Adaobi Nwaubani - I Do Not Come to You by Chance

As much as I wanted to fulfil my responsibilities as opara and help my family, I also wanted to get a job because of Ola. Marrying an Igbo girl entailed much more than fairy-tale romance and good intentions. The list of items presented to the groom as a prerequisite for the traditional marriage ceremony was enough to make a grown man shudder. And that was even before you considered the gift items for family members, the clothing for the girl and her mother, and the actual feast itself. Several couples had been known to garner all their financial forces together in the process of organising their marriage ceremony. Afterwards, they could sit back in their new home and gradually transmute to skeletons. At least then they would be married and could die penniless – but happy – in each other’s arms.

Still drenched in these thoughts, on the way back home, I did not notice when one of the tambourine-jangling zealots stepped into pace beside me and extended one of his flyers.

‘Good morning, my brother,’ he said in greeting.

The man sounded as if he had slept on a bed of roses, woken from a scrumptious slumber that morning, and placed his foot right onto the ninth cloud.

‘I would like to invite you to fellowship with us on Sunday,’ he continued. ‘It promises to be a marvellous time. Come and be blessed, for there’s nothing impossible with God.’

On any other day, I would have called the man a bumbling buffoon and walked on. But like a well-oiled robot, I automatically stretched out my hand and collected the flyer.

Chikaodinaka and Odinkemmelu stopped chattering and resumed servile postures as soon as I entered the kitchen.

‘Bro. Kingsley, welcome.’

I grunted and walked past.

I paused at the dining table and exchanged ‘good mornings’ with my mother and siblings. Breakfast was over but they were sitting and chatting.

‘Should I bring your food for you?’ my mother asked.

‘Not now,’ I replied.

Across the room, my father was snoozing in his favourite armchair with his head tilted to one side. A rattling sound rose in his throat like water gurgling in a disused tap that had just been turned on. My mother flipped her head in her husband’s direction.

‘Reduce your voices,’ she said. Despite the fact that we all knew from experience that even the blast of Angel Michael’s trumpet was not loud enough to awaken my father from these post-breakfast slumbers.

‘Did the letter arrive?’ Eugene asked.

I mumbled something. As intended, everybody mistook it for a no. There was no point in ruining everyone’s morning.

Pretending that life was still normal proved a bit too difficult, so I went on to the children’s bedroom and sat on the bed. Someone knocked on the door. I ignored it. The person knocked again.

‘Yes?’

‘Kings.’

It was my mother. I did not look up. She sat beside me, put her arm around my shoulders and pushed my head against her neck. We sat in silence for a while. Without asking any embarrassing questions, my mother knew that her first son was still a component of Nigeria ’s rising unemployment statistics.

‘It’s OK,’ she said.

She stroked my cheeks.

‘Kings, it’s OK… ehn? It’s OK.’

I removed my head from her body and sighed.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Your own will eventually come. Let’s believe that there’s something better waiting for you. Just don’t let all these disappointments get to you.’

‘Honestly, Mummy, I’m just tired. What is it I’m doing wrong? I always pass the tests and then they don’t want me. I’m really perplexed.’

Perplexed and stupefied and woebegone. As if I was stuck in a maze and each time I found an exit, lightning would strike right across my path. This particular rejection letter was exceedingly painful because I had defied all the odds by getting as far as the last interview. But the way things worked in our society these days, besides paper qualifications and a high intelligence quotient, you usually needed to have ‘long-leg’. You needed to know someone, or someone who knew someone, before you could access the most basic things. Still, as I progressed from one stage of the interview to the other, we had all assumed that this time would be different. Someone had identified that I had graduated as best student in my Chemical Engineering class. Surely, they could see that I was an outstanding brain.

‘Kings, it’s OK. I’m sure things will work out eventually.’

I bent my head.

My parents had been excited when I received my admission letter into university, but the whole experience put an additional strain on the family finances. Tuition fees, books, accommodation away from home – it all needed funding. When my father’s illness poured fuel on the flames, my parents were forced to sell our old, grey Peugeot 505 for some extra cash.

At last, Graduation Day arrived. As first son, as soon as I started earning an income, I would automatically inherit the responsibility of training my younger ones and ensuring that my parents spent the rest of their retirement years in financial peace. My family were looking up to me. I was their light, their messiah, their only hope.

My mother held me tighter and rubbed my back.

‘Kingsley, I’ve told you… everybody has their own dry season but the rain will always come. You’ll see. And you’ll remember that I said so.’

She spoke with so much conviction that I almost believed her. In the past, these words would have been tonic enough to brighten my face, push out my chest, and lift my gaze to a more auspicious future. But I had heard this same speech, on this same spot, in this same snug proximity, at least three times in the past year. It was like some sort of déjà vu.

We remained silent for a while.

‘Why don’t you go and have something to eat?’ my mother said. ‘There’s some powdered milk left in the tin but if it’s not enough, I can send Chikaodinaka out to buy some more.’

I stood up.

‘I don’t want to eat anything. I want to go and see Ola.’

‘Why don’t you-?’

‘No, I’m not eating,’ I replied, pulling off my T-shirt.

She left. I started polishing my dedicated pair of black shoes. They were my only pair. Moments later, my mother knocked and came back in.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘Take this and add to your transport money.’

Some naira notes were scrunched up in her palm. I shook my head.

‘No, thank you. I have enough for my transport.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Still take it.’

‘Mummy, no thank you.’

‘OK, at least use it to buy something for Ola.’

‘Mummy, don’t worry. I can manage till Daddy gives me my next pocket money.’

‘Kings, look. I know it’s just for a brief period and that things will work out for you soon. Take the money.’

Disgraceful that a twenty-five-year-old was still depending on his parents, but she smiled and looked tremendously pleased when I took the notes. Right there and then, I decided that the first thing I would do when I got a job was to buy my mother a brand new car.

The 504 station wagon had a handwritten sign on the roof – UMUAHIA to OWERRI via MBAISE. The vehicle had originally been designed to carry the driver and one passenger in the front seat, three people in the middle row, two at the back. But an ingenious rascal had come up with a more lucrative agenda. Now two people were sitting beside the driver in front, four in the middle row, and three at the back. Being last to arrive, I had to squeeze myself into the back middle seat, the tightest, most unbearable position in the entire vehicle.

Wedged on my right was an abundantly bottomed lady who chomped her pungent breakfast of boiled eggs and bread with noisy gusto. On my left was a man whose eye sockets were empty, with a boy of about eight years old perched on his lap. From the ruggedness of the man’s clothes, his random chants and subservient manner, I could tell that he was a professional beggar. The boy was acting as his eyes and would not have to pay extra since, technically, they shared the same space. So we were four in the back row, sitting in a place prepared for three, which had originally been meant for two.