'Oh, all the girls in church have crushes on him. Even some of the married women. People have crushes on priests all the time, you know. It's exciting to have to deal with God as a rival.' Amaka ran her hand over the railings, smearing the water droplets. 'You're different. I've never heard him talk about anyone like that. He said you never laugh. How shy you are although he knows there's a lot going on in your head. He insisted on driving Mom to Enugu to see you. I told him he sounded like a person whose wife was sick.'
'I was happy that he came to the hospital,' I said. It felt easy saying that, letting the words roll off my tongue.
Amaka's eyes still bored into me. 'It was Uncle Eugene who did that to you, okwia?' she asked.
I let go of the railings, suddenly needing to ease myself. Nobody had asked, not even the doctor at the hospital or Father Benedict. I did not know what Papa had told them. Or if he had even told them anything.
'Did Aunty Ifeoma tell you?' I asked.
'No, but I guessed so.'
'Yes. It was him,' I said, and then headed for the toilet. I did not turn to see Amaka's reaction.
The power went off that evening, just before the sun fell. The refrigerator shook and shivered and then fell silent. I did not notice how loud its nonstop hum was until it stopped. Obiora brought the kerosene lamps out to the verandah and we sat around them, swatting at the tiny insects that blindly followed the yellow light and bumped against the glass bulbs. Father Amadi came later in the evening, with roast corn and ube wrapped in old newspapers.
'Father, you are the best! Just what I was thinking about, corn and ube,' Amaka said.
'I brought this on the condition that you will not raise any arguments today,' Father Amadi said. 'I just want to see how Kambili is doing.'
Amaka laughed and took the package inside to get a plate.
'It's good to see you are yourself again,' Father Amadi said, looking me over, as if to see if I was all there. I smiled. He motioned for me to stand up for a hug. His body touching mine was tense and delicious. I backed away. I wished that Chima and Jaja and Obiora and Aunty Ifeoma and Amaka would all disappear for a while. I wished I were alone with him. I wished I could tell him how warm I felt that he was here, how my favorite color was now the same fired-clay shade of his skin.
A neighbor knocked on the door and came in with a plastic container of aku, anara leaves, and red peppers. Aunty Ifeoma said she did not think I should eat any because it might disturb my stomach. I watched Obiora flatten an anara leaf on his palm. He sprinkled the aku, fried to twisted crisps, and the peppers on the leaf and then rolled it up. Some of them slipped out as he stuffed the rolled leaf in his mouth.
'Our people say that after aku flies, it will still fall to the toad,' Father Amadi said. He dipped a hand into the bowl and threw a few into his mouth. 'When I was a child, I loved chasing aku. It was just play, though, because if you really wanted to catch them, you waited till evening, when they all lost their wings and fell down.' He sounded nostalgic.
I closed my eyes and let his voice caress me, let myself imagine him as a child, before his shoulders grew square, chasing aku outside, over soil softened by new rains.
Aunty Ifeoma said I would not help fetch water just yet, until she was sure I was strong enough. So I woke up after everyone else, when the sun's rays streamed steadily into the room, making the mirror glitter.
Amaka was standing at the living room window when I came out. I went over and stood by her. She was looking at the verandah, where Aunty Ifeoma sat on a stool, talking. The woman seated next to Aunty Ifeoma had piercing academic eyes and humorless lips and wore no makeup.
'We cannot sit back and let it happen, mba. Where else have you heard of such a thing as a sole administrator in a university?' Aunty Ifeoma said, leaning forward on the stool. Tiny cracks appeared in her bronze lipstick when she pursed her lips. 'A governing council votes for a vice chancellor. That is the way it has worked since this university was built, that is the way it is supposed to work, oburia?'
The woman looked off into the distance, nodding continuously in the way that people do when searching for the right words to use. When she finally spoke, she did so slowly, like someone addressing a stubborn child. 'They said there is a list circulating, Ifeoma, of lecturers who are disloyal to the university. They said they might be fired. They said your name is on it.'
'I am not paid to be loyal. When I speak the truth, it becomes disloyalty.'
'Ifeoma, do you think you are the only one who knows the truth? Do you think we do not all know the truth, eh? But, gwakenem, will the truth feed your children? Will the truth pay their school fees and buy their clothes?'
'When do we speak out, eh? When soldiers are appointed lecturers and students attend lectures with guns to their heads? When do we speak out?' Aunty Ifeoma's voice was raised. But the blaze in her eyes was not focused on the woman; she was angry at something that was bigger than the woman before her.
The woman got up. She smoothed her yellow-and-blue abarla skirt that barely let her brown slippers show. 'We should go. What time is your lecture?'
'Two.'
'Do you have fuel?'
'Ebekwanu? No.'
'Let me drop you. I have a little fuel.'
I watched Aunty Ifeoma and the woman walk slowly to the door, as though weighed down by both what they had said and what they had not said.
Amaka waited for Aunty Ifeoma to shut the door behind them before she left the window and sat down on a chair. 'Mom said you should remember to take your painkiller, Kambili,' she said.
'What was Aunty Ifeoma talking about with her friend?' I asked. I knew I would not have asked before. I would have wondered about it, but I would not have asked.
'The sole administrator,' Amaka said, shortly, as if I would immediately understand all that they had been talking about. She was running her hand down the length of the cane chair, over and over.
'The university's equivalent of a head of state,' Obiora said. 'The university becomes a microcosm of the country.'
I had not realized that he was there, reading a book on the living room floor. I had never heard anyone use the word microcosm.
'They are telling Mom to shut up,' Amaka said. 'Shut up if you do not want to lose your job because you can be fired, just like that.' Amaka snapped her fingers to show how fast Aunty Ifeoma could be fired.
'They should fire her, eh, so we can go to America,' Obiora said.
'Mechie onu' Amaka said. Shut up.
'America?' I looked from Amaka to Obiora.
'Aunty Phillipa is asking Mom to come over. At least people there get paid when they are supposed to,' Amaka said, bitterly, as though she were accusing someone of something.
'And Mom will have her work recognized in America, without any nonsense politics,' Obiora said, nodding, agreeing with himself in case nobody else did.
'Did Mom tell you she is going anywhere, gbo?' Amaka jabbed the chair now, with fast motions.
'Do you know how long they have been sitting on her file?' Obiora asked. 'She should have been senior lecturer years ago.'
'Aunty Ifeoma told you that?' I asked, stupidly, not even sure what I meant, because I could think of nothing else to say, because I could no longer imagine life without Aunty Ifeoma's family, without Nsukka.
Neither Obiora nor Amaka responded. They were glaring at each other silently, and I felt that they had not really been talking to me. I went outside and stood by the verandah railings.
It had rained all night. Jaja was kneeling in the garden, weeding. He did not have to water anymore because the sky did it. Anthills had risen in the newly softened red soil in the yard, like miniature castles. I took a deep breath and held it, to savor the smell of green leaves washed clean by rain, the way I imagined a smoker would do to savor the last of a cigarette. The allamanda bushes bordering the garden bloomed heavily with yellow, cylindrical flowers. Chima was pulling the flowers down and sticking his fingers in them, one after the other. I watched as he examined flower after flower, looking for a suitable small bloom that would fit onto his pinky.
That evening, Father Amadi stopped by on his way to the stadium. He wanted us all to go with him. He was coaching some boys from Ugwu Agidi for the local government high-jump championships. Obiora had borrowed a
