I Do Not Come to You by Chance

by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

  I retold my mother’s story word for word. She cried in all the right places while I squeezed her hand.

  ‘What of plans for the burial?’ she asked.

  I sighed.

  It was vital for every Igbo man to be buried ‘well’. The amount required to give my father the sort of send-off that would be deemed suitable for a man of his untitled status would total ten times more than what we had expended on bills for the duration of his hospital stay. Apart from the entertainment of guests for the wake-keeping and funeral, there was a certain amount of livestock and liquor that tradition required us to present to each of the different age grades in our village. There were the expenses for the obituary, the mortuary, the embalmment, the grave, the coffin, and the welfare of guests that would come from far and near. To make matters worse, our house in the village was not yet complete. It was extremely embarrassing for our guests to see my father being buried in a compound with a building that was mere carcass.

  ‘We’re waiting to see how much our relatives can contribute,’ I replied. ‘But whatever the case, the burial has to be very soon because we don’t want to spend too much on mortuary fees.’

  ‘Won’t there be—’

  An elderly woman stepped in and broke into a glum song about how dead bones shall rise again. As she sang, she swayed from side to side and cried. Most of the other mourners joined in with the singing.

  ‘Okpukpu ga-adi ndu ozo, okpukpu ga-adi ndu ozo, okpukpu ga-adi ndu ozo, okpukpu ga-adi ndu ozo . . .’

  I wished they would all just shut up and allow us to mourn in peace. Besides, the competition was settled. No one would ever outdo my father’s sisters in drama and intensity of mourning.

  ‘I need to go,’ Ola said.

  ‘No, stay a little bit longer. I really need you now.’

  ‘I really need to go. I can’t stay too long.’

  I followed her outside. We walked round to the front of the house. I dragged her into the vestibule that led up to the other three floors of our building. The place was quiet.

  ‘Ola, you probably don’t know how glad I am to see you. I’ve not stopped thinking about you for one single day.’

  She threw her eyes to the floor. I touched her cheek with my hand and told her how much I loved her. I told her I understood the pressure she must be under from her mother. I told her that I was moving to Port Harcourt, that I was definitely getting a job soon even though it might not be with an oil company. I told her that she would certainly not regret her decision to wait a little bit longer for me. She may have been listening, she may not.

  ‘Kings, it’s too late,’ she said when I finished.

  ‘What do you mean “too late”?’

  She looked up, she looked sad, she looked afraid.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry for what?’

  ‘Kings, I’m getting married.’

  Consternation struck me dumb.

  ‘I’m getting married to someone else. Everything has been fixed.’ She paused. ‘I’m really sorry.’

  At what point would Ola smile and confess that this was all part of some expensive joke? Perhaps another side effect of her being a citizen of Venus. Then I stared into her eyes and knew it was no joke. I felt as if I had been stabbed in the back, punched in the eye, struck on the head with a pestle, and bitten in the ankle, at the same time.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.

  ‘What do you mean “everything”? Do you mean the wedding?’

  She nodded.

  ‘They’ve taken wine to my father and he’s given them a date.’

  I was quiet and kept quiet and continued keeping quiet. But, sooner or later, the ugliness of life loses its power to shock. I became ready to hear the rest.

  ‘So how long have you known this man?’

  She sighed, as if she was relieved that we had finally scaled the highest hurdle.

  ‘I met him a while ago,’ she said. ‘But it wasn’t until recently that things became serious.’

  Aha! The Dolce & Gabbana wristwatch and the Gucci slippers and the Fendi handbag. The man was clearly very serious.

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘There’s no need—,’

  ‘Just tell me . . . Who is he?’

  ‘What are you doing with that information? Are you going to plant a bomb in his car?’

  Aha. The man even had a car. All my feelings rolled up into one tight ball of anger.

  ‘I’m just curious. What’s the point keeping it secret? After all, it’s not as if you’re going to have a secret wedding.’

  She shrugged.

  ‘I guess you’re right. His name is Udenna. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Ude Maximum Ventures. He’s the one that owns it.’

  Of course I had heard of UdeMax. His logo was branded on several buses that carried passengers from Eastern Nigeria to Northern Nigeria and back again. His logo was on several of the gwongworos that transported palm oil and tomatoes and onions. Suddenly, my mind stubbed against a rocky thought.

  ‘Ola, did he go to school?’

  She refused to answer. I panicked. Most Igbo entrepreneurs of his kind never completed any formal education.

  ‘Wait! You’re planning to get married to somebody who didn’t even go to school? Ola, what’s the matter with you?’

