There was a reception after the mass, consisting of verbal sacraments and a light meal – although I had not learnt to look on a twin piece of bread with a wafer of meat or a stuffing of vegetables in between as a meal at that time. It was a strange scenario for me: a church that treated its members to a post-mass buffet, instead of the priest having to rush off to another mass. In such a church, a newcomer like me could not remain anonymous. I was sucked into a round of introductions and re-introductions, with a lot of intervening questions.

            “Where are you from?”

            “Nigeria.”

            “In Africa?”

            “Yes, West Africa.”  

            “I know a couple that went to Kenya on safari a few years ago. Is that near Nigeria?”

            “Oh no, Kenya is in East Africa.”

            “Where do you live in Nigeria?”

            “Lagos. It was the capital until a few years ago.”

            “Is it large, as large as Manhattan?”

            “It’s larger. It’s the largest city in Africa.”

            “Really? Are there a lot of Christians there?”

            “Yes, many, and many Muslims too.”

            “Do you all get along?”

            “Most of the time.”

            “Why are you in America?”

            “I’m on a visit. I came to spend some time with a friend of mine.”

            “That’s nice. How do you like it here?”

            “It’s a fine place, but it’s very cold too.”

             “But it hasn’t been a mean winter this year, really.”

When I got back home and narrated my experience to Tunde, he muttered: “That’s the logic of America.” I could tell though that that was not what was worrying him right then. “It seems your travails at the US embassy in Lagos really scarred you, so you think that every American who asks you why you are here must be part of the immigration police,” he said to me. “These church people will help if they can, so you should open up to them. The other options don’t look good. One is to go to an immigration lawyer, and that will cost you a lot of money. Besides, you could simply end up with a quick education on immigration technicalities. The other is to get a ‘black job’ at a diner or someplace cleaning out the garbage or washing the dishes, and trying to be one step ahead of the immigration service. There must be someone in that church, the priest maybe, who can help you at least get a work permit. I know, because I asked around before you arrived.”

Once Tunde assured himself that I was indeed worthy of Dr Lookout’s recommendation, our relations improved. I never did get to know him very well, because he spent a great deal of his time on campus. He had spent twenty six years abroad, been in and out of a marriage and had arrived at that stage where all that mattered to him was his immersion in his work. “To fail in one area of life is excusable,” he would say; “to fail in two is regrettable; to fail in all is unforgivable.” Although he had already lived in America for ten years, he had no friends that I knew of. His recreation consisted mostly of cutting the lawn on weekends and reading National Geographic, mapping out great journeys to smoky mountains and historic trails that even he must have known that he would never make. He still spoke of his village as part of the Western region – not because he was unaware that Nigeria had since been broken down into smaller political divisions, but I think he gave up on the country earlier than many other émigrés. And he had assumed a cliché as his motto: “Wherever the star shoots, let it shine.”  

But he was right about the church. It was the Church of St Francis of Assisi that resettled me in America. The parish priest, Father Mark O’Connor, was so moved by my story – how my father lost his family and his arm in Biafra, how I was unfairly sacked at the Sa’ra Grammar School, how I had a job for only two months in almost three years – that he took up my case with vigor. “Your story is extraordinary,” he said to me, “like something out of Ireland itself. But God never forgets His people. And I know Dr. Tu-n-de. He’s a major scholar, whom I would have loved to also be even a modest Christian.” He figured out how to help me get a work permit, a feat that was so complicated that I blessed the day I walked into that church, and Tunde for leading me there, and Dr Lookout for leading me to Tunde, and Sa’ra for leading me to Dr Lookout, and my father for rooting me in Sa’ra.

iii

I moved into a one-room apartment and started work in the acquisitions department of the New York University bookstore the week Tunde left. I had sent a postcard to my father the week of my landing at JFK, announcing my safe arrival in New York. Now, I wrote a letter announcing that “I have indeed arrived in America.” He sent me an email, from Achike’s cyber café, informing me that he had once more been passed over for promotion to the top position in his unit of the ministry but that otherwise he was well, and Achike too. I shared the news with Father O’Connor, who twirled his beard and made his typical comment: “God never forgets His people.” I had continued to go to the church, mostly as a courtesy to my benefactor, and I remained a steadfast member until he was transferred to a parish in Montana. The last communication I had with him was an email he sent to me encouraging me to remain a resolute churchgoer and reassuring me that “God never forgets His people.” But I had almost forgotten the church by then.

            My job in the bookstore kept me occupied during the day. It was towards the beginning of another semester and I was involved in acquiring both required and recommended texts for students’ courses. It was a job that I liked, sourcing and discussing books. I worried though that I had not made any friends, not for want of trying. Maybe, I told myself, I was trying too hard. I had a number of male acquaintances, but our relationship usually stagnated at the level of greeting each other whenever we met and inquiring about this and that, sometimes discussing the world as if we did not live in it. But almost every time I opened my mouth, my audience would suffer a hysteria of partial deafness. Since I was not inclined to relearn how to talk, I began to speak mostly to those who spoke to me – as long as they did not keep forcing me into the lane of repetitions or begin to repeat every other word I said in their own prized accent.