I felt sad tearing it down again, “Although come to think of it, they might not be so nice. You know, you’re like someone who’d fit right in over there. They might just decide that you’d be too comfortable there and not come back.”

     “Don’t,” Dreadlocks pleaded.

     I continued, “But it’s true. All you need are a few deep tribal marks, an Agbada and a bush accent. With that they know the cold will quickly send you scurrying back.” We all laughed. Tearing, holding our sides and drawing attention to ourselves. This was something Nosa had warned me against. He had said on the drive down, “You know these Americans. They might be watching everyone in there with the surveillance cameras. No need to talk to anyone. Just wait for your turn and leave.” Lovable idiot. Nosa spent too much time watching that Jack Bauer TV series. He had fried his brains paranoid.

#

     We found seats. They had started calling in the non-immigrant visa applicants. I was in batch six, number eighteen. I sat between my new friends. Bini-boy had actually been born in Warri. His father was a Shell retiree and he had been visiting the states on and off for the last ten years. Bini-boy’s last visit was in early 2001. He said he saw the significance. This was his first application for a visa to the US since September of that year. But he was not just visiting. Bini-boy was going to school. He had admission for a University in Texas and he had paid his school fees. I assured him he was going to get his visa. I was not so sure about my chances. What made me different from guys like Chuka? What was I apart from an unmarried, thirty year old Nigerian Doctor? What was I? I was the scion of a banking family. I was the first son of my dad. A typically proud Bini dad who would not hesitate to disown me if he heard I disgraced the family name by going abroad to wash corpses like ‘other gutter folk’. At least I would get my chance to explain to the interviewing officer why I knew I would come back. I and my panel of discussants had veered away from visa troubles and were on our preference for Naija hip-hop in comparison to the bling-bling American version, when my batch was called. My new friends said good bye to me with shouts of good luck and I joined up my batch of twenty in front of an African-American who spat into the mike as he spoke to us from across the sound proof and obviously bullet proof glass. He was very difficult to understand: “Shhyou vbwill vbwait on shzthese sheats vbuntil vbyou’re sscalled.”

 #

     We waited and we were called into the inner room. I could barely see now. It was twelve p.m. and I was hungry. We took out places on the array of musical chairs I had seen earlier. The freckled oyibo was talking to a short girl, “Why do you want to study nursing in the US.”

     Stupid question, I thought, not fully grasping what I was seeing as the Nigerian answered, “I’ve always wanted to study nursing and I know that the best place for that will be in America.” Correct girl, I almost screamed in encouragement. You tell her quickly so she can finish with you and let you into the inner sanctum for the proper interview.

     “What does your father do?” What was wrong with this oyibo, now? Let this girl go and do her interview.

     “He’s a retired Brigadier-General. He runs a farm in Benin. Actually on the outskirts. Just by the University.”

     “It states here that you’re in the University of Benin studying . . .” the freckled oyibo girl paused to peruse a piece of paper, “. . . International Relations. What does that have in common with nursing? Why do you want to change to nursing now, miss?”

     It was then it hit me. This was not a preview of the interview. This was no further check of our documents. This was the interview proper. A buxom woman beside me shook her head in pity for the stuttering teenager that Freckles was browbeating. My heart reached out to her. We were in public for God’s sake. Show us some respect, please. Freckles didn’t hear me.

     “I’m sorry but you don’t qualify for this visa,” Freckles said. “Any questions you have will be answered by this letter,” she said as she handed a piece of paper over to the girl.

     “But you haven’t seen my documents.”

     “Oh . . . You Nigerians can produce any document.” Kai!

     “Can I appeal?” the poor Brigadier’s daughter asked.

     “No. You can reapply but I must warn you that your chances of success are severely limited unless something significant changes in your situation”

     The girl left. It was shocking. In public. But did I expect the oyibo to know about the conditions we lived under? The girl she had just broken probably wanted to study medicine all along. She was probably a victim of the Education Minister’s convoluted counter to the corruption laden joint matriculation exams Nigerian boys and girls had to take: Post UME Tests. Maybe she took the first course that was available. Didn’t Freckles see the person she was denying a visa? Was she a terrorist? Was she a fraudster?

#

     Sliding over chairs ever closer to the glass windows, I slowly let go. Somehow I did not care anymore if I got the visa or not. I was exhausted. I was hungry.  Everything seemed bigger. Who was I kidding? Of course I wanted to go to America, very badly in fact. From backing the interviewers my batch slowly shifted until we were facing them. My turn was five seats away. The comedy continued. They were now questioning members of my batch. A grizzled oyibo was interviewing a 5’ 2” thickset young man.

     “How old are you?”

     “About twenty-three.”

     “About?”

     “Twenty-three. I am twenty three years old.”

     “It says here that you’re applying for a student visa to resume at XYZ University for a sport’s scholarship playing soccer. . .”

     “Yes.”

     “. . . and that you finished high school in 1997?”

     “Yes.”

     “How old where you when you finished high school?”

     “. . .”

