Purple Hibiscus (12 page)

“Is that what you and Ifeoma planned?”

“
Kpa
, I am just making a suggestion. It is up to you to decide.”

Papa examined Mama's face for a while. “Okay,” he said. He turned back to Jaja and me. “Go up and pack your things. You can take twenty minutes from your study time.”

We climbed the curving stairs slowly. I wondered if Jaja's stomach rumbled at the lower part like mine did. It was the first time in our lives that we would be sleeping outside home without Papa.

“Do you want to go to Nsukka?” I asked when we got to the landing.

“Yes,” he said, and his eyes said that he knew I did, too. And I could not find the words in our eye language to tell him how my throat tightened at the thought of five days without Papa's voice, without his footsteps on the stairs.

THE NEXT MORNING
, Kevin brought two full gas cylinders from Papa's factory and put them into the boot of the Volvo alongside bags of rice and beans, a few yams, bunches of green plantains, and pineapples. Jaja and I stood by the hibiscus bushes, waiting. The gardener was clipping away at the bougainvillea, taming the flowers that defiantly stuck out of the leveled top. He had raked underneath the frangipani trees, and dead leaves and pink flowers lay in piles, ready for the wheelbarrow.

“Here are your schedules for the week you will stay in Nsukka,” Papa said. The sheet of paper he thrust into my hand was similar to the schedule pasted above my study desk upstairs, except he had penciled in two hours of “time with your cousins” each day.

“The only day you are excused from that schedule is when you go to Aokpe with your aunt,” Papa said. When he hugged Jaja and then me, his hands were shaking. “I have never been without you two for more than a day.”

I did not know what to say, but Jaja nodded and said, “We will see you in a week.”

“Kevin, drive carefully. Do you understand?” Papa asked, as we got in the car.

“Yes, sir.”

“Get petrol on your way back, at Ninth Mile, and don't forget to bring me the receipt.”

“Yes, sir.”

Papa asked us to get out of the car. He hugged us both again, smoothed the back of our necks, and asked us not to forget to say the full fifteen decades of the rosary during the drive. Mama hugged us one more time before we got back in the car.

“Papa is still waving,” Jaja said, as Kevin nosed the car up the driveway. He was looking in the mirror above his head.

“He's crying,” I said.

“The gardener is waving, too,” Jaja said, and I wondered if he had really not heard me. I pulled my rosary from my pocket, kissed the crucifix, and started the prayer.

I looked out the window as we drove, counting the blackened hulks of cars on the roadside, some left for so long they were covered with reddish rust. I wondered about the people who had been inside, how they had felt just before the accident, before the smashing glass and crunched metal and leaping flames. I did not concentrate on any of the glorious Mysteries, and knew that Jaja did not, either, because he kept forgetting when it was his turn to start a decade of the rosary. About forty minutes into the drive, I saw a sign on the roadside that read
UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA
,
NSUKKA
, and I asked Kevin if we were almost there.

“No,” he said. “A little while longer.”

Near the town of Opi—the dust-covered church and school signs read
OPI
—we came to a police checkpoint. Old tires and nail-studded logs were strewn across most of the road, leaving only a narrow space. A policeman flagged us down as we approached.
Kevin groaned. Then as he slowed, he reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a ten-naira note and flung it out of the window, toward the policeman. The policeman gave a mock salute, smiled, and waved us through. Kevin would not have done that if Papa had been in the car. When policemen or soldiers stopped Papa, he spent so long showing them all his car papers, letting them search his car, anything but bribe them to let him pass. We cannot be part of what we fight, he often told us.

“We're entering the town of Nsukka,” Kevin said, a few minutes later. We were driving past the market. The crowded roadside stores with their sparse shelves of goods threatened to spill over onto a thin strip of road already full of doubleparked cars, hawkers with trays balanced on their heads, motorcyclists, boys pushing wheelbarrows full of yams, women holding baskets, beggars looking up from their mats and waving. Kevin drove slowly now; potholes suddenly materialized in the middle of the road, and he followed the swerving motion of the car ahead of us. When we came to a point just past the market where the road had narrowed, eaten away by erosion at the sides, he stopped for a while to let other cars go by.

