I Do Not Come to You by Chance - By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani Page 0,41

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