Jaja came up to the verandah. "It's nothing, Aunty." He lifted his shoulders as he stood there, like someone proudly wearing clothes that were not his size. "What did the doctor say?"
"He wants us to get some tests done. I will take your Papa-Nnukwu to the medical center tomorrow, at least the labs there are still open."
Aunty Ifeoma took Papa-Nnukwu to the University Medical Center in the morning and came back shortly afterward, her mouth set in a full pout. The lab staff was on strike, too, so Papa-Nnukwu could not have the tests done. Aunty Ifeoma stared at the middle distance and said she would have to find a private lab in town and, in a lower voice, said the private labs jacked up their fees so much that a simple typhoid fever test cost more than the medicine for the fever. She would have to ask Dr. Nduoma if she really had to have all the tests done. She would not have paid a kobo at the medical center; at least there was still that benefit to being a lecturer. She left Papa-Nnukwu to rest and went out to buy the medicine that Doctor Nduoma had prescribed, worry lines etched in her forehead.
That evening, though, Papa-Nnukwu felt well enough to get up for dinner, and the knots on Aunty Ifeoma's face loosened a little. We had leftover ofe nsala and garri, pounded to a sticky softness by Obiora. "Eating garri at night is not right," Amaka said. But she was not scowling as she usually did when she complained; instead, she had that fresh smile that showed the gap in her teeth, the smile she seemed to always have when Papa-Nnukwu was around. "It rests heavy in your stomach when you eat it at night."
Papa-Nnukwu clucked. "What did our fathers eat at night in their time, gbo? They ate pure cassava. Garri is for you modern ones. It does not even have the flavor of pure cassava."
"But you have to eat all of yours, anyway, nna anyi." Aunty Ifeoma reached over and plucked a morsel from Papa-Nnukwu's garri; she dug a hole in it with one finger, inserted a white medicine tablet, and then molded the morsel into a smooth ball. She placed it on Papa-Nnukwu's plate. She did the same with four other tablets. "He will not take the medicine unless I do this," she said in English. "He says tablets are bitter, but you should taste the kola nuts he chews happily-they taste like bile."
My cousins laughed. "Morality, as well as the sense of taste, is relative," Obiora said.
"Eh? What are you saying about me, gbo?" Papa-Nnukwu asked.
"Nna anyi, I want to see you swallow them," Aunty Ifeoma said.
Papa-Nnukwu dutifully picked up each molded morsel, dunked it in soup, and swallowed. When the five were gone, Aunty Ifeoma asked him to drink some water so the tablets could break down and start to help his body heal. He took a gulp of water and set the glass down. "When you become old, they treat you like a child," he muttered.
Just then the TV made a scratchy sound like pouring dry sand on paper and the lights went off. A blanket of darkness covered the room. "Hei," Amaka groaned. "This is not a good time for NEPA to take light. I wanted to watch something on TV".
Obiora moved through the darkness to the two kerosene lamps that stood at the corner of the room and lit them. I smelled the kerosene fumes almost immediately; they made my eyes water and my throat itch. "Papa-Nnukwu, tell us a folk story, then, just like we do in Abba," Obiora said. "It is better than TV anyway."
"O di mma. But first, you have not told me how those people in the TV climb into it."
My cousins laughed. It was something Papa-Nnukwu said often to make them laugh. I could tell from the way they started to laugh even before he finished speaking. "Tell us the story of why the tortoise has a cracked shell!" Chima piped up.
"I would like to know why the tortoise features so much in our people's stories," Obiora said in English.
"Tell us the story of why the tortoise has a cracked shell!" Chima repeated.
Papa-Nnukwu cleared his throat. "Long ago, when animals talked and lizards were few, there was a big famine in the land of the animals. Farms dried up and the soil cracked. Hunger killed many of the animals and the ones left behind did not even have the strength to dance the mourning dance at funerals. One day all the male animals had a meeting to decide what could be done, before hunger wiped out the whole village.
"They all staggered to the meeting, bony and weak. Even Lion's roar was now like the whine of a mouse. Tortoise could hardly carry his shell. It was only Dog that looked well. His fur shone with good health and you could not see the bones under his skin because they were padded with flesh. The animals all asked Dog how he remained so well in the midst of famine. 'I have been eating feces like I always do,' Dog answered.
