We had just driven past the buildings when Aunty Ifeoma pointed to the right and said, "There is Odim hill. The view from the top is breathtaking, when you stand there, you see just how God laid out the hills and valleys, ezi oktvu." When she made a U-turn and went back the way we had come, I let my mind drift, imagining God laying out the hills of Nsukka with his wide white hands, crescent-moon shadows underneath his nails just like Father Benedict's. We drove past the sturdy trees around the faculty of engineering, past the vast mango-filled fields around the female hostels. Aunty Ifeoma turned the opposite way when she got close to her street. She wanted to show us the other side of Marguerite Cartwright Avenue, where the seasoned professors lived, with the duplexes hemmed in by gravely driveways.
"I hear that when they first built these houses, some of the white professors-all the professors were white back then-wanted chimneys and fireplaces," Aunty Ifeoma said, with the same kind of indulgent laugh that Mama let out when she talked about people who went to witch doctors. She then pointed to the vice chancellor's lodge, to the high walls surrounding it, and said it used to have well-tended hedges of cherry and ixora until rioting students jumped over the hedges and burned a car in the compound.
"What was the riot about?" Jaja asked.
"Light and water," Obiora said, and I looked at him.
"There was no light and no water for a month," Aunty Ifeoma added. "The students said they could not study and asked if the exams could be rescheduled, but they were refused."
"The walls are hideous," Amaka said, in English, and I wondered what she would think of our compound walls back home, if she ever visited us. The V.C.'s walls were not very high; I could see the big duplex that nestled behind a canopy of trees with greenish-yellow leaves. "Putting up walls is all superficial fix, anyway," she continued. "If I were the VC, the students would not riot. They would have water and light."
"If some Big Man in Abuja has stolen the money, is the V.C. supposed to vomit money for Nsukka?" Obiora asked.
I turned to watch him, imagining myself at fourteen, imagining myself now.
"I wouldn't mind somebody vomiting some money for me, right now" Aunty Ifeoma said, laughing in that proud-coach-watching-the-team way. "We'll go into town to see if there is any decently priced ube in the market. I know Father Ama likes ube, and we have some corn at home to go with it."
"Will the fuel make it, Mom?" Obiora asked.
"Amarom, we can try." Aunty Ifeoma rolled the car down the road that led to the university entrance gates. Jaja turned to the statue of the preening lion as we drove past it, his lips moving soundlessly. To restore the dignity of man. Obiora was reading the plaque, too. He let out a short cackle and asked, "But when did man lose his dignity?"
Outside the gate, Aunty Ifeoma started the ignition again. When the car shuddered without starting, she muttered, "Blessed Mother, please not now," and tried again. The car only whined. Somebody horned behind us, and I turned to look at the woman in the yellow Peugeot 504. She came out and walked toward us; she wore a pair of culottes that flapped around her calves, which were lumpy like sweet potatoes. "My own car stopped near Eastern Shop yesterday." The woman stood at Aunty Ifeoma's window, her hair in a riotous curly perm swaying in the wind. "My son sucked one liter from my husband's car this morning, just so I can get to the market. O di egwu. I hope fuel comes soon."
"Let us wait and see, my sister. How is the family?" Aunty Ifeoma asked.
"We are well. Go well."
"Let's push it," Obiora suggested, already opening the car door.
"Wait." Aunty Ifeoma turned the key again, and the car shook and then started. She drove off, with a screech, as if she did not want to slow down and give the car another chance to stop.
We stopped beside an ube hawker by the roadside, her bluish fruits displayed in pyramids on an enamel tray. Aunty Ifeoma gave Amaka some crumpled notes from her purse. Amaka bargained with the trader for a while, and then she smiled and pointed at the pyramids she wanted. I wondered what it felt like to do that.
Back in the flat, I joined Aunty Ifeoma and Amaka in the kitchen while Jaja went off with Obiora to play football with the children from the flats upstairs. Aunty Ifeoma got one of the huge yams we had brought from home. Amaka spread newspaper sheets on the floor to slice the tuber; it was easier than picking it up and placing it on the counter. When Amaka put the yam slices in a plastic bowl, I offered to help peel them and she silently handed me a knife.
"You will like Father Amadi, Kambili," Aunty Ifeoma said. "He's new at our chaplaincy, but he is so popular with everybody on campus already. He has invitations to eat in everybody's house."
