Half of a Yellow Sun (10 page)

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 street-side hawkers, the gutters thick with moldy water, she said, “They have a marvelous 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 driver’s license, 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 traveling 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 important, it would please Susan. He practiced 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 humor 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 rumor 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 Winston’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 color 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 jewelry,” 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 wineglass 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 toward 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-colored 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 practiced 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.