"Did you hear what happened to Professor Okafor's son?" Aunty Ifeoma's friend finally asked. She spoke more Igbo than English, but all her English words came out with a consistent British accent, not like Papa's, which came on only when he was with white people and sometimes skipped a few words so that half a sentence sounded Nigerian and the other half British.
"Which Okafor?" Aunty Ifeoma asked. "Okafor who lives on Fulton Avenue. His son, Chidifu."
"The one who is Obiora's friend?"
"Yes, that one. He stole his father's exam papers and sold them to his father's students."
"Ekwuzina! That small boy?"
"Yes. Now that the university is closed, the students came to the house, to harass the boy for the money. Of course he had spent it. Okafor beat his son's front tooth out yesterday. Yet this is the same Okafor who will not speak out about what is going wrong in this university, who will do anything to win favor with the Big Men in Abuja. He is the one who makes the list of lecturers who are disloyal. I hear he included my name and yours."
"I heard that, too. Mana, what does it have to do with Chidifu?"
"Do you try to treat cancer sores or the cancer itself? We cannot afford to give pocket money to our children. We cannot afford to eat meat. We cannot afford bread. So your child steals and you turn to him in surprise? You must try to heal the cancer because the sores will keep coming back."
"Mba, Chiaku. You cannot justify theft."
"I do not justify it. What I am saying is that Okafor should not be surprised and should not waste his energy breaking a stick on his poor son's body. It is what happens when you sit back and do nothing about tyranny. Your child becomes what you cannot recognize."
Aunty Ifeoma sighed heavily and looked at Obiora, perhaps wondering if he, too, could turn into something she would not recognize. "I talked to Phillipa the other day," she said.
"Oh? How is she, how is oyinbo land treating her?"
"She is well."
"And life as a second-class citizen in America?"
"Chiaku. your sarcasm is unbecoming."
"But it is true. All my years in Cambridge, I was a monkey who had developed the ability to reason."
"It is not that bad now."
"That is what they tell you. Every day our doctors go there and end up washing plates for oyinbo because oyinbo does not think we study medicine right. Our lawyers go and drive taxis because oyinbo does not trust how we train them in law."
Aunty Ifeoma cut in, quickly, interrupting her friend. "I sent my CV to Phillipa."
Her friend brought the ends of her boubou together and tucked them in, between her stretched-out legs. She looked out into the dark night, her eyes narrowed, either in thought or maybe in an attempt to figure exactly how far away the crickets were. "So you, too, Ifeoma," she finally said.
"It is not about me, Chiaku." Aunty Ifeoma paused. "Who will teach Amaka and Obiora in university?"
"The educated ones leave, the ones with the potential to right the wrongs. They leave the weak behind. The tyrants continue to reign because the weak cannot resist. Do you not see that it is a cycle? Who will break that cycle?"
"That is simply unrealistic pep-rally nonsense, Aunty Chiaku," Obiora said. I saw the tension fall from the sky and envelop us all.
A child's crying upstairs interrupted the silence. "Go into my room and wait for me, Obiora," Aunty Ifeoma said. Obiora stood up and left. He looked grave, as if he had only just realized what he had done. Aunty Ifeoma apologized to her friend. But it was different after that. The insult of a child-a fourteen-year-old-hung between them, made their tongues heavy so that speech became a labor.
Her friend left soon afterward, and Aunty Ifeoma stormed inside, nearly knocking a lamp over. I heard the thud of a slap and then her raised voice. "I do not quarrel with your disagreeing with my friend. I quarrel with how you have disagreed. I do not raise disrespectful children in this house, do you hear me? You are not the only child who has skipped a class in school. I will not tolerate this rubbish from you! / na-anu?" She lowered her voice then. I heard the click of her bedroom door closing.
"I always got the stick on my palm," Amaka said, joining me on the verandah. "And Obiora got his on his buttocks. I think Mom felt giving it to me on my buttocks would somehow affect me and maybe I would end up not growing breasts or something. I preferred the stick to her slaps, though, because her hand is made of metal, ezi oktoum." Amaka laughed. "Afterward we would talk about it for hours. I hated that. Just give me the lashes and let me out. But no, she explained why you had been flogged, what she expected you to do not to get flogged again. That's what she's doing with Obiora."