"I think he connects with our family the most," Amaka said.
Aunty Ifeoma laughed. "Amaka is so protective of him."
"You are wasting yam, Kambili," Amaka snapped. "Ah! Ah! Is that how you peel yam in your house?"
I jumped and dropped the knife. It fell an inch away from my foot. "Sorry," I said, and I was not sure ii it was for dropping the knife or for letting too much creamy white yam go with the brown peel.
Aunty Ifeoma was watching us. "Amaka, ngwa, show Kambili how to peel it."
Amaka looked at her mother with her lips turned down and her eyebrows raised, as if she could not believe that anybody had to be told how to peel yam slices properly. She picked up the knife and started to peel a slice, letting only the brown skin go. I watched the measured movement of her hand and the increasing length of the peel, wishing I could apologize, wishing I knew how to do it right. She did it so well that the peel did not break, a continuous twirling soil-studded ribbon.
"Maybe I should enter it in your schedule, how to peel a yam," Amaka muttered.
"Amaka!" Aunty Ifeoma shouted. "Kambili, get me some water from the tank outside."
I picked up the bucket, grateful for Aunty Ifeoma, for the chance to leave the kitchen and Amaka's scowling face. Amaka did not talk much the rest of the afternoon, until Father Amadi arrived, in a whiff of an earthy cologne. Chima jumped on him and held on. He shook Obiora's hand. Aunty Ifeoma and Amaka gave him brief hugs, and then Aunty Ifeoma introduced Jaja and me. "Good evening," I said and then added, "Father." It felt almost sacrilegious addressing this boyish man-in an open neck T-shirt and jeans faded so much I could not tell if they had been black or dark blue-as Father.
"Kambili and Jaja," he said, as if he had met us before. "How are you enjoying your first visit to Nsukka?"
"They hate it," Amaka said, and I immediately wished she hadn't.
"Nsukka has its charms," Father Amadi said, smiling. He had a singer's voice, a voice that had the same effect on my ears that Mama working Pears baby oil into my hair had on my scalp. I did not fully comprehend his English-laced Igbo sentences at dinner because my ears followed the sound and not the sense of his speech. He nodded as he chewed his yam and greens, and he did not speak until he had swallowed a mouthful and sipped some water. He was at home in Aunty Ifeoma's house; he knew which chair had a protruding nail and could pull a thread off your clothes. "I thought I knocked that nail in," he said, then talked about football with Obiora, the journalist the government had just arrested with Amaka, the Catholic women's organization with Aunty Ifeoma, and the neighborhood video game with Chima. My cousins chattered as much as before, but they waited until Father Amadi said something first and then pounced on it in response. I thought of the fattened chickens Papa sometimes bought for our offertory procession, the ones we took to the altar in addition to communion wine and yams and sometimes goats, the ones we let stroll around the backyard until Sunday morning. The chickens rushed at the pieces of bread Sisi threw to them, disorderly and enthusiastic. My cousins rushed at Father Amadi's words in the same way. Father Amadi included Jaja and me in the conversation, asking us questions. I knew the questions were meant for both of us because he used the plural "you," unu, rather than the singular, gi, yet I remained silent, grateful for Jaja's answers. He asked where we went to school, what subjects we liked, if
we played any sports. When he asked what church we went to in Enugu, Jaja told him. "St. Agnes? I visited there once to say Mass," Father Amadi said. I remembered then, the young visiting priest who had broken into song in the middle of his sermon, whom Papa had said we had to pray for because people like him were trouble for the church. There had been many other visiting priests through the months, but I knew it was him. I just knew. And I remembered the song he had sung.
"Did you?" Aunty Ifeoma asked. "My brother, Eugene, almost single-handedly finances that church. Lovely church."
"Chelukwa. Wait a minute. Your brother is Eugene Achike? The publisher of the Standard?"
"Yes, Eugene is my elder brother. I thought I'd mentioned it before." Aunty Ifeoma's smile did not quite brighten her face.
"Ezi okwu? I didn't know." Father Amadi shook his head. "I hear he's very involved in the editorial decisions. The Standard is the only paper that dares to tell the truth these days."
"Yes," Aunty Ifeoma said. "And he has a brilliant editor, Ade Coker, although I wonder how much longer before they lock him up for good. Even Eugenes money will not buy everything."
