Purple Hibiscus (20 page)

I nodded in time to the chorus. We really did not need the music, though, because his voice was melody enough. I felt that I was at home, that I was where I had been meant to be for a long time. Father Amadi sang for a while; then he lowered the volume to a whisper again. “You haven't asked me a single question,” he said.

“I don't know what to ask.”

“You should have learned the art of questioning from Amaka. Why does the tree's shoot go up and the root down? Why is there a sky? What is life? Just why?”

I laughed. It sounded strange, as if I were listening to the recorded laughter of a stranger being played back. I was not sure I had ever heard myself laugh.

“Why did you become a priest?” I blurted out, then wished I had not asked, that the bubbles in my throat had not let that through. Of course he had gotten the call, the same call that all the Reverend Sisters in school talked about when they asked us to always listen for the call when we prayed. Sometimes I imagined God calling me, his rumbling voice British-accented. He would not say my name right; like Father Benedict, he
would place the emphasis on the second syllable rather than the first.

“I wanted to be a doctor at first. Then I went to church once and heard this priest speak and I was changed forever,” Father Amadi said.

“Oh.”

“I was joking,” Father Amadi glanced at me. He looked surprised I did not realize that it was a joke. “It's a lot more complicated than that, Kambili. I had many questions, growing up. The priesthood came closest to answering them.”

I wondered what questions they were and if Father Benedict, too, had those questions. Then I thought, with a fierce, unreasonable sadness, how Father Amadi's smooth skin would not be passed on to a child, how his square shoulders would not balance the legs of his toddler son who wanted to touch the ceiling fan.

“
Ewo
, I am late for a chaplaincy council meeting,” he said, looking at the clock. “I'll drop you off and leave right away.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Why? I've spent an enjoyable afternoon with you. You must come with me to the stadium again. I will tie your hands and legs up and carry you if I have to.” He laughed.

I stared at the dashboard, at the blue-and-gold Legion of Mary sticker on it. Didn't he know that I did not want him to leave, ever? That I did not need to be persuaded to go to the stadium, or anywhere, with him? The afternoon played across my mind as I got out of the car in front of the flat. I had smiled, run, laughed. My chest was filled with something like bath foam. Light. The lightness was so sweet I tasted it on my tongue, the sweetness of an overripe bright yellow cashew fruit.

Aunty Ifeoma was standing behind Papa-Nnukwu on the verandah, rubbing his shoulders. I greeted them.

“Kambili,
nno
,” Papa-Nnukwu said. He looked tired; his eyes were dull.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” Aunty Ifeoma asked, smiling.

“Yes, Aunty.”

“Your father called this afternoon,” she said, in English.

I stared at her, studying the black mole above her lip, willing her to laugh her loud, cackling laugh and tell me it was a joke. Papa never called in the afternoon. Besides, he had called before he went to work, so why had he called again? Something had to be wrong.

“Somebody from the village—I'm sure it was a member of our extended family—told him that I had come to take your grandfather from the village,” Aunty Ifeoma said, still in English so Papa-Nnukwu would not understand. “Your father said I should have told him, that he deserved to know that your grandfather was here in Nsukka. He went on and on about a heathen being in the same house as his children.” Aunty Ifeoma shook her head as if the way Papa felt were just a minor eccentricity. But it was not. Papa would be outraged that neither Jaja nor I had mentioned it when he called. My head was filling up quickly with blood or water or sweat. Whatever it was, I knew I would faint when my head got full.

“He said he would come here tomorrow to take you both back, but I calmed him down. I told him that I would take you and Jaja home the day after tomorrow, and I think he accepted that. Let's hope we find fuel,” Aunty Ifeoma said.

“Okay, Aunty.” I turned to go into the flat, feeling dizzy.

“Oh, and he has gotten his editor out of prison,” Aunty Ifeoma said. But I hardly heard her.

AMAKA SHOOK ME
although her movements had already woken me. I had been teetering on that boundary that divides sleep and wakefulness, imagining Papa coming to get us himself, imagining the rage in his red-tinged eyes, the burst of Igbo from his mouth.

“Let's go and fetch water. Jaja and Obiora are already out,” Amaka said, stretching. She said that every morning now. She let me carry one container in now, too.

“
Nekwa
, Papa-Nnukwu is still asleep. He will be upset that the medicines made him oversleep and he did not wake to watch the sun rise.” She bent and shook him gently.

