Half of a Yellow Sun (44 page)

“We have nothing for you today. The lorry carrying our supplies from Awomama was hijacked on the road,” he said, in the measured tone of a politician addressing his supporters. Olanna watched him. He enjoyed this, the power that came with knowing whether or not a group of people would eat. “We have military escorts, but it is soldiers who are hijacking us. They set up roadblocks and take everything from the lorry; they even beat the drivers. Come on Monday, and maybe we will be open.”

A woman walked briskly up to him and thrust her baby boy into his arms. “Then take him! Feed him until you open again!” She began to walk away. The baby was thin, jaundiced, squalling.

“
Bia nwanyi!
Come back, woman!” Okoromadu was holding the baby with stiff arms, away from his body.

The other women in the crowd began to chide the mother—Are you throwing your child away?
Ujo anaghi atu gi?
Are you walking in God’s face?—but it was Mrs. Muokelu who went over and took the baby from Okoromadu and placed it back in the mother’s arms.

“Take your child,” she said. “It is not his fault that there is no food today.”

The crowd dispersed. Olanna and Mrs. Muokelu walked slowly.

“Who knows if it is true that soldiers really hijacked their lorry?” Mrs. Muokelu said. “Who knows how much they have kept for themselves to sell? We never have salt here because they keep all the salt to trade.”

Olanna was thinking of the way that Mrs. Muokelu had returned the baby to the mother. “You remind me of my sister,” she said.

“How?”

“She’s very strong. She’s not afraid.”

“She was smoking in that picture you showed me. Like a common prostitute.”

Olanna stopped and stared at Mrs. Muokelu.

“I am not saying she is a prostitute,” Mrs. Muokelu said hastily. “I am only saying that it is not good that she smokes because women who smoke are prostitutes.”

Olanna looked at her and saw a malevolence in the beard and hairy arms. She walked faster, silent, ahead of Mrs. Muokelu, and did not say goodbye before she turned in to her street. Baby was sitting outside with Ugwu.

“Mummy Ola!”

Olanna hugged her, smoothed her hair. Baby was holding her hand, looking up at her. “Did you bring egg yolk, Mummy Ola?”

“No, my baby. But I will bring some soon,” she said.

“Good afternoon, mah. You didn’t bring anything?” Ugwu asked.

“Can’t you see that my basket is empty?” Olanna snapped. “Are you blind?”

On Monday, she went alone to the relief center. Mrs. Muokelu did not come by to call her before dawn and was not there among the crowd. The gate was locked, the compound empty and she waited around for an hour until the crowd began to disperse.
On Tuesday, the gate was locked. On Wednesday, there was a new padlock on the gate. It was not until Saturday that the gate swung open and Olanna surprised herself by how easily she joined in the inward rush of the crowd, how she moved nimbly from line to line, dodged the swinging canes of the militia, pushed back when somebody pushed her. She was leaving with small bags of cornmeal and egg yolk and two pieces of stockfish when Okoromadu arrived.

He waved. “Beautiful woman.
Nwanyi oma!
” he said. He still did not know her name. He came over and slipped a tin of corned beef into her basket and then hurried away as if he had done nothing. Olanna looked down at the long red tin and nearly burst out laughing from sheer unexpected pleasure. She brought it out, examined it, ran a hand over the cold metal, and looked up to find a shell-shocked soldier watching her. His stare was blunt; it did not care to disguise itself. She put the corned beef back into her basket and covered it with a bag. She was pleased Mrs. Muokelu was not with her, so she would not have to share it. She would ask Ugwu to make a stew with it. She would save some to make sandwiches and she and Odenigbo and Baby would have an English-style tea with corned beef sandwiches.

The shell-shocked soldier followed her out of the gate. She quickened her pace on the dusty stretch that led to the main road, but five of them, all in tattered army uniforms, soon surrounded her. They babbled and gestured toward her basket, their movements disjointed, their tones raised, and Olanna made out some of the words. “Aunty!” “Sister!” “Bring am now!” “Hungry go kill all of us!”

Olanna clutched her basket tight. A hot childish urge to cry rose in her. “Go away! Come on, go away!”

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.

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 day 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.