Jaja turned to the statue of the preening lion as we drove past it, his lips moving soundlessly. To restore the dignity of man. Obiora was reading the plaque, too. He let out a short cackle and asked, 'But when did man lose his dignity?'
Outside the gate, Aunty Ifeoma started the ignition again. When the car shuddered without starting, she muttered, 'Blessed Mother, please not now,' and tried again. The car only whined. Somebody horned behind us, and I turned to look at the woman in the yellow Peugeot 504. She came out and walked toward us; she wore a pair of culottes that flapped around her calves, which were lumpy like sweet potatoes. 'My own car stopped near Eastern Shop yesterday.' The woman stood at Aunty Ifeoma's window, her hair in a riotous curly perm swaying in the wind. 'My son sucked one liter from my husband's car this morning, just so I can get to the market. O di egwu. I hope fuel comes soon.'
'Let us wait and see, my sister. How is the family?' Aunty Ifeoma asked.
'We are well. Go well.'
'Let's push it,' Obiora suggested, already opening the car door.
'Wait.' Aunty Ifeoma turned the key again, and the car shook and then started. She drove off, with a screech, as if she did not want to slow down and give the car another chance to stop.
We stopped beside an ube hawker by the roadside, her bluish fruits displayed in pyramids on an enamel tray. Aunty Ifeoma gave Amaka some crumpled notes from her purse. Amaka bargained with the trader for a while, and then she smiled and pointed at the pyramids she wanted. I wondered what it felt like to do that.
Back in the flat, I joined Aunty Ifeoma and Amaka in the kitchen while Jaja went off with Obiora to play football with the children from the flats upstairs. Aunty Ifeoma got one of the huge yams we had brought from home. Amaka spread newspaper sheets on the floor to slice the tuber; it was easier than picking it up and placing it on the counter. When Amaka put the yam slices in a plastic bowl, I offered to help peel them and she silently handed me a knife.
'You will like Father Amadi, Kambili,' Aunty Ifeoma said. 'He's new at our chaplaincy, but he is so popular with everybody on campus already. He has invitations to eat in everybody's house.'
'I think he connects with our family the most,' Amaka said.
Aunty Ifeoma laughed. 'Amaka is so protective of him.'
'You are wasting yam, Kambili,' Amaka snapped. 'Ah! Ah! Is that how you peel yam in your house?'
I jumped and dropped the knife. It fell an inch away from my foot. 'Sorry,' I said, and I was not sure ii it was for dropping the knife or for letting too much creamy white yam go with the brown peel.
Aunty Ifeoma was watching us. 'Amaka, ngwa, show Kambili how to peel it.'
Amaka looked at her mother with her lips turned down and her eyebrows raised, as if she could not believe that anybody had to be told how to peel yam slices properly. She picked up the knife and started to peel a slice, letting only the brown skin go. I watched the measured movement of her hand and the increasing length of the peel, wishing I could apologize, wishing I knew how to do it right. She did it so well that the peel did not break, a continuous twirling soil-studded ribbon.
'Maybe I should enter it in your schedule, how to peel a yam,' Amaka muttered.
'Amaka!' Aunty Ifeoma shouted. 'Kambili, get me some water from the tank outside.'
I picked up the bucket, grateful for Aunty Ifeoma, for the chance to leave the kitchen and Amaka's scowling face. Amaka did not talk much the rest of the afternoon, until Father Amadi arrived, in a whiff of an earthy cologne. Chima jumped on him and held on. He shook Obiora's hand. Aunty Ifeoma and Amaka gave him brief hugs, and then Aunty Ifeoma introduced Jaja and me. 'Good evening,' I said and then added, 'Father.' It felt almost sacrilegious addressing this boyish man-in an open neck T-shirt and jeans faded so much I could not tell if they had been black or dark blue-as Father.
'Kambili and Jaja,' he said, as if he had met us before. 'How are you enjoying your first visit to Nsukka?'
'They hate it,' Amaka said, and I immediately wished she hadn't.