I looked away. Amaka took my hand in hers. It felt warm, like the hand of someone just recovering from malaria. She did not speak, but I felt as though we were thinking the same thing-how different it was for Jaja and me.
I cleared my throat. "Obiora must really want to leave Nigeria."
"He's stupid," Amaka said. She squeezed my hand tight before letting go.
Aunty Ifeoma was cleaning out the freezer, which had started to smell because of the incessant power outages. She wiped up the puddle of wine-colored foul water that had leaked to the floor and then brought out the bags of meat and laid them in a bowl. The tiny beef pieces had turned a mottled brown. The pieces of the chicken Jaja had killed had turned a deep yellow.
"So much wasted meat," I said.
Aunty Ifeoma laughed. "Wasted, kwa? I will boil it well with spices and cook away the spoilage."
"Mom, she is talking like a Big Man's daughter," Amaka said, and I was grateful that she did not sneer at me, that she echoed her mother's laughter instead.
We were on the verandah, picking the stones out of rice. We sat on mats on the floor, beyond the shade so we could feel the mild morning sun emerging after the rain. The dirty and clean rice were in two careful mounds on the enamel trays before us, with the stones placed on the mat. Amaka would divide the rice into smaller portions to blow the chaff out afterward.
"The problem with this kind of cheap rice is that it cooks into a pudding, no matter how little water you put in. You start to wonder if it is garri or rice that you are eating," Amaka muttered, when Aunty Ifeoma left. I smiled. I had never felt the companionship I felt sitting next to her, listening to her Fela and Onyeka cassettes on the tiny tape-player-radio, which she had put batteries into. I had never felt the comfortable silence we shared as we cleaned the rice, carefully, because the grains were stunted and sometimes looked like the glassy stones. Even the air seemed still, slowly rousing itself after the rain. The clouds were just starting to clear, like cotton-wool tufts reluctantly letting go of one another.
The sound of a car driving toward the flat disrupted our peace. I knew Father Amadi had office hours that morning at the chaplaincy, yet I still hoped it was him. I imagined him walking up to the verandah, holding his soutane in one hand so he could run up the short stairs, smiling.
Amaka turned to look. "Aunty Beatrice!"
I whipped around. Mama was climbing out of a yellow unsteady-looking taxi. What was she doing here? What had happened? Why was she wearing her rubber slippers all the way from Enugu?
She walked slowly, holding on to her wrapper that seemed so loose it would slip off her waist any minute. Her blouse did not look ironed. "Mama, o gini? Did something happen?" I asked, hugging her quickly so I could stand back and examine her face. Her hand was cold.
Amaka hugged her and took her handbag. "Aunty Beatrice, nno."
Aunty Ifeoma came hurrying out to the verandah, drying her hands in front of her shorts. She hugged Mama and then led her into the living room, supporting her as one would support a cripple.
"Where is Jaja?" Mama asked.
"He is out with Obiora," Aunty Ifeoma said. "Sit down, nwunye m. Amaka, get money from my purse and go and buy a soft drink for your Aunty."
"Don't worry, I will drink water," Mama said.
"We have not had light, the water will not be cold.
"
"It does not matter. I will drink it." Mama sat carefully at the edge of a cane chair. Her eyes were glazed over as she looked around. I knew she could not see the picture with the cracked frame or the fresh African lilies in the oriental vase. "I do not know if my head is correct," she said, and pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, in the way that one checks the degree of a fever. "I got back from the hospital today. The doctor told me to rest, but I took Eugene's money and asked Kevin to take me to the park. I hired a taxi and came here."
"You were in hospital? What happened?" Aunty Ifeoma asked quietly.
Mama looked around the room. She stared at the wall clock for a while, the one with the broken second hand, before she turned to me. "You know that small table where we keep the family Bible, nne? Your father broke it on my belly." She sounded as if she were talking about someone else, as if the table were not made of sturdy wood. "My blood finished on that floor even before he took me to St. Agnes. My doctor said there was nothing he could do to save it."
Mama shook her head slowly. A thin line of tears crawled down her cheeks as though it had been a struggle for them to get out of her eyes.
"To save it?" Aunty Ifeoma whispered. "What do you mean?"