"The other animals used to laugh at Dog because he and his family were known to eat feces. None of the other animals could imagine themselves eating feces. Lion took control of the meeting and said, 'Since we cannot eat feces like Dog, we must think of a way to feed ourselves.'
"The animals thought long and hard until Rabbit suggested that all the animals kill their mothers and eat them. Many of the animals disagreed with this, they still remembered the sweetness of their mothers' breast milk. But finally they all agreed that it was the best alternative, since they would all die anyway if nothing was done."
"I could never eat Mommy," Chima said, giggling.
"It might not be a good idea, that tough skin," Obiora said.
"The mothers did not mind being sacrificed," Papa-Nnukwu continued. "And so each week a mother was killed and the animals shared the meat. Soon they were all looking well again. Then, a few days before it was time for Dog's mother to be killed, Dog ran out wailing the mourning song for his mother. She had died of the disease. The other animals sympathized with Dog and offered to help bury her. Since she had died of the disease, they could not eat her. Dog refused any help and said he would bury her himself. He was distraught that she would not have the honor of dying like the other mothers who were sacrificed for the village.
"Only a few days later, Tortoise was on his way to his parched farm to see if there were any dried vegetables to be harvested. He stopped to ease himself near a bush, but because the bush was wilted it did not give good cover. He was able to see across the bush and he saw Dog, looking up and singing. Tortoise wondered if perhaps Dog's grief had made him go mad. Why was Dog singing to the sky? Tortoise listened and heard what Dog was singing: 'Nne, Nne, Mother, Mother.'
"Njemanze!" my cousins chorused. 'Nne, Nne, I have come.'
"Njemanze!"
'Nne, Nne, let down the rope. I have come.'
"Njemanze!"
"Tortoise came out then and challenged Dog. Dog admitted that his mother had not really died, that she had gone to the sky where she lived with wealthy friends. It was because she fed him daily from the sky that he looked so well. 'Abomination!' Tortoise bellowed. 'So much for eating feces! Wait until the rest of the village hears what you have done.'
"Of course, Tortoise was as cunning as always. He had no intention of telling the village. He knew that Dog would offer to take him to the sky, too. When Dog did, Tortoise pretended to think about it before accepting. But saliva had already started to run down his cheeks. Dog sang the song again and a rope descended from the sky and the two animals went up.
"Dog's mother was not pleased that her son had brought a friend but she served them well anyway. Tortoise ate like an animal with no home training. He ate almost all of the fufu and onugbu soup and poured a full horn of palm wine down his throat when his mouth was full of food. After the meal they descended the rope. Tortoise told Dog he would tell no one as long as Dog took him to the sky every day until the rains came and the famine ended. Dog agreed-what else could he do? The more Tortoise ate in the sky, the more he wanted, until one day he decided that he would go to the sky by himself so that he would get to eat Dog's portion as well as his. He went to the spot by the dry bush and started singing, mimicking Dog's voice. The rope started to fall. Just then, Dog came by and saw what was happening. Furious, Dog started to sing loudly. 'Nne, Nne, Mother, Mother.'
"Njemanze!" my cousins chorused.
'Nne, Nne, it is not you
r son coming up.'
"Njemanze!"
'Nne, Nne, cut the rope. It is not your son coming up. It is the cunning Tortoise.'
"Njemanze!"
"Right away, Dog's mother cut the rope and Tortoise, already halfway to the sky, came hurtling down. Tortoise fell on a pile of stones and cracked his shell. To this day, the Tortoise has a cracked shell."
Chima chortled. "The tortoise has a cracked shell!"
"Don't you wonder how only Dog's mother got up to the sky in the first place?" Obiora asked in English.
"Or who the wealthy friends in the sky were," Amaka said.
"Probably ancestors," Obiora said. My cousins and Jaja laughed, and Papa-Nnukwu laughed, too, a gentle chuckle, as if he had understood the English, then leaned back and closed his eyes.
I watched them and wished that I had joined in chanting the Njernanze! response.
