The office was vast and uncluttered. There was a refrigerator in a corner, a large mahogany shelf filled with books that looked like they had never been read, a wide mahogany cabinet that housed several exotic vases, various awards that extolled my uncle’s financial contributions to different organisations, and a bronze clock. Stealing most of the attention in the room, a large, framed photograph of Uncle Boniface hung centred on the wall. In it, he was wearing a long-sleeved isi-agu traditional outfit and a george wrapper. He had a beaded crown on his head, a horsetail in his right hand, and a leather fan in his left. Most likely, the photograph was taken during the conferment of a chieftaincy title by some traditional ruler or other who wanted to show appreciation for Uncle Boniface’s contributions to his community. Cash Daddy was seated behind the mahogany desk in the centre of the room, which held three telephone sets, a computer, and a Bible.

‘Good afternoon, Uncle Boniface,’ I said.

‘Kings, Kings,’ he beamed. ‘You’re still the same . . . you haven’t changed at all. I had to rush out like that because a girlfriend of mine is being chased by a student.’

He swivelled his grand leather chair from one 180-degree angle to the other.

‘I heard that he was in her house so I wanted to go and make some noise. Let him know who he’s dealing with. Any child who claims that he knows as many proverbs as his father should be prepared to pay as much tax as his father does. Is that not so?’

He swivelled to the left.

‘Is that not so?’

‘Yes.’

He swivelled to the right.

‘Me, I don’t play games. I went there with my convoy so that the small boy will be afraid and think twice. Me, I don’t believe in film tricks; I believe in real, live action. If he knows what’s good for him, he had better clear off. How are you?’

Before I could answer, he stopped swivelling and screamed.

‘Aaaaargh!’

I was jolted.

‘What is that on your legs?’

Involuntarily, I hopped from one foot to the other and looked downwards. I did not notice anything strange.

‘What’s that you’re wearing on your legs?’

Again, I looked at my feet.

‘Are those shoes?’ He frowned and looked worried. ‘I hope you didn’t tell any of the people outside that you’re my brother? I just hope you didn’t.’

I stared back at him and down at my feet again. The shoes were a gift from Ola for my twenty-second birthday - one of the few items that had come into my possession in a brand new state. As yet, I had never questioned their respectability.

‘Protocol Officer!’ he yelled.

I was jolted again. It sounded as if he were summoning someone from the next street. The man in the outer office appeared.

‘Get this man out of here!’

‘Yes, sir,’ Protocol Officer replied.

My important mission was about to be botched!

‘Uncle Boniface, please,’ I begged. ‘I just came to talk to you about—

‘Get out of my office! Protocol Officer, take this man away.

The man led me out and handed me to one of the dark-suited men, who accompanied me into a bright yellow Mercedes-Benz SLK with number plate ‘Cash Daddy 17’. We drove swiftly to a nearby shop that had a diverse stock of men’s shoe brands. After politely declining several of my escort’s recommendations, I finally made my pick. They had one of the lowest price tags of all the shoes in the shop, but they were probably the most civilised. Unostentatious, respectable, gentlemanly. I slipped my feet into the pair of black Russell & Bromley shoes. Honestly, there are shoes and there are shoes. As I tried them on, it felt as if dainty female fingers were massaging my feet. A revolution had taken place.

My dark-suited escort paid for the goods while I cast my old pair into the sleek box from whence the new ones had come. Back at the office, my uncle inspected my latest appearance and nodded his approval.

‘Didn’t you see how your shoes were pointing up as if they were singing the national anthem? Don’t ever come to my office again looking like that. A fart becomes a stench only when there are people around. You can afford to be wearing those types of shoes in other places but you can’t wear them around me. Do you know who I am?’

I apologised profusely and promised that I would never try it again.

‘Have you had something to drink?’

‘No, I’m OK, thank you.’

Suddenly, a strange tune pierced the air. My uncle pulled out a metallic handset from his jacket pocket and looked at the screen before answering.

‘Speak to me!’ he bellowed.

I admired the cellular phone shamelessly. Mere men could not afford any of these satellite devices; they were the exclusive possession of Nigeria’s rich and prosperous.

‘See you later!’ he yelled and hung up.

He indicated for me to sit in one of the chairs in front of his desk.

‘How are your parents?’

‘My mother is fine,’ I replied. ‘She asked me to greet you. But my father’s in hospital. That’s the main reason why I came to see you.’

His face crumpled with concern.

‘Hospital? What’s wrong with him?’

‘He went into a coma a few weeks ago. He’s been on admission at the Government Hospital.’

His cellular rang again. He cleared his throat violently after looking at the screen, then allowed the phone to ring some more before answering.

‘Hello? Ah! Mr Moore!’ he said with excitement. ‘I’m really glad you called! I was just about to ring you now! I just finished speaking with the minister for petroleum. In fact, I just hung up when my phone rang and it turned out to be you.’

He listened briefly.

‘Calm down, calm down. I understand. But the minister has assured me that you will definitely get that oil licence. He just gave me his word right now on the phone. And one thing about the minister, he might be slow but once he gives his word, that’s it. There’s no going back.’

He listened. My uncle looked totally committed to the conversation. Perhaps it was the minister he had been chatting so familiarly with a short while ago? Perhaps the phone call with the minister had happened when I went out for the shoes?

‘Right now, I’m not too sure when the meeting will hold,’ he continued. ‘You know the president is currently out of the country so a lot of big things are being put on hold.’