"I was reading somewhere that Amnesty World is giving your brother an award," Father Amadi said. He was nodding slowly, admiringly, and I felt myself go warm all over, with pride, with a desire to be associated with Papa. I wanted to say something, to remind this handsome priest that Papa wasn't just Aunty Ifeoma's brother or the Standard's publisher, that he was my father. I wanted some of the cloudlike warmth in Father Amadi's eyes to rub off on me, settle on me.
"An award?" Amaka asked, bright-eyed. "Mom, we should at least buy the Standard once in a while so we'll know what is going on."
"Or we could ask for free copies to be sent to us, if prides were swallowed," Obiora said.
"I didn't even know about the award," Aunty Ifeoma said. "Not that Eugene would tell me anyway, igasikwa. We can't even have a conversation. After all, I had to use a pilgrimage to Aokpe to get him to say yes to the children's visiting us."
"So you plan to go to Aokpe?" Father Amadi asked.
"I was not really planning to. But I suppose we will have to go now, I will find out the next apparition date."
"People are making this whole apparition thing up. Didn't they say Our Lady was appearing at Bishop Shanahan Hospital the other time? And then that she was appearing in Transekulu?" Obiora asked.
"Aokpe is different. It has all the signs of Lourdes," Amaka said. "Besides, it's about time Our Lady came to Africa. Don't you wonder how come she always appears in Europe? She was from the Middle East, after all."
"What is she now, the Political Virgin?" Obiora asked, and I looked at him again. He was a bold, male version of what I could never have been at fourteen, what I still was not.
Father Amadi laughed. "But she's appeared in Egypt, Amaka. At least people flocked there, like they are flocking to Aokpe now. O bugodi, like migrating locusts."
"You don't sound like you believe, Father." Amaka was watching him.
"I don't believe we have to go to Aokpe or anywhere else to find her. She is here, she is within us, leading us to her Son." He spoke so effortlessly, as if his mouth were a musical instrument that just let sound out when touched, when opened.
"But what about the Thomas inside us, Father? The part that needs to see to believe?" Amaka asked. She had that expression that made me wonder if she was serious or not.
Father Amadi did not respond; instead he made a face, and Amaka laughed, the gap between her teeth wider, more angular, than Aunty Ifeoma's, as if someone had pried her two front teeth apart with a metal instrument.
After dinner, we all retired to the living room, and Aunty Ifeoma asked Obiora to turn the TV off so we could pray while Father Amadi was here. Chima had fallen asleep on the sofa, and Obiora leaned against him throughout the rosary. Father Amadi led the first decade, and at the end, he started an Igbo praise song. While they sang, I opened my eyes and stared at the wall, at the picture of the family at Chima's baptism. Next to it was a grainy copy of the pieta, the wooden frame cracked at the corners. I pressed my lips together, biting my lower lip, so my mouth would not join in the singing on its own, so my mouth would not betray me. We put our rosaries away and sat in the living room eating corn and ube and watching Newsline on television. I looked up to find Father Amadi's eyes on me, and suddenly I could not lick the ube flesh from the seed. I could not move my tongue, could not swallow. I was too aware of his eyes, too aware that he was looking at me, watching me.
"I haven't seen you laugh or smile today, Kambili," he said, finally.
I looked down at my corn. I wanted to say I was sorry that I did not smile or laugh, but my words would not come, and for a while even my ears could hear nothing.
"She is shy," Aunty Ifeoma said.
I muttered a word I knew was nonsense and stood up and walked into the bedroom, making sure to close the door that led to the hallway. Father Amadi's musical voice echoed in my ears until I fell asleep.
Laughter always rang out in Aunty Ifeoma's house, and no matter where the laughter came from, it bounced around all the walls, all the rooms. Arguments rose quickly and fell just as quickly. Morning and night prayers were always peppered with songs, Igbo praise songs that usually called for hand clapping. Food had little meat, each person's piece the width of two fingers pressed close together and the length of half a finger. The flat always sparkled-Amaka scrubbed the floors with a stiff brush, Obiora did the sweeping, Chima plumped up the cushions on the chairs. Everybody took turns washing plates. Aunty Ifeoma included Jaja and me in the plate-washing schedule, and after I washed the garri-encrusted lunch plates, Amaka picked them off the tray where I had placed them to dry and soaked them in water. "Is this how you wash plates in your house?" she asked. "Or is plate washing not included in your fancy schedule?"
