“What are you doing, Kambili?”
I swallowed hard. “I…I…”
“You are eating ten minutes before Mass? Ten minutes before Mass?”
“Her period started and she has cramps—” Mama said.
Jaja cut her short. “I told her to eat corn flakes before she took Panadol, Papa. I made it for her.”
“Has the devil asked you all to go on errands for him?” The Igbo words burst out of Papa’s mouth. “Has the devil built a tent in my house?” He turned to Mama. “You sit there and watch her desecrate the Eucharistic fast, maka nnidi?”
He unbuckled his belt slowly. It was a heavy belt made of layers of brown leather with a sedate leather-covered buckle. It landed on Jaja first, across his shoulder. Then Mama raised her hands as it landed on her upper arm, which was covered by the puffy sequined sleeve of her church blouse. I put the bowl down just as the belt landed on my back. Sometimes I watched the Fulani nomads, white jellabas flapping against their legs in the wind, making clucking sounds as they herded their cows across the roads in Enugu with a switch, each smack of the switch swift and precise. Papa was like a Fulani nomad—although he did not have their spare, tall body—as he swung his belt at Mama, Jaja, and me, muttering that the devil would not win. We did not move more than two steps away from the leather belt that swished through the air.
Then the belt stopped, and Papa stared at the leather in his hand. His face crumpled; his eyelids sagged. “Why do you walk into sin?” he asked. “Why do you like sin?”
Mama took the belt from him and laid it on the table.
Papa crushed Jaja and me to his body. “Did the belt hurt you? Did it break your skin?” he asked, examining our faces. I felt a throbbing on my back, but I said no, that I was not hurt. It was the way Papa shook his head when he talked about liking sin, as if something weighed him down, something he could not throw off.
We went to the later Mass. But first we changed our clothes, even Papa, and washed our faces.
WE LEFT ABBA right after New Year’s. The wives of the umunna took the leftover food, even the cooked rice and beans that Mama said were spoiled, and they knelt in the backyard dirt to thank Papa and Mama. The gate man waved with both hands over his head as we drove off. His name was Haruna, he had told Jaja and me a few days before, and in his Hausa-accented English that reversed P and F, he told us that our pather was the best Big Man he had ever seen, the best emfloyer he had ever had. Did we know our pather faid his children’s school pees? Did we know our pather had helfed his wipe get the messenger job at the Local Government oppice? We were lucky to have such a pather.
Papa started the rosary as we drove onto the expressway. We had driven for less than half an hour when we came to a checkpoint; there was a traffic jam, and policemen, many more than was usual, were waving their guns and diverting traffic. We didn’t see the cars involved in the accident until we were in the thick of the jam. One car had stopped at the checkpoint, and another had rammed into it from behind. The second car was crushed to half of its size. A bloodied corpse, a man in blue jeans, lay on the roadside.
“May his soul rest in peace,” Papa said, crossing himself.
“Look away,” Mama said, turning back to us.
But Jaja and I were already looking at the corpse. Papa was talking about the policemen, about how they set up the roadblocks in wooded parts, even if it was dangerous for motorists, just so that they could use the bushes to hide the money they extorted from travelers. But I was not really listening to Papa; I was thinking of the man in the blue jeans, the dead man. I was wondering where he was going and what he had planned to do there.
PAPA CALLED AUNTY IFEOMA two days later. Perhaps he would not have called her if we had not gone to confession that day. And perhaps then we would never have gone to Nsukka and everything would have remained the same.
It was the feast of the Epiphany, a holy day of obligation, so Papa did not go to work. We went to morning Mass, and although we did not usually visit Father Benedict on holy days of obligation, we went to his house afterward. Papa wanted Father Benedict to hear our confession. We had not gone in Abba because Papa did not like to make his confession in Igbo, and besides, Papa said that the parish priest in Abba was not spiritual enough. That was the problem with our people, Papa told us, our priorities were wrong; we cared too much about huge church buildings and mighty statues. You would never see white people doing that.
