very same black carrier bag and brought out a green naira note. She mangled it into a tight ball in the palm of her right hand before tossing it into the basket. I watched the container sail past. I had nothing to give.

  Towards the end of the service, another man stood up and took the place of the preacher at the front.

  ‘Are there any people worshipping with us for the first time?’ he asked. ‘Please indicate by raising your hands.’

  Some hands in the congregation shot up in the air.

  ‘Please can you take an extra step by standing up for us to recognise you?’

  The congregation was asked to make the visitors - those of them who had stood up - welcome. They did so by walking up to them and shaking their hands, as if congratulating them. The young man beside me sabotaged my plan to ignore the ceremony. I had neither raised my hand nor stood up, but he turned to me and shook my hand almost as soon as the call was given. By some mysterious means, he had identified that today was my first time.

  ‘Welcome, brother,’ he said.

  In total, there were about thirteen of us who had been identified. A lady - the same one who had welcomed me into the church that morning - ushered us all into an adjacent room where a man with an even thicker Bible than the one the preacher had used, came and stood in front of us.

  ‘I’d like to thank you all for honouring our invitation to join us for such a special time this Sunday morning,’ he began. ‘We’re so glad to have you with us at Revival Now or Never Ministries. We are—’

  I got sidetracked by the sleeves of his white shirt. They were grimy, almost as black as the corners of his fingernails. His trousers were frayed at the hems, and some threads dangled from two buttons on his shirt.

  Somebody handed out some forms for us to fill out our addresses and phone numbers, so that they could keep in touch with us during the week. We did not have a telephone at home. I lied about my house address. This was clearly not the place where my problems would be solved.

  ‘Please don’t forget that you’re invited to fellowship with us anytime you want,’ he concluded. ‘You’re always welcome. Please consider this place as your home and us as your brothers and sisters.’

  On my way back home, I pulled the flyer out of my pocket and crumpled it into a tight ball. I flung it into a nearby bin and shook my head in consternation. The bin was pasted with the bogus smile of a newly declared presidential aspirant.

  Six

  Going to my mother’s shop used to be a lot of fun. She would pick us up from school when she still had her Volkswagen Beetle, and sometimes, we would stop at the roadside where a woman was frying things in a great pan of oil.

  ‘Give me puffpuff,’ she would say.

  With noses flattened against the car windows, we would watch the woman use the hugest spoon in the whole world to remove fried balls from the hot oil and wrap them in old newspapers. My mother would hand the woman some coins and place the wrapped puffpuff on the dashboard. The delicious aroma would saturate the car, causing our nostrils to dilate, our mouths to water, and our jaws to contract painfully. But no one was allowed even a bite - not until we got to the shop.

  Business had been good then. But over the years, the complicated machines had been to the repairers and back so often that the machines had started shedding tears. Now most of them had packed up. Now the trickling of customers who remained came simply out of loyalty, from having patronised her for so long. Others came only when they needed a tailor to render an expedited service. Now there was hardly any reason for me to stop by, except that at this time of day, the only place where I could have the sort of private conversation I had in mind was in here.

  My mother looked up from the buttons she was sewing onto a blue check fabric.

  ‘Ah, Kings!’

  Surprise made her dig the needle into her thumb. She locked the tip of the thumb into her mouth and sucked.

  ‘Mummy, good afternoon.’

  I sat on her customers’ bench.

  ‘How has your day been?’

  ‘Oh, it’s been fine,’ she replied. ‘It’s been quite fine.’

  She resumed her work with a degree of concentration that showed she was aware that I had something important I wanted to talk about.

  ‘Mummy, there’s something I want to ask your opinion about,’ I began.

  She stopped pretending to concentrate on her work and transferred her full attention to my face.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ I continued.

  Yes, I had. Since the solutions to my problems were clearly not going to be divine, I had racked my brain until I struck upon a man-made idea.

  ‘I’ve been thinking of moving away from home. I’ll stand a better chance of getting a job if I went away from Umuahia.’

  ‘Ah, ah? But is it not the same newspapers that you’ll have to apply through to get a job whether you’re in Umuahia or not? All the oil companies put their vacancies in the national newspapers.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been thinking. Maybe I should start applying elsewhere apart from the oil companies.’

  ‘Elsewhere like where?’

  I understood her apprehension. Her first son was a chemical engineer, and that was what she wanted him to remain. But now I was ready to lower my standards. Most of the New G
eneration banks were willing to hire anybody who could pass their aptitude tests. They did not seem to mind whether your degree was in Carpentry or Fisheries or Hairdressing. All they wanted was someone who could speak English, who could add, subtract, and multiply.

  ‘I’m thinking of maybe a bank.’

  ‘Are there not banks here?’

  ‘There are more opportunities outside here,’ I replied.

  After all was said and done, Umuahia was still one of the Third World towns in Nigeria. The same bank that would have just one branch in Umuahia, for example, could have thirty in bustling cities like Lagos. Plus, larger cities presented more diverse opportunities for work even if it meant that I would have to trudge the streets and seek employment in any other field.

  My mother considered this.

  ‘But where are you planning to stay? You can’t afford a place of your own and you can’t be sure how long you’ll be looking for work.’ She paused. ‘The only person I can think of is Dimma. Which is good because then you’ll be closer to the oil companies when they invite you for interviews.’

  I knew that Aunty Dimma would be very pleased to have me at her place in Port Harcourt for however long I chose to stay, but I had other ideas.

  ‘How about Uncle Boniface?’ I asked.

  My mother laughed and looked at me as if I was trying to convince her that G is for Jesus.

  ‘Mummy, seriously. I think Lagos is the best option. I’m sure I’ll get a job quickly. I hear people like Arthur Andersen will give you an interview once they see that you made an exceptional result.’

  Uncle Boniface lived not too far away from us, in Aba, but he owned a house in faraway FESTAC Town, Lagos, where his wife and children lived. He probably would not mind my lodging with them, especially since he owed my family a social debt. The youngest of my mother’s siblings, Uncle Boniface was the illegitimate son that my late grandfather had fathered by some non-Igbo floozy from Rivers State. Out of anger, my mother’s family had refused to acknowledge Uncle Boniface as part of them. And with his failing health, my grandfather had found it difficult to cope. The family made a communal decision. Uncle Boniface moved in with us. Over the years, we had several of these relatives coming and going, but Uncle Boniface’s stay was particularly memorable.