“We're at the university,” he said, finally.

A wide arch towered over us, bearing the words
University of Nigeria Nsukka
in black, cut-out metal. The gates underneath the arch were flung wide open and manned by security men in dark brown uniforms and matching berets. Kevin stopped and rolled down the windows.

“Good afternoon. Please, how can we get to Marguerite Cartwright Avenue?” he asked.

The security man closest to us, his facial skin creased like a
rumpled dress, asked, “How are you?” before he told Kevin that Marguerite Cartwright Avenue was very close; we had only to keep straight and then make a right at the first junction and an almost immediate left. Kevin thanked him and we drove off. A lawn the color of spinach splashed across the side of the road. I turned to stare at the statue in the middle of the lawn, a black lion standing on its hind legs, tail curved upward, chest puffed out. I didn't realize Jaja was looking, too, until he read aloud the words inscribed on the pedestal: “‘To restore the dignity of man.'” Then, as though I could not tell, he added, “It's the university's motto.”

Marguerite Cartwright Avenue was bordered by tall gmelina trees. I imagined the trees bending during a rainy-season thunderstorm, reaching across to touch each other and turning the avenue into a dark tunnel. The duplexes with gravelcovered driveways and
BEWARE OF DOGS
signs in the front yard soon gave way to bungalows with driveways the length of two cars and then blocks of flats with wide stretches of space in front of them instead of driveways. Kevin drove slowly, muttering Aunty Ifeoma's house number as if that would make us find it sooner. It was in the fourth block we came to, a tall, bland building with peeling blue paint and with television aerials sticking out from the verandahs. It had three flats on each side, and Aunty Ifeoma's was on the ground floor on the left. In front was a circular burst of bright colors—a garden—fenced around with barbed wire. Roses and hibiscuses and lilies and ixora and croton grew side by side like a handpainted wreath. Aunty Ifeoma emerged from the flat in a pair of shorts, rubbing her hands over the front of her T-shirt. The skin at her knees was very dark.

“Jaja! Kambili!” She barely waited for us to climb out of the car before hugging us, squeezing us close together so we both fit in the stretch of her arms.

“Good afternoon, Mah,” Kevin greeted before he went around to open the boot.

“Ah! Ah!” Aunty Ifeoma said. “Does Eugene think we are starving? Even a bag of rice?”

Kevin smiled. “
Oga
said it is to greet you, Mah.”

“Hei!” Aunty yelped, looking into the boot. “Gas cylinders? Oh,
nwunye m
should not have bothered herself so much.” Then Aunty Ifeoma did a little dance, moving her arms in rowing motions, throwing each leg in front of her and stamping down hard.

Kevin stood by and rubbed his hands together in pleasure, as if he had orchestrated the big surprise. He hoisted a gas cylinder out of the boot, and Jaja helped him carry it into the flat.

“Your cousins will be back soon, they went out to say happy birthday to Father Amadi, he's our friend and he works at our chaplaincy. I have been cooking, I even killed a chicken for you two!” Aunty Ifeoma laughed and pulled me to her. She smelled of nutmeg.

“Where do we place these, Mah?” Kevin asked.

“Just leave the things on the verandah. Amaka and Obiora will put them away later.”

Aunty Ifeoma still held on to me as we entered the living room. I noticed the ceiling first, how low it was. I felt I could reach out and touch it; it was so unlike home, where the high ceilings gave our rooms an airy stillness. The pungent fumes of kerosene smoke mixed with the aroma of curry and nutmeg from the kitchen.

“Let me see if my jollof rice is burning!” Aunty Ifeoma dashed into the kitchen.

