'Congratulations,' my father said, shaking my hand.

'Congratulations,' my mother said, giving me a hug.

'Congratulations,' Ola said, placing her hands on my shoulders and giving me a holy kiss on the cheek.

Ola had worn a smart blue skirt suit which my mother later told me was too short.

'Congratulations,' Charity said, hugging me around the waist and refusing to let go.

'Congratulations,' Godfrey and Eugene said, with their eyes on the coolers of food that would soon be opened.

'Mr Chemical Engineer,' Aunty Dimma said, locking me inside her arms and pecking my cheek.

We ate. Some people I knew and many people I did not came round, and my mother dished out some food from the coolers for them. The total expenditure for the day's celebration had seriously head-butted my parents' budget and broken its two legs, but they did not mind. My graduation from university was supposed to be the dawn of a new day in their lives.

Fortunately, things were different this time around. I had made sure of that. Finances were the last thing my family had had to worry about while preparing for Charity's matriculation.

We would never have found Charity in that crowd. There were human heads everywhere. After the ceremony, I and my mother and Aunty Dimma proceeded to the designated meeting place by the car park and waited. It was not long before Charity joined us. She and my mother and Aunty Dimma did their hugging routine.

'Hmm . . . Charity, you're now a big chick!' Aunty Dimma said. 'You look so beauuuuutiful.'

'Thank you,' Charity said and blushed.

In her dark green River Island skirt suit and black Gucci heels, Charity definitely looked sharp. I had purchased the top-to-toe outfit specially for this day. No stupid man would ever jump out of the hedges and turn my sister's head upside down because of Gucci.

'Did you people see me?' Charity asked.

We had seen her sitting amongst the matriculating students, but at the end of the ceremony, she had disappeared amid the sea of tasseled caps.

Eugene could not make it. He had exams coming up soon and the nine-hour journey from Ibadan would have been too much of a distraction.

Godfrey eventually arrived. Accompanied by three of his friends. Dressed like a drug baron. Pierre Cardin shirt unbuttoned almost to his navel, white Givenchy, silver-capped shoes, and texturised hair. Two gold chains dangled from his neck, a gold bracelet danced around his wrist. No wonder he was constantly running out of pocket money and ringing me to send some more. Often, I succumbed. I wanted to be as much of a father to him - to them all - as possible. I wanted to be there for them in ways that my father had never been there for me. The few clothes I had in school - the ones that were not gifts from Ola - had come from the 'bend-down' boutiques, where different grades of secondhand clothing that the people in Europe and America no longer wanted to wear were displayed on waterproof sheets on the ground and sold. I made sure that my siblings wore the latest styles and the best quality.

'Sorry I'm late,' Godfrey apologised. 'Our car had to keep stopping because one of the passengers had a running stomach. If I had known, we would have just paid for all the seats and had a taxi to ourselves. Kings, where are the things you bought for me?'

'I wasn't able to do much shopping on this trip,' I said.

'You didn't buy the CD?'

'I really didn't have the time.'

He frowned.

'Kings, that CD is the hottest thing right now. They haven't yet started selling it in Nigeria so just a few people have it.'

'I'm sorry. But don't worry, I'm travelling again soon.'

We posed for several photographs. Godfrey put the camcorder to work and attracted quite a few stares in the process. For the first time in a very long time, I missed having my father around. I could perfectly imagine him on a day like this. Proud, emotional, optimistic. Matriculation was not such a grand event as graduation from university so my mother had not done any cooking for today. But Charity had made me promise that I would take her and her friends out to a fancy restaurant. It was Godfrey who had given her the suggestion.

Charity went off to find her friends. My cellular rang. It was Protocol Officer.

'Kings, Cash Daddy said I should tell you to look out for him on TV on Monday night. He's appearing on Tough Talk.'

'Oh, really?'

'He said you should also make sure everyone in the office watches it. It's at 10 p.m.'

'OK, I will.'

I noticed Aunty Dimma staring at me in a funny way, as if she had been trying to read my lips. As soon as Protocol Officer hung up, my aunty miraculously found herself by my side.

'Kings,' she said quietly, 'what are you doing the Friday after next?'

'I'm not sure. Why?'

'I want to invite you to a special programme we're having in my church. It's a one-day deliverance session.'

'Deliverance from what?'

'All types. Deliverance from enemies, from your past . . .' She paused. 'Deliverance from demonic influences and evil spirits.'

'Ah. Aunty, I just remembered. I don't think I'll be free on that day. I have some things I planned to do.'

'You can still try and make it. Honestly, it'll be worth it.'

I promised her that I would try. I knew that I would not. Charity returned with her friends. About seventeen of them.

'Aren't they too many?' Aunty Dimma rebuked Charity in a red-hot whisper.

'Aunty,' I cut in, 'there's no problem.'

My pocket was more than equal to the task.

Thirty-four

The American Embassy officer scrutinised my documents. She scanned the pages of my passport and saw evidence of my frequent trips to and from the UK and the Schengen region. She saw written evidence that I had my own importing and exporting business. She observed my bulging bank accounts and knew that I could not be planning to remain illegally in her country, flipping burgers in McDonald's or bathing corpses in a morgue.

