Final Exam (Carries 25% weight of the course)

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Half of a

Yellow Sun

2006

With the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Adichie

weaves together the lives of five characters caught up in

the extraordinary tumult of the decade. Fifteen-year-old

Ugwu is houseboy to Odenigbo, a university professor who

sends him to school, and in whose living room Ugwu hears

voices full of revolutionary zeal. Odenigbo’s beautiful

mistress, Olanna, a sociology teacher, is running away from

her parents’ world of wealth and excess; Kainene, her

urbane twin, is taking over their father's business; and

Kainene’s English lover, Richard, forms a bridge between

their two worlds. As we follow these intertwined lives

through a military coup, the Biafran secession and the

subsequent war, Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise, and

intimately, the devastating disappointments that marked

this time and place.

Epic, ambitious and triumphantly realized, Half of a

Yellow Sun is a more powerful, dramatic and intensely

emotional picture of modern Africa than any we have had

before.

PART ONE

The Early Sixties

M

ONE

aster was a little crazy; he had spent too many years

reading books overseas, talked to himself in his

office, did not always return greetings, and had too

much hair. Ugwu’s aunty said this in a low voice as they

walked on the path. “But he is a good man,” she added.

“And as long as you work well, you will eat well. You will

even eat meat every day.” She stopped to spit; the saliva

left her mouth with a sucking sound and landed on the

grass.

Ugwu did not believe that anybody, not even this master

he was going to live with, ate meat every day. He did not

disagree with his aunty, though, because he was too choked

with expectation, too busy imagining his new life away

from the village. They had been walking for a while now,

since they got off the lorry at the motor park, and the

afternoon sun burned the back of his neck. But he did not

mind. He was prepared to walk hours more in even hotter

sun. He had never seen anything like the streets that

appeared after they went past the university gates, streets

so smooth and tarred that he itched to lay his cheek down

on them. He would never be able to describe to his sister

Anulika how the bungalows here were painted the colour of

the sky and sat side by side like polite, well-dressed men,

how the hedges sep-arating them were trimmed so flat on

top that they looked like tables wrapped with leaves.

His aunty walked faster, her slippers making slap-slap

sounds that echoed in the silent street. Ugwu wondered if

she, too, could feel the coal tar getting hotter underneath,

through her thin soles. They went past a sign, ODIM

STREET, and Ugwu mouthed street, as he did whenever he

saw an English word that was not too long. He smelt

something sweet, heady, as they walked into a compound,

and was sure it came from the white flowers clustered on

the bushes at the entrance. The bushes were shaped like

slender hills. The lawn glistened. Butterflies hovered above.

“I told Master you will learn everything fast, osiso-osiso,”

his aunty said. Ugwu nodded attentively although she had

already told him this many times, as often as she told him

the story of how his good fortune came about: While she

was sweeping the corridor in the Mathematics Department

a week ago, she heard Master say that he needed a

houseboy to do his cleaning, and she immediately said she

could help, speaking before his typist or office messenger

could offer to bring someone.

“I will learn fast, Aunty,” Ugwu said. He was staring at

the car in the garage; a strip of metal ran around its blue

body like a necklace.

“Remember, what you will answer whenever he calls you

is ‘Yes, sah!”

“Yes, sah!” Ugwu repeated.

They were standing before the glass door. Ugwu held

back from reaching out to touch the cement wall, to see

how different it would feel from the mud walls of his

mother’s hut that still bore the faint patterns of moulding

fingers. For a brief moment, he wished he were back there

now, in his mother’s hut, under the dim coolness of the

thatch roof; or in his aunty’s hut, the only one in the village

with a corrugated-iron roof.

His aunty tapped on the glass. Ugwu could see the white

curtains behind the door. A voice said, in English, “Yes?

Come in.”

They took off their slippers before walking in. Ugwu had

never seen a room so wide. Despite the brown sofas

arranged in a semicircle, the side tables between them, the

shelves crammed with books, and the centre table with a

vase of red and white plastic flowers, the room still seemed

to have too much space. Master sat in an armchair, wearing

a singlet and a pair of shorts. He was not sitting upright

but slanted, a book covering his face, as though oblivious

that he had just asked people in.

“Good afternoon, sah! This is the child,” Ugwu’s aunty

said.

Master looked up. His complexion was very dark, like old

bark, and the hair that covered his chest and legs was a

lustrous, darker shade. He pulled off his glasses. “The

child?”

“The houseboy, sah.”

“Oh, yes, you have brought the houseboy. I kpotago ya.”

Master’s Igbo felt feathery in Ugwu’s ears. It was Igbo

coloured by the sliding sounds of English, the Igbo of one

who spoke English often.

“He will work hard,” his aunty said. “He is a very good

boy. Just tell him what he should do. Thank, sah!”

Master grunted in response, watching Ugwu and his

aunty with a faintly distracted expression, as if their

presence made it difficult for him to remember something

important. Ugwu’s aunty patted Ugwu’s shoulder,

whispered that he should do well, and turned to the door.

After she left, Master put his glasses back on and faced his

book, relaxing further into a slanting position, legs

stretched out. Even when he turned the pages he did so

with his eyes on the book.

Ugwu stood by the door, waiting. Sunlight streamed in

through the windows, and from time to time, a gentle

breeze lifted the curtains. The room was silent except for

the rustle of Master’s page turning. Ugwu stood for a while

before he began to edge closer and closer to the bookshelf,

as though to hide in it, and then, after a while, he sank

down to the floor, cradling his raffia bag between his knees.

He looked up at the ceiling, so high up, so piercingly white.

He closed his eyes and tried to reimagine this spacious

room with the alien furniture, but he couldn’t. He opened

his eyes, overcome by a new wonder, and looked around to

make sure it was all real. To think that he would sit on

these sofas, polish this slippery-smooth floor, wash these

gauzy curtains.

“Keduafa gi? What’s your name?” Master asked, startling

him.

Ugwu stood up.

“What’s your name?” Master asked again and sat up

straight. He filled the armchair, his thick hair that stood

high on his head, his muscled arms, his broad shoulders;

Ugwu had imagined an older man, somebody frail, and now

he felt a sudden fear that he might not please this master

who looked so youthfully capable, who looked as if he

needed nothing.

“Ugwu, sah.”

“Ugwu. And you’ve come from Obukpa?”

“From Opi, sah.”

“You could be anything from twelve to thirty.” Master

narrowed his eyes. “Probably thirteen.” He said thirteen in

English.

“Yes, sah.”

Master turned back to his book. Ugwu stood there.

Master flipped past some pages and looked up. “Ngwa, go

to the kitchen; there should be something you can eat in

the fridge.”

“Yes, sah.”

Ugwu entered the kitchen cautiously, placing one foot

slowly after the other. When he saw the white thing, almost

as tall as he was, he knew it was the fridge. His aunty had

told him about it. A cold barn, she had said, that kept food

from going off. He opened it and gasped as the cool air

rushed into his face. Oranges, bread, beer, soft drinks:

many things in packets and cans were arranged on

different levels and, at the top, a roasted, shimmering

chicken, whole but for a leg. Ugwu reached out and

touched the chicken. The fridge breathed heavily in his

ears. He touched the chicken again and licked his finger

before he yanked the other leg off, eating it until he had

only the cracked, sucked pieces of bones left in his hand.

Next, he broke off some bread, a chunk that he would have

been excited to share with his siblings if a relative had

visited and brought it as a gift. He ate quickly, before

Master could come in and change his mind. He had finished

eating and was standing by the sink, trying to remember

what his aunty had told him about opening it to have water

gush out like a spring, when Master walked in. He had put

on a print shirt and a pair of trousers. His toes, which

peeked through leather slippers, seemed feminine, perhaps

because they were so clean; they belonged to feet that

always wore shoes.

“What is it?” Master asked.

“Sah?” Ugwu gestured to the sink.

Master came over and turned the metal tap. “You should

look around the house and put your bag in the first room on

the corridor. I’m going for a walk, to clear my head, i

nugo?”

“Yes, sah.” Ugwu watched him leave through the back

door. He was not tall. His walk was brisk, energetic, and he

looked like Ezeagu, the man who held the wrestling record

in Ugwu’s village.

Ugwu turned off the tap, turned it on again, then off. On

and off and on and off until he was laughing at the magic of

the running water and the chicken and bread that lay

balmy in his stomach. He went past the living room and

into the corridor. There were books piled on the shelves

and tables in the three bedrooms, on the sink and cabinets

in the bathroom, stacked from floor to ceiling in the study,

and in the storeroom, old journals were stacked next to

crates of Coke and cartons of Premier beer. Some of the

books were placed face down, open, as though Master had

not yet finished reading them but had hastily gone on to

another. Ugwu tried to read the titles, but most were too

long, too difficult. Non-Parametric Methods. An African

Survey. The Great Chain of Being. The Norman Impact

Upon England.

He walked on tiptoe from room to room, because his feet

felt dirty, and as he did so he grew increasingly determined

to please Master, to stay in this house of meat and cool

floors. He was examining the toilet, running his hand over

the black plastic seat, when he heard Master’s voice.

“Where are you, my good man?” He said my good man in

English.

Ugwu dashed out to the living room. “Yes, sah!”

“What’s your name again?”

“Ugwu, sah.”

“Yes, Ugwu. Look here, neeanya, do you know what that

is?” Master pointed, and Ugwu looked at the metal box

studded with dangerous-looking knobs.

“No, sah,” Ugwu said.

“It’s a radiogram. It’s new and very good. It’s not like

those old gramophones that you have to wind and wind.

You have to be very careful around, it, very careful. You

must never let water touch it.”

“Yes, sah.”

“I’m off to play tennis, and then I’ll go on to the staff

club.” Master picked up a few books from the table. “I may

be back late. So get settled and have a rest.”

“Yes, sah.”

After Ugwu watched Master drive out of the ‘compound,

he went and stood beside the radiogram and looked at it

carefully, without touching it. Then he walked around the

house, up and down, touching books and curtains and

furniture and plates, and when it got dark, he turned the

light on and marvelled at how bright the bulb that dangled

from the ceiling was, how it did not cast long shadows on

the wall like the palm oil lamps back home. His mother

would be preparing the evening meal now, pounding akpu

in the mortar, the pestle grasped tightly with both hands.

Chioke, the junior wife, would be tending the pot of watery

soup balanced on three stones over the fire. The children

would have come back from the stream and would be

taunting and chasing one another under the breadfruit

tree. Perhaps Anulika would be watching them. She was

the oldest child in the household now, and as they all sat

around the fire to eat, she would break up the fights when

the younger ones struggled over the strips of dried fish in

the soup. She would wait until all the akpu was eaten and

then divide the fish so that each child had a piece, and she

would keep the biggest for herself, as he had always done.

Ugwu opened the fridge and ate some more bread and

chicken, quickly stuffing the food in his mouth while his

heart beat as if he were running; then he dug out extra

chunks of meat and pulled out the wings. He slipped the

pieces into his shorts’ pockets before going to the bedroom.

He would keep them until his aunty visited and he would

ask her to give them to Anulika. Perhaps he could ask her

to give some to Nnesinachi too. That might make

Nnesinachi finally notice him. He had never been sure

exactly how he and Nnesinachi were related, but he knew

they were from the same umunna and therefore could

never marry. Yet he wished that his mother would not keep

referring to Nnesinachi as his sister, saying things like,

“Please take this palm oil down to Mama Nnesinachi, and if

she is not in, leave it with your sister.”

Nnesinachi always spoke to him in a vague voice, her

eyes unfocused, as if his presence made no difference to

her either way. Sometimes she called him Chiejina, the

name of his cousin who looked nothing at all like him, and

when he said, “It’s me,” she would say, “Forgive me, Ugwu

my brother,” with a distant formality that meant she had no

wish to make further conversation. But he liked going on

errands to her house. They were opportunities to find her

bent over, fanning the firewood or chopping ugu leaves for

her mother’s soup pot, or just sitting outside looking after

her younger siblings, her wrapper hanging low enough for

him to see the tops of her breasts. Ever since they started

to push out, those pointy breasts, he had wondered if they

would feel mushy-soft or hard like the unripe fruit from the

ube tree. He often wished that Anulika wasn’t so flat-

chested—he wondered what was taking her so long anyway,

since she and Nnesinachi were about the same age—so that

he could feel her breasts. Anulika would slap his hand

away, of course, and perhaps even slap his face as well, but

he would do it quickly—squeeze and run—and that way he

would at least have an idea and know what to expect when

he finally touched Nnesinachi’s.

But he was worried that he might never get to touch

them, now that her uncle had asked her to come and learn

a trade in Kano. She would be leaving for the North by the

end of the year, when her mother’s last child, whom she

was carrying, began to walk. Ugwu wanted to be as pleased

and grateful as the rest of the family. There was, after all, a

fortune to be made in the North; he knew of people who

had gone up there to trade and came home to tear down

huts and build houses with corrugated-iron roofs. He

feared, though, that one of those pot-bellied traders in the

North would take one look at her, and the next thing he

knew somebody would bring palm wine to her father and

he would never get to touch those breasts. They—her

breasts—were the images saved for last on the many nights

when he touched himself, slowly at first and then

vigorously, until a muffled moan escaped him. He always

started with her face, the fullness of her cheeks and the

ivory tone of her teeth, and then he imagined her arms

around him, her body moulded to his. Finally, he let her

breasts form; sometimes they felt hard, tempting him to

bite into them, and other times they were so soft he was

afraid his imaginary squeezing caused her pain.

For a moment, he considered thinking of her tonight. He

decided not to. Not on his first night in Master’s house, on

this bed that was nothing like his hand-woven raffia mat.

First, he pressed his hands into the springy softness of the

mattress. Then, he examined the layers of cloth on top of it,

unsure whether to sleep on them or to remove them and

put them away before sleeping. Finally, he climbed up and

lay on top of the layers of cloth, his body curled in a tight

knot.

He dreamed that Master was calling him—Ugwu, my

good man!—and when he woke up Master was standing at

the door, watching him. Perhaps it had not been a dream.

He scrambled out of bed and glanced at the windows with

the drawn curtains, in confusion. Was it late? Had that soft

bed deceived him and made him oversleep? He usually

woke with the first cockcrows.

“Good morning, sah!”

“There is a strong roasted-chicken smell here.”

“Sorry, sah.”

“Where is the chicken?”

Ugwu fumbled in his shorts’ pockets and brought out the

chicken pieces.

“Do your people eat while they sleep?” Master asked. He

was wearing something that looked like a woman’s coat

and was absently twirling the rope tied round his waist.

“Sah?”

“Did you want to eat the chicken while in bed?”

“No, sah.”

“Food will stay in the dining room and the kitchen.”

“Yes, sah.”

“The kitchen and bathroom will have to be cleaned

today.”

“Yes, sah.”

Master turned and left. Ugwu stood trembling in the

middle of the room, still holding the chicken pieces with his

hand outstretched. He wished he did not have to walk past

the dining room to get to the kitchen. Finally, he put the

chicken back in his pockets, took a deep breath, and left

the room. Master was at the dining table, the teacup in

front of him placed on a pile of books.

“You know who really killed Lumumba?” Master said,

looking up from a magazine. “It was the Americans and the

Belgians. It had nothing to do with Katanga.”

“Yes, sah,” Ugwu said. He wanted Master to keep

talking, so he could listen to the sonorous voice, the

musical blend of English words in his Igbo sentences.

“You are my houseboy,” Master said. “If I order you to go

outside and beat a woman walking on the street with a

stick, and you then give her a bloody wound on her leg,

who is responsible for the wound, you or me?”

Ugwu stared at Master, shaking his head, wondering if

Master was referring to the chicken pieces in some

roundabout way.

“Lumumba was prime minister of Congo. Do you know

where Congo is?” Master asked.

“No, sah.”

Master got up quickly and went into the study. Ugwu’s

confused fear made his eyelids quiver. Would Master send

him home because he did not speak English well, kept

chicken in his pocket overnight, did not know the strange

places Master named? Master came back with a wide piece

of paper that he unfolded and laid out on the dining table,

pushing aside books and magazines. He pointed with his

pen. “This is our world, although the people who drew this

map decided to put their own land on top of ours. There is

no top or bottom, you see.” Master picked up the paper and

folded it, so that one edge touched the other, leaving a

hollow between. “Our world is round, it never ends. Nee

anya, this is all water, the seas and oceans, and here’s

Europe and here’s our own continent, Africa, and the

Congo is in the middle. Farther up here is Nigeria, and

Nsukka is here, in the southeast; this is where we are.” He

tapped with his pen.

“Yes, sah.”

“Did you go to school?”

“Standard two, sah. But I learn everything fast.”

“Standard two? How long ago?”

“Many years now, sah. But I learn everything very fast!”

“Why did you stop school?”

“My father’s crops failed, sah.”

Master nodded slowly. “Why didn’t your father find

somebody to lend him your school fees?”

“Sah?”

“Your father should have borrowed!” Master snapped,

and then, in English, “Education is a priority! How can we

resist exploitation if we don’t have the tools to understand

exploitation?”

“Yes, sah!” Ugwu nodded vigorously. He was determined

to appear as alert as he could, because of the wild shine

that had appeared in Master’s eyes.

“I will enrol you in the staff primary school,” Master said,

still tapping on the piece of paper with his pen.

Ugwu’s aunty had told him that if he served well for a

few years, Master would send him to commercial school

where he would learn typing and shorthand. She had

mentioned the staff primary school, but only to tell him that

it was for the children of the lecturers, who wore blue

uniforms and white socks so intricately trimmed with wisps

of lace that you wondered why anybody had wasted so

much time on mere socks.

“Yes, sah,” he said. “Thank, sah.”

“I suppose you will be the oldest in class, starting in

standard three at your age,” Master said. “And the only way

you can get their respect is to be the best. Do you

understand?”

“Yes, sah!”

“Sit down, my good man.”

Ugwu chose the chair farthest from Master, awkwardly

placing his feet close together. He preferred to stand.

“There are two answers to the things they will teach you

about our land: the real answer and the answer you give in

school to pass. You must read books and learn both

answers. I will give you books, excellent books.” Master

stopped to sip his tea. “They will teach you that a white

man called Mungo Park discovered River Niger. That is

rubbish. Our people fished in the Niger long before Mungo

Park’s grandfather was born. But in your exam, write that it

was Mungo Park.”

“Yes, sah.” Ugwu wished that this person called Mungo

Park had not offended Master so much.

“Can’t you say anything else?”

“Sah?”

“Sing me a song.”

“Sah?”

“Sing me a song. What songs do you know? Sing!”

Master pulled his glasses off. His eyebrows were furrowed,

serious. Ugwu began to sing an old song he had learned on

his father’s farm. His-heart hit his chest painfully.

“Nzogbonzogbu enyimba, enyi…”

He sang in a low voice at first, but Master tapped his pen

on the table and said “Louder!” so he raised his voice, and

Master kept saying “Louder!” until he was screaming. After

singing over and over a few times, Master asked him to

stop. “Good, good,” he said. “Can you make tea?”

“No, sah. But I learn fast,” Ugwu said. The singing had

loosened something inside him, he was breathing easily

and his heart no longer pounded. And he was convinced

that Master was mad.

“I eat mostly at the staff club. I suppose I shall have to

bring more food home now that you are here.”

“Sah, I can cook.”

“You cook?”

Ugwu nodded. He had spent many evenings watching his

mother cook. He had started the fire for her, or fanned the

embers when it started to die out. He had peeled and

pounded yams and cassava, blown out the husks in rice,

picked out the weevils from beans, peeled onions, and

ground peppers. Often, when his mother was sick with the

coughing, he wished that he, and not Anulika, would cook.

He had never told anyone this, not even Anulika; she had

already told him he spent too much time around women

cooking, and he might never grow a beard if he kept doing

that.

“Well, you can cook your own food then,” Master said.

“Write a list of what you’ll need.”

“Yes, sah.”

“You wouldn’t know how to get to the market, would

you? I’ll ask Jomo to show you.”

“Jomo, sah?”

“Jomo takes care of the compound. He comes in three

times a week. Funny man, I’ve seen him talking to the

croton plant.” Master paused. “Anyway, he’ll be here

tomorrow.”

Later, Ugwu wrote a list of food items and gave it to

Master.

Master stared at the list for a while. “Remarkable blend,”

he said in English. “I suppose they’ll teach you to use more

vowels in school.”

Ugwu disliked the amusement in Master’s face. “We

need wood, sah,” he said.

“Wood?”

“For your books, sah. So that I can arrange them.”

“Oh, yes, shelves. I suppose we could fit more shelves

somewhere, perhaps in the corridor. I will speak to

somebody at the Works Department.”

“Yes, sah.”

“Odenigbo. Call me Odenigbo.”

Ugwu stared at him doubtfully. “Sah?”

“My name is not Sah. Call me Odenigbo.”

“Yes, sah.”

“Odenigbo will always be my name. Sir is arbitrary. You

could be the sir tomorrow.”

“Yes, sah—Odenigbo.”

Ugwu really preferred sah, the crisp power behind the

word, and when two men from the Works Department came

a few days later to install shelves in the corridor, he told

them that they would have to wait for Sah to come home;

he himself could not sign the white paper with typewritten

words. He said Sah proudly.

“He’s one of these village houseboys,” one of the men

said dismis-sively, and Ugwu looked at the man’s face and

murmured a curse about acute diarrhoea following him and

all of his offspring for life. As he arranged Master’s books,

he promised himself, stopping short of speaking aloud, that

he would learn how to sign forms.

In the following weeks, the weeks when he examined

every corner of the bungalow, when he discovered that a

beehive was lodged in the cashew tree and that the

butterflies converged in the front yard when the sun was

brightest, he was just as careful in learning the rhythms of

Master’s life. Every morning, he picked up the Daily Times

and Renaissance that the vendor dropped off at the door

and folded them on the table next to Master’s tea and

bread. He had the Opel washed before Master finished

breakfast, and when Master came back from work and was

taking a siesta, he dusted the car over again, before Master

left for the tennis courts. He moved around silently on the

days that Master retired to the study for hours. When

Master paced the corridor talking in a loud voice, he made

sure that there was hot water ready for tea. He scrubbed

the floors daily. He wiped the louvres until they sparkled in

the afternoon sunlight, paid attention to the tiny cracks in

the bathtub, polished the saucers that he used to serve kola

nut to Master’s friends. There were at least two visitors in

the living room each day, the radiogram turned on low to

strange flutelike music, low enough for the talking and

laughing and glass clinking to come clearly to Ugwu in the

kitchen or in the corridor as he ironed Master’s clothes.

He wanted to do more, wanted to give Master every

reason to keep him, and so one morning, he ironed

Master’s socks. They didn’t look rumpled, the black ribbed

socks, but he thought they would look even better

straightened. The hot iron hissed and when he raised it, he

saw that half of the sock was glued to it. He froze. Master

was at the dining table, finishing up breakfast, and would

come in any minute now to pull on his socks and shoes and

take the files on the shelf and leave for work. Ugwu wanted

to hide the sock under the chair and dash to the drawer for

a new pair but his legs would not move. He stood there

with the burnt sock, knowing Master would find him that

way.

“You’ve ironed my socks, haven’t you?” Master asked.

“You stupid ignoramus.” Stupidignoramus slid out of his

mouth like music.

“Sorry, sah! Sorry, sah!”

“I told you not to call me sir.” Master picked up a file

from the shelf. “I’m late.”

“Sah? Should I bring another pair?” Ugwu asked. But

Master had already slipped on his shoes, without socks,

and hurried out. Ugwu heard him bang the car door and

drive away. His chest felt weighty; he did not know why he

had ironed the socks, why he had not simply done the safari

suit. Evil spirits, that was it. The evil spirits had made him

do it. They lurked everywhere, after all. Whenever he was

ill with the fever, or once when he fell from a tree, his

mother would rub his body with okwuma, all the while

muttering, “We shall defeat them, they will not win.”

He went out to the front yard, past stones placed side by

side around the manicured lawn. The evil spirits would not

win. He would not let them defeat him. There was a round,

grassless patch in the middle of the lawn, like an island in a

green sea, where a thin palm tree stood. Ugwu had never

seen any palm tree that short, or one with leaves that

flared out so perfectly. It did not look strong enough to bear

fruit, did not look useful at all, like most of the plants here.

He picked up a stone and threw it into the distance. So

much wasted space. In his village, people farmed the tiniest

plots outside their homes and planted useful vegetables

and herbs. His grandmother had not needed to grow her

favourite herb, arigbe, because it grew wild everywhere.

She used to say that arigbe softened a man’s heart. She

was the second of three wives and did not have the special

position that came with being the first or the last, so before

she asked her husband for anything, she told Ugwu, she

cooked him spicy yam porridge with arigbe. It had worked,

always. Perhaps it would work with Master.

Ugwu walked around in search of arigbe. He looked

among the pink flowers, under the cashew tree with the

spongy beehive lodged on a branch, the lemon tree that

had black soldier ants crawling up and down the trunk, and

the pawpaw trees whose ripening fruits were dotted with

fat, bird-burrowed holes. But the ground was clean, no

herbs; Jomo’s weeding was thorough and careful, and

nothing that was not wanted was allowed to be.

The first time they met, Ugwu had greeted Jomo and

Jomo nodded and continued to work, saying nothing. He

was a small man with a tough, shrivelled body that Ugwu

felt needed a watering more than the plants that he

targeted with his metal can. Finally, Jomo looked up at

Ugwu. “Afam bu Jomo,” he announced, as if Ugwu did not

know his name. “Some people call me Kenyatta, after the

great man in Kenya. I am a hunter.”

Ugwu did not know what to say in return because Jomo

was staring right into his eyes, as though expecting to hear

something remarkable that Ugwu did.

“What kind of animals do you kill?” Ugwu asked. Jomo

beamed, as if this was exactly the question he had wanted,

and began to talk about his hunting. Ugwu sat on the steps

that led to the backyard and listened. From the first day, he

did not believe Jomo’s stories—of fighting off a leopard

barehanded, of killing two baboons with a single shot—but

he liked listening to them and he put off washing Master’s

clothes to the days Jomo came so he could sit outside while

Jomo worked. Jomo moved with a slow deliberateness. His

raking, watering, and planting all somehow seemed filled

with solemn wisdom. He would look up in the middle of

trimming a hedge and say, “That is good meat,” and then

walk to the goatskin bag tied behind his bicycle to

ruirimage for his catapult. Once, he shot a bush pigeon

down from the cashew tree with a small stone, wrapped it

in leaves, and put it into his bag.

“Don’t go to that bag unless I am around,” he told Ugwu.

“You might find a human head there.”

Ugwu laughed but had not entirely doubted Jomo. He

wished so much that Jomo had come to work today. Jomo

would have been the best person to ask about arigbe—

indeed, to ask for advice on how best to placate Master.

He walked out of the compound, to the street, and looked

through the plants on the roadside until he saw the

rumpled leaves close to the root of a whistling pine. He had

never smelt anything like the spicy sharpness of arigbe in

the bland food Master brought back from the staff club; he

would cook a stew with it, and offer Master some with rice,

and afterwards plead with him. Please don’t send me back

home, sah. I will work extrafor the burnt sock. I will earn

the money to replace it. He did not know exactly what he

could do to earn money for the sock, but he planned to tell

Master that anyway.

If the arigbe softened Master’s heart, perhaps he could

grow it and some other herbs in the backyard. He would

tell Master that the garden was something to do until he

started school, since the headmistress at the staff school

had told Master that he could not start midterm. He might

be hoping for too much, though. What was the point of

thinking about a herb garden if Master asked him to leave,

if Master would not forgive the burnt sock? He walked

quickly into the kitchen, laid the arigbe down on the

counter, and measured out some rice.

Hours later, he felt a tautness in his stomach when he

heard Master’s car: the crunch of gravel and the hum of

the engine before it stopped in the garage. He stood by the

pot of stew, stirring, holding the ladle as tightly as the

cramps in his stomach felt. Would Master ask him to leave

before he had a chance to offer him the food? What would

he tell his people?

“Good afternoon, sah—Odenigbo,” he said, even before

Master had come into the kitchen.

“Yes, yes,” Master said. He was holding books to his

chest with one hand and his briefcase with the other. Ugwu

rushed over to help with the books. “Sah? You will eat?” he

asked in English.

“Eat what?”

Ugwu’s stomach got tighter. He feared it might snap as

he bent to place the books on the dining table. “Stew, sah.”

“Stew?”

“Yes, sah. Very good stew, sah.”

“I’ll try some, then.”

“Yes, sah!”

“Call me Odenigbo!” Master snapped before going in to

take an afternoon bath.

After Ugwu served the food, he stood by the kitchen

door, watching as Master took a first forkful of rice and

stew, took another, and then called out, “Excellent, my good

man.”

Ugwu appeared from behind the door. “Sah? I can plant

the herbs in a small garden. To cook more stews like this.”

“A garden?” Master stopped to sip some water and turn a

journal page. “No, no, no. Outside is Jomo’s territory, and

inside is yours. Division of labour, my good man. If we need

herbs, we’ll ask Jomo to take care of it.” Ugwu loved the

sound of Divisionof labour, my good man, spoken in

English.

“Yes, sah,” he said, although he was already thinking of

what spot would be best for the herb garden: near the

Boys’ Quarters where Master never went. He could not

trust Jomo with the herb garden and would tend it himself

when Master was out, and this way, his arigbe, his herb of

forgiveness, would never run out. It was only later in the

evening that he realized Master must have forgotten about

the burnt sock long before coming home.

Ugwu came to realize other things. He was not a normal

house-boy; Dr Okeke’s houseboy next door did not sleep on

a bed in a room, he slept on the kitchen floor. The houseboy

at the end of the street with whom Ugwu went to the

market did not decide what would be cooked, he cooked

whatever he was ordered to. And they did not have masters

or madams who gave them books, saying, “This one is

excellent, just excellent.”

Ugwu did not understand most of the sentences in the

books, but he made a show of reading them. Nor did he

entirely understand the conversations of Master and his

friends but listened anyway and heard that the world had

to do more about the black people killed in Sharpeville,

that the spy plane shot down in’ Russia served the

Americans right, that De Gaulle was being clumsy in

Algeria, that the United Nations would never get rid of

Tshombe in Katanga. Once in a while, Master would stand

up and raise his glass and his voice—“To that brave black

American led into the University of Mississippi!”—“To

Ceylon and to the world’s first woman prime minister!”

“To Cuba for beating the Americans at their own

game!”—and Ugwu would enjoy the clink of beer bottles

against glasses, glasses against glasses, bottles against

bottles.

More friends visited on weekends, and when Ugwu came

out to serve their drinks, Master would sometimes

introduce him—in English, of course. “Ugwu helps me

around the house. Very clever boy.” Ugwu would continue

to uncork bottles of beer and Coke silently, while feeling

the warm glow of pride spread up from the tips of his toes.

He especially liked it when Master introduced him to

foreigners, like Mr Johnson, who was from the Caribbean

and stammered when he spoke, or Professor Lehman, the

nasal white man from America who had eyes that were the

piercing green of a fresh leaf. Ugwu was vaguely frightened

the first time he saw him because he had always imagined

that only evil spirits had grass-coloured eyes.

He soon knew the regular guests and brought put their

drinks before Master asked him to. There was Dr Patel, the

Indian man who drank Golden Guinea beer mixed with

Coke. Master called him Doc. Whenever Ugwu brought out

the kola nut, Master would say, “Doc, you know the kola

nut does not understand English,” before going on to bless

the kola nut in Igbo. Dr Patel laughed each time, with great

pleasure, leaning back on the sofa and throwing his short

legs up as if it were a joke he had never heard before. After

Master broke the kola nut and passed the saucer around,

Dr Patel always took a lobe and put it into his shirt pocket;

Ugwu had never seen him eat one.

There was tall, skinny Professor Ezeka, with a voice so

hoarse he sounded as if he spoke in whispers. He always

picked up his glass and held it up against the light, to make

sure Ugwu had washed it well. Sometimes, he brought his

own bottle of gin. Other times, he asked for tea and then

went on to examine the sugar bowl and the tin of milk,

muttering, “The capabilities of bacteria are quite

extraordinary.”

There was Okeoma, who came most often and stayed the

longest. He looked younger than the other guests, always

wore a pair of shorts, and had bushy hair with a parting at

the side that stood higher than Master’s. It looked rough

and tangled, unlike Master’s, as if Okeoma did not like to

comb it. Okeoma drank Fanta. He read his poetry aloud on

some evenings, holding a sheaf of papers, and Ugwu would

look through the kitchen door to see all the guests

watching him, their faces half frozen, as if they did not dare

breathe. Afterwards, Master would clap and say, in his loud

voice, “The voice of our generation!” and the clapping

would go on until Okeoma said sharply, “That’s enough!”

And there was Miss Adebayo, who drank brandy like

Master and was nothing like Ugwu had expected a

university woman to be. His aunty had told him a little

about university women. She would know, because she

worked as a cleaner at the Faculty of Sciences during the

day and as a waitress at the staff club in the evenings;

sometimes, too, the lecturers paid her to come in and clean

their homes. She said university women kept framed

photos of their student days in Ibadan and Britain and

America on their shelves. For breakfast, they had eggs that

were not cooked well, so that the yolk danced around, and

they wore bouncy, straight-hair wigs and maxi-dresses that

grazed their ankles. She told a story once about a couple at

a cocktail party in the staff club who climbed out of a nice

Peugeot 404, the man in an elegant cream suit, the woman

in a green dress. Everybody turned to watch them, walking

hand in hand, and then the wind blew the woman’s wig off

her head. She was bald. They used hot combs to straighten

their hair, his aunty had said, because they wanted to look

like white people, although the combs ended up burning

their hair off.

Ugwu had imagined the bald woman: beautiful, with a

nose that stood up, not the sitting-down, flattened noses

that he was used to. He imagined quietness, delicacy, the

kind of woman whose sneeze, whose laugh and talk, would

be soft as the under feathers closest to a chicken’s skin.

But the women who visited Master, the ones he saw at the

supermarket and on the streets, were different. Most of

them did wear wigs (a few had their hair plaited or braided

with thread), but they were not delicate stalks of grass.

They were loud. The loudest was Miss Adebayo. She was

not an Igbo woman; Ugwu could tell from her name, even if

he had not once run into her and her housegirl at the

market and heard them both speaking rapid,

incomprehensible Yoruba. She had asked him to wait so

that she could give him a ride back to the campus, but he

thanked her and said he still had many things left to buy

and would take a taxi, although he had finished shopping.

He did not want to ride in her car, did not like how her

voice rose above Master’s in the living room, challenging

and arguing. He often fought the urge to raise his own

voice from behind the kitchen door and tell her to shut up,

especially when she called Master a sophist. He did not

know what sophist meant, but he did not like that she

called Master that. Nor did he like the way she looked at

Master. Even when somebody else was speaking and she

was supposed to be focused on that person, her eyes would

be on Master. One Saturday night, Okeoma dropped a glass

and Ugwu came in to clean up the shards that lay on the

floor. He took his time cleaning. The conversation was

clearer from here and it was easier to make out what

Professor Ezeka said. It was almost impossible to hear the

man from the kitchen.

“We should have a bigger pan-African response to what

is happening in the American South really—” Professor

Ezeka said.

Master cut him short. “You know, pan-Africanism is

fundamentally a European notion.”

“You are digressing,” Professor Ezeka said, and shook his

head in his usual superior manner.

“Maybe it is a European notion,” Miss Adebayo said, “but

in the bigger picture, we are all one race.”

“What bigger picture?” Master asked. “The bigger

picture of the white man! Can’t you see that we are not all

alike except to white eyes?” Master’s voice rose easily,

Ugwu had noticed, and by his third glass of brandy, he

would start to gesture with his glass, leaning forwards until

he was seated on the very edge of his armchair. Late at

night, after Master was in bed, Ugwu would sit on the same

chair and imagine himself speaking swift English, talking to

rapt imaginary guests, using words like decolonize and

pan-African, moulding his voice after Master’s, and he

would shift and shift until he too was on the edge of the

chair.

“Of course we are all alike, we all have white oppression

in common,” Miss Adebayo said dryly. “Pan-Africanism is

simply the most sensible response.”

“Of course, of course, but my point is that the only

authentic identity for the African is the tribe,” Master said.

“I am Nigerian because a white man created Nigeria and

gave me that identity. I am black because the white man

constructed black to be as different as possible from his

white. But I was Igbo before the white man came.”

Professor Ezeka snorted and shook his head, thin legs

crossed. “But you became aware that you were Igbo

because of the white man. The pan-Igbo idea itself came

only in the face of white domination. You must see that

tribe as it is today is as colonial a product as nation and

race.” Professor Ezeka recrossed his legs.

“The pan-Igbo idea existed long before the white man!”

Master shouted. “Go and ask the elders in your village

about your history.”

“The problem is that Odenigbo is a hopeless tribalist, we

need to keep him quiet,” Miss Adebayo said.

Then she did what startled Ugwu: she got up laughing

and went over to Master and pressed his lips close

together. She stood there for what seemed a long time, her

hand to his mouth. Ugwu imagined Master’s brandy-diluted

saliva touching her fingers. He stiffened as he picked up

the shattered glass. He wished that Master would not sit

there shaking his head as if the whole thing were very

funny.

Miss Adebayo became a threat after that. She began to

look more and more like a fruit bat, with her pinched face

and cloudy complexion and print dresses that billowed

around her body like wings. Ugwu served her drink last

and wasted long minutes drying his hands on a dishcloth

before he opened the door to let her in. He worried that she

would marry Master and bring her Yoruba-speaking

housegirl into the house and destroy his herb garden and

tell him what he could and could not cook. Until he-heard

Master and Okeoma talking.

“She did not look as if she wanted to go home today,”

Okeoma said. “Nwoke m, are you sure you are not planning

to do something with her?”

“Don’t talk rubbish.”

“If you did, nobody in London would know.”

“Look, look—”

“I know you’re not interested in her like that, but what

still puzzles me is what these women see in you.”

Okeoma laughed and Ugwu was relieved. He did not

want Miss Adebayo—or any woman—coming in to intrude

and disrupt their lives. Some evenings, when the visitors

left early, he would sit on the floor of the living room and

listen to Master talk. Master mostly talked about things

Ugwu did not understand, as if the brandy made him forget

that Ugwu was not one of his visitors. But it didn’t matter.

All Ugwu needed was the deep voice, the melody of the

English-inflected Igbo, the glint of the thick eyeglasses.

He had been with Master for four months when Master

told him, “A special woman is coming for the weekend. Very

special. You make sure the house is clean. I’ll order the

food from the staff club.”

“But, sah, I can cook,” Ugwu said, with a sad

premonition.

“She’s just come back from London, my good man, and

she likes her rice a certain way. Fried rice, I think. I’m not

sure you could make something suitable.” Master turned to

walk away.

“I can make that, sah,” Ugwu said quickly, although he

had no idea what fried rice was. “Let me make the rice, and

you get the chicken from the staff club.”

“Artful negotiation,” Master said in English. “All right,

then. You make the rice.”

“Yes, sah,” Ugwu said. Later, he cleaned the rooms and

scrubbed the toilet carefully, as he always did, but Master

looked at them and said they were not clean enough and

went out and bought another jar of Vim powder and asked,

sharply, why Ugwu didn’t clean the spaces between the

tiles. Ugwu cleaned them again. He scrubbed until sweat

crawled down the sides of his face, until his arm ached.

And on Saturday, he bristled as he cooked. Master had

never complained about his work before. It was this

woman’s fault, this woman that Master considered too

special even for him to cook for. Just come back from

London, indeed.

When the doorbell rang, he muttered a curse under his

breath about her stomach swelling from eating faeces. He

heard Master’s raised voice, excited and childlike, followed

by a long silence and he imagined their hug, and her ugly

body pressed to Master’s. Then he heard her voice. He

stood still. He had always thought that Master’s English

could not be compared to anybody’s, not Professor Ezeka,

whose English one could hardly hear, or Okeoma, who

spoke English as if he were speaking Igbo, with the same

cadences and pauses, or Patel, whose English was a faded

lilt. Not even the white man Professor Lehman, with his

words forced out through his nose, sounded as dignified as

Master. Master’s English was music, but what Ugwu was

hearing now, from this woman, was magic. Here was a

superior tongue, a luminous language, the kind of English

he heard on Master’s radio, rolling out with clipped

precision. It reminded him of slicing a yam with a newly

sharpened knife, the easy perfection in every slice.