“Papa-Nnukwu, Papa-Nnukwu,
kunie.
” She turned him over slowly when he did not stir. His wrapper had come undone to reveal a pair of white shorts with a frayed elastic band at the waist. “Mom! Mom!” Amaka screamed. She moved a hand over Papa-Nnukwu's chest, feverishly, searching for a heartbeat. “Mom!”

Aunty Ifeoma hurried into the room. She had not tied her wrapper over her nightdress, and I could make out the downward slope of her breasts, the slight swell of her belly underneath the sheer fabric. She sank to her knees and clutched Papa-Nnukwu's body, shaking it.

“Nna anyi! Nna anyi
!” Her voice was desperately loud, as if raising it would make Papa-Nnukwu hear better and respond. “
Nna anyi
!” When she stopped speaking, grasping Papa-Nnukwu's wrist, resting her head on his chest, the silence was broken only by the crow of the neighbor's cock. I held my breath—it suddenly seemed too loud for Aunty Ifeoma to hear Papa-Nnukwu's heartbeat.

“
Ewuu
, he has fallen asleep. He has fallen asleep,” Aunty
Ifeoma said, finally. She buried her head on Papa-Nnukwu's shoulder, rocking back and forth.

Amaka pulled at her mother. “Stop it, Mom. Give him mouth to mouth! Stop it!”

Aunty Ifeoma kept rocking, and for a moment, because Papa-Nnukwu's body moved back and forth as well, I wondered if Aunty Ifeoma was wrong and Papa-Nnukwu was only really asleep.

“
Nna m o
! My father!” Aunty Ifeoma's voice rang out so pure and high it seemed to come from the ceiling. It was the same tone, the same piercing depth, that I heard sometimes in Abba when mourners danced past our house, holding the photograph of a dead family member, shouting.

“
Nna m o
!” Aunty Ifeoma screamed, still clutching Papa-Nnukwu. Amaka made feeble attempts to pull her off. Obiora and Jaja dashed into the room. And I imagined our forebears a century ago, the ancestors Papa-Nnukwu prayed to, charging in to defend their hamlet, coming back with lolling heads on long sticks.

“What is it, Mom?” Obiora asked. The bottom of his trousers clung to his leg where water from the tap had splashed on it.

“Papa-Nnukwu is alive,” Jaja said in English, with authority, as if doing so would make his words come true. The same tone God must have used when He said “Let there be Light.” Jaja wore only the bottom of his pajamas, which was also splattered with water. For the first time, I noticed the sparse hair on his chest.

“
Nna m o
!” Aunty Ifeoma was still clutching Papa-Nnukwu.

Obiora started to breathe in a noisy, rasping way. He bent over Aunty Ifeoma and grasped her, slowly prying her away
from Papa-Nnukwu's body. “
O zugo
, it is enough, Mom. He has joined the others.” His voice had a strange timber. He helped Aunty Ifeoma up and led her to sit on the bed. She had the same blank look in her eyes that Amaka had, standing there, staring down at Papa-Nnukwu's form.

“I will call Doctor Nduoma,” Obiora said.

Jaja bent down and covered Papa-Nnukwu's body with the wrapper, but he did not cover his face even though the wrapper was long enough. I wanted to go over and touch Papa-Nnukwu, touch the white tufts of hair that Amaka oiled, smooth the wrinkled skin of his chest. But I would not. Papa would be outraged. I closed my eyes then so that if Papa asked if I had seen Jaja touch the body of a heathen—it seemed more grievous, touching Papa-Nnukwu in death—I could truthfully say no, because I had not seen everything that Jaja did. My eyes remained closed for a long time, and it seemed that my ears, too, were closed, because although I could hear the sound of voices, I did not make out what they said. When I finally opened my eyes, Jaja sat on the floor, next to Papa-Nnukwu's sheathed frame. Obiora sat on the bed with Aunty Ifeoma, who was speaking. “Wake Chima up, so we can tell him before the people from the mortuary come.”

Jaja stood up to go and wake Chima. He wiped at the tears that slid down his cheeks as he went.

“I will clean where the
ozu
lay, Mom,” Obiora said. He let out sporadic choking sounds, crying deep in his throat. I knew that the reason he did not cry out loud was because he was the nwoke in the house, the man Aunty Ifeoma had by her side.

“No,” Aunty Ifeoma said. “I will do it.” She stood up then
and hugged Obiora, and they held on to each other for a long time. I went toward the bathroom, the word
ozu
ringing in my ears. Papa-Nnukwu was an ozu now, a corpse.

