Purple hibiscus

by Чимаманда Нгози Адичи

  "Praise God!" Papa said, so loudly that I jumped.

  "Thanks be to God," Mama said.

  Yewande stood up and knelt before Papa. "Thank you, sir," she said. "Thank you for everything. If we had not gone to the hospital abroad, what would have become of my daughter?"

  "Get up, Yewande," Papa said. "It is God. It is all from God."

  That evening, when Papa was in the study praying-I could hear him reading aloud a psalm-I went to Jaja's door, pushed it and heard the scraping sound of the study desk lodged against it as it opened. I told Jaja about Yewande's visit, and he nodded and said Mama had told him about it. Ade Coker's daughter had not spoken since her father died. Papa had paid to have her see the best doctors and therapists in Nigeria and abroad. "I didn't know she hadn't talked since he died," I said. "It is almost four months now. Thanks be to God."

  Jaja looked at me silently for a while. His expression reminded me of the old looks Amaka used to give me, that made me feel sorry for what I was not sure of. "She will never heal," Jaja said. "She may have started talking now, but she will never heal."

  As I left Jaja's room, I pushed the study desk a little way aside. And I wondered why Papa could not open Jaja's door when he tried earlier; the desk was not that heavy.

  I dreaded Easter Sunday. I dreaded what would happen when Jaja did not go to communion again. And I knew that he would not go; I saw it in his long silences, in the set of his lips, in his eyes that seemed focused on invisible objects for a long time.

  On Good Friday, Aunty Ifeoma called. She might have missed us if we had gone to the morning Mass, as Papa had planned. But during breakfast, Papa's hands kept shaking, so much that he spilled his tea; I watched the liquid creep across the glass table. Afterward, he said he needed to rest and we would go to the evening Mass, the one Father Benedict usually said after the kissing of the cross. We had gone to the evening Mass on Good Friday of last year, because Papa had been busy with something at the Standard in the morning. Jaja and I walked side by side to the altar to kiss the cross, and Jaja pressed his lips to the wooden crucifix first, before the Mass server wiped the cross and held it out to me. It felt cool to my lips. A shiver ran across me and I felt goose bumps appear on my arms. I cried afterward, when we were seated, silent crying with tears running down my cheeks. Many people around me cried, too, the way they did during the Stations of the Cross when they moaned and said, "Oh, what the Lord did for me" or "He died for a common me!" Papa was pleased with my tears; I still remembered clearly how he leaned toward me and caressed my cheek. And although I was not sure why I was crying, or if I was crying for the same reasons as those other people kneeling in front of the pews, I felt proud to have Papa do that.

  I was thinking about this when Aunty Ifeoma called. The phone rang for too long, and I thought Mama would pick it up, since Papa was asleep. But she didn't, so I went to the study and answered it. Aunty Ifeoma's voice was many notches lower than usual. "They have given me notice of termination," she said, without even waiting for me to reply to her "How are you?" "For what they call illegal activity. I have one month. I have applied for a visa at the American Embassy. And Father Amadi has been notified. He is leaving for missionary work in Germany at the end of the month."

  It was a double blow. I staggered. It was as if my calves had sacks of dried beans tied to them. Aunty Ifeoma asked for Jaja, and I nearly tripped, nearly fell to the floor, as I went to his room to call him. After Jaja talked to Aunty Ifeoma, he put the phone down and said, "We are going to Nsukka today. We will spend Easter in Nsukka." I did not ask him what he meant, or how he would convince Papa to let us go. I watched him knock on Papa's door and go in. "We are going to Nsukka. Kambili and I," I heard him say. I did not hear what Papa said, then I heard Jaja say, "We are going to Nsukka today, not tomorrow. If Kevin will not take us, we will still go. We will walk if we have to."

  I stood still in front of the staircase, my hands trembling violently. Yet I did not think to close my ears; I did not think to count to twenty. Instead, I went into my room and sat by the window, looking out at the cashew tree. Jaja came in to say that Papa had agreed that Kevin could take us. He held a bag so hastily packed he had not even done up the zipper, and he watched me throw some things into a bag, saying nothing. He was moving his weight from one leg to the other impatiently.

