Purple Hibiscus (23 page)

When Jaja and I came home from school, we were almost drenched by the walk from the car to the front door; the rain was so heavy it had formed a small pool beside the hibiscuses. My feet itched inside my wet leather sandals. Papa was crumpled on a sofa in the living room, sobbing. He seemed so small.
Papa who was so tall that he sometimes lowered his head to get through doorways, that his tailor always used extra fabric to sew his trousers. Now he seemed small; he looked like a rumpled roll of fabric.

“I should have made Ade hold that story” Papa was saying. “I should have protected him. I should have made him stop that story.”

Mama held him close to her, cradling his face on her chest. “No,” she said. “
O zugo
. Don't.”

Jaja and I stood watching. I thought about Ade Coker's glasses, I imagined the thick, bluish lenses shattering, the white frames melting into sticky goo. Later, after Mama told us what had happened, how it had happened, Jaja said, “It was God's will, Papa,” and Papa smiled at Jaja and gently patted his back.

Papa organized Ade Coker's funeral; he set up a trust for Yewande Coker and the children, bought them a new house. He paid the
Standard
staff huge bonuses and asked them all to take a long leave. Hollows appeared under his eyes during those weeks, as if someone had suctioned the delicate flesh, leaving his eyes sunken in.

My nightmares started then, nightmares in which I saw Ade Coker's charred remains spattered on his dining table, on his daughter's school uniform, on his baby's cereal bowl, on his plate of eggs. In some of the nightmares, I was the daughter and the charred remains became Papa's.

WEEKS AFTER ADE COKER DIED
, the hollows were still carved under Papa's eyes, and there was a slowness in his movements, as though his legs were too heavy to lift, his hands
too heavy to swing. He took longer to reply when spoken to, to chew his food, even to find the right Bible passages to read. But he prayed a lot more, and some nights when I woke up to pee, I heard him shouting from the balcony overlooking the front yard. Even though I sat on the toilet seat and listened, I never could make sense of what he was saying. When I told Jaja about this, he shrugged and said that Papa must have been speaking in tongues, although we both knew that Papa did not approve of people speaking in tongues because it was what the fake pastors at those mushroom Pentecostal churches did.

Mama told Jaja and me often to remember to hug Papa tighter, to let him know we were there, because he was under so much pressure. Soldiers had gone to one of the factories, carrying dead rats in a carton, and then closed the factory down, saying the rats had been found there and could spread disease through the wafers and biscuits. Papa no longer went to the other factories as often as he used to. Some days, Father Benedict came before Jaja and I left for school, and was still in Papa's study when we came home. Mama said they were saying special novenas. Papa never came out to make sure Jaja and I were following our schedules on such days, and so Jaja came into my room to talk, or just to sit on my bed while I studied, before going to his room.

It was on one of those days that Jaja came into my room, shut the door, and asked, “Can I see the painting of Papa-Nnukwu?”

My eyes lingered on the door. I never looked at the painting when Papa was at home.

“He is with Father Benedict,” Jaja said. “He will not come in.”

I took the painting out of the bag and unwrapped it. Jaja
stared at it, running his deformed finger over the paint, the finger that had very little feeling.

“I have Papa-Nnukwu's arms,” Jaja said. “Can you see? I have his arms.” He sounded like someone in a trance, as if he had forgotten where he was and who he was. As if he had forgotten that his finger had little feeling in it.

I did not tell Jaja to stop, or point out that it was his deformed finger that he was running over the painting. I did not put the painting right back. Instead I moved closer to Jaja and we stared at the painting, silently, for a very long time. A long enough time for Father Benedict to leave. I knew Papa would come in to say good night, to kiss my forehead. I knew he would be wearing his wine-red pajamas that lent a slightly red shimmer to his eyes. I knew Jaja would not have enough time to slip the painting back in the bag, and that Papa would take one look at it and his eyes would narrow, his cheeks would bulge out like unripe udala fruit, his mouth would spurt Igbo words.

And that was what happened. Perhaps it was what we wanted to happen, Jaja and I, without being aware of it. Perhaps we all changed after Nsukka—even Papa—and things were destined to not be the same, to not be in their original order.

