Half of a Yellow Sun (48 page)

She reached out and playfully pinched the skin of his neck, a gentle pressure between her fingers. He looked at her. He not only wanted to squeeze her naked buttocks, he also wanted to wake up next to her and know he would sleep next to her every day, wanted to talk to her and listen to her laughter. She was nothing like Chinyere, a fond convenience, but rather like a real Nnesinachi, one he had come to care for because of what she said and did, and not what he imagined she would say and do. He was welling up with a surge of recognition and wanted to say, over and over, that he loved her. He loved her. But he didn’t. They sat and praised Tanzania and dreamed about stockfish and were still talking desultorily when a Peugeot 403 sped across the street. It reversed, in loud screeches, as if the driver wanted to make as much of an impression as possible, and stopped in front of the house.
BIAFRAN ARMY
was roughly handwritten on it in red paint. A soldier climbed out, holding a gun, wearing a uniform so smart that the lines of ironing were visible down the front. Eberechi stood up as he walked up to them.

“Good afternoon,” she said.

“Are you Eberechi?”

She nodded. “Is it about my brother? Has something happened to my brother?”

“No, no.” There was a knowing leer on his face that Ugwu in stantly disliked. “Major Nwogu is calling you. He is at the bar down the road.”

“Oh!” Eberechi left her mouth open, her hand on her chest. “I am coming, I am coming.” She turned and ran indoors. Ugwu felt betrayed by her excitement. The soldier was staring at him.

“Good afternoon,” Ugwu said.

“Who are you?” the soldier asked. “Are you an idle civilian?”

“I am a teacher.”

“A teacher?
Onye nkuzi?”
He swung his gun back and forth.

“Yes,” Ugwu responded in English. “We organize classes in this neighborhood and teach the young ones the ideals of the Biafran cause.” He hoped his English sounded like Olanna’s; he hoped, too, that his affectation would frighten this soldier into not asking him any more questions.

“Which classes?” the soldier asked, in a near mumble. He looked both impressed and uncertain.

“We focus on civics and mathematics and English. The Director of Mobilization has sponsored our efforts.”

The soldier stared.

Eberechi hurried out; her face wore a thin coat of white powder, her eyebrows were darkened, her lips a red gash.

“Let’s go,” she said to the soldier. Then she bent and whispered to Ugwu, “I am coming. If they look for me, please say I went to get something from Ngozi’s house.”

“Okay, Mr. Teacher! See you!” the soldier said and Ugwu thought he saw a glimmer of triumph in his eyes, the illiterate fool. Ugwu could not bear to watch them go; he studied his nails instead. The mix of hurt and confusion and embarrassment weakened him. He could not believe she had just asked him to lie for her while she ran off to see a man she had never mentioned to him. His legs were sluggish as he walked across the road. Everything he did for the rest of the day was colored with a bitter dye,
and he thought, more than once, about walking down to the bar to see what was going on.

It was dark when she knocked on the back door.

“Do you know they have already renamed the Rising Sun Bar?” she asked, laughing. “It is now called Tanzania Bar!”

He looked at her and said nothing.

“People were playing Tanzanian music and dancing, and one businessman came and ordered chicken and beer for everybody,” she said.

His jealousy was visceral; it clutched at his throat and tried to strangle him.

“Where is Aunty Olanna?” she asked.

“She is reading with Baby,” Ugwu managed to say. He wanted to shake her until she told him the full truth of the afternoon, what she had done with the man, why the lipstick was gone from her lips.

Eberechi sighed. “Is there some water? I am thirsty. I drank beer today.”

Ugwu could not believe how casual and comfortable she was. He poured some water into a cup and she drank it slowly.

“I met the major some weeks ago; he gave me a lift when I went to Orlu, but I did not think he would even remember me. He is such a nice man.” Eberechi paused. “I told him you are my brother. He said he will make sure nobody comes here to conscript you.” She looked proud of what she had accomplished, and Ugwu felt as if she were deliberately pulling out his teeth, one after the other.

He turned away. He needed no favors from her lover. “I have to clean up,” he said stiffly.

She drank another cup of water before she said,
“Ngwanu;
let the day break,” and left.

———

Ugwu stopped going over to Eberechi’s house. He ignored her greetings, was angered by her wide-eyed look and her asking, “What is it, Ugwu? What did I do to offend you?” Eventually, she stopped asking or speaking to him. He didn’t care. Yet when he heard a car drive past, he rushed to see if it was the
BIAFRAN ARMY
Peugeot 403. He saw her leave in the mornings and thought perhaps she and the major had arranged a regular meeting place until she came by one evening to give some stockfish to Olanna. He opened the door and took the small package without a word.

“Such a nice girl,
ezigbo nwa,”
Olanna said. “She must be doing well at that relief center.”

Ugwu said nothing. Olanna’s affection offended him, as did the way Baby asked when Aunty Eberechi would come and play with her. He wanted them to feel the same sense of angry betrayal that he did. He would tell Olanna what had happened. It was true that he had never spoken of such personal things to her before but he felt that he could. He planned it carefully for Friday, the day Master went to Tanzania Bar with Special Julius after work. Olanna had taken Baby to visit Mrs. Muokelu, and while he waited for them to come back Ugwu weeded the garden and worried that his story was insubstantial. Olanna would laugh at him in that patient way she laughed at Master when he said something ridiculous. Eberechi had never spoken about her feelings for him, after all. But surely she could not pretend not to know how he felt about her. It was callous to have thrown her army-officer lover in his face like that, even if she did not feel the same way about him.