'Nsukka has its charms,' Father Amadi said, smiling. He had a singer's voice, a voice that had the same effect on my ears that Mama working Pears baby oil into my hair had on my scalp. I did not fully comprehend his English-laced Igbo sentences at dinner because my ears followed the sound and not the sense of his speech. He nodded as he chewed his yam and greens, and he did not speak until he had swallowed a mouthful and sipped some water. He was at home in Aunty Ifeoma's house; he knew which chair had a protruding nail and could pull a thread off your clothes. 'I thought I knocked that nail in,' he said, then talked about football with Obiora, the journalist the government had just arrested with Amaka, the Catholic women's organization with Aunty Ifeoma, and the neighborhood video game with Chima. My cousins chattered as much as before, but they waited until Father Amadi said something first and then pounced on it in response. I thought of the fattened chickens Papa sometimes bought for our offertory procession, the ones we took to the altar in addition to communion wine and yams and sometimes goats, the ones we let stroll around the backyard until Sunday morning. The chickens rushed at the pieces of bread Sisi threw to them, disorderly and enthusiastic. My cousins rushed at Father Amadi's words in the same way. Father Amadi included Jaja and me in the conversation, asking us questions. I knew the questions were meant for both of us because he used the plural 'you,' unu, rather than the singular, gi, yet I remained silent, grateful for Jaja's answers. He asked where we went to school, what subjects we liked, if we played any sports. When he asked what church we went to in Enugu, Jaja told him. 'St. Agnes? I visited there once to say Mass,' Father Amadi said. I remembered then, the young visiting priest who had broken into song in the middle of his sermon, whom Papa had said we had to pray for because people like him were trouble for the church. There had been many other visiting priests through the months, but I knew it was him. I just knew. And I remembered the song he had sung.
'Did you?' Aunty Ifeoma asked. 'My brother, Eugene, almost single-handedly finances that church. Lovely church.'
'Chelukwa. Wait a minute. Your brother is Eugene Achike? The publisher of the Standard?'
'Yes, Eugene is my elder brother. I thought I'd mentioned it before.' Aunty Ifeoma's smile did not quite brighten her face.
'Ezi okwu? I didn't know.' Father Amadi shook his head. 'I hear he's very involved in the editorial decisions. The Standard is the only paper that dares to tell the truth these days.'
'Yes,' Aunty Ifeoma said. 'And he has a brilliant editor, Ade Coker, although I wonder how much longer before they lock him up for good. Even Eugenes money will not buy everything.'
'I was reading somewhere that Amnesty World is giving your brother an award,' Father Amadi said. He was nodding slowly, admiringly, and I felt myself go warm all over, with pride, with a desire to be associated with Papa. I wanted to say something, to remind this handsome priest that Papa wasn't just Aunty Ifeoma's brother or the Standard's publisher, that he was my father. I wanted some of the cloudlike warmth in Father Amadi's eyes to rub off on me, settle on me.
'An award?' Amaka asked, bright-eyed. 'Mom, we should at least buy the Standard once in a while so we'll know what is going on.'
'Or we could ask for free copies to be sent to us, if prides were swallowed,' Obiora said.
'I didn't even know about the award,' Aunty Ifeoma said. 'Not that Eugene would tell me anyway, igasikwa. We can't even have a conversation. After all, I had to use a pilgrimage to Aokpe to get him to say yes to the children's visiting us.'
'So you plan to go to Aokpe?' Father Amadi asked.
'I was not really planning to. But I suppose we will have to go now, I will find out the next apparition date.'
'People are making this whole apparition thing up. Didn't they say Our Lady was appearing at Bishop Shanahan Hospital the other time? And then that she was appearing in Transekulu?' Obiora asked.
'Aokpe is different. It has all the signs of Lourdes,' Amaka said. 'Besides, it's about time Our Lady came to Africa. Don't you wonder how come she always appears in Europe? She was from the Middle East, after all.'
'What is she now, the Political Virgin?' Obiora asked, and I looked at him again. He was a bold, male version of what I could never have been at fourteen, what I still was not.
Father Amadi laughed. 'But she's appeared in Egypt, Amaka. At least people flocked there, like they are flocking to Aokpe now. O bugodi, like migrating locusts.'
'You don't sound like you believe, Father.' Amaka was watching him.
