They looked surprised at her outburst and for a moment they were still. Then they began to come closer, all together, as if some internal voice were directing them. They were bearing down on her. They could do anything; there was something desperately lawless about them and their noise-deadened brains. Olanna’s fear came with rage, a fierce and emboldening rage, and she imagined fighting them, strangling them, killing them. The corned beef was hers. Hers. She moved a few steps back. In a flash, done so quickly that she did not realize it until afterward, the one wearing a blue beret grasped her basket, took the tin of corned beef, and ran off. Others followed. The last stood there watching her, his slack mouth hanging open, before he turned to run too, but in the opposite direction, away from the others. The basket lay on the ground. Olanna stood still and cried silently because the corned beef had never been hers. Then she picked up the basket, dusted some sand from her bag of cornmeal, and walked home.
Olanna and Mrs. Muokelu had avoided each other in school for almost two weeks and so the afternoon Olanna came home and saw Mrs. Muokelu sitting outside with a metal bucket full of gray wood ash, she was surprised.
Mrs. Muokelu stood up. “I came to teach you how to make soap. Do you know how much they are selling common bar soap now?”
Olanna looked at the threadbare cotton boubou plastered with His Excellency’s glowering face and realized that this unsolicited lesson was an apology. She took the bucket of ash. She led the way to the backyard, and after Mrs. Muokelu had explained and demonstrated how to make soap she stowed the ash near the pile of cement blocks.
Later, Odenigbo shook his head when she told him about it. They were under the thatch awning of the veranda, on a wood bench placed against the wall.
“She didn’t need to teach you how to make soap. I don’t see you making soap anyway.”
“You think I can’t?”
“She should simply have apologized.”
“I think I overreacted because it was about Kainene.” Olanna shifted. “I wonder if Kainene got my letters.”
Odenigbo said nothing. He took her hand and she felt grateful that there were things she did not need to explain to him.
“How much hair does Mrs. Muokelu have on her chest?” he asked. “Do you know?”
Olanna was not sure if he began to laugh first or if she did, but suddenly they were laughing, raucously, almost falling off the bench. Other things became hilarious. Odenigbo said that the sky was completely cloudless and Olanna told him that it was perfect weather for bomber planes, and they laughed. A little boy walking past wearing a pair of shorts with large holes that showed his dry-skinned buttocks greeted them and they had hardly responded good afternoon before they burst into more laughter. The laughter had not died on their faces and their hands were still clasped on the bench when Special Julius walked into the compound. His tunic glittered with sequins.
“I’ve brought the best palm wine in Umuahia! Ask Ugwu to bring some glasses,” he said, and put a small jerry can down. There was an optimistic affluence about him and his flamboyant clothes, as if there were no problem he could not solve. After Ugwu brought the glasses, Special Julius said, “Have you heard that Harold Wilson is in Lagos? He is bringing the British army to finish us off. They say he came with two battalions.”
“Sit down, my friend, and stop talking rubbish,” Odenigbo said.
Special Julius laughed and slurped his drink noisily. “I am talking rubbish, okwa ya? Where is the radio? Lagos may not tell the world that the British prime minister has come to help them kill us, but maybe those crazy people in Kaduna will.”
Baby came out. “Uncle Julius, good afternoon.”
“Baby-Baby. How is your cough? Is it better?” He dipped a finger into his palm wine and put it in her mouth. “This should help your cough.”
Baby licked her lips, looking pleased.
“Julius!” Olanna said.
Special Julius waved airily. “Never underestimate the power of alcohol.”
“Come and sit with me, Baby,” Olanna said. Baby’s dress was frayed, worn too often. Olanna settled her on her lap and held her close. At least Baby was not coughing so much now; at least Baby was eating.
