I was still staring when Amaka walked over to me. She placed her arm lightly on my shoulder. 'Obiora says you must be having sex, or something close to sex, with Father Amadi. We have never seen Father Amadi look so bright-eyed.' Amaka was laughing. I did not know whether or not she was serious. I did not want to dwell on how strange it felt discussing whether or not I had had sex with Father Amadi. 'Maybe when we are in the university you will join me in agitating for optional celibacy in the priesthood?' Amaka asked. 'Or maybe fornication should be permitted all priests once in a while. Say, once a month?'
'Amaka, please stop it.' I turned and walked to the verandah.
'Do you want him to leave the priesthood?' Amaka sounded more serious now.
'He will never leave.'
Amaka tilted her head thoughtfully, and then smiled. 'You never know,' she said, before walking into the living room.
I copied Father Amadi's German address over and over in my notebook. I was copying it again, trying at different writing styles, when he came back. He took the notebook from me and closed it. I wanted to say, 'I will miss you' but instead I said, 'I will write you.'
'I will write you first,' he said.
I did not know that tears slipped down my cheeks until Father Amadi reached out and wiped them away, running his open palm over my face. Then he enclosed me in his arms and held me.
Aunty Ifeoma cooked dinner for Father Amadi, and we all ate the rice and beans at the dining table. I knew that there was much laughter, much talk about the stadium and about remembering, but I did not feel that I was involved. I was busy locking little parts of me up, because I would not need them if Father Amadi was not here.
I did not sleep well that night; I tossed around so often that I woke Amaka up. I wanted to tell her about my dream where a man chased me down a rocky path littered with bruised allamanda leaves. First the man was Father Amadi, his soutane flying behind him, then it was Papa, in the floor-length gray sack he wore when he distributed ash on Ash Wednesday. But I didn't tell her. I let her hold and soothe me like a little child, until I fell asleep. I was glad to wake up, glad to see morning stream in through the window in shimmering strips the color of a ripe orange.
The packing was done; the hallway looked oddly big now that the bookshelves were gone. In Aunty Ifeoma's room, only a few things remained on the floor, the things we would use until we all left for Enugu: a bag of rice, a tin of milk, a tin of Bournvita. The other cartons and boxes and books had been cleared up or given away. When Aunty Ifeoma gave some clothes to the neighbors, the woman from the flat upstairs told her, 'Mh, why won't you give me that blue dress you wear to church? After all, you will get more in America!' Aunty Ifeoma had narrowed her eyes, annoyed. I was not sure if it was because the woman was asking for the dress or because she had brought up America. But she did not give her the blue dress.
There was restlessness in the air now, as if we had all packed everything too quickly and too well and we needed something else to do. 'We have fuel, let's go for a drive,' Aunty Ifeoma suggested.
'A good-bye tour of Nsukka,' Amaka said, with a wry smile.
We piled into the car. It swerved as Aunty Ifeoma turned onto the stretch of road bordered by the faculty of engineering, and I wondered if it would crash into the gutter and then Aunty Ifeoma would not get the fair rate she said a man in town had offered for it. She had also said that the money she would get for the car would pay only for Chima's ticket, which was half the full price of a ticket. Since my dream, the night before, I had had a feeling that something big would happen. Father Amadi would come back; it had to be what would happen. Maybe there was a mistake in his departure date; maybe he had postponed his trip. So as Aunty Ifeoma drove, I looked at the cars on the road, seeking Father Amadi, looking for that pastel-colored small Toyota. Aunty Ifeoma stopped at the foot of Odim hill and said, 'Let's climb to the top.'
I was surprised. I was not sure Aunty Ifeoma had planned to have us climb up the hill; it sounded like something she had said on impulse. Obiora suggested we have a picnic up the hill, and Aunty Ifeoma said it was a good idea. We drove to town and bought moi-moi and bottles of Ribena from Eastern Shop and then came back to the hill. The climb was easy because there were many zigzagging paths. There was a fresh smell in the air and, once in a while, a crackling in the long grass that bordered the paths. 'The grasshoppers make that sound with their wings,' Obiora said. He stopped by a mighty anthill, with ridges running across the red mud as if they were deliberate designs. 'Amaka, you should paint something like this,' he said. But Amaka did not respond; instead, she started to run up the hill. Chima ran after her. Jaja joined them.
