Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah, Purple Hibiscus: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Three-Book Collection
tell her before she says anything that there’s nothing to be discussed.’
‘You might pacify her by telling her that we are trying to have a child. Or will she be horrified at the thought of my having a child? Some of those witchcraft genes may be passed along to her grandchild after all.’
She hoped Odenigbo would laugh, but he didn’t. ‘I can’t wait for Tuesday,’ he said, after a while.
‘I can’t wait either,’ she said. ‘Tell Ugwu to air the rug in the bedroom.’
That night, when her mother came into her room, Olanna smelt the floral Chloe perfume, a lovely scent, but she did not see why a person needed to wear perfume to bed. Her mother had too many bottles of perfume; they lined her dresser like a store shelf: stunted bottles, tapering bottles, rounded bottles. Even wearing them to bed every night, her mother could not use them all in fifty years.
‘Thank you, nne,’ she said. ‘Your father is already trying to make amends.’
‘I see.’ Olanna did not want to know just what it was her father had done to make amends but she felt an odd sense of accomplishment to have talked to her father like Kainene, to have got him to do something, to have been useful.
‘Mrs Nwizu will soon stop telephoning to tell me she saw him there,’ her mother said. ‘She said something catty the other day about people whose daughters have refused to marry. I think she was throwing words at me and wanted to see if I would throw them back at her. Her daughter got married last year and they could not afford to import anything for the wedding. Even the wedding dress was made here in Lagos!’ Her mother sat down. ‘By the way, there is somebody who wants to meet you. You know Igwe Onochie’s family? Their son is an engineer. I think he has seen you somewhere, and he is very interested.’
Olanna sighed and leaned back to listen to her mother.
She got back to Nsukka in the middle of the afternoon, that still hour when the sun was relentless and even the bees perched in quiet exhaustion. Odenigbo’s car was in the garage. Ugwu opened the door before she knocked, his shirt unbuttoned, slight sweat patches under his arms. ‘Welcome, mah,’ he said.
‘Ugwu.’ She had missed his loyal, smiling face. ‘Unu anokwa ofuma? Did you stay well?’
‘Yes, mah,’ he said, and went out to bring her luggage from the taxi.
Olanna walked in. She had missed the faint smell of detergent that lingered in the living room after Ugwu cleaned the louvres. Because she had imagined that Odenigbo’s mother was already gone, she was dampened to see her on the sofa, dressed, fussing with a bag. Amala stood nearby, holding a small metal box.
‘Nkem!’ Odenigbo said, and hurried forwards. ‘It’s good to have you back! So good!’
When they hugged, his body did not relax against hers and the brief press of his lips felt papery. ‘Mama and Amala are just leaving. I’m taking them to the motor park,’ he said.
‘Good afternoon, Mama,’ Olanna said, but did not make an attempt to go any closer.
‘Olanna, kedu?’ Mama asked. It was Mama who initiated their hug; it was Mama who smiled warmly. Olanna was puzzled but pleased. Perhaps Odenigbo had spoken to her about how serious their relationship was, and their planning to have a child had finally won Mama over.
‘Amala, how are you?’ Olanna asked. ‘I didn’t know you came too.’
‘Welcome, Aunty,’ Amala mumbled, looking down.
‘Have you brought everything?’ Odenigbo asked his mother. ‘Let’s go. Let’s go.’
‘Have you eaten, Mama?’ Olanna asked.
‘My morning meal is still heavy in my stomach,’ Mama said. She had a happily speculative look on her face.
‘We have to go now,’ Odenigbo said. ‘I have a scheduled game later.’
‘What about you, Amala?’ Olanna asked. Mama’s smiling face suddenly made her want them to stay a little longer. ‘I hope you ate something.’
‘Yes, Aunty, thank you,’ Amala said, her eyes still focused on the floor.
‘Give Amala the key to put the things in the car,’ Mama said to Odenigbo.
Odenigbo moved towards Amala, but stopped a little way away so that he had to stretch out and lengthen his arm to give her the key. She took it carefully from his fingers; they did not touch each other. It was a tiny moment, brief and fleeting, but Olanna noticed how scrupulously they avoided any contact, any touch of skin, as if they were united by a common knowledge so monumental that they were determined not to be united by anything else.
‘Go well,’ she said. She watched the car ease out of the compound and stood there, telling herself she was mistaken; there had been nothing in that gesture. But it bothered her. She felt something similar to what she had felt while waiting for the gynaecologist: convinced that something was wrong with her body and yet willing him to tell her that all was well.
‘Mah, will you eat? Should I warm rice?’ Ugwu asked.
‘Not now.’ For a moment, she wanted to ask Ugwu if he too had observed that gesture, if he had observed anything at all. ‘Go and see if any avocados are ripe.’
‘Yes, mah.’ Ugwu hesitated ever so slightly before he left.
She stood at the front door until Odenigbo came back. She was not sure what the shrivelling in her stomach and the racing in her chest meant. She opened the door and searched his face.
‘Did anything happen?’ she asked.
‘What do you mean?’ He held some newspapers in his hand. ‘One of my students missed the last test, and this morning he came and offered me some money to pass him, the ignoramus.’
‘I didn’t know Amala came with Mama,’ she said.
‘Yes.’ He began to rearrange the newspapers, avoiding her eyes. And, slowly, shock spread over Olanna. She knew. She knew from the jerky movements he made, from the panic on his face, from the hasty way he was trying to look normal again, that something that should not have happened had happened.
‘You touched Amala,’ Olanna said. It was not a question, and yet she wanted him to respond as if it were; she wanted him to say no and get upset with her for even thinking that. But Odenigbo said nothing. He sat down on his armchair and looked at her.
‘You touched Amala,’ Olanna repeated. She would always remember his expression, him looking at her as if he could never have imagined this scene and so did not know how to think about thinking about what to say or do.
She turned towards the kitchen and nearly fell beside the dining table because the weight in her chest was too large, not measured to fit her size.
‘Olanna,’ he said.
She ignored him. He would not come after her because he was frightened, full of the fear of the guilty. She did not get in her car right away and drive to her flat. Instead, she went outside and sat on the backyard steps and watched a hen near the lemon tree, guarding six chicks, nudging them towards crumbs on the ground. Ugwu was plucking avocados from the tree near the Boys’ Quarters. She was not sure how long she sat there before the hen began to squawk loudly and spread its wings to shield the chicks, but they did not run into the shelter quickly enough. A kite swooped down and carried one of them off, a brown-and-white chick. It was so fast, the descent of the kite and the gliding away with the chick grasped in hooked claws, that Olanna thought she might have imagined it. She couldn’t have, though, because the hen was running around in circles, squawking, raising clouds of dust. The other chicks looked bewildered. Olanna watched them and wondered if they understood their mother’s mourning dance. Then, finally, she started to cry.
* * *
The blurred days crawled into one another. Olanna grasped for thoughts, for things to