“Ugwu!” Master called. “Bring Coke!”

Ugwu walked out to the living room. She smelt of

coconuts. He greeted her, his ‘Good afternoon’ a mumble,

his eyes on the floor.

“Kedu?” she asked.

“I’m well, mah.” He still did not look at her. As he

uncorked the bottle, she laughed at something Master said.

Ugwu was about to pour the cold Coke into her glass when

she touched his hand and said, “Rapuba, don’t worry about

that.”

Her hand was lightly moist. “Yes, mah.”

“Your master has told me how well you take care of him,

Ugwu,” she said. Her Igbo words were softer than her

English, and he was disappointed at how easily they came

out. He wished she would stumble in her Igbo; he had not

expected English that perfect to sit beside equally perfect

Igbo.

“Yes, mah,” he mumbled. His eyes were still focused on

the floor.

“What have you cooked us, my good man?” Master

asked, as if he did not know. He sounded annoyingly jaunty.

“I serve now, sah,” Ugwu said, in English, and then

wished he had said I am serving now, because it sounded

better, because it would impress her more. As he set the

table, he kept from glancing at the living room, although he

could hear her laughter and Master’s voice, with its

irritating new timbre.

He finally looked at her as she and Master sat down at

the table. Her oval face was smooth like an egg, the lush

colour of rain-drenched earth, and her eyes were large and

slanted and she looked like she was not supposed to be

walking and talking like everyone else; she should be in a

glass case like the one in Master’s study, where people

could admire her curvy, fleshy body, where she would be

preserved untainted. Her hair was long; each of the plaits

that hung down to her neck ended in a soft fuzz. She smiled

easily; her teeth were the same bright white of her eyes.

He did not know how long he stood staring at her until

Master said, “Ugwu usually does a lot better than this. He

makes a fantastic stew.”

“It’s quite tasteless, which is better than bad-tasting, of

course,” she said, and smiled at Master before turning to

Ugwu. “I’ll show you how to cook rice properly, Ugwu,

without using so much oil.”

“Yes, mah,” Ugwu said. He had invented what he

imagined was fried rice, frying the rice in groundnut oil,

and had half-hoped it would send them both to the toilet in

a ‘hurry. Now, though, he wanted to cook a perfect meal, a

savoury jollofrice or his special stew with arigbe, to show

her how well he could cook. He delayed washing up so that

the running water would not drown out her voice. When he

served them tea, he took his time rearranging the biscuits

on the saucer so that he could linger and listen to her, until

Master said, “That’s quite, all right, my good man.” Her

name was Olanna. But Master said it only once; he mostly

called her nkem, my own. They talked about the quarrel

between the Sardauna and the premier of the Western

Region, and then Master said something about waiting

until she moved to Nsukka and how it was only a few weeks

away after all. Ugwu held his breath to make sure he had

heard clearly. Master was laughing now, saying, “But we

will live here together, nkem, and you can keep the Elias

Avenue flat as well.”

She would move to Nsukka. She would live in this house.

Ugwu walked away from the door and stared at the pot on

the stove. His life would change. He would learn to cook

fried rice and he would have to use less oil and he would

take orders from her. He felt sad, and yet his sadness was

incomplete; he felt expectant, too, an excitement he did not

entirely understand.

That evening, he was washing Master’s linen in the

backyard, near the lemon tree, when he looked up from the

basin of soapy water and saw her standing by the back

door, watching him. At first, he was sure it was his

imagination, because the people he thought the most about

often appeared to him in visions. He had imaginary

conversations with Anulika all the time, and, right after he

touched himself at night, Nnesinachi would appear briefly

with a mysterious smile on her face. But Olanna was really

at the door. She was walking across the yard towards him.

She had only a wrapper tied around her chest, and as she

walked, he imagined that she was a yellow cashew, shapely

and ripe.

“Mah? You want anything?” he asked. He knew that if he

reached out and touched her face, it would feel like butter,

the kind Master unwrapped from a paper packet and

spread on his bread.

“Let me help you with that.” She pointed at the bedsheet

he was rinsing, and slowly he took the dripping sheet out.

She held one end and moved back. “Turn yours that way,”

she said.

He twisted his end of the sheet to his right while she

twisted to her right, and they watched as the water was

squeezed out. The sheet was slippery.

“Thank, mah,” he said.

She smiled. Her smile made him feel taller. “Oh, look,

those pawpaws are almost ripe. Lotekwa, don’t forget to

pluck them.”

There was something polished about her voice, about

her; she was like the stone that lay right below a gushing

spring, rubbed smooth by years and years of sparkling

water, and looking at her was similar to finding that stone,

knowing that there were so few like it. He watched her

walk back indoors.

He did not want to share the job of caring for Master

with anyone, did not want to disrupt the balance of his life

with Master, and yet it was suddenly unbearable to think of

not seeing her again. Later, after dinner, he tiptoed to

Master’s bedroom and rested his ear on the door. She was

moaning loudly, sounds that seemed so unlike her, so

uncontrolled and stirring and throaty. He stood there for a

long time, until the moans stopped, and then he went back

to his room.

O

TWO

lanna nodded to the High Life music from the car

radio. Her hand was on Odenigbo’s thigh; she raised

it whenever he wanted to change gears, placed it

back, and laughed when he teased her about being a

distracting Aphrodite. It was exhilarating to sit beside him,

with the car windows down and the air filled with dust and

Rex Lawson’s dreamy rhythms. He had a lecture in two

hours but had insisted on taking her to Enugu airport, and

although she had pretended to protest, she wanted him to.

When they drove across the narrow roads that ran through

Milliken Hill, with a deep gully on one side and a steep hill

on the other, she didn’t tell him that he was driving a little

fast. She didn’t look, either, at the handwritten sign by the

road that said, in rough letters, BETTER BELATE THAN

THE LATE.

She was disappointed to see the sleek, white forms of

aeroplanes gliding up as they approached the airport. He

parked beneath the colonnaded entrance. Porters

surrounded the car and called out, “Sah? Madam? You get

luggage?” but Olanna hardly heard them because he had

pulled her to him.

“I can’t wait, nkem, ”he said, his lips pressed to hers. He

tasted of marmalade. She wanted to tell him that she

couldn’t wait to move to Nsukka either, but he knew

anyway, and his tongue was in her mouth, and she felt a

new warmth between her legs.

A car horn blew. A porter called out, “Ha, this place is for

loading, oh! Loading only!”

Finally, Odenigbo let her go and jumped out of the car to

get her bag from the boot. He carried it to the ticket

counter. “Safe journey, ije oma,” he said.

“Drive carefully,” she said.

She watched him walk away, a thickly built man in khaki

trousers and a short-sleeved shirt that looked crisp from

ironing. He threw his legs out with an aggressive

confidence: the gait of a person who would not ask for

directions but remained sure that he would somehow get

there. After he drove off, she lowered her head and sniffed

herself. She had dabbed on his Old Spice that morning,

impulsively, and didn’t tell him because he would laugh. He

would not understand the superstition of taking a whiff of

him with her. It was as if the scent could, at least for a

while, stifle her questions and make her a little more like

him, a little more certain, a little less questioning.

She turned to the ticket seller and wrote her name on a

slip of paper. “Good afternoon. One way to Lagos, please.”

“Ozobia?” The ticket seller’s pockmarked face

brightened in a wide smile. “Chief Ozobia’s daughter?”

“Yes.”

“Oh! Well done, madam. I will ask the porter to take you

to the VIP lounge.” The ticket seller turned around.

“Ikenna! Where is that foolish boy? Ikenna!”

Olanna shook her head and smiled. “No, no need for

that.” She smiled again, reassuringly, to make it clear it

was not his fault that she did not want to be in the VIP

lounge.

The general lounge was crowded. Olanna sat opposite

three little children in threadbare clothes and slippers who

giggled intermittently while their father gave them severe

looks. An old woman with a sour, wrinkled face, their

grandmother, sat closest to Olanna, clutching a handbag

and murmuring to herself. Olanna could smell the

mustiness on her wrapper; it must have been dug out from

an ancient trunk for this occasion. When a clear voice

announced the arrival of a Nigeria Airways flight, the

father sprang up and then sat down again.

“You must be waiting for somebody,” Olanna said to him

in Igbo.

“Yes, nwanne m, my brother is coming back from

overseas after four years reading there.” His Owerri dialect

had a strong rural accent.

“Eh!” Olanna said. She wanted to ask him where exactly

his brother was coming back from and what he had studied,

but she didn’t. He might not know.

The grandmother turned to Olanna. “He is the first in our

village to go overseas, and our people have prepared a

dance for him. The dance troupe will meet us in Ikeduru.”

She smiled proudly to show brown teeth. Her accent was

even thicker; it was difficult to make out everything she

said. “My fellow women are jealous, but is it my fault that

their sons have empty brains and my own son won the

white people’s scholarship?”

Another flight arrival was announced and the father said,

“Chere! It’s him? It’s him!”

The children stood up and the father asked them to sit

down and then stood up himself. The grandmother clutched

her handbag to her belly. Olanna watched the plane

descend. It touched down, and just as it began to taxi on

the tarmac, the grandmother screamed and dropped her

handbag.

Olanna was startled. “What is it? What is it?”

“Mama!” the father said.

“Why does it not stop?” The grandmother asked, both

hands placed on her head in despair. “CM m! My God! I am

in trouble! Where is it taking my son now? Have you people

deceived me?”

“Mama, it will stop,” Olanna said. “This is what it does

when it lands.” She picked up the handbag and then took

the older, callused hand in hers. “It will stop,” she said

again.

She didn’t let go until the plane stopped and the

grandmother slipped her hand away and muttered

something about foolish people who could not build planes

well. Olanna watched the family hurry to the arrivals gate.

As she walked towards her own gate minutes later, she

looked back often, hoping to catch a glimpse of the son

from overseas. But she didn’t.

Her flight was bumpy. The man seated next to her was

eating bitter kola, crunching loudly, and when he turned to

make conversation, she slowly shifted away until she was

pressed against the aeroplane wall.

“I just have to tell you, you are so beautiful,” he said.

She smiled and said thank you and kept her eyes on her

newspaper. Odenigbo would be amused when she told him

about this man, the way he always laughed at her admirers,

with his unquestioning confidence. It was what had first

attracted her to him that June day two years ago in Ibadan,

the kind of rainy day that wore the indigo colour of dusk

although it was only noon. She was home on holiday from

England. She was in a serious relationship with

Mohammed. She did not notice Odenigbo at first, standing

ahead of her in a queue to buy a ticket outside the

university theatre. She might never have noticed him if a

white man with silver hair had not stood behind her and if

the ticket seller had not signalled to the white man to come

forwards. “Let me help you here, sir,” the ticket seller said,

in that comically contrived ‘white’ accent that uneducated

people liked to put on.

Olanna was annoyed, but only mildly, because she knew

the queue moved fast anyway. So she was surprised at the

outburst that followed, from a man wearing a brown safari

suit and clutching a book: Odenigbo. He walked up to the

front, escorted the white man back into the queue and then

shouted at the ticket seller. “You miserable ignoramus! You

see a white person and he looks better than your own

people? You must apologize to everybody in this queue!

Right now!”

Olanna had stared at him, at the arch of his eyebrows

behind the glasses, the thickness of his body, already

thinking of the least hurtful way to untangle herself from

Mohammed. Perhaps she would have known that Odenigbo

was different, even if he had not spoken; his haircut alone

said it, standing up in a high halo. But there was an

unmistakable grooming about him, too; he was not one of

those who used untidiness to substantiate their radicalism.

She smiled and said “Well done!” as he walked past her,

and it was the boldest thing she had ever done, the first

time she had demanded attention from a man. He stopped

and introduced himself, “My name is Odenigbo.”

“I’m Olanna,” she said and later, she would tell him that

there had been a crackling magic in the air and he would

tell her that his desire at that moment was so intense that

his groin ached.

When she finally felt that desire, she was surprised

above everything else. She did not know that a man’s

thrusts could suspend memory, that it was possible to be

poised in a place where she could not think or remember,

but only feel. The intensity had not abated after two years,

nor had her awe at his self-assured eccentricities and his

fierce moralities. But she feared that this was because

theirs was a relationship consumed in sips: She saw him

when she came home on holiday; they wrote to one

another; they talked on the phone. Now that she was back

in Nigeria they would live together, and she did not

understand how he could not show some uncertainty. He

was too sure.

She looked out at the clouds outside her window, smoky

thickets drifting by, and thought how fragile they were.

Olanna had not wanted to have dinner with her parents,

especially since they had invited Chief Okonji. But her

mother came into her room to ask her to please join them;

it was not every day that they hosted the finance minister,

and this dinner was even more important because of the

building contract her father wanted. “Biko, wear something

nice. Kainene will be dressing up, too,” her mother had

added, as if mentioning her twin sister somehow

legitimized everything.

Now, Olanna smoothed the napkin on her lap and smiled

at the steward placing a plate of halved avocado next to

her. His white uniform was starched so stiff his trousers

looked as if they had been made out of cardboard.

“Thank you, Maxwell,” she said.

“Yes, aunty,” Maxwell mumbled, and moved on with his

tray.

Olanna looked around the table. Her parents were

focused on Chief Okonji, nodding eagerly as he told a story

about a recent meeting with Prime Minister Balewa.

Kainene was inspecting her plate with that arch expression

of hers, as if she were mocking the avocado. None of them

thanked Maxwell. Olanna wished they would; it was such a

simple thing to do, to acknowledge the humanity of the

people who served them. She had suggested it once; her

father said he paid them good salaries, and her mother said

thanking them would give them room to be insulting, while

Kainene, as usual, said nothing, a bored expression on her

face.

“This is the best avocado I have tasted in a long time,”

Chief Okonji said.

“It is from one of our farms,” her mother said. “The one

near Asaba.”

“I’ll have the steward put some in a bag for you,” her

father said.

“Excellent,” Chief Okonji said. “Olanna, I hope you are

enjoying yours, eh? You’ve been staring at it as if it is

something that bites.” He laughed, an overly hearty guffaw,

and her parents promptly laughed as well.

“It’s very good.” Olanna looked up. There was something

wet about Chief Okonji’s smile. Last week, when he thrust

his card into her hand at the Ikoyi Club, she had worried

about that smile because it looked as if the movement of his

lips made saliva fill his mouth and threaten to trickle down

his chin.

“I hope you’ve thought about coming to join us at the

ministry, Olanna. We need first-class brains like yours,”

Chief Okonji said.

“How many people get offered jobs personally from the

finance minister,” her mother said, to nobody in particular,

and her smile lit up the oval, dark-skinned face that was so

nearly perfect, so symmetrical, that friends called her Art.

Olanna placed her spoon down. “I’ve decided to go to

Nsukka. I’ll be leaving in two weeks.”

She saw the way her father tightened his lips. Her

mother left her hand suspended in the air for a moment, as

if the news were too tragic to continue sprinkling salt. “I

thought you had not made up your mind,” her mother said.

“I can’t waste too much time or they will offer it to

somebody else,” Olanna said.

“Nsukka? Is that right? You’ve decided to move to

Nsukka?” Chief Okonji asked.

“Yes. I applied for a job as instructor in the Department

of Sociology and I just got it,” Olanna said. She usually

liked her avocado without salt, but it was bland now, almost

nauseating.

“Oh. So you’re leaving us in Lagos,” Chief Okonji said.

His face seemed to melt, folding in on itself. Then he turned

and asked, too brightly, “And what about you, Kainene?”

Kainene looked Chief Okonji right in the eyes, with that

stare that was so expressionless, so blank, that it was

almost hostile. “What about me, indeed?” She raised her

eyebrows. “I, too, will be putting my newly acquired degree

to good use. I’m moving to Port Harcourt to manage

Daddy’s businesses there.”

Olanna wished she still had those flashes, moments when

she could tell what Kainene was thinking. When they were

in primary school, they sometimes looked at each other and

laughed, without speaking, because they were thinking the

same joke. She doubted that Kainene ever had those

flashes now, since they never talked about such things any

more. They never talked about anything any more.

“So Kainene will manage the cement factory?” Chief

Okonji asked, turning to her father.

“She’ll oversee everything in the east, the factories and

our new oil interests. She has always had an excellent eye

for business.”

“Whoever said you lost out by having twin daughters is a

liar,” Chief Okonji said.

“Kainene is not just like a son, she is like two,” her father

said. He glanced at Kainene and Kainene looked away, as if

the pride on his face did not matter, and Olanna quickly

focused on her plate so that neither would know she had

been watching them. The plate was elegant, light green,

the same colour as the avocado.

“Why don’t you all come to my house this weekend, eh?”

Chief Okonji asked. “If only to sample my cook’s fish

pepper soup. The chap is from Nembe; he knows what to

do with fresh fish.”

Her parents cackled loudly. Olanna was not sure how

that was funny, but then it was the minister’s joke.

“That sounds wonderful,” Olanna’s father said.

“It will be nice for all of us to go before Olanna leaves for

Nsukka,” her mother said.

Olanna felt a slight irritation, a prickly feeling on her

skin. “I would love to come, but I won’t be here this

weekend.”

“You won’t be here?” her father asked. She wondered if

the expression in his eyes was a desperate plea. She

wondered, too, how her parents had promised Chief Okonji

an affair with her in exchange for the contract. Had they

stated it verbally, plainly, or had it been implied?

“I have made plans to go to Kano, to see Uncle Mbaezi

and the family, and Mohammed as well,” she said.

Her father stabbed at his avocado. “I see.”

Olanna sipped her water and said nothing.

After dinner, they moved to the balcony for liqueurs.

Olanna liked this after-dinner ritual and often would move

away from her parents and the guests to stand by the

railing, looking at the tall lamps that lit up the paths below,

so bright that the swimming pool looked silver and the

hibiscus and bougainvillea took on an incandescent patina

over their reds and pinks. The first and only time Odenigbo

visited her in Lagos, they had stood looking down at the

swimming pool and Odenigbo threw a bottle cork down and

watched it plunk into the water. He drank a lot of brandy,

and when her father said that the idea of Nsukka

University was silly, that Nigeria was not ready for an

indigenous university, and that receiving support from an

American university—rather than a proper university in

Britain—was plain daft, he raised his voice in response.

Olanna had thought he would realize that her father only

wanted to gall him and show how unimpressed he was by a

senior lecturer from Nsukka. She thought he would let her

father’s words go. But his voice rose higher and higher as

he argued about Nsukka being free of colonial influence,

and she had blinked often to signal him to stop, although he

may not have noticed since the veranda was dim. Finally

the phone rang and the conversation had to end. The look

in her parents’ eyes was grudging respect, Olanna could

tell, but it did not stop them from telling her that Odenigbo

was crazy and wrong for her, one of those hot-headed

university people who talked and talked until everybody

had a headache and nobody understood what had been

said.

“Such a cool night,” Chief Okonji said behind her. Olanna

turned around. She did not know when her parents and

Kainene had gone inside.

“Yes,” she said.

Chief Okonji stood in front of her. His agbada was

embroidered with gold thread around the collar. She looked

at his neck, settled into rolls of fat, and imagined him

prying the folds apart as he bathed.

“What about tomorrow? There’s a cocktail party at Ikoyi

Hotel,” he said. “I want all of you to meet some expatriates.

They are looking for land and I can arrange for them to buy

from your father at five or six times the price.”

“I will be doing a St Vincent de Paul charity drive

tomorrow.”

Chief Okonji moved closer. “I can’t keep you out of my

mind,” he said, and a mist of alcohol settled on her face.

“I am not interested, Chief.”

“I just can’t keep you out of my mind,” Chief Okonji said

again. “Look, you don’t have to work at the ministry. I can

appoint you to a board, any board you want, and I will

furnish a flat for you wherever you want.” He pulled her to

him, and for a while Olanna did nothing, her body limp

against his. She was used to this, being grabbed by men

who walked around in a cloud of cologne-drenched

entitlement, with the presumption that, because they were

powerful and found her beautiful, they belonged together.

She pushed him back, finally, and felt vaguely sickened at

how her hands sank into his soft chest. “Stop it, Chief.”

His eyes were closed. “I love you, believe me. I really

love you.”

She slipped out of his embrace and went indoors. Her

parents’ voices were faint from the living room. She

stopped to sniff the wilting flowers in a vase on the side

table near the staircase, even though she knew their scent

would be gone, before walking upstairs. Her room felt

alien, the warm wood tones, the tan furniture, the wall-to-

wall burgundy carpeting that cushioned her feet, the reams

of space that made Kainene call their rooms flats. The copy

of Lagos Life was still on her bed; she picked it up, and

looked at the photo of her and her mother, on page five,

their faces contented and complacent, at a cocktail party

hosted by the British high commissioner. Her mother had

pulled her close as a photographer approached; later, after

the flashbulb went off, Olanna had called the photographer

over and asked him please not to publish the photo. He had

looked at her oddly. Now, she realized how silly it had been

to ask him; of course he would never understand the

discomfort that came with being a part of the gloss that

was her parents’ life.

She was in bed reading when her mother knocked and

came in.

“Oh, you’re reading,” her mother said. She was holding

rolls of fabric in her hand. “Chief just left. He said I should

greet you.”

Olanna wanted to ask if they had promised him an affair

with her, and yet she knew she never would. “What are

those materials?”

“Chief just sent his driver to the car for them before he

left. It’s the latest lace from Europe. See? Very nice,

ifukwa?”

Olanna felt the fabric between her fingers. “Yes, very

nice.”

“Did you see the one he wore today? Original! Eztgbo!”

Her mother sat down beside her. “And do you know, they

say he never wears any outfit twice? He gives them to his

houseboys once he has worn them.”

Olanna visualized his poor houseboys’ wood boxes

incongruously full of lace, houseboys she was sure did not

get paid much every month, owning cast-off kaftans and

agbadas they could never wear. She was tired. Having

conversations with her mother tired her.

“Which one do you want, nne? I will make a long skirt

and blouse for you and Kainene.”

“No, don’t worry, Mum. Make something for yourself. I

won’t wear rich lace in Nsukka too often.”

Her mother ran a finger over the bedside cabinet. “This

silly house-girl does not clean furniture properly. Does she

think I pay her to play around?”

Olanna placed her book down. Her mother wanted to say

something, she could tell, and the set smile, the punctilious

gestures, were a beginning.

“So how is Odenigbo?” her mother asked finally.

“He’s fine.”

Her mother sighed, in the overdone way that meant she

wished Olanna would see reason. “Have you thought about

this Nsukka move well? Very well?”

“I have never been surer of anything.”

“But will you be comfortable there?” Her mother said

comfortable with a faint shudder, and Olanna almost smiled

because her mother had Odenigbo’s basic university house

in mind, with its sturdy rooms and plain furniture and

uncarpeted floors.

“I’ll be fine,” she said.

“You can find work here in Lagos and travel down to see

him during weekends.”

“I don’t want to work in Lagos. I want to work in the

university, and I want to live with him.”

Her mother looked at her for a little while longer before

she stood up and said, “Good night, my daughter,” in a

voice that was small and wounded.

Olanna stared at the door. She was used to her mother’s

disapproval; it had coloured most of her major decisions,

after all: when she chose two weeks’ suspension rather

than apologize to her Heath-grove form mistress for

insisting that the lessons on Pax Britannica were

contradictory; when she joined the Students’ Movement for

Independence at Ibadan; when she refused to marry Igwe

Okagbue’s son, and later, Chief Okaro’s son. Still, each

time, the disapproval made her want to apologize, to make

up for it in some way.

She was almost asleep when Kainene knocked. “So will

you be spreading your legs for that elephant in exchange

for Daddy’s contract?” Kainene asked.

Olanna sat up, surprised. She did not remember the last

time that Kainene had come into her room.

“Daddy literally pulled me away from the veranda, so we

could leave you alone with the good cabinet minister,”

Kainene said. “Will he give Daddy the contract then?”

“He didn’t say. But it’s not as if he will get nothing.

Daddy will still give him ten per cent, after all.”

“The ten per cent is standard, so extras always help. The

other bidders probably don’t have a beautiful daughter.”

Kainene dragged the word out until it sounded cloying,

sticky: beau-ti-ful. She was flipping through the copy of

Lagos Life, her silk robe tied tightly around her skinny

waist. “The benefit of being the ugly daughter is that

nobody uses you as sex bait.”

“They’re not using me as sex bait.”

Kainene did not respond for a while; she seemed focused

on an article in the paper. Then she looked up. “Richard is

going to Nsukka too. He’s received the grant, and he’s

going to write his book there.”

“Oh, good. So that means you will be spending time in

Nsukka?”

Kainene ignored the question. “Richard doesn’t know

anybody in Nsukka, so maybe you could introduce him to

your revolutionary lover.”

Olanna smiled. Revolutionarylover. The things Kainene

could say with a straight face! “I’ll introduce them,” she

said. She had never liked any of Kainene’s boyfriends and

never liked that Kainene dated so many white men in

England. Their thinly veiled condescension, their false

validations irritated her. Yet she had not reacted in the

same way to Richard Churchill when Kainene brought him

to dinner. Perhaps it was because he did not have that

familiar superiority of English people who thought they

understood Africans better than Africans understood

themselves and, instead, had an endearing uncertainty

about him—almost a shyness. Or perhaps because her

parents had ignored him, unimpressed because he didn’t

know anyone who was worth knowing.

“I think Richard will like Odenigbo’s house,” Olanna said.

“It’s like a political club in the evenings. He only invited

Africans at first because the university is so full of

foreigners, and he wanted Africans to have a chance to

socialize with one another. At first it was BYOB, but now he

asks them all to contribute some money, and every week he

buys drinks and they meet in his house—” Olanna stopped.

Kainene was looking at her woodenly, as if she had broken

their unspoken rule and tried to start idle chatter.

Kainene turned towards the door. “When do you leave for

Kano?”

“Tomorrow.” Olanna wanted Kainene to stay, to sit on the

bed and hold a pillow on her lap and gossip and laugh into

the night.

“Go well, jee ofuma. Greet Aunty and Uncle and Arize.”

“I will,” Olanna said, although Kainene had already left

and shut the door. She listened for Kainene’s footsteps on

the carpeted hallway. It was now that they were back from

England, living in the same house again, that Olanna

realized just how distant they had become. Kainene had

always been the withdrawn child, the sullen and often

acerbic teenager, the one who, because she did not try to

please their parents, left Olanna with that duty. But they

had been close, despite that. They used to be friends. She

wondered when it all changed. Before they went to

England, for sure, since they didn’t even have the same

friends in London. Perhaps it was during their secondary-

school years at Heathgrove. Perhaps even before. Nothing

had happened—no momentous quarrel, no significant

incident—rather, they had simply drifted apart, but it was

Kainene who now anchored herself firmly in a distant place

so that they could not drift back together.

Olanna chose not to fly up to Kano. She liked to sit by the

train window and watch the thick woods sliding past, the

grassy plains unfurling, the cattle swinging their tails as

they were herded by barechested nomads. When she got to

Kano, it struck her once again how different it was from

Lagos, from Nsukka, from her hometown Umunnachi, how

different the North as a whole was from the South. Here,

the sand was fine, grey, and sun-seared, nothing like the

clumpy, red earth back home; the trees were tame, unlike

the bursting greenness that sprang up and cast shadows on

the road to Umunnachi. Here, miles of flatland went on and

on, tempting the eyes to stretch just a little farther, until

they seemed to meet with the silver-and-white sky.

She took a taxi from the train station and asked the

driver to stop first at the market, so that she could greet

Uncle Mbaezi.

On the narrow market paths, she manoeuvred between

small boys carrying large loads on their heads, women

haggling, traders shouting. A record shop was playing loud

High Life music, and she slowed a little to hum along to

Bobby Benson’s ‘Taxi Driver’ before hurrying on to her

uncle’s stall. His shelves were lined with pails and other

housewares.

“Omalicha!” he said, when he saw her. It was what he

called her mother, too—Beautiful. “You have been on my

mind. I knew you would come to see us soon.”

“Uncle, good afternoon.”

They hugged. Olanna rested her head on his shoulder; he

smelt of sweat, of the open-air market, of wares arranged

on dusty wood shelves.

It was hard to imagine Uncle Mbaezi and her mother

growing up together, brother and sister. Not only because

her uncle’s light-complexioned face had none of her

mother’s beauty, but also because there was an earthiness

about him. Sometimes Olanna wondered if she would

admire him as she did if he were not so different from her

mother.

Whenever she visited, Uncle Mbaezi would sit with her in

the yard after supper and tell her the latest family news—a

cousin’s unmarried daughter was pregnant, and he wanted

her to come and stay with them to avoid the malice of the

village; a nephew had died here in Kano and he was looking

into the cheapest way to take the body back home. Or he

would tell her about politics: What the Igbo Union was

organizing, protesting, discussing. They held meetings in

his yard. She had sat in a few times, and she still

remembered the meeting where irritated men and women

talked about the northern schools not admitting Igbo

children. Uncle Mbaezi had stood up and stamped his foot.

“Ndibe anyi! My people! We will build our own school! We

will raise money and build our own school!” After he spoke,

Olanna had joined in clapping her approval, in chanting,

“Well spoken! That is how it shall be!” But she had worried

that it would be difficult to build a school. Perhaps it was

more practical to try and persuade the Northerners to

admit Igbo children.

Yet, now, only a few years later, her taxi was on Airport

Road, driving past the Igbo Union Grammar School. It was

break time and the schoolyard was full of children. Boys

were playing football in different teams on the same field,

so that multiple balls flew in the air; Olanna wondered how

they could tell which ball was which. Clusters of girls were

closer to the road, playing oga and swell, clapping

rhythmically as they hopped first on one leg and then the

other. Before the taxi parked outside the communal

compound in Sabon Gari, Olanna saw Aunty Ifeka sitting by

her kiosk on the roadside. Aunty Ifeka wiped her hands on

her faded wrapper and hugged Olanna, pulled back to look

at her, and hugged her again. “Our Olanna!”

“My aunty! Kedu?”

“I am even better now that I see you.”

“Arize is not back from her sewing class?”

“She will be back anytime now.”

“How is she doing? O na-agakwa? Is her sewing going

well?”

“The house is full of patterns that she has cut.”

“What of Odinchezo and Ekene?”

“They are there. They visited last week and asked after

you.”

“How is Maiduguri treating them? Is their trading

picking up?”

“They have not said they are dying of hunger,” Aunty

Ifeka said, with a slight shrug. Olanna examined the plain

face and wished, for a brief guilty moment, that Aunty Ifeka

were her mother. Aunty Ifeka was as good as her mother,

anyway, since it was Aunty Ifeka’s breasts that she and

Kainene had sucked when their mother’s dried up soon

after they were born. Kainene used to say their mother’s

breasts did not dry up at all, that their mother had given

them to a nursing aunt only to save her own breasts from

drooping.

“Come, ada anyi,” Aunty Ifeka said. “Let’s go inside.” She

pulled down the wooden shutters of the kiosk, covering the

neatly arranged cases of matches, chewing gum, sweets,

cigarettes, and detergent, and then picked up Olanna’s bag

and led the way into the yard. The narrow bungalow was

unpainted. The clothes hung out to dry were still, stiff, as if

desiccated by the hot afternoon sun. Old car tyres, the ones

the children played with, were piled under the kuka tree.

Olanna knew the tranquil flatness of the yard would change

soon, when the children came back from school. The

families would leave doors open and the veranda and

kitchen would fill with chatter. Uncle Mbaezi’s family lived

in two rooms. In the first, where worn sofas were pushed

aside at night to make room for mats, Olanna unpacked the

things she had brought—bread, shoes, bottles of cream—

while Aunty Ifeka stood back watching, her hands behind

her back. “May another person do for you. May another

person do for you,” Aunty Ifeka said.

Arize came home moments later and Olanna braced

herself to stand firmly, so Arize’s excited hug would not

knock her down.

“Sister! You should have warned us that you were

coming! At least we would have swept the yard better! Ah!

Sister! Aru amaka gi! You look well! There are stories to

tell, oh!”

Arize was laughing. Her plump body, her rounded arms,

shook as she laughed. Olanna held her close. She felt a

sense that things were in order, the way they were meant

to be, and that even if they tumbled down once in a while,

in the end they would come back together again. This was

why she came to Kano: this lucid peace. When Aunty

Ifeka’s eyes began to dart around the yard, she knew it was

in search of a suitable chicken. Aunty Ifeka always killed

one when she visited, even if it was the last she owned,

sauntering around the yard, its feathers marked with a

splash or two of red paint to distinguish it from the

neighbours’ chickens, which had bits of cloth tied to their

wings or paint of a different colour. Olanna no longer

protested about the chicken, just as she no longer

protested when Uncle Mbaezi and Aunty Ifeka slept on

mats, next to the many relatives who always seemed to be

staying with them, so that she could have their bed.

Aunty Ifeka walked casually towards a brown hen,

grasped it quickly, and handed it to Arize to kill in the

backyard. They sat outside the kitchen while Arize plucked

it and Aunty Ifeka blew the chaff from the rice. A neighbour

was boiling corn, and once in a while, when the water

frothed over, the stove fire hissed. Children were playing in

the yard now, raising white dust, shouting. A fight broke

out under the kuka tree, and Olanna heard a child scream

at another in Igbo, “Your mother’s pussy!”

The sun had turned red in the sky before it began its

descent, when Uncle Mbaezi came home. He called out to

Olanna to come and greet his friend Abdulmalik. Olanna

had met the Hausa man once before; he sold leather

slippers close to Uncle Mbaezi’s stall in the market, and

she had bought a few pairs that she took back to England

but never wore because it was then the middle of winter.

“Our Olanna has just finished her master’s degree.

Master’s degree at London University! It is not easy!”

Uncle Mbaezi said proudly.

“Well done,” Abdulmalik said. He opened his bag and

brought out a pair of slippers and held them out to her, his

narrow face creased in a smile, his teeth stained with kola

nut and tobacco and whatever else Olanna did not know,

stains of varying shades of yellow and brown. He looked as

if it were he who was receiving a gift; he had that

expression of people who marvelled at education with the

calm certainty that it would never be theirs.

She took the slippers with both hands. “Thank you,

Abdulmalik. Thank you.”

Abdulmalik pointed at the ripe gourdlike pods on the

kuka tree and said, “You come my house. My wife cook very

sweet kuka soup.”

“Oh, I will come, next time,” Olanna said.

He muttered more congratulations before he sat with

Uncle Mbaezi on the veranda, with a bucket of sugar cane

in front of them. They gnawed off the hard, green peels and

chewed the juicy, white pulp, speaking Hausa and laughing.

They spit the chewed cane out on the dust. Olanna sat with

them for a while, but their Hausa was too swift, too difficult

to follow. She wished she were fluent in Hausa and Yoruba,

like her uncle and aunt and cousin were, something she

would gladly exchange her French and Latin for.

In the kitchen, Arize was cutting open the chicken and

Aunty Ifeka was washing the rice. She showed them the

slippers from Abdulmalik and put them on; the pleated red

straps made her feet look slender, more feminine.

“Very nice,” Aunty Ifeka said. “I shall thank him.”

Olanna sat on a stool and carefully avoided looking at the

cockroach eggs, smooth black capsules, lodged in all

corners of the table. A neighbour was building a wood fire

in one corner and despite the slanting openings in the roof,

the smoke choked the kitchen.

“I makuua, all her family eats every day is stockfish,”

Arize said, gesturing towards the neighbour with pursed

lips. “I don’t know if her poor children even know what

meat tastes like.” Arize threw her head back and laughed.

Olanna glanced at the woman. She was an Ijaw and could

not understand Arize’s Igbo. “Maybe they like stockfish,”

she said.

“O di egwu! Like it indeed! Do you know how cheap the

thing is?” Arize was still laughing as she turned to the

woman. “Ibiba, I am telling my big sister that your soup

always smells so delicious.”

The woman stopped blowing at the firewood and smiled,

a knowing smile, and Olanna wondered if perhaps the

woman understood Igbo but chose to humour Arize’s fun

poking. There was something about Arize’s effervescent

mischief that made people forgiving.

“So you are moving to Nsukka to marry Odenigbo,

Sister?” Arize asked.

“I don’t know about marriage yet. I just want to be closer

to him, and I want to teach.”

Arize’s round eyes were admiring and bewildered. “It is

only women that know too much Book like you who can say

that, Sister. If people like me who don’t know Book wait too

long, we will expire.” Arize paused as she removed a

translucently pale egg from inside the chicken. “I want a

husband today and tomorrow, oh! My mates have all left me

and gone to husbands’ houses.”

“You are young,” Olanna said. “You should focus on your

sewing for now.”

“Is it sewing that will give me a child? Even if I had

managed to pass to go to school, I would still want a child

now.”

“There is no rush, Ari.” Olanna wished she could shift

her stool closer to the door, to fresh air. But she didn’t want

Aunty Ifeka, or Arize, or even the neighbour to know that

the smoke irritated her eyes and throat or that the sight of

the cockroach eggs nauseated her. She wanted to seem

used to it all, to this life.

“I know you will marry Odenigbo, Sister, but honestly I

am not sure I want you to marry a man from Abba. Men

from Abba are so ugly, kail If only Mohammed was an Igbo

man, I would eat my hair if you did not marry him. I have

never seen a more handsome man.”

“Odenigbo is not ugly. Good looks come in different

ways,” Olanna said.

“That is what the relatives of the ugly monkey, enwe, told

him to make him feel better, that good looks come in

different ways.”

“Men from Abba are not ugly,” Aunty Ifeka said. “My

people came from there, after all.”

“And do your people not resemble the monkey?” Arize

said.

“Your full name is Arizendikwunnem, isn’t it? You come

from your mother’s people. So perhaps you look like a

monkey as well,” Aunty Ifeka murmured.

Olanna laughed. “So why are you talking marriage-

marriage like this, Ari? Have you seen anybody you like? Or

should I find you one of Mohammed’s brothers?”

“No, nol” Arize waved her hands in the air in mock

horror. “Papa would kill me first of all if he knew I was even

looking at a Hausa man like that.”

“Unless your father will kill a corpse, because I will start

with you first,” Aunty Ifeka said, and rose with the bowl of

clean rice.

“There is someone, Sister.” Arize moved closer to

Olanna. “But I am not sure he is looking at me, oh.”

“Why are you whispering?” Aunty Ifeka asked.

“Am I talking to you? Is it not my big sister I am talking

to?” Arize asked her mother. But she raised her voice as

she continued. “His name is Nnakwanze and he is from

close to us, from Ogidi. He works at the railway. But he has

not told me anything. I don’t know if he is looking at me

hard enough.”

“If he is not looking at you hard enough, there is

something wrong with his eyes,” Aunty Ifeka said.

“Have you people seen this woman? Why can’t I talk to

my big sister in peace?” Arize rolled her eyes, but it was

clear she was pleased and perhaps had used this

opportunity to tell her mother about Nnakwanze.

That night, as Olanna lay on her uncle and aunt’s bed,

she watched Arize through the thin curtain that hung on a

rope attached to nails on the wall. The rope was not taut,

and the curtain sagged in the middle. She followed the up-

down movement of Arize’s breathing and imagined what

growing up had been like for Arize and her brothers,

Odinchezo and Ekene, seeing their parents through the

curtain, hearing the sounds that might suggest an eerie

pain to a child as their father’s hips moved and their

mother’s arms clutched him. She had never heard her own

parents making love, never even seen any indication that

they did. But she had always been separated from them by

hallways that got longer and more thickly carpeted as they

moved from house to house. When they moved to their

present home, with its ten rooms, her parents chose

different bedrooms for the first time. “I need the whole

wardrobe, and it will be nice to have your father visit!” her

mother had said. But the girlish laugh had not rung true for

Olanna. The artificiality of her parents’ relationship always

seemed harder, more shaming, when she was here in Kano.

The window above her was open, the still night air thick

with the odours from the gutters behind the house, where

people emptied their toilet buckets. Soon, she heard the

muted chatter of the night-soil men as they collected the

sewage; she fell asleep listening to the scraping sounds of

their shovels as they worked, shielded by the dark.

The beggars outside the gates of Mohammed’s family

home did not move when they saw Olanna. They remained

seated on the ground, leaning against the mud compound

walls. Flies perched on them in dense clusters, so that for a

moment it seemed as if their frayed, white kaftans had

been splashed with dark-coloured paint. Olanna wanted to

put some money in their bowls but decided not to. If she

were a man, they would have called out to her and

extended their begging bowls, and the flies would rise in

buzzing clouds.

