‘Tentatively, I would say the sixth,’ my uncle was saying. ‘I’ll go ahead and ask my staff to book your flight and make reservations with the Sheraton.’

He listened. His face showed concern.

‘Mr Moore, I know. But the American Embassy clearly advises that any of its citizens visiting Nigeria should stay in American hotels. It’s for your own safety. You know Nigeria is a dangerous place, especially for a white man. And one thing about me is that I’m a man who never likes to go against the law.’

He listened with deeper concern.

‘I know.’

He listened some more.

‘I know. You said so the last time.’

Suddenly, his face sparkled with a good idea.

‘You know what I can do? I’ll arrange for that same girl you liked very much the last time. How would you like that?’

He smiled. He listened. He laughed.

‘Ah, Mr Moore. That’s one thing I like about you. You know a good thing when you see it. All right, my good friend. We’ll see on the sixth.’

The phone was returned to his pocket.

‘So what are the doctors saying?’ he said to me, as if there had been no international interruption.

‘They said it’s a stroke,’ I replied. ‘They’re still observing him but they said his condition is stable.’

He shook his head and went into an extended speech about how much he hated hospitals; how whenever he was sick, he paid the doctors to come treat him at home instead. How the last time he was in France, he had wanted to do a full medical check-up, but when he was told that they could not carry it out right in his château he had bought in the South of France, he had told the doctors to go and jump into the Atlantic Ocean.

I waited patiently for him to finish. My uncle was a hard man to interrupt.

‘Anyway,’ he concluded, ‘I might still try and do the check-up during my next trip to America. You know, in America, there’s nothing you can’t get as far as you can afford it.’

‘Uncle Boniface,’ I dived in, ‘I’m really sorry to trouble you but I came to ask if you can help us.’

At this point, I wobbled. Asking for money like this felt disgraceful. Even though we had had several relatives suckling from my parents’ pockets when times were good, my father refused to allow us to go soliciting help when times became tough. Today was my very first attempt. I remembered my father lying in hospital and summoned the courage to continue.

‘Uncle Boniface, my father has been in hospital longer than we expected, and the expenses are rising every day. Right now-’

‘What about your father’s 505?’ he interrupted. ‘Do you people still have it?’

I was thrown completely off balance. Did the 505 have anything to do with the issue at hand?

‘No, they sold it almost four years ago,’ I replied slowly.

‘Ah, I remember that car. I used to dream that one day I’ll have my own 505 just like that and hire a white man to be my personal driver.’

He laughed a brief, staccato laugh.

It occurred to me that this change of topic was merely the show of light-heartedness that rich people tend to exhibit when presented with a problem they know money can easily solve. I decided to go with the flow.

‘And the car was still very strong right until they sold it,’ I added with false passion.

‘You think that car was strong?’ He laughed. ‘Honestly, that shows you don’t know anything about cars. Have you seen my brand new Dodge Viper?’

Of course I had never seen his brand new Dodge Viper. Still, he silently looked upon me as if expecting 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 when I’m bringing it. I didn’t run away when she told me they wanted to renovate their house, I didn’t run away when she told me she wanted to open a nursery school. Why should I start running away simply because of an ordinary camcorder? ’