  "Is Papa still in bed?" I asked, but Jaja did not answer as he turned to go downstairs.

  I knocked on Papa's door and opened it. He was sitting up in bed; his red silk pajamas looked disheveled. Mama was pouring water into a glass for him. "Bye, Papa," I said. He got up to hug me. His face looked much brighter than in the morning, and the rashes seemed to be clearing. "We will see you soon," he said, kissing my forehead. I hugged Mama before I left the room.

  The stairs seemed delicate all of a sudden, as if they would crumble and a huge hole would appear and prevent me from leaving. I walked slowly until I got downstairs. Jaja was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, and he reached out to take my bag. Kevin stood by the car when we came outside.

  "Who will take your father to church, now?" he asked, looking at us suspiciously. "Your father is not well enough to drive himself."

  Jaja remained silent for so long that I realized he was not going to give Kevin an answer, and I said, "He said you should take us to Nsukka."

  Kevin shrugged, and muttered, "This kind of trip, can't you go tomorrow?" before starting the car. He remained silent throughout the drive, and I saw his eyes often dart to us, mostly to Jaja, in the rearview mirror.

  A film of sweat coated my entire body like a transparent second skin. It gave way to a dripping wetness on my neck, my forehead, underneath my breasts. We had left the back door of Aunty Ifeoma's kitchen wide open although flies buzzed in, circling over a pot of old soup. It was a choice between flies and even more heat, Amaka had said, swiping at them. Obiora was wearing a pair of khaki shorts and nothing else. He was bent over the kerosene stove, trying to get the fire to spread across the wick. His eyes were blotchy from the fumes.

  "This wick has thinned so much there's nothing left to hold the fire," he said, when he finally got the fire to spread around. "We should use the gas cooker for everything now, anyway. There's no point saving the gas, since we won't be needing it for much longer."

  He stretched, the sweat clinging to the outline of his ribs. He picked wp an old newspaper and fanned himself for a while, then swatted at some flies.

  "Nektva! Don't knock them into my pot," Amaka said. She was pouring bright reddish-orange palm oil into a pot.

  "We shouldn't be bleaching any more palm oil. We should splurge on vegetable oil for these last few weeks," Obiora said, still swatting at the flies.

  "You sound like Mom has already gotten the visa," Amaka snapped. She placed the pot on the kerosene burner. The fire snaked around to the side of the pot, still a wild orange, spewing fumes; it had not yet stabilized to a clean blue.

  "She will get the visa. We should be positive."

  "Haven't you heard how those American embassy people treat Nigerians? They insult you and call you a liar and on top of it, eh, refuse to give you a visa," Amaka said.

  "Mom will get the visa. A university is sponsoring her," Obiora said.

  "So? Universities sponsor many people who still don't get visas."

  I started to cough. Thick white smoke from the bleaching palm oil filled the kitchen, and in the stuffy mix of the fumes and heat and flies, I felt faint.

  "Kambili," Amaka said. "Go to the verandah until the smoke blows out."

  "No, it's nothing," I said.

  "Go, biko!"

  I went to the verandah, still coughing. It was clear that I was unused to bleaching palm oil, that I was used to vegetable oil, which did not need bleaching. But there had been no resentment in Amaka's eyes, no sneer, no turndown of her lips. I was grateful when she called me back later to ask that I help her cut the ugu for the soup. I did not just cut the ugu, I made the garri also. Without her stil
l eyes bearing down on me, I did not pour in too much hot water, and the garri turned out firm and smooth. I ladled my garri onto a flat plate, pushed it to the side, and then spooned my soup beside it. I watched the soup spreading, seeping in underneath the garri. I had never done this before; at home, Jaja and I always used separate dishes for garri and soup.

  We ate on the verandah, although it was almost as hot as the kitchen. The railings felt like the metal handles of a boiling pot. "Papa-Nnukwu used to say that an angry sun like this in rainy season means that a swift rain will come. The sun is warning us of the rain," Amaka said, as we settled down on the mat with our food. We ate quickly because of the heat, because even the soup tasted like sweat. Afterward, we trooped to the neighbors' flat on the topmost floor and stood on their verandah, to see if we could catch a breeze. Amaka and I stood by the railings, looking down.

