The more he spoke, the more I found myself sitting straighter in the chair. He sounded almost as convincing as the multiplication table.

My father was learned and honest. Yet he could neither feed his family nor clothe his children. My mother was also learned, and her life had not been particularly improved much by education. I thought about my father's pals, most of whom were riding rickety cars . . . about most of my university lecturers with their boogiewoogie clothes and desperate attempts to fight off hunger by selling overpriced handouts to students. Yet Uncle Boniface - our saviour in this time of crisis - had not even completed his secondary school education. However, my father's hallowed words of time past rose up and sounded a piercing siren in my head.

'Uncle Boniface, you can make all the fun you want, but in the long run, even the Bible says that wisdom is better than silver and gold.'

This time, he guffawed so long that it seemed as if the fat on his face might melt and start dribbling onto the floor. He started choking and struggled to catch his breath.

'Ah, you think, me, I don't know Bible myself? Or haven't you heard the story of the poor wise man?'

I had no idea what he was talking about. Was this part of his infinite repertoire of Igbo proverbs, or was this a story from the Bible? Did he mean the story about The Rich Man and Lazarus? As far as I could remember, it never said anywhere that Lazarus was wise.

He saw the confusion on my face.

'Ah, ah? I thought you're the one who went to school. You're the one who knows everything, including Bible? OK, wait.'

Using my knees as leverage, he pushed himself up. He strode confidently to the bookshelf and pulled out a leather-bound Bible. He returned to his seat and dropped the holy book in my lap.

'Open Ecclesiastes,' he instructed.

I did.

'Turn to chapter nine.'

I did.

'Read from verse fourteen to sixteen.'

I obeyed.

'There-'

'No, no, no. You don't need to read it out. Read it to yourself.

Me, I already know it. It's you with all your book that needs to hear it.'

I closed my mouth and read with my eyes only.

There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it: Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man. Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.

Unimpressed, I finished at verse sixteen. Was it not Shakespeare who said that even the devil can cite scripture for his own purpose?

'People like you can go to school and finish your brains on book, but it's still people like us who have the money that feed your families.'

He laughed. His laughter was beginning to gnaw at my nerves.

'Uncle Boniface, please. My father would never approve.'

'Kings, we're talking about money,' he said with irritation. 'Let's leave poor men out of this conversation.'

With that, Uncle Boniface had exceeded the speed limit in his derogatory comments. He had no right to talk about my father in that manner.

'Uncle Boniface, my father might be poor,' I said with rising anger, 'but at least he will always be remembered for his honesty.'

'Is honesty an achievement? Personality is one thing, achievement is another thing altogether. So what has your father achieved? How much money is he leaving for you when he dies? Or is it his textbooks that you'll collect and pass on to your own children?'

I sat staring at this braggart in disbelief. My father once said that people who did not go to school were perpetually angry with those who did. This man was a barrel of bile. An authentic devil in disguise. I decided to leave before a thunderbolt would come and strike the building. I rose and tossed the Bible on the executive desk.

'Uncle Boniface, I'm sorry but if you've finished, I'm going.'

He laughed gently, like an apostle who was under persecution by people who understood very little about his life-transforming message.

'Take your time. Don't be like the grass cutter who likes eating palm nuts but doesn't like climbing palm trees. I might be a very rich man, but from time to time, I can also exercise patience.'

I stomped out of the room and slammed the door behind me. I rushed downstairs and into the bedroom where Charity was still chomping on the chocolate biscuits. She had polished off the ice cream.

'Let's go!' I ordered.

Charity opened her eyes like an astonished kitten. Then she must have seen the urgency in my face because she stood up hurriedly, still clutching the remaining biscuits. The other two girls did not remove their eyes from the MTV screen. I grabbed Charity's arm and fled.

Seventeen

At last, the doctor decided that my father could go home. He said that his condition was stable, that he would regain the use of his muscles and speech gradually, even though it might take as long as two years for him to fully recover. Since we could not afford additional physiotherapy, the hospital educated us on the sort of exercises he could do at home. They also advised us to get him a walking stick.

Two days before he was due back home, my mother called me aside in the hospital.

'Kings, I don't think you should bother coming tomorrow.'