“What is that? Have you all converted to heathen ways? What are you doing with that painting? Where did you get it?” Papa asked.

“
O nkem
. It's mine,” Jaja said. He wrapped the painting around his chest with his arms.

“It's mine,” I said.

Papa swayed slightly, from side to side, like a person about
to fall at the feet of a charismatic pastor after the laying on of hands. Papa did not sway often. His swaying was like shaking a bottle of Coke that burst into violent foam when you opened it.

“Who brought that painting into this house?”

“Me,” I said.

“Me,” Jaja said.

If only Jaja would look at me, I would ask him not to blame himself. Papa snatched the painting from Jaja. His hands moved swiftly, working together. The painting was gone. It already represented something lost, something I had never had, would never have. Now even that reminder was gone, and at Papa's feet lay pieces of paper streaked with earth-tone colors. The pieces were very small, very precise. I suddenly and maniacally imagined Papa-Nnukwu's body being cut in pieces that small and stored in a fridge.

“No!” I shrieked. I dashed to the pieces on the floor as if to save them, as if saving them would mean saving Papa-Nnukwu. I sank to the floor, lay on the pieces of paper.

“What has gotten into you?” Papa asked. “What is wrong with you?”

I lay on the floor, curled tight like the picture of a child in the uterus in my
Integrated Science for Junior Secondary Schools
.

“Get up! Get away from that painting!”

I lay there, did nothing.

“Get up!” Papa said again. I still did not move. He started to kick me. The metal buckles on his slippers stung like bites from giant mosquitoes. He talked nonstop, out of control, in a mix of Igbo and English, like soft meat and thorny bones.
Godlessness. Heathen worship. Hellfire. The kicking increased in tempo, and I thought of Amaka's music, her culturally conscious music that sometimes started off with a calm saxophone and then whirled into lusty singing. I curled around myself tighter, around the pieces of the painting; they were soft, feathery. They still had the metallic smell of Amaka's paint palette. The stinging was raw now, even more like bites, because the metal landed on open skin on my side, my back, my legs. Kicking. Kicking. Kicking. Perhaps it was a belt now because the metal buckle seemed too heavy. Because I could hear a swoosh in the air. A low voice was saying, “Please,
biko
, please.” More stings. More slaps. A salty wetness warmed my mouth. I closed my eyes and slipped away into quiet.

WHEN I OPENED MY EYES
, I knew at once that I was not in my bed. The mattress was firmer than mine. I made to get up, but pain shot through my whole body in exquisite little packets. I collapsed back.

“
Nne
, Kambili. Thank God!” Mama stood up and pressed her hand to my forehead, then her face to mine. “Thank God. Thank God you are awake.”

Her face felt clammy with tears. Her touch was light, yet it sent needles of pain all over me, starting from my head. It was like the hot water Papa had poured on my feet, except now it was my entire body that burned. Each movement was too painful to even think about.

“My whole body is on fire,” I said.

“Shhh,” she said. “Just rest. Thank God you are awake.”

I did not want to be awake. I did not want to feel the breathing pain at my side. I did not want to feel the heavy hammer
knocking in my head. Even taking a breath was agony. A doctor in white was in the room, at the foot of my bed. I knew that voice; he was a lector in church. He was speaking slowly and precisely, the way he did when he read the first and second readings, yet I could not hear it all. Broken rib. Heal nicely. Internal bleeding. He came close and slowly lifted my shirtsleeve. Injections had always scared me—whenever I had malaria, I prayed I would need to take Novalgin tablets instead of chloroquine injections. But now the prick of a needle was nothing. I would take injections every day over the pain in my body. Papa's face was close to mine. It seemed so close that his nose almost brushed mine, and yet I could tell that his eyes were soft, that he was speaking and crying at the same time. “My precious daughter. Nothing will happen to you. My precious daughter.” I was not sure if it was a dream. I closed my eyes.

When I opened them again, Father Benedict stood above me. He was making the sign of the cross on my feet with oil; the oil smelled like onions, and even his light touch hurt. Papa was nearby. He, too, was muttering prayers, his hands resting gently on my side. I closed my eyes.

“It does not mean anything. They give extreme unction to anyone who is seriously ill,” Mama whispered, when Papa and Father Benedict left.