"I was six weeks gone."
"Ektvuzina! Don't say that again!" Aunty Ifeoma's eyes widened.
"It is true. Eugene did not know, I had not yet told him, but it is true." Mama slid down to the floor. She sat with her legs stretched out in front of her. It was so undignified, but I lowered myself and sat next to her, our shoulders touching. She cried for a long time. She cried until my hand, clasped in hers, felt stiff. She cried until Aunty Ifeoma finished cooking the rotting meat in a spicy stew. She cried until she fell asleep, her head against the seat of the chair. Jaja laid her on a mattress on the living room floor.
Papa called that evening, as we sat around the kerosene lamp on the verandah. Aunty Ifeoma answered the phone and came out to tell Mama who it was. "I hung up. I told him I would not let you come to the phone."
Mama flew up from her stool. "Why? Why?"
"Ntvunye m, sit down right now!" Aunty Ifeoma snapped.
But Mama did not sit down. She went into Aunty Ifeoma's room and called Papa. The phone rang shortly afterward, and I knew he had called back. She emerged from the room after about a quarter of an hour. "We are leaving tomorrow. The children and I," she said, staring straight ahead, above everyone's eye level.
"Leaving for where?" Aunty Ifeoma asked.
"Enugu. We're going back home."
"Has a nut come loose in your head, gbo? You are not going anywhere."
"Eugene is coming himself to pick us up."
"Listen to me." Aunty Ifeoma softened her voice; she must have known the firm voice would not penetrate the fixed smile on Mama's face. Mama's eyes were still glazed, but she looked like a different woman from the one who had come out of the taxi that morning. She looked possessed by a different demon. "At least stay a few days, nwunye m, don't go back so soon."
Mama shook her head. Except for the stiff stretch of her lips, she was expressionless. "Eugene has not been well. He has been having migraines and fever," she said. "He is carrying more than any man should carry. Do you know what Ade's death did to him? It is too much for one person."
"Ginidi, what are you saying?" Aunty Ifeoma swiped impatiently at an insect that flew close to her ears. "When Ifediora was alive, there were times, nwunye m, when the university did not pay salaries for months. Ifediora and I had nothing, eh, yet he never raised a hand to me."
"Do you know that Eugene pays the school fees of up to a hundred of our people? Do you know how many people are alive because of your brother?" "That is not the point and you know it."
"Where would I go if I leave Eugene's house? Tell me, where would I go?" She did not wait for Aunty Ifeoma to respond. "Do you know how many mothers pushed their daughters at him? Do you know how many asked him to impregnate them, even, and not to bother paying a bride price?"
"And so? I ask you-and so?" Aunty Ifeoma was shouting now.
Mama lowered herself to the floor. Obiora had spread a mat and there was room on it, but she sat on the bare cement, resting her head against the railings. "You have come again with your university talk, Ifeoma," she said, mildly, and then looked away to signal that the conversation was over. I had never seen Mama like that, never seen that look in her eyes, never heard her say so much in such a short time.
Long after she and Aunty Ifeoma had gone to bed, I sat on the verandah with Amaka and Obiora, playing whot-Obiora had taught me to play all the card games. "Last card!" Amaka announced, smug, placing down a card.
"I hope Aunty Beatrice sleeps well," Obiora said, picking up a card. "She should have taken a mattress. The mat is hard."
"She'll be fine," Amaka said. She looked at me and repeated, "She'll be fine."
Obiora reached out and patted my shoulder. I did not know what to do, so I asked "It's my turn?" even though I knew it was.
"Uncle Eugene is not a bad man, really," Amaka said. "People have problems, people make mistakes."
"Mh," Obiora said, pushing his glasses up.
"I mean, some people can't deal with stress," Amaka said, looking at Obiora as though she expected him to say something. He remained silent, examining the card he held up to his face. Amaka picked up an extra card. "He paid for Papa-Nnukwu's funeral, after all." She was still watching Obiora. But he made no response to her; instead, he placed his card down and said, "Check up!" He had won again.
As I lay in bed, I did not think about going back to Enugu; I thought about how many card games I had lost.