In Father Benedict’s house, Mama and Jaja and I sat in the living room, reading the newspapers and magazines that were spread on the low, coffin-like table as if they were for sale while Papa talked with Father Benedict in the adjoining study room. Papa emerged and asked us to prepare for confession; he would go first. Even though Papa shut the door firmly, I heard his voice, words flowing into each other in an endless rumble like a revving car engine. Mama went next, and the door remained open a crack, but I could not hear her. Jaja took the shortest time. When he came out, still crossing himself as if he had been in too much of a hurry to leave the room, I asked him with my eyes if he had remembered the lie to Papa-Nnukwu, and he nodded. I went into the room, barely big enough to hold a desk and two chairs, and pushed the door to make sure it shut properly.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” I said, sitting on the very edge of the chair. I longed for a confessional, for the safety of the wood cubicle and the green curtain that separated priest and penitent. I wished I could kneel, and then I wished I could shield my face with a file from Father Benedict’s desk. Face-to-face confessions made me think of Judgment Day come early, made me feel unprepared.
“Yes, Kambili,” Father Benedict said. He sat upright on his chair, fingering the purple stole across his shoulders.
“It has been three weeks since my last confession,” I said. I was staring fixedly at the wall, right below the framed photo of the Pope, which had a signature scrawled underneath. “Here are my sins. I lied two times. I broke the Eucharistic fast once. I lost concentration during the rosary three times. For all I have said and for all I have forgotten to say, I beg pardon from your hands and the hands of God.”
Father Benedict shifted on his chair. “Go on, then. You know it’s a sin against the Holy Spirit to willfully keep something back at confession.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Go on, then.”
I looked away from the wall to glance at him. His eyes were the same green shade of a snake I had seen once, slithering across the yard near the hibiscus bushes. The gardener had said it was a harmless garden snake.
“Kambili, you must confess all your sins.”
“Yes, Father. I have.”
“It is wrong to hide from the Lord. I will give you a moment to think.”
I nodded and stared back at the wall. Was there something I had done that Father Benedict knew about that I did not know? Had Papa told him something?
“I spent more than fifteen minutes at my grandfather’s house,” I said finally. “My grandfather is a pagan.”
“Did you eat any of the native foods sacrificed to idols?”
“No, Father.”
“Did you participate in any pagan rituals?”
“No, Father.” I paused. “But we looked at mmuo. Masquerades.”
“Did you enjoy that?”
I looked up at the photo on the wall and wondered if the Pope himself had actually signed it. “Yes, Father.”
“You understand that it is wrong to take joy in pagan rituals, because it breaks the first commandment. Pagan rituals are misinformed superstition, and they are the gateway to Hell. Do you understand that, then?”
“Yes, Father.”
“For your penance say the Our Father ten times, Hail Mary six times, and the Apostles’ Creed once. And you must make a conscious effort to convert everyone who enjoys the ways of heathens.”
“Yes, Father.”
“All right, then, make the Act of Contrition.”
While I recited the Act of Contrition, Father Be
nedict murmured blessings and made the sign of the cross.
Papa and Mama were still sitting on the sofa, heads bent, when I came out. I sat next to Jaja, bent my head, and made my penance.
As we drove home, Papa talked loudly, above the “Ave Maria.” “I am spotless now, we are all spotless. If God calls us right now, we are going straight to Heaven. Straight to Heaven. We will not require the cleansing of Purgatory.” He was smiling, his eyes bright, his hand gently drumming the steering wheel. And he was still smiling when he called Aunty Ifeoma soon after we got back home, before he had his tea.
“I discussed it with Father Benedict, and he says the children can go on pilgrimage to Aokpe but you must make it clear that what is happening there has not been verified by the church.” A pause. “My driver, Kevin, will take them.” A pause. “Tomorrow is too soon. The day after.” A long pause. “Oh, all right. God bless you and the children. Bye.”
Papa put the phone down and turned to us. “You will leave tomorrow, so go up and pack your things. Pack for five days.”
“Yes, Papa,” Jaja and I said together.
“Maybe, anam asi,” Mama said, “they should not visit Ifeoma’s house empty-handed.”