I stared at the movement of her lips. I was not seriously ill. She knew that. Why was she saying I was seriously ill? Why was I here in St. Agnes hospital?

“Mama, call Aunty Ifeoma,” I said.

Mama looked away. “
Nne
, you have to rest.”

“Call Aunty Ifeoma. Please.”

Mama reached out to hold my hand. Her face was puffy from crying, and her lips were cracked, with bits of discolored skin peeling off. I wished I could get up and hug her, and yet I wanted to push her away, to shove her so hard that she would topple over the chair.

FATHER AMADI'S FACE
was looking down at me when I opened my eyes. I was dreaming it, imagining it, and yet I wished that it did not hurt so much to smile, so that I could.

“At first they could not find a vein, and I was so scared.” It was Mama's voice, real and next to me. I was not dreaming.

“Kambili. Kambili. Are you awake?” Father Amadi's voice was deeper, less melodious than in my dreams.

“
Nne
, Kambili,
nne
.” It was Aunty Ifeoma's voice; her face appeared next to Father Amadi's. She had held her braided hair up, in a huge bun that looked like a raffia basket balanced on her head. I tried to smile. I felt woozy. Something was slipping out of me, slipping away, taking my strength and my sanity, and I could not stop it.

“The medication knocks her out,” Mama said.

“
Nne
, your cousins send greetings. They would have come, but they are in school. Father Amadi is here with me.
Nne
…” Aunty Ifeoma clutched my hand, and I winced, pulling it away. Even the effort to pull it away hurt. I wanted to keep my eyes open, wanted to see Father Amadi, to smell his cologne, to hear his voice, but my eyelids were slipping shut.

“This cannot go on,
nwunye m
,” Aunty Ifeoma said. “When a house is on fire, you run out before the roof collapses on your head.”

“It has never happened like this before. He has never punished her like this before,” Mama said.

“Kambili will come to Nsukka when she leaves the hospital.”

“Eugene will not agree.”

“I will tell him. Our father is dead, so there is no threatening heathen in my house. I want Kambili and Jaja to stay with us, at least until Easter. Pack your own things and come to Nsukka. It will be easier for you to leave when they are not there.”

“It has never happened like this before.”

“Do you not hear what I have said,
gbo
?” Aunty Ifeoma said, raising her voice.

“I hear you.”

The voices grew too distant, as if Mama and Aunty Ifeoma were on a boat moving quickly to sea and the waves had swallowed their voices. Before I lost their voices, I wondered where Father Amadi had gone. I opened my eyes hours later. It was dark, and the light bulbs were off. In the glimmer of light from the hallway that streamed underneath the closed door, I could see the crucifix on the wall and Mama's figure on a chair at the foot of my bed.

“
Kedu
? I will be here all night. Sleep. Rest,” Mama said. She got up and sat on my bed. She caressed my pillow; I knew she was afraid to touch me and cause me pain. “Your father has been by your bedside every night these past three days. He has not slept a wink.”

It was hard to turn my head, but I did it and looked away.

MY PRIVATE TUTOR
came the following week. Mama said Papa had interviewed ten people before he picked her.
She was a young Reverend Sister and had not yet made her final profession. The beads of the rosary, which were twisted around the waist of her sky-colored habit, rustled as she moved. Her wispy blond hair peeked from beneath her scarf. When she held my hand and said, “
Kee ka ime
?” I was stunned. I had never heard a white person speak Igbo, and so well. She spoke softly in English when we had lessons and in Igbo, although not often, when we didn't. She created her own silence, sitting in it and fingering her rosary while I read comprehension passages. But she knew a lot of things; I saw it in the pools of her hazel eyes. She knew, for example, that I could move more body parts than I told the doctor, although she said nothing. Even the hot pain in my side had become lukewarm, the throbbing in my head had lessened. But I told the doctor it was as bad as before and I screamed when he tried to feel my side. I did not want to leave the hospital. I did not want to go home.

I took my exams on my hospital bed while Mother Lucy, who brought the papers herself, waited on a chair next to Mama. She gave me extra time for each exam, but I was finished long before the time was up. She brought my report card a few days later. I came first. Mama did not sing her Igbo praise songs; she only said, “Thanks be to God.”