‘He’s a good man,’ I told my mother when he was out of earshot.
She smiled, but it was a sad smile. ‘Are you ready to tell me what is bothering you?’
I recoiled. ‘Why must something be bothering me?’
‘Can you tell me why you’ve been going about like you have the world on your shoulders? Or why you won’t give Kofi a second glance? He’s come to visit three times and you never look interested in what he has to say. And you won’t tell me what happened to that Jamaican boy that liked you in London.’
It was impossible to hide anything from her. ‘You’ve started talking like Americans; they always want to talk about how they feel,’ I said.
‘What is it?’ she pressed. ‘Is it Emeka?
That was when I burst into tears.
15
White light
All Emeka spoke about in 2004 was how the internet was going to change the world. It was a wave, he said, so propulsive and unremitting that the universe would have no other option but to capitulate.
‘The internet is the next big thing, I’m telling you,’ he said to me for the umpteenth time, gripping the steering wheel as we drove towards the Lagos law school campus. We were on our way back from a cyber cafe where he’d taken us to set up email addresses.
‘I don’t see why I need an email address,’ I complained as he pulled me into the shrouded room with CPUs humming in unison. ‘Who will I email? No one else has one.’
A small bespectacled man tore out time tickets with login details as Emeka handed him the cash needed for an hour for the both of us.
‘Where did you learn how to type so fast?’ I asked. We’d learned to use typewriters in secondary school, but those keys differed in style and weight.
‘I come here often,’ he confessed. ‘I’m a computer science graduate, you know.’
Eventually, I settled on ‘egolove81@yahoo.com’. Years later, I would have to open a more professional sounding email address, but at that moment, it didn’t matter. Emeka sent me an email to mark it, my only personal email for a long while:
Hi, it’s me.
Yours always,
E.
I teased him about how serious sounding his email address was: danielemekaigwe@yahoo.com. He was more foresighted than I would ever be.
He had completed his year of compulsory national service, and despite all his efforts, still hadn’t secured a job.
‘Can you imagine, they wanted me to type letters every day on their new desktop computer. Do they even know what a computer scientist is?’ he’d blustered after his last interview. There were two things I’d always known about Emeka: he never panicked and he never lost his temper. But watching him blow hot that day, I wondered if that was what Nigeria did, took you apart until you were left a varmint just trying to survive.
We stopped to buy fuel for the car his father had loaned him.
‘There aren’t enough tech jobs in the market – the kind of jobs I want,’ he said, as he pulled in front of a pump and turned to speak with the attendant.
‘Maybe you should take that typist job first so you can have something to do. You have to eat,’ I said as we pulled out of the filling station.
‘I don’t want to eat. I want to code, to build, to change the world!’
I laughed. ‘You don’t want to eat ke? It’s only those that eat that can build anything.’
He smiled. ‘You’re laughing? You know this will be you soon, right? Looking for a job like every other graduate in this godforsaken country.’
Emeka was right. Zina and I often talked about what we would do when law school was over. We were more than halfway through and we worried for our future. Law firms were notorious for paying graduates barely enough to survive, and you needed to have certain connections to get your foot through the door. Every now and then, Zina still fantasised about becoming an actress. ‘It’s possible, you know!’ she said.
‘I think what I need to do is to leave this country. See the type of companies being built in America,’ Emeka said. He spoke about America often and with longing now.
‘Why not build something here?’ I said. ‘You can be a pioneer. The market is still young and ripe. If we all leave, what will happen to the country?’
‘Madam Patriotism please, you’ve started again. You don’t even vote. I can believe your mother at least.’
I frowned. ‘That’s unfair. I turned eighteen after the elections in ’99 and last year’s were violent.’
‘I’m just teasing.’ Emeka sighed. ‘Anyways, it’s like Bola Ige’s friend said at his funeral: “Nigeria is worth living for but I’m not so sure that it’s worth dying for.”’
‘I’m pregnant,’ Zina announced a month later in our hostel room. A newspaper was spread in front of us and we’d spent the last hour studying it for any topic that might come up in class discussions; our lecturers insisted on analysing the latest cases and judgements.
Once, during one of these evenings, we stumbled on an article about my father. There was speculation that he was under investigation for corruption by the Financial Crimes Commission for the government contracts he’d been awarded over the years.
‘I’m sure he’ll be fine,’ Emeka assured me, when I pulled the torn-out page from my handbag to show him. ‘He’s bloody Chief Azubuike!’
Though Emeka did not say it, I could tell that he was surprised I would still worry about my father.
‘Zina, I’m not in the mood for your jokes this evening abeg,’ I said, turning a page, nervous that I would come across my father in bold colourful print.
‘I’m serious.’