Papa-Nnukwu had woken up before everyone else. He wanted to have breakfast sitting on the verandah, to watch the morning sun. And so Aunty Ifeoma asked Obiora to spread a mat on the verandah, and we all sat and had breakfast with Papa-Nnukwu, listening to him talk about the men who tapped palm wine in the village, how they left at dawn to climb up the palm trees because the trees gave sour wine after the sun rose. I could tell that he missed the village, that he missed seeing those palm trees the men climbed, with a raffia belt encircling them and the tree trunk. Although we had bread and okpa and Bournvita for breakfast, Aunty Ifeoma made a little fufu to bury Papa-Nnukwu's tablets in, soft spherical coffins that she carefully watched Papa-Nnukwu swallow. The cloud had lifted from her face. "He will be fine," she said, in English. "Soon he will start nagging about wanting to go back to the village."
"He must stay for a while," said. "Maybe he should live here, Mom. I don't think that girl Chinyelu takes proper care of him."
"Igasikwa! He will never agree to live here."
"When will you take him to do the tests?"
"Tomorrow. Doctor Nduoma said I can have two tests done instead of all four. The private labs in town always want full payment, so I will have to go to the bank first. I don't think I will finish in time to take him today, with all those lines at the bank."
A car drove into the compound then, and even before Amaka asked, "Is that Father Amadi?" I knew it was him. I had seen the small Toyota hatchback only twice before, but I could point it out anywhere. My hands started to shake.
"He said he would stop by and see your Papa-Nnukwu," Aunty Ifeoma said.
Father Amadi wore his soutane, long-sleeved and loose fitting, with a loose black rope slanted around his waist. Even in the priestly garb, his loping, comfortable gait pulled my eyes and held them. I turned and dashed into the flat. I could see the front yard clearly from the window in the bedroom, which had a few louvers missing. I pressed my face close to the window, close to the small tear in the mosquito netting that Amaka blamed for letting in every moth that flapped around the light bulb at night.
Father Amadi was standing by the window, close enough for me to see the way his hair lay in wavy curls on his head, like the ripples in a stream. "His recovery has been so swift, Father, Chukwu aluka," Aunty Ifeoma said.
"Our God is faithful, Ifeoma," he said happily, as though Papa-Nnukwu were his own relative. Then he told her that he was on his way to Isienu, to visit a friend who had just got back from missionary work in Papua New Guinea. He turned to Jaja and Obiora and said, "I will come by this evening to pick you up. We'll play in the stadium with some of the boys from the seminary."
"Okay, Father." Jaja's voice was strong. "Where is Kambili?" he asked.
I looked down at my chest, which was heaving now. I did not know why, but I was grateful that he had said my name, that he remembered my name. "I think she is inside," Aunty Ifioma said. "Jaja, tell her she can come with us if she likes."
When he came back that evening, I pretended I was taking a siesta. I waited to hear his car drive off, with Jaja and Obiora inside, before I came out into the living room. I had not wanted to go with them, and yet when I could no longer hear the sound of his car, I wished I could run after it. Amaka was in the living room with Papa-Nnukwu, slowly oiling the few tufts of hair on his head with Vaseline. Afterward, she smoothed talcum powder on his face and chest. "Kambili," Papa-Nnukwu said, when he saw me. "Your cousin paints well. In the old days, she would have been chosen to decorate the shrines of our gods." He sounded dreamy. Some of his medications probably made him drowsy.
Amaka did not look at me; she gave his hair one last pat-a caress, really-and then sat down on the floor in front of him. I followed the swift movements of her hand as she moved the brush from palette to paper and then back again. She painted so quickly that I thought it would all be a muddle on the paper, until I looked and saw the form clearly taking shape-a lean, graceful form. I could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall, the one with the picture of the Pope leaning on his staff. The silence was delicate. Aunty Ifeoma was scraping a burnt pot in the kitchen, and the kroo-kroo-kroo of the metal spoon on the pot seemed intrusive. Amaka and Papa-Nnukwu spoke sometimes, their voices low, twining together. They understood each other, using the sparest words. Watching them, I felt a longing for something I knew I would never have. I wanted to get up and leave, but my legs did not belong to me, did not do what I wanted them to. Finally, I pushed myself up and went into the kitchen; neither Papa-Nnukwu nor Amaka noticed when I left.
Aunty Ifeoma sat on a low stool, pulling the brown skin off hot cocoyams, throwing the sticky, rounded tubers in the wooden mortar and stopping to cool her hands in a bowl of cold water. "Why do you look that way, o gini?" she asked.
