Free Voice of America by E.C. Osondu Page B

said, chuckling and sounding relieved.
    I began looking forward to Uncle Dele’s return to America. He had already promised me that as soon as he got back, he would start sending me the latest clothes and magazines, and as soon as I was done with my secondary school education, he was going to help me get into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
    Uncle Dele came back from the embassy looking glum. He stood by the window, smoking stick after stick of Benson and Hedges cigarettes and staring into the distance. When Dad came back that evening, I heard them conversing.
    “They denied all of us visas.”
    “I thought you said the arrangement was foolproof, that the interview was a mere formality.”
    “The consular officials asked us to play for them. We played, and they seemed to be enjoying the music, but they said they could not give us a visa. They said it was wintertime in America, and that our promoter should know that people donot attend outdoor musical shows in wintertime. They said we should reapply in the summer.”
    “What about the money you paid? Is the promoter going to refund it?”
    “He says he will, but don’t worry, I am already on to something else. Someone I met at the embassy says there is some other way of getting into America, and he is asking for only fifty thousand naira.”
    “Dele, you are spending money like water. Like I said before, I can get you into the University of Lagos. In a couple of years you will be done, and then you can get a job with the National Petroleum Corporation and settle down and marry so my late brother’s name will not be lost.”
    Uncle Dele told me of his new scheme to get back to America through the Cayman Islands.
    “From the Cayman Islands, America is just a spitting distance. I will get a passport from the island and get into America with it. I will not even need a visa. It is so easy, I wonder why I had not thought of this myself.”
    “Since it is so easy, maybe I can join you for the trip,” I told Uncle Dele.
    “No, you don’t need to go with me—just read your books, and when your time comes, you will come to America like a prince.”
    “Thanks, Uncle Dele—I know you will do your best for me, but promise you will not forget me when you go back this time.”
    “C’mon, my man, you have my promise—now run along and bring your mathematics textbook, and I will teach the easiest way of solving the quadratic equation.” He had an easy manner of teaching, and all things became easy as soon as he explainedthem. We would end our sessions with him smiling and saying to me, “If your teachers ask you whose formula you used to get your answers, tell them it is Uncle Dele’s formula.”
    The trip to America by way of the Cayman Islands did not work for some obscure reason, and Uncle Dele became withdrawn.
    One evening, the moneylender’s black Peugeot station wagon pulled up in front of our house and parked. The moneylender, who was a potbellied man with a pockmarked face, got out and asked for Uncle Dele. The moneylender’s name was Maikudi, and he was known in our neighborhood for his unorthodox ways of getting his money back from debtors. Whenever his car was parked in front of anybody’s house, it meant the person’s debt was overdue. On his way out, he would be clutching a goat if the money owed was not much; if it was a lot, he went away with a young boy or a young girl, one of the children of his debtor. He had a bakery, a block factory, a poultry farm, and a large cassava and yam farm. He would put the children to work until their parents paid up. He had many wives, and some of them were girls whose parents could not pay what they owed.
    My dad came out and greeted him. He offered him a drink, and Maikudi accepted. He drank a glass of the beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and belched in a satisfied manner.
    “What brings you to a poor man’s house like mine?” my dad said, smiling nervously.
    “It is your son Dele I