otuluvsboobs

In March 2019 I sat on the panel that interviewed eleven people for a graduate trainee job at a bank on Independence Avenue,l and I was supposed to be the twelfth candidate. The trotro from Kasoa died twice before Mallam Junction... once beside a woman carrying a Fan Ice cooler on her head and once under the overpass, where the mate climbed out, kicked the back tyre and told all of us, "Nobody should complain, God himself is driving this car," so by the time I reached Ridge my white shirt had gone transparent at the back and my certificates were inside a black Melcom polythene bag that smelled of the kelewele I had bought with my second-to-last 15 cedis. The security man at the gate checked his clipboard, checked my bag and said, "Interviews closed at ten, my brother, go home and pray small." It was 10:40. I stood under the almond tree by the car park and did the arithmetic. I had six cedis forty pesewas, one invitation letter, a second class lower in Economics from Legon, two years of nothing since national service and a mother in Kumasi who had already told her entire Women's Fellowship that her son was now a banker. I also had the thing I have carried since primary school... this habit of entering rooms as if someone sent for me so I folded the Melcom bag under my arm like a file, put my phone to my ear with no credit on it, said loudly, "I'm at the gate, tell them to start, I'm coming up," and walked past the security man while he was still opening his mouth. On the fourth floor the air conditioning hit my wet back like a slap and the receptionist stood up, took the bag from me with both hands and said, "Ah, sir, you're the one from head office, Madam has been waiting." Chale, I nodded because my throat had closed. She put my bag on her desk and led me into a boardroom where a woman with reading glasses on a gold chain and a man eating groundnuts from a paper twist moved their chairs to make space for me. I questioned all eleven candidates. I asked one boy why his CV said he was fluent in French when he had just greeted us "bonjour, good afternoon," and the groundnut man laughed so hard he coughed. Then the receptionist brought in the last file and Madam opened it and there was my passport photo, the one I took at Circle with my neck stretched looking up at her from her own hands. She read the whole first page. She turned to the second. The groundnut man stopped chewing and held one nut between his fingers halfway to his mouth. I sat with my palms flat on the table, already working out whether Cantonments Police Station would allow my uncle to bring food, and herh, she kept reading, slowly, like she was enjoying it. She took off her glasses, opened the drawer beside her knee, pulled out a printed offer letter, wrote my name in the blank space with a blue Bic and slid it across the table, saying, "You asked better questions than both of us, and you lied to my receptionist without blinking, so sign here before I change my mind." The real consultant from head office arrived at two o'clock and since I was now staff, I was the one who walked him to the lift.