  ‘You know what, Kingsley? I have to leave now. I need to go before it gets dark.’

  I was about to bark something else when she pressed something into the palm of my hand. I looked. It was a wad of naira notes.

  Haha.

  Back in school, Ola often shared whatever little pocket money she had with me whenever I was broke, which was almost always. The difference was that then, the money was not from Udenna’s pocket. I pushed the wad back into her hand.

  ‘Please take it,’ she insisted.

  I shook my head vigorously. Never.

  ‘Kings, please . . .’

  I continued shaking my head. She forced the notes back into my palm. I flung them away. She looked hurt. She abandoned the notes on the ground and started walking away.

  ‘Olachi, take that money away!’

  She was jolted and stopped in her tracks. She picked up the notes and hurried off. I stared into her back as piercingly as I could without committing homicide.

  Two days later, the familiar sounds of grief in our living room were dispelled by the sudden din of commotion outside. Through the open louvers, I saw that a throng of neighbours and passers-by had gathered to watch. It was not often that a convoy of Land Cruisers and CR-Vs blared horns and rumbled engines on Ojike Street.

  With Protocol Officer’s help, an aqua green shoe protruded into view. Cash Daddy poured out of the car.

  I was ashamed to sense how relieved I felt to set my eyes on him.

  Nineteen

  My father was buried in grand style.

  A few days before the funeral ceremony, Cash Daddy took out full-page obituary announcements in three of the most widely read national newspapers. At the bottom of each page, it was mentioned in bold print that he was the sponsor of the announcement. My father’s photograph took up three-quarters of the page. Uncle Boniface’s mug shot was inserted in a corner, just beneath my father’s own.

  ‘When people see my photograph with your father’s own,’ he said, ‘it’ll catch their attention immediately and they’ll want to read the whole thing. When they find out that I’m related to your father, they’ll make sure they attend.’

  He also paid for obituary announcements on radio and television. Each one ended with the announcer declaring: ‘This burial announcement was signed by Chief Boniface Mbamalu a.k.a. Cash Daddy, on behalf of the Ibe family.’

  There were cloth banners hung in strategic places from our village all the way to the express road, and large obituary fliers posted on walls and trees. We hired a fifty-eight-sitter commercial bus to transport my mother’s relatives all the way from Isiukwuato to Umuahia. Food and drink were very plenty, more than enough for
the villagers to scuffle over and for the opportunistic to smuggle away in their inner garments.

  During the funeral Mass, when I saw how smart my father looked in the brand new Italian suit my mother and his younger brother had dressed him up in, I could not help the tiny smile that crawled out onto my lips. My father had always preferred Western fashions to traditional African clothes. He said they were less cumbersome. Quite unlike most men of his generation, my father had no quarrel with the white man. He also preferred his climate; he said that the more temperate weather conditions made it easier to think creatively. And he preferred his diet; he said their food did not contain too much spice, which made it easier to enjoy the original taste of the ingredients. Several people mockingly referred to my father as onye ocha nna ya di ojii, the white man whose father is black, but he never cared.

  From church, we accompanied the coffin back to our compound, where four of my father’s male relatives heaved it into the open grave that had been dug a few inches from our brand new building. After more than eleven years of the structure being a monument to our hardscrabbling, in just a few months the village house had been roofed, painted, and furnished in time for the burial ceremony.

  The priest sprinkled some holy water over the grave and began the committal rites in an unhurried and solemn voice.

  ‘Our brother, Paulinus Akobudike Ibe has gone to his rest in the peace of Christ, may the Lord now welcome him to the table of God’s children in heaven.’

  I stared into the grave and tried not to think that my father was lying in there, about to be concealed from me, from all of us, forever. My mother tottered beside me. Her relatives gathered closer around her. They all wore dark blue ankara fabric. My father’s relatives wore the same design, but in dark green. The younger men in the immediate extended family wore white T-shirts with my father’s photograph printed on the front. My mother, my siblings, and I wore outfits made from expensive white lace. Every category of cloth had been provided free of charge for the various groups of people.

  ‘Because God has chosen to call our brother Paulinus Akobudike Ibe from this life to Himself, we commit his body to the earth, for we are dust and unto dust we shall return.’

  My mother fell to the ground and had to be dragged up by two of her sisters and Aunty Dimma. Cash Daddy sniffed very loudly. He was dressed in the same ankara fabric as my mother’s other relatives, but there was just something about having money. Cash Daddy stood out from all of them.