One of the gatemen recognized her and opened the

gates. “Welcome, madam.”

“Thank you, Sule. How are you?”

“You remember my name, madam!” He beamed. “Thank

you, madam. I am well, madam.”

“And your family?”

“Well, madam, by the will of Allah.”

“Is your master back from America?”

“Yes, madam. Please come in. I will send to call Master.”

Mohammed’s red sports car was parked in front of the

sprawling sandy yard but what held Olanna’s attention was

the house: the graceful simplicity of its flat roof. She sat

down on the veranda.

“The best surprise!”

She looked up and Mohammed was there, in a white

kaftan, smiling down at her. His lips were a sensual curve,

lips she had once kissed often during those days when she

spent most of her weekends in Kano, eating rice with her

fingers in his house, watching him play polo at the Flying

Club, reading the bad poetry he wrote her.

“You’re looking so well,” she told him, as they hugged. “I

wasn’t sure you’d be back from America.”

“I was planning to come up to Lagos to see you.”

Mohammed moved back to look at her. There was a tilt to

his head, a narrowing of his eyes, that meant he still

harboured hope.

“I’m moving to Nsukka,” she said.

“So you are finally going to become an intellectual and

marry your lecturer.”

“Nobody said anything about marriage. And how is

Janet? Or is it Jane? I mix up your American women.”

Mohammed raised one eyebrow. She could not help

admiring his caramel complexion. She used to tease him

about being prettier than she was.

“What did you do to your hair?” he asked. “It doesn’t suit

you at all. Is this how your lecturer wants you to look, like a

bush woman?”

Olanna touched her hair, newly plaited with black thread.

“My aunty did it. I quite like it.”

“I don’t. I prefer your wigs.” Mohammed moved closer

and hugged her again. When she felt his arms tighten

around her, she pushed him away.

“You won’t let me kiss you.”

“No,” she said, although it had not been a question.

“You’re not telling me about Janet-Jane.”

“Jane. So this means I won’t see you any more when you

go to Nsukka.”

“Of course I’ll see you.”

“I know that lecturer of yours is crazy, so I won’t come to

Nsukka.” Mohammed laughed. His tall, slim body and

tapering fingers spoke of fragility, gentleness. “Would you

like a soft drink? Or some wine?”

“You have alcohol in this house? Someone must inform

your uncle,” Olanna teased.

Mohammed rang a bell and asked a steward to bring

some drinks. Afterwards, he sat thoughtfully rubbing his

thumb and forefinger together. “Sometimes, I feel my life is

going nowhere. I travel and drive imported cars, and

women follow me. But something isn’t there, something

isn’t right. You know?” She watched him; she knew where

he was going with this. Yet when he said, “I wish things

didn’t change,” she was touched and flattered.

“You’ll find a good woman,” she said limply.

“Rubbish,” he said, and as they sat side by side drinking

Coke, she recalled the disbelieving pain on his face that

had only deepened when she told him she had to end it

right away because she did not want to be unfaithful to

him. She expected that he would resist, she knew very well

how much he loved her, but she had been shocked when he

told her to go ahead and sleep with Odenigbo as Ipng as

she did not leave him: Mohammed, who often half-joked

about coming from a lineage of holy warriors, the very

avatars of pious masculinity. Perhaps it was why her

affection for him would always be mingled with gratitude, a

selfish gratitude. He could have made their breakup more

difficult for her; he could have left her with much more

guilt.

She placed her glass down. “Let’s go for a drive. I hate it

when I visit Kano and only get to see the ugly cement and

zinc of Sabon Gari. I want to see that ancient mud statue

and go around the lovely city walls again.”

“Sometimes you are just like the white people, the way

they gawk at everyday things.”

“Do I?”

“It’s a joke. How are you going to learn not to take

everything so seriously if you live with that crazy lecturer?”

Mohammed stood up. “Come, we should stop by first so you

can greet my mother.”

As they walked past a small gate at the back and into the

courtyard that led to his mother’s chambers, Olanna

remembered the trepidation she used to feel coming here.

The reception area was the same, with gold-dyed walls and

thick Persian rugs and grooved patterns on the exposed

ceilings. Mohammed’s mother looked unchanged, too, with

the ring in her nose and the silk scarves around her head.

She was fine-spun in the way that used to make Olanna

wonder if she wasn’t uncomfortable, dressing up every day

and simply sitting at home. But the older woman did not

have that old standoffish expression, did not speak stiffly

with her eyes focused somewhere between Olanna’s face

and the hand-carved panelling. Instead she got up and

hugged Olanna.

“You look so lovely, my dear. Don’t let the sun spoil that

skin of yours.”

“Na gode. Thank you, Hajia,” Olanna said, wondering

how it was possible for people to switch affection off and

on, to tie and untie emotions.

“I am no longer the Igbo woman you wanted to marry

who would taint the lineage with infidel blood,” Olanna

said, as they climbed into Mohammed’s red Porsche. “So I

am a friend now.”

“I would have married you anyhow, and she knew it. Her

preference did not matter.”

“Maybe not at first, but what about later? What about

when we had been married for ten years?”

“Your parents felt the same way as she did.” Mohammed

turned to look at her. “Why are we talking about this now?”

There was something inexpressibly sad in his eyes. Or

maybe she was imagining it. Maybe she wanted him to

seem sad at the thought that they would never marry. She

did not wish to marry him, and yet she enjoyed dwelling on

the things they did not do and would never do.

“Sorry,” she said.

“There’s nothing to apologize for.” Mohammed reached

out and took her hand. The car made rasping sounds as

they drove past the gates. “There’s too much dust in the

exhaust. These cars weren’t made for our parts.”

“You should buy a hardy Peugeot.”

“Yes, I should.”

Olanna stared at the beggars clumped around the walls

of the palace, their bodies and begging bowls covered in

flies. The air smelt of the spicy-sour leaves from the neem

tree.

“I am not like white people,” she said quietly.

Mohammed glanced at her. “Of course you’re not. You’re

a nationalist and a patriot, and soon you will marry your

lecturer the freedom fighter.”

Olanna wondered if Mohammed’s lightness hid a more

serious mockery. Her hand was still in his and she

wondered, too, if he was having difficulty manoeuvring the

car with one hand.

Olanna moved to Nsukka on a windy Saturday, and the

next day Odenigbo left for a mathematics conference at the

University of Ibadan. He would not have gone if the

conference was not focused on the work of his mentor, the

black American mathematician David Blackwell.

“He is the greatest living mathematician, the greatest,”

he said. “Why don’t you come with me, nkem? It’s only for

a week.”

Olanna said no; she wanted the chance to settle down

when he was not there, to make peace with her fears in his

absence. The first thing she did after he left was to throw

away the red and white plastic flowers on the centre table.

Ugwu looked horrified. “But mah, it is still good.”

She led the way outside to the African lilies and pink

roses, freshly watered by Jomo, and asked Ugwu to cut

some. She showed him how much water to put in the vase.

Ugwu looked at the flowers and shook his head, as if he

could not believe her foolishness. “But it die, mah. The

other one don’t die.”

“Yes, but these are better, fa makali,” Olanna said.

“How better, mah?” He always responded in English to

her Igbo, as if he saw her speaking Igbo to him as an insult

that he had to defend himself against by insistently

speaking English.

“They are just nicer,” she said, and realized that she did

not know how to explain why fresh flowers were better

than plastic ones. Later, when she saw the plastic flowers in

a kitchen cupboard, she was not surprised. Ugwu had

saved them, the same way he saved old sugar cartons,

bottle corks, even yam peels. It came with never having

had much, she knew, the inability to let go of things, even

things that were useless. So when she was in the kitchen

with him, she talked about the need to keep only things

that were useful, and she hoped he would not ask her how

the fresh flowers, then, were useful. She asked him to clean

out the store and line the shelves with old newspapers, and

as he worked she stood by and asked him about his family.

It was difficult to picture them because, with his limited

vocabulary, he described everyone as “Very good.” She

went to the market with him, and after they bought the

household items, she bought him a comb and a shirt. She

taught him to cook fried rice with green peppers and diced

carrots, asked him not to cook beans until they became

pudding, not to douse things in oil, not to be too sparing

with salt. Although she had noticed his body odour the first

time she saw him, she let a few days pass before she gave

him some scented powder for his armpits and asked him to

use two capfuls of Dettol in his bath water. He looked

pleased when he sniffed the powder, and she wondered if

he could tell that it was a feminine scent. She wondered,

too, what he really thought of her. There was clearly

affection, but there was also a quiet speculation in his eyes,

as if he was holding her up to something. And she worried

that she came out lacking.

He finally started to speak Igbo to her on the day she

rearranged the photos on the wall. A wall gecko had

scuttled out from behind the wood-framed photo of

Odenigbo in a graduating gown, and Ugwu shouted,

“Egbukwala! Don’t kill it!”

“What?” She turned to glance down at him from the

chair she was standing on.

“If you kill it you will get a stomachache,” he said. She

found his Opi dialect funny, the way he seemed to spit the

words out.

“Of course we won’t kill it. Let’s hang the photo on that

wall.”

“Yes, mah,” he said, and then began to tell her, in Igbo,

how his sister Anulika had suffered a terrible stomachache

after killing a gecko.

Olanna felt less of a visitor in the house when Odenigbo

came back; he pulled her forcefully, kissed her, pressed her

to him.

“You should eat first,” she said.

“I know what I want to eat.”

She laughed. She felt ridiculously happy.

“What’s happened here?” Odenigbo asked, looking

around the room. “All the books on that shelf?”

“Your older books are in the second bedroom. I need the

space for my books.”

“Ezi okwu? You’ve really moved in, haven’t you?”

Odenigbo was laughing.

“Go and have a bath,” she said.

“And what was that flowery scent on my good man?”

“I gave him a scented talcum powder. Didn’t you notice

his body odour?”

“That’s the smell of villagers. I used to smell like that

until I left Abba to go to secondary school. But you wouldn’t

know about things like that.” His tone was gently teasing.

But his hands were not gentle. They were unbuttoning her

blouse, freeing her breast from a bra cup. She was not sure

how much time had passed, but she was tangled in bed

with Odenigbo, warm and naked, when Ugwu knocked to

say they had visitors.

“Can’t they leave?” she murmured.

“Come, nkem, ”Odenigbo said. “I can’t wait for them to

meet you.”

“Let’s stay here just a little longer.” She ran her hand

over the curly hair on his chest, but he kissed her and got

up to look for his underwear.

Olanna dressed reluctantly and went out to the living

room.

“My friends, my friends,” Odenigbo announced, with an

exaggerated flourish, “this, finally, is Olanna.”

The woman, who was tuning the radiogram, turned and

took Olanna’s hand. “How are you?” she asked. Her head

was wrapped in a bright-orange turban.

“I’m well,” Olanna said. “You must be Lara Adebayo.”

“Yes,” Miss Adebayo said. “He did not tell us that you

were illogi-cally pretty.”

Olanna stepped back, flustered for a moment. “I will take

that as a compliment.”

“And what a proper English accent,” Miss Adebayo

murmured, with a pitying smile, before turning back to the

radiogram. She had a compact body, a straight back that

looked straighter in her stiff orange-print dress, the body of

a questioner whom one dared not question back.

“I’m Okeoma,” the man with the tangled mop of

uncombed hair said. “I thought Odenigbo’s girlfriend was a

human being; he didn’t say you were a water mermaid.”

Olanna laughed, grateful for the warmth in Okeoma’s

expression and the way he held her hand a little too long.

Dr Patel looked shy as he said, “Very nice to see you

finally,” and Professor Ezeka shook her’ hand and then

nodded disdainfully when she said her degree was in

sociology and not one of the proper sciences.

After Ugwu served drinks, Olanna watched Odenigbo

raise his glass to his lips and all she could think of was how

those lips had fastened around her nipple only minutes ago.

She surreptitiously moved so that her inner arm brushed

against her breast and closed her eyes at the needles of

delicious pain. Sometimes Odenigbo bit too hard. She

wanted the guests to leave.

“Did not that great thinker Hegel call Africa a land of

childhood?” Professor Ezeka asked, in an affected tone.

“Maybe the people who put up those NO CHILDREN

AND AFRICANS signs in the cinemas in Mombasa had read

Hegel, then,” Dr Patel said, and chuckled.

“Nobody can take Hegel seriously. Have you read him

closely? He’s funny, very funny. But Hume and Voltaire and

Locke felt the same way about Africa,” Odenigbo said.

“Greatness depends on where you are coming from. It’s

just like the Israelis who were asked what they thought of

Eichmann’s trial the other day, and one of them said he did

not understand how the Nazis could have been thought

great by anyone at any time. But they were, weren’t they?

They still are!” Odenigbo gestured with his hand, palm

upward, and Olanna remembered that hand grasping her

waist.

“What people fail to see is this: If Europe had cared more

about Africa, the Jewish Holocaust would not have

happened,” Odenigbo said. “In short, the World War would

not have happened!”

“What do you mean?” Miss Adebayo asked. She held her

glass to her lips.

“How can you ask what I mean? It’s self-evident, starting

with the Herero people.” Odenigbo was shifting on his seat,

his voice raised, and Olanna wondered if he remembered

how loud they had been, how afterwards he had said,

laughing, “If we go on like this at night, we’ll probably

wake Ugwu up, poor chap.”

“You’ve come again, Odenigbo,” Miss Adebayo said.

“You’re saying that if white people had not murdered the

Herero, the Jewish Holocaust would not have happened? I

don’t see a connection at all!”

“Don’t you see?” Odenigbo asked. “They started their

race studies with the Herero and concluded with the Jews.

Of course there’s a connection!”

“Your argument doesn’t hold water at all, you sophist,”

Miss Adebayo said, and dismissively downed what was in

her glass.

“But the World War was a bad thing that was also good,

as our people say,” Okeoma said. “My father’s brother

fought in Burma and came back filled with one burning

question: How come nobody told him before that the white

man was not immortal?”

They all laughed. There was something habitual about it,

as if they had had different variations of this conversation

so many times that they knew just when to laugh. Olanna

laughed too and felt for a moment that her laughter

sounded different, more shrill, than theirs.

The following weeks, when she started teaching a course

in introductory sociology, when she joined the staff club

and played tennis with other lecturers, when she drove

Ugwu to the market and took walks with Odenigbo and

joined the St Vincent de Paul Society at St Peter’s Church,

she slowly began to get used to Odenigbo’s friends.

Odenigbo teased her that more people came to visit now

that she was here, that both Okeoma and Patel were falling

in love with her, because Okeoma was so eager to read

poems in which descriptions of goddesses sounded

suspiciously like her and Dr Patel told too many stories of

his days at Makerere, where he cast himself as the

perfectly chivalrous intellectual.

Olanna liked Dr Patel, but it was Okeoma whose visits

she most looked forward to. His untidy hair and rumpled

clothes and dramatic poetry put her at ease. And she

noticed, early on, that it was Okeoma’s opinions that

Odenigbo most respected, saying “The voice of our

generation!” as though he truly believed it. She was still

not sure what to make of Professor Ezeka’s hoarse

superciliousness, his certainty that he knew better than

everyone else but chose to say little. Neither was she sure

of Miss Adebayo. It would have been easier if Miss Adebayo

showed jealousy, but it was as if Miss Adebayo thought her

to be unworthy of competition, with her unintellectual ways

and her too-pretty face and her mimicking-the-oppressor

English accent. She found herself talking more when Miss

Adebayo was there, desperately giving opinions with a need

to impress—Nkrumah really wanted to lord it over all of

Africa, it was arrogant of America to insist that the Soviets

take their missiles out of Cuba while theirs remained in

Turkey, Sharpeville was only a dramatic example of the

hundreds of blacks killed by the South African state every

day—but she suspected that there was a glaze of

unoriginality to all her ideas. And she suspected that Miss

Adebayo knew this; it was always when she spoke that Miss

Adebayo would pick up a journal or pour another drink or

get up to go to the toilet. Finally, she gave up. She would

never like Miss Adebayo and Miss Adebayo would never

even think about liking her. Perhaps Miss Adebayo could

tell, from her face, that she was afraid of things, that she

was unsure, that she was not one of those people with no

patience for self-doubt. People like Odenigbo. People like

Miss Adebayo herself, who could look a person in the eye

and calmly tell her that she was illogically pretty, who could

even use that phrase, illogically pretty.

Still, when Olanna lay in bed with Odenigbo, legs

intertwined, it would strike her how her life in Nsukka felt

like being immersed in a mesh of soft feathers, even on the

days when Odenigbo locked himself in the study for hours.

Each time he suggested they get married, she said no. They

were too happy, precariously so, and she wanted to guard

that bond; she feared that marriage would flatten it to a

prosaic partnership.

R

THREE

ichard said little at the parties Susan took him to.

When she introduced him, she always added that he

was a writer, and he hoped the other guests assumed

he was distant in the way writers were, although he feared

they saw through him and knew he simply felt out of place.

But they were pleasant to him; they would be to anyone

who was Susan’s companion, as long as Susan continued to

engage them with her wit, her laughter, her green eyes that

sparkled in a face flushed from glasses of wine.

Richard didn’t mind standing by and waiting until she

was ready to leave, didn’t mind that none of her friends

made an effort to draw him in, didn’t even mind when a

pasty-faced drunk woman referred to him as Susan’s pretty

boy. But he minded the all-expatriate parties where Susan

would nudge him to ‘join the men’ while she went over to

the circle of women to compare notes on living in Nigeria.

He felt awkward with the men. They were mostly English,

ex-colonial administrators and business people from John

Holt and Kingsway and GB Ollivant and Shell-BP and

United Africa Company. They were reddened from sun and

alcohol. They chuckled about how tribal Nigerian politics

was, and perhaps these chaps were not quite so ready to

rule themselves after all. They discussed cricket,

plantations they owned or planned to own, the perfect

weather in Jos, business opportunities in Kaduna. When

Richard mentioned his interest in Igbo-Ukwu art, they said

it didn’t have much of a market yet, so he did not bother to

explain that he wasn’t at all interested in the money, it was

the aesthetics that drew him. And when he said he had just

arrived in Lagos and wanted to write a book about Nigeria,

they gave him brief smiles and advice: The people were

bloody beggars, be prepared for their body odours and the

way they will stand and stare at you on the roads, never

believe a hard-luck story, never show weakness to domestic

staff. There were jokes to illustrate each African trait. The

uppity African stood out in Richard’s mind: An African was

walking a dog and an Englishman asked, “What are you

doing with that monkey?” and the African answered, “It’s a

dog, not a monkey”—as if the Englishman had been talking

to him!

Richard laughed at the jokes. He tried, too, not to drift

throughout the conversations, not to show how awkward he

felt. He preferred talking to the women, although he had

learned not to spend too long with a particular woman, or

Susan would throw a glass at the wall when they got home.

He was baffled the first time it happened. He had spent a

short time talking to Clovis Bancroft about her brother’s

life as a district commissioner in Enugu years ago, and

afterwards Susan was silent during the drive back in her

chauffeur-driven car. He thought perhaps she was dozing

off; it had to be why she was not talking about somebody’s

ghastly dress or the unimaginative hors d’oeuvres that had

been served. But when they got back to her house, she

picked up a glass from the cabinet and threw it against the

wall. “That horrible little woman, Richard, and right in my

face, too. It’s so awful!” She sat on the sofa and buried her

face in her hands until he said he was very sorry, although

he was not quite sure what he was apologizing for.

Another glass crashed some weeks later. He had talked

to Julia March, mostly about her research on the

Asantehene in Ghana, and stood absorbed, listening, until

Susan came over and pulled him by the arm. Later, after

the brittle splinter of shattering glass, Susan said she knew

he didn’t mean to flirt but he must understand that people

were horribly presumptuous and the gossip here was

vicious, just vicious. He had apologized again and

wondered what the stewards who cleaned up the glass

thought.

Then there was the dinner at which he talked about Nok

art with a university lecturer, a timid Yoruba woman who

seemed to feel just as out of place as he did. He had

expected Susan’s reaction and prepared to apologize

before she got to the living room, so that he could save a

glass. But Susan was chatty as they were driven home; she

asked if his conversation with the woman had been

interesting and hoped he had learned something that would

be useful for his book. He stared at her in the dim interior

of the car. She would not have said that if he had been

talking to one of the British women, even though some of

them had helped write the Nigerian constitution. It was, he

realized, simply that black women were not threatening to

her, were not equal rivals.

Aunt Elizabeth had said that Susan was vivacious and

charming, never mind that she was a little older than he

was, and had been in Nigeria for a while and could show

him round. Richard did not want to be shown round; he had

managed well on his past trips abroad. But Aunt Elizabeth

insisted. Africa was nothing like Argentina or India. She

said Africa in the tone of one repressing a shudder, or

perhaps it was because she did not want him to leave at all,

she wanted him to stay in London and keep writing for the

News Chronicle. He still did not think that anybody read

his tiny column, although Aunt Elizabeth said all her

friends did. But she would: The job was a bit of a sinecure

after all; he would not have been offered it in the first place

if the editor were not an old friend of hers.

Richard did not try to explain his desire to see Nigeria to

Aunt Elizabeth, but he did accept Susan’s offer to show him

around. The first thing he noticed when he arrived in Lagos

was Susan’s sparkle, her posh prettiness, the way she

focused entirely on him, touched his arm as she laughed.

She spoke with authority about Nigeria and Nigerians.

When they drove past the noisy markets with music blaring

from shops, the haphazard stalls of the streetside hawkers,

the gutters thick with mouldy water, she said, “They have a

marvellous energy, really, but very little sense of hygiene,

I’m afraid.” She told him the Hausa in the North were a

dignified lot, the Igbo were surly and money-loving, and the

Yoruba were rather jolly, even if they were first-rate

lickspittles. On Saturday evenings, when she pointed at the

crowds of brightly dressed people dancing in front of lit-up

canopies on the streets, she said, “There you go. The

Yoruba get into huge debt just to throw these parties.”

She helped him find a small flat, buy a small car, get a

driving licence, go to the Lagos and Ibadan museums. “You

must meet all my friends,” she said. At first, when she

introduced him as a writer, he wanted to correct her:

journalist, not writer. But he was a writer, at least he was

certain he was meant to be a writer, an artist, a creator. His

journalism was temporary, something he would do until he

wrote that brilliant novel.

So he let Susan introduce him as a writer. It seemed to

make her friends tolerate him, anyway. It made Professor

Nicholas Green suggest he apply for the foreign research

grant at Nsukka, where he could write in a university

environment. Richard did, not only because of the prospect

of writing in a university, but also because he would be in

the southeast, in the land of Igbo-Ukwu art, the land of the

magnificent roped pot. That, after all, was why he had

come to Nigeria.

He had been in’Nigeria for a few months when Susan

asked if he would like to move in with her, since her house

in Ikoyi was large, the gardens were lovely, and she

thought he would work much better there than in his

rented flat with the uneven cement floors where his

landlord moaned about his leaving his lights on for too

long. Richard didn’t want to say yes. He didn’t want to stay

much longer in Lagos. He wanted to do more travelling

through the country while waiting to hear back from

Nsukka. But Susan had already redecorated her airy study

for him, so he moved in. Day after day, he sat on her leather

chair and pored over books and bits of research material,

looked out the window at the gardeners watering the lawn,

and pounded at the typewriter, although he was aware that

he was typing and not writing. Susan was careful to give

him the silences he needed, except for when she would look

in and whisper, “Would you like some tea?” or “Some

water?” or “An early lunch?” He answered in a whisper, too,

as if his writing had become something hallowed and had

made the room itself sacrosanct. He did not tell her that he

had written nothing good so far, that the ideas in his head

had not yet coalesced into character and setting and

theme. He imagined that she would be hurt; his writing had

become the best of her hobbies, and she came home every

day with books and journals from the British Council

Library. She saw his book as an entity that already existed

and could therefore be finished. He, however, was not even

sure what his subject was. But he was grateful for her faith.

It was as if her believing in his writing made it real, and he

showed his gratitude by attending the parties he disliked.

After a few parties, he decided that attending was not

enough; he would try to be funny. If he could say one witty

thing when he was introduced, it might make up for his

silence and, more importantly, it would please Susan. He

practised a droll, self-deprecating expression and a halting

delivery in front of the bathroom mirror for a while. “This is

Richard Churchill,” Susan would say and he would shake

hands and quip, “No relation of Sir Winston’s, I’m afraid, or

I might have turned out a little cleverer.”

Susan’s friends laughed at this, although he wondered if

it was from pity at his fumbling attempt at humour more

than from amusement. But nobody had ever said, “How

funny,” in a mocking tone, as Kainene did that first day in

the cocktail room of the Federal Palace Hotel. She was

smoking. She could blow perfect smoke rings. She stood in

the same circle as he and Susan, and he glanced at her and

thought she was the mistress of one of the politicians. He

did that with the people he met, tried to guess a reason for

their being there, to determine who had been brought by

someone. Perhaps it was because he would not have been

at any of the parties if it wasn’t for Susan. He didn’t think

Kainene was some wealthy Nigerian’s daughter because

she had none of the cultivated demureness. She seemed

more like a mistress: her brazenly red lipstick, her tight

dress, her smoking. But then she didn’t smile in that plastic

way the mistresses did. She didn’t even have the generic

prettiness that made him inclined to believe the rumour

that Nigerian politicians swapped mistresses. In fact, she

was not pretty at all. He did not really notice this until he

looked at her again as a friend of Susan’s did the

introductions. “This is Kainene Ozobia, Chief Ozobia’s

daughter. Kainene’s just got her master’s from London.

Kainene, this is Susan Grenville-Pitts, from the British

Council, and this is Richard Churchill.”

“How do you do,” Susan said to Kainene, and then turned

around to speak to another guest.

“Hello,” Richard said. Kainene was silent for too long,

with her cigarette between her lips as she looked at him

levelly, and so he ran his hand through his hair and

mumbled, “I’m no relation of Sir Win-ston’s, I’m afraid, or I

might have turned out a little cleverer.”

She exhaled before she said, “How funny.” She was very

thin and very tall, almost as tall as he was, and she was

staring right into his eyes, with a steely blank expression.

Her skin was the colour of Belgian chocolate. He spread his

legs a little wider and pressed his feet down firmly, because

he feared that if he didn’t he might find himself reeling,

colliding with her.

Susan came back and tugged at him but he didn’t want

to leave and when he opened his mouth, he wasn’t sure

what he was going to say. “It turns out Kainene and I have

a mutual friend in London. Did I tell you about Wilfred at

the Spectator?”

“Oh,” Susan said, smiling. “How lovely. I’ll let you two

catch up then. Be back in a bit.”

She exchanged kisses with an elderly couple before

moving to a group at the other end of the room.

“You just lied to your wife,” Kainene said.

“She’s not my wife.” He was surprised at how giddy he

felt to be left standing with her. She raised her glass to her

lips and sipped. She inhaled and exhaled. Silver ashes

swirled down to the floor. Everything seemed to be in slow

motion: The hotel ballroom enlarged and deflated and the

air was sucked in and out of a space that seemed to be, for

a moment, occupied only by himself and Kainene.

“Would you move away, please?” she asked.

He was startled. “What?”

“There is a photographer behind you who is keen to take

a photo of me, and particularly of my necklace.”

He moved aside and watched as she stared at the

camera. She did not pose but she looked comfortable; she

was used to having her photograph taken at parties.

“The necklace will be featured in tomorrow’s Lagos Life.

I suppose that would be my way of contributing to our

newly independent country. I am giving fellow Nigerians

something to covet, an incentive to work hard,” she said,

coming back to stand beside him.

“It’s a lovely necklace,” he said, although it looked gaudy.

He wanted to reach out and touch it, though, to lift it off

her neck and then let it settle back against the hollow of

her throat. Her collarbones jutted out sharply.

“Of course it’s not lovely. My father has obscene taste in

jewellery,” she said. “But it’s his money. I see my sister and

my parents looking for me, by the way. I should go.”

“Your sister is here?” Richard asked, quickly, before she

could turn and leave.

“Yes. We’re twins,” she said and paused, as if that were a

momentous disclosure. “Kainene and Olanna. Her name is

the lyrical God’s Gold, and mine is the more practical Let’s

watch and see what next God will bring.”

Richard watched the smile that pulled her mouth up at

one end, a sardonic smile that he imagined hid something

else, perhaps dissatisfaction. He didn’t know what to say.

He felt as if time was slipping away from him.

“Who is older?” he asked.

“Who is older? What a question.” She arched her

eyebrows. “I’m told I came out first.”

Richard cradled his wine glass and wondered if

tightening his grasp any further would crush it.

“There she is, my sister,” Kainene said. “Shall I introduce

you? Everybody wants to meet her.”

Richard didn’t turn to look. “I’d rather talk to you,” he

said. “If you don’t mind, that is.” He ran his hand through

his hair. She was watching him; he felt adolescent with her

gaze on him.

“You’re shy,” she said.

“I’ve been called worse.”

She smiled, in the way that meant she had found that

funny, and he felt accomplished to have made her smile.

“Have you ever been to the market in Balogun?” she

asked. “They display slabs of meat on tables, and you are

supposed to grope and feel and then decide which you

want. My sister and I are meat. We are here so that suitable

bachelors will make the kill.”

“Oh,” he said. It seemed a strangely intimate thing to tell

him, although it was said in the same dry, sarcastic tone

that seemed natural to her. He wanted to tell her

something about himself, too, wanted to exchange small

kernels of intimacies with her.

“Here comes the wife you denied,” Kainene murmured.

Susan came back and pushed a glass into his hand.

“Here, darling,” she said, and then turned to Kainene.

“How lovely to meet you.”

“How lovely to meet you,” Kainene said and half-raised

her glass towards Susan.

Susan steered him away. “She’s Chief Ozobia’s daughter,

is she? Whatever happened to her? Quite extraordinary;

her mother is stunning, absolutely stunning. Chief Ozobia

owns half of Lagos but there is something terribly nouveau

riche about him. He doesn’t have much of a formal

education, you see, and neither has his wife. I suppose

that’s what makes him so obvious”

Richard was usually amused by Susan’s mini-

biographies, but now the whispering irritated him. He did

not want the champagne; her nails were digging into his

arm. She led him to a group of expatriates and stopped to

chat, laughing loudly, a little drunk. He searched the room

for Kainene. At first, he could not find the red dress and

then he saw her standing near her father; Chief Ozobia

looked expansive, with the arching hand gestures he made

as he spoke, the intricately embroidered agbada, whose

folds and folds of blue cloth made him even wider than he

was. Mrs Ozobia was half his size and wore a wrapper and

headgear made out of the same blue fabric. Richard was

momentarily startled by how perfectly almond-shaped her

eyes were, wide-set in a dark face that was intimidating to

look at. He would never have guessed that she was

Kainene’s mother, nor would he have guessed that Kainene

and Olanna were twins. Olanna took after their mother,

although hers was a more approachable beauty with the

softer face and the smiling graciousness and the fleshy,

curvy body that filled out her black dress. A body Susan

would call African. Kainene looked even thinner next to

Olanna, almost androgynous, her tight maxi outlining the

boyishness of her hips. Richard stared at her for a long

time, willing her to search for him. She seemed aloof,

watching the people in their group with a now indifferent,

now mocking expression. Finally, she looked up and her

eyes met his and she tilted her head and raised her

eyebrows, as if she knew very well that he had been

watching her. He averted his eyes. Then he looked back

quickly, determined to smile this time, to make some useful

gesture, but she had turned her back to him. He watched

her until she left with her parents and Olanna.

Richard read the next issue of Lagos Life, and when he

saw her photo, he searched her expression, looking for

what he did not know. He wrote a few pages in a burst of

manic productivity, fictional portraits of a tall, ebony-

coloured woman with a near-flat chest. He went to the

British Council Library and looked up her father in the

business journals. He copied down all four of the numbers

next to OZOBIA in the phone book. He picked up the phone

many times and put it back when he heard the operator’s

voice. He practised what he would say in front of the

mirror, the gestures he would make, although he was

aware that she would not see him if they spoke over the

phone. He considered sending her a card or perhaps a

basket of fruit. Finally, he called. She didn’t sound

surprised to hear from him. Or perhaps it was just that she

sounded too calm, while his heart hammered in his chest.

“Would you like to meet for a drink?” he asked.

“Yes. Shall we say Zobis Hotel at noon? It’s my father’s,

and I can get us a private suite.”

“Yes, yes, that would be lovely.”

He hung up, shaken. He was not sure if he should be

excited, if private suite was suggestive. When they met in

the hotel lounge, she moved close so that he could kiss her

cheek and then led the way upstairs, to the terrace, where

they sat looking down at the palm trees by the swimming

pool. It was a sunny, luminous day. Once in a while, a

breeze swayed the palms, and he hoped it would not tousle

his hair too much and that the umbrella above would keep

away those unflattering ripe-tomato spots that appeared on

his cheeks whenever he was out in the sun.

“You can see Heathgrove from here,” she said, pointing.

“The iniq-uitously expensive and secretive British

secondary school my sister and I attended. My father

thought we were too young to be sent abroad, but he was

determined that we be as European as possible.”

“Is it the building with the tower?”

“Yes. The entire school is just two buildings, really. There

were very few of us there. It is so exclusive, many

Nigerians don’t even know it exists.” She looked into her

glass for a while. “Do you have siblings?”

“No. I was an only child. My parents died when I was

nine.”

“Nine. You were young.”

He was pleased that she didn’t look too sympathetic, in

the false way some people did, as if they had known his

parents even though they hadn’t.

“They were very often away. It was Molly, my nanny, who

really raised me. After they died, it was decided I would

live with my aunt in London.” Richard paused, pleased to

feel the strangely inchoate intimacy that came with talking

about himself, something he rarely did. “My cousins Martin

and Virginia were about my age but terribly sophisticated;

Aunt Elizabeth was quite grand, you see, and I was the

cousin from the tiny village in Shropshire. I started

thinking about running away the first day I arrived there.”

“Did you?”

“Many times. They always found me. Sometimes just

down the street.”

“What were you running to?”

“What?”

“What were you running to?”

Richard thought about it for a while. He knew he was

running away from a house that had pictures of long-dead

people on the walls breathing down on him. But he didn’t

know what he was running towards. Did children ever think

about that?

“Maybe I was running to Molly. I don’t know.”

“I knew what I wanted to run to. But it didn’t exist, so I

didn’t leave,” Kainene said, leaning back on her seat.

“How so?”

She lit a cigarette, as if she had not heard his question.

Her silences left him feeling helpless and eager to win back

her attention. He wanted to tell her about the roped pot.

He was not sure where he first read about Igbo-Ukwu art,

about the native man who was digging a well and

discovered the bronze castings that may well be the first in

Africa, dating back to the ninth century. But it was in

Colonies Magazine that he saw the photos. The roped pot

stood out immediately; he ran a finger over the picture and

ached to touch the delicately cast metal itself. He wanted

to try explaining how deeply stirred he had been by the pot

but decided not to. He would give it time. He felt strangely

comforted by this thought because he realized that what he

wanted most of all, with her, was time.

“Did you come to Nigeria to run away from something?”

she asked finally.

“No,” he said. “I’ve always been a loner and I’ve always

wanted to see Africa, so I took leave from my humble

newspaper job and a generous loan from my aunt and here

I am.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you to be a loner.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re handsome. Beautiful people are not

usually loners.” She said it flatly, as if it were not a

compliment, and so he hoped she did not notice that he

blushed.

“Well, I am,” he said; he could think of nothing else to

say. “I’ve always been.”

“A loner and a modern-day explorer of the Dark

Continent,” she said dryly.

He laughed. The sound spilt out of him, uncontrolled,

and he looked down at the clear, blue pool and thought,

blithely, that perhaps that shade of blue was also the colour

of hope.

They met the next day for lunch, and the day after. Each

time, she led the way to the suite and they sat on the

terrace and ate rice and drank cold beer. She touched her

glass rim with the tip of her tongue before she sipped. It

aroused him, that brief glimpse of pink tongue, more so

because she didn’t seem conscious of it. Her silences were

brooding, insular, and yet he felt a connection to her.

Perhaps it was because she was distant and withdrawn. He

found himself talking in a way he usually didn’t, and when

their time ended and she got up, often to join her father at

a meeting, he felt his feet thicken with curdled blood. He

did not want to leave, could not bear the thought of going

back to sit in Susan’s study and type and wait for Susan’s

subdued knocks. He did not understand why Susan

suspected nothing, why she could not simply look at him

and tell how different he felt, why she did not even notice

that he splashed on more aftershave now. He had not been

unfaithful to her, of course, but fidelity could not just be

about sex. His laughing with Kainene, telling Kainene about

Aunt Elizabeth, watching Kainene smoke, surely had to be

infidelities; they felt so. His quickened heartbeat when

Kainene kissed him goodbye was an infidelity. Her hand

clasped in his on the table was an infidelity. And so the day

Kainene did not give him the usual goodbye kiss and

instead pressed her mouth to his, lips parted, he was

surprised. He had not permitted himself to hope for too

much. Perhaps it was why an erection eluded him: the

gelding mix of surprise and desire. They undressed quickly.

His naked body was pressed to hers and yet he was limp.

He explored the angles of her collarbones and her hips, all

the time willing his body and his mind to work better

together, willing his desire to bypass his anxiety. But he did

not become hard. He could feel the flaccid weight between

his legs.

She sat up in bed and lit a cigarette.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and when she shrugged and said

nothing, he wished he had not apologized. There was

something dismal in the luxurious overfurnished suite, as

he pulled on trousers that might just as well have stayed on

and she hooked her bra. He wished she would say

something.

“Shall we meet tomorrow?” he asked.

She blew the smoke through her nose and, watching it

disappear in the air, asked, “This is crude, isn’t it?”

“Shall we meet tomorrow?” he asked again.

“I’m going to Port Harcourt with my father to meet some

oil people,” she said. “But I’ll be back after noon on

Wednesday. We could have a late lunch.”

“Yes, let’s,” Richard said, and until she met him in the

hotel lobby, days later, he worried that she would not come.

They had lunch and watched the swimmers below.

She was a little more animated, smoked more, spoke

more. She told him about the people she had met since she

began to work with her father, how they were all the same.

The new Nigerian upper class is a collection of illiterates

who read nothing and eat food they dislike at overpriced

Lebanese restaurants and have social conversations around

one subject: “How’s the new car behaving?” Once, she

laughed. Once, she held his hand. But she did not ask him

into the suite and he wondered if she wanted to give it time

or if she had decided that it was not the sort of relationship

she wanted with him after all.

He could not bring himself to act. Days passed before

she finally asked if he wanted to go inside, and he felt like

an understudy who hoped the actor would not show up and

then, when the actor finally did fail to come, became

crippled by awkwardness, not quite as ready as he had

thought he was for the stage lights. She led the way inside.

When he began to pull her dress up above her thighs, she

pushed him away calmly, as if she knew his frenzy was

simply armour for his fear. She hung her dress over the

chair. He was so terrified of failing her again that seeing

himself erect made him deliriously grateful, so grateful that

he was only just inside her before he felt that involuntary

tremble that he could not stop. They lay there, he on top of

her, for a while, and then he rolled off. He wanted to tell

her that this had never happened to him before. His sex life

with Susan was satisfactory, though perfunctory.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

She lit a cigarette, watching him. “Would you like to

come to dinner tonight? My parents have invited a few

people.”

For a moment, he was taken aback. Then he said, “Yes,

I’d love to.” He hoped the invitation meant something,

reflected a change in her perception of the relationship.

But when he arrived at her parents’ house in Ikoyi, she

introduced him by saying, “This is Richard Churchill,” and

then stopped with a pause that felt like a deliberate dare to

her parents and the other guests to think what they would.

Her father looked him over and asked what he did.

“I’m a writer,” he said.

“A writer? I see,” Chief Ozobia said.

Richard wished he hadn’t said he was a writer and so he

added, as if to make up for saying he was a writer, “I’m

fascinated by the discoveries at Igbo-Ukwu. The bronze

castings.”

“Hmm,” Chief Ozobia murmured. “Do you have any

family doing business in Nigeria?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

Chief Ozobia smiled and looked away. He didn’t say very

much else to Richard for the rest of the evening. Neither

did Mrs Ozobia, who followed her husband around, her

manner regal, her beauty more intimidating close up.