Papa stared at her as if surprised that she had spoken. “We will put some food in the car, of course, yams and rice,” he said.
“Ifeoma mentioned that gas cylinders were scarce in Nsukka.”
“Gas cylinders?”
“Yes, cooking gas. She said she uses her old kerosene stove now. You remember the story of adulterated kerosene that was blowing up stoves and killing people? I thought maybe you might send one or two gas cylinders to her from the factory.”
“Is that what you and Ifeoma planned?”
“Kpa, I am just making a suggestion. It is up to you to decide.”
Papa examined Mama’s face for a while. “Okay,” he said. He turned back to Jaja and me. “Go up and pack your things. You can take twenty minutes from your study time.”
We climbed the curving stairs slowly. I wondered if Jaja’s stomach rumbled at the lower part like mine did. It was the first time in our lives that we would be sleeping outside home without Papa.
“Do you want to go to Nsukka?” I asked when we got to the landing.
“Yes,” he said, and his eyes said that he knew I did, too. And I could not find the words in our eye language to tell him how my throat tightened at the thought of five days without Papa’s voice, without his footsteps on the stairs.
THE NEXT MORNING, Kevin brought two full gas cylinders from Papa’s factory and put them into the boot of the Volvo alongside bags of rice and beans, a few yams, bunches of green plantains, and pineapples. Jaja and I stood by the hibiscus bushes, waiting. The gardener was clipping away at the bougainvillea, taming the flowers that defiantly stuck out of the leveled top. He had raked underneath the frangipani trees, and dead leaves and pink flowers lay in piles, ready for the wheelbarrow.
“Here are your schedules for the week you will stay in Nsukka,” Papa said. The sheet of paper he thrust into my hand was similar to the schedule pasted above my study desk upstairs, except he had penciled in two hours of “time with your cousins” each day.
“The only day you are excused from that schedule is when you go to Aokpe with your aunt,” Papa said. When he hugged Jaja and then me, his hands were shaking. “I have never been without you two for more than a day.”
I did not know what to say, but Jaja nodded and said, “We will see you in a week.”
“Kevin, drive carefully. Do you understand?” Papa asked, as we got in the car.
“Yes, sir.”
“Get petrol on your way back, at Ninth Mile, and don’t forget to bring me the receipt.”
“Yes, sir.”
Papa asked us to get out of the car. He hugged us both again, smoothed the back of our necks, and asked us not to forget to say the full fifteen decades of the rosary during the drive. Mama hugged us one more time before we got back in the car.
“Papa is still waving,” Jaja said, as Kevin nosed the car up the driveway. He was looking in the mirror above his head.
“He’s crying,” I said.
“The gardener is waving, too,” Jaja said, and I wondered if he had really not heard me. I pulled my rosary from my pocket, kissed the crucifix, and started the prayer.
I looked out the window as we drove, counting the blackened hulks of cars on the roadside, some left for so long they were covered with reddish rust. I wondered about the people who had been inside, how they had felt just before the accident, before the smashing glass and crunched metal and leaping flames. I did not concentrate on any of the glorious Mysteries, and knew that Jaja did not, either, because he kept forgetting when it was his turn to start a decade of the rosary. About forty minutes into the drive, I saw a sign on the roadside that read UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA, and I asked Kevin if we were almost there.
“No,” he said. “A little while longer.”
Near the town of Opi—the dust-covered church and school signs read OPI—we came to a police checkpoint. Old tires and nail-studded logs were strewn across most of the road, leaving only a narrow space. A policeman flagged us down as we approached. Kevin groaned. Then as he slowed, he reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a ten-naira note and flung it out of the window, toward the policeman. The policeman gave a mock salute, smiled, and waved us through. Kevin would not have done that if Papa had been in the car. When policemen or soldiers stopped Papa, he spent so long showing them all his car papers, letting them search his car, anything but bribe them to let him pass. We cannot be part of what we fight, he often told us.