When Papa arrived in the Mercedes, Mama packed our bags herself and put them in the car. Papa hugged Mama, holding her close, and she rested her head on his chest. Papa had lost weight; usually, Mama's small hands barely went round to his back, but this time her hands rested on the small of his back. I did not notice the rashes on his face until I came close to hug him. They were like tiny pimples, each with whitish pus at the tips, and they covered the whole of his face, even his eyelids. His face looked swollen, oily, discolored. I had intended to hug him and have him kiss my forehead, but instead I stood there and stared at his face. "I have a little allergy," he said. "Nothing serious." When he took me in his arms, I closed my eyes as he kissed my forehead.
"We will see you soon," Amaka whispered before we hugged good-bye. She called me nwanne m nwanyi-my sister. She stood outside the flat, waving, until I could no longer see her through the rear windscreen.
When Papa started the rosary as we drove out of the compound, his voice was different, tired. I stared at the back of his neck, which was not covered by the pimples, and it looked different, too-smaller, with thinner folds of skin.
I turned to look at Jaja. I wanted our eyes to meet, so I could tell him how much I had wanted to spend Easter in Nsukka, how much I had wanted to attend Amaka's confirmation and Father Amadi's Pascal Mass, how I had planned to sing with my voice raised. But Jaja glued his eyes to the window, and except for muttering the prayers, he was silent until we got to Enugu. The scent of fruits filled my nose when Adamu opened our compound gates. It was as if the high walls locked in the scent of the ripening cashews and mangoes and avocados. It nauseated me.
"See, the purple hibiscuses are about to bloom," Jaja said, as we got out of the car. He was pointing, although I did not need him to. I could see the sleepy, oval-shape buds in the front yard as they swayed in the evening breeze.
The next day was Palm Sunday, the day Jaja did not go to communion, the day Papa threw his heavy missal across the room and broke the figurines.
The pieces of gods
After Palm Sunday
Everything came tumbling down after Palm Sunday. Howling winds came with an angry rain, uprooting frangipani trees in the front yard. They lay on the lawn, their pink and white flowers grazing the grass, their roots waving lumpy soil in the air. The satellite dish on top of the garage came crashing do
wn, and lounged on the driveway like a visiting alien spaceship. The door of my wardrobe dislodged completely. Sisi broke a full set of Mama's china.
Even the silence that descended on the house was sudden, as though the old silence had broken and left us with the sharp pieces. When Mama asked Sisi to wipe the floor of the living room, to make sure no dangerous pieces of figurines were left lying somewhere, she did not lower her voice to a whisper. She did not hide the tiny smile that drew lines at the edge of her mouth. She did not sneak Jaja's food to his room, wrapped in cloth so it would appear that she had simply brought his laundry in. She took him his food on a white tray, with a matching plate. There was something hanging over all of us. Sometimes I wanted it all to be a dream-the missal flung at the etagere, the shattered figurines, the brittle air. It was too new, too foreign, and I did not know what to be or how to be. I walked to the bathroom and kitchen and dining room on tiptoe. At dinner, I kept my gaze fixed on the photo of Grandfather, the one where he looked like a squat superhero in his Knights of St. Mulumba cape and hood, until it was time to pray and I closed my eyes.
Jaja did not come out of his room even though Papa asked him to. The first time Papa asked him, the day after Palm Sunday, Papa could not open his door because he had pushed his study desk in front of it. "Jaja, Jaja," Papa said, pushing the door. "You must eat with us this evening, do you hear me?" But Jaja did not come out of his room, and Papa said nothing about it while we ate; he ate very little of his food but drank a lot of water, telling Mama to ask "that girl" to bring more bottles of water. The rashes on his face seemed to have become bigger and flatter, less defined, so that they made his face look even puffier.
Yewande Coker came with her little daughter while we were at dinner. As I greeted her and shook her hand, I examined her face, her body, looking for signs of how different life was now that Ade Coker had died. But she looked the same, except for her attire-a black wrapper, black blouse, and a black scarf covering all of her hair and most of her forehead. Her daughter sat stiffly on the sofa, tugging at the red ribbon that held her braided hair up in a ponytail. When Mama asked if she would drink Fanta, she shook her head, still tugging at the ribbon. "She has finally spoken, sir," Yewande said, her eyes on her daughter. "She said 'mommy' this morning. I came to let you know that she has finally spoken."
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