Olanna was different. Her smile was guarded when Kainene

introduced them, but as they talked, she became warmer

and he wondered if the flicker in her eyes was pity, if she

could tell how keen he was to say the right things and yet

didn’t know what those right things were. Her warmth

flattered him.

He felt strangely bereft when she sat far from him at the

table. The salad had just been served when she began to

discuss politics with a guest. Richard knew it was about the

need for Nigeria to become a republic and stop claiming

Queen Elizabeth as head of state, but he did not pay close

attention until she turned to him and asked, “Don’t you

agree, Richard?” as if his opinion mattered.

He cleared his throat. “Oh, absolutely,” he said, even

though he wasn’t sure what it was he was agreeing with.

He felt grateful that she had pulled him into the

conversation, included him, and he was charmed by that

quality of hers that seemed both sophisticated and naive,

an idealism that refused to be suffocated by gritty reality.

Her skin glowed. Her cheekbones rose as she smiled. But

she lacked Kainene’s melancholy mystique, which

exhilarated and confused him. Kainene sat next to him and

said little throughout dinner, once sharply asking a steward

to change a glass that looked cloudy, once leaning over to

ask, “The sauce is nauseating, isn’t it?” She was mostly

inscrutable, watching, drinking, smoking. He ached to

know what she was thinking. He felt a similar physical pain

when he desired her, and he would dream about being

inside her, thrusting as deep as he could, to try and

discover something that he knew he never would. It was

like drinking glass after glass of water and still emerging

thirsty, and with the stirring fear that he would never

quench the thirst.

Richard worried about Susan. He would watch her, the

firm chin and green eyes, and tell himself that it was unfair

to deceive her, to skulk in the study until she fell asleep, to

lie to her about being at the library or museum or polo

club. She deserved better. But there was a reassuring

stability to being with her, a certain safety in her

whispering and her study room with the pencil sketches of

Shakespeare on the walls. Kainene was different. He left

Kainene full of a giddy happiness and an equally dizzying

sense of insecurity. He wanted to ask her what she thought

of the things they never discussed—their relationship, a

future, Susan—but his uncertainties muted him each time;

he was afraid of what her answers would be.

He pushed any decisions away until the morning he woke

up and thought about that day in Wentnor, when he was out

playing and heard Molly calling him. “Richard! Supper!”

Instead of answering “Coming!” and running to her, he

dodged under a hedge, scraping his knees. “Richard!

Richard!” Molly sounded frantic this time, but he remained

silent, crouched. “Richard! Where are you, Dicky?” A rabbit

stopped and watched him, and he locked eyes with the

rabbit and, for those short moments, only he and the rabbit

knew where he was. Then the rabbit leapt out and Molly

peered under the bushes and saw him. She smacked him.

She told him to stay in his room for the rest of the day. She

said she was very upset and would tell Mr and Mrs

Churchill. But those short moments had made it all

worthwhile, those moments of pure plenary abandon, when

he felt as if he, and he alone, were in control of the

universe of his childhood. Recalling them, he decided he

would end it with Susan. His relationship with Kainene

might well not last long, but the moments of being with her,

knowing he was not weighed down by lies and pretense,

would make the brevity worthwhile.

His resolve buoyed him. Still, he put off telling Susan for

another week, until the evening they returned from a party

where she had drunk too many glasses of wine.

“Would you like a nightcap, darling?” she asked.

“Susan, I care very much about you,” he said in a rush.

“But I’m not quite sure that things are going very well—

that is, things between us.”

“What are you saying?” Susan asked, although her

hushed tone and blenched face told him that she knew very

well what he was saying.

He ran his hand through his hair.

“Who is it?” Susan asked.

“It’s not another woman. I just think our needs are

different.” He hoped he did not sound insincere, but it was

true; they had always wanted different things, always

valued different things. He should never have moved in

with her.

“It’s not Clovis Bancroft, is it?” Her ears were red. They

always turned red after she drank, but he was only noticing

the strangeness of it now, the angry-red ears jutting out by

her pale face.

“No, of course not.”

Susan poured herself a drink and sat on the arm of the

sofa. They were silent for a while. “I fancied you the minute

I saw you and I didn’t think I would, really. I thought how

handsome and gentle he is, and I must have resolved there

that I would never let you go.” She laughed quietly, and he

noticed the tiny lines around her eyes.

“Susan—” he said, and stopped, because there was

nothing else to say. He hadn’t known she thought these

things of him. He realized how little they had talked, how

their relationship had been like an artless flow with little

input from them, or at least from him. The relationship had

happened to him.

“It was all too rushed for you, wasn’t it?” Susan said. She

came and stood by him. She had regained her composure;

her chin no longer quivered. “You didn’t get a chance to

explore, really, to see more of the country like you wanted

to; you moved in here and I’ve made you go to these

ghastly parties with people who don’t much care about

writing and African art and that sort of thing. It must have

been so awful for you. I’m terribly sorry, Richard, and I do

understand. Of course, you must see a bit of the country.

Can I help? I have friends in Enugu and Kaduna.”

Richard took the glass from her, put it down, and took

her in his arms. He felt a faint nostalgia at the familiar

apple scent of her shampoo. “No, I’ll be all right,” he said.

She didn’t think it was really over, it was clear; she

thought he would come back and he said nothing to make

her think differently. When the steward in the white apron

opened the front door to let him out, Richard was light with

relief.

“Bye, sah,” the steward said.

“Goodbye, Okon.” Richard wondered if the inscrutable

Okon ever pressed his ear to the door when he and Susan

had their glass-breaking rows. He once asked Okon to

teach him some simple sentences in Efik, but Susan had

stopped it after she found them both in the study, Okon

fidgeting as Richard pronounced the words. Okon had

looked at Susan with gratitude, as if she had just saved him

from a mad white man, and later, Susan’s tone was mild

when she said she understood that Richard didn’t know

how things were done. One couldn’t cross certain lines. It

was a tone that reminded him of Aunt Elizabeth, of views

endorsed with an unapologetic, self-indulgent English

decency. Perhaps if he had told Susan about Kainene, she

would have used that tone to tell him that she quite

understood his need to experiment with a black woman.

Richard saw Okon waving as he drove away. He had the

overwhelming urge to sing, except that he was not a

singing man. All the other houses on Glover Street were

like Susan’s, expansive, hugged by palm trees and beds of

languid grass.

The next afternoon, Richard sat up in bed naked, looking

down at Kainene. He had just failed her again. “I’m sorry. I

think I get overexcited,” he said.

“May I have a cigarette?” she asked. The silky sheet

outlined the angular thinness of her naked body.

He lit it for her. She sat up from under the cover, her

dark-brown nipples tightening in the cold, air-conditioned

room, and looked away as she exhaled. “We’ll give it time,”

she said. “And there are other ways.”

Richard felt a swift surge of irritation, towards himself

for being uselessly limp, towards her for that half-mocking

smile and for saying there were other ways, as if he was

permanently incapable of doing things the traditional way.

He knew what he could do. He knew he could satisfy her.

He just needed time. He had begun, though, to think about

some herbs, potent manhood herbs he remembered

reading about somewhere, which African men took.

“Nsukka is a little patch of dust in the middle of the

bush, the cheapest land they could get to build the

university on,” Kainene said. It was startling, how easily

she slipped into mundane conversation. “But it should be

perfect for your writing, shouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said.

“You might like it and want to stay on.”

“I might.” Richard slid under the covers. “But I’m so

pleased you’ll be in Port Harcourt and I won’t have to come

all the way to Lagos to see you.”

Kainene said nothing, smoking with steady intakes, and

for one terrified moment, he wondered if she was going to

tell him that it was over when they both left Lagos and that,

in Port Harcourt, she would find herself a man capable of

performing.

“My house will be perfect for our weekends,” she said

finally.

“It’s monstrous. My father gave it to me last year as a bit

of dowry, I think, an enticement for the right sort of man to

marry his unattractive daughter. Terribly European when

you think of it, since we don’t have dowries, we have bride

prices.” She put the cigarette out. She had not finished it.

“Olanna said she didn’t want a house. Not that she needs

one. Save the houses for the ugly daughter.”

“Don’t say that, Kainene.”

“Don’t say that, Kainene,” Kainene mimicked him. She

got up and he wanted to pull her back. But he didn’t; he

could not trust his body and could not bear to disappoint

her yet again. Sometimes he felt as if he knew nothing

about her, as if he would never quite reach her. And yet,

other times, lying next to her, he would feel a wholeness, a

certainty that he would never need anything else.

“By the way, I’ve asked Olanna to introduce you to her

revolutionary lecturer lover,” Kainene said. She pulled her

wig off and, with her short hair worn in cornrows, her face

looked younger, smaller. “She used to date a Hausa prince,

a pleasant, bland sort of fellow, but he did not have any of

the crazed delusions she has. This Odenigbo imagines

himself to be quite the freedom fighter. He’s a

mathematician but he spends all his time writing

newspaper articles about his own brand of mishmash

African socialism. Olanna adores that. They don’t seem to

realize how much of a joke socialism really is.” She put the

wig back on and began to brush it; the wavy hair, parted in

the middle, fell to her chin. Richard liked the clean lines of

her thin body, the sleekness of her raised arm.

“Socialism could very well work in Nigeria if done right, I

think,” he said. “It’s really about economic justice, isn’t it?”

Kainene snorted. “Socialism would never work for the

Igbo.” She held the brush suspended in mid-air.

“Ogbenyealu is a common name for girls and you know

what it means? “Not to Be Married by a Poor Man.” To

stamp that on a child at birth is capitalism at its best.”

Richard laughed, and he was even more amused because

she did not laugh; she simply went back to brushing her

hair. He thought about the next time he would laugh with

her and then the next. He found himself often thinking

about the future, even before the present was over.

He got up and felt shy when she glanced at his naked

body. Perhaps she was expressionless only to hide her

disgust. He pulled on his underwear and buttoned his shirt

hurriedly.

“I’ve left Susan,” he blurted out. “I’m staying at the

Princewill Guesthouse in Ikeja. I’ll pick up the rest of my

things from her house before I leave for Nsukka.”

Kainene stared at him, and he saw surprise on her face

and then something else he was not sure of. Was it

puzzlement?

“It’s never been a proper relationship, really,” he said.

He did not want her to think he had done it because of her,

did not want her asking herself questions about their

relationship. Not yet.

“You’ll need a houseboy,” she said.

“What?”

“A houseboy in Nsukka. You’ll need somebody to wash

your clothes and clean your house.”

He was momentarily confused by the non sequitur. “A

houseboy? I can manage quite well. I’ve lived alone for too

long.”

“I’ll ask Olanna to find somebody,” Kainene said. She

pulled a cigarette from the case, but she didn’t light it. She

put it down on the bedside table and came over and hugged

him, a tremulous tightening of her arms around him. He

was so surprised he did not hug her back. She had never

embraced him that closely unless they were in bed. She did

not seem to know what to make of the hug either, because

she backed away from him quickly and lit the cigarette. He

thought about that hug often, and each time he did he had

the sensation of a wall crumbling.

Richard left for Nsukka a week later. He drove at

moderate speed, pulling off the road once in a while to look

at the hand-drawn map Kainene had given him. After he

crossed the River Niger, he decided to stop at Igbo-Ukwu.

Now that he was finally in Igbo land, he wanted ‘to see the

home of the roped pot before anything else. A few cement

houses dotted the village; they marred the picturesque

quality of the mud huts that were crowded on either side of

dirt paths, paths so narrow he parked his car a long way

away and followed a young man in khaki shorts who

seemed used to showing visitors around. His name was

Emeka Anozie. He had been one of the labourers who

worked at the dig. He showed Richard the wide,

rectangular ditches where the excavations had taken place,

the shovels and pans that had been used to brush the dust

off the bronzes.

“You want to talk to our big father? I will interpret for

you,” Emeka offered.

“Thank you.” Richard felt slightly overwhelmed by the

warm reception, by the neighbours who trailed in and said,

“Good afternoon, nno, welcome,” as if they did not even

think about minding that he had come uninvited.

Pa Anozie had a dirty-looking cloth wound round his body

and tied behind his neck. He led the way into his dim obi,

which smelt of mushrooms. Although Richard had read

about how the bronzes were found, he asked the question

anyway. Pa Anozie nudged a pinch of snuff up his nostrils

before he began telling the story. About twenty years ago,

his brother was digging a well when he hit something

metallic that turned out to be a gourd. He soon found a few

others and brought them out, washed them, and called the

neighbours to come in and see them. They looked well

crafted and vaguely familiar, but nobody knew of anyone

making anything like them. Soon, word got to the district

commissioner in Enugu, who sent somebody to take them

to the Department of Antiquities in Lagos. After that,

nobody came or asked anything else about the bronzes for

a while, and his brother built his well and life went on.

Then, a few years ago, the white man from Ibadan came to

excavate. There were long talks before the work began,

because of a goat house and compound wall that would

have to be removed, but the work went well. It was har-

mattan, but because they feared the thunderstorms, they

covered the ditches with tarpaulins spread across bamboo

sticks. They found such lovely things: calabashes, shells,

many ornaments that women used to decorate themselves,

snake images, pots.

“They also found a burial chamber, didn’t they?” Richard

asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you think it was used by the king?”

Pa Anozie gave Richard a long, pained look and mumbled

something for a while, looking grieved. Emeka laughed

before he translated. “Papa said he thought you were

among the white people who know something. He said the

people of Igboland do not know what a king is. We have

priests and elders. The burial place was maybe for a priest.

But the priest does not suffer people like king. It is because

the white man gave us warrant chiefs that foolish men are

calling themselves kings today.”

Richard apologized. He did know that the Igbo were said

to have been a republican tribe for thousands of years, but

one of the articles about the Igbo-Ukwu findings had

suggested that perhaps they once had kings and later

deposed them. The Igbo were, after all, a people who

deposed gods that had outlived their usefulness. Richard

sat there for a while, imagining the lives of people who

were capable of such beauty, such complexity, in the time of

Alfred the Great. He wanted to write about this, to create

something from this, but he did not know what. Perhaps a

speculative novel where the main character is an

archaeologist digging for bronzes who is then transported

to an idyllic past?

He thanked Pa Anozie and got up to leave. Pa Anozie said

something and Emeka asked, “Papa is asking will you not

take photo of him? All the white people that have come

take photo.”

Richard shook his head. “No, sorry. I haven’t brought a

camera.”

Emeka laughed. “Papa is asking what kind of white man

is this? Why did he come here and what is he doing?”

As he drove towards Nsukka, Richard, too, wondered just

what he was doing and, more worrying, what he was going

to write.

The university house on Imoke Street was reserved for

visiting researchers and artists; it was sparse, near ascetic,

and Richard looked over the two armchairs in the living

room, the single bed, the bare kitchen cupboards, and felt

instantly at home. The house was filled with a suitable

silence. When he visited Olanna and Odenigbo, though, she

said, “I’m sure you must want to make the place a little

more habitable,” so he said, “Yes,” although he liked the

soulless furnishing. He agreed only because Olanna’s smile

was like a prize, because her attention flattered him. She

insisted that he hire their gardener, Jomo, to come in twice

a week and plant some flowers in the yard. She introduced

him to their friends; she showed him the market; she said

she had found him the perfect houseboy.

Richard envisaged somebody young and alert like their

houseboy, Ugwu, but Harrison turned out to be a small,

stooped stick of a man, middle-aged, wearing an oversized

white shirt that stopped below his knees. He bowed

extravagantly at the beginning of each conversation. He

told Richard with unconcealed pride that he had formerly

worked for the Irish priest Father Bernard and the

American professor Land. “I am making very good beet

salad,” he said that first day, and later Richard realized that

he was proud not only of his salad but also of cooking with

beets, which he had to buy in the ‘specialty vegetable’ stall

because most Nigerians did not eat them. The first dinner

Harrison cooked was a savoury fish, with the beet salad as

a starter. A crimson beet stew appeared next to his rice the

following evening. “It is from an American recipe for potato

stew that I am making this one,” Harrison said, as he

watched Richard eat. The next day, there was a beet salad,

and the next another beet stew, now frighteningly red, next

to the chicken.

“No more, please, Harrison,” Richard said, raising his

hand. “No more beets.”

Harrison looked disappointed, and then his face

brightened. “But, sah, I am cooking the food of your

country; all the food you are eating as children I cook. In

fact, I’m not cooking Nigerian foods, only foreign recipe.”

“Nigerian food is quite all right, Harrison,” Richard said.

If only Harrison knew how much he had disliked the food of

his childhood, the sharp-tasting kippers full of bones, the

porridge with the appalling thick skin on top like a

waterproof lining, the overcooked roast beef with fat

around the edges drenched in gravy.

“Okay, sah.” Harrison looked morose.

“By the way, Harrison, do you happen to know of any

herbs for men?” Richard asked, hoping he sounded casual.

“Sah?”

“Herbs.” Richard gestured vaguely.

“Vegetables, sah? Oh, I make any of the salad of your

country very good, sah. For Professor Land, I am making

many different-different salad.”

“Yes, but I mean vegetables for sickness.”

“Sickness? You see doctor in Medical Centre.”

“I am interested in African herbs, Harrison.”

“But sah, they are bad, from the witch doctor. They are

devilish.”

“Of course.” Richard gave up. He should have known

that Harrison, with his excessive love for all things non-

Nigerian, was not the right person to ask. He would ask

Jomo instead.

Richard waited until Jomo arrived and then stood at the

window watching him water the newly planted lilies. Jomo

placed the watering can aside and began to pick the

umbrella tree fruit; they had fallen during the previous

night and lay, oval and pale yellow, on the lawn. Richard

often smelt the over-sweetness of their rotting, a scent he

knew he would always associate with living in Nsukka.

Jomo held a raffia bag full of fruit when Richard came up to

him.

“Oh. Good morning, Mr Richard, sah,” he said, in his

solemn manner. “I want take the fruit to Harrison in case

you want, sah. I no take them for myself.” Jomo placed the

bag down and picked up his watering can.

“It’s all right, Jomo. I don’t want any of the fruit,”

Richard said. “By the way, would you know of any herbs for

men? For men who have problems with…with being with a

woman?”

“Yes, sah.” Jomo kept watering as if this was a question

he heard every day.

“You know of some herbs for men?”

“Yes, sah.”

Richard felt a triumphant leap in his stomach. “I should

like to see them, Jomo.”

“My brother get problem before because the first wife is

not pregnant and the second wife is not pregnant. There is

one leaf that the dibia give him and he begin to chew. Now

he has pregnant the wives.”

“Oh. Very good. Could you get me this herb, Jomo?”

Jomo stopped and looked at him, his wise, wizened face

full of fond pity. “It no work for white man, sah.”

“Oh, no. I want to write about it.”

Jomo shook his head. “You go to dibia and you chew it

there in front of him. Not for writing, sah.” Jomo turned

back to his watering, humming tunelessly.

“I see,” Richard said, and as he went back indoors he

made sure not to let his dejection show; he walked straight

and reminded himself that he was, after all, the master.

Harrison was standing outside the front door, pretending

to polish the glass. “Is there something that Jomo is not

doing well, sah?” he asked hopefully.

“I was just asking Jomo some questions.”

Harrison looked disappointed. It was clear from the

beginning that he and Jomo would not get along, the cook

and the gardener, each thinking himself better than the

other. Once, Richard heard Harrison tell Jomo not to water

the plants outside the study window because “the sound of

water is disturbing Sah writing.” Harrison wanted Richard

to hear it, too, the way he spoke loudly, standing just

outside the study window. Harrison’s obsequiousness

amused Richard, as did Harrison’s reverence for his

writing; Harrison had taken to dusting the typewriter every

day, even though it was never dusty, and was reluctant to

throw away manuscript pages he saw in the dustbin. “You

are not using this again, sah? You are sure?” Harri-son

would ask; holding the crumpled pages, and Richard would

say that, yes, he was sure. Sometimes he wondered what

Harrison would say if he told him that he wasn’t even sure

what he was writing about, that he had written a sketch

about an archaeologist and then discarded it, written a love

story between an Englishman and an African woman and

discarded it, and had started writing about life in a small

Nigerian town. Most of his material for his latest effort

came from the evenings he spent with Odenigbo and

Olanna and their friends. They were casually accepting of

him, did not pay him any particular attention, and perhaps

because of that, he felt comfortable sitting on a sofa in the

living room and listening.

When Olanna first introduced him to Odenigbo, saying,

“This is Kainene’s friend that I told you about, Richard

Churchill,” Odenigbo shook his hand warmly and said, “I

have not become the king’s first minister in order to

preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.”

It took Richard a moment to understand before he

laughed at the poor imitation of Sir Winston Churchill.

Later, he watched Odenigbo wave around a copy of the

Daily Times, shouting, “It is now that we have to begin to

decolonize our education! Not tomorrow, now! Teach them

our history!” and thought to himself that here was a man

who trusted the eccentricity that was his personality, a man

who was not particularly attractive but who would draw the

most attention in a room full of attractive men. Richard

watched Olanna as well, and each time he glanced at her

he felt renewed, as if she had become more beautiful in the

preceding minutes. He felt an unpleasant emotion, though,

seeing Odenigbo’s hand placed on her shoulder and, later,

imagining them together in bed. He and Olanna said little

to each other, outside of the general conversation, but a

day before he left to visit Kainene in Port Harcourt, Olanna

said, “Richard, please greet Kainene.”

“I will,” he said; it was the first time she had mentioned

Kainene.

Kainene picked him up at the train station in her Peugeot

404 and drove away from the centre of Port Harcourt

towards the ocean, to an isolated three-storey house with

verandas wreathed in creeping bougainvillea of the palest

shade of violet. Richard smelt the saltiness of the air as

Kainene led him through wide rooms with tastefully

mismatched furniture, wood carvings, muted paintings of

landscapes, rounded sculptures. The polished floors had a

woody scent.

“I did wish it was closer to the sea, so we could have a

better view. But I changed Daddy’s decor and it’s not too

nouveau riche, I pray?” Kainene asked.

Richard laughed. Not just because she was mocking

Susan—he had told her what Susan had said about Chief

Ozobia—but because she had said we. We meant both of

them; she had included him. When she introduced him to

her stewards, three men in ill-fitting khaki uniforms, she

told them, with that wry smile of hers, “You will be seeing

Mr Richard often.”

“Welcome, sah,” they said in unison, and they stood

almost at attention as Kainene pointed to each and said his

name: Ikejide, Nnanna, and Sebastian.

“Ikejide is the only one with half a brain in his head,”

Kainene said.

The three men smiled, as though they each thought

differently but would of course say nothing.

“Now, Richard, I’ll give you a tour of the grounds.”

Kainene gave a mocking bow and led the way out through

the back door to the orange orchard.

“Olanna asked me to say hello to you,” Richard said,

taking her hand.

“So her revolutionary lover has admitted you into the

fold. We should be grateful. It used to be that he allowed

only black lecturers in his house.”

“Yes, he told me. He said that Nsukka was full of people

from USAID and the Peace Corps and Michigan State

University, and he wanted a forum for the few Nigerian

lecturers.”

“And their nationalist passion.”

“I suppose so. He is refreshingly different.”

“Refreshingly different,” Kainene repeated. She stopped

to flatten something on the ground with the sole of her

sandals. “You like them, don’t you? Olanna and Odenigbo.”

He wanted to look into her eyes, to try and discern what

she wanted him to say. He wanted to say what she wanted

to hear. “Yes, I like them,” he said. Her hand was lax in his

and he worried that she would slip it away. “They’ve made

it much easier for me to get used to Nsukka,” he added, as

if to justify his liking them. “I’ve settled in quite quickly.

And of course there’s Harrison.”

“Of course, Harrison. And how is the Beet Man doing?”

Richard pulled her to him, relieved that she was not

annoyed. “He’s well. He is a good man, really, very

amusing.”

They were in the orchard now, in the dense interweaving

of orange trees, and Richard felt a strangeness overcome

him. Kainene was speaking, something about one of her

employees, but he felt himself receding, his mind unfurling,

rolling back on its own. The orange trees, the presence of

so many trees around him, the hum of flies overhead, the

abundance of green, brought back memories of his parents’

house in Wentnor. It was incongruous that this tropical,

humid place, with the sun turning the skin of his arms a

mild scarlet and the bees sunning themselves, should

remind him of the crumbling house in England, which was

draughty even in summer. He saw the tall poplars and

willows behind the house, in the fields where he stalked

badgers, the rumpled hills covered in heather and bracken

that spread for miles and miles, dotted with grazing sheep.

Blue rememberedhills. He saw his father and his mother

sitting with him up in his bedroom, which smelt of damp,

while his father read them poetry.

Into my heart on air that kills

From yon far country blows:

What are those blue remembered hills,

What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content

I see it shining plain,

The happy highways where I went

And cannot come again.

His father’s voice would always deepen at the phrase

blue remembered hills, and when they left his room, and

for the weeks afterwards when they would be away, he

would look out of his window and watch the far-off hills

take on a blue tinge.

Richard was bewildered by Kainene’s busy life. Seeing

her in Lagos, in brief meetings at the hotel, he had not

realized that hers was a life that ran fully and would run

fully even if he was not in it. It was strangely disturbing to

think that he was not the only occupant of her world, but

stranger still was how her routines were already in place,

after only a few weeks in Port Harcourt. Her work came

first; she was determined to make her father’s factories

grow, to do better than he had done. In the evenings,

visitors—company people negotiating deals, government

people negotiating bribes, factory people negotiating jobs—

dropped by, parking their cars near the entrance to the

orchard. Kainene always made sure they didn’t stay long,

and she didn’t ask him to meet them because she said they

would bore him, so he stayed upstairs reading or scribbling

until they left. Often, he would try to keep his mind from

worrying about failing Kainene that night; his body was still

so unreliable and he had discovered that thinking about

failure made it more likely to happen.

It was during his third visit to Port Harcourt that the

steward knocked on the bedroom door to announce, “Major

Madu came, madam,” and Kainene asked if Richard would

please come down with her.

“Madu is an old friend and I’d like you to meet him. He’s

just come back from an army training course in Pakistan,”

she said.

Richard smelt the guest’s cologne from the hallway, a

cloying, brawny scent. The man wearing it was striking in a

way that Richard immediately thought was primordial: a

wide, mahogany-coloured face, wide lips, a wide nose.

When he stood to shake hands, Richard nearly stepped

back. The man was huge. Richard was used to being the

tallest man in a room, the one who was looked up to, but

here was a man who was at least three inches taller than

he was, and with a width to his shoulders and a firm bulk to

his body that made him seem taller, hulking.

“Richard, this is Major Madu Madu,” Kainene said.

“Hello,” Major Madu said. “Kainene has told me about

you.”

“Hello,” Richard said. It was too intimate, to hear this

mammoth man with the slightly condescending smile on his

face say Kainene’s name like that, as if he knew Kainene

very well, as if he knew something that Richard did not

know, as if whatever Kainene had told him about Richard

had been whispered in his ear, amid the silly giggles born

of physical intimacy. And what sort of name was Madu

Madu anyway? Richard sat on a sofa and refused Kainene’s

offer of a drink. He felt pale. He wished Kainene had said,

This is mylover, Richard.

“So you and Kainene met in Lagos?” Major Madu asked.

“Yes,” Richard said.

“She first told me about you when I called her from

Pakistan about a month ago.”

Richard could not think of what to say. He did not know

Kainene had talked to him from Pakistan and did not

remember her ever mentioning a friendship with an army

officer whose first name and surname were the same. “And

how long have you known each other?” Richard asked, and

immediately wondered if he sounded suspicious.

“My family’s compound in Umunnachi is right next to the

Ozo-bias’.” Major Madu turned to Kainene. “Aren’t our

forefathers said to be related? Only that your people stole

our land and we cast you out?”

“It was your people who stole the land,” Kainene said,

and laughed. Richard was surprised to hear the husky tone

of her laughter. He was even more surprised at how

familiarly Major Madu behaved, the way he sank into the

sofa, got up to flip the album in the stereo, joked with the

stewards serving dinner. Richard felt left out of things. He

wished Kainene had told him that Major Madu would be

staying for dinner. He wished she would drink gin and tonic

like him rather than whisky with water like Major Madu.

He wished the man would not keep asking him questions,

as if to engage him, as if the man were the host and

Richard the visitor. How are you enjoying Nigeria? Isn’t the

rice delicious? How is your book going? Do you like

Nsukka?

Richard resented the questions and the man’s perfect

table manners.

“I trained at Sandhurst,” Major Madu said, “and what I

hated most was the cold. Not least because they made us

run every morning in the bloody cold with only a thin shirt

and shorts on.”

“I can see why you’d find it cold,” Richard said.

“Oh, yes. To each his own. I’m sure you’ll soon get very

homesick here,” he said.

“I don’t think so at all,” Richard said.

“Well, the British have just decided to control

immigration from the Commonwealth, haven’t they? They

want people to stay in their own countries. The irony, of

course, is that we in the Commonwealth can’t control the

British moving to our countries.”

He chewed his rice slowly and examined the bottle of

water for a moment, as if it were wine whose vintage he

wanted to know.

“Right after I came back from England, I was part of the

Fourth Battalion that went to the Congo, under the United

Nations. Our battalion wasn’t well run at all, but despite

that, I preferred Congo to the relative safety of England.

Just because of the weather.” Major Madu paused. “We

weren’t run well at all in the Congo. We were under the

command of a British colonel.” He glanced at Richard and

continued to chew.

Richard bristled; his fingers felt stiff and he feared his

fork would slip from his grasp and this insufferable man

would know how he felt.

The doorbell rang just after dinner while they sat on the

moonlit veranda, drinking, listening to High Life music.

“That must be Udodi, I told him to meet me here,” Major

Madu said.

Richard slapped at an irritating mosquito near his ear.

Kainene’s house seemed to have become a meeting place

for the man and his friends.

Udodi was a smallish, ordinary-looking man with nothing

of the knowing charm or subtle arrogance of Major Madu.

He seemed drunk, almost manic, in the way he shook

Richard’s hand, pumping up and down. “Are you Kainene’s

business associate? Are you in oil?” he asked.

“I didn’t do the introductions, did I?” Kainene said.

“Richard, Major Udodi Ekechi is a friend of Madu’s. Udodi,

this is Richard Churchill.”

“Oh,” Major Udodi said, his eyes narrowing. He poured

some whisky into a glass, drank it in one gulp, and said

something in Igbo to which Kainene replied, in cold, clear

English, “My choice of lovers is none of your business,

Udodi.”

Richard wished he could open his mouth and fluidly tell

the man off, but he said nothing. He felt helplessly weak,

the kind of weakness that came with illness, with grief. The

music had stopped and he could hear the far-off whooshing

of the sea’s waves.

“Sorry, oh! I did not say it was my business!” Major

Udodi laughed and reached again for the bottle of whisky.

“Easy now,” Major Madu said. “You must have started

early at the mess.”

“Life is short, my brother!” Major Udodi said, pouring

another drink. He turned to Kainene. “I magonu, you know,

what I am saying is that our women who follow white men

are a certain type, a poor family and the kind of bodies that

white men like.” He stopped and continued, in a mocking

mimicry of an English accent, “Fantastically desirable

bottoms.” He laughed. “The white men will poke and poke

and poke the women in the dark but they will never marry

them. How can! They will never even take them out to a

good place in public. But the women will continue to

disgrace themselves and struggle for the men so they will

get chicken-feed money and nonsense tea in a fancy tin. It’s

a new slavery, I’m telling you, a new slavery. But you are a

Big Man’s daughter, so what you are doing with him?”

Major Madu stood up. “Sorry about this, Kainene. The

man isn’t himself.” He pulled Major Udodi up and said

something in swift Igbo.

Major Udodi was laughing again. “Okay, okay, but let me

take the whisky. The bottle is almost empty. Let me take the

whisky.”

Kainene said nothing as Major Udodi took the bottle from

the table. After they left, Richard sat next to her and took

her hand. He felt as if he had disappeared, as if that was

the reason Major Madu did not include him in the apology.

“He was dreadful. I’m sorry he did that.”

“He was hopelessly drunk. Madu must feel terrible right

now,” Kainene said. She gestured to the file on the table

and added, “I’ve just got the contract to supply army boots

for the battalion in Kaduna.”

“That’s nice.” Richard drank the last drop from his glass

and watched as Kainene looked through the file.

“The man in charge was Igbo, and Madu said he was

keen to give the contract to a fellow Igbo. So I was lucky.

And he’s asking only for a five per cent cut.”

“A bribe?”

“Oh, aren’t we innocent.”

Her mockery irritated him, as did the speed with which

she had absolved Major Madu of any responsibility for

Major Udodi’s boorish behaviour. He stood up and began to

pace the veranda. Insects were humming around the

fluorescent bulb.

“You’ve known Madu for very long then,” he said finally.

He hated calling the man by his first name; it assumed a

cordiality he did not feel. But then he had no choice. He

would certainly not call him Major; using a title would be

too elevating.

Kainene looked up. “Forever. His family and ours are

very close. I remember once, years ago, when we went to

Umunnachi to spend Christmas, he gave me a tortoise. The

strangest and best present I ever got from anybody. Olanna

thought it was wrong of Madu to take the poor thing out of

its natural habitat and whatnot, but she didn’t much get

along with Madu anyway. I put it in a bowl, and of course it

died soon afterwards.” She went back to looking through

the file.

“He’s married, isn’t he?”

“Yes. Adaobi is doing her bachelor’s in London.”

“Is that why you’re seeing him so often?” His question

came out in a near-croak, as though he needed to clear his

throat.

She did not respond. Perhaps she had not heard him. It

was clear that the file, the new contract, occupied her

mind. She got up. “I’ll just make some notes for a minute in

the study and join you.”

He wondered why he could simply not ask if she found

Madu attractive and if she had ever been involved with him

or, worse yet, was still involved with him. He was afraid. He

moved towards her and put his arms around her and held

her tightly, wanting to feel the beat of her heart. It was the

first time in his life he felt as if he could belong somewhere.

1. THE BOOK:

The World Was Silent When We Died

For the prologue, he recounts the story of the woman with

the calabash. She sat on the floor of a train squashed

between crying people, shouting people, praying people.

She was silent, caressing the covered calabash on her lap

in a gentle rhythm until they crossed the Niger, and then

she lifted the lid and asked Olanna and others close by to

look inside.

Olanna tells him this story and he notes the details. She

tells him how the bloodstains on the woman’s wrapper

blended into the fabric to form a rusty mauve. She

describes the carved designs on the woman’s calabash,

slanting lines crisscrossing each other, and she describes

the child’s head inside: scruffy plaits falling across the

dark-brown face, eyes completely white, eerily open, a

mouth in a small surprised 0.

After he writes this, he mentions the German women

who fled Hamburg with the charred bodies of their children

stuffed in suitcases, the Rwandan women who pocketed

tiny parts of their mauled babies. But he is careful not to

draw parallels. For the book cover, though, he draws a map

of Nigeria and traces in the Y shape of the rivers Niger and

Benue in bright red. He uses the same shade of red to

circle the boundaries of where, in the Southeast, Biafra

existed for three years.

U

FOUR

gwu cleared the dining table slowly. He removed the

glasses first, then the stew-smeared bowls and the

cutlery, and finally he stacked plate on top of plate.

Even if he hadn’t peeked through the kitchen door as they

ate, he would still know who had sat where. Master’s plate

was always the most rice-strewn, as if he ate distractedly

so that the grains eluded his fork. Olanna’s glass had

crescent-shaped lipstick marks. Okeoma ate everything

with a spoon, his fork and knife pushed aside. Professor

Ezeka had brought his own beer, and the foreign-looking

brown bottle was beside his plate. Miss Adebayo left onion

slices in her bowl. And Mr Richard never chewed his

chicken bones.

In the kitchen, Ugwu kept Olanna’s plate aside on the

Formica counter and emptied the rest, watching rice, stew,

greens, and bones slide into the dustbin. Some of the bones

were so well cracked they looked like wood shavings.

Olanna’s did not, though, because she had only lightly

chewed the ends and all three still had their shape. Ugwu

sat down and selected one and closed his eyes as he sucked

it, imagining Olanna’s mouth enclosing the same bone.

He sucked languidly, one bone after another, and did not

bother to tone down the slurpy sounds his mouth made. He

was alone. Master had just left for the staff club with

Olanna and their friends. The house was always quietest

now, when he could linger over nothing, with the lunch

dishes in the sink and dinner far off and the kitchen bathed

in incandescent sunlight. Olanna called this his Schoolwork

Time, and when she was home, she would ask him to take

his homework into the bedroom. She didn’t know that his

homework never took long, that he would sit by the window

afterwards and struggle through difficult sentences in one

of Master’s books, looking up often to watch the butterflies

dipping and rising above the white flowers in the front

yard.

He picked up his exercise book while sucking the second

bone. The cold marrow was tart on his tongue. He read the

verse, which he had copied so carefully from the

blackboard that it looked like Mrs Ogu-ike’s handwriting,

and then closed his eyes and recited it.

I can’t forget that I’m bereft

Of all the pleasant sights they see,

Which the Piper also promised me.

For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,

Joining the town and just at hand,

Where waters gushed and fruit trees grew,

And flowers put forth a fairer hue,

And everything was strange and new.

He opened his eyes and scanned the verse to make sure

he had missed nothing. He hoped Master would not

remember to ask him to recite it because, although he had

memorized the verse correctly, he would have no answer

when Master asked, What does it mean? Or, What do you

think it is really saying? The pictures in the book Mrs

Oguike gave out, of the long-haired man with happy rats

following him, were incomprehensible, and the more Ugwu

looked at them, the more certain he became that it was all

some sort of senseless joke. Even Mrs Oguike did not seem

to know what it meant. Ugwu had come to like her—Mrs

Oguike—because she did not treat him with special

concern, did not seem to notice that he sat alone in the

classroom at break time. But she had noticed how fast he

learnt the very first day when she gave him oral and

written tests while Master waited outside the airless room.

“The boy will surely skip a class at some point, he has such

an innate intelligence,” she had told Master afterwards, as

if Ugwu were not standing right beside them, and innate

intelligence instantly became Ugwu’s favourite expression.

He closed the exercise book. He had sucked all the

bones, and he imagined that the taste of Olanna’s mouth

was in his as he started to wash the dishes. The first time

he sucked her bones, weeks ago, it was after he saw her

and Master kissing in the living room on a Saturday

morning, their open mouths pressed together. The thought

of her saliva in Master’s mouth had both repelled and

excited him. It still did. It was the same way he felt about

her moaning at night; he did not like to hear her and yet he

often went to their door to press his ear against the cold

wood and listen. Just as he examined the underwear she

hung in the bathroom—black slips, slippery bras, white

pants.

She had blended so easily into the house. In the

evenings, when guests filled the living room, her voice

stood out in its clear perfection, and he fantasized about

sticking out his tongue at Miss Adebayo and saying, “You

cannot speak English like my madam, so shut your dirty

mouth.” It seemed as if her clothes had always been in the

wardrobe, her High Life music always come from the

radiogram, her coconut scent always wafted over every

room, and her Impala always parked in the driveway. Still,

he missed the old days with Master. He missed the

evenings when he would sit on the floor of the living room

while Master talked in his deep voice and the mornings

when he served Master’s breakfast, knowing that the only

voices that could be heard were theirs.

Master had changed; he looked at Olanna too often,

touched her too much, and when Ugwu opened the front

door for him, his eyes expectantly darted past into the

living room to see if Olanna was there. Only yesterday,

Master told Ugwu, “My mother will be visiting this

weekend, so clean the guest room.” Before Ugwu could say

Yes, sah, Olanna said, “I think Ugwu should move to the

Boys’ Quarters. That way we’ll have a free guest room.

Mama may stay a while.”

“Yes, of course,” Master said, so promptly that it

annoyed Ugwu; it was as if Master would stick his head in a

raging fire if Olanna asked him to. It was as if she had

become the master. But Ugwu didn’t mind moving to the

room in the Boys’ Quarters, which was empty except for

some cobwebs and cartons. He could hide things he had

saved there; he could make it fully his. He had never heard

Master speak about his mother, and, as he cleaned the

guest room later, he imagined what she would be like, this

woman who had bathed Master as a baby, fed him, wiped

his running nose. Ugwu was in awe of her already, for

having produced Master.