Odenigbo picked up the radio from underneath the bench. A shrill sound pierced the air, and at first Olanna thought it had come from the radio before she realized it was the air raid alarm. She sat still. Somebody from the house nearby screamed, “Enemy plane!” at the same time as Special Julius shouted, “Take cover!” and leaped across the veranda, overturning the palm wine. Neighbors were running, shouting words that Olanna could not understand because the stubborn searing sound had shrilled its way into her head. She slipped on the wine and fell on her knee. Odenigbo pulled her up before he grabbed Baby and ran. The strafing had started—pellets raining down from above—as Odenigbo held the zinc sheet open while they all crawled down into the bunker. Odenigbo climbed in last. Ugwu was clutching a spoon smeared with soup. Olanna slapped at the crickets; their faintly moist bodies felt slimy against her fingers, and even when they were no longer perched on her, she still slapped her arms and legs. The first explosion sounded distant. Others followed, closer, louder, and the earth shook. Voices around her were shouting, “Lord Jesus! Lord Jesus!” Her bladder felt painfully, solidly full, as though it would burst and release not urine but the garbled prayers she was muttering. A woman was crumpled next to her, holding a child, a little boy younger than Baby. The bunker was dim but Olanna could see crusty-white ringworm marks all over the child’s body. Another explosion shook the ground. Then the sounds stopped. The air was so still that, as they climbed out of the bunker, they could hear the caw-caw-caw of some birds far off. Burning smells filled the air.
“Our antiaircraft fire was wonderful! O di egwu!” somebody said.
“Biafra win the war!” Special Julius started the song and soon most of the people on the street had gathered to join in.
Biafra win the war.
Armored car, shelling machine,
Fighter and bomber,
Ha enweghi ike imeri Biafra!
Olanna watched as Odenigbo sang lustily, and she tried to sing too, but the words lay stale on her tongue. There was a sharp pain in her knee; she took Baby’s hand and went indoors.
She was giving Baby an evening bath when the siren alarm sounded again and she grabbed Baby naked and ran from the outhouse. Baby nearly slipped from her grasp. The swift roar of planes and the sharp ka-ka-ka of antiaircraft gunfire came from above and from below and from the sides and made her teeth chatter. She slumped in the bunker and ignored the crickets.
“Where is Odenigbo?” she asked, after a while, grabbing Ugwu’s arm. “Where is your master?”
“He is here, mah,” Ugwu said, looking around.
“Odenigbo!” Olanna called. But he did not answer. She did not remember seeing him come into the bunker. He was still up there somewhere. The explosion that followed shook the inside of her ear loose; she was sure that if she bent her head sideways, something hard-soft like cartilage would fall out. She moved to the entrance of the bunker. Behind her, she heard Ugwu say, “Mah? Mah?” A woman from down the street said, “Come back! Where are you going? Ebe ka I na-eje?” but she ignored them both and scrambled out of the bunker.
The sun’s brilliance was startling; it made her feel faint. She ran, her heart hurting her chest, shouting, “Odenigbo! Odenigbo!” until she saw him bent over somebody on the ground. She looked at his bare hairy chest and his new beard and his torn slippers, and suddenly his mortality—their mortality—struck her with a clutch at her throat, a squeeze of alarm. She held him tightly. A house down the road was on fire.
“Nkem, it’s okay,” Odenigbo said. “A bullet hit him but it looks like a flesh wound.” He pushed her away and went back to the man, whose arm he was tying up with his shirt.
In the morning, the sky was like a calm sea. Olanna told Odenigbo that he would not go to the directorate and that she would not teach; they would spend the d
ay in the bunker.
He laughed. “Don’t be silly.”
“Nobody will send their children to school,” she said.
“What will you do then?” His tone was as normal as his snoring throughout the night had been, while she lay awake, sweating, imagining the sound of bombing.
“I don’t know.”
He kissed her. “Just head for the bunker if the alarm goes off. Nothing will happen. I may be a little late if we go educating in Mbaise today.”
At first she was annoyed by his casualness and then she felt comforted by it. She believed his words, but only for as long as he was there. After he left, she felt vulnerable, exposed. She did not take a bath. She was afraid to go outside to the pit latrine. She was afraid to sit down because she might doze off and be unprepared when the siren went off. She drank cup after cup of water until her belly swelled up, yet she felt as if all the saliva had been sucked out of her mouth and she was about to choke on clumps of dry air.
“We are going to stay in the bunker today,” she told Ugwu.
“The bunker, mah?”
