“Who are you?” he asks. “How dare you talk to me about my job?”
I do not know what to say. Or maybe I cannot will the words in my mouth to come out. Stella Ojukwu snorts with laughter, as though she has just stumbled upon my predicament. It seems as though she’s been holding up the laughter for long, and now has found a chance to laugh it out.
It takes me several gulps of air before I find my voice again.
“People are suffering in this country,” I say, unsure of how the matter has become about people suffering in this country. “They will want to know what you’re doing with the mandate they have given you.”
Chief Elugbe raises his hand and I think he is going to bang his palm on the table and yell, this is unacceptable, I can’t take it! Instead, he leans forward and orders me, as if I were a mere servant, to slice and serve the cake. I think he is joking. Me? Slice and serve the cake? Why? I feel like laughing. But this man stares at me in disdain, his watermelon eyes piercing me, as he waits for me to do as he has commanded.
I raise my chilly glass to my parting lips and take a mouthful of the wine. The alcohol is fireworks in my mouth as I swirl it around. When I swallow, the drink punches the walls of my throat. It feels as though my throat has been hung out on the line under the full glare of the sun to dry. My eyes water.
Chief Elugbe does not look at me when he repeats himself.
Emboldened by the new wine, I cast my incredulous eyes on him and say in a calm, clear voice,
“That’s none of my business here.”
He stares at Fide Okolo, his rubbery lips slightly moving. It seems as if his tongue is molding the right words in his mouth. Fide Okolo gulps down his glass, calls on Innocent, and asks him to slice and serve the cake.
At once, I feel relieved.
Chief Elugbe looks at Fide Okolo, then at Innocent. “No,” he says, shaking his head. “I want her to do it. I want her to serve the cake.” He strikes his chest. “I’m an honorable minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. She must do as I have said.”
I glance at Fide Okolo to see if I should be nervous. But his eyes are on his empty glass. As Innocent steps back, Chief Elugbe turns to me.
“You,” he says. “Serve the cake.”
The room becomes hot and airless even though there are two running air conditioners fitted to the opposite white walls. I stare at him and make no move but tap a finger on my glass.
“I said… slice and serve the cake!” he shouts.
I feel a sudden nervousness engulf me, but I do not move. I want to fling my glass at him and tell him I for one did not come here to act as a servant.
Fide Okolo does not speak or act further. He must have decided that the battle is mine, not his, to fight. Honorable Onwurah also says nothing. I can tell that Stella Ojukwu is enjoying this. She clears her throat and excuses herself, faking a phone call.
Chief Elugbe does not look away from me. My heart thumps. It feels as though a band of men is drumming and marching right inside my chest. I want to get up and leave. I press my heels hard on the floor to keep me from standing. My ankles start to wobble, so I stay.
I must have looked forlorn for Fide Okolo to signal to me to go to my room.
*
In the room, I pace back and forth, indignant at the way Chief Elugbe has treated me. I try to ignore the feeling, but I cannot because no one has treated me like that before. Perhaps I should get back to the party and tell Chief Elugbe that, in fact, he does not deserve to hold a public office. In my head, I can hear Stella Ojukwu’s laughter. I know I’m imagining it, but I see her laughing heartily now.
Somehow, the thought of my husband enters my head. I reach for my phone to see if he is online. I wonder what he will say about the whole experience.
“Learn to close your eyes to certain things,” is what he will say. “It’s true we need a change for the better. But you can’t change the entire world, I tell you. You’re not Jesus Christ.”
“The change you want to see in the world,” I will say to him, “begins with you and me.”
I connect to a network. My husband is offline. It is 11:19 PM. He won’t be asleep by now, so I text him on WhatsApp,
So what were you saying before I hung up?
I stare at my phone, expecting his reply. Maybe he will apologize to me and I will use the opportunity to tell him about how the party went. Soon the message is marked “delivered” and “read,” but there is no reply. I toggle between the phone airplane mode and data connection, thinking it has to be the network. I realize there is actually no reply as the network is excellent. I suddenly feel silly, texting that to my husband, and my sense of guilt is crushing.
The door opens and Fide Okolo comes in.
“What were you trying to prove there?” he asks.
I stare at him.
“You know this shouldn’t have happened at my birthday party,” he says. He comes closer to me. “But where were you going with that drama?”
His face is as blank as the fresh leaf of a drawing book, so vacant I refrain from looking into his eyes.
“Are you drunk?” he asks.
“What?”
“Were you drunk?” he says. “What were you really after?”
I’m silent.
“The invitation was for you to come and celebrate with me, nothing more,” he says, visibly upset. “Nothing more,” he pauses and then turns away from me to leave. As he walks out, I hear him say he will see me in the morning. Or maybe he says he will not see me in the morning.