“We’re entering the town of Nsukka,” Kevin said, a few minutes later. We were driving past the market. The crowded roadside stores with their sparse shelves of goods threatened to spill over onto a thin strip of road already full of doubleparked cars, hawkers with trays balanced on their heads, motorcyclists, boys pushing wheelbarrows full of yams, women holding baskets, beggars looking up from their mats and waving. Kevin drove slowly now; potholes suddenly materialized in the middle of the road, and he followed the swerving motion of the car ahead of us. When we came to a point just past the market where the road had narrowed, eaten away by erosion at the sides, he stopped for a while to let other cars go by.
“We’re at the university,” he said, finally.
A wide arch towered over us, bearing the words University of Nigeria Nsukka in black, cut-out metal. The gates underneath the arch were flung wide open and manned by security men in dark brown uniforms and matching berets. Kevin stopped and rolled down the windows.
“Good afternoon. Please, how can we get to Marguerite Cartwright Avenue?” he asked.
The security man closest to us, his facial skin creased like a rumpled dress, asked, “How are you?” before he told Kevin that Marguerite Cartwright Avenue was very close; we had only to keep straight and then make a right at the first junction and an almost immediate left. Kevin thanked him and we drove off. A lawn the color of spinach splashed across the side of the road. I turned to stare at the statue in the middle of the lawn, a black lion standing on its hind legs, tail curved upward, chest puffed out. I didn’t realize Jaja was looking, too, until he read aloud the words inscribed on the pedestal: “‘To restore the dignity of man.’” Then, as though I could not tell, he added, “It’s the university’s motto.”
Marguerite Cartwright Avenue was bordered by tall gmelina trees. I imagined the trees bending during a rainy-season thunderstorm, reaching across to touch each other and turning the avenue into a dark tunnel. The duplexes with gravelcovered driveways and BEWARE OF DOGS signs in the front yard soon gave way to bungalows with driveways the length of two cars and then blocks of flats with wide stretches of space in front of them instead of driveways. Kevin drove slowly, muttering Aunty Ifeoma’s house number as if that would make us find it sooner. It was in the fourth block we came to, a tall, bland building with peeling blue paint and with televisio
n aerials sticking out from the verandahs. It had three flats on each side, and Aunty Ifeoma’s was on the ground floor on the left. In front was a circular burst of bright colors—a garden—fenced around with barbed wire. Roses and hibiscuses and lilies and ixora and croton grew side by side like a handpainted wreath. Aunty Ifeoma emerged from the flat in a pair of shorts, rubbing her hands over the front of her T-shirt. The skin at her knees was very dark.
“Jaja! Kambili!” She barely waited for us to climb out of the car before hugging us, squeezing us close together so we both fit in the stretch of her arms.
“Good afternoon, Mah,” Kevin greeted before he went around to open the boot.
“Ah! Ah!” Aunty Ifeoma said. “Does Eugene think we are starving? Even a bag of rice?”
Kevin smiled. “Oga said it is to greet you, Mah.”
“Hei!” Aunty yelped, looking into the boot. “Gas cylinders? Oh, nwunye m should not have bothered herself so much.” Then Aunty Ifeoma did a little dance, moving her arms in rowing motions, throwing each leg in front of her and stamping down hard.
Kevin stood by and rubbed his hands together in pleasure, as if he had orchestrated the big surprise. He hoisted a gas cylinder out of the boot, and Jaja helped him carry it into the flat.
“Your cousins will be back soon, they went out to say happy birthday to Father Amadi, he’s our friend and he works at our chaplaincy. I have been cooking, I even killed a chicken for you two!” Aunty Ifeoma laughed and pulled me to her. She smelled of nutmeg.
“Where do we place these, Mah?” Kevin asked.
“Just leave the things on the verandah. Amaka and Obiora will put them away later.”
Aunty Ifeoma still held on to me as we entered the living room. I noticed the ceiling first, how low it was. I felt I could reach out and touch it; it was so unlike home, where the high ceilings gave our rooms an airy stillness. The pungent fumes of kerosene smoke mixed with the aroma of curry and nutmeg from the kitchen.
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