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.

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.