"What way, Aunty?"
"There are tears in your eyes."
I felt my wet eyes. "Something must have flown into my eyes."
Aunty Ifeoma looked doubtful. "Help me with the cocoyams," she said, finally.
I pulled a low stool close to her and sat down. The skins seemed to slip off easily enough for Aunty Ifeoma, but when I pressed one end of a tuber, the rough brown skin stayed put and the heat stung my palms. "Soak your hand in water first." She demonstrated where and how to press, to have the skin come sliding off. I watched her pound the cocoyams, dipping the pestle often into the bowl of water so the cocoyam wouldn't stick too much to it. Still, the sticky white mash clung to the pestle, to the mortar, to Aunty Ifeoma's hand. She was pleased, though, because it would thicken the onugbu soup well. "See how well your Papa-Nnukwu is doing?" she asked. "He has been sitting up so long for Amaka to paint him. It's a miracle. Our Lady is faithful."
"How can Our Lady intercede on behalf of a heathen, Aunty?"
Aunty Ifeoma was silent as she ladled the thick cocoyam paste into the soup pot; then she looked up and said Papa-Nnukwu was not a heathen but a traditionalist, that sometimes what was different was just as good as what was familiar, that when Papa-Nnukwu did his itu-nzu, his declaration of innocence, in the morning, it was the same as our saying the rosary. She said a few other things, but I was not really listening, because I heard Amaka laughing in the living room with Papa-Nnukwu, and I wondered what they were laughing about, and whether they would stop laughing if I went in there.
When Aunty Ifeoma woke me up, the room was dim and the shrills of the night crickets were dying away. A rooster's crow drifted through the window above my bed. "Nne." Aunty Ifeoma patted my shoulder. "Your Papa-Nnukwu is on the verandah. Go and watch him."
I felt wide awake, although I had to pry my eyes open with my fingers. I remembered Aunty Ifeoma's words from the day before, about Papa-Nnuwku being a traditionalist and not a heathen. Still, I was not sure why she wanted me to go and watch him on the verandah.
"Nne, remember to be quiet. Just watch him." Aunty Ifeoma whispered to avoid waking Amaka. I tied my wrapper around my chest, over my pink-and-white flowered nightgown, and padded out of the room. The door that led to the verandah was half open, and the purplish tinge of early dawn trickled into the living room. I did not want to turn the lig
ht on because Papa-Nnukwu would notice, so I stood by the door, against the wall.
Papa-Nnukwu was on a low wooden stool, his legs bent into a triangle. The loose knot of his wrapper had come undone, and the wrapper had slipped off his waist to cover the stool, its faded blue edges grazing the floor. A kerosene lamp, turned to its lowest, was right next to him. The flickering light cast a topaz glow over the narrow verandah, over the stubby gray hairs on Papa-Nnukwu's chest, over the loose, soil-colored skin on his legs. He leaned down to draw a line on the floor with the nzu in his hand. He was speaking, his face down as if addressing the white chalk line, which now looked yellow. He was talking to the gods or the ancestors; I remembered Aunty Ifeoma saying that the two could be interchanged. "Chineke! I thank you for this new morning! I thank you for the sun that rises." His lower lip quivered as he spoke. Perhaps that was why his Igbo words flowed into each other, as if writing his speech would result in a single long word. He bent down to draw another line, quickly, with a fierce determination that shook the flesh on his arm, which was hanging low like a brown leather pouch. "Chineke! I have killed no one, I have taken no one's land, I have not committed adultery."
He leaned over and drew the third line. The stool squeaked. "Chineke! I have wished others well. I have helped those who have nothing with the little that my hands can spare."
A cock was crowing, a drawn-out, plaintive sound that seemed very close close by. "Chineke! Bless me. Let me find enough to fill my stomach. Bless my daughter, Ifeoma. Give her enough for her family." He shifted on the stool. His navel had once jutted out, I could tell, but now it looked like a wrinkled eggplant, drooping. "Chineke! Bless my son, Eugene. Let the sun not set on his prosperity. Lift the curse they have put on him."
Papa-Nnukwu leaned over and drew one more line. I was surprised that he prayed for Papa with the same earnestness that he prayed for himself and Aunty Ifeoma. "Chineke! Bless the children of my children. Let your eyes follow them away from evil and towards good."
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