Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah, Purple Hibiscus: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Three-Book Collection
he was now the oldest member of their umunna. He would say, ‘Others have come back and we have kept our eyes on the road for our son Mbaezi and our wife Ifeka and our daughter Arize as well as our in-law from Ogidi. We have waited and waited and we have not seen them. Many months have passed and our eyes ache from being focused on the road. We have asked you to come today and tell us what you know. Umunnachi is asking about all her children who did not return from the North. You were there, our daughter. What you tell us, we will tell Umunnachi.’
It was mostly what happened. The only thing Olanna had not expected was the raised voice of Aunty Ifeka’s sister, Mama Dozie. A fierce woman, she was said to have beat up Papa Dozie once, after he left their sick child and went off to visit his mistress. Mama Dozie herself had been away harvesting cocoyams in the agu. The child nearly died. Mama Dozie, it was said, had threatened to cut off Papa Dozie’s penis first, before strangling him, if the child were to die.
‘Do not lie, Olanna Ozobia, i sikwana asi!’ Mama Dozie shouted. ‘May chickenpox afflict you if you lie. Who told you it was my sister’s body that you saw? Who told you? Do not lie here. Cholera will strike you dead.’
Her son Dozie led her away. He had grown so tall, Dozie, since the last time Olanna saw him a couple of years ago. He was holding his mother tightly and she was trying to push him aside, as if to be allowed to pummel Olanna, and Olanna wished she could let her. She wanted Mama Dozie to hit her and slap her if it would make Mama Dozie feel better, if it would turn everything she had just told the members of her extended family gathered in this room into a lie. She wished that Odinchezo and Ekene would shout at her too, and question her for being alive, instead of dead like their sister and parents and brother-in-law. She wished that they would not sit there, quiet, looking down as men in mourning often did and later tell her they were happy she did not see Arize’s body; everyone knew what those monsters did to pregnant women.
Odinchezo broke off a large leaf from the ede plant and gave it to her to use as a makeshift umbrella. But Olanna didn’t place it above her head as she hurried to her car. She took her time unlocking the door and let the rain run over her plaited hair and past her eyes and down her cheeks. It struck her how quickly the meeting had unfolded, how little time it took to confirm four of her family dead. She had given those left behind a right to mourn and wear black and receive visitors who would come in, saying ‘Ndo nu.’ She had given them a right to move on after the mourning and count Arize and her husband and parents as gone forever. The heavy weight of four muted funerals weighed on her head, funerals based not on physical bodies but on her words. And she wondered if she was mistaken, if she had perhaps imagined the bodies lying in the dust, so many bodies in the yard that recalling them made salt rush to her mouth. When she finally got the car open and Ugwu and Baby had dashed in, she sat motionless for a while, aware that Ugwu was watching her with concern and that Baby was almost falling asleep.
‘Do you want me to get you water to drink?’ Ugwu asked.
Olanna shook her head. Of course he knew she didn’t want water. He wanted to get her out of her trance so she would start the car and drive them back to Abba.
Ugwu was the first to see people trooping on the dirt road that ran through Abba. They were dragging goats, carrying yams and boxes on their heads, chickens and rolled-up mats under their arms, kerosene lamps in their hands. The children carried small basins or pulled smaller children along. Ugwu watched them walk past, some silent, others talking loudly; many of them, he knew, did not know where they were going.
Master came home from a meeting early that evening. ‘We’ll leave for Umuahia tomorrow,’ he said. ‘We would have gone to Umuahia anyway. We’re just leaving a week or two sooner.’ He spoke too fast, looking at a point in the distance. Ugwu wondered if it was because he did not want to admit that his hometown was about to fall, or if it was because Olanna had not been speaking to him. Ugwu did not know what had happened between them but, whatever it was, it happened after the village square meeting. Olanna had come home in a strange silence. She spoke mechanically. She did not laugh. She let him make every decision about the food and about Baby, spending most of her time on the slanting wooden chair on the veranda. Once he saw her walk over to the guava tree and caress its trunk, and he told himself he would go and pull her away, after a minute, before the neighbours said she was going mad. But she didn’t stay long. She turned quietly and went back and sat on the veranda.
She looked just as quiet now. ‘Please pack our clothes and food for tomorrow, Ugwu.’
‘Yes, mah.’
He packed their things quickly – they did not have that much anyway, it was not like Nsukka where he had been paralyzed with so many choices that he had taken very little. He put them in the car early the next morning and then went around the house to make sure he had missed nothing. Olanna had already packed the albums. She had bathed Baby. They stood waiting by the car while Master checked the oil and water. On the road, people were walking past in thick groups.
The wooden gate in the mud wall behind the house creaked open and Aniekwena came into the compound. He was Master’s cousin. Ugwu disliked the sly twist of his lips; he always visited at mealtimes and then said ‘Oh! Oh!’ in exaggerated surprise when Olanna asked him to join them in ‘touching their hands to their mouths’. He looked grim now. Behind him was Master’s mother.
‘We are ready to go, Odenigbo, and your mother has refused to pack her things and come,’ Aniekwena said.
Master closed the bonnet. ‘Mama, I thought we agreed that you would go to Uke.’
‘Ekwuzikwananu nofu! Don’t say that! You told me that we have to run and that it is better that I go to Uke. But did you hear me agree? Did I say “oh” to you?’
‘Do you want to come with us to Umuahia, then?’ Master asked.
Mama looked at the car, packed full. ‘But why are you running? Where are you running to? Can you hear any guns?’
‘People are fleeing Abagana and Ukpo, which means the Hausa soldiers are close and will soon enter Abba.’
‘Did you not hear our dibia tell us that Abba has never been conquered? Who am I running away from my own house for? Alu melu! Do you know that your father will be cursing us now?’
‘Mama, you cannot stay here. Nobody will be left in Abba.’
She looked up and squinted in concentration as though looking for a ripening pod on the kola nut tree was more important than what Master was saying.
Olanna opened the car door and asked Baby to get in the back.
‘The news is not good. The Hausa soldiers are close,’ Aniekwena said. ‘I am leaving for Uke. Send word to us when you get to Umuahia.’ He turned and started to walk away.
‘Mama!’ Master shouted. ‘Go and bring your things now!’
His mother kept looking up the kola nut tree. ‘I will stay and watch over the house. After you all have run, you will come back. I will be here waiting. Who am I running away from my own house for, gbo?’
‘Perhaps it would be a better idea to speak to her gently instead of raising your voice,’ Olanna said in English. She sounded very formal, clipped. Ugwu had not heard her speak to Master like that, except during the months before Baby was born.
Master’s mother was looking at them suspiciously, as if she was sure that Olanna had just insulted her in English.
‘Mama, will you not come with us?’ Master asked. ‘Biko. Please come with us.’
‘Give me the key to your house. I might need something there.’
‘Please come with us.’
‘Give me the key.’
Master stared at her silently and then handed her a bunch of keys. ‘Please come with us,’ he