“Yes, the bunker. You heard me.”
“But we cannot just stay in the bunker, mah.”
“Did I speak with water in my mouth? I said we will stay in the bunker.”
Ugwu shrugged. “Yes, mah. Should I bring Baby’s food?”
She did not respond. She would slap him if he so much as smiled, because she could see the muted amusement on his face at the thought of taking a dish with Baby’s pap and crawling into a damp hole in the ground to spend the day.
“Get Baby ready,” she said, and turned the radio on.
“Yes, mah,” Ugwu said. “O nwere igwu. I found lice eggs in her hair this morning.”
“What?”
“Lice eggs. But there were only two and I did not find any others.”
“Lice? What are you saying? How can Baby have lice? I keep her clean. Baby! Baby!”
Olanna pulled Baby forward and began to loosen her braids and search through her thick hair. “It must be those dirty neighbors you play with, those dirty neighbors.” Her hands were shaking and she yanked at a tuft of hair to maintain her grip. Baby began to cry.
“Stay still!” Olanna said.
Baby wriggled free, ran to Ugwu, and stood there looking at Olanna with baffled eyes as if she no longer recognized her. From the radio, the Biafran national anthem burst out and filled the silence.
Land of the rising sun, we love and cherish,
Beloved homeland of our brave heroes;
We must defend our lives or we shall perish.
We shall protect our hearts from all our foes;
But if the price is death for all we hold dear,
Then let us die without a shred of fear…
They listened until it ended.
“Take her outside and stay in the veranda and be on the alert,” Olanna said finally, wearily, to Ugwu.
“We are not staying in the bunker again?”
“Just take her outside to the veranda.”
“Yes, mah.”
Olanna tuned the radio; it was too early for the war broadcasts, for the fire-filled monologues on Biafra’s greatness that she desperately needed to hear. On BBC, there was a news update on the war—emissaries from the pope, from the Organization of African Unity, from the Commonwealth, were coming to Nigeria to propose peace. She listened listlessly and turned it off when she heard Ugwu talking to somebody. She went outside to see who it was. Mrs. Muokelu was standing behind Baby, rebraiding the braids Olanna had loosed. The hair on her arms shone glossily, as if she had used too much palm kernel oil.
“You did not go to school as well?” Olanna asked.
“I knew that parents would keep their children at home.”
“Who wouldn’t? What kind of nonstop bombing campaign is this?”
“It is because Harold Wilson came.” Mrs. Muokelu snorted. “They want to impress him so he will bring in the British army.”
“Special Julius said that too, but it’s impossible.”
“Impossible?” Mrs. Muokelu smiled as though Olanna had no idea what she was talking about. “That Special Julius, by the way—you know he sells forged passes?”
“He is an army contractor.”
“I am not saying he does not do small-small contracts with the army, but he sells forged passes. His brother is a director and they do it together. It is because of them that all sorts of crooks are running around with special passes.” Mrs. Muokelu finished a braid and patted Baby’s hair. “That his brother is a criminal. They say he gave army exemption passes to all his male relatives, everyone in his umunna. And you need to hear what he does with those young-young girls that crawl around looking for sugar daddies. They say he takes up to five of them into his bedroom at the same time. Tufia! It is people like him who must be executed when the state of Biafra is fully established.”
Olanna jumped. “Was that a plane? Was that a plane?”
“Plane, kwa?” Mrs. Muokelu laughed. “Somebody closed their door in the next house and you say it is a plane?”
Olanna sat down on the floor and stretched out her legs. She was exhausted from fear.
“Did you hear that we shot down their bomber around Ikot-Ekpene?” Mrs. Muokelu asked.
“I didn’t hear.”
“And this was done by a common civilian with his hunting gun! You know, it is as if the Nigerians are so stupid that whoever works for them becomes stupid too. They are too stupid to fly the planes that Russia and Britain gave them, so they brought in white people, and even those white people can’t hit any target. Ha! Half their bombs don’t even explode.”
“The half that explodes is enough to kill us,” Olanna said.