He finished the lunch dishes quickly. If he was as quick in

preparing the greens for the dinner pottage, he could go

down to Mr Richard’s house and talk to Harrison for a little

while before Master and Olanna came back. These days, he

shredded the greens with his hands instead of slicing them.

Olanna liked them that way; she said they retained more of

their vitamins. He, too, had started to like them, just as he

liked the way she taught him to fry eggs with a little milk,

to cut fried plantains in dainty circles rather than ungainly

ovals, to steam moi-moi’m aluminium cups rather than

banana leaves. Now that she left most of the cooking to

him, he liked to look through the kitchen door from time to

time, to see who murmured the most compliments, who

liked what, who took second helpings. Dr Patel liked the

chicken boiled with uziza. So did Mr Richard, although he

never ate the chicken skin. Perhaps the pale chicken skin

reminded Mr Richard of his own skin. There was no other

reason Ugwu could think of; the skin was, after all, the

tastiest part. Mr Richard always said, “Fantastic chicken,

Ugwu, thank you,” when Ugwu came out to bring more

water or to clear something away. Sometimes, while the

other guests retired to the living room, Mr Richard would

come into the kitchen to ask Ugwu questions. They were

laughable questions. Did his people have carvings or

sculptures of gods? Had he ever been inside the shrine by

the river? Ugwu was even more amused that Mr Richard

wrote his answers down in a small book with a leather

cover. Some days ago, when Ugwu offhandedly mentioned

the ori-okpa festival, Mr Richard’s eyes turned a brighter

blue and he said he wanted to see the festival; he would ask

Master if he and Ugwu could drive to his hometown.

Ugwu laughed as he brought the greens out of the

refrigerator. He could not imagine Mr Richard during the

ori-okpa festival, where the mmuo (Mr Richard said they

were masquerades, weren’t they, and Ugwu agreed, as long

as masquerades meant spirits) paraded the village, flogged

young men, and chased after young women. The mmuo

themselves might even laugh at the sight of a pale stranger

scribbling in a notebook. But he was pleased that he had

mentioned the festival to Mr Richard, because it meant an

opportunity to see Nnesinachi before she left for the North.

To think how impressed she would be when he arrived in a

white man’s car, driven by the white man himself! She

would certainly notice him this time, he was sure, and he

could not wait to impress Anulika and his cousins and

relatives with his English, his new shirt, his knowledge of

sandwiches and running tap water, his scented powder.

Ugwu had just washed the shredded greens when he

heard the doorbell. It was too early for Master’s friends. He

went to the door, wiping his hands on his apron. For a

moment, he wondered if his aunty was really standing

there or if he was seeing an image of her only because he

had been thinking about home.

“Aunty?”

“Ugwuanyi,” she said, “you have to come home. Oga

gikwanu? Where is your master?”

“Come home?”

“Your mother is very sick.”

Ugwu examined the scarf tied round his aunty’s head. He

could see where it was threadbare, the fabric stretched

thin. He remembered that when his cousin’s father died,

the family had sent word to her in Lagos, telling her to

come home because her father was very sick. If you were

far from home, they told you the dead person was very sick.

“Your mother is sick,” his aunty repeated. “She is asking

for you. I will tell Master that you will be back tomorrow, so

he will not think we are asking for too much. Many

houseboys do not even get to go home in years, you know

that.”

Ugwu did not move, rolling the edge of the apron around

his finger. He wanted to ask his aunt to tell him the truth,

to say so if his mother was dead. But his mouth would not

form the words. Remembering his mother’s last illness,

when she had coughed and coughed until his father left

before dawn to get the dibia while the junior wife, Chioke,

rubbed her back, frightened him.

“Master is not in,” he said finally. “But he will be back

soon.”

“I will wait and plead with him to let you come home.”

He led the way to the kitchen, where his aunty sat down

and watched him slice a yam and then cut the slices into

cubes. He worked fast, feverishly. The sunlight that came in

through the window seemed too bright for late afternoon,

too full of an ominous radiance.

“Is my father well?” Ugwu asked.

“He is well.” His aunty’s face was opaque, her tone flat:

the demeanour of a person who carried more bad news

than she had delivered. She must be hiding something.

Perhaps his mother really was dead; perhaps both his

parents had fallen down dead that morning. Ugwu

continued to slice, in a turgid silence, until Master came

home, tennis whites plastered to his back with sweat. He

was alone. Ugwu wished that Olanna had come home as

well so that he could look at her face as he spoke.

“Welcome, sah.”

“Yes, my good man.” Master placed his racket down on

the kitchen table. “Some water, please. I lost all my games

today.”

Ugwu had the water ready, ice cold in a glass placed on a

saucer.

“Good evening, sah,” his aunty greeted.

“Good evening,” Master said, looking slightly perplexed,

as if he was not certain who she was. “Oh, yes. How are

you?”

Before she could say more, Ugwu said, “My mother is

sick, sah. Please, sah, if I go to see her I will return

tomorrow.”

“What?”

Ugwu repeated himself. Master stared at him and then at

the pot on the stove. “Have you finished cooking?”

“No, sah. I will finish fast-fast, before I go. I will set the

table and arrange everything.”

Master turned to Ugwu’s aunty. “Gini me? What is wrong

with his mother?”

“Sah?”

“Are you deaf?” Master jabbed at his ear as if Ugwu’s

aunty did not know what it meant to be deaf. “What is

wrong with his mother?”

“Sah, her chest is on fire.”

“Chest on fire?” Master snorted. He drank all his water

and then turned to Ugwu and spoke English. “Put on a shirt

and get in the car. Your village isn’t far away, really. We

should be back in good time.”

“Sah?”

“Put on a shirt and get in the car!” Master scribbled a

note on the back of a flyer and left it on the table. “We’ll

bring your mother here and have Patel take a look at her.”

“Yes, sah.” Ugwu felt breakable as he walked to the car,

beside his aunty and Master. He felt as though his bones

were broomsticks, the kind that snapped easily during the

harmattan. The ride to his village was mostly silent. As they

drove past some farms with rows and rows of corn and

cassava like a neatly plaited hairstyle, Master said, “See?

This is what our government should focus on. If we learn

irrigation technology, we can feed this country easily. We

can overcome this colonial dependence on imports.”

“Yes, sah.”

“But instead, all the ignoramuses in government do is lie

and steal. A number of my students joined the group that

went to Lagos this morning to demonstrate, you know.”

“Yes, sah,” Ugwu said. “Why are they demonstrating,

sah?”

“The census,” Master said. “The census was a mess,

everybody forged figures. Not that Balewa will do anything

about it, because he is as complicit as they all are. But we

must speak out!”

“Yes, sah,” Ugwu replied, and in the midst of his worry

about his mother, he felt a twinge of pride because he knew

his aunty would have her eyes wide in wonder at the deep

conversations he had with Master. And in English, too. They

stopped a little way before the family hut.

“Get your mother’s things, quickly,” Master said. “I have

friends visiting from Ibadan tonight.”

“Yes, sah!” Ugwu and his aunty spoke at the same time.

Ugwu climbed out of the car and stood there. His aunty

dashed into the hut, and soon his father came out, eyes red-

rimmed, looking more stooped than Ugwu remembered. He

knelt in the dirt and clutched Master’s legs. “Thank, sah.

Thank, sah. May another person do for you.”

Master stepped back and Ugwu watched his father sway,

almost falling over backwards. “Get up, kunie, ”Master

said.

Chioke came out of the hut. “This is my other wife, sah,”

his father said, standing up.

Chioke shook Master’s hands with both of hers. “Thank

you, master. Deje!” She ran back inside and emerged with a

small pineapple that she pressed into Master’s hand.

“No, no,” Master said, pushing the pineapple back.

“Local pineapples are too acidic, they burn my mouth.”

The village children were gathering around the car to

peer inside and run awed fingers over the blue body. Ugwu

shooed them away. He wished Anulika were home, so she

would go with him into their mother’s hut. He wished

Nnesinachi would drop by now and take his hand in hers

and tell him soothingly that his mother’s illness was not

serious at all, and then lead him to the grove by the stream

and untie her wrapper and offer him her breasts, lifting

them up and forward towards him. The children were

chattering loudly. Some women stood by and spoke in lower

tones, their arms folded. His father kept asking Master to

have some kola nut, palm wine, a stool to sit down, some

water, and Master kept saying no, no, no. Ugwu wanted his

father to shut up. He moved closer to the hut and looked in.

His eyes met his mother’s in the dim light. She looked

shrivelled.

“Ugwu,” she said. “Nno, welcome.”

“Deje,” he greeted, and then remained silent, watching,

while his aunty helped her tie her wrapper around her

waist and led her out.

Ugwu was about to help his mother into the car when

Master said, “Step aside, my good man.” Master helped her

into the car, asked her to lie down on the backseat, to

stretch out as much as she could.

Ugwu suddenly wished that Master would not touch his

mother because her clothes smelled of age and must, and

because Master did not know that her back ached and her

cocoyam patch always yielded a poor harvest and her chest

was indeed on fire when she coughed. What did Master

know about anything anyway, since all he did was shout

with his friends and drink brandy at night?

“Stay well, we will send you word after a doctor has

looked at her,” Master said to Ugwu’s father and aunty

before they drove off.

Ugwu kept himself from glancing back at his mother; he

rolled his window down so the air would rush loudly past

his ears and distract him. When he finally turned to look at

her, just before they got to the campus, his heart stopped at

the sight of her shut eyes, her lax lips. But her chest was

rising and falling. She was breathing. He exhaled slowly

and thought about those cold evenings when she would

cough and cough, and he would stand pressed to the flinty

walls of her hut, listening to his father and Chioke ask her

to drink the mixture.

Olanna opened the door, wearing the apron that had an

oil stain in front. His apron. She kissed Master. “I’ve asked

Patel to come,” she said and then turned to Ugwu’s mother.

“Mama. Kedu?”

“I am well,” his mother whispered. She glanced around

the room and seemed to shrink even more at the sight of

the sofas, the radiogram, the curtains.

“I’ll take her inside,” Olanna said. “Ugwu, please finish in

the kitchen and set the table.”

“Yes, mah.”

In the kitchen, Ugwu stirred the pot of pepper soup. The

oily broth swirled, the hot spices wafted up and tickled his

nose, and the pieces of meat and tripe floated from side to

side. But he did not really notice. He was straining to hear

something. It was long, too long, since Olanna had taken

his mother in and Dr Patel went in to join them. The

peppers made his eyes water. He remembered that last

time when she was sick from the coughing, how she cried

out that she could no longer feel her legs and the dibia

asked her to tell the evil spirits to leave her alone. “Tell

them it is not yet your time! Gwaha kita! Tell them now!”

the dibia had urged her.

“Ugwu!” Master called. The guests had arrived. Ugwu

went into the living room and his hands worked

mechanically, serving kola nuts and alligator pepper,

uncorking bottles, shovelling ice, laying out steaming bowls

of pepper soup. Afterwards, he sat down in the kitchen and

pulled at his toenails and imagined what was going on in

the bedroom. He could hear Master’s raised voice from the

living room. “Nobody is saying that burning government

property is a good thing, but to send the army in to kill in

the name of order? There are Tiv people lying dead for

nothing. For nothing! Balewa has lost his mind!”

Ugwu did not know who the Tiv people were, but hearing

the word dead made him shiver. “It is not yet your time,” he

whispered. “Not yet your time.”

“Ugwu?” Olanna was at the kitchen door.

He flew off the stool. “Mah? Mah?”

“You mustn’t worry about her. Dr Patel says it’s an

infection and she will be fine.”

“Oh!” Ugwu was so relieved he feared he would float

away if he raised one leg. “Thank, mah!”

“Put the rest of the pottage in the fridge.”

“Yes, mah.” Ugwu watched her go back to the living

room. The embroidery on her close-fitting dress gleamed

and she looked, for a moment, like a shapely spirit who had

emerged from the sea.

The guests were laughing now. Ugwu peeked into the

living room. Many of them were no longer sitting upright

but sloped on their seats, mellowed by alcohol, languorous

with ideas. The evening was ending. The conversation

would soften into tennis and music; then they would get up

and giggle loudly at things that were not funny, such as the

front door being difficult to open and the night bats flying

too low. He waited for Olanna to go to the bathroom and

Master to his study before he went in to see his mother,

asleep, curled childlike on the bed.

She was bright-eyed the next morning. “I am well,” she

said. “The medicine that doctor gave me is very powerful.

But what will kill me is that smell.”

“What smell?”

“In their mouth. I smelt it when your madam and master

came in to see me this morning and also when I went to

ease myself.”

“Oh. That is toothpaste. We use it to clean our teeth.”

Ugwu felt proud saying we, so that his mother would know

that he too used it.

But she did not look impressed. She snapped her fingers

and picked up her chewing stick. “What is wrong with

using a good atu? That smell has made me want to vomit. If

I stay here much longer I will not be able to keep food in

my stomach because of that smell.”

She looked impressed, though, when Ugwu told her that

he would be living in the Boys’ Quarters. It was like being

given his own house, separate, all to himself. She asked

him to show her the Boys’ Quarters, marvelled that it was

bigger than her hut, and, later, insisted that she was well

enough to help in the kitchen. He watched her, bent over to

sweep the floor, and remembered how she used to smack

Anulika’s bottom for not bending properly to sweep. “Did

you eat mushrooms? Sweep like a woman!” she would say,

and Anulika would grumble that the broom was too short

and it was not her fault that people were too stingy to buy

longer brooms. Ugwu suddenly wished that Anulika were

here, as well as the little children and the gossiping wives

of his umunna. He wished his whole village were here, so

he could join in the moonlight conversations and quarrels

and yet live in Master’s house with its running taps and

refrigerator and stove.

“I will go home tomorrow,” his mother said.

“You should stay a few more days and rest.”

“I will go tomorrow. I shall thank your master and

mistress when they return and tell them I am well enough

to go home. May another person do for them what they

have done for me.”

Ugwu walked with her to the end of Odim Street in the

morning. He had never seen her walk so fast, even with the

twined bundle balanced on her head, never seen her face

so free of lines.

“Stay well, my son,” she said, and thrust a chewing stick

into his hand.

On the day Master’s mother arrived from the village,

Ugwu cooked a peppery jollofrice. He mixed white rice into

tomato sauce, tasted it, and then covered it and reduced

the heat. He went back outside. Jomo had leaned his rake

against the wall and was sitting on the steps eating a

mango.

“That thing you are cooking smells very good,” Jomo

said.

“It is for my master’s mother, jollofrice with fried

chicken.”

“I should have given you some of my meat. It will be

better than the chicken.” Jomo gestured to the bag tied

behind his bicycle. He had shown Ugwu the small furry

animal wrapped in fresh leaves.

“I cannot cook bush meat here!” Ugwu said in English,

laughing.

Jomo turned to look at him. “Dianyi, you now speak

English just like the children of the lecturers.”

Ugwu nodded, happy to hear the compliment, happier

because Jomo would never guess that those children with

their cream-pampered skin and their effortless English

sniggered whenever Mrs Oguike asked him a question

because of how he pronounced his words, how thick his

bush accent was.

“Harrison should come and hear good English from

somebody who does not brag about it,” Jomo said. “He

thinks he knows everything just because he lives with a

white man. Onyenzuzu! Stupid man!”

“Very stupid man!” Ugwu said. He had been just as

vigorous last weekend when he agreed with Harrison that

Jomo was foolish.

“Yesterday the he-goat locked the tank and refused to

give me the key,” Jomo said. “He said I am wasting water. Is

it his water? Now if the plants die, what do I tell Mr

Richard?”

“That is bad.” Ugwu snapped his fingers to show just

how bad. The last quarrel between the two men was when

Harrison hid the lawn mower and refused to tell Jomo

where it was until Jomo rewashed Mr Richard’s shirt, which

had been splattered with bird droppings. It was Jomo’s

useless flowers, after all, that attracted the birds. Ugwu

had supported both men. He told Jomo that Harrison was

wrong to have hidden the lawn mower, and later he told

Harrison that Jomo was wrong to have planted the flowers

there in the first place, knowing they attracted birds. Ugwu

preferred Jomo’s solemn ways and false stories, but

Harrison, with his insistent bad English, was mysteriously

full of knowledge of things that were foreign and different.

Ugwu wanted to learn these things, so he nurtured his

friendship with both men; he had become their sponge,

absorbing much and giving little away.

“One day I will wound Harrison seriously, maka

Chukvuu,” Jomo said. He threw away the mango seed,

sucked so clean of the orange pulp that it was white.

“Somebody is knocking on the front door.”

“Oh. She has come! It must be my master’s mother.”

Ugwu dashed inside; he barely heard Jomo say goodbye.

Master’s mother had the same stocky build, dark skin,

and vibrant energy as her son; it was as if she would never

need help with carrying her water pot or lowering a stack

of firewood from her head. Ugwu was surprised to see the

young woman with downcast eyes standing beside her,

holding bags. He had expected that she would come alone.

He had hoped she would come a little later, too, when the

rice was done.

“Welcome, Mama, nno, ”he said. He took the bags from

the young woman. “Welcome, Aunty, nno.”

“You are the one that is Ugwu? How are you?” Master’s

mother said, patting his shoulder.

“Fine, Mama. Did your journey go well?”

“Yes. Chukwu du anyi. God led us.” She was looking at

the radiogram. Her green george wrapper hung stiff on her

waist and made her hips look square-shaped. She did not

wear it with the air of the women on campus, the women

who were used to owning coral beads and gold earrings.

She wore it in the way that Ugwu imagined his mother

would if she had the same wrapper: uncertainly, as if she

did not believe that she was no longer poor.

“How are you, Ugwu?” she asked again.

“I am well, Mama.”

“My son has told me how well you are doing.” She

reached out to adjust her green headgear, worn low on her

head, almost covering her eyebrows.

“Yes, Mama.” Ugwu looked down modestly.

“God bless you, your chi will break away the rocks on

your path. Do you hear me?” She sounded like Master, that

sonorous and authoritative tone.

“Yes, Mama.”

“When will my son be back?”

“They will return in the evening. They said you should

rest, Mama, when you come. I am cooking rice and

chicken.”

“Rest?” She smiled and walked into the kitchen. Ugwu

watched her unpack foodstuffs from a bag: dried fish and

cocoyams and spices and bitter leaf. “Have I not come from

the farm?” she asked. “This is my rest. I have brought

ingredients to make a proper soup for my son. I know you

try, but you are only a boy. What does a boy know about

real cooking?” She smirked and turned to the younger

woman, who was standing by the door, arms folded and

eyes still downcast, as if waiting for orders. “Is that not so,

Amala? Does a boy belong in the kitchen?”

“Kpa, Mama, no,” Amala said. She had a high-pitched

voice.

“You see, Ugwu? A boy does not belong in the kitchen.”

Master’s mother sounded triumphant. She was standing by

the counter, already breaking up some dried fish,

extracting the needlelike bones.

“Yes, Mama.” Ugwu was surprised that she had not

asked for a glass of water or gone inside to change first. He

sat on the stool and waited for her to tell him what to do. It

was what she wanted; he could sense that. She was looking

over the kitchen now. She peered suspiciously at the stove,

knocked on the pressure cooker, tapped the pots with her

fingers.

“Eh! My son wastes money on these expensive things,”

she said. “Do you not see, Amala?”

“Yes, Mama,” Amala said.

“Those belong to my madam, Mama. She brought many

things from Lagos,” Ugwu said. It irritated him: her

assuming that everything belonged to Master, her taking

command of his kitchen, her ignoring his perfect jollofrice

and chicken.

Master’s mother did not respond. “Amala, come and

prepare the cocoyams,” she said.

“Yes, Mama.” Amala put the cocoyams in a pot and then

looked helplessly at the stove.

“Ugwu, light the fire for her. We are village people who

only know firewood!” Master’s mother said, with a short

laugh.

Neither Ugwu nor Amala laughed. Ugwu turned the

stove on. Master’s mother threw a piece of dried fish into

her mouth. “Put some water to boil for me, Ugwu, and then

cut these ugu leaves for the soup.”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Is there a sharp knife in this house?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Use it and slice the ugu well.”

“Yes, Mama.”

Ugwu settled down with a cutting board. He knew she

was watching him. When he started to slice the fibrous

pumpkin leaves, she yelped, “Oh! Oh! Is this how you cut

ugu? Alu melu! Make them smaller! The way you are doing

it, we might as well cook the soup with the whole leaves.”

“Yes, Mama.” Ugwu began slicing the leaves in strips so

thin they would break up in the soup.

“That’s better,” Master’s mother said. “You see why boys

have no business in the kitchen? You cannot even slice ugu

well.”

Ugwu wanted to say, Of course I slice ugu well. I do

many things in the kitchen better than you do, but instead

he said, “My madam and I don’t slice vegetables, we shred

them with our hands because the nutrients come out better

that way.”

“Your madam?” Master’s mother paused. It was as if she

wanted to say something but held herself back. The steam

from boiling hung in the air. “Show Amala the mortar so

she can pound the cocoyams,” she said finally.

“Yes, Mama.” Ugwu rolled out the wood mortar from

under the table and was rinsing it when Olanna came

home. She appeared at the kitchen door; her dress was

smart-fitting, her smiling face was full of light.

“Mama!” she said. “Welcome, nno. I am Olanna. Did you

go well?” She reached out to hug Master’s mother. Her

arms went round to enclose the older woman but Master’s

mother kept her hands to her sides and did not hug Olanna

back.

“Yes, our journey went well,” she said.

“Good afternoon,” Amala said.

“Welcome.” Olanna hugged Amala briefly before turning

to Master’s mother. “Is this Odenigbo’s relative from home,

Mama?”

“Amala helps me in the house,” Master’s mother said.

She had turned her back to Olanna and was stirring the

soup.

“Mama, come, let’s sit down. Bia nodu ana. You should

not bother in the kitchen. You should rest. Let Ugwu do it.”

“I want to cook a proper soup for my son.”

There was a light pause before Olanna said, “Of course,

Mama.” Her Igbo had slipped into the dialect that Ugwu

heard in Master’s speech when his cousins visited. She

walked around the kitchen, as if eager to do something to

please Master’s mother but uncertain what to do. She

opened the pot of rice and closed it. “At least let me help

you, Mama. I’ll go and change.”

“I hear you did not suck your mother’s breasts,” Master’s

mother said.

Olanna stopped. “What?”

“They say you did not suck your mother’s breasts.”

Master’s mother turned to look at Olanna. “Please go back

and tell those who sent you that you did not find my son.

Tell your fellow witches that you did not see him.”

Olanna stared at her. Master’s mother’s voice rose, as if

Olanna’s continued silence had driven her to shouting. “Did

you hear me? Tell them that nobody’s medicine will work

on my son. He will not marry an abnormal woman, unless

you kill me first. Only over my dead body!” Master’s mother

clapped her hands, then hooted and slapped her palm

across her mouth so that the sound echoed.

“Mama—” Olanna said.

“Don’t mama me,” Master’s mother said. “I said, Do not

mama me. Just leave my son alone. Tell your fellow witches

that you did not find him!” She opened the back door and

went outside and shouted. “Neighbours! There is a witch in

my son’s house! Neighbours!” Her voice was shrill. Ugwu

wanted to gag her, to stuff sliced vegetables into her

mouth. The soup was burning.

“Mah? Will you stay in the room?” he asked, moving

towards Olanna.

Olanna seemed to get hold of herself. She tucked a plait

behind her ear, picked up her bag from the table, and

headed for the front door. “Tell your master I have gone to

my flat,” she said.

Ugwu followed her and watched as she got into her car

and drove out. She did not wave. The yard was still; there

were no butterflies flitting among the white flowers. Back

in the kitchen, Ugwu was surprised to hear Master’s

mother singing a gently melodious church song: Nya nya

oya mu ga-ana. Na mmetu onu uweya aka…

She stopped singing and cleared her throat. “Where has

that woman gone?”

“I don’t know, Mama,” Ugwu said. He walked over to the

sink and began to put away the clean plates in the

cupboard. He hated the too-strong aroma of her soup that

filled the kitchen; the first thing he would do after she left

was wash all the curtains because that smell would soak

into them.

“This is why I came. They said she is controlling my son,”

Master’s mother said, stirring the soup. “No wonder my

son has not married while his mates are counting how

many children they have. She has used her witchcraft to

hold him. I heard her father came from a family of lazy

beggars in Umunnachi until he got a job as a tax collector

and stole from hard-working people. Now he has opened

many businesses and is walking around in Lagos and

answering a Big Man. Her mother is no better. What

woman brings another person to breastfeed her own

children when she herself is alive and well? Is that normal,

gbo, Amala?”

“No, Mama.” Amala’s eyes focused on the floor as if she

were tracing patterns on it.

“I heard that all the time she was growing up, it was

servants who wiped her ike when she finished shitting. And

on top of it, her parents sent her to university. Why? Too

much schooling ruins a woman; everyone knows that. It

gives a woman a big head and she will start to insult her

husband. What kind of wife will that be?” Master’s mother

raised one edge of her wrapper to wipe the sweat from her

brow. “These girls that go to university follow men around

until their bodies are useless. Nobody knows if she can

have children. Do you know? Does anyone know?”

“No, Mama,” Amala said.

“Does anyone know, Ugwu?”

Ugwu placed a plate down noisily and pretended as if he

had not heard her. She came over and patted his shoulder.

“Don’t worry, my son will find a good woman and he will

not send you away after he marries.”

Perhaps agreeing with the woman would make her

exhaust herself quicker and shut her mouth. “Yes, Mama,”

he said.

“I know how hard my son worked to get where he is. All

that is not to be wasted on a loose woman.”

“No, Mama.”

“I do not mind where the woman my son will marry

comes from. I am not like those mothers who want to find

wives for their sons only from their own hamlet. But I do

not want a Wawa woman, and none of those Imo or Aro

women, of course; their dialects are so strange I wonder

who told them that we are all the same Igbo people.”

“Yes, Mama.”

“I will not let this witch control him. She will not

succeed. I will consult the dibia Nwafor Agbada when I

return home; the man’s medicine is famous in our parts.”

Ugwu stopped. He knew many stories of people who had

used medicine from the dibia: the childless first wife who

tied up the second wife’s womb, the woman who made a

neighbour’s prosperous son go mad, the man who killed his

brother because of a land quarrel. Perhaps Master’s

mother would tie up Olanna’s womb or cripple her or, most

frightening of all, kill her.

“I am coming, Mama. My master sent me to the kiosk,”

Ugwu said, and hurried out through the back door before

she said anything. He had to tell Master. He had been to

Master’s office only once, driven in Olanna’s car when she

stopped by to pick up something, but he was sure he could

find it. It was near the zoo and his class had visited the zoo

recently, walking in a single file led by Mrs Oguike, and he

had brought up the rear because he was the tallest.

At the corner of Mbanefo Street, he saw Master’s car

coming towards him. It stopped.

“This isn’t the way to the market, is it, my good man?”

Master asked.

“No, sah. I was coming to your office.”

“Has my mother arrived?”

“Yes, sah. Sah, something happened.”

“What?”

Ugwu told Master about the afternoon, quickly

recounting the words of both women, and finished with

what was the most horrible of all: “Mama said she will go

to the dibia, sah.”

“What rubbish,” Master said. “Ngwa, get into the car.

You might as well drive back home with me.”

Ugwu was shocked that Master was not shocked, did not

understand the gravity of the situation, and so he added, “It

was very bad, sah. Very bad. Mama nearly slapped my

madam.”

“What? She slapped Olanna?” Master asked.

“No, sah.” Ugwu paused; perhaps he had gone too far

with the suggestion. “But it looked as if she wanted to slap

my madam.”

Master’s face relaxed. “The woman has never been very

reasonable, at any rate,” he said, in English, shaking his

head. “Get in, let’s go.”

But Ugwu did not want to get into the car. He wanted

Master to turn around and go to Olanna’s flat right away.

His life was organized, secure, and Master’s mother would

have to be stopped from disrupting things; the first step

was for Master to go and placate Olanna.

“Get into the car,” Master said again, reaching across the

front seat to make sure the door was unlocked.

“But, sah. I thought you are going to see my madam.”

“Get in, you ignoramus!”

Ugwu opened the door and climbed in, and Master drove

back to Odim Street.

O

FIVE

lanna looked at Odenigbo through the glass for a

while before she opened the door. She closed her eyes

as he walked in, as if doing so would deny her the

pleasure that the scent of his Old Spice always brought. He

was dressed for tennis in the white shorts she had often

teased him were too tight around his buttocks.

“I was talking to my mother or I would have come

earlier,” he said. He pressed his lips to hers and gestured to

the old boubou she was wearing. “Aren’t you coming to the

club?”

“I was cooking.”

“Ugwu told me what happened. I’m so sorry my mother

acted that way.”

“I just had to leave…your house.” Olanna faltered. She

had wanted to say ourhouse.

“You didn’t have to, nkem. You should have ignored her,

really.” He placed a copy of Drum magazine down on the

table and began pacing the room. “I’ve decided to talk to

Dr Okoro about the Labour Strike. It’s unacceptable that

Balewa and his cronies should completely reject their

demands. Just unacceptable. We have to show support. We

can’t allow ourselves to become disconnected.”

“Your mother made a scene.”

“You’re angry.” Odenigbo looked puzzled. He sat down in

the armchair, and for the first time she noticed how much

space there was between the furniture, how sparse her flat

was, how unlived in. Her things were in his house; her

favourite books were in the shelves in his study. “Nkem, I

didn’t know you’d take this so seriously. You can see that

my mother doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s just a

village woman. She’s trying to make her way in a new

world with skills that are better suited for the old one.”

Odenigbo got up and moved closer to take her in his arms,

but Olanna turned and walked into the kitchen.

“You never talk about your mother,” she said. “You’ve

never asked me to come to Abba with you to visit her.”

“Oh, stop it, nkem. It’s not as if I go that often to see her,

and I did ask you the last time but you were going to

Lagos.”

She walked over to the stove and ran a sponge on the

warm surface, over and over, her back to Odenigbo. She

felt as if she had somehow failed him and herself by

allowing his mother’s behaviour to upset her. She should be

above it; she should shrug it off as the ranting of a village

woman; she should not keep thinking of all the retorts she

could have made instead of just standing mutely in that

kitchen. But she was upset, and made even more so by

Odenigbo’s expression, as if he could not believe she was

not quite as high-minded as he had thought. He was

making her feel small and absurdly petulant and, worse yet,

she suspected he was right. She always suspected he was

right. For a brief irrational moment, she wished she could

walk away from him. Then she wished, more rationally, that

she could love him without needing him. Need gave him

power without his trying; need was the choicelessness she

often felt around him.

“What did you cook?” Odenigbo asked.

“Rice.” She rinsed the sponge and put it away. “Aren’t

you going to play tennis?”

“I thought you would come.”

“I don’t feel up to it.” Olanna turned around. “Why is

your mother’s behaviour acceptable because she’s a village

woman? I know village women who do not behave this

way.”

“Nkem, my mother’s entire life is in Abba. Do you know

what a small bush village that is? Of course she will feel

threatened by an educated woman living with her son. Of

course you have to be a witch. That is the only way she can

understand it. The real tragedy of our postcolonial world is

not that the majority of people had no say in whether or not

they wanted this new world; rather, it is that the majority

have not been given the tools to negotiate this new world.”

“Did you talk to her about this?”

“I didn’t see the point. Look, I want to catch Dr Okoro at

the club. Let’s discuss this when I get back. I’ll stay here

tonight.”

She paused as she washed her hands. She wanted him to

ask her to come back with him to the house, wanted him to

say he would tell his mother off in front of her, for her. But

here he was deciding to stay at her flat, like a frightened

little boy hiding from his mother.

“No,” she said.

“What?”

“I said no.” She walked into the living room without

drying her hands. The flat seemed too small.

“What is wrong with you, Olanna?”

She shook her head. She would not let him make her feel

that there was something wrong with her. It was her right

to be upset, her right to choose not to brush her

humiliation aside in the name of an overexalted

intellectualism, and she would claim that right. “Go.” She

gestured towards the door. “Go and play your tennis and

don’t come back here.”

She watched him get up and leave. He banged the door.

They had never had a quarrel; he had never been impatient

with dissent from her as he was with others. Or it may

simply be that he humoured her and did not think much of

her opinions in the first place. She felt dizzy. She sat alone

at her bare dining table—even her table mats were in his

house—and ate the rice. It tasted bland, nothing like

Ugwu’s. She turned the radio on. She thought she heard

rustles in the ceiling. She got up to go visit her neighbour

Edna Whaler; she had always wanted to get to know the

pretty black American woman who sometimes brought her

cloth-covered plates of American biscuits. But she changed

her mind at the door and didn’t step out. After she left the

half-eaten rice in the kitchen, she walked around the flat,

picking up old newspapers and then putting them down.

Finally, she went to the phone and waited for the operator.

“Give me the number quick, I have other things to do,”

the lazy, nasal voice said.

Olanna was used to unprofessional and inept operators,

but this was the rudest she had experienced.

“Haba, I will cut this line if you keep wasting my time,”

the operator said.

Olanna sighed and slowly recited Kainene’s number.

Kainene sounded sleepy when she picked up the phone.

“Olanna? Did something happen?”

Olanna felt a rush of melancholy; her twin sister thought

something had to have happened for her to call. “Nothing

happened. I just wanted to say kedu, to find out how you

are.”

“How shocking.” Kainene yawned. “How’s Nsukka?

How’s your revolutionary lover?”

“Odenigbo is fine. Nsukka is fine.”

“Richard seems taken by it. He even seems taken by your

revolutionary.”

“You should come and visit.”

“Richard and I prefer to meet here in Port Harcourt. That

tiny box they gave him for a house is not exactly suitable.”

Olanna wanted to tell Kainene that she meant visit her,

her and Odenigbo. But of course Kainene understood what

she meant and had simply chosen to misunderstand.

“I’m going to London next month,” she said instead.

“Maybe we could go together.”

“I have too much to do here. No holiday for me yet.”

“Why don’t we talk any more, Kainene?”

“What a question.” Kainene sounded amused and Olanna

imagined that mocking smile pulling up one side of her

mouth.

“I just want to know why we don’t talk any more,”

Olanna said. Kainene did not respond. A static whining

came over the telephone line. They were silent for so long

that Olanna felt she had to apologize. “I shouldn’t keep

you,” she said.

“Are you coming to Daddy’s dinner party next week?”

Kainene asked.

“No.”

“I should have guessed. Too opulent for your abstemious

revolutionary and yourself, I take it?”

“I shouldn’t keep you,” Olanna repeated, and placed the

phone down. She picked it up again, and was about to give

the operator her mother’s number before she dropped it

back. She wished there was somebody she could lean

against; then she wished she was different, the sort of

person who did not need to lean on others, like Kainene.

She pulled at the phone wire to untangle it. Her parents

had insisted on installing a phone in her flat, as if they did

not hear her say that she would practically be living with

Odenigbo. She had protested, but only mildly, the same

limp no with which she greeted the frequent deposits to her

bank account and the new Impala with the soft upholstery.

Although she knew Mohammed was abroad, she gave the

operator his number in Kano; the nasal voice said, “You are

phoning too much today!” before connecting her. She held

on to the receiver long after there was no response.

Rustling sounds came from the ceiling again. She sat on the

cold floor and leaned her head against the wall to see if it

would feel less light, less unmoored. Odenigbo’s mother’s

visit had ripped a hole in her safe mesh of feathers, startled

her, snatched something away from her. She felt one step

away from where she should be. She felt as if she had left

her pearls lying loose for too long and it was time to gather

them and guard them more carefully. The thought came to

her slowly: She wanted to have Odenigbo’s child. They had

never really discussed children. She once told him that she

did not have that fabled female longing to give birth, and

her mother had called her abnormal until Kainene said she

didn’t have it either. He laughed and said that to bring a

child into this unjust world was an act of a blase

bourgeoisie anyway. She had never forgotten that

expression: childbirth as an act of blase bourgeoisie—how

funny, how untrue it was. Just as she had never seriously

thought of having a child until now; the longing in the

lower part of her belly was sudden and searing and new.

She wanted the solid weight of a child, his child, in her

body.

When the doorbell rang that evening as she climbed out

of the bathtub, she went to the door wrapped in a towel.

Odenigbo was holding a newspaper-wrapped package of

suya; she could smell the smoky spiciness from where she

stood.

“Are you still angry?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Get dressed and we’ll go back together. I will talk to my

mother.”

He smelt of brandy. He came inside and placed the suya

on the table, and in his bloodshot eyes she glimpsed the

vulnerability that hid itself so well underneath his voluble

confidence. He could be afraid, after all. She rested her

face against his neck as he hugged her and said to him,

quietly, “No, you don’t have to do that. Stay here.”

After his mother left, Olanna went back to Odenigbo’s

house. Ugwu said, “Sorry, mah,” as if he were somehow

responsible for Mama’s behaviour. Then he fiddled with his

apron pocket and said, “I saw a black cat yesterday night,

after Mama and Amala left.”

“A black cat?”

“Yes, mah. Near the garage.” He paused. “A black cat

means evil.”

“I see.”

“Mama said she would go to the dibia in the village.”

“You think the dibia has sent the black cat to bite us?”

Olanna was laughing.

“No, mah.” Ugwu folded his arms forlornly. “It happened

in my village, mah. A junior wife went to the dibia and got

medicine to kill the senior wife, and the night before the

senior wife died a black cat came to the front of her hut.”

“So Mama will use the dibia s medicine and kill me?”

Olanna asked.

“She wants to divide you and Master, mah.”

His solemnness touched her. “I’m sure it was just the

neighbour’s cat, Ugwu,” she said. “Your master’s mother

can’t use any medicine to divide us. Nothing can divide us.”

She watched him go back to the kitchen, thinking of

what she had said. Nothing can divide us. Of course

Odenigbo’s mother’s medicine from the dibia—indeed, all

supernatural fetishes—meant nothing to her, but she

worried again about her future with Odenigbo. She wanted

certainty. She longed for a sign, a rainbow, to signify

security. Still she was relieved to ease back into her life,

their life, of teaching and tennis and friends that filled the

living room. Because they came in the late evenings, she

was surprised to hear the doorbell ring one afternoon, a

week later, when Odenigbo was still at a lecture. It was

Richard.

“Hello,” she said, letting him in. He was very tall; she

had to tilt her head to look at his face, to see his eyes that

were the blue colour of a still sea and his hair that fell

across his forehead.

“I just wanted to leave this for Odenigbo,” he said,

handing Olanna a book. She loved the way he pronounced

Odenigbo’s name, stressing it so earnestly. He was avoiding

her eyes.

“Won’t you sit down?” she asked.

“I’m in a bit of a hurry, unfortunately. I have to catch the

train.”

“Are you going to Port Harcourt to see Kainene?” Olanna

wondered why she had asked. It was obvious enough.

“Yes. I go every weekend.”

“Say hello to her for me.”

“I will.”

“I talked to her last week.”

“Yes. She mentioned it.” Richard still stood there. He

glanced at her and quickly looked away, and she saw the

redness creep up his face.

She had seen that look too many times not to know that

he found her beautiful.

“How is the book coming along?” she asked.

“Quite well. It’s incredible, really, how well-crafted some

of the ornaments are, and they were clearly intended to be

art; it wasn’t an accident at all…I mustn’t bore you.”

“No, you’re not.” Olanna smiled. She liked his shyness.

She didn’t want him to leave just yet. “Would you like

Ugwu to bring you some chin-chin? They’re fantastic; he

made them this morning.”

“No, thank you. I should be on my way.” But he did not

turn to leave. He pushed his hair away from his face only to

have it fall back again.

“Okay. Well, have a safe trip.”

“Thank you.” He still stood there.

“Are you driving? No, you’re not, I remember. You’ll take

the train.” She laughed an awkward laugh.

“Yes, I’m taking the train.”

“Have a safe trip.”

“Yes. All right then.”

Olanna watched him leave, and long after his car had

reversed out of the compound, she stood at the door,

watching a bird with a blood-red breast, perched on the

lawn.

In the morning, Odenigbo woke her up by taking her

finger in his mouth. She opened her eyes; she could see the

smoky light of dawn through the curtains.

“If you won’t marry me, nkem, then let’s have a child,”

he said.