I stare at the closed door.
*
When I wake up in the morning, the time is 7:49 AM. I rise immediately, go to the window, and pull the curtains. The sun, already up, filters through, giving my skin a sweet burning sensation. I look out and find that only one jeep is parked in the compound. It has to be the Prado that picked me up from the train station. The other taint-screened Prados are gone and probably Fide Okolo, along with them.
My original plan was to ask Fide Okolo to recommend me for the teaching position at Nsukka. Now, I guess my chance is ruined. I dial his number and hope he answers the phone. After ringing him twice and him not picking the calls, I wash my face and go outside.
There is no sign of anyone outside, so I go around the house to look for Innocent. In the backyard, I find Stella Ojukwu sitting in the garden, under a Royal Palm tree, painting her fingernails. She looks glamorous, wearing a jeans miniskirt and a large darkish polo shirt with small white dots and squiggles in front saying something I can’t yet make out.
As I approach her, I try to coordinate myself, especially to hide my anxiety over the event of last night. The moment I get close enough to her, she looks up and smiles at me, her dark false eyelashes fluttering.
“You look worried,” she says. There is some sort of calm in her voice. “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing at all,” I say, flashing a smile. “Good morning.”
She sniggers. “A good morning indeed.”
“I guess the minister has gone out,” I say as she resumes work on her fingernails. “Where is Innocent?”
She does not look at me. Instead, she raises her left hand to her face to inspect her fingernails. Then as if she just now gets my question, she says,
“How am I supposed to know that? Am I God?”
I pretend I don’t mind. “Okay,” I say, my eyes glazing over.
I turn around and walk back inside to prepare for my journey home.
*
Fide Okolo starts calling my line when I’m on my way out of the guest room. When I answer the call, he speaks profusely, “I’m so sorry that I had to leave without seeing you. I had no idea that my presence would be needed urgently at the presidential villa. You see, it is the nature of this job,” he pauses. I’m listening. “Why don’t you come over this weekend with your husband? I will be very much available to make it up to you. I’m part of the entourage flying with the president to Austria and Tokyo and Denmark and we will be back in the country on Friday. Tell me, would you like—”
I end the call before he is done with his ostentatious speech. My head feels heavy, full of things I want to discard but cannot. I’m so fed up I will scream.
I’m supposed to call my husband immediately to let him know I’m returning home, for him to get ready to pick me up when I reach Enugu in the evening. But I know he will yell at me and maybe ask me if I got the job—tell me, did your classmate, the honorable minister, offer you a job?—and so I decide it is better to find my way home and have him yell at me just once.
The weight in my head also patches up around my temples. My head aches. I feel like crying, as though crying will erase the pain.
*
Stella Ojukwu is still under the tree, now plucking her eyebrows with tweezers, when I come outside, all set to go. I see Innocent emerging from the boys’ quarters to meet me. I enquire on the driver’s whereabouts to ride me to the train station. And before he can answer me, Stella Ojukwu giggles.
I turn to glare at her.
“You mean the jeep over there?” she asks, tossing her hair this way and that way. “That jeep na my baby o! That’s my car.”
My breathing slows. I give her a slight, sad smile but I feel like a loser. I turn around to face Innocent, who now looks like someone whose face is smeared with shit, and he is suffering it for my sake.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll take a taxi.”
“Oh, I can drive you to the station if you want,” Stella Ojukwu says.
I turn around to meet her gaze, flabbergasted. “What did you just—”
“I say make I drop you for train station. Na fight? Abi, you need hearing aid?”
“Thank you, but I can get a taxi,” I blurt, feeling stupid.
“That’s nonsense!” she says. “I’m heading that way. Just let me get my hair done quickly and we’ll be off, please?”
As she watches me, waiting for me to make up my mind, I read the words emblazoned on her polo shirt: Me I Be Proud Naija. Reflecting on those words, my lips move in a smile. It is remarkable of her, I think, for here is a woman, who is supposed to be distraught like me about one or two things wrong with this country, wearing her love for it.
She catches my eyes on her chest and smiles.
“I want to look good and sexy for Abuja,” she says, “Could you wait while I hurry up?”
My phone beeps. I unlock it and see Fide Okolo’s text message. In it, he says I’ve currently become the deputy director of the public communication department and I’m to start work officially next week Monday. I’m so excited I almost throw away my bag, shout hallelujah, and burst into song accompanied by vigorous dance moves.
“Are you going to wait for me?” Stella Ojukwu asks.
“Ah, yes!” I say, smiling, “I’m waiting.”
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