Adaobi Nwaubani - I Do Not Come to You by Chance

Both men laughed.

‘He’s a fine young man, he’s a fine young man,’ World Bank said, ‘just that he’s too thin.’

‘He’s a university graduate,’ Cash Daddy replied.

‘Ah!’

They laughed again. Perhaps it was natural to find all sorts of silly things funny when you had a pocketful of cash.

‘I’ve been meaning to stop by for a long time,’ World Bank said, ‘but somehow, things kept happening to prevent me. My wedding is on the twenty-third of August. I decided to do everything on the same day.’

‘You’re a wicked man!’ Cash Daddy shouted. ‘A very, very wicked man! You have money, yet you don’t want to spend it. Why are you running away from throwing three different parties for us? How much is it? Instead, tell me what it will cost, let me pay for everything.’

World Bank guffawed and almost toppled into my lap.

‘Cash Daddy, you know money is not my problem,’ he said, steadying himself with his walking stick. ‘I’m just trying to be wise. I’ve learnt from my experience with my current wives. I don’t want to repeat my mistakes.’

He explained that his first wife always wanted to attend major functions as his companion since she saw herself as the senior wife. She also insisted on being the one to sleep with him in the master bedroom on some nights, when he preferred to have only the second wife in bed with him.

‘I don’t want any of these ones to come into my house and start giving me trouble about who is the senior wife and who is the junior wife,’ World Bank said. ‘If I marry three of them on the same day, they’ll know from Day One that they are all equals.’

‘That’s very smart,’ Cash Daddy said. ‘That’s really very smart.’

World Bank looked hurt.

‘But Cash Daddy, how can you talk like this? You know I’m a very smart man.’

‘Of course, of course.’

They laughed. I wondered how the names of the three brides, the names of their three sets of parents, the names of their three villages… would all fit into the traditional wedding ceremony invitation card. World Bank’s cellular phone rang. He looked at the screen and hissed.

‘These people won’t let me rest. One of the girls I’m marrying, the other day, her mother told me she wants a camcorder. Almost every day, she calls to ask when I’m bringing it. I didn’t run away when she told me they wanted to renovate their house, I didn’t run away when she told me she wanted to open a nursery school. Why should I start running away simply because of an ordinary camcorder? ’

‘Just be a man and bear it,’ Cash Daddy said to console him. ‘You know that relatives are the cause of hip disease.’

‘Ah. Cash Daddy, you need to see this girl. She’s just sixteen, but if you see her buttocks… rolling! Just give her another two to three years, that body will become something out of this world.’

I coughed. Honestly, a stray particle had found its way down the wrong passage. Cash Daddy misinterpreted.

‘Ah, Kings! That’s true. You’re going back to Umuahia today.’

‘No, no-’

‘Protocol Officer!’

I was jolted. The man reappeared through the door.

‘Yes, Cash Daddy.’

‘Give this man some money.’

He told him how much. My eyes gasped.

‘Cash Daddy, what currency?’ Protocol Officer asked.

My uncle’s phone rang.

‘Give him naira,’ he said, with eyes on the screen.

‘Thank you, Cash Daddy,’ I said. The outrageous nickname had slipped out of my mouth very smoothly.

‘Greet your mummy for me,’ he said and cleared his throat. ‘Hello!’ he said to the person at the other end of the phone. ‘Mr Rumsfeld! I was just about to ring you now!’

In the outer office, I waited by the fax machine near Cash Daddy’s closed door while Protocol Officer whisked out a key from his socks and unlocked a metal cabinet. He withdrew some bundles and started counting. I tried hard not to watch. For solace, my eyes turned to the sheet of paper on the fax machine tray.

Professor Ignatius Soyinka

Astronautics Project Manager

National Space Research and Development Agency

(NASRDA)

Plot 555 Michael Opara Street

Abuja, Nigeria

Dear Sir/Madam,

Urgent Request For Assistance – Strictly Confidential

I am Professor Ignatius Soyinka, a colleague of Nigerian astronaut, Air Vice Marshall Nnamdi Ojukwu. AVM Ojukwu was the first ever African to go into space. Based on his excellent performance, he was also later selected to be on Soviet spaceflight – Soyuz T-16Z – to the secret Soviet military space station Salyut 8T in 1989. Unfortunately, the mission was aborted when the Soviet Union was dissolved.

While his fellow Soviet crew members returned to earth on the Soyuz T-16Z, being a black man from a Third World country, AVM Ojukwu’s place on the flight was taken up by cargo, which the Soviet Union authorities insisted was too valuable to be left behind. Hence, my dear colleague has been stranded up there till today. He is in good spirits, but really misses his wife and children back home in Nigeria.

In the years since he has been at the station, AVM Ojukwu has accumulated flight pay and interest amounting to almost $35,000,000 (USD). This is being held in trust at the Lagos National Savings and Trust Association. If we can obtain access to this money-

Protocol Officer was relocking the cabinet. He inserted some cash into a brown envelope and handed it to me.

‘Thank you very much,’ I said, and stuffed the booty into my trouser pocket.

‘Thank God,’ he replied.

Truly, it is natural to find all sorts of silly things funny when you have a pocketful of cash. All through the journey home, I studied my new shoes and giggled endlessly about the Nigerian astronaut stranded in outer space.

When I showed my mother the envelope’s contents, she raised her two hands up to heaven and sang, ‘Great Is Thy Faithfulness O Lord.’

The Lord’s faithfulness showed up again. Godfrey returned from the post office one morning and started screaming from the kitchen.

‘I passed! I passed! I passed!’

All of us rushed out. He had just received his admission letter to study Electrical Engineering at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

I became worried.

It was good that Godfrey had written the JAMB and passed, it was good that he had scored enough for admission into one of the best universities in the country. On the other hand, it was not good that a fresh expense had been introduced into our lives when we were still doing battle with the current ones.

I forced myself to see the cup half-full rather than half-empty.

‘Congratulations,’ I said, grabbing his arm and pumping it up and down.

‘Thank you,’ he said and grinned.

Charity and Eugene joined in his jubilations. While he waved the admission letter high above his head like the captain of the Brazilian football team at the World Cup finals, they clapped their hands and stamped their feet and skipped about the living room.

I felt sorry for all of them.

Godfrey accompanied me to the hospital that day.

‘Why don’t you tell your daddy?’ my mother suggested. ‘I’m sure he’ll be very pleased to hear the good news.’

Godfrey rolled his eyes.

‘I’m serious,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter whether he’s awake or not. It would be nice if you told him.’

Surprisingly, Godfrey agreed. Today was probably his day off from rebellion. I could understand my mother’s eagerness for her husband to share in the good news. Like all of us, Godfrey was intelligent, but he constantly seemed to have his focus broken by the lesser cares of life such as girls and parties and rap music.