I sat down on the brown sofa. The seams of the cushions were frayed and slipping apart. It was the only sofa in the living room; next to it were cane chairs, softened with brown cushions. The center table was cane, too, supporting an oriental vase with pictures of kimono-clad dancing women. Three long-stemmed roses, so piercingly red I wondered if they were plastic, were in the vase.

“
Nne
, don't behave like a guest. Come in, come in,” Aunty Ifeoma said, coming out from the kitchen.

I followed her down a short hallway lined with crammed bookshelves. The gray wood looked as though it would collapse if just one more book were added. Each book looked clean; they were all either read often or dusted often.

“This is my room. I sleep here with Chima,” Aunty Ifeoma said, opening the first door. Cartons and bags of rice were stacked against the wall near the door. A tray held giant tins of dried milk and Bournvita, near a study table with a reading lamp, bottles of medicine, books. At another corner, suitcases were piled on top of one another. Aunty Ifeoma led the way to another room, with two beds along one wall. They were pushed together to create space for more than two people. Two dressers, a mirror, and a study desk and chair managed to fit in also. I wondered where Jaja and I would be sleeping, and as if Aunty Ifeoma had read my thoughts, she said, “You and Amaka will sleep here,
nne
. Obiora sleeps in the living room, so Jaja will stay with him.”

I heard Kevin and Jaja come into the flat.

“We have finished bringing the things in, Mah. I'm leaving
now,” Kevin said. He spoke from the living room, but the flat was so small he did not have to raise his voice.

“Tell Eugene I said thank you. Tell him we are well. Drive carefully.”

“Yes, Mah.”

I watched Kevin leave, and suddenly my chest felt tight. I wanted to run after him, to tell him to wait while I got my bag and got back in the car.

“
Nne
, Jaja, come and join me in the kitchen until your cousins come back.” Aunty Ifeoma sounded so casual, as if it were completely normal to have us visit, as if we had visited so many times in the past. Jaja led the way into the kitchen and sat down on a low wooden stool. I stood by the door because there was hardly enough room in the kitchen not to get in her way, as she drained rice at the sink, checked on the cooking meat, blended tomatoes in a mortar. The light blue kitchen tiles were worn and chipped at the corners, but they looked scrubbed clean, as did the pots, whose lids did not fit, one side slipping crookedly into the pot. The kerosene stove was on a wooden table by the window. The walls near the window and the threadbare curtains had turned black-gray from the kerosene smoke. Aunty Ifeoma chattered as she put the rice back on the stove and chopped two purple onions, her stream of sentences punctuated by her cackling laughter. She seemed to be laughing and crying at the same time because she reached up often to brush away the onion tears with the back of her hand.

Her children came in a few minutes later. They looked different, maybe because I was seeing them for the first time in their own home rather than in Abba, where they were visitors
in Papa-Nnukwu's house. Obiora took off a dark pair of sunglasses and slipped them in the pockets of his shorts as they came in. He laughed when he saw me.

“Jaja and Kambili are here!” Chima piped.

We all hugged in greeting, brief clasps of our bodies. Amaka barely let her sides meet mine before she backed away. She was wearing lipstick, a different shade that was more red than brown, and her dress was molded to her lean body.

“How was the drive down here?” she asked, looking at Jaja.

“Fine,” Jaja said. “I thought it would be longer than it was.”

“Oh, Enugu really isn't that far from here,” Amaka said.

“We still haven't bought the soft drinks, Mom,” Obiora said.

“Did I not tell you to buy them before you left,
gbo
?” Aunty Ifeoma slid the onion slices into hot oil and stepped back.

“I'll go now. Jaja, do you want to come with me? We're just going to a kiosk in the next compound.”

“Don't forget to take empty bottles,” Aunty Ifeoma said.

I watched Jaja leave with Obiora. I could not see his face, could not tell if he felt as bewildered as I did.

“Let me go and change, Mom, and I'll fry the plantains,” Amaka said, turning to leave.