I stood there, staring at her, wishing Aunty Ifeoma were there to speak for me. Amaka glared at me for a moment longer and then walked away.
She said nothing else to me until her friends came over that afternoon, when Aunty Ifeoma and Jaja were in the garden and the boys were playing football out front. "Kambili, these are my friends from school," she said, casually. The two girls said hello, and I smiled. They had hair as short as Amaka's, wore shiny lipstick and trousers so tight I knew they would walk differently if they were wearing something more comfortable. I watched them examine themselves in the mirror, pore over an American magazine with a brown skinned, honey-haired woman on the cover, and talk about a math teacher who didn't know the answers to his own tests, a girl who wore a miniskirt to evening lesson even though she had fat yams on her legs, and a boy who was fine.
"Fine, sha, not attractive," one of them stressed. She wore a dangling earring on one ear and a shiny, false gold stud on the other.
"Is it all your hair?" the other one asked, and I did not realize she was referring to me, until Amaka said, "Kambili!" I wanted to tell the girl that it was all my hair, that there were no attachments, but the words would not come. I knew they were still talking about hair, how long and thick mine looked. I wanted to talk with them, to laugh with them so much that I would start to jump up and down in one place the way they did, but my lips held stubbornly together. I did not want to stutter, so I started to cough and then ran out and into the toilet.
That evening, as I set the table for dinner, I heard Amaka say, "Are you sure they're not abnormal, Mom? Kambili just behaved like an atulu when my friends came." Amaka had neither raised nor lowered her voice, and it drifted clearly in from the kitchen.
"Amaka, you are free to have your opinions, but you must treat your cousin with respect. Do you understand that?" Aunty Ifeoma replied in English, her voice firm.
"I was just asking a question."
"Showing respect is not calling your cousin a sheep."
"She behaves funny. Even Jaja is strange. Something is not right with them."
My hand shook as I tried to straighten a piece of the table surface that
had cracked and curled tightly around itself. A line of tiny ginger-colored ants marched near it. Aunty Ifeoma had told me not to bother the ants, since they hurt no one and you could never really get rid of them anyway; they were as old as the building itself.
I looked across at the living room to see if Jaja had heard Amaka over the sound of the television. But he was engrossed in the images on the screen, lying on the floor next to Obiora. He looked as though he had been lying there watching TV his whole life. It was the same way he looked in Aunty Ifeoma's garden the next morning, as though it were something he had been doing for a long time rather than the few days we had been here.
Aunty Ifeoma asked me to join them in the garden, to carefully pick out leaves that had started to wilt on the croton plants. "Aren't they pretty?" Aunty Ifeoma asked. "Look at that, green and pink and yellow on the leaves. Like God playing with paint brushes."
"Yes," I said.
Aunty Ifeoma was looking at me, and I wondered if she was thinking that my voice lacked the enthusiasm of Jaja's when she talked about her garden.
Some of the children from the flats upstairs came down and stood watching us. They were about five, all a blur of food stained clothes and fast words. They talked to one another and to Aunty Ifeoma, and then one of them turned and asked me what school I went to in Enugu. I stuttered and gripped hard at some fresh croton leaves, pulling them off, watching the viscous liquid drip from their stalks.
After that, Aunty Ifeoma said I could go inside if I wanted to. She told me about a book she had just finished reading: it was on the table in her room and she was sure I would like it. So I went in her room and took a book with a faded blue cover, called Equiano's Travels, or the Life of Gustavus Vassa the African. I sat on the verandah, with the book on my lap, watching one of the children chase a butterfly in the front yard. The butterfly dipped up and down, and its black-spotted yellow wings flapped slowly, as if teasing the little girl. The girl's hair, held atop her head like a ball of wool, bounced as she ran. Obiora was sitting on the verandah, too, but outside the shade, so he squinted behind his thick glasses to keep the sun out of his eyes. He was watching the girl and the butterfly while repeating the name Jaja slowly, placing the stress on both syllables, then on the first, then on the second. "Aja means sand or oracle, but Jaja? What kind of name is Jaja? It is not Igbo," he finally pronounced.
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