  ‘Merciful Lord,’ the priest continued, ‘You know the anguish of the sorrowful, You are attentive to the prayers of the humble. Hear

  Your people who cry out to You in their need, and strengthen their hope in Your lasting goodness. We ask this through Christ our Lord.’

  ‘Amen.’

  Aunty Dimma held on tightly to prevent my mother from rocking into the six-foot hole. My mother looked like a ghost, like a dead person mourning another person who was dead. The only signs that she was alive were that her eyes were red and flooded, and her face was dripping and contorted. Godfrey and Eugene stood beside me on the other side, both weeping like three-yearolds who had received a severe spanking. Godfrey was holding Charity’s two hands tight. She was wailing at the top of her voice and struggling to jump into the grave.

  Because I was the opara, after my mother shook a handful of soil into the open grave, it was my turn. I bent and grabbed a handful of the freshly dug-up soil. As I rose and looked into the grave again, I felt the tears welling up. Trying to be a man, I blinked and looked straight ahead while the dust crumbled from my fingers. My eyes landed on my young cousin’s chest, and on the photograph of my father printed on his white T-shirt. My father had posed for the shot during his graduation from Imperial College, London, probably hoping that he would show it to his children and to his grandchildren. The tassel from his cap was hanging over his right eye. And he was grinning with the confidence of one who knew that he was about to conquer the world. Ha.

  I took my eyes away from the photograph and dislodged the last crumbs of sand into my father’s grave. My mother swooned and passed out.

  Afterwards, my father’s female relatives were ready to perform the next phase of the bereavement rites. It was time to shave my mother’s hair. Knowing how much my father loved my mother’s long hair and how strongly he detested backward customs, I vehemently opposed it. Even when Aunty Ada scolded me for hindering my father’s smooth passage to the spirit world, I refused to budge. It was my duty to honour my father and to protect my mother. I was the opara.

  In the end, it was my mother who told me to step out of the way.

  ‘What’s the point?’ she asked. ‘The person for whom I’ve been wearing the hair is no more, so what do I care?’

  Right there and then, a switch flipped inside my head. Indeed, my father was no more. And it was my responsibility to start caring for the people who were still here. There was nothing stopping me now.

  By the time the women finished their task, my father could have looked down from the spirit world and seen his reflection gleaming on his beloved wife’s skull.

  Part 2

  Chinchi si na ihe di oku ga-emechaa juo oyi.

  The bedbug said that whatever is hot would eventually

  become cold.

  Twenty

  At first, it was difficult. Composing cock-and-bull tales, with every single word an untruth, including ‘is’ and ‘was’. Blasting SOS emails around the world, hoping that someone would swallow the bait and respond. But I was probably worrying myself for nothing. They were just a bunch of email addresses with no real people at the other end anyway. Besides, who on this earth was stupid enough to fall prey to an email from a stranger in Nigeria?

  Then, someone in Auckland replied. And another one in Cardiff. Then a lady in Wisconsin showed interest. Soon we were on first-name terms. It was almost like staying up to watch a dreadful movie simply to see what happened at the end. I continued stringing the sucker - the mugu - along. Then a Western Union control number arrived. Unbelievable. I, Kingsley Onyeaghalanwanneya Ibe, had actually made a hit!

  No oil company interview success letter had ever given me a sharper thrill of gratification. Like an addict, I was eager to recreate that thrill again. And again, and again, and again. Gradually, it occurred to me that I had discovered a hidden talent. Over the past year, I had adapted and settled into my new life.

  At the office, I went through my emails, deleting messages, typing out some new ones. I spellchecked the document on my screen, making double sure all information was correct. To make a clear distinction between my mail and any subsequent replies, I changed the document to uppercase. Most people tended to write in sentence case, but once in a comet-across-the-sky while, I encountered some of the world’s weirder people who wrote regularly in all caps. In that event, I switched back to sentence case.

  I read the letter one last time.

  SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR URGENT HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE/BUSINESS PROPOSAL

  DEAR FRIEND,

  I DO NOT COME TO YOU BY CHANCE. UPON MY QUEST FOR A TRUSTED AND RELIABLE FOREIGN BUSINESSMAN OR COMPANY, I WAS GIVEN YOUR CONTACT BY THE NIGERIAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY. I HOPE THAT YOU CAN BE TRUSTED TO HANDLE A TRANSACTION OF THIS MAGNITUDE.

