I Do Not Come to You by Chance - By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani Page 0,1
Kingdom, was now working with the government in Enugu, and was returning to Umuahia for his annual leave. As soon as his letter arrived, Aunty went about broadcasting the news to all the neighbours. Most of them knew the expected guest from reputation. They said he was good-looking. They said he always wore shoes, even when he was just sitting inside the house reading. They said he behaved like a white man, that he spoke English through his nose and ate with a fork. Some even swore that they had never known him to fart.
When Engineer turned up in his white Peugeot 403, Augustina, Aunty, Teacher, and the five children were dolled up in their Sunday best and waiting on the veranda. As soon as Augustina caught that first glimpse of him, she decided that even if Engineer’s steps had not been leading to their courtyard, she would have crawled over broken glass, swum across seven oceans, and climbed seven mountains to see him that day. He was as handsome as paint. His back was straight, his hands stayed deep inside his pockets, and his steps were short and quick as if he had an urgent appointment at the end of the world. Anybody passing him on the way to the stream could have mistaken him for an emissary from the spirit world on special assignment to the land of mere mortals.
After lunch, they all sat in the living room. Engineer crossed his right leg over his left knee and reeled out tales of the white man’s land.
‘There are times when the sun doesn’t shine,’ he said. ‘The weather is so cold that even the plants are afraid to come out of the ground. That’s why their skin is so white. Our own skin is much darker because the sun has smiled too long on us.’
They opened their mouths and opened their eyes, and looked at themselves from one to the other.
‘During those times, the clothes they wear are even thicker than the hairs on a sheep. And if they don’t dress that way, the cold can even kill.’
They opened their mouths and opened their eyes, and looked at themselves from one to the other.
‘The way their streets are, you can be walking about for miles and miles and you won’t even see one speck of sand. In fact, you can even wear the same clothes for more than one week and they won’t get dirty.’
They opened their eyes and opened their mouths, and looked at themselves from one to the other. If anybody else had narrated these stories, they would have known immediately that he had spent far too much time in the palm wine tapper’s company.
‘That’s why education is so important,’ Engineer concluded. ‘These people have learnt how to change their world to suit them. They know how to make it cold when the weather is too hot and they know how to make it hot when the weather is too cold.’
He paused and leaned back in his chair. Then he beamed the starlight on someone else.
‘So how have the children been doing in school?’ he asked.
Teacher shifted in his seat to adjust the extra weight that pride had suddenly attached to him.
‘Oh, very, very well,’ he replied. ‘All of them made very high scores in Arithmetic.’
Engineer smiled.
‘Go on . . . bring your exercise books. Show him,’ Teacher said.
The children trooped out like a battalion of soldier ants, the eldest leading the way. They returned in the same order, each holding an orange exercise book. Engineer perused each book page by page and smiled like an apostle whose new converts were reciting the creed. Finally, he got to the last child, who was about four years old. As soon as he held out his exercise book, his mother leaned over and landed a stout knock on the little boy’s head.
‘How many times have I told you to stop giving your elders things with your left hand?’ she glared. ‘Next time, I’m going to use a knife to cut it off.’
Engineer jumped in.
‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘it’s not really the boy’s fault if he uses his left hand sometimes.’
‘Children are born foolish,’ Teacher replied sorrowfully. ‘If one doesn’t teach them properly from an early age, they grow up and continue that way. He’ll soon learn.’
‘No, no, no . . . What I’m saying is that the way his brain is arranged, he uses his left hand to do things that other people normally do with their right hands.’