Her finger muffled his voice, so she pulled her hand away

and sat up to stare at him, his wide chest, his sleep-swollen

eyes, to make sure she had heard him properly.

“Let’s have a child,” he said again. “A little girl just like

you, and we will call her Obianuju because she will

complete us.”

Olanna had wanted to give the scent of his mother’s visit

some time to diffuse before telling him she wanted to have

a child, and yet here he was, voicing her own desire before

she could. She looked at him in wonder. This was love: a

string of coincidences that gathered significance and

became miracles. “Or a little boy,” she said finally.

Odenigbo pulled her down and they lay side by side, not

touching.

She could hear the raspy caw-caw-caw of the blackbirds

that ate the pawpaws in the garden.

“Let’s have Ugwu bring us breakfast in bed,” he said. “Or

is this one of your Sundays of faith?” He was smiling his

gently indulgent smile, and she reached out and traced his

lower lip with the slight fuzz underneath. He liked to tease

her about religion’s not being a social service, because she

went to church only for St Vincent de Paul meetings, when

she took Ugwu with her for the drive through dirt paths in

nearby villages to give away yams and rice and old clothes.

“I won’t go today,” she said.

“Good. Because we have work to do.”

She closed her eyes because he was straddling her now

and as he moved, languorously at first and then forcefully,

he whispered, “We will have a brilliant child, nkem, a

brilliant child,” and she said, “Yes, yes.” Afterwards, she

felt happy knowing that some of the sweat on her body was

his and some of the sweat on his body was hers. Each time,

after he slipped out of her, she pressed her legs together,

crossed them at her ankles, and took deep breaths, as if the

movement of her lungs would urge conception on. But they

did not conceive a child, she knew. The sudden thought that

something might be wrong with her body wrapped itself

around her, dampened her.

R

SIX

ichard ate the pepper soup slowly. After he had

spooned up the pieces of tripe, he raised the glass

bowl to his lips and drank the broth. His nose was

running, there was a delicious burning on his tongue, and

he knew his face was red.

“Richard eats this so easily,” Okeoma said, seated next to

him, watching him.

“Ha! I didn’t think our pepper was made for your type,

Richard!” Odenigbo said, from the other end of the dining

table.

“Even I can’t take the pepper,” another guest said, a

Ghanaian lecturer in economics whose name Richard

always forgot.

“This is proof that Richard was an African in his past

life,” Miss Adebayo said, before blowing her nose into a

napkin.

The guests laughed. Richard laughed too, but not loudly,

because there was still too much pepper in his mouth. He

leaned back on his seat. “It’s fantastic,” he said. “It clears

one up.”

“The finger chops are lovely too, Richard,” Olanna said.

“Thank you so much for bringing them.” She was sitting

next to Odenigbo, and she leaned forwards to smile at him.

“I know those are sausage rolls, but what are these

things?” Odenigbo was poking at the tray Richard brought;

Harrison had daintily wrapped everything in silver foil.

“Stuffed garden eggs, yes?” Olanna glanced at Richard.

“Yes. Harrison has all sorts of ideas. He took out the

insides and filled them with cheese, I think, and spices.”

“You know the Europeans took out the insides of an

African woman and then stuffed and exhibited her all over

Europe?” Odenigbo asked.

“Odenigbo, we are eating!” Miss Adebayo said, although

she was stifling laughter.

The other guests laughed. Odenigbo did not. “It’s the

same principle at play,” he said. “You stuff food, you stuff

people. If you don’t like what is inside a particular food,

then leave it alone, don’t stuff it with something else. A

waste of garden eggs, in my opinion.”

Even Ugwu looked amused as he came into the dining

room to clear up. “Mr Richard, sah? I put the food in

container for you?”

“No, keep it or throw it away,” Richard said. He never

took any leftover food back; what he took back to Harrison

were the compliments from the guests about how pretty

everything was, but he did not add that the guests then

bypassed his canapes to eat Ugwu’s pepper soup and moi-

moi and chicken boiled in bitter herbs.

Everyone was moving to the living room. Soon, Olanna

would turn off the light because the fluorescent glare was

too bright, and Ugwu would bring more drinks, and they

would talk and laugh and listen to music, and the light that

spilt in from the corridor would fill the room with shadows.

It was his favourite part of their evenings, although he

sometimes wondered if Olanna and Odenigbo touched each

other in the dimness. He shouldn’t think about them, he

knew; it was no business of his. But he did. He noticed the

way Odenigbo looked at her in the middle of an argument,

not as if he needed her to be on his side, because he didn’t

seem ever to need anybody, but simply to know that she

was there. He saw, too, how Olanna sometimes blinked at

Odenigbo, communicating things he would never know.

Richard placed his glass of beer on a side table and sat

next to Miss Adebayo and Okeoma. His peppery tongue still

tingled. Olanna got up to change the music. “My favourite

Rex Lawson first, before some Osadebe,” she said.

“He’s a little derivative, isn’t he, Rex Lawson?” Professor

Ezeka asked. “Uwaifo and Dairo are better musicians.”

“All music is derivative, Prof,” Olanna said, her tone

teasing.

“Rex Lawson is a true Nigerian. He does not cleave to his

Kalahari tribe; he sings in all our major languages. That’s

original—and certainly reason enough to like him,” Miss

Adebayo said.

“That’s reason not to like him,” Odenigbo said. “This

nationalism that means we should aspire to indifference

about our own individual cultures is stupid.”

“Don’t waste your time asking Odenigbo about High Life.

He’s never understood it,” Olanna said, laughing. “He’s a

classical music, person but loath to admit it in public

because it’s such a Western taste.”

“Music has no borders,” Professor Ezeka said.

“But surely it is grounded in culture, and cultures are

specific?” Okeoma asked. “Couldn’t Odenigbo then be said

to adore the Western culture that produced classical

music?”

They all laughed, and Odenigbo looked at Olanna in that

way that softened his eyes. Miss Adebayo launched into the

French ambassador issue again. She did not think the

French should have tested atomic weapons in Algeria, of

course, but she did not understand why it mattered enough

for Balewa to break off diplomatic relations with France.

She sounded puzzled, which was unusual.

“It’s quite clear Balewa did it because he wants to take

away attention from his defence pact with the British,”

Odenigbo said. “And he knows that slighting the French

will always please his masters the British. He’s their

stooge. They put him there, and they tell him what to do,

and he does it, Westminster parliament model indeed.”

“No Westminster model today,” Dr Patel said. “Okeoma

promised to read us a poem.”

“I have told you that Balewa simply did it because he

wants the North Africans to like him,” Professor Ezeka

said.

“North Africans to like him? You think he cares much for

other Africans? The white man is the only master Balewa

knows,” Odenigbo said. “Didn’t he say that Africans are not

ready to rule themselves in Rhodesia? If the British tell him

to call himself a castrated monkey, he will.”

“Oh, rubbish,” Professor Ezeka said. “You are

digressing.”

“You refuse to see things as they truly are!” Odenigbo

shifted on his seat. “We are living in a time of great white

evil. They are dehumanizing blacks in South Africa and

Rhodesia, they fermented what happened in the Congo,

they won’t let American blacks vote, they won’t let the

Australian Aborigines vote, but the worst of all is what they

are doing here. This defence pact is worse than apartheid

and segregation, but we don’t realize it. They are

controlling us from behind drawn curtains. It is very

dangerous!”

Okeoma leaned closer to Richard. “These two won’t let

me read my poem today.”

“They’re in fine fighting form,” Richard said.

“As usual.” Okeoma laughed. “How is your book coming

along, by the way?”

“I’m ploughing on.”

“Is it a novel about expatriates?”

“Well, no, not quite.”

“But it’s a novel, isn’t it?”

Richard sipped his beer and wondered what Okeoma

would think if he knew the truth—that even he did not

know whether it was a novel or not because the pages he

had written did not make any coherent whole.

“I’m very interested in Igbo-Ukwu art, and I want to

make that a central part of the book,” he said.

“How so?”

“I’ve been utterly fascinated by the bronzes since I first

read about them. The details are stunning. It’s quite

incredible that these people had perfected the complicated

art of lost-wax casting during the time of the Viking raids.

There is such marvellous complexity in the bronzes, just

marvellous.”

“You sound surprised,” Okeoma said.

“What?”

“You sound surprised, as if you never imagined these

people capable of such things.”

Richard stared at Okeoma; there was a new and quiet

disdain in the way Okeoma stared back, a slight furrow to

his eyebrows before he said, “Enough, Odenigbo and Prof! I

have a poem calling to you all.”

Richard sucked his tongue. The peppery burning was

unbearable now, and he hardly waited for Okeoma to finish

reading a strange poem—about Africans getting buttocks

rashes from defecating in imported metal buckets—before

he got up to leave.

“It’s still all right to drive Ugwu to his hometown next

week, Odenigbo?” he asked.

Odenigbo glanced at Olanna.

“Yes, of course,” Olanna said. “I hope you enjoy watching

the ori-okpa festival.”

“Have another beer, Richard,” Odenigbo said.

“I’m off to Port Harcourt early in the morning, so I must

get to sleep,” Richard said, but Odenigbo had already

turned back to Professor Ezeka.

“What about the stupid politicians in the Western House

of Assembly that the police had to use tear gas on? Tear

gas! And their orderlies carried their limp bodies to their

cars! Imagine that!”

The thought that Odenigbo would not miss him after he

was gone left Richard dispirited. When he got home,

Harrison opened the door and bowed. “Good evening, sah.

The food is going well, sah?”

“Yes, yes, now let me get to sleep,” Richard snapped. He

was not in the mood for what he was certain would follow:

Harrison would offer to teach any of his friends’ houseboys

who wanted to learn the majestic recipes for sherry trifle or

stuffed garden eggs. He went to his study and spread his

manuscript pages out on the floor and looked at them: a

few pages of a small-town novel, one chapter of the

archaeologist novel, a few pages of rapturous descriptions

of the bronzes. He started to crumple them, page by page,

until he had a jagged pile next to his dustbin, and then he

got up and went to bed with the sensation of warm blood in

his ears.

He didn’t sleep well; he felt as if he had just laid his head

on the pillow before the blinding sunlight streamed in

through his curtains and he heard Harrison’s clatter in the

kitchen and Jomo’s digging in the garden. He felt brittle.

He could not wait to sleep properly, with Kainene’s thin

arm pressed against his body.

Harrison served fried eggs and toast for breakfast.

“Sah? There are papers I am seeing on the ground in the

study?” He looked alarmed.

“Leave them there.”

“Yes, sah.” Harrison folded and refolded his arms. “You

are taking your manscrit? I pack other papers for you?”

“No, I won’t be working this weekend,” Richard said. The

disappointment on Harrison’s face did not amuse him as it

usually did. He wondered, as he boarded the train, what it

was Harrison did during the weekends. Perhaps he cooked

himself tiny exquisite meals. He shouldn’t have been so ill-

tempered with the poor man; it wasn’t Harrison’s fault that

Okeoma felt he was condescending. It was the look in

Okeoma’s eyes that worried him the most: a disdainful

distrust that made him think of reading somewhere that the

African and the European would always be irreconcilable.

It was wrong of Okeoma to assume that he was one of

those Englishmen who did not give the African the benefit

of an equal intelligence. Perhaps he had sounded surprised,

now that he thought of it, but it was the same surprise he

would express if a similar discovery were made in England

or anywhere else in the world.

Hawkers were milling about. “Buy groundnuts!”

“Buy oranges!”

“Buy plantains!”

Richard beckoned to a young woman carrying a tray of

boiled groundnuts that he didn’t really want. She lowered

her tray and he took one, cracked it between his fingers,

and chewed the nuts inside before he asked for two cups.

She looked surprised that he knew about tasting first, and

he thought sourly that Okeoma, too, would have been

surprised. Before he ate each nut, he examined it—soft-

boiled, light purple, shrivelled—and tried not to think of the

crumpled pages in his study, until the train arrived in Port

Harcourt.

“Madu’s invited us to dinner tomorrow,” Kainene said, as

she drove him from the train station in her long American

car. “His wife has just come back from overseas.”

“Has she?” Richard said little else, and instead looked at

the hawkers on the road, shouting, gesturing, running after

cars to collect their money.

The sound of the rain slapping against the window woke

him up the next morning. Kainene lay beside him, her eyes

half open in that eerie way that meant she was deeply

asleep. He looked at her dark chocolate skin, which shone

with oil, and lowered his head to her face. He didn’t kiss

her, didn’t let his face touch hers, but placed it close

enough so that he could feel the moistness of her breath

and smell its faint curdled scent. He stretched and went to

the window. It rained in slants here in Port Harcourt so that

the water hit the windows and walls rather than the roof.

Perhaps it was because the ocean was so close, because the

air was so heavy with water that it let it fall too soon. For a

moment, the rain became intense and the sound against

the window grew loud, like pebbles being flung against the

glass. He stretched again. The rain had stopped and the

windowpanes were cloudy. Behind him, Kainene stirred and

mumbled something.

“Kainene?” he said.

Her eyes were still half open, her breathing still regular.

“I’m going for a walk,” he said, although he was sure she

didn’t hear him.

Outside, Ikejide was plucking oranges; his uniform

bunched up at the back as he nudged fruit down with a

stick.

“Good morning, sah,” he said.

“Kedu?” Richard asked. He felt comfortable practising

his Igbo with Kainene’s stewards, because they were

always so expressionless that it did not matter whether or

not he got the tones right.

“I am well, sah.”

“Jisie ike.”

“Yes, sah.”

Richard went to the bottom of the orchard, where he

could see, through the thicket of trees, the white foam of

the sea’s waves. He sat on the ground. He wished that

Major Madu had not invited them to dinner; he was not at

all interested in meeting the man’s wife. He got up and

stretched and went around to the front yard and looked at

the violet bougainvillea that crept up the walls. He walked

for a while down the muddy stretch of deserted road that

led to the house before he turned back. Kainene was in bed

reading a newspaper. He climbed in beside her and she

reached out and touched his hair, her fingers gently

caressing his scalp. “Are you all right? You’ve been tense

since yesterday.”

Richard told her about Okeoma, and because she did not

respond right away, he added, “I remember the first time I

read about Igbo-Ukwu art, in an article where an Oxford

don described it as having a strange rococo, almost

Faberge-like virtuosity. I never forgot that—rococo, almost

Faberge-like virtuosity. I fell in love even with that

expression.”

She folded the newspaper and placed it on the bedside

cabinet. “Why does it matter so much what Okeoma

thinks?”

“I do love the art. It was horrible of him to accuse me of

disrespect.”

“And it’s wrong of you to think that love leaves room for

nothing else. It’s possible to love something and still

condescend to it.”

Richard rolled away from her. “I don’t know what I’m

doing. I don’t even know if I’m a writer.”

“You won’t know until you write, will you?” Kainene

climbed out of bed, and he noticed a metallic sheen on her

thin shoulders. “I see you don’t feel up to an evening out.

I’ll call Madu and cancel dinner.”

She came back after making the phone call and sat on

the bed, and in the silence that separated them he suddenly

felt grateful that her crispness gave him no space for self-

pity, gave him nothing to hide behind.

“I once spat in my father’s glass of water,” she said. “He

hadn’t upset me or anything. I just did it. I was fourteen. I

would have been incredibly satisfied if he drank it, but of

course Olanna ran and changed the water.” She stretched

out beside him. “Now you tell me something horrible you

did.”

He was aroused by her silky skin rubbing against his, by

how readily she had changed the evening plans with Major

Madu. “I didn’t have the confidence to do horrible things,”

he said.

“Well, tell me something, then.”

He thought of telling her about that day in Wentnor when

he hid from Molly and felt, for the first time, the possibility

of shaping his own destiny. But he didn’t. Instead, he told

her about his parents, how they stared at each other when

they talked, forgot his birthdays, and then had Molly make

a cake that said HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY weeks after.

They never knew what and when he ate; Molly fed him

when she remembered. They had not planned to have him

and, because of that, they had raised him as an

afterthought. But he understood even as a young boy that it

was not that they did not love him, rather it was that they

often forgot that they did because they loved each other too

much. Kainene raised her eyebrows, sardonic, as if his

reasoning did not make sense to her, and because of that

he was afraid to tell her that he sometimes thought he

loved her too much.

2. THE BOOK:

The World Was Silent When We Died

He discusses the British soldier-merchant Taubman Coldie,

how he coerced, cajoled, and killed to gain control of the

palm-oil trade and how, at the Berlin Conference of 1884

where Europeans divided Africa, he ensured that Britain

beat France to two protectorates around the River Niger:

the North and the South.

The British preferred the North. The heat there was

pleasantly dry: the Hausa-Fulani were narrow-featured and

therefore superior to the negroid Southerners, Muslim and

therefore as civilized as one could get for natives, feudal

and therefore perfect for indirect rule. Equable emirs

collected taxes for the British, and the British, in return,

kept the Christian missionaries away.

The humid South, on the other hand, was full of

mosquitoes and animists and disparate tribes. The Yoruba

were the largest in the Southwest. In the Southeast, the

Igbo lived in small republican communities. They were non-

docile and worryingly ambitious. Since they did not have

the good sense to have kings, the British created ‘warrant

chiefs’, because indirect rule cost the Crown less.

Missionaries were allowed in to tame the pagans, and the

Christianity and education they brought flourished. In

1914, the governor-general joined the North and the South,

and his wife picked a name. Nigeria was bom.

PART TWO

The Late Sixties

U

SEVEN

gwu lay on a that in his mother’s hut, staring at a

dead spider squashed on the wall; its body fluids had

stained the mud a deeper red. Anulika was measuring

out cups of ukwa and the crusty aroma of roasted

breadfruit seeds hung thick in the room. She was talking.

She had been talking for quite a while, and Ugwu’s head

ached. His visit home suddenly seemed much longer than a

week, perhaps because of the endless gassy churning in his

stomach from eating only fruit and nuts. His mother’s food

was unpalatable. The vegetables were overcooked, the

cornmeal was too lumpy, the soup too watery, and the yam

slices coarse from being boiled without a dollop of butter.

He could not wait to get back to Nsukka and finally eat a

real meal.

“I want to have a baby boy first, because it will place my

feet firmly in Onyeka’s house,” Anulika said. She walked

over to get a bag in the rafters and Ugwu noticed, again,

the new suspicious roundness to her body: the breasts that

filled her blouse, the buttocks that rolled with each step.

Onyeka must have touched her. Ugwu could not bear to

think of the man’s ugly body thrusting into his sister’s. It

had all happened too fast; there had been talk of suitors the

last time he visited, but she had spoken of Onyeka in such

an indifferent way that he did not think she would accept

his proposal so quickly. Now even their parents were too

swift to talk about Onyeka, his good mechanic job in town,

his bicycle, his good behaviour, as if he were already a

member of the family. Nobody ever mentioned his stunted

height and the pointed teeth that looked like they belonged

to a bush rat.

“You know, Onunna from Ezeugwu’s compound had a

baby girl first, and her husband’s people went to see a dibia

to find out why! Of course, Onyeka’s people will not do that

to me, they don’t dare, but I want to have a boy first

anyway,” Anulika said.

Ugwu sat up. “I have tired of stories of Onyeka. I noticed

something when he came by yesterday. He should bathe

more often, he smells like rotten oil beans.”

“And you, what do you smell like?” Anulika poured the

ukiva in the bag and knotted it. “I’ve finished. You better

get going before it gets too late.”

Ugwu went out to the yard. His mother was pounding

something in a mortar and his father was stooped near her,

sharpening a knife against a stone. The scrape of metal

against stone set off tiny sparks that flickered briefly before

they disappeared.

“Did Anulika wrap the ukwa well?” his mother asked.

“She did.” Ugwu raised the bag to show her.

“Greet your master and madam,” his mother said.

“Thank them for everything they sent us.”

“Yes, Mother.” He went over and hugged her. “Stay well.

Greet Chioke when she returns.”

His father straightened up and wiped the knife blade on

his palm before shaking hands. “Go well, ije oma. We will

send word when Onyeka’s people tell us they are ready to

bring palm wine. It will be in a few months’ time.”

“Yes, Father.” Ugwu stood around while his little cousins

and siblings, the younger ones naked and the older ones in

oversized shirts, said their goodbyes and listed what they

wanted him to bring on his next visit. Buy us bread! Buy us

meat! Buy us fried fish! Buy us groundnuts!

Anulika escorted him to the main road. He saw a familiar

figure near the grove of ube trees and, although he had not

seen her since she went to Kano to learn a trade four years

ago, he knew immediately that it was Nnesinachi.

“Anulika! Ugwu! Is it you?” Nnesinachi’s voice was as

husky as he remembered but she was taller now, and her

skin was darker from the fierce sun in the North.

When they hugged, he felt her chest push into his.

“I would barely have recognized you, the North has

changed you so,” he said, wondering if she had really

pressed herself against him.

“I came back yesterday with my cousins.” She was

smiling at him. She had never smiled at him so warmly in

the past. Her eyebrows had been shaved and pencilled in,

one thicker than the other. She turned to Anulika. “Anuli, I

was on my way to see you. I hear you are getting married!”

“My sister, it is what I hear too,” Anulika said, and they

both laughed.

“Are you going back to Nsukka?” she asked Ugwu.

“Yes. But I will come back soon, for Anulika’s wine-

carrying.”

“Go well.” Nnesinachi’s eyes met his briefly, boldly,

before she walked on, and he knew he had not imagined it;

she really had pressed herself against him when they

hugged. He felt a rush of weakness to his legs. He held

himself from turning back to look at her, just in case she

turned as well, and for a moment, he forgot the

uncomfortable churning in his stomach.

“Her eyes must have opened in the North. You can’t

marry her, so you had better take what she is offering,

before she marries,” Anulika said.

“You noticed?”

“How could I not have noticed? Do I look like a sheep?”

Ugwu narrowed his eyes to look at her. “Has Onyeka

touched you?”

“Of course Onyeka has touched me.”

Ugwu slowed his pace. He knew she must have slept

with Onyeka and yet he did not like her confirming it. When

Chinyere, Dr Okeke’s housegirl, first started to sneak

across the hedge to his Boys’ Quarters for hasty thrusts in

the dark, he had told Anulika about it during a visit home

and they had discussed it. But they had never discussed

her; he had always made himself assume that there was

nothing to discuss. Anulika was walking ahead of him,

unbothered by his sulky slowness, and he hurried up to her,

silent, their steps light on the grass where they, as children,

had hunted grasshoppers.

“I’m so hungry,” he said, finally.

“You didn’t even eat the yam Mama boiled.”

“We boil our yam with butter.”

“We boilour yam with boh-tah. Look at your mouth. When

they send you back to the village, what will you do? Where

will you find boh-tah to use to boil your yam?”

“They won’t send me back to the village.”

She looked at him from the corners of her eyes, up and

down. “You have forgotten where you come from, and now

you have become so foolish you think you are a Big Man.”

Master was in the living room when Ugwu came in and

greeted him. “How are your people?” Master asked.

“They are well, sah. They send greetings.”

“Very good.”

“My sister Anulika will be getting married soon.”

“I see.” Master was focused on tuning the radio.

Ugwu could hear Olanna and Baby singing in the

bathroom.

London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling

down,

London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady.

Baby’s London, in her tiny unformed voice, sounded like

bonbon. The bathroom door was open.

“Good evening, mah,” Ugwu said.

“Oh, Ugwu, I didn’t hear you come in!” Olanna said. She

was bent over the tub, giving Baby a bath. “Welcome, nno.

Are your people well?”

“Yes, mah. They send greetings. My mother said she

cannot thank you enough for the wrappers.”

“How is her leg?”

“It no longer aches. She gave me ukvua for you.”

“Eh! She must have known what I am craving now.” She

turned to look at him, her hands covered in bath foam. “You

look well. See your fat cheeks!”

“Yes, mah,” Ugwu said, although it was a lie. He always

lost weight when he visited home.

“Ugwu!” Baby called. “Ugwu, come and see!” She was

pressing a squawking plastic duck in her hand.

“Baby, you can greet Ugwu after your bath,” Olanna said.

“Anulika will be getting married soon, mah. My father

said I should let you and Master know. They do not have a

date yet, but they will be very happy if you come.”

“Anulika? Is she not a little young? About sixteen-

seventeen?”

“Her mates have started to marry.”

Olanna turned back to the tub. “Of course we will come.”

“Ugwu!” Baby said again.

“Shall I warm Baby’s porridge, mah?”

“Yes. And please make her milk.”

“Yes, mah.” He would linger for a moment and then ask

her if all had gone well in the week he was away, and she

would tell him which friends had come, who had brought

what, if they had finished the stew he had put in containers

in the freezer.

“Your master and I have decided that Arize should come

here to have her baby in September,” Olanna said.

“That is good, mah,” Ugwu said. “I hope the baby will

resemble Aunty Arize and not Uncle Nnakwanze.”

Olanna laughed. “I hope so too. We will start cleaning the

room in time. I want it to be spotless for her.”

“It will be spotless, mah, don’t worry.” Ugwu liked Aunty

Arize. He remembered her wine-carrying ceremony in

Umunnachi about three years ago, how plump and bubbly

she had been and how he had drunk so much palm wine

that he had nearly dropped the infant Baby.

“I’m going to Kano on Monday to pick her up and take

her shopping in Lagos,” Olanna said. “I’ll take Baby. We’ll

pack that blue dress Arize made for her.”

“The pink one is better, mah. The blue one is too tight.”

“That’s true.” Olanna picked up a plastic duck and threw

it back into the tub, and Baby squealed and submerged it in

the water.

“Nkem!” Master called out. “Omego! It has happened!”

Olanna hurried to the living room, Ugwu close behind.

Master was standing by the radio. The television was on

but the volume was off so that the dancing people looked as

if they were swaying drunkenly. “There’s been a coup,”

Master said, and gestured to the radio. “Major Nzeogwu is

speaking from Kaduna.”

The voice on the radio was youthful, eager, confident.

The Constitution is suspended and the regional

government and elected assemblies are hereby

dissolved. My dear countrymen, the aim of the

Revolutionary Council is to establish a nation free from

corruption and internal strife. Our enemies are the

political profiteers, the swindlers, the men in high and

low places that seek bribes and demand ten per cent,

those that seek to keep the country divided

permanently so that they can remain in office, the

tribalists, the nepotists, those that make the country

look big for nothing before international circles, those

that have corrupted our society.

Olanna ran to the telephone. “What is happening in

Lagos? Did they say what is happening in Lagos?”

“Your parents are fine, nkem. Civilians are safe.”

Olanna was dialling. “Operator? Operator?” She put the

phone down and picked it up again. “It isn’t going

through.”

Master gently took the phone from her. “I’m sure they

are fine. The lines will come back up soon. It’s just for

security.” On the radio, the voice had become firmer.

I assure all foreigners that their rights will continue to

be respected. We promise every law-abiding citizen the

freedom from all forms of oppression, freedom from

general inefficiency, and freedom to live and strive in

every field of human endeavour. We promise that you

will no more be ashamed to say that you are a Nigerian.

“Mummy Ola!” Baby called from the bathroom. “Mummy

Ola!”

Ugwu went back to the bathroom and dried Baby with a

towel and then hugged her, blew against her neck. She

smelt deliciously of Pears baby soap.

“Baby chicken!” he said, tickling her. Her plaits were

wet, the ends tightened in a curly kink, and Ugwu

smoothed them and marvelled again at how much she

looked like her father; his people would say that Master

had spit this child out.

“More tickles!” Baby said, laughing. Her chubby face

was slick with moisture.

“Baby baby chicken,” Ugwu murmured, in the sing-song

way that always amused her.

Baby laughed and, from the living room, Ugwu heard

Olanna say, “Oh, God, what did he say? What did he say?”

He was serving Baby’s porridge when the deputy

president spoke briefly on the radio, the voice understated,

as if he were exhausted from the effort of saying, “The

government is handing over to the military.”

There were more announcements later—the prime

minister was missing, Nigeria was now a federal military

government, the premiers of the North and West were

missing—but Ugwu was not sure who spoke and on what

station because Master sat next to the radio, turning the

knob quickly, stopping, listening, turning, stopping. He had

removed his glasses and looked more vulnerable with his

eyes sunken deep in his face. He did not put them back on

until the guests arrived. There were more today than usual,

and Ugwu brought dining chairs to the living room to seat

them all. Their voices were urgent and excited, each person

barely waiting for the last to finish speaking.

“This is the end of corruption! This is what we have

needed to happen since that general strike,” one guest

said. Ugwu did not remember his name, but he tended to

eat up all the chin-chin right after it was served, so Ugwu

had taken to placing the tray as far away from him as

possible. The man had large hands; a few generous

handfuls from the tray and all was lost.

“Those majors are true heroes!” Okeoma said, and raised

an arm.

There was excitement in their voices even when they

talked about the people who were killed.

“They said the Sardauna hid behind his wives.”

“They said the finance minister shit in his trousers before

they shot him.”

Some guests chuckled and so did Ugwu, until he heard

Olanna say, “I knew Okonji. He was a friend of my father’s.”

She sounded subdued.

“The BBC is calling it an Igbo coup,” the chin-chin-eating

guest said. “And they have a point. It was mostly

Northerners who were killed.”

“It was mostly Northerners who were in government,”

Professor Ezeka whispered, his eyebrows arched, as if he

could not believe he had to say what was so obvious.

“The BBC should be asking their people who put the

Northerners in government to dominate everybody!”

Master said.

Ugwu was surprised that Master and Professor Ezeka

seemed to agree. He was even more surprised when Miss

Adebayo said, “Those North Africans are crazy to call this

an infidel versus righteous thing,” and Master laughed—not

the usual derisive laugh before he shifted to the edge of his

chair to challenge her; it was a laugh of approval. He

agreed with her.

“If we had more men like Major Nzeogwu in this country,

we would not be where we are today,” Master said. “He

actually has a vision!”

“Isn’t he a communist?” It was the the green-eyed

Professor Lehman. “He went to Czechoslovakia when he

was at Sandhurst.”

“You Americans, always peering under people’s beds to

look for communism. Do you think we have time to worry

about that?” Master asked. “What matters is whatever will

make our people move forwards. Let’s assume that a

capitalist democracy is a good thing in principle, but if it is

our kind—where somebody gives you a dress that they tell

you looks like their own, but it doesn’t fit you and the

buttons have fallen off—then you have to discard it and

make a dress that is your own size. You simply have to!”

“Too much rhetoric, Odenigbo,” Miss Adebayo said. “You

can’t make a theoretical case for the military.”

Ugwu felt better; this was the sparring he was used to.

“Of course I can. With a man like Major Nzeogwu, I can,”

Master said. “Ugwu! More ice!”

“The man is a communist,” Professor Lehman insisted.

His nasal voice annoyed Ugwu, or perhaps it was simply

that Professor Lehman had the same fair hair as Mr

Richard but none of the quiet dignity. He wished Mr

Richard still came. He clearly remembered his last visit,

months before Baby was born, but other memories of those

tumultuous weeks were faded now, incomplete; he had

been so afraid that Master and Olanna would never reunite

and his world would crumble that he did not eavesdrop

much. He would not even have known that Mr Richard was

involved in the quarrel if Harrison had not told him.

“Thank you, my good man.” Master took the bowl of ice

and clinked some into his glass.

“Yes, sah,” Ugwu said, watching Olanna. Her head was

supported by her clasped hands. He wished he could truly

feel sorry for her friend the politician who had been killed,

but politicians were not like normal people, they were

politicians. He read about them in the Renaissance and

Daily Times—they paid thugs to beat opponents, they

bought land and houses with government money, they

imported fleets of long American cars, they paid women to

stuff their blouses with false votes and pretend to be

pregnant. Whenever he drained a pot of boiled beans, he

thought of the slimy sink as politician.

That night, he lay in his room in the Boys’ Quarters and

tried to concentrate on The Mayor of Casterbridge, but it

was difficult. He hoped Chinyere would slip under the

hedge and come over; they never planned it, she just

appeared on some days and didn’t on others. He ached for

her to come on this exciting night of the coup that had

changed the order of things and throbbed with possibility,

with newness. When he heard her tap on the window, he

offered up a bashful thanks to the gods.

“Chinyere,” he said.

“Ugwu,” she said.

She smelt of stale onions. The light was off, and in the

thin stream that came from the security bulb outside he

saw the cone-shaped rise of her breasts as she pulled her

blouse off, untied the wrapper around her waist, and lay on

her back. There was something moist about the darkness,

about their bodies close together, and he imagined that she

was Nnesinachi and that the taut legs encircling him were

Nnesinachi’s. She was silent at first and then, hips

thrashing, her hands tight around his back, she called out

the same thing she said every time. It sounded like a name

—Abonyi, Abonyi—but he wasn’t sure. Perhaps she

imagined that he was someone else too, someone back in

her village.

She got up and left as silently as she came. When he saw

her the next day across the hedge, hanging out clothes on

the line, she said “Ugwu” and nothing else; she did not

smile.

O

EIGHT

lanna postponed her trip to Kano because of the coup.

She waited until the airports were reopened, the Post

and Telegraphs up again, the military governors

appointed to the regions. She waited until she was sure

there was order. But the coup was in the air. Everyone was

talking about it, even the taxi driver in the white hat and

kaftan who drove her and Baby from the airport to Arize’s

compound.

“But the Sardauna was not killed, madam,” he

whispered. “He escaped with Allah’s help and is now in

Mecca.” Olanna smiled gently and said nothing because

she knew that this man, with his prayer beads dangling

from his rearview mirror, needed to believe that. The

Sardauna, after all, had not only been premier of the North,

he had also been the spiritual leader for this man and so

many Muslims like him.

She told Arize about the taxi driver’s comment, and Arize

shrugged and said, “There is nothing that they are not

saying.” Arize’s wrapper was pushed low, below her waist,

and her blouse was loose-fitting to accommodate the swell

of her belly. They sat in the living room with photos of Arize

and Nnakwanze’s wedding on the oily wall, while Baby

played with the children in the compound. Olanna did not

want Baby to touch those children in their torn clothes,

milky mucus trailing from their noses, but she didn’t say so;

it shamed her that she felt that way.

“We’ll catch the first flight to Lagos tomorrow, Ari, so you

can rest before we start shopping. I don’t want to do

anything that will be difficult for you,” Olanna said.

“Ha, difficult! I am only pregnant, Sister, I am not sick,

oh. Is it not women like me who work on the farm until the

baby wants to come out? And am I not the one sewing that

dress?” Arize pointed to the corner, where her Singer

sewing machine was on a table amid a pile of clothes.

“My concern is for my godchild in there, not for you,”

Olanna said. She raised Arize’s blouse and placed her face

against the firm round-ness of Arize’s belly, against the

stretched-tight skin, in the gentle ritual she had been doing

since Arize became pregnant; if she did it often enough,

Arize said, the child would imbibe her features and look

like her.

“I don’t care about the outside,” Arize said. “But she

must look like you on the inside. She must have your brain

and know Book.”

“Or he.”

“No, this one is a girl, you will see. Nnakwanze says it

will be a boy who will resemble him, but I told him that God

will not allow my child to have that flat face.”

Olanna laughed. Arize got up and opened an enamel box

and brought out some money. “See what Sister Kainene

sent me last week. She said I should use it to buy things for

the baby.”

“It was nice of her.” Olanna knew she sounded stilted,

knew Arize was watching her.

“You and Sister Kainene should talk. What happened in

the past is in the past.”

“You can only talk to the person who wants to talk to

you,” Olanna said. She wanted to change the subject. She

always wanted to change the subject when Kainene came

up. “I better take Baby to greet Aunty Ifeka.” She hurried

out to fetch Baby before Arize could say anything else.

She washed some sand off Baby’s face and hands before

they walked out of the compound and down the road. Uncle

Mbaezi was not yet back from the market, and they sat

with Aunty Ifeka on a bench in front of her kiosk, Baby on

Olanna’s lap. The yard was filling with the chatter of

neighbours and the shrieks of children running around

under the kuka tree. Somebody was playing loud music

from a gramophone; soon, a cluster of men by the

compound gate began to laugh and jostle one another,

mimicking the song. Aunty Ifeka laughed, too, and clapped

her hands.

“What’s funny?” Olanna asked.

“That is Rex Lawson’s song,” Aunty Ifeka said.

“What is funny about it?”

“Our people say that the chorus sounds like mmee-

mmee-mmee, the bleating of a goat.” Aunty Ifeka chuckled.

“They say the Sardauna sounded like that when he was

begging them not to kill him. When the soldiers fired a

mortar into his house, he crouched behind his wives and

bleated, “Mmee-mmee-mmee, please don’t kill me, mmee-

mmee-mmeel””

Aunty Ifeka laughed again, and so did Baby, as if she

understood.

“Oh.” Olanna thought about Chief Okonji and wondered

if he too was said to have bleated like a goat before he

died. She looked away across the street, where children

were playing with car tyres, racing with one another as

they rolled the tyres along. A small sandstorm was

gathering in the distance, and the dust rose and fell in

grey-white clouds.

“The Sardauna was an evil man, ajo mmadu,” Aunty Ifeka

said. “He hated us. He hated everybody who did not

remove their shoes and bow to him. Is he not the one who

did not allow our children to go to school?”

“They should not have killed him,” Olanna said quietly.

“They should have put him in prison.”

Aunty Ifeka snorted. “Put him in which prison? In this

Nigeria where he controlled everything?” She got up and

began to close up the kiosk. “Come, let’s go inside so I can

find Baby something to eat.”

The Rex Lawson song was playing loudly in Arize’s

compound when Olanna returned. Nnakwanze found it

hilarious too. He had two huge front teeth, and when he

laughed, it was as if too many teeth had been painfully

crammed into his small mouth. Mmeee-mmeee-mmeee, a

goat begging not to be killed: mmeee-mmeee-mmeee.

“It’s not funny,” Olanna said.

“Sister, but it is funny, oh,” Arize said. “Because of too

much Book, you no longer know how to laugh.”

Nnakwanze was sitting on the floor at Arize’s feet,

rubbing her belly in light circular motions. He had worried

a lot less than Arize when she did not get pregnant the

first, second, and third year of their marriage; when his

mother visited them too often, poking at Arize’s belly and

urging her to confess how many abortions she had had

before marriage, he asked his mother to stop visiting. He

asked her, too, to stop bringing foul-smelling concoctions

for Arize to drink in bitter gulps. Now that Arize was

pregnant, he did more overtime at the railway and asked

her to cut down on her sewing.

He was still singing the song and laughing. A goat

begging not to be killed: mmeee-mmeee-mmeee.

Olanna got up. The night breeze was unpleasantly cool.

“Ari, you should get to bed, so you are rested in the

morning for Lagos.”

Nnakwanze made as if to help Arize up, but she brushed

him aside. “I have told you people that I am not sick. I am

only pregnant.”

Olanna was pleased that the house in Lagos would be

empty. Her father had called to say they were going

overseas. She knew it was because he wanted to be away

until things calmed down, because he was wary of his ten

per cents and lavish parties and slick connections, but

neither he nor her mother said so. They called it a holiday.

It was their policy to leave things unsaid, the same way

they pretended not to notice that she and Kainene no

longer spoke and that she came home only when she was

sure Kainene was not visiting.

In the airport taxi, Arize taught Baby a song while

Olanna watched Lagos careen by: the tumultuous traffic,

the rusty buses and exhausted masses waiting for them, the

touts, the beggars sliding on flat, wooden trolleys, the

shabby hawkers thrusting trays towards people who either

would not or could not buy.

The driver stopped in front of her parents’ walled

compound in Ikoyi. He peered at the high gate. “The

minister they killed used to live around here, abi, aunty?”

he asked. Olanna pretended not to have heard and instead

said to Baby, “Now, look what you did to your dress! Hurry

inside so we can wash it off!”

Later, her mother’s driver, Ibekie, took them to Kingsway.

The supermarket smelt of new paint. Arize walked from

aisle to aisle, cooing, touching the plastic wrappings,

picking out baby clothes, a pink pram, a plastic doll with

blue eyes.

“Everything is so shiny in supermarkets, Sister,” Arize

said, laughing. “No dust!”

Olanna held up a white dress trimmed with pink lace.

“Omaka. This is lovely.”

“It’s too expensive,” Arize said.

“Nobody asked you.”

Baby pulled down a doll from a low shelf and turned it

upside down, and it let out a crying sound.

“No, Baby.” Olanna took the doll and placed it back.