Mrs. Muokelu kept speaking as though she had not heard Olanna. “I hear that our ogbunigwe is putting the fear of God into them. In Afikpo, it killed only a few hundred men, but the entire Nigerian battalion withdrew from fear. They have never seen a weapon like that. They don’t know what we still have for them.” She chuckled and shook her head and tugged at the half of a yellow sun around her neck. “Gowon sent them to bomb Awgu Market in the middle of the afternoon while women were buying and selling. He has refused to let the Red Cross bring us food, refused kpam-kpam, so that we will starve to death. But he will not succeed. If we had people pouring guns and planes into our hands as they pour into Nigeria, this thing would have ended a long time ago and everybody would be in his own house now. But we will conquer them. Is God sleeping? No!” Mrs. Muokelu laughed. The siren went off. Olanna had been expecting the harsh sound for so long that a prescient shiver went through her just before she heard it. She turned to Baby but Ugwu had already picked her up and begun to run for the bunker. Olanna could hear the sound of the planes far off, like gathering thunder, and soon the scattered sharp cracks of antiaircraft fire. Before she crawled into the bunker, she looked up and saw the gliding bomber jets, hawklike, flying startlingly low, with balls of gray smoke around them.
As they climbed out of the bunker later, somebody said, “They targeted the primary school!”
“Those heathens have bombed our school,” Mrs. Muokelu said.
“Look! Another bomber!” a young man said, laughing, and pointed at a vulture flying overhead.
They joined the crowd hurrying toward Akwakuma Primary School. Two men walked past, in the opposite direction, carrying a blackened corpse. A bomb crater, wide enough to swallow a lorry, had split the road at the school entrance in two. The roof of the classroom block was crushed into a jumble of wood and metal and dust. Olanna did not recognize her room. All the windows were blown out, but the walls still stood. Just outside, where her pupils played in the sand, a piece of shrapnel had drilled an elegant hole in the ground. And as she joined in carrying out the few salvageable chairs, it was the hole she thought about: how hot carnivorous metal could draw such pretty ringlets in the soil.
The siren did not go off early in the morning, and so when the fierce wah-wah
-wah sounds of the bombers appeared from nowhere, as Olanna dissolved corn flour to make Baby’s pap, she knew this was it. Somebody would die. Perhaps they would all die. Death was the only thing that made any sense as she hunched underground, plucked some soil, rubbed it between her fingers, and waited for the bunker to explode. The bombing was louder and closer. The ground pulsed. She felt nothing. She was floating away from inside herself. Another explosion came and the earth vibrated, and one of the naked children crawling after crickets giggled. Then the explosions stopped and the people around her began to move. If she had died, if Odenigbo and Baby and Ugwu had died, the bunker would still smell like a freshly tilled farm and the sun would still rise and the crickets would still hop around. The war would continue without them. Olanna exhaled, filled with a frothy rage. It was the very sense of being inconsequential that pushed her from extreme fear to extreme fury. She had to matter. She would no longer exist limply, waiting to die. Until Biafra won, the vandals would no longer dictate the terms of her life.
She was first to climb out of the bunker. A woman had thrown herself down near the body of a child and was rolling around in the dirt, crying. “Gowon, what have I done to you? Gowon, olee ihe m mere gi?” A few women gathered around and helped her up. “Stop crying, it is enough,” they said. “What do you want your other children to do?”
Olanna went to the backyard and began to sift through the metal bucket of ash. She coughed as she started a fire; the wood smoke stung.
Ugwu was watching her. “Mah? Do you want me to do it?”
“No.” She dissolved the ash in a basin of cold water, stirring with a force that made the water splatter on her legs. She put the drippings on the fire and ignored Ugwu. He must have sensed the anger that was rising up her body and making her lightheaded because he went back indoors silently. From the street, the crying woman’s voice rose again and again, hoarser and thinner than the last time. Gowon, what have I done to you? Gowon, olee ihe m mere gi? Olanna poured some palm oil into the cooled mixture and stirred and stirred until her arms stiffened from fatigue. There was something delicious in the sweat that trickled under her arms, in the surge of vigor that made her heart thump, in the odd-smelling mash that emerged after cooling. It lathered. She had made soap.
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