Still, the scowling brunette on the other side of the glass partition grilled me belligerently, as if it was my fault that she had found herself in such a lousy job.

'What are you going to the United States to do?'

'Let me see your tax clearance certificate.'

'Fold it!'

'How long do you plan to stay?'

'Why aren't you going with your wife and children?'

'Don't interrupt me when I'm talking!'

'Have you ever been involved in any terrorist activity?'

'How do I know you're planning to return to Nigeria?'

After about forty-five minutes, the inquisition was over. The Gestapo officer instructed me to return to the embassy by 2 p.m. the following day for collection of my stamped passport. Hurrah. My journey from Aba to Lagos had not been in vain.

'Thank you very much,' I replied. It was always best to repay evil with good. Besides, it could not have been any easier for Columbus; what right did the rest of us have to complain?

'Congratulations, my brother,' several panic-stricken visa seekers mumbled as I walked past.

I left the building elated. An American neuroscientist was very willing to invest in a Ministry of Education contract, and this new mugu sounded like another long-term dollar dispenser. The packaging was getting to a stage where I would need to schedule a meeting with him in Amherst, Massachusetts.

I walked past some other embassies on my way to the car park at the end of the crescent. Even the embassy of Bulgaria gates were besieged with long queues. The US and the UK - and perhaps Ireland - were understandable, but why on earth would anyone want to run away from Nigeria to Bulgaria? As I reached the car, I heard someone shouting my name.

'Kings! Kings!'

I turned. In that instant, I forgot all the sinister plots I had devised in murderous daydreams. All the diabolical strategies I had composed in midnight moments of pain and anger vanished from my mind. I beamed like a little boy lost who had just been found by his mother.

I ran screaming towards the sweet sound of my name.

'Ola! Ola!'

We rushed into each other's arms. We hugged like old friends. I looked her over from head to toe.

'Wow! Ola, you look . . .'

I stopped. She was as fat as a dairy cow. There were light green stretch marks tattooed into her swollen cleavage.

'You look lovely,' I said, and that was the truth.

'I had two babies, that's what happened,' she replied with a satisfied smile. 'You, how are you?'

'I'm fine.' I could feel myself still grinning stupidly. 'Honestly, you're the very last person I imagined I would bump into today. I just came for my American visa interview.'

She nodded.

'I came to renew our British visas - me and my children.'

'Wow. Ola, it's so good to see you. Why don't we sit somewhere and have a proper chat. I hope you're not in a hurry.'

She agreed. We walked around in search of somewhere to hang out. The complex housed a number of shops, business centres, and eating places, but most of the restaurants were dingy - obviously designed with only the waiting drivers in mind. Suddenly I remembered that times had changed. Ola and I did not have to put ourselves through this.

'Why don't we go somewhere nice in town?' I asked. 'We could go to Double Four or Chocolat Royal. Or wherever else you want.'

I was bold to throw the offer open. Unlike those days, now I could afford it.

'No, I'm OK with anywhere here,' she said and smiled. 'I'm not that hungry, anyway.'

We chose the least dingy restaurant of them all. The air smelt of a mixture of fresh fish and locust beans. Large and small flies buzzed and perched about with alarming sovereignty and audacity. A sweaty, matronly waitress who looked like she knew all the flies by name galumphed to our table. Eating anything in that place would have been like signing a treaty for the invasion of my digestive system.

'I'll have a Coke,' I said.

'Diet Coke for me,' Ola said.

I handed the matron the highest denomination naira note I had in my wallet. She grumbled and dug into her belly region in search of some change.

'You can keep the change,' I said, loud enough for Ola to hear just in case she had been distracted.

'Thank you, Oga!' the matron beamed. 'Oga, thank you very much!'

'Kings, Kings,' Ola joked. 'You're now a big boy.'

I smiled. The drinks arrived immediately, served directly from the bottles, with a suspicious-looking straw sticking out from the neck.

'But Kings, if anybody had told me that somebody like you would ever do 419,' Ola continued, 'honestly I would have said it's a lie.'

Strangely, this was the first time someone who knew me, someone whom I did not work with, had told me to my face that I was a scammer. Nobody ever mentioned it. Even my mother, despite all her misgivings, was still in the realm of hunting for euphemisms. There was something emancipating about the way Ola had put the elephant right on top of the table. I would not have to spend our time together being furtive.

'I wonder who's been telling you these things,' I said with mock shock.

Ola laughed.

'How won't I hear? You know Umuahia is a small place. When a maggot sneezes, everybody hears, including people outside the town. Anyway, I hear you're still humble and level-headed. Unlike many of these other loud 419 guys.'

I sniggered.

'Ola, the things that change us are quite different. I always find it funny when people say that money makes people proud. If you check it, poor people are some of the proudest people in this world.'

My father, for example.

Ola kept quiet. Then she nodded.

'I agree with you, you know. Poor people can be soooo proud. There was a time back in school . . . that time I joined the Feed the Nation people . . . I don't know if you remember?'

Like almost everything else about her, I remembered it clearly.