The Foreign Service Journal, June 2008

Nina’s body was preserved but very bloated. A registered nurse, Vikki took the lead. She clipped a fingernail and cut a lock of hair for the family. A thorough ritual washing of the entire body was out of the question. Instead, the women performed a brief swipe of the head to symbolize the washing procedure. The first stage in meeting Nina’s deathbed wish had been accomplished. Outside the morgue, two of Nina’s children received the fin- gernail and hair. Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, is located in the middle of the country, a symbol of the new Nigeria. A stay at the Nikon Hilton, the city’s “premier” hotel, meant endless hassles, bickering with registration, long waits for eleva- tors and inevitable heartburn — good reasons to have a beer at the lobby bar. Cradling my Heineken, I struck up a conversation with a businessman. As it turned out, he was Israeli, one of the Lagos crowd. On this trip to Abuja, my stars were aligned. I told him of Nina’s deathbed wish and the progress we had made so far in meeting it. He understood imme- diately. “No problem,” he said. “We’ll get the men together. Just let me know when and where.” His confi- dence filled me with relief. Getting a minyan had always been my principal concern. But in my mind, an alarm was set off by the Israeli-accented “no problem” and the knowledge that whatever can go wrong in Nigeria will. Ben set a date and time for the cer- emony. The minyan would gather at his home on Friday at 12:30 p.m., I informed the Israeli businessman. We agreed to meet at noon in front of Megaplaza, Victoria Island’s high-end shopping outlet — developed by an Israeli, of course. From there, we would caravan to Ben’s home. As the dirt lanes at Lekki Estates had no names, giving directions was almost pointless. Sharon, the Israeli diplo- mat, would fly in from Abuja that morning and meet us at Megaplaza. If everyone showed, we would have 10 men, our minyan. The women would meet us at Ben’s house. J U N E 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 53 He smiled at the three white faces and held out his hand. “Call me Hitler,” he said.