Aunty Ifeoma looked at me. 'What are you waiting for?' she asked, and she raised her wrapper, almost above her knees, and ran after Jaja. I took off, too, feeling the wind rush past my ears.
Running made me think of Father Amadi, made me remember the way his eyes had lingered on my bare legs. I ran past Aunty Ifeoma, past Jaja and Chima, and I got to the top of the hill at about the same time as Amaka.
'Hei!' Amaka said, looking at me. 'You should be a sprinter.' She flopped down on the grass, breathing hard. I sat next to her and brushed away a tiny spider on my leg.
Aunty Ifeoma had stopped running before she got to the top of the hill. 'Nne,' she said to me. 'I will find you a trainer, eh, there is big money in athletics.'
I laughed. It seemed so easy now, laughter. So many things seemed easy now. Jaja was laughing, too, as was Amaka, and we were all sitting on the grass, waiting for Obiora to come up to the top.
He walked up slowly, holding something that turned out to be a grasshopper. 'It's so strong,' he said. 'I can feel the pressure of its wings.' He spread his palm and watched the grasshopper fly off. We took our food into the damaged building tucked into the other side of the hill. It may have once been a storeroom, but its roof and doors had been blown off during the civil war years ago, and it had remained that way. It looked ghostly, and I did not want to eat there, although Obiora said people spread mats on the charred floors to have picnics all the time. He was examining the writings on the walls of the building, and he read some of them aloud. 'Obinna loves Nnenna forever.' 'Emeka and Unoma did it here.' 'One love Chimsimdi and Obi.' I was relieved when Aunty Ifeoma said we would eat outside on the grass, since we did not have a mat. As we ate the moi-moi and drank the Ribena, I watched a small car crawl around the base of the hill. I tried to focus, to see who was inside, even though it was too far away. The shape of the head looked very much like Father Amadi's. I ate quickly and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, smoothed my hair. I didn't want to look untidy when he appeared.
Chima wanted to race down the other side of the hill, the side that didn't have many paths, but Aunty Ifeoma said it was too steep. So he sat down and slithered on his behind down the hill. Aunty Ifeoma called out, 'You will use your own hands to wash your shorts, do you hear me?' I knew that, before, she would have scolded him some more and probably made him stop. We all sat and watched him slide down the hill, the brisk wind making our eyes water.
The sun had turned red and was about to fall when Aunty Ifeoma said we had to leave. As we trudged down the hill, I stopped hoping that Father Amadi would appear.
We were all in the living room, playing cards, when the phone rang that evening. 'Amaka, please answer it,' Aunty Ifeoma said, even though she was closest to the door.
'I can bet it's for you, Mom,' Amaka said, focused on her cards. 'It's one of those people who want you to dash them our plates and our pots and even the underwear we have on.'
Aunty Ifeoma got up laughing and hurried to the phone. The TV was off and we were all silently absorbed in our cards, so I heard Aunty Ifeoma's scream clearly. A short, strangled scream. For a short moment, I prayed that the American embassy had revoked the visa, before I rebuked myself and asked God to disregard my prayers. We all rushed to the room. 'Hei, Chi m o! nwunye m! Hei!' Aunty Ifeoma was standing by the table, her free hand placed on her head in the way that people do when they are in shock. What had happened to Mama? She was holding the phone out; I knew she wanted to give it to Jaja, but I was closer and I grasped it. My hand shook so much the earpiece slid away from my ear to my temple.
Mama's low voice floated across the phone line and quickly quelled my shaking hand. 'Kambili, it's your father. They called me from the factory, they found him lying dead on his desk.'
I pressed the phone tighter to my ear. 'Eh?'
'It's your father. They called me from the factory, they found him lying dead on his desk.' Mama sounded like a recording. I imagined her saying the same thing to Jaja, in the same exact tone. My ears filled with liquid. Although I had heard her right, heard her say he was found dead on his office desk, I asked, 'Did he get a letter