I was surprised.

'Why?'

'I want you to stay home and make sure everything is ready.'

She proceeded on a long list of microscopic instructions, and the next day I ordered Odinkemmelu and Chikaodinaka on a cleaning spree. They went about sweeping and scrubbing, dusting and polishing. I gave Charity some money to go to the market. She stocked up on unripe plantains, vegetables, and some other low-carbohydrate foods. From our parents' bedroom to the living room, Eugene cleared the pathway of obstructing buckets and dusty storage cartons; my father would need as much space as possible to manoeuvre his faulty left limb. Godfrey changed the sheet on their bed and plumped the cushion on my father's chair. I adjusted the television tripod stand so that it would be easier for him to watch without straining his neck. Then I went to the carpenter whose shop was close to my mother's and collected the walking stick I had ordered a few days before.

That night, I found it hard to sleep. For the billionth time, I trembled for my life that no longer included Ola in the picture. I felt as if, like my father, I would have to start learning the basic skills of living all over again. But there was still hope. Ola's mother might allow her to take me back once I moved to Port Harcourt and got a job.

I dug my head under my pillow and forced my mind to be quiet. Tomorrow would be a busy day; I needed all the rest I could get.

When sleep finally came, I dreamt about my father.

I was standing directly in front of him while he was sitting on his hospital bed.

'Kingsley, do you want to be useful to yourself in this world?'

I answered in the affirmative.

'Do you want to make me and your mummy proud?'

Again, my answer was the same.

'Do you want people to know you and respect you wherever you go?'

Yes, I did.

'Do you want to end up selling pepper and tomatoes in Nkwoegwu market?'

At that point, I woke up sweating.

Sometime in the early hours of that morning, my father died.

When I walked into the hospital ward in the morning, that strange instinct that tells a young man that he no longer has a father took over. I knew what had happened without being told. Right from the reception area, the nurses stared at me in a strange way, as if I had strapped a bomb to my abdomen and mistakenly left my shirt unbuttoned. Then I heard my mother.

'Hewu o!' she screamed. 'You people should leave me, let me die!' The sound of her voice seemed to be coming from her intestines instead of from her throat. She was engaged in physical combat with some of the nurses. Whenever she managed to break free from their hold, she flung herself to the floor or bashed her head against the cement wall. She was writhing and gnashing her teeth like someone burning in hell. I stood in silence for a while, watching this apparition. Then I walked past them and opened the door to my father's room. Two male nurses walked in with me and stood within arm's length.

Someone had covered him from head to toe with a white sheet that had a huge circle of ancient brown dirt right in the middle. Interesting that they had sheets for the dead but none for the living. I shifted the cloth aside. I lifted his hand and squeezed his fingers in my palm. They felt cold and stiff. I placed my ear against his chest and listened. I checked for a pulse. Lastly, I lifted his eyelids and stared. My father stared back.

When I finally understood that I would never again hear the shuffling of my father's feet as he came to the dining table, I sat down heavily beside the bed. I gripped my head. The two nurses came closer and stood beside me like sentinels. Then, as with a person in the very last moments of death by drowning, several scenes from my life flashed before me. They came one after another, awakened from the dormitories of my mind like a parade of supernatural characters in a Shakespearean drama.

In the first scene, I was sitting on my father's lap, while my mother was lighting a kerosene lamp. NEPA had taken the light.

'Kings,' my father said suddenly, 'do you know how the tortoise broke his back?'

I had seen the tortoise several times on television. His shell was in patches, as if several pieces had been glued together to make the one. I shook my head. I did not know.

'Once upon a time,' he began, 'there was a famine in the land of the animals.'

The animals decided that they would each kill their mothers and share the meat. They started with Squirrel, and went on to Fox, then Elephant, Antelope, Tiger . . . Finally, it got to Tortoise's turn.

'But Tortoise was very tricky,' my father said.

He decided to hide his own mother. He made a very long rope, used it to climb up into the sky with her, then came back down and hid the rope. Afterwards, he started weeping and wailing. When the animals asked what the matter was, Tortoise told them that his mother had died.

My father mimicked each animal saying 'sorry' to Tortoise.