They shopped for a while longer and then left for Yaba

market, where Arize could shop for fabrics for herself.

Tejuosho Road was crowded, families huddled around pots

of bubbling food, women roasting corn and plantains in

charred basins, bare-chested men loading bags into lorries

with hand-painted wisdoms: NOCONDITION is

PERMANENT. GOD KNOWS BEST. Ibekie parked near the

newspaper stands. Olanna glanced at the people standing

and reading the Daily Times and her feet grew light with

pride. They were reading Odenigbo’s article, she was sure;

it was easily the best there. She had edited it herself and

toned down his rhetoric, so that his argument—that only a

unitary government could remove the divisions of

regionalism—was clearer.

She took Baby’s hand and led the way past the roadside

hawkers who sat under umbrellas with batteries and

padlocks and cigarettes carefully arranged on enamel

trays. The main market entrance was strangely empty.

Then Olanna saw the crowd ahead. A man in a yellowed

singlet stood at the centre while two men slapped him, one

after the other, methodical, leathery-sounding slaps. “Why

now? Why are you denying?” The man stared at them,

blank, bending his neck slightly after each slap. Arize

stopped.

Somebody from the crowd called out, “We are counting

the Igbo people. Oya, come and identify yourself. You are

Igbo?”

Arize muttered under her breath, “I kwuna okwu,” as if

Olanna was thinking of saying anything, and then shook her

head and started to speak fluent, loud Yoruba, all the while

casually turning so they could go back the way they had

come. The crowd lost interest in them. Another man in a

safari suit was being slapped on the back of the head. “You

are Igbo man! Don’t deny it! Simply identify yourself!”

Baby began to cry. “Mummy Ola! Mummy Ola!”

Olanna picked Baby up. She and Arize did not talk until

they got back in the car. Ibekie had already reversed and

kept glancing at the rearview mirror. “I saw people

running,” he said.

“What is happening?” Olanna asked.

Arize shrugged. “We hear rumours that they have been

doing this in Kaduna and Zaria since the coup; they go out

in the streets and start to harass Igbo people because they

said the coup was an Igbo coup.”

“Ext okwu? Really?”

“Yes, Aunty,” Ibekie said quickly, as if he had been

waiting for the opportunity to speak. “My uncle in Ebutte

Metta does not sleep in his house any more since the coup.

All his neighbours are Yoruba, and they said some men

have been looking for him. He sleeps in different houses

every night, while he takes care of his business. He has

sent his children back home.”

“Ezi okwu? Really?” Olanna repeated. She felt hollow.

She did not know that things had come to this; in Nsukka,

life was insular and the news was unreal, functioning only

as fodder for the evening talk, for Odenigbo’s rants and

impassioned articles.

“Things will calm down,” Arize said, and touched

Olanna’s arm. “Don’t worry.”

Olanna nodded and looked out at the words printed on a

nearby lorry: NO TELEPHONE TO HEAVEN. She could not

believe how easy it had been to deny who they were, to

shrug off being Igbo.

“She will wear that white dress for her christening,

Sister,” Arize said.

“What, An?”

Arize pointed at her belly. “Your goddaughter will wear

that white dress for her christening. Thank you so much,

Sister.”

The light in Arize’s eyes made Olanna smile; things

would indeed calm down. She tickled Baby, but Baby did

not laugh. Baby stared back at her with frightened eyes

that were not yet dried of tears.

R

NINE

ichard watched as Kainene zipped up the lilac dress

and turned to him. The hotel room was brightly lit,

and he looked at her and at her reflection in the

mirror behind her.

“Nke a ka mma,” he said. It was prettier than the black

dress on the bed, the one she had earlier picked out for her

parents’ party. She bowed mockingly and sat down to put

on her shoes. She looked almost pretty with her smoothing

powder and red lipstick and relaxed demeanour, not as

knotted up as she had been lately, chasing a contract with

Shell-BP. Before they left, Richard brushed aside some of

her wig hair and kissed her forehead, to avoid spoiling her

lipstick.

There were garish balloons in her parents’ living room.

The party was underway. Stewards in black and white

walked around with trays and fawning smiles, their heads

held inanely high. The champagne sparkled in tall glasses,

the chandeliers’ light reflected the glitter of jewellery on

fat women’s necks, and the High Life band in the corner

played so loudly, so vigorously, that people clumped close

together to hear one another.

“I see many Big Men of the new regime,” Richard said.

“Daddy hasn’t wasted any time in ingratiating himself,”

Kainene said in his ear. “He ran off until things calmed

down, and now he’s back to make new friends.”

Richard scanned the rest of the room. Colonel Madu

stood out right away, with his wide shoulders and wide face

and wide features and head that was above everyone else’s.

He was talking to an Arab man in a tight dinner jacket.

Kainene walked over to say hello to them and Richard went

to look for a drink, to avoid talking to Madu just yet.

Kainene’s mother came up and kissed his cheek; he knew

she was drunk, or she would have greeted him with the

usual frosty “How do you do?” Now, though, she told him

he looked well and cornered him at an unfortunate end of

the room, with the wall to his back and an intimidating

piece of sculpture, something that looked like a snarling

lion, to his side.

“Kainene tells me you are going home to London soon?”

she asked. Her ebony complexion looked waxy with too

much make–up. There was something nervous about her

movements.

“Yes. I’ll be away for about ten days.”

“Just ten days?” She half smiled. Perhaps she had hoped

he would be away for longer, so she could finally find a

suitable partner for her daughter. “To visit your family?”

“My cousin Martin is getting married,” Richard said.

“Oh, I see.” The rows and rows of gold around her neck

weighed her down and made her head look slumped, as if

she was under great strain and, in trying so hard to hide it,

made it all the more obvious. “Maybe we’ll have a drink in

London then. I’m telling my husband that we should take

another small holiday. Not that anything will happen, but

not everybody is happy with this unitary decree the

government is talking about. It’s just nicer to be away until

things are settled. We may leave next week but we are not

telling anybody, so keep it to yourself.” She touched his

sleeve playfully, and Richard saw a glimpse of Kainene in

the curve of her lips. “We are not even telling our friends

the Ajuahs. You know Chief Ajuah, who owns the bottling

company? They are Igbo, but they are Western Igbo. I hear

they are the ones who deny being Igbo. Who knows what

they will say that we have done? Who knows? They will sell

other Igbo people for a tarnished penny. A tarnished penny,

I’m telling you. Do you want another drink? Wait here and

I’ll get another drink. Just wait here.”

As soon as she lurched away, Richard went looking for

Kainene. He found her on the balcony with Madu, standing

and looking down at the swimming pool. The smell of

roasting meat was thick in the air. He watched them for a

while. Madu’s head was slightly cocked to the side as

Kainene spoke, her body looked frail next to his huge

frame, and they seemed somehow to fit effortlessly. Both

very dark, one tall and thin, the other taller and huge.

Kainene turned and saw him.

“Richard,” she said.

He joined them, shook hands with Madu. “How are you,

Madu? A na-emekwa?” he asked, eager to speak first. “How

is life in the North?”

“Nothing to complain about,” Madu said in English.

“You didn’t come with Adaobi?” He did wish the man

would come out more often with his wife.

“No,” Madu said, and sipped his drink; it was clear he

had not wanted anybody to disturb their chat.

“I see my mother was entertaining you, how exciting,”

Kainene said. “Madu and I were stuck with Ahmed there

for a while. He wants to buy Daddy’s warehouse in Ikeja.”

“Your father will not sell anything to him,” Madu

declared, as if it were his decision to make. “Those Syrians

and Lebanese already own half of Lagos, and they are all

bloody opportunists in this country.”

“I would sell to him if he stopped smelling so awfully of

garlic,” Kainene said.

Madu laughed.

Kainene slipped her hand into Richard’s. “I was just

telling Madu that you think another coup is coming.”

“There won’t be another coup,” Madu said.

“You would know, wouldn’t you, Madu? Big Man colonel

that you are now,” Kainene teased.

Richard tightened his hold on her hand. “I went to Zaria

last week, and it seemed that all everybody was saying was

second coup, second coup. Even Radio Kaduna and the

New Nigerian,” he said in Igbo.

“What does the press know, really?” Madu replied in

English. He always did that; since Richard’s Igbo had

become near-fluent, Madu insistently responded to it in

English so that Richard felt forced to revert to English.

“The papers ran articles about jihad, and Radio Kaduna

kept broadcasting the late Sardauna’s speeches, and there

was talk about how Igbo people were going to take over the

civil service and—”

Madu cut him short. “There won’t be a second coup.

There’s a little tension in the army, but there always is a

little tension in the army. Did you have the goat meat? Isn’t

it wonderful?”

“Yes,” Richard agreed, almost automatically, and then

wished he hadn’t. The air in Lagos was humid; standing

next to Madu, it seemed suffocating. The man made him

feel inconsequential.

The second coup happened a week later, and Richard’s

first reaction was to gloat. He was rereading Martin’s letter

in the orchard, sitting on the spot where Kainene often told

him that a groove the exact size and shape of his buttocks

had appeared.

Is ‘going native’ still used? I always knew you would!

Mother tells me you have given up on the tribal art

book and are pleased with this one, a sort of

fictionalized travelogue? And on European Evils in

Africa! I’m quite keen to hear more about it when you

are in London. Pity you gave up the old title: “The

Basket of Hands.” Were hands chopped off in Africa as

well? I’d imagined it was only in India. I’m intrigued!

Richard imagined that smile Martin often had when they

were schoolboys, during those years that Aunt Elizabeth

had immersed them in activities with her manic

determination that there be no sitting around: cricket

tournaments, boxing lessons, tennis, piano lessons from a

Frenchman with a lisp. Martin had thrived at them all,

always with that superior smile of people who were born to

belong and excel.

Richard reached out to pluck a wildflower that looked

like a poppy. He wondered what Martin’s wedding would be

like; Martin’s fiancée was a fashion designer, of all things.

If only Kainene could go with him; if only she didn’t have to

stay to sign the new contract. He wanted Aunt Elizabeth

and Martin and Virginia to see her, but most of all he

wanted them to see him, the man he had become after his

years here: to see that he was browner and happier.

Ikejide came up to him. “Mr Richard, sah! Madam say

make you come. There is another coup,” Ikejide said. He

looked excited.

Richard hurried indoors. He was right; Madu was wrong.

The moist July heat had plastered his hair limply to his

head, and he ran his hand through it as he went. Kainene

was on a sofa in the living room, her arms wrapped around

herself, rocking back and forth. The British voice on the

radio was so loud that she raised her voice when she said,

“Northern officers have taken over. The BBC says they are

killing Igbo officers in Kaduna. Nigerian Radio isn’t saying

anything.” She spoke too fast. He stood behind her and

began to rub her shoulders, kneading her stiff muscles in

circular motions. On the radio, the breathless British voice

said it was quite extraordinary that a second coup had

occurred only six months after the first.

“Extraordinary. Extraordinary indeed,” Kainene said. She

reached out, in a sudden jerky move, and pushed the radio

off the table. It fell on the carpeted floor, and a dislodged

battery rolled out. “Madu is in Kaduna,” she said, and put

her face in her hands. “Madu is in Kaduna.”

“It’s all right, my darling,” Richard said. “It’s all right.”

For the first time, he considered the possibility of Madu’s

death. He decided not to go back to Nsukka for a while and

was not sure why. Was it really because he wanted to be

with her when she heard Madu was dead? In the next few

days, she was so taut with anxiety that he too began to

worry about Madu and then resent himself for doing so,

and then resent his resentment. He should not be so petty.

She included him in her worry, after all, as if Madu was

their friend and not just hers. She told him about the

people she called, about the inquiries she made to find out

what had happened. Nobody knew. Madu’s wife had heard

nothing. Lagos was in chaos. Her parents had left for

England. Many Igbo officers were dead. The killings were

organized; she told him about a soldier who said the alarm

for a battalion muster parade was sounded in his barracks

and after everyone assembled, the Northerners picked out

all the Igbo soldiers and took them away and shot them.

Kainene was muted and quiet but never tearful, so the

day she told him, “I heard something,” with a sob in her

voice, he was sure it was news of Madu. He thought about

how to console her, whether he would be able to console

her.

“Udodi,” Kainene said. “They killed Colonel Udodi

Ekechi.”

“Udodi?” He had been so certain it was about Madu that

for a moment he was blank.

“Northern soldiers put him in a cell in the barracks and

fed him his own shit. He ate his own shit.” Kainene paused.

“Then they beat him senseless and tied him to an iron cross

and threw him back in his cell. He died tied to an iron

cross. He died on a cross.”

Richard sat down slowly. His dislike for Udodi—loud,

drunken, duplicity dripping from his pores—had only

deepened in the past years. Yet hearing about his death left

him sober. He thought, again, of Madu dying and realized

he did not know how he would feel.

“Who told you this?”

“Maria Obele. Udodi’s wife is her cousin. She said they

are saying that no Igbo officer in the North escaped. But

some Umunnachi people said they heard Madu escaped.

Adaobi has not heard anything. How could he have

escaped. How?”

“He might be hiding out somewhere.”

“How?” Kainene asked again.

Colonel Madu appeared in Kainene’s house two weeks

later, much taller-looking now because he had lost so much

weight; the angles of his shoulder bones were visible

through his white shirt.

Kainene screamed. “Madu! Is this you? Ogi di ife a?”

Richard was not sure who walked towards whom first,

but Kainene and Madu were holding each other close,

Kainene touching his arms and face with a tenderness that

made Richard look away. He went to the liquor cabinet and

poured a whisky for Madu and a gin for himself.

“Thank you, Richard,” Madu said, but he did not take the

drink and Richard stood there, holding two glasses, before

he placed one down.

Kainene sat on a side table in front of Madu. “They said

they shot you in Kaduna, then they said they buried you

alive in the bush, then they said you escaped, then they

said you were in prison in Lagos.”

Madu said nothing. Kainene stared at him. Richard

finished his drink and poured another.

“You remember my friend Ibrahim? From Sandhurst?”

Madu asked finally.

Kainene nodded.

“Ibrahim saved my life. He told me about the coup that

morning. He was not directly involved, but most of them—

the Northern officers—knew about it. He drove me to his

cousin’s house, but I didn’t really understand until he asked

his cousin to take me to the backyard, where he kept his

domestic animals. I slept in the chicken house for two

days.”

“No! Ekrvuzina!”

“And do you know that soldiers came to search his

cousin’s house to look for me? Everybody knew how close

Ibrahim and I were, and they suspected he helped me

escape. They didn’t check the chicken house, though.”

Colonel Madu paused, nodding and looking into the

distance. “I did not know how bad chicken shit smelt until I

slept in it for three days. On the third day, Ibrahim sent me

some kaftans and money through a small boy and asked me

to leave right away. I dressed as a Fulani nomad and

walked through the smaller villages because Ibrahim said

that artillery soldiers had set up blocks on all the major

roads in Kaduna. I was lucky to find a lorry driver, an Igbo

man from Ohafia, who took me to Kafanchan. My cousin

lives there. You know Onunkwo, don’t you?” Madu did not

wait for Kainene to respond. “He is the station master at

the railway, and he told me that Northern soldiers had

sealed off Makurdi Bridge. That bridge is a grave. They

searched every single vehicle, they delayed passenger

trains for up to eight hours, and they shot all the Igbo

soldiers they discovered there and threw the bodies over.

Many of the soldiers wore disguises, but they used their

boots to find them.”

“What?” Kainene leaned forwards.

“Boots.” Madu glanced at his shoes. “You know we

soldiers wear boots all the time so they examined the feet

of each man, and any Igbo man whose feet were clean and

uncracked by harmattan, they took away and shot. They

also examined their foreheads for signs of their skin being

lighter from wearing a soldier’s beret.” Madu shook his

head. “Onunkwo advised me to wait for some days. He did

not think I would make it across the bridge because they

would recognize me easily under any disguise. So I stayed

ten days in a village near Kafanchan. Onunkwo found me

different houses to stay in. It was not safe to stay with him.

Finally, he said he had found a driver, a good man from

Nnewi, who would hide me in the water tank of his goods

train. The man gave me a fireman’s suit to wear and I

climbed into the tank. I had water up to my chin. Each time

the train jerked, some of the water entered my nose. When

we got to the bridge, the soldiers searched the train

thoroughly. I heard footsteps on the lid of the tank and

thought it was all over. But they did not open it and we

passed. It was only then I knew that I was alive and I would

survive. I came back to Umunnachi to find Adaobi wearing

black.”

Kainene kept looking at Madu long after he finished

speaking. There was another stretch of silence, which made

Richard uncomfortable because he was not sure how to

react, what expression to have.

“Igbo soldiers and Northern soldiers can never live in the

same barracks after this. It is impossible, impossible,”

Colonel Madu said. He had a glassy sheen in his eyes. “And

Gowon cannot be head of state. They cannot impose Gowon

on us as head of state. It is not how things are done. There

are others who are senior to him.”

“What are you going to do now?” Kainene asked.

Madu did not seem to hear her. “So many of us are

gone,” he said. “So many solid, good men—Udodi,

Iloputaife, Okunweze, Okafor—and these were men who

believed in Nigeria and didn’t care for tribe. After all,

Udodi spoke better Hausa than he spoke Igbo, and look

how they slaughtered him.” He stood up and began to pace

the room. “The problem was the ethnic balance policy. I

was part of the commission that told our GOC that we

should scrap it, that it was polarizing the army, that they

should stop promoting Northerners who were not qualified.

But our GOC said no, our British GOC.” Madu turned and

glanced at Richard.

“I’ll ask Ikejide to cook your special rice,” Kainene said.

Madu shrugged, silent, and stared out of the window.

U

TEN

gwu set the table for lunch. “I’ve finished, sah,” he

said, although he knew Master would not touch the

okro soup and would keep walking up and down the

living room with the radio turned up high, as he had been

doing since Miss Adebayo left about an hour ago. She had

banged so hard on the front door that Ugwu worried the

glass would crack, and then when he opened it, she pushed

past him, asking, “Where is your master? Where is your

master?”

“I will call him, mah,” Ugwu said, but Miss Adebayo had

hurried ahead into Master’s study. He heard her say,

“There’s trouble in the North,” and his mouth went dry

because Miss Adebayo was not an alarmist and whatever

was happening in the North had to be serious and Olanna

was in Kano.

Ever since the second coup some weeks ago, when the

Igbo soldiers were killed, he had struggled to understand

what was happening, read the newspapers more carefully,

listened more closely to Master and his guests. The

conversations no longer ended in reassuring laughter, and

the living room often seemed clouded with uncertainties,

with unfinished knowledge, as if they all knew something

would happen and yet did not know what. None of them

would ever have imagined that this would happen, that the

announcer on ENBC Radio Enugu would be saying now, as

Ugwu straightened the tablecloth, “We have confirmed

reports that up to five-hundred Igbo people have been

killed in Maiduguri.”

“Rubbish!” Master shouted. “Did you hear that? Did you

hear that?”

“Yes, sah,” Ugwu said. He hoped the loud noise would

not wake Baby up from her siesta.

“Impossible!” Master said.

“Sah, your soup,” Ugwu said.

“Five-hundred people killed. Absolute rubbish! It can’t be

true.”

Ugwu took the dish into the kitchen and put it in the

refrigerator. The smell of spices nauseated him, as did the

sight of soup, of food. But Baby would wake up soon and he

would have to make her dinner. He brought out a bag of

potatoes from the storeroom and sat staring at it, thinking

about two days ago, when Olanna left for Kano to fetch

Aunty Arize, how her plaited hair had pulled at the skin of

her forehead and made it shiny-sleek.

Baby came into the kitchen. “Ugwu.”

“I tetago? Are you awake?” Ugwu asked, before he

hugged her. He wondered if Master had seen her walk past

the living room. “Did you see baby chickens in your

dream?”

Baby laughed, and her dimples sank deep in her cheeks.

“Yes!”

“Did you talk to them?”

“Yes!”

“What did they say?”

Baby didn’t give the usual response. She let go of his

neck and squatted on the floor. “Where is Mummy Ola?”

“Mummy Ola will be back soon.” Ugwu examined the

blade of the knife. “Now, help me with the potato peels. Put

them all in the dustbin, and when Mummy Ola comes back,

we will tell her you helped with the cooking.”

After Ugwu put the potatoes on to boil, he gave her a

bath, dusted her body over with Pears talcum powder, and

brought out her pink nightdress. It was the one Olanna

loved, the one she said made Baby look like a doll. But

Baby said, “I want my pyjamas,” and Ugwu was no longer

sure which it was Olanna loved anyway, the nightdress or

the pyjamas.

He heard a knock on the front door. Master ran out of his

study. Ugwu dashed to the door and grasped the handle

first and held on, so that he would be the one to open it,

although he knew it couldn’t be Olanna. She had her own

key.

“Is it Obiozo?” Master asked, looking at one of the two

men standing at the door. “Obiozo?”

When Ugwu saw the hollow-eyed men with the dirt-

smeared clothes, he knew right away that he should take

Baby away, shield her. He took her food into the bedroom,

set it on her play table, and told her she could pretend she

was eating with Jill from the Jack and Jill comic that was

delivered with the Renaissance. He stood by the door that

led to the corridor and peered into the living room. One of

the men was speaking, while the other drank from a bottle

of water, the glass ignored on the table.

“We saw a lorry driver who agreed to carry us,” the man

said, and Ugwu could tell right away that he was Master’s

kinsman; his Abba dialect was heavy, each sounding like a

v.

“What happened?” Master asked.

The man placed the bottle of water down and said

quietly, “They are killing us like ants. Did you hear what I

said? Ants.”

“Our eyes have seen plenty, anyi afujugo anya,” Obiozo

said. “I saw a whole family, a father and mother and three

children, lying on the road to the motor park. Just lying

there.”

“What about Kano? What is happening in Kano?” Master

asked.

“It started in Kano,” the man said.

Obiozo was speaking, saying something about vultures

and bodies dumped outside the city walls, but Ugwu no

longer listened. It started in Kano rang in his head. He did

not want to tidy the guest room and find bedsheets and

warm the soup and make fresh garri for them. He wanted

them to leave right away. Or, if they would not leave, he

wanted them to shut their filthy mouths. He wanted the

radio announcers to be silent too, but they were not. They

repeated the news of the killings in Maiduguri until Ugwu

wanted to throw the radio out of the window, and the next

afternoon, after the men left, a solemn voice on ENBC

Radio Enugu recounted eyewitness accounts from the

North: teachers hacked down in Zaria, a full Catholic

church in Sokoto set on fire, a pregnant woman split open

in Kano. The newscaster paused. “Some of our people are

coming back now. The lucky ones are coming back. The

railway stations are full of our people. If you have tea and

bread to spare, please take it to the stations. Help a

brother in need.”

Master leapt up from the sofa. “Go, Ugwu,” he said.

“Take tea and bread and go to the railway station.”

“Yes, sah,” Ugwu said. Before he made the tea, he fried

some plantains for Baby’s lunch. “I have put Baby’s lunch

in the oven, sah,” he said.

He was not sure Master heard him and as he left, he

worried that Baby would go hungry and Master would not

know that her fried plantains were in the oven. He made

himself keep worrying about it until he got to the station.

Mats and dirty wrappers were spread all over the platform

and people were crumpled down on them, men and women

and children crying and eating bread and tending wounds.

Hawkers walked around with trays on their heads. Ugwu

did not want to go into that ragged bazaar but he steeled

himself and walked towards a man sitting on the ground

with a red-stained rag wound around his head. Flies buzzed

everywhere.

“Do you want some bread?” Ugwu asked.

“Yes, my brother. Dalu. Thank you.”

Ugwu did not look to see how deep the knife wound on

his head was. He poured the tea and held out the bread. He

would not remember this man tomorrow because he would

not want to.

“Do you want some bread?” Ugwu asked another man

nearby, who sat hunched. “Ichoro bread?”

The man turned. Ugwu recoiled and nearly dropped the

flask. The man’s right eye was gone, in its place, a juicy-red

pulp.

“It was the soldiers who saved us,” the first man was

saying, as if he felt he had to tell his story in exchange for

the bread he was eating dipped in tea. “They told us to run

to the army barracks. Those madmen were chasing us like

runaway goats, but once we entered the gates of the

barracks, we were safe.”

A rickety train pulled up, so full that some people held on

to the outside of the coaches, clutching at metal bars.

Ugwu watched as tired, dusty, bloody people climbed down,

but he did not join those who rushed over to help. He could

not bear to think that Olanna was one of those limping and

defeated people, and yet he could not bear to think that she

was not, that she was still behind, somewhere in the North.

He watched until the train emptied out. Olanna was not

there. He gave the rest of the bread to the one-eyed man,

then turned and ran. He did not stop until he got to Odim

Street and past the bush with the white flowers.

O

ELEVEN

lanna was sitting on Mohammed’s veranda, drinking

chilled rice milk, laughing at the delicious cold trickle

down her throat, at the stickiness on her lips, when

the gateman appeared and asked to speak to Mohammed.

Mohammed left and came back moments later, holding

what looked like a pamphlet. “They’re rioting,” he said.

“It’s the students, isn’t it?” Olanna asked.

“I think it’s religious. You must leave right away.” His

eyes avoided hers.

“Mohammed, calm down.”

“Sule said they are blocking the roads and searching for

infidels. Come, come.” He was already heading indoors.

Olanna followed. He worried too much, did Mohammed.

Muslim students were always demonstrating about one

thing or the other, after all, and harassing people who were

Western-dressed, but they always dispersed quickly

enough.

Mohammed went into a room and came out with a long

scarf. “Wear this, so you can blend in,” he said.

Olanna placed it over her head and wound it round her

neck. “I look like a proper Muslim woman,” she joked.

But Mohammed barely smiled. “Let’s go. I know a short

cut to the train station.”

“Train station? Arize and I are not leaving until

tomorrow, Mohammed,” Olanna said. She almost ran to

keep up with him. “I’m going back to my uncle’s house in

Sabon Gari.”

“Olanna.” Mohammed started the car; it jerked as he

took off. “Sabon Gari is not safe.”

“What do you mean?” She tugged at the scarf; the

embroidery at the edges felt coarse and uncomfortable

against her neck.

“Sule said they are well organized.”

Olanna stared at him, suddenly frightened at how

frightened he looked. “Mohammed?”

His voice was low. “He said Igbo bodies are lying on

Airport Road.”

Olanna realized, then, that this was not just another

demonstration by religious students. Fear parched her

throat. She clasped her hands together. “Please let us pick

up my people first,” she said. “Please.”

Mohammed headed towards Sabon Gari. A bus drove

past, dusty and yellow; it looked like one of those campaign

buses that politicians used to tour rural areas and give out

rice and cash to villagers. A man was hanging out of the

door, a loudspeaker pressed to his mouth, his slow Hausa

words resonating. “The Igbo must go. The infidels must go.

The Igbo must go.” Mohammed reached out and squeezed

her hand and held on to it as they drove past a crowd of

young men on the roadside, chanting, “ttraba, araba!” He

slowed down and blew the horn a few times in solidarity;

they waved and he picked up speed again.

In Sabon Gari, the first street was empty. Olanna saw the

smoke rising like tall, grey shadows before she smelt the

scent of burning.

“Stay here,” Mohammed said, as he stopped the car

outside Uncle Mbaezi’s compound. She watched him run

out. The street looked strange, unfamiliar; the compound

gate was broken, the metal flattened on the ground. Then

she noticed Aunty Ifeka’s kiosk, or what remained of it:

splinters of wood, packets of groundnuts lying in the dust.

She opened the car door and climbed out. She paused for a

moment because of how glaringly bright and hot it was,

with flames billowing from the roof, with grit and ash

floating in the air, before she began to run towards the

house. She stopped when she saw the bodies. Uncle Mbaezi

lay facedown in an ungainly twist, legs splayed. Something

creamy-white oozed through the large gash on the back of

his head. Aunty Ifeka lay on the veranda. The cuts on her

naked body were smaller, dotting her arms and legs like

slightly parted red lips.

Olanna felt a watery queasiness in her bowels before the

numbness spread over her and stopped at her feet.

Mohammed was dragging her, pulling her, his grasp

hurting her arm. But she could not leave without Arize.

Arize was due at anytime. Arize needed to be close to a

doctor.

“Arize,” she said. “Arize is down the road.”

The smoke was thickening around her so that she was

not sure if the crowd of men drifting into the yard were real

or just plumes of smoke, until she saw the shiny metal

blades of their axes and machetes, the bloodstained kaftans

that flapped around their legs.

Mohammed pushed her into the car and then went

around and got in. “Keep your face down,” he said.

“We finished the whole family. It was Allah’s will!” one of

the men called out in Hausa. The man was familiar. It was

Abdulmalik. He nudged a body on the ground with his foot

and Olanna noticed, then, how many bodies were lying

there, like dolls made of cloth.

“Who are you?” another asked, standing in front of the

car.

Mohammed opened his door, the car still on, and spoke

in rapid, coaxing Hausa. The man stood aside. Olanna

turned to look closely, to see if it really was Abdulmalik.

“Don’t raise your face!” Mohammed said. He narrowly

missed a kuka tree; one of the large pods had fallen down

and Olanna heard the crunching squash as the car ran over

it. She lowered her head. It was Abdulmalik. He had

nudged another body, a woman’s headless body, and

stepped over it, placed one leg down and then the other,

although there was enough room to step to the side.

“Allah does not allow this,” Mohammed said. He was

shaking; his entire body was shaking. “Allah will not forgive

them. Allah will not forgive the people who have made

them do this. Allah will never forgive this.”

They drove in a frenzied silence, past policemen in blood-

splattered uniforms, past vultures perched by the roadside,

past boys carrying looted radios, until he parked at the

train station and shoved her onto a crowded train.

Olanna sat on the floor of the train with her knees drawn

up to her chest and the warm, sweaty pressure of bodies

around her. Outside the train, people were strapped to the

coaches and some stood on the steps holding on to the

railings. She had heard muted shouts when a man fell off.

The train was a mass of loosely held metal, the ride

unsteady as if the rails were crossed by speed bumps, and

each time it jolted, Olanna was thrown against the woman

next to her, against something on the woman’s lap, a big

bowl, a calabash. The woman’s wrapper was dotted with

splotchy stains that looked like blood, but Olanna was not

sure. Her eyes burnt. She felt as if there were a mixture of

peppers and sand inside them, pricking and burning her

lids. It was agony to blink, agony to keep them closed,

agony to leave them open. She wanted to rip them out. She

wet her fingers with saliva and rubbed her eyes. She

sometimes did that to Baby when Baby got a minor scratch.

“Mummy Ola!” Baby would wail, raising the offending arm

or leg, and Olanna would stick a finger in her mouth and

run it over Baby’s injury. But the saliva only made her

burning eyes worse.

A young man in front of her screamed and placed his

hands on his head. The train swerved and Olanna bumped

against the calabash again; she liked the firm feel of the

wood. She edged her hand forwards until it was gently

caressing the carved lines that crisscrossed the calabash.

She closed her eyes, because they burnt less that way, and

kept them closed for hours, her hand against the calabash,

until somebody shouted in Igbo, “Anyi agafeela! We have

crossed the River Niger! We have reached home!”

A liquid—urine—was spreading on the floor of the train.

Olanna felt it coldly soaking into her dress. The woman

with the calabash nudged her, then motioned to some other

people close by. “Bianu, come,” she said. “Come and take a

look.”

She opened the calabash.

“Take a look,” she said again.

Olanna looked into the bowl. She saw the little girl’s

head with the ashy-grey skin and the plaited hair and

rolled-back eyes and open mouth. She stared at it for a

while before she looked away Somebody screamed.

The woman closed the calabash. “Do you know,” she

said, “it took me so long to plait this hair? She had such

thick hair.”

The train had stopped with a rusty screech. Olanna got

down and stood in the jostling crowd. A woman fainted.

Motor boys were hitting the sides of lorries and chanting,

“Owerri! Enugu! Nsukka!” She thought about the plaited

hair resting in the calabash. She visualized the mother

plaiting it, her fingers oiling it with pomade before dividing

it into sections with a wooden comb.

R

TWELVE

ichard was rereading Kainene’s note when the plane

touched down in Kano. He had only just found it while

searching in his briefcase for a magazine. He wished

he had known it was lying there the ten days he was in

London, waiting to be read.

Is love this misguided need to have you beside me most

of the time? Is love this safety I feel in our silences? Is

it this belonging, this completeness?

He was smiling as he read; Kainene had never written

anything like this to him before. He doubted that she had

ever written him anything at all, except for the generic

Love, Kainene, on his birthday cards. He read over and

over, lingering on each 7 that was so elaborately curved, it

looked like a sterling sign. Suddenly he didn’t mind that the

flight had been delayed in London and that this stop at

Kano to change planes before going on to Lagos would

delay him even longer. An absurd lightness draped itself

around him; all things were possible, all things were

manageable. He got up and helped the woman seated next

to him carry her bag down. Is love this safety I feel in our

silences?

“You’re so kind,” the woman told him in an Irish accent.

The flight was full of non-Nigerians. If Kainene were here,

she would certainly say something mocking- There go the

marauding Europeans. He shook hands with the stewardess

at the foot of the ramp and walked quickly across the

tarmac; the sun was intense, a piercing white hotness that

made him imagine his body fluids evaporating, drying out,

and he was relieved to get inside the cool building. He

stood in the customs queue and reread Kainene’s note. Is

love this misguided need to have you beside me most of the

time? He would ask her to marry him when he returned to

Port Harcourt. She would first say something like, “A white

man and no money to speak of. My parents will be

scandalized.” But she would say yes. He knew she would

say yes. It was something about her lately, a mellowing, a

softening from which this note had come. He was not sure

if she had forgiven him for the incident with Olanna—they

had never talked about it—but this note, this new openness,

meant that she was ready to move forwards. He was

smoothing the note on his palm, when a young, very dark-

skinned customs officer asked, “Anything to declare, sir?”

“No,” Richard said, and handed over his passport. “I’m

going on to Lagos.”

“Okay, well done, sir! Welcome to Nigeria,” the young

man said. He had a large, chubby body that looked sloppy

in his uniform.

“You work here?” Richard asked him.

“Yes, sir. I am in training. By December, I will be a full

customs officer.”

“Excellent,” Richard said. “And where are you from?”

“I come from the Southeastern region, a town called

Obosi.”

“Onitsha’s little neighbour.”

“You know the place, sir?”

“I work at Nsukka University and I have travelled

throughout the Eastern region. I’m writing a book about

the area. And my fiancée is from Umunnachi, not too far

from you.” He felt a flush of achievement, at how easily

fiancee had slipped out of him, a sign of future uxorious

bliss. He smiled, then realized that his smile threatened to

grow into a giggle and that he might be slightly delirious. It

was that note.

“Your fiancée, sir?” The young man looked disapproving.

“Yes. Her name is Kainene.” Richard spoke slowly,

making sure to drag out the second syllable fully.

“You speak Igbo, sir?” There was a slender respect in the

man’s eyes now.

“Nwanne di na mba,” Richard said, enigmatically, hoping

that he had not mixed things up and that the proverb

meant that one’s brother could come from a different land.

“Eh! You speak! Ina-asu Igbo!” The young man took

Richard’s hand in his moist one and shook it warmly and

started to talk about himself. His name was Nnaemeka.

“I know Umunnachi people well, they find too much

trouble,” he said. “My people warned my cousin not to

marry an Umunnachi man, but she did not hear. Every day

they beat her until she packed her things and returned to

her father’s house. But not everybody in Umunnachi is bad.

My mother’s people are from there. Have you not heard of

my mother’s mother? Nwayike Nkwelle? You should write

about her in your book. She was a wonderful herbalist, and

she had the best cure for malaria. If she had charged

people big money, I will be studying medicine overseas

now. But my family cannot send me overseas, and the

people in Lagos are giving scholarships to the children of

the people who can bribe them. It is because of Nwayike

Nkwelle that I want to learn how to be a doctor. But I am

not saying that this my customs work is bad. After all, we

have to take exam to get the job, and many people are

jealous. By the time I become a full officer, life will be

better and there will be less suffering…”

A voice, speaking English with an elegant Hausa accent,

announced that the passengers from the London flight

should proceed to board the flight for Lagos. Richard was

relieved. “It has been nice talking to you, jisie ike,” he said.

“Yes, sir. Greet Kainene.”

Nnaemeka turned to go back to his desk. Richard picked

up his briefcase. The side entrance burst open and three

men ran in holding up long rifles. They were wearing green

army uniforms, and Richard wondered why soldiers would

make such a spectacle of themselves, dashing in like that,

until he saw how red and wildly glassy their eyes were.

The first soldier waved his gun around. “Inanyamiri!

Where are the Igbo people? Who is Igbo here? Where are

the infidels?”

A woman screamed.

“You are Igbo,” the second soldier said to Nnaemeka.

“No, I come from Katsina! Katsina!”

The soldier walked over to him. “Say Allahu Akbar!”

The lounge was silent. Richard felt cold sweat weighing

on his eyelashes.

“Say Allahu Akbar!” the soldier repeated.

Nnaemeka knelt down. Richard saw fear etched so

deeply onto his face that it collapsed his cheeks and

transfigured him into a mask that looked nothing like him.

He would not say Allahu Akbar because his accent would

give him away. Richard willed him to say the words,

anyway, to try; he willed something, anything, to happen in

the stifling silence and as if in answer to his thoughts, the

rifle went off and Nnaemeka’s chest blew open, a

splattering red mass, and Richard dropped the note in his

hand.

Passengers were crouched behind the chairs. Men got on

their knees to lower their heads to the floor. Somebody was

shouting in Igbo, “My mother, oh! My mother, oh! God has

said no!” It was the bartender. One of the soldiers walked

up close and shot him and then aimed at the bottles of

liquor lined up behind and shot those. The room smelt of

whisky and Campari and gin.

There were more soldiers now, more shots, more shouts

of “Nyamiri!” and “Araba, araba!” The bartender was

writhing on the floor and the gurgle that came from his

mouth was guttural. The soldiers ran out to the tarmac and

into the aeroplane and pulled out Igbo people who had

already boarded and lined them up and shot them and left

them lying there, their bright clothes splashes of colour on

the dusty black stretch. The security guards folded their

arms across their uniforms and watched. Richard felt

himself wet his trousers. There was a painful ringing in his

ears. He almost missed his flight because, as the other

passengers walked shakily to the plane, he stood aside,

vomiting.

Susan was still in her bathrobe. She didn’t look surprised

to see him arrive unannounced. “You look exhausted,” she

said, touching his cheek. Her hair was dull and matted,

loosely held back to reveal her reddened ears.

“I’ve just got in from London. Our flight stopped first in

Kano,” he said.

“Did it?” Susan said. “And how was Martin’s wedding?”

Richard sat still on the sofa; he remembered nothing of

what had happened in London. Susan didn’t seem to notice

that he had not spoken. “Small whisky with lots of water?”

she asked, already pouring the drinks. “Kano is interesting,

isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Richard said, although what he had wanted to tell

her was how he had watched the hawkers and cars and

buses on the crowded Lagos roads with bemusement,

because life continued to hurtle on here in the normal way

that it always had, as if nothing was happening in Kano.

“It’s rather silly how the Northerners will pay foreigners

twice more rather than hire a Southerner. But there’s quite

a bit of money to be made there. Nigel’s just rung to tell me

about his friend, John, a ghastly Scot. Anyway, John’s a

charter pilot and has made a small fortune flying Igbo

people to safety these past few days. He said hundreds

were killed in Zaria alone.”

Richard felt as if his body was gearing up to do

something, to shiver, to collapse. “You know what’s

happening there, then?”

“Of course I do. I just hope it doesn’t spread to Lagos.

One really can’t predict these things.” Susan downed her

drink in a gulp. He noticed the ashen tone of her skin, the

tiny beads of sweat above her lip. “There are lots and lots

of Igbo people here—well, they are everywhere really,

aren’t they? Not that they didn’t have it coming to them,

when you think about it, with their being so clannish and

uppity and controlling the markets. Very Jewish, really. And

to think they are relatively uncivilized; one couldn’t

compare them to the Yoruba, for example, who have had

contact with Europeans on the coast for years. I remember

somebody telling me when I first came to be careful about

hiring an Igbo houseboy because, before I knew it, he

would own my house and the land it was built on. Another

small whisky?”