  Obiora and Chima squatted to watch the children playing on the floor, clustered around the plastic Ludo board and rolling dice. Somebody poured a bucket of water on the verandah and the boys lay down, with their backs on the wet floor. I looked out at Marguerite Cartwright Avenue below, at a red Volkswagen driving past. It revved loudly as it went over the speed bump, and even from the verandah, I could see where the color had faded to a rusty orange.

  I felt nostalgic as I watched the Volkswagen disappear down the street, and I was not sure why. Maybe it was because it revved like Aunty Ifeoma's car sometimes did, and it reminded me that very soon, I would not see her or her car anymore. She had gone to the police station to get a statement, which she would take to her visa interview at the American embassy to prove that she had never been convicted of a crime. Jaja had gone with her.

  "I suppose we won't need to protect our doors with metal in America," Amaka said, as if she knew what I was thinking about. She was fanning herself briskly with a folded newspaper.

  "What?"

  "Mom's students broke into her office once and stole exam questions. She told the works department that she wanted metal bars on her office doors and windows, and they said there was no money. You know what she did?" Amaka turned to look at me; a small smile at the edges of her lips. I shook my head. "She went to a construction site, and they gave her metal rods for free. Then she asked Obiora and me to help her install them. We drilled holes and fit the rods in with cement, across her windows and doors."

  "Oh," I said. I wanted to reach out and touch Amaka. "And then she put up a sign at her door that said exam questions ARE IN the bank." Amaka smiled and then started to fold and refold the newspaper. "I won't be happy in America. It won't be the same."

  "You will drink fresh milk from a bottle. No more stunted tins of condensed milk, no more homemade soybean milk," I said.

  Amaka laughed, a hearty laugh that showed her gap. "You're funny."

  I had never heard that before. I saved it for later, to ruminate over and over that I had made her laugh, that I could make her laugh.

  The rains came then, pouring down in strong sheets that made it impossible to see the garages across the yard. The sky and rain and ground merged into one silver-colored film that seemed to go on and on. We dashed back to the flat and placed buckets on the verandah to catch the rainwater and watched them fill rapidly. All the children ran out to the yard in their shorts, twirling and dancing, because this was clean rain, the kind that did not come with dust, that did not leave brown stains on clothes. It stopped as quickly as it had started, and the sun came out again, mildly, as if yawning after a nap. The buckets were full; we fished out floating leaves and twigs and took the buckets in.

  I saw Father Amadi's car turning into the compound when we went back out to the verandah. Obiora saw it, too, and asked, laughing, "Is it me or does Father visit more often whenever Kambili is here?" He and Amaka were still laughing when Father Amadi came up the short flight of stairs. "I know Amaka just said something about me," he said, sweeping Chima into his arms. He stood backing the setting sun. The sun was red, as if it were blushing, and it made his skin look radiant. I watched how Chima clung to him, how Amaka's and Obiora's eyes shone as they looked up at him. Amaka was asking him about his missionary work in Germany, but I did not hear much of what she said. I was not listening. I felt so many things churning inside me, emotions that made my stomach growl and swirl. "Do you see Kambili bothering me like this?" Father Amadi asked Amaka. He was looking at me, and I knew he had said that to include me, to get my attention.

  "The white missionaries brought us their god," Amaka was saying. "Which was the same color as them, worshiped in their language and packaged in the boxes they made. Now that we take their god back to them, shouldn't we at least repackage it?"

  Father Amadi smirked and said, "We go mostly to Europe and America, where they are losing priests. So there is really no indigenous culture to pacify, unfortunately."

  "Father, be serious!" Amaka was laughing. "Only if you will try to be more like Kambili and not bother me so much."

  The phone started to ring, and Amaka made a face at him before walking into the flat. Father Amadi sat down next to me. "You look worried," he said. Before I could think of what to say, he reached out and slapped my lower leg. He opened his palm to show me the bloody, squashed mosquito. He had cupped his palm so that it would not hurt too much and yet would kill the mosquito. "It looked so happy feeding on you," he said, watching me.