The bathroom door did not give when I tried to open it, and I pushed harder to make sure it was really locked. Sometimes it got stuck because of the way the wood expanded and contracted. Then I heard Amaka's sobbing. It was loud and throaty; she laughed the way she cried. She had not learned the art of silent crying; she had not needed to. I wanted to turn and go away, to leave her with her grief. But my underwear already felt wet, and I had to move my weight from leg to leg to hold the urine back.

“Amaka, please, I have to use the toilet,” I whispered, and when she did not respond, I repeated it loudly. I did not want to knock; knocking would intrude rudely on her tears. Finally, Amaka unlocked the door and opened it. I urinated as quickly as I could because I knew she stood just outside, waiting to go back in and sob behind the locked door.

THE TWO MEN
who came with Doctor Nduoma carried Papa-Nnukwu's stiffening body in their hands, one holding his underarms and the other his ankles. They could not get the stretcher from the medical center because the medical administrative staff was on strike, too. Doctor Nduoma said
“Ndo
” to all of us, the smile still on his face. Obiora said he wanted to accompany the ozu to the mortuary; he wanted to see them put the ozu in the fridge. But Aunty Ifeoma said no, he did not have to see Papa-Nnukwu put in the fridge. The word
fridge
floated around in my head. I knew where they put
corpses in the mortuary was different, yet I imagined Papa-Nnukwu's body being folded into a home refrigerator, the kind in our kitchen.

Obiora agreed not to go to the mortuary, but he followed the men and watched closely as they loaded the ozu into the station wagon ambulance. He peered into the back of the car to make sure that there was a mat to lay the ozu on, that they would not just lay it down on the rusty floor.

After the ambulance drove off, followed by Doctor Nduoma in his car, I helped Aunty Ifeoma carry Papa-Nnukwu's mattress to the verandah. She scrubbed it thoroughly with Omo detergent and the same brush Amaka used to clean the bathtub.

“Did you see your Papa-Nnukwu's face in death, Kambili?” Aunty Ifeoma asked, leaning the clean mattress against the metal railings to dry.

I shook my head. I had not looked at his face.

“He was smiling,” she said. “He was smiling.”

I looked away so Aunty Ifeoma would not see the tears on my face and so I would not see the tears on hers. There was not much talking in the flat; the silence was heavy and brooding. Even Chima curled up in a corner for much of the morning, quietly drawing pictures. Aunty Ifeoma boiled some yam slices, and we ate them dipped in palm oil that had chopped red peppers floating in it. Amaka came out of the bathroom hours after we had eaten, her eyes swollen, her voice hoarse.

“Go and eat, Amaka. I boiled yam,” Aunty Ifeoma said.

“I did not finish painting him. He said we would finish it today.”

“Go and eat,
inugo
,” Aunty Ifeoma repeated.

“He would be alive now if the medical center was not on strike,” Amaka said.

“It was his time,” Aunty Ifeoma said. “Do you hear me? It was simply his time.”

Amaka stared at Aunty Ifeoma and then turned away. I wanted to hug her, to say “
ebezi na
” and wipe away her tears. I wanted to cry loudly, in front of her, with her. But I knew it might anger her. She was already angry enough. Besides, I did not have a right to mourn Papa-Nnukwu with her; he had been her Papa-Nnukwu more than mine. She had oiled his hair while I kept away and wondered what Papa would say if he knew. Jaja put his arm around her and led her into the kitchen. She shook free of him, as if to prove she did not need support, but she walked close to him. I stared after them, wishing I had done that instead of Jaja.

“Somebody just parked in front of our flat,” Obiora said. He had taken off his glasses to cry, but now he had them back on, and he pushed them up the bridge of his nose as he got up to look outside.

“Who is it?” Aunty Ifeoma asked, tiredly. She could not care less who it was.

“Uncle Eugene.”

I froze on my seat, felt the skin of my arms melding and becoming one with the cane arms of the chair. Papa-Nnukwu's death had overshadowed everything, pushed Papa's face into a vague place. But that face had come alive now. It was at the door, looking down at Obiora. Those bushy eyebrows were not familiar; neither was that shade of brown skin. Perhaps if Obiora had not said, “Uncle Eugene,” I would not have known that it was Papa, that the tall stranger in the well-tailored white
tunic was Papa.