It had been in all the newspapers. His Excellency had tripped on the Aso Rock Villa marble staircase, dislocated his ankle, and had to be flown out to Germany for treatment. There had been a time when things like that did not make any sense to me. But with my recent intimate experience of our hospitals, I did not blame anyone who swam across the Atlantic to get treated for a hangover.

‘Tentatively, I would say the sixth,’ my uncle was saying. ‘I’ll go ahead and ask my staff to book your flight and make reservations with the Sheraton.’

He listened. His face showed concern.

‘Mr Moore, I know. But the American Embassy clearly advises that any of its citizens visiting Nigeria should stay in American hotels. It’s for your own safety. You know Nigeria is a dangerous place, especially for a white man. And one thing about me is that I’m a man who never likes to go against the law.’

He listened with deeper concern.

‘I know.’

He listened some more.

‘I know. You said so the last time.’

Suddenly, his face sparkled with a good idea.

‘You know what I can do? I’ll arrange for that same girl you liked very much the last time. How would you like that?’

He smiled. He listened. He laughed.

‘Ah, Mr Moore. That’s one thing I like about you. You know a good thing when you see it. All right, my good friend. We’ll see on the sixth.’

The phone was returned to his pocket.

‘So what are the doctors saying?’ he said to me, as if there had been no international interruption.

‘They said it’s a stroke,’ I replied. ‘They’re still observing him but they said his condition is stable.’

He shook his head and went into an extended speech about how much he hated hospitals; how whenever he was sick, he paid the doctors to come treat him at home instead. How the last time he was in France, he had wanted to do a full medical check-up, but when he was told that they could not carry it out right in his château he had bought in the South of France, he had told the doctors to go and jump into the Atlantic Ocean.

I waited patiently for him to finish. My uncle was a hard man to interrupt.

‘Anyway,’ he concluded, ‘I might still try and do the check-up during my next trip to America. You know, in America, there’s nothing you can’t get as far as you can afford it.’

‘Uncle Boniface,’ I dived in, ‘I’m really sorry to trouble you but I came to ask if you can help us.’

At this point, I wobbled. Asking for money like this felt disgraceful. Even though we had had several relatives suckling from my parents’ pockets when times were good, my father refused to allow us to go soliciting help when times became tough. Today was my very first attempt. I remembered my father lying in hospital and summoned the courage to continue.

‘Uncle Boniface, my father has been in hospital longer than we expected, and the expenses are rising every day. Right now—’

‘What about your father’s 505?’ he interrupted. ‘Do you people still have it?’

I was thrown completely off balance. Did the 505 have anything to do with the issue at hand?

‘No, they sold it almost four years ago,’ I replied slowly.

‘Ah, I remember that car. I used to dream that one day I’ll have my own 505 just like that and hire a white man to be my personal driver.’

He laughed a brief, staccato laugh.

It occurred to me that this change of topic was merely the show of light-heartedness that rich people tend to exhibit when presented with a problem they know money can easily solve. I decided to go with the flow.

‘And the car was still very strong right until they sold it,’ I added with false passion.

‘You think that car was strong?’ He laughed. ‘Honestly, that shows you don’t know anything about cars. Have you seen my brand new Dodge Viper?’

Of course I had never seen his brand new Dodge Viper. Still, he silently looked upon me as if expecting an answer.

‘No, I haven’t.’

He laughed. The same brief, staccato laugh.

‘If you see that car . . . turn the key in the ignition, then you’ll know what a car really is.’

Then he told me much, much more about his cars. About the ones he used only twice a year and the ones he used once a week. He told me about his frequent trips abroad and how he planned to buy a private jet; about how he was going to take flying lessons so that he could fly his private jet by himself. I sat there, looking and listening without being allowed to contribute a word. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a man who loved the sound of his own voice.

I stifled a yawn.

The intercom on his desk bleeped. He stopped talking and leaned forward to push a button.

‘Speak to me!’

‘Cash Daddy, World Bank is here.’

The lady’s announcement was punctuated by the bursting open of the office door. Cash Daddy sprang up like a jack-in-the-box.

‘Heeeeeeeeeeee!’ he shouted.

‘Cash Daddy!’ the man who stormed in yelled. ‘It’s just a matter of cash!’

‘Bank! Bank!’ Cash Daddy hailed back. ‘World Bank International! ’

This was obviously one of Cash Daddy’s friends who also suffered from elephantiasis of the pocket. He was wearing a cream suit, a diamond-studded wristwatch, several sparkly chains around his neck, and yellow alligator-skin shoes with white, blue, pink, green, and purple strips across the front. He was holding a gold-plated walking stick and had a unique variety of bowler hat sitting on his head. Both men slapped hands, hugged shoulders, exchanged pleasantries, hailed each other’s nicknames several times. Finally, World Bank perched himself on the edge of Cash Daddy’s desk, with one of his colourful shoes on the seat beside me and the other dangling close to my shin. The navy-blue-suited young man who had accompanied him stood a respectful few paces behind.

‘This is my brother,’ Cash Daddy said, gesturing towards me.

‘Good afternoon, sir,’ I said.

‘Really! No wonder. He looks like you.’

‘Me?’ Cash Daddy replied with horror. ‘God forbid. How can you say he looks like me? Can’t you see how his neck is hanging like a vulture’s neck?’

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.

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.’