  "Thank you," I said. He reached out and wiped the spot on my leg with a finger. His finger felt warm and alive.

  I did not realize that my cousins had left; now the verandah was so silent I could hear the sound of the raindrops sliding off the leaves. "So tell me what you're thinking about," he said.

  "It doesn't matter."

  "What you think will always matter to me, Kambili."

  I stood up and walked to the garden. I plucked off yellow allamanda flowers, still wet, and slid them over my fingers, as I had seen Chima do. It was like wearing a scented glove. "I was thinking about my father. I don't know what will happen when we go back."

  "Has he called?"

  "Yes. Jaja refused to go to the phone, and I did not go, either."

  "Did you want to?" He asked gently. It was not what I expected him to ask.

  "Yes," I whispered, so Jaja wouldn't hear, although he was not even in the area. I did want to talk to Papa, to hear his voice, to tell him what I had eaten and what I had prayed about so that he would approve, so that he would smile so much his eyes would crinkle at the edges. And yet, I did not want to talk to him; I wanted to leave with Father Amadi, or with Aunty Ifeoma, and never come back.

  "School starts in two weeks, and Aunty Ifeoma might be gone then," I said. "I don't know what we will do. Jaja does not talk about tomorrow or next week."

  Father Amadi walked over to me, standing so close that I if I puffed out my belly, it would touch his body. He took my hand in his, carefully slid one flower off my finger and slid it onto his.

  "Your aunt thinks you and Jaja should go to boarding school. I am going to Enugu next week to talk to Father Benedict; I know your father listens to him. I will ask him to convince your father about boarding school so you and Jaja can start next term. It will be fine, inugo?"

  I nodded and looked away. I believed him, that it would be fine, because he said so. I thought then of catechism classes, about chanting the answer to a question, an answer that was "because he has said it and his word is true." I could not remember the question.

  "Look at me, Kambili."

  I was afraid to look into the warm brownness of his eyes, I was afraid I would swoon, that I would throw my hands around him and lace my fingers together behind his neck and refuse to let go. I turned. "Is this the flower you can suck? The one with the sweet juices?" he asked. He had slid the allamanda off his finger and was examining its yellow petals.

  I smiled. "No. It's ixora you suck."

  He threw the flower away and made a wry face. "Oh."

  I laughed. I laughed because the allamanda flowers were so yellow. I laughe
d imagining how bitter their white juices would taste if Father Amadi had really sucked them. I laughed because Father Amadi's eyes were so brown I could see my reflection in them.

  That night when I bathed, with a bucket half full of rainwater, I did not scrub my left hand, the hand that Father Amadi had held gently to slide the flower off my finger.

  I did not heat the water, either, because I was afraid that the heating coil would make the rainwater lose the scent of the sky. I sang as I bathed. There were more earthworms in the bathtub, and I left them alone, watching the water carry them and send them down the drain.

  The breeze following the rain was so cool that I wore a sweater and Aunty Ifeoma wore a longsleeved shirt, although she usually walked around the house in only a wrapper. We were all sitting on the verandah, talking, when Father Amadi's car nosed its way to the front of the flat.

  "You said you would be very busy today, Father," Obiora said.

  "I say these things to justify being fed by the church," Father Amadi said. He looked tired. He handed Amaka a piece of paper and told her he had written some suitably boring names on it, that she had only to choose one and he would leave. After the bishop used it in confirming her, she need never even mention the name again. Father Amadi rolled his eyes, speaking with a painstaking slowness, and although Amaka laughed, she did not take the paper.

  "I told you I am not taking an English name, Father," she said.

  "And have I asked you why?"

  "Why do I have to?"

  "Because it is the way it's done. Let's forget if it's right or wrong for now," Father Amadi said, and I noticed the shadows under his eyes. "When the missionaries first came, they didn't think Igbo names were good enough. They insisted that people take English names to be baptized. Shouldn't we be moving ahead?"