Richard shook his head. Susan poured herself another

drink and this time did not add any water. “You didn’t see

anything at the airport in Kano, did you?”

“No,” Richard said.

“They wouldn’t go to the airport, I suppose. It’s quite

extraordinary, isn’t it, how these people can’t control their

hatred of each other. Of course, we all hate somebody, but

it’s about control. Civilization teaches you control.”

Susan finished her drink and poured another. Her voice

echoed as he went into the bathroom and worsened the

splintering pain in his head. He turned the tap on. It

shocked him, how unchanged he looked in the mirror, how

the hair of his eyebrows still stuck out unrestrained and his

eyes were still the same stained-glass blue. He should have

been transfigured by what he had seen. His shame should

have left red warts on his face. What he had felt when he

saw Nnaemeka killed was not shock but a great relief that

Kainene was not with him because he would have been

helpless to protect her and they would have known she was

Igbo and they would have shot her.

He could not have saved Nnaemeka, but he should have

thought about him first, he should have been consumed by

the young man’s death. He stared at himself and wondered

if it really had happened, if he really had seen men die, if

the lingering smells from shattered liquor bottles and

bloodied human bodies were only in his imagination. But he

knew it had certainly happened and he questioned it only

because he willed himself to. He lowered his head to the

sink and began to cry. The water hissed as it gushed out of

the tap.

3. THE BOOK:

The World Was Silent When We Died

He writes about Independence. The Second World War

changed the world order: Empire was crumbling, and a

vocal Nigerian elite, mostly from the South, had emerged.

The North was wary; it feared domination from the more

educated South and had always wanted a country separate

from the infidel South anyway. But the British had to

preserve Nigeria as it was, their prized creation, their large

market, their thorn in France’s eye. To propitiate the

North, they fixed the pre-Independence elections in favour

of the North and wrote a new constitution which gave the

North control of the central government.

The South, too eager for independence, accepted this

constitution. With the British gone, there would be good

things for everyone: ‘white’ salaries long denied Nigerians,

promotions, top jobs. Nothing was done about the clamour

of the minority groups, and the regions were already

competing so fiercely that some wanted separate foreign

embassies.

At Independence in 1960. Nigeria was a collection of

fragments held in a fragile clasp.

O

THIRTEEN

lanna’s Dark Swoops began the day she came back

from Kano, the day her legs failed. Her legs were fine

when she climbed down from the train and she did

not need to hold on to the blood-smeared railings; they

were fine as she stood for the three-hour drive to Nsukka in

a bus so crowded she could not reach out to scratch her

itching back. But at the front door of Odenigbo’s house,

they failed. So did her bladder. There was the melting of

her legs, and there was also the wetness of hot liquid

running between her thighs. Baby discovered her. Baby had

walked to the front door to look out, asking Ugwu when

Mummy Ola would come back, and then cried out at the

crumpled form on the steps. Odenigbo carried her in,

bathed her, and held Baby back from hugging her too

tightly. After Baby fell asleep, Olanna told Odenigbo what

she had seen. She described the vaguely familiar clothes on

the headless bodies in the yard, the still-twitchy fingers on

Uncle Mbaezi’s hand, the rolled-back eyes of the child’s

head in the calabash and the odd skin tone—a flat, sallow

grey, like a poorly wiped blackboard—of all the corpses that

lay in the yard.

That night, she had the first Dark Swoop: A thick blanket

descended from above and pressed itself over her face,

firmly, while she struggled to breathe. Then, when it let go,

freeing her to take in gulp after gulp of air, she saw

burning owls at the window grinning and beckoning to her

with charred feathers. She tried to describe these Dark

Swoops to Odenigbo. She tried to tell him, also, how the

pills tasted, the ones Dr Patel brought, clammy like her

tongue in the morning.

But Odenigbo always said, “Shush, nkem. You’ll be fine.”

He spoke too softly to her. His voice sounded so silly, so

unlike him. He even sang when he bathed her in the tub

full of water scented with Baby’s bath foam. She wanted to

ask him to stop being ridiculous, but her lips were heavy.

Speaking was a labour. When her parents and Kainene

visited, she did not say much; it was Odenigbo who told

them what she had seen.

At first, her mother sat next to her father and nodded as

Odenigbo spoke in that silly-soft voice. Then her mother

collapsed; she simply began to slide down as if her bones

had liquefied until she half lay, half sat on the floor. It was

the first time Olanna saw her mother without make–up,

without gold clinging to her ears, and the first time Olanna

saw Kainene cry since they were children. “You don’t have

to talk about it, you don’t have to,” Kainene said, sobbing,

although Olanna had not even tried to talk about it.

Her father walked up and down the room. He asked

Odenigbo over and over where exactly Patel had read

medicine and how he could claim that Olanna’s inability to

walk was psychological. He talked about how frustrated

they felt to have to drive all the way from Lagos because

the federal government blockade meant Nigeria Airways

was no longer flying to the southeast. “We wanted to come

right away, right away,” he said, so often that Olanna

wondered if he really thought it would have made a

difference when they came. But it did make a difference

that they came, especially that Kainene came. It did not

mean that Kainene had forgiven her, of course, but it meant

something.

In the following weeks, Olanna lay in bed and nodded

when friends and relatives came by to say ndo—sorry—and

to shake their heads and mutter about the evils of those

Muslim Hausa people, those black-as-he-goats Northerners,

those dirty cattle rearers with jigger-infested feet. Her

Dark Swoops were worse on the days she had visitors;

sometimes three came in quick succession and left her

breathless and exhausted, too exhausted even to cry, and

with only enough energy to swallow the pills Odenigbo

slipped in her mouth. Some guests had stories to tell—the

Okafors had lost a son and his family of four in Zaria, the

Ibe daughter had not returned from Kaura-Namoda, the

Onyekachi family had lost eight people in Kano. There were

other stories, too, of how British academics at the

university in Zaria encouraged the massacres and sent

students out to incite the youths, how crowds at the Lagos

motor parks had booed and taunted, “Go, Igbo, go, so that

garri will be cheaper! Go, and stop trying to own every

house and every shop!” Olanna did not like to hear these

stories, nor did she like the furtive way the guests glanced

at her legs, as though to discover a lump that would explain

why she could not walk.

There were days when she woke up from her naps

feeling clearheaded, like today. Her bedroom door was

open, and she could hear the rise and fall of voices from the

living room. For a while Odenigbo had asked their friends

not to visit. He had stopped playing tennis, too, so he could

be at home and Ugwu would not have to take her to the

toilet. She was pleased that they were visiting again.

Sometimes she followed the conversation. She knew that

the university women’s association was organizing food

donations for the refugees, that the markets and railways

and tin mines in the North were said to be empty now that

the Igbo had fled, that Colonel Ojukwu was now seen as the

leader of the Igbo, that people were talking about secession

and a new country, which would be named after the bay,

the Bight of Biafra.

Miss Adebayo was speaking in her loud voice. “I am

saying that our students should stop making noise. Asking

David Hunt to go does not make sense. Give the man a

chance and see if peace will come.”

“David Hunt thinks we are all mental children.” It was

Okeoma. “The man should go home. Why is he coming to

tell us how to put out a fire, when it is he and his fellow

British who collected the firewood for it in the first place?”

“They may have collected the firewood, but we lit the

match,” said somebody with an unfamiliar voice, perhaps it

was Professor Achara, the new lecturer in physics, who had

come back from Ibadan after the second coup.

“Firewood or no firewood, the important thing is to find a

way to make peace before things explode,” Miss Adebayo

said.

“What peace are we looking for? Gowon himself has said

that a basis for unity does not exist, so what peace are we

looking for?” Odenigbo asked. Olanna imagined him at the

edge of his chair, pushing his glasses back as he spoke.

“Secession is the only answer. If Gowon wanted to keep this

country united, he would have done something long ago.

For goodness’ sake, not one of them has come out to

condemn the massacres, and months have passed! It is as if

all our people who were killed don’t matter!”

“Didn’t you hear what Zik said the other day? Eastern

Nigeria seethes, seethes, and will continue to seethe until

the federal government addresses the massacres,”

Professor Ezeka said, his hoarse voice quickly fading.

Olanna’s head ached. The sun shone weakly through the

curtains Ugwu had drawn when he brought her breakfast.

She needed to urinate; she urinated too often these days

and she kept forgetting to ask Dr Patel if her medication

was the reason. She stared at the bell on the bedside

cabinet, then reached out and ran a hand over the black,

dome-shaped plastic, over the red button in the middle that

gave out a shrill sound when she depressed it. Odenigbo

had insisted on installing it himself, at first, and each time

she pressed it, there was a fire spark at the wall

connection. Finally, he brought an electrician, who

chuckled as he did the rewiring. The bell no longer

sparked, but it was too loud, and whenever she needed to

go to the toilet and rang it, the echo reverberated all over

the house. She let her finger linger over the red button,

then drew away. She would not ring it. She lowered her

legs to the floor. The sound from the living room was

diminished now as if somebody had lowered the collective

volume of the voices.

Then she heard Okeoma say “Aburi.” It sounded lovely,

the name of that Ghanaian town, and she imagined a sleepy

cluster of homes on stretches of sweet-scented grasslands.

Aburi came up often in their conversations: Okeoma would

say that Gowon should have followed the agreement he and

Ojukwu signed in Aburi, or Professor Ezeka would say that

Gowon’s reneging after Aburi meant that he did not wish

the Igbo well, or Odenigbo would proclaim, “On Aburi we

stand.”

“But how can Gowon make such a turnaround?”

Okeoma’s voice was louder. “He agreed to confederation at

Aburi, and now he wants one Nigeria with a unitary

government, but a unitary government was the very reason

that he and his people killed Igbo officers.”

Olanna stood up and placed one leg forwards, then the

other. She swayed. There was a tight pressure around her

ankles. She was walking. The firmness of the floor beneath

her feet was stirring and her legs felt as if they had

vibrating vessels in them. She walked past Baby’s Raggedy

Ann lying on the floor, and stopped to look down at the

stuffed doll for a while before she went in to the toilet.

Later, Odenigbo came in and looked searchingly into her

eyes in the way he often did, as if looking for proof of

something. “You haven’t rung in a while, nkem. Don’t you

have to urinate?”

“Have they all gone?”

“Yes. Don’t you want to urinate?”

“I did already. I walked.”

Odenigbo stared at her.

“I walked,” Olanna said again. “I used the toilet.”

There was something she had never seen on Odenigbo’s

face, something precious and frightened. She sat up and he

immediately reached out to hold her, but she shrugged him

off and walked a few steps to the wardrobe and then back

to the bed. Odenigbo sat and looked at her.

She took his hand and touched it to her face, pressed it

against her breast. “Touch me.”

“I’m going to tell Patel. I want him to come in and take a

look at you.”

“Touch me.” She knew he didn’t want to, that he touched

her breasts because he would do whatever she wanted,

whatever would make her better. She caressed his neck,

buried her fingers in his dense hair, and when he slid into

her, she thought about Arize’s pregnant belly, how easily it

must have broken, skin stretched that taut. She started to

cry.

“Nkem, don’t cry.” Odenigbo had stopped; he was lying

next to her and smoothing her forehead. Later, when he

gave her more pills and some water, she took them dutifully

and then lay back and waited for the strange stillness they

brought.

Ugwu’s gentle knock woke her up; he would open the

door and come in with a tray of food that he would place

next to her packets of medicine, bottle of Lucozade, and tin

of glucose. She remembered the first week she came back,

the week that Odenigbo sprang up whenever she stirred.

She had asked for water and Odenigbo opened the

bedroom door to go to the kitchen and nearly tripped on

Ugwu, curled on a that right outside their door. “My good

man, what are you doing here?” he asked, and Ugwu

answered, “You don’t know where anything is in the

kitchen, sah.”

She closed her eyes now and pretended she was asleep.

He was standing close to her and watching her; she could

hear his breathing.

“When you are ready, mah, the food is here,” he said.

Olanna nearly laughed; he probably knew all the times she

pretended to be asleep when he brought her food. She

opened her eyes. “What did you cook?”

“Jollofrice.” He raised the cover of the dish. “I used fresh

tomatoes from the garden.”

“Has Baby eaten?”

“Yes, mah. She is playing outside with Dr Okeke’s

children.”

Olanna picked up the fork and held it.

“I will make fruit salad for you tomorrow, mah. That

pawpaw tree behind has a ripe fruit. I will give it one more

day, and then I will pluck it fast before those birds come for

it. I will use orange and milk.”

“Good.”

Ugwu still stood there, and she knew he would not leave

until she had started to eat. She raised the fork to her

mouth slowly, chewing with her eyes closed. It was as good

as whatever Ugwu cooked, she was sure, but, except for

the chalky pills, she had been unable to taste anything in so

long. Finally, she drank some water and asked-Ugwu to

take the tray away.

On her bedside table, Odenigbo had placed a long sheet

of paper with WE, UNIVERSITY STAFF, DEMAND

SECESSION AS A MEANS OF SECURITY typewritten at

the top and a patchwork of varied signatures at the bottom.

“I was waiting for you to be strong enough to sign it

before I deliver it to the statehouse in Enugu,” he had said.

After Ugwu left the room, she picked up a pen and

signed the letter and then checked through the text for any

errors. There were none. But Odenigbo didn’t need to

deliver the letter because the secession was announced

that evening. He sat on the bed with the radio placed on

the bedside cabinet. The reception had little static, as if the

radio waves understood the importance of the speech.

Ojukwu’s voice was unmistakable; it was vibrantly male,

charismatic, smooth:

Fellow countrymen and women, you the people of

Eastern Nigeria: Conscious of the supreme authority of

Almighty God over all mankind; of your duty over posterity;

aware that you can no longer be protected inyour lives and

in your property by any government based outside Eastern

Nigeria; determined to dissolve all political and other ties

between you and the former Republic of Nigeria; having

mandated me to proclaim on your behalf and in your name

that Eastern Nigeria be a sovereign independent Republic,

now therefore I do hereby solemnly proclaim that the

territory and region known as and called Eastern Nigeria,

together with her continental shelf and territorial waters,

shall henceforth be an independent sovereign state of the

name and title of The Republic Of Biafra.

“This is our beginning,” Odenigbo said. That false

softness had left his voice and he sounded normal again,

bracing and sonorous. He took his glasses off and grabbed

Baby’s little hands and began to dance around in circles

with her. Olanna laughed and then felt as if she were

following a script, as if Odenigbo’s excitement would abide

nothing but more excitement. She sat up and shivered. She

had wanted the secession to happen, but now it seemed too

big to conceive. Odenigbo and Baby were moving round

and round, Odenigbo singing off-key, a song he had made

up—“This is our beginning, oh, yes, our beginning, oh,

yes…”—while Baby laughed in blissful incomprehension.

Olanna watched them, her mind frozen in the present, on

the cashew-juice stain on the front of Baby’s dress.

The rally was held in Freedom Square, in the centre of

the campus, lecturers and students shouting and singing,

an endless sheet of heads and placards held high.

We shall not, we shall never move,

Just like a tree that’s planted by the water,

We shall not be moved.

Ojukwu is behind us, we shall never move.

God is behind us, we shall never move.

They swayed as they sang, and Olanna imagined that the

mango and gmelina trees swayed too, in agreement, in one

fluid arc. The sun felt like a flame brought too close, and

yet it was drizzling and the lukewarm raindrops mixed with

her sweat. Her arm brushed Odenigbo’s as she raised her

placard: it read WE CANNOT DIE LIKE DOGS. Baby was

sitting on Odenigbo’s shoulders, waving her stuffed doll,

and the sun was bright through the thin drizzle, and Olanna

was filled with a delicious exuberance. Ugwu was beside

her. His placard read GOD BLESS BIAFRA. They were

Biafrans. She was Biafran. Behind her, a man was talking

about the market, how the traders were dancing to Congo

music and giving away the best of their mangoes and

groundnuts. A woman said she would go there right after

the rally to see what she could get for free, and Olanna

turned to them and laughed.

A student leader spoke into the microphone and the

singing stopped. Some young men were carrying a coffin

with NIGERIA written on it in white chalk; they raised it

up, mock solemnity on their faces. Then they placed it

down and pulled their shirts off and started to dig a shallow

hole in the ground. When they lowered the coffin into the

hole, a cheer rose in the crowd and spread, ripplelike, until

it was one cheer, until Olanna felt that everybody there had

become one. Somebody shouted, “Odenigbo!” And it spread

among the students. “Odenigbo! Address us!”

Odenigbo climbed up to the podium waving his Biafran

flag: swaths of red, black, and green and, at the centre, a

luminous half of a yellow sun.

“Biafra is born! We will lead Black Africa! We will live in

security! Nobody will ever again attack us! Never again!”

Odenigbo raised his arm as he spoke, and Olanna

thought how awkwardly twisted Aunty Ifeka’s arm had

looked, as she lay on the ground, how her blood had pooled

so thick that it looked like glue, not red but close to black.

Perhaps Aunty Ifeka could see this rally now, and all the

people here, or perhaps not, if death was a silent

opaqueness. Olanna shook her head, to shake away the

thoughts, and took Baby from Ugwu’s neck and hugged her

close.

After the rally, she and Odenigbo drove to the staff club.

Students had gathered on the hockey field nearby, burning

paper effigies of Gowon around a glowing bonfire; the

smoke curled into the night air and mixed with their

laughter and chatter. Olanna watched them and realized

with a sweet surge that they all felt what she felt, what

Odenigbo felt, as though it were liquid steel instead of

blood that flowed through their veins, as though they could

stand barefoot over red-hot embers.

R

FOURTEEN

ichard did not think it would be so easy to find

Nnaemeka’s family, but when he arrived at Obosi and

stopped at the Anglican church to ask, the catechist

told him they lived just down the road, in the unpainted

house flanked by palm trees. Nnaemeka’s father was small

and albino, copper-coloured, his eyes a greyish-hazel that

brightened as soon as Richard spoke Igbo. He was so

different from the large, dark customs officer at the airport

that for a moment Richard wondered if perhaps he was in

the wrong house and this was not Nnaemeka’s father. But

the older man blessed the kola nut in a voice so similar to

Nnaemeka’s that it took Richard back to the airport lounge

that hot afternoon and to Nnaemeka’s irritating chatter

before the door burst open and the soldiers ran in.

“He who brings the kola nut brings life. You and yours

will live, and I and mine will live. Let the eagle perch and

let the dove perch and, if either decrees that the other not

perch, it will not be well for him. May God bless this kola in

Jesus’ name.”

“Amen,” Richard said. He could see other resemblances

now. The man’s gestures as he broke the kola nut apart into

five lobes were eerily like Nnaemeka’s, as was the set of his

mouth, with the lower lip jutting out. Richard waited until

they had chewed the kola nut, until Nnaemeka’s mother

appeared, dressed in black, before he said, “I saw your son

at the airport in Kano, the day it happened. We talked for a

while. He spoke about you and his family.” Richard paused

and wondered whether they would prefer to hear that their

son had remained stoic in the face of death or if they would

want to hear that he fought it, that he charged towards the

gun. “He told me that his grandmother from Umunnachi

was a respected herbal doctor known far and wide for her

cure of malaria, and that it was because of her that he first

wanted to be a doctor.”

“Yes, that is so,” Nnaemeka’s mother said.

“He spoke only good words about his family,” Richard

said. He chose his Igbo words carefully.

“Of course he would speak good words about his family.”

Nnaemeka’s father gave Richard a long look as if he did not

understand why Richard had to say what they already

knew.

Richard shifted on the bench. “Did you have a funeral?”

he asked, and then wished he had not.

“Yes,” Nnaemeka’s father said; he fixed his gaze on the

enamel bowl that held the last lobe of kola nut. “We waited

for him to return’ from the North and he did not return, so

we had a funeral. We buried an empty coffin.”

“It was not empty,” Nnaemeka’s mother said. “Did we not

put that old book he used to read for the civil service exam

inside?”

They sat in silence. Dust motes swam in the slice of

sunlight that came through the window.

“You must take the last piece of kola nut with you,”

Nnaemeka’s father said.

“Thank you.” Richard slipped the lobe into his pocket.

“Shall I send the children to the car?” Nnaemeka’s

mother asked. It was difficult to tell what she looked like,

with the black scarf that covered all of her hair and much

of her forehead.

“The car?” Richard asked.

“Yes. Did you not bring us things?”

Richard shook his head. He should have brought yams

and drinks. It was after all a condolence visit, and he knew

how things were done. He had been caught up in himself,

in thinking that his coming was enough, that he would be

the magnanimous angel who brought the last hours of their

son to them and, by doing so, would assuage their grief and

redeem himself. But to them he was just like any other

person who had come to pay condolences. His visit made

no difference to the only reality that mattered: their son

was gone.

He got up to leave, knowing that nothing had changed

for him either; he would feel the same way he had felt since

he returned from Kano. He had often wished that he would

lose his mind, or that his memory would suppress itself, but

instead everything took on a terrible transparence and he

had only to close his eyes to see the freshly dead bodies on

the floor of the airport and to recall the pitch of the

screams. His mind remained lucid. Lucid enough for him to

write calm replies to Aunt Elizabeth’s frantic letters and

tell her that he was fine and did not plan to return to

England, to ask her to please stop sending flimsy airmail

editions of newspapers with articles about the Nigerian

pogroms circled in pencil. The articles annoyed him.

“Ancient tribal hatreds,” the Herald wrote, was the reason

for the massacres. Time magazine titled its piece

MANMUST WHACK, an expression printed on a Nigerian

lorry, but the writer had taken whack literally and gone on

to explain that Nigerians were so naturally prone to

violence that they even wrote about the necessity of it on

their passenger lorries. Richard sent a terse letter off to

Time. In Nigerian Pidgin English, he wrote, whack meant

eat. At least the Observer was a little more adroit, in

writing that if Nigeria survived the massacres of the Igbo,

it would survive anything. But there was a hollowness to all

the accounts, an echo of unreality. So Richard began to

write a long article about the massacres. He sat at the

dining table in Kainene’s house and wrote on long sheets of

unlined paper. He had brought Harrison to Port Harcourt,

and while he worked he could hear Harrison talking to

Ikejide and Sebastian. “You are not knowing how to bake

German chocolate cake?” A cackle. “You are not knowing

what is rhubarb crumble?” Another scornful cackle.

Richard started by writing about the refugee problem, a

result of the massacres, about the traders who fled their

markets in the North, university lecturers who left their

campuses, civil servants who fled their jobs in the

ministries. He struggled over the closing paragraph.

It is imperative to remember that the first time the Igbo

people were massacred, albeit on a much smaller scale

than what has recently occurred, was in 1943. That

carnage was precipitated by the British colonial

government when it blamed the Igbo people for the

national strike, banned Igbo-published newspapers, and

generally encouraged anti-Igbo sentiment. The notion

of the recent killings being the product of ‘age-old’

hatred is therefore misleading. The tribes of the North

and the South have long had contact, at least as far

back as the ninth century, as some of the magnificent

beads discovered at the historic Igbo-Ukwu site attest.

No doubt these groups also fought wars and slave-

raided each other, but they did not massacre in this

manner. If this is hatred, then it is very young. It has

been caused, simply, by the informal divide-and-rule

policies of the British colonial exercise. These policies

manipulated the differences between the tribes and

ensured that unity would not exist, thereby making the

easy governance of such a large country practicable.

When he gave Kainene the article, she read it carefully,

with her eyes narrowed, and afterwards told him, “Very

fierce.”

He was not sure what very fierce meant or whether she

liked it. He desperately wanted her to approve. Her aura of

distance had returned since she came back from visiting

Olanna in Nsukka. She had put up a photograph of her

murdered relatives—Arize laughing in her wedding dress,

Uncle Mbaezi ebullient in a tight suit next to a solemn

Aunty Ifeka in a print wrapper—but she said very little

about them and nothing about Olanna. She often withdrew

into silence in the middle of a conversation, and when she

did, he let her be; sometimes he envied her the ability to be

changed by what had happened.

“What do you think of it?” he asked, and before she could

answer, he asked what he really wanted to. “Do you like it?

How do you feel about it?”

“I think it sounds exceedingly formal and stuffy,” she

said. “But what I feel about it is pride. I feel proud.”

He sent it off to the Herald. When he got a response two

weeks later, he ripped the letter up after reading it. The

international press was simply saturated with stories of

violence from Africa, and this one was particularly bland

and pedantic, the deputy editor wrote, but perhaps Richard

could do a piece on the human angle? Did they mutter any

tribal incantations while they did the killings, for example?

Did they eat body parts like they did in the Congo? Was

there a way of trying truly to understand the minds of these

people?

Richard put the article away. It frightened him that he

slept well at nights, that he was still calmed by the scent of

orange leaves and the turquoise stillness of the sea, that he

was sentient.

“I’m going on. Life is the same,” he told Kainene. “I

should be reacting; things should be different.”

“You can’t write a script in your mind and then force

yourself to follow it. You have to let yourself be, Richard,”

she said quietly.

But he couldn’t let himself be. He didn’t believe that life

was the same for all the other people who had witnessed

the massacres. Then he felt more frightened at the thought

that perhaps he had been nothing more than a voyeur. He

had not feared for his own life, so the massacres became

external, outside of him; he had watched them through the

detached lens of knowing he was safe. But that couldn’t be;

Kainene would not have been safe if she had been there.

He began to write about Nnaemeka and the astringent

scent of liquor mixing with fresh blood in that airport

lounge where the bartender lay with a blown-up face, but

he stopped because the sentences were risible. They were

too melodramatic. They sounded just like the articles in the

foreign press, as if these killings had not happened and,

even if they had, as if they had not quite happened that

way. The echo of unreality weighed each word down; he

clearly remembered what had happened at that airport, but

to write about it he would have to reimagine it, and he was

not sure if he could.

The day the secession was announced, he stood with

Kainene on the veranda and listened to Ojukwu’s voice on

the radio and afterward took her in his arms. At first he

thought they were both trembling, until he moved back to

look at her face and realized that she was perfectly still.

Only he was trembling.

“Happy independence,” he told her.

“Independence,” she said, before she added, “Happy

independence.”

He wanted to ask her to marry him. This was a new start,

a new country, their new country. It was not only because

secession was just, considering all that the Igbo had

endured, but because of the possibility Biafra held for him.

He would be Biafran in a way he could never have been

Nigerian—he was here at the beginning; he had shared in

the birth. He would belong. He said, Marry me,Kainene in

his head many times but he did not say it aloud. The next

day, he returned to Nsukka with Harrison.

Richard liked Phyllis Okafor. He liked the verve of her

bouffant wigs, the drawl of her native Mississippi, as well

as the severe eyeglass frames that belied the warmth in her

eyes. Since he had stopped going to Odenigbo’s house, he

often spent evenings with her and her husband,

Nnanyelugo. It was as if she knew he had lost a social life,

and she insistently invited him to the arts theatre, to public

lectures, to play squash. So when she asked him to come to

the ‘In Case of War’ seminar that the university women’s

association was organizing, he accepted. It was a good idea

to be prepared, of course, but there would be no war. The

Nigerians would let Biafra be; they would never fight a

people already battered by the massacres. They would be

pleased to be rid of the Igbo anyway. Richard was certain

about this. He was less certain about what he would do if

he ran into Olanna at the seminar. It had been easy to avoid

her thus far; in four years he had driven past her only a few

times, he never went to the tennis courts or the staff club,

and he no longer shopped at Eastern Shop.

He stood near Phyllis at the entrance of the lecture hall

and scanned the room. Olanna was sitting in front with

Baby on her lap. Her lushly beautiful face seemed very

familiar, as did her blue dress with the ruffled collar, as if

he had seen both very recently. He looked away and could

not help feeling relieved that Odenigbo had not come. The

hall was full. The woman talking at the podium repeated

herself over and over. “Wrap your certificates in waterproof

bags and make sure those are the first things you take if we

have to evacuate. Wrap your certificates in waterproof

bags…”

More people spoke. Then it was over. People were

mingling, laughing, and talking and exchanging more ‘in

case of war’ tips. Richard knew that Olanna was nearby,

talking to a bearded man who taught music. He turned,

casually, to slip away, and was close to the door when she

appeared beside him.

“Hello, Richard. Kedu?”

“I’m well,” he said. The skin of his face felt tight. “And

you?”

“We are fine,” Olanna said. Her lips had a slight glisten

of pink gloss. Richard did not miss her use of the plural. He

was not sure if she meant herself and the child, or herself

and Odenigbo, or perhaps we was meant to suggest that

she had made peace with what had happened between

them and what it had done to her relationship with

Kainene.

“Baby, have you greeted?” Olanna asked, looking down at

the child, whose hand was enclosed in hers.

“Good afternoon,” Baby said, in a high voice.

Richard bent and touched her cheek. There was a

calmness about her that made her seem older and wiser

than her four years. “Hello, Baby.”

“How is Kainene?” Olanna asked.

Richard evaded her eyes, not sure what his expression

should be. “She is well.”

“And your book is going well?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Is it still called The Basket of Hands?”

It pleased him that she had not forgotten. “No.” He

paused and tried not to think about what had happened to

that manuscript, about the flames that must have charred it

quickly. “It’s called In the Time of Roped Pots.”

“Interesting title,” Olanna murmured. “I hope there

won’t be war, but the seminar has been quite useful, hasn’t

it.”

“Yes.”

Phyllis came over, said hello to Olanna, and then tugged

at Richard’s arm. “They say Ojukwu is coming! Ojukwu is

coming!” There was the sound of raised voices outside the

hall.

“Ojukwu?” Richard asked.

“Yes, yes!” Phyllis was walking towards the door. “You

know he dropped into Enugu campus for a surprise visit

some days ago? It looks like it’s our turn!”

Richard followed her outside. They joined the cluster of

lecturers standing by the statue of a lion; Olanna had

disappeared.

“He’s at the library now,” somebody said.

“No, he’s in the senate building.”

“No, he wants to address the students. He’s at the admin

block.”

Some people were already walking quickly towards the

administration block, and Phyllis and Richard went along.

They were close to the umbrella trees that lined the

driveway when Richard saw the bearded man, in a severely

smart, belted army uniform, striding across the corridor. A

few reporters scrambled after him, holding out tape

recorders like offerings. Students, so many that Richard

wondered how they had congregated so quickly, began to

chant. “Power! Power!” Ojukwu came downstairs and stood

on top of some cement blocks on the grassy lawn. He raised

his hands. Everything about him sparkled, his groomed

beard, his watch, his wide shoulders.

“I came to ask you a question,” he said. His Oxford-

accented voice was surprisingly soft; it did not have the

timbre that it did over the radio and it was a little

theatrical, a little too measured. “What shall we do? Shall

we keep silent and let them force us back into Nigeria?

Shall we ignore the thousands of our brothers and sisters

killed in the North?”

“No! No!” The students were filling the wide yard,

spilling onto the lawn and the driveway. Many lecturers had

parked their cars on the road and joined the crowd.

“Power! Power!”

Ojukwu raised his hands again and the chanting stopped.

“If they declare war,” he said. “I want to tell you now that it

may become a long-drawn-out war. A long-drawn-out war.

Are you prepared? Are we prepared?”

“Yes! Yes! Ojukwu, nyeanyi egbe! Give us guns! Iwe

dianyi n’obi! There is anger in our hearts!”

The chanting was constant now—give us guns, there is

anger in our hearts, give us guns. The rhythm was heady.

Richard glanced across at Phyllis, thrusting a fist in the air

as she shouted, and he looked around for a little while at

everyone else, intense and intent in the moment, before he

too began to wave and chant. “Ojukwu, give us guns!

Ojukwu, nye anyi egbe!”

Ojukwu lit a cigarette and threw it down on the lawn. It

flared for a while, before he reached out and squashed it

underneath a gleaming black boot. “Even the grass will

fight for Biafra,” he said.

Richard told Kainene how charmed he had been by

Ojukwu even though the man showed signs of early balding

and was vaguely histrionic and wore a gaudy ring. He told

her about the seminar. Then he wondered whether to tell

her that he had run into Olanna. They were sitting on the

veranda. Kainene was peeling an orange with a knife, and

the slender peel dropped into a plate on the floor.

“I saw Olanna,” he said.

“Did you?”

“At the seminar. We said hello and she asked about you.”

“I see.” The orange slipped from her hand, or perhaps

she dropped it, because she left it there on the terrazzo

floor of the veranda.

“I’m sorry,” Richard said. “I thought I should mention

that I saw her.”

He picked up the orange and held it out to her but she

did not take it. She got up and walked to the railing.

“War is coming,” she said. “Port Harcourt is going crazy.”

She was looking in the far distance, as if she could

actually see the city in its frenzy of excessive parties and

frenetic couplings and speeding cars. Earlier that

afternoon, a well-dressed young woman had come up to

Richard at the train station and taken his hand. “Come to

my flat. I never do it with oyinbo man before, but I want try

everything now, oh!” she had said, laughing, although the

delirious desire in her eyes was serious enough. He had

shrugged his hand free and walked away, strangely sad at

the thought that she would end up with another stranger in

her bed. It was as if the people in this city with the tall,

whistling pines wanted to grab all they could before the

war robbed them of choices.

Richard got up and stood beside Kainene.

“There won’t be war,” he said.

“How did she ask about me?”

“She said, How is Kainene?”

“And you said I was well?”

“Yes.”

She said nothing else about it; he did not expect that she

would.

U

FIFTEEN

gwu climbed out of the car and went around to the

boot. He placed the bag of dried fish on top of the

larger bag of garri, hoisted both onto his head, and

followed Master up the cracked stairs and into the dim

building that was the town union office. Mr Ovoko came up

to meet them. “Take the bags into the store,” he told Ugwu,

pointing, as if Ugwu did not know from all the times he had

come in the past to bring food for the refugees. The store

was empty except for a small bag of rice in the corner;

weevils crawled all over it.

“How are things? A na-emekwa?” Master asked.

Mr Ovoko rubbed his hands together. He had the

lugubrious face of one who simply refuses to be consoled.

“Nobody is donating much these days. These people keep

coming here and asking me for food, and then they start to

ask for jobs. You know, they came back from the North with

nothing. Nothing.”

“I know they came back with nothing, my friend! Don’t

lecture me!” Master snapped.

Mr Ovoko moved back. “I am only saying that the

situation is serious. In the beginning our people rushed to

donate food, but now they have forgotten. It will be a

disaster if war comes.”

“War will not come.”

“Then why has Gowon continued to blockade us?”

Master ignored the question and turned to leave. Ugwu

followed.

“Of course people are still donating food. That dull fellow

must be taking the food to his own family,” Master said, as

he started the car.

“Yes, sah,” Ugwu said. “Even his stomach is very big.”

“That ignoramus Gowon pledged a miserable, measly

amount for more than two million refugees. Did he think it

was chickens that died and it is the surviving relatives of

those chickens who have returned home?”

“No, sah.” Ugwu looked out of the window. It filled him

with sadness, coming here to give garri and fish to people

who had fed themselves in the North, listening week after

week to Master saying the same things. He reached out

and straightened the rope that dangled from the rearview

mirror. The plastic keepsake attached to it was a painting

of half of a yellow sun on a black background.

Later, as he sat on the backyard steps reading The

Pickwick Papers, stopping often to think and to watch the

slender leaves of corn swish in the breeze, he was not

surprised to hear Master’s raised voice from the living

room. Master was always short-tempered on days like this.

“And what about our university colleagues in Ibadan and

Zaria and Lagos? Who is speaking out about this? They

kept silent while white expatriates encouraged the rioters

to kill Igbo people. You would be one of them if you didn’t

happen to be in Igboland! How much sympathy can you

have?” Master shouted.

“Don’t you dare say I have no sympathy! To say that

secession is not the only way to security does not mean I

don’t have sympathy!” It was Miss Adebayo.

“Did your cousins die? Did your uncle die? You’re going

back to your people in Lagos next week and nobody will

harass you for being Yoruba. Is it not your own people who

are killing the Igbo in Lagos? Didn’t a group of your chiefs

go to the North to thank the emirs for sparing Yoruba

people? So what are you saying? How is your opinion

relevant?”

“You insult me, Odenigbo.”

“The truth has become an insult.”

There was silence and then the squeaking sound of the

front door being opened and banged shut. Miss Adebayo

had left. Ugwu stood up when he heard Olanna’s voice.

“This is unacceptable, Odenigbo! You owe her an apology!”

It frightened him to hear her shout because she rarely

did, and because the last time he had heard her shout was

during those fractured weeks before Baby’s birth, when Mr

Richard stopped visiting and everything seemed to be on

the brink of drowning. For a moment Ugwu heard nothing

—perhaps Olanna, too, had walked out—and then he heard

Okeoma reading. Ugwu knew the poem: If the sun refuses

to rise, we will makeit rise. The first time Okeoma read it,

the same day the Renaissance newspaper was renamed the

Biafran Sun, Ugwu had listened and felt buoyed by it, by

his favourite line, Clay pots fired in zeal, they will cool our

feet as weclimb. Now, though, it made him teary. It made

him long for the days when Okeoma recited poems about

people getting buttocks rashes after defecating in imported

buckets, the days when Miss Adebayo and Master shouted

and yet did not end the evening with her storming off, the

days when he still served pepper soup. Now, he served only

kola nut.

Okeoma left a little while later, and Ugwu heard Olanna’s

voice rise again. “You must, Odenigbo. You owe her an

apology!”

“It is not a question of whether or not I owe her an

apology. It is a question of whether or not I spoke the

truth,” Master said. Olanna said something Ugwu did not

hear and then Master spoke in a calmer tone, “All right,

nkem, I will.”

Olanna came into the kitchen. “We are going out,” she

said. “Come and lock the door.”

“Yes, mah.”

After they left in Master’s car, Ugwu heard a tap on the

back door and went to see who it was.

“Chinyere,” he said, surprised. She never came over this

early, and never to the main house either.

“Me and my madam and the children are leaving

tomorrow morning for the village. I came to tell you to stay

well. Ka o di.”

Ugwu had never heard her say so much. He was not sure

what to say. They looked at each other for a while.

“Go well,” he said. He watched her walk to the hedge

that separated the two compounds and slip underneath it.

She would no longer appear at his door at night and lie on

her back and spread her legs silently, at least not for a

while. He felt a strange crushing weight in his head.

Change was hurtling towards him, bearing down on him,

and there was nothing he could do to make it slow down.

He sat down and stared at the cover of The Pickwick

Papers. There was a serene calm in the backyard, in the

gentle wave of the mango tree and the winelike scent of

ripening cashews. It belied what he saw around him. Fewer

and fewer guests visited now, and in the evenings the

campus streets were ghostly, covered by the pearly light of

silence and emptiness. Eastern Shop had closed. Chinyere’s

mistress was only one of many families on campus who

were leaving; house-boys bought huge cartons in the

market and cars drove out of compounds with their boots

sunken by heavy loads. But Olanna and Master had not

packed a single thing. They said that war would not come

and that people were simply panicking. Ugwu knew that

families had been told they could send women and children

to the hometowns, but the men could not leave, because if

the men left it would mean that they were panicking and

there was nothing to panic about. “No cause for alarm” was

what Master said often. “No cause for alarm.” Professor

Uzomaka who lived opposite Dr Okeke had been turned

back three times by the militiamen at the campus gates.

They let him pass the third day after he swore that he

would come back, that he was only taking his family to

their hometown because his wife worried so much.

“Ugwuanyi!”

Ugwu looked up and saw his aunty coming towards him

from the front yard. He stood up.

“Aunty! Welcome.”

“I was knocking on the front door.”

“Sorry. I did not hear.”

“Are you alone at home? Where is your master?”

“They went out. They took Baby with them.” Ugwu

examined her face. “Aunty, is it well?”

She smiled. “It is well, o di mma. I bring a message from

your father. They will have Anulika’s wine-carrying

ceremony next Saturday.”

“Eh! Next Saturday?”

“It is better they do it now, before war comes, if war is

going to come.”

“That is true.” Ugwu looked away, towards the lemon

tree. “So. Anulika is really getting married.”

“Did you think you would marry your own sister?”

“God forbid.”

His aunty reached out and pinched his arm. “Look at you,

a man has emerged. Eh! In a few years it will be your turn.”

Ugwu smiled. “It is you and my mother who will find a

good person when the time comes, Aunty,” he said, with a

false demureness. There was no point in telling her that

Olanna had told him they would send him to university

when he finished secondary school. He would not marry