     “Sir, how old were you when you finished high school?”

     “About fifteen.”

     “About?”

     “Fifteen. I was fifteen years old when I finished secondary school.”

     “But . . . Anyway, you’ve got your math wrong. I’m afraid you do not qualify for this visa. Any questions you have will be answered in this letter. You can reapply but I must advise you that your application will be refused if nothing changes in your situation.”

#

     Beside the grizzly bear’s cubicle, a middle aged matronly oyibo with the kindest eyes was interviewing a tall fair boy.

     “So why do you want to study in the US?”

     “I want to go to the US to pursue a course of study in petroleum engineering because I believe that America is a great country and presents the profoundest opportunity for improvement in my exceptional ambition to be a very good petroleum engineer. I want to be exposed to state-of-the-art teaching techniques and methods that will instil in me the fortitude, strength and wisdom to make it in the highly cut-throat world of petroleum engineering. In conclusion I want to . . .”

     “Who told you to say that?”

     “Ma?”

     “I said, who told you to say that?”

     “No one, ma.”

     “Okay . . . . So what do you plan on doing when you graduate?”

     “When I graduate I want to return to my great country and motherland, Nigeria. I want to contribute to the development of her people, her masses, her underdeveloped women and her children. As you can see I am from the Niger Delta, and with the expertise I would have learned from the great XYZ University in the great country of America, I will be able to expand and rejoin and eviscerate on efforts already being made by great and renowned Niger Deltans like . . .”

     “Stop it!”

     “Sorry, ma.”

     “If I want you to read from the script you’ve already memorized, I’ll ask you to.”

     “. . .”

     “Who will be paying for your tuition?”

     “My maternal uncle. My maternal uncle, who happens to be my mother’s immediate younger brother, believes in the value of an education from the great and magnanimous country of America. He believes that with the knowledge gleaned from these sources I can be instrumental in the development of my great country Nigeria in particular and the Niger Delta in general. He believes . . .”

     “I’m sorry you don’t qualify for this visa. Any questions you have will be answered by this letter. You are welcome to reapply but I . . .”

     “Wetin be that? Wetin you mean? You no go give me visa? For my country? For Nigeria?”

     “Security! Security!”

#

     It was really very sad. But wetin concern Agbero with overload. My problems were with thinking of answers to my questions. My only prayer was not to meet the freckled demon. She must have been the one I had heard so much about. The one who bounced Chuka with only three questions. I wanted Grizzly. I wanted Mama Goose. I wanted Condi Rice herself. Anyone but Freckles. I made another friend at the musical chairs. She was number seventeen on my batch. She was the buxom woman who shook her head at Freckles’ first victim. Buxom girl was more like it. I found out that she was a doctor who trained in the US but had been convinced to come home four years ago so she’d be more likely to catch a husband from her part of the country. She had not. She was working now in the UK in a ‘shire’. She found out that a lot of UK doctors she called ‘Chief’ were my old classmates. A lot of her seniors were my friends from school.

     “Uniben Guys are doing well over there in London o. What are you still doing here?” she asked.

     “Never felt the need to travel,” I replied.

     “Why are you travelling now?”

     “I’m going to spend the end of the summer with my aunt. She’s a Professor of Literature in a New Jersey University and she’s going to help me polish up a novel I’ve just finished.”

     “Ah . . . a novelist and a doctor. How do you manage?”

     “A doctor and a woman. How do you manage?”

     “You know, I never know which the full time job is. Being a woman in this country or treating people.”

     “Next to window eight?” Oh shit. It was Freckles beckoning on me.

# 

     I got up from my seat and walked towards her – my heart beating like a drum in an Atilogwu dance competition. I swallowed spit. She was pretty. Her freckles looked like unsightly blemishes to my African eyes but one could not deny her good bone structure. She had a straight symmetrical face. Which she kept fixed on the LCD screen to her left as she asked me, “Your Passport, proof of hundred dollar payment and application form?”

     I handed these to her and waited. She flipped through my passports, the 1980 one and the 2005 one. She paused at the Gatwick airport stamp and asked, “How long have you been working as a doctor?”

     Ehen, now we were talking. “Six years,” I said. I had my two-by-four envelope partly open. I was prepared to pull out about five pages of documents chronicling my short professional career in officialese. Keep on asking, dear, I thought, and I’ll keep on answering.

     “Have you been out of the country before?”

     “Yes,” I replied. What was all this? Couldn’t she see the stamp on the old passport? When was she going to get to the real question? Ask me why you should believe I’m coming back, I willed her to ask me.

     “And that was in 1980? When you were four years old?”

     “Yes.” Ask me why you should believe I’m coming back.

     She turned towards the computer screen and started typing. “Are you married?”

     “No.” Ask me why you should believe I’m coming back.

     “I’m sorry but you do not qualify for this visa. Any questions you have . . .

#

     As I walked out of the building in the poetically apt rain, I looked at the stamp on my passport- application received- and thought, three monosyllabic answers and poof! Chuka was right.

#

THE END