Adaobi Nwaubani - I Do Not Come to You by Chance

Cash Daddy then returned to me.

‘Kings, what’s the problem? How can you be disturbing me with office matters now? I’m beginning to get very suspicious of you. Do you want me to be the next democratically elected executive governor of Abia State or not? You’d better tell me now.’

‘Cash Daddy, we haven’t heard from Azuka since he went to Iran. He was due back more than a week ago.’

He was silent for a very long while.

‘I have meetings lined up the whole of today,’ he said at last, in a mellowed voice. He was silent again. ‘Anyway, no problem. Come and see me tonight. I’ll be at my hotel.’

If anybody had any doubts before, Cash Daddy was clearly now a very important man in Abia State of Nigeria. Four policemen were standing outside the seventh-floor elevator. There were several more policemen and men in dark suits lining the corridor. And they were not the usual noise-making otimkpu; these ones were fully armed to the toenail. My uncle’s head of security identified and passed me, but I was still stopped and searched three different times before finally reaching his suite. Obviously, Cash Daddy had heeded the warnings of his lawyer about the dangers of Nigerian politics. He was not taking any chances on his enemies sneaking up on him while he slept.

Protocol Officer was sitting with Cash Daddy’s campaign manager in the outer room. He asked me to go inside.

The ticket holder of the NAP gubernatorial ticket was sitting on the bed with a towel wrapped around his waist, shouting into his cellular phone. There were three Indian girls in exotic Indian wear, massaging different parts of his body. Apparently, the local market was no longer sufficient; my uncle was now hiring expatriate genitalia.

‘Kings, what did you say happened to Azuka?’ he asked as soon as he finished his call.

I leaned forward in my chair.

‘Cash Daddy, honestly, I don’t even know where to start.’

‘Make up your mind quickly,’ he replied, and lay flat on his belly in bed. ‘My eyes are almost closing.’

I told him everything, not forgetting to mention my warning to Azuka and all my efforts to trace him so far. All the while I was speaking, Cash Daddy’s eyes were closed and the girls continued moving their hands up and down his body. He remained like that for a long time after I finished. Just when I had concluded that he had fallen asleep, he spoke, still without opening his eyes.

‘Kings, tell me what you think. If a man is standing on the rail track and a train comes and knocks him down. What would you say killed him?’

I did not say anything.

‘Kings.’

‘Yes, Cash Daddy.’

‘What will you say killed him?’

‘Azuka?’

‘Noooo. The man standing on the rail track.’

‘The train?’

He laughed.

‘It’s not the train. It’s his stupidity that killed him. Or his deafness. One of the two. Did he not hear the train coming? I’m disappointed. I’m very, very disappointed. I knew Azuka had bad luck, but I didn’t know he was this stupid. I can’t believe I had such a stupid person working for me. How can he carry his two legs and go to Iran?’

Listening to him was somehow a relief. Cash Daddy was right. Azuka had been stupid, and there I was thinking it was my fault. There I was worrying that this business of ours was more dangerous than I had previously thought, that I might someday fall into unforeseen troubles. It was all about sense and craft. And I was certainly not as stupid as Azuka. Like the spider spinning her web and knowing which threads were safe for her to tread on and which were the sticky ones meant to trap her meals, I was quite a master at the work of my hands. One of the Indian girls started cracking the knuckles of Cash Daddy’s toes.

‘The thing about our business is that one has to be smart,’ Cash Daddy continued. ‘There are mugus in America, Britain, Germany, Russia, Argentina, France, Brazil, Switzerland, Spain, Australia, Canada, Japan, Belgium, New Zealand, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway… Kings, remind me. What other countries?’

‘ Spain.’

‘No. I’ve already mentioned that one.’

‘ Japan.’

‘I’ve also mentioned that one.’

‘Errr… Israel.’

‘Good! Even Israel. There are mugus all over the world. Yet it’s the one in Iran that Azuka went to look for. Doesn’t he know that those ones are not real oyibo people? Their level of mugu is not as high. In fact, they are almost as smart as we are. Me, I’m not afraid of anybody, but I know where to put my leg and where not to put my leg. That’s one of the secrets of my success. Azuka was just stupid.’

He hissed and kept quiet.

‘But, Cash Daddy, isn’t there anything we can do?’

‘Of course, there is. Why not? First thing tomorrow morning, you can go to the Iranian Embassy and tell them you’re looking for one of your brothers who went to Tehran to collect from a mugu. Tell them that both of you do jobs together, that your brother hasn’t yet come back and you’re missing him at the office.’ He paused. ‘Or, you can go all the way to Iran and try and find the mugu. You have the man’s address, don’t you?’

I sat there, gripping the arms of my chair. My head was woozy, my palms were sweaty, my heart was thumping fast. Azuka was gone. Vanished. Just like that. And there was nothing any of us could do about it. Not even Cash Daddy who usually had a solution to every problem.

To think that Azuka had been so gay and confident on his way to doom, like the moth as it dances into the flame. What if disaster suddenly overtook me while I was feeling safe and smug? What if the FBI or Interpol were waiting when next I turned up at an airport? What if a disgruntled mugu somehow traced me back to Nigeria and did my family harm? I could almost feel my hair whitening with fright.

‘Don’t you?’ Cash Daddy repeated.

I jumped.

‘Yes, I do,’ I replied slowly.

‘Good. You can go tomorrow. If you leave for Lagos tomorrow morning, you should be able to catch the first flight to Iran. But before you go, make sure you tell me what story you want me to tell your mother when you don’t come back. Which reminds me. Why have you been having problems with your mother?’

‘What problems?’ I asked, surprised. I had never discussed anything about my mother with him.

‘This woman phoned the other day. What’s her name? That mad woman who left her husband’s house.’

‘Aunty Dimma?’

‘Yes, that’s the one. I couldn’t talk to her, but she left a message with Protocol Officer on my phone. She said your mother is very worried about you, that I should leave you alone to go and find a job. What’s the problem? What’s happening?’

Aunty Dimma and her uninvited opinions yet again. But there was something about the atmosphere, something about the realisation that Azuka might be gone forever and Cash Daddy’s swift change of subject beyond that problem, that made me gush. Like a geyser, I vented everything, complete with my mother refusing my gifts and better medical treatment when she was ill.

‘Sometimes when I go to visit her,’ I concluded, ‘I wonder if all the money I’m making is worth it. I think she was even happier when she had nothing except the hope that I would one day get a job and start taking care of her. Honestly, I don’t know what to do. Sometime ago, I was considering maybe going back to school to do a postgraduate or something. I really don’t know.’

‘There’s a pimple on my cheek,’ Cash Daddy said. ‘Press it.’

‘Sorry?’

‘There’s a pimple on my cheek,’ Cash Daddy said again. ‘Press it.’

I realised that he was talking to his Indian girls. Apparently, none of them expected that talking or listening would be part of the job description. They ignored his instruction.