He steeled himself and went inside when he heard Olanna. They were in the living room, Baby was sitting on the floor and unwrapping something in an old newspaper.

“Welcome, mah,” Ugwu said.

Olanna turned to look at him, and the blankness in her eyes
startled him. Something was wrong. Perhaps she had discovered that he had given some of the condensed milk to Eberechi. But her eyes were too hollow, too depthless, to be just about her anger at his milk theft of weeks ago. Something was very wrong. Was Baby sick again? Ugwu glanced at Baby, who was occupied with the newspaper wrapping. His stomach cramped at the prospect of bad news.

“Mah? Did something happen?”

“Your master’s mother is dead.”

Ugwu moved closer because her words had solidified, become suspended objects hovering just above his reach. It took him a moment to understand.

“His cousin sent a message,” Olanna said. “They shot her in Abba.”

“Hei!
” Ugwu placed his hand on his head and struggled to remember what Mama had looked like the last time he saw her, standing by the kola nut tree, refusing to leave home. But he could not visualize her. Instead he recalled a blurred image of her in the kitchen in Nsukka, opening a pod of peppercorns. His eyes filled with tears. He wondered what other calamities he was yet to learn of. Perhaps the Hausa vandals had stayed back in his hometown; perhaps they had killed his own mother too.

When Master came home and went into his bedroom, Ugwu was unsure whether to go to the bedroom or wait for him to come out. He decided to wait. He lit the kerosene stove and mixed Baby’s pap. He wished that he had been less resentful of Mama’s strong-smelling soups.

Olanna walked into the kitchen.

“Why are you using the kerosene stove?” she shouted. “
I
na-ezuzu ezuzu?
Are you stupid? Haven’t I told you to save our kerosene?”

Ugwu was startled. “But mah, you said I should cook Baby’s food on the stove.”

“I did not say that! Go outside and light a fire!”

“Sorry, mah.” But she had indeed said that; only Baby ate three times a day now—the rest of them ate twice—and Olanna had asked him to cook her food on the kerosene stove because the smell of firewood smoke made Baby cough.

“Do you know how much kerosene costs? Just because you don’t pay for the things you use you think you can do with them as you like? Is firewood itself not a luxury where you come from?”

“Sorry, mah.”

Olanna sat down on a cement block in the backyard. Ugwu made a fire and finished making Baby’s dinner. He was aware of her eyes on him.

“Your master won’t talk to me,” she said.

The long pause that followed filled Ugwu with a deeply uncomfortable sense of intimacy; she had never before spoken to him about Master like this.

“Sorry, mah,” he said, and sat next to her; he wanted to place a hand on her back to comfort her but he couldn’t and so he left his hand suspended, inches from touching her, until she sighed and got up and went inside.

Master came out to go to the outhouse.

“My madam told me what happened, sah,” Ugwu said.
“Ndo
. Sorry.”

“Yes, yes,” Master said, and walked on briskly.

It was inadequate to Ugwu, their exchange; he felt as if Mama’s death required more words, more gestures, more shared time between them. But Master had barely glanced at him. And when Special Julius came by later to say
ndo
, Master was just as brisk and brief.

“Certainly one must expect casualties. Death is the price of our liberty,” he said, and abruptly got up and went back into the
bedroom, leaving Olanna to shake her head at Special Julius, her eyes tear-filled.

Ugwu thought Master would stay home from work the next day, but he took a bath earlier than he usually did. He did not drink his tea or touch the yam slices Ugwu had warmed up from the night before. He did not tuck in his shirt.

“You just can’t cross to Biafra-Two, Odenigbo,” Olanna said, as she followed him out to the car. Master pushed down the palm fronds piled on top of it. Olanna kept saying something that Ugwu could not hear while Master silently bent over the open bonnet. He climbed in and drove off with a slight wave. Olanna ran off down the road. Ugwu thought, for one absurd moment, that she was chasing after Master’s car but she came back to say that she had asked Special Julius to follow him and bring him back.

“He said he has to go and bury her. But the roads are occupied. The roads are occupied,” she said. Her eyes were focused on the compound entrance. With each sound she heard—a lorry rumbling past, a chirping bird, a child’s cry—she ran from the veranda bench to peer down the road. A group of people armed with machetes walked past, singing. Their leader had one arm.

“Teacher! Well done!” one of them called, when they saw Olanna. “We are going combing! We are going to root out the infiltrators!”

They had almost passed when Olanna jerked up and shouted, “Please look out for my husband in a blue Opel.”

One of them turned and waved with a slightly puzzled look.

Ugwu could feel the heat of the bright afternoon sun even under the thatch awning. Baby was playing barefoot in the front yard. Special Julius’s long American car drove in and Olanna leaped up.

“He’s not back?” Special Julius asked from the car.

“You didn’t see him,” Olanna said.

Special Julius looked worried. “But who told Odenigbo that he can make it past occupied roads? Who told him?”

Ugwu wanted the man to shut up. He had no right to criticize Master, and rather than sitting there in his ugly tunic he might turn around and go search properly for Master.

After Special Julius left, Olanna sat down and leaned forward and placed her head in her hands.

“Do you want some water, mah?” Ugwu asked.

She shook her head. Ugwu watched the sun fall. Darkness came swiftly, brutally; there was no gradual change from light to dark.

“What am I going to do?” Olanna asked. “What am I going to do?”

“Master will come back, mah.”

But Master did not come back. Olanna sat on the veranda until past midnight, resting her head against the wall.

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