The American Embassy
She stands as the forty‑eighth person in a line of about two hundred that snakes from the closed gates of the American embassy past the Czech embassy. The heat is oppressive; vendors shout, beggars wander, ice‑cream bicycles honk, and a makeshift market of chairs, sweets, and a photo studio erupts around the line. A man behind her repeatedly taps her for change and later offers her a plastic bag of six peeled oranges, commenting on her hunger.
She watches a soldier on the opposite street flog a bespectacled man, noting the blood on his face and the soldier’s swagger. She reflects on the recent murders of her four‑year‑old son Ugonna – his body buried near a vegetable patch in Umunnachi – and her husband’s forced exile after publishing anti‑Abacha articles that led to his arrest, torture, and eventual flight to Benin and then the United States, where he plans to seek asylum.
The line passes a chair‑rental stand, a stall of mangoes and oranges, blind beggars chanting blessings, and a makeshift photo studio where she previously had a grainy passport picture taken. She recalls the night she smuggled her husband out of the country in the boot of their Toyota and the day she buried Ugonna’s body.
The man behind her, a crisply dressed office worker, engages her in conversation, offering advice for the visa interview: look the interviewer straight in the eye, don’t correct yourself, make Ugonna’s story credible but not overly emotional, and warns that asylum claims are hard to prove. He asks about her purpose; she replies “asylum.” He presses her for evidence of government involvement; she mentions the buried body but cannot produce proof.
She observes other applicants – a woman speaking of an “American Visa Miracle Ministry,” a nervous Nigerian in a dark suit shouting at the interviewer, and a blind couple receiving alms. The embassy gates finally open, allowing the first fifty to fill out forms. She is called to the interview window, where the officer repeats her story, asks about government culpability, and expresses sympathy but demands evidence. She remains silent, offering only that the government was responsible.
After the interview, she exits the embassy, passing the beggars once more, and walks to her car, still carrying the weight of her loss, her husband’s disappearance, and the uncertain promise of asylum.