Every day, Tortoise would bring out the rope from where he had hidden it, and climb up to the sky to give his mother some food to eat. One day, Fox noticed that Tortoise was always going out with some food. He became suspicious and followed sneakily behind him. He watched Tortoise climbing up to the sky.

When Tortoise finished feeding his mother, on his way down, he saw the other animals gathered at the bottom of the rope, waiting for him. In panic, he started climbing back up. The animals noticed that he was trying to escape and started pulling the rope. They pulled so hard that the rope broke and Tortoise crashed to the ground.

'Tortoise landed on his back,' my father concluded. 'Till today, his shell is still cracked in several places.'

The scene faded. Another took its place.

I was having breakfast with my parents. My father went to check who was thumping our front door so loudly on a Saturday morning, like a landlord being owed a year's rent. Five of his sisters poured in, each of whom aspired to a higher standard of obesity than the previous one. As soon as they were seated and all the pleasantries over, the eldest sister began.

'Pauly, we're very unhappy with the way things are. How can we come into our eldest brother's house, and instead of the noise of children running about the place, everywhere is so quiet?'

My father did not respond. The second eldest sister took over.

'Like Ada was saying, we're very worried. You're not getting any younger. You don't have to wait until all your hairs have turned grey and all your teeth have fallen out before you decide to do something about the situation.'

She handed the baton back to Aunty Ada.

'Pauly, we understand that you're busy with your job at the Ministry. You might not have the time to sort things out for yourself, so we've decided to help. We've found two girls in the village that you can choose from. They are chubby and have very strong bodies. We want you to come down to the village with us and have a look at them so that you can decide which one to choose.'

My mother received the pronunciamento with silence. A woman who could not produce children deserved whatever treatment she received from her in-laws. So far, her only saving grace had been that my father was standing firmly by her. My father, on the other hand, reacted with ferocity. He slammed a fist on his knee, sprang up from his chair, and clenched his teeth till the two white rows almost merged into one thin, white line.

'I've heard what you people have to say,' he said. 'Now would you please get up and leave my house.'

He spoke in a low voice that still managed to startle everybody. But Aunty Ada recovered quickly. She jumped out of her chair, stationed her hands on her waist, and poked her face into his nose.

'Paulinus!' she barked. 'It's not today you started allowing this, your education, to confuse you. No matter what, every man needs children to carry his name. Every man! God forbid, but what if something was to happen to Kingsley? That means your name vanish forever. Is that what you want?'

My father roared like King Kong.

'Leave my house right now! All of you . . . get up and leave! Get up and leave! Now!'

Another scene.

I had accompanied my father to inspect the work-in-progress on our village house. The workmen were laying the foundation. Towards evening, he took me on a stroll down the dusty village path. It was the same route he had trekked daily to the mission primary school as a child - barefooted because, back then, children were not allowed to wear shoes.

'This tree is called Orji,' he said, pointing at a tall one with a mighty trunk. 'That's from where we get our kola nuts. This one is Ahaba. It makes the best firewood. This one is called Udara.' He smiled. 'Whenever it was udara season, I and my friends used to wake up much earlier than usual so that we could pick the ripe fruits that had fallen to the ground at night, on our way to school. We always had to wait for the fruits to fall by themselves because they are never sweet when you pluck them.'

Soon, it was time for us to go home. I was disappointed.

'Don't worry,' my father said. 'When our house is completed, we'll come and spend a whole week here so that I can show you the river and the farms and the forests.'

Several other images came and went.

My graduation day. My father was smiling and watching me pose for a photograph. He raised his hand and asked the cameraman to wait. Then he walked up to me and adjusted the tassel on my cap.

'This is a picture you're going to show your children and your grandchildren,' he said. 'You have to make sure that everything looks perfect.'

How was I going to tell Godfrey and Eugene and Charity that their father would never be coming home, that he would never switch off the television abruptly and order them to study? Their father would never witness their matriculation ceremonies into university, tell them what courses to choose or what schools to fill into their forms? I wished I had died instead.

My mother let out another sharp scream. Then I remembered Ola, and that she was not there to hold me. I crumbled into tiny pieces.