  FOLLOWING THE SUDDEN DEATH OF MY HUSBAND, GENERAL SANI ABACHA, THE FORMER HEAD OF STATE OF NIGERIA, I HAVE BEEN THROWN INTO A STATE OF UTTER CONFUSION, FRUSTRATION AND HOPELESSNESS BY THE CURRENT CIVILIAN ADMINISTRATION. I HAVE BEEN SUBJECTED TO PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE BY THE SECURITY AGENTS IN THE COUNTRY. MY SON, MOHAMMED, IS UNDER DETENTION FOR AN OFFENCE HE DID NOT COMMIT.

  THE TRUTH IN ALL THIS IS THAT THE CURRENT PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA WAS JAILED FOR PLANNING A COUP AGAINST MY LATE HUSBAND’S GOVERNMENT. HE WAS ELECTED AS THE PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA WHEN HE WAS RELEASED. I AND MY CHILDREN WERE NEVER PART OF MY LATE HUSBAND’S REGIME. YET, THE NEW PRESIDENT HAS SUCCEEDED IN TURNING THE WHOLE COUNTRY AGAINST US, AND IS TRYING DIFFERENT WAYS TO FRUSTRATE US.

 
THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT HAS GONE AFTER MY FAMILY’S WEALTH. YOU MUST HAVE HEARD REPORTS OVER THE MEDIA AND ON THE INTERNET, ABOUT THE RECOVERY OF VARIOUS HUGE SUMS OF MONEY DEPOSITED BY MY HUSBAND IN DIFFERENT

  COUNTRIES ABROAD. MANY OF MY LATE HUSBAND’S REAL ESTATE HAVE BEEN SEIZED AND SOME AUCTIONED. ALL OUR BANK ACCOUNTS IN NIGERIA AND ABROAD, KNOWN TO THE GOVERNMENT, HAVE BEEN FROZEN. THE HUNT FOR OUR MONEY IS STILL ON. THE TOTAL AMOUNT DISCOVERED BY THE GOVERNMENT SO FAR IS ABOUT $700 MILLION (USD) AND THEY ARE STILL TRYING TO FISH OUT THE REST.

  MOST OF OUR FRIENDS HAVE EITHER ABANDONED OR BETRAYED US. I AM DESPERATE FOR HELP. AS A WIDOW WHO IS SO TRAUMATISED, I HAVE LOST CONFIDENCE IN ANYBODY WITHIN THE COUNTRY. OWING TO MY PREVIOUS EXPERIENCES, I AM AFRAID THAT IF I CONTACT ANYBODY WHO KNOWS US, I MIGHT BE EXPOSED. PLEASE DO NOT BETRAY ME.

  SOMETIME AGO, I DEPOSITED THE SUM OF $58,000,000.00 CASH (FIFTY EIGHT MILLION USD) OF MY LATE HUSBAND’S MONEY IN A SECURITY FIRM WHOSE NAME I CANNOT DISCLOSE UNTIL I’M SURE THAT I CAN TRUST YOU. I WILL BE VERY GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD RECEIVE THESE FUNDS FOR SAFE KEEPING. FOR YOUR KIND ASSISTANCE, YOU ARE ENTITLED TO 20% OF THE TOTAL SUM.

  I NEVER REALLY INTENDED TO TOUCH THIS MONEY WHICH IS VERY SAFE AND SECURE IN THE VAULT OF THIS SECURITY FIRM. BUT OWING TO OUR PRESENT SITUATION, I DO NOT HAVE ANY OTHER OPTION. WE ARE BADLY IN NEED OF MONEY. MY SON MOHAMMED IS VERY SICK IN PRISON AND HIS LAWYERS ARE RIPPING US OFF. THE PROBLEM IS THAT I CANNOT LAY MY HANDS ON THIS MONEY OWING TO THE FACT THAT ALL INTERNATIONAL PASSPORTS BELONGING TO THE MEMBERS OF MY FAMILY HAVE

  BEEN SEIZED BY THIS GOVERNMENT, PENDING WHEN THEY FINISH DEALING WITH US.

  THIS ARRANGEMENT IS KNOWN ONLY TO YOU, MY HUSBAND’S YOUNGER BROTHER (WHO IS CONTACTING YOU) AND I. AS SURVEILLANCE IS CONSTANTLY ON ME, MY HUSBAND’S BROTHER WILL DEAL DIRECTLY WITH YOU. HIS NAME IS SHEHU. SHEHU IS LIKE A BROTHER TO ME. THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT DOES NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS MONEY, NOBODY ELSE KNOWS ANYTHING, SO THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR.