THE AMBASSADOR by BOB EJIKE

THE AMBASSADOR

by BOB EJIKE

 

The Italian Embassy in Lagos is situated with other Western embassies in the serene and affluent Victoria Island, among plush colonial mansions with shimmering swimming pools, Alsatian dogs and armed police guards, in a circular undisputedly elitist street with a disputed name, lined with well-groomed trees of various shapes with drooping leafy branches. The shrubbery was livid with chirping insects and colorful birds that occasionally stormed and exploded rigorously in unison forming a temporary twittering orchestra above the ecstatic belching and moaning of the wind. The embassy road was originally called Eleke Crescent, but the brutal Nigerian military dictator General Sani Abacha, in a bid to show the U.S government which constantly opposed his cruel despotism that every part of the country, including their embassy, was under his firm control, changed the name of the street to Louis Farrakhan Crescent, in honor of the powerful Afro-American head of the Nation of Islam, a staunch supporter of the dictator and other third world dictatorships that are inimical to the U.S and as such is perceived by the American authorities as a very dangerous man.

The Italian embassy structure in Lagos stands face-to-face with its Russian counterpart, dwarfed from within the compound by the adjacent white palatial one-storey Ambassador’s Residence. Between the two buildings are a number of small bungalows reserved for the Italian police orderlies and the ambassador’s personal staff of chauffeurs, stewards, cooks and butlers. The compound is large enough to host an informal football match, beautified externally by carefully tended lawns, exotic tropical trees and greenery in which monkeys and ostriches played. In spite of its plush surroundings, Louis Farrakhan Crescent was in constant turmoil, besieged by   thousands of desperate visa seekers who came from all parts of the nation, trooping around the entrances of the many Western embassies in the circular road, blocking thoroughfare. They arrived as early as 1am with a slip certifying that they had paid the exorbitant non-refundable visa application fee. British official and American personnel would come out to perform the arduous task of handing out the morning’s appointment forms, assisted by three armed policemen. The applicants would be put in queues that covered half the crescent. But these lines never lasted, as the candidates soon broke them, rushing noisily towards the officials who would attempt to withdraw from the general chaotic grab for the forms. The potential travelers would scamper over others in the inevitable stampede, cursing, spitting, pushing, elbowing, kicking, scratching and fighting with one another for pr-eminence, but always ensuring that they did not harm the visa officials in whose hands their travel destiny lay. The officials would refuse to issue more forms until the potential travelers resumed in an orderly fashion, which they would quickly do, but the order never lasted more than a few minutes before desperation disrupted the files again, leading to more abuse, struggle and fisticuffs. When the quagmire became too dangerous for the officials to continue their assignment, the policemen would lash out in all directions with horsewhips, brandishing their rifles and threatening to shoot into the crowd. The sharing of forms would continue only when they achieved relative tranquillity. Those who were lucky to receive the forms would sit in the waiting space by the lagoon opposite the embassies or lie on the grass until the missions opened to clients at 8:30 am. Then the long queue would begin to move the somnambulant candidates towards their interviewers who were by no means enthusiastic about seeing these unruly hordes of African desperadoes take over their home countries, under the strict control of dozens of Nigerian anti-riot policemen and the stricter supervision of the expatriate embassy policemen and security operatives.  The emigrant lines reduced as one after the other the hopeful candidates were hoarded away with rejection slips, dreams of prosperity deferred, dawn gradually evolving into day, day into dusk. At the lagoon-front opposite Louis Farrakhan crescent passports expertly changed photographs, candidates re-christened, returned to the queues without which they knew they would never achieve their life’s fulfillment, as only poverty, want, disease and a lifetime of strife and degradation awaited them at home.

          The Italian Embassy was never crowded like its British, German, and American counterparts, but it had a respectably large crowd whose peculiarity was its femininity. Their Russian neighbours had nobody at all despite their wide compound, massively regal embassy building full of long American limousines, and their well-publicized scholarship grants to African students.

 The tall comely-faced young black man meandered through the anxious terrain and finally managed to reach the entrance. Admission into the embassy gate without an appointment was a near impossibility, but he showed his Italian passport and that got him inside the compound in minutes. He explained to the security man that he was going to the consulate. A uniformed corporate guard escorted him into the building. An enormous oily coal-black Nigerian woman button-opened the electronically controlled glass door leading into the main embassy hall. The visitor was escorted through the corridor to the window by the right, in which a bespectacled ursine Italian woman whose face crinkled with mounds of fat attended to Africans. From her generous make up, powder and heavy lipstick, Chuddy Mokelu could make out that the official had made an unsuccessful attempt to look good, an objective she could have achieved more easily by just eating less. He waited in the queue until it got to his turn.

‘Good morning Madam, my name is Chuddy Mokelu, I am an Italian citizen resident here’, he said in flawless Italian. The woman looked at him with the suspicious eyes of one who listened daily to intricate lies, received fake documents in a continuum and knew how to decipher the fake from the real. Steel-reinforced massive bosom pushed forward, ‘what can we do for you?’ she asked, her scrutiny which catalogued most Africans as pestering visa applicants to be rapidly dispensed with, gazing harshly at him.

 ‘I wish to register for social welfare support. I am going through hard times now and while working in Italy I contributed to the welfare scheme for thirteen years. I would like to receive my welfare check’, Chuddy explained.

 The woman pushed her glasses back to the bridge of her long fat nose, with an expression that suggested that a sacrilege had been uttered. She seemed to have sniffed something fishy as her face changed from suspicious to diffident. ‘Have you got any identification?’

 ‘Yes Madam, here is my European Community passport issued in Italy’, he handed over the document to her. She scrutinized it thoroughly and with a look of antimony handed it back to him, ‘have you got a certificate of citizenship?  I am afraid a passport is no evidence of citizenship’.

 Chuddy’s brain scattered into little balls of fire as he remembered the years of hardship he underwent before being meritoriously granted Italian citizenship. ‘Madam, you must be out of your mind to utter that kind of balderdash!’ he shouted uncontrollably, ‘I am a bonafide Italian citizen! I may be Black and African but I am a European citizen bearing an Italian passport on merit and nobody can deny me my rights!’

 Two Italian policemen, one, a short and fat private, the other, a tall, slim, blue-eyed, viciously handsome blonde sergeant, and a Nigerian guard zealously ran to the spot. ‘What is the matter?’ the Italian sergeant asked in sing-song Italian English, eyeing Chuddy with leery intensity.

 Chuddy replied in Italian, raising his passport, ‘I am, an Italian citizen, here is my passport. Let none of you touch me; I have the right to be here in Italian territory! This public officer is trying to deny me my rights and subvert my citizenship because of my black color and African origin!’

 The malevolent policemen who were unimpressed by his argument made to arrest him.

  ‘Sergeant Giovanni, what is going on there?’ came a baritone voice that bore the hauteur of officialdom. The voice was gentle yet tainted with unmistakable authority and an air of opulence.

‘It is this person here that is disturbing the peace of the embassy’, replied the slim handsome officer.

Chuddy swung round. The man facing him was in his early sixties, tall and well fed. He had a long pointed nose over which a pair of silver-rimmed glasses balanced, his eyes were lucid and intense, their stare peering and penetrating and a small red line for lips. His face was handsome with carefully cut jet-black hair, perhaps too black for his age. He wore a grey suit, white shirt, and a rich blue silk tie of the texture that you did not see every day. His majestic presence and the aroma of the rich masculine perfume swimming around him brought Chuddy’s voice to a gentle whisper. ‘I am Chuddy Mokelu, an Italian citizen, a university graduate, I studied and worked in Italy’.

 A flash of interest illuminated the man’s eyes and he smiled satisfactorily. ‘Congratulations, I am Dr Paolo Milani, The Italian Ambassador to Nigeria.’

Chuddy felt light headed and for some seconds could not breath or think. The ambassador continued. ‘As an Italian citizen you have a right to be here, come with me to my office’.

Chuddy followed him down the corridor, turning right at the restricted area that was the envoy’s VIP reception. Fat brightly colored sofas waited eagerly for the fattened bottoms of affluent Nigerians and foreigners who had acquired privilege by living and doing business in Nigeria. The second part was lined with steel shelves containing important Italian and Nigerian newspapers and new and unknown publications and journals freely sent to the embassy by editors who erroneously believed that such gestures rather than quality journalism would improve their prospects. The security men scattered, gaping at the ambassador with astounded eyes. The ambassador’s office was spacious with three sitting sections of delicate designer’s seats and cushions between large vases of tropical flowers. The new seats left a poignant aroma of virgin leather in the air. His desk was wide and made of pure mahogany and it was cluttered with a computer, two telephones, an intercom, a cellular phone, a fax machine, Nigerian and Italian newspapers, jotters and complimentary cards which obscured the deliberate comfort that the office was furnished to give. A large portrait of the Italian president hung on the wall behind the ambassador’s desk beside a flowing Italian flag. There was an invisible force of authority within the office that made Chuddy hold his breath. Dr Milani sat at his table and waved him into one of the three armchairs opposite him. Chuddy sat down feeling uncomfortable in spite of his prosperous surrounding and chilling air conditioning. He handed his passport to the ambassador. Dr Milani examined it, turned the first page, pronounced his name and surname in a funny way and returned it to him. ‘Young man, tell me what the problem is’.

 Chuddy hesitated, feeling ashamed of his many stillborn business efforts. Then, realizing that he had nothing to lose, he summoned courage and commenced his  

Narration, pausing when the phone rang, the fax buzzed, or when embassy staff came in to see their boss, and resuming later.

 BOB EJIKE