The pieces of gods
After Palm Sunday
Everything came tumbling down after Palm Sunday. Howling winds came with an angry rain, uprooting frangipani trees in the front yard. They lay on the lawn, their pink and white flowers grazing the grass, their roots waving lumpy soil in the air. The satellite dish on top of the garage came crashing down, and lounged on the driveway like a visiting alien spaceship. The door of my wardrobe dislodged completely. Sisi broke a full set of Mama's china.
Even the silence that descended on the house was sudden, as though the old silence had broken and left us with the sharp pieces. When Mama asked Sisi to wipe the floor of the living room, to make sure no dangerous pieces of figurines were left lying somewhere, she did not lower her voice to a whisper. She did not hide the tiny smile that drew lines at the edge of her mouth. She did not sneak Jaja's food to his room, wrapped in cloth so it would appear that she had simply brought his laundry in. She took him his food on a white tray, with a matching plate. There was something hanging over all of us. Sometimes I wanted it all to be a dream-the missal flung at the etagere, the shattered figurines, the brittle air. It was too new, too foreign, and I did not know what to be or how to be. I walked to the bathroom and kitchen and dining room on tiptoe. At dinner, I kept my gaze fixed on the photo of Grandfather, the one where he looked like a squat superhero in his Knights of St. Mulumba cape and hood, until it was time to pray and I closed my eyes.
Jaja did not come out of his room even though Papa asked him to. The first time Papa asked him, the day after Palm Sunday, Papa could not open his door because he had pushed his study desk in front of it. 'Jaja, Jaja,' Papa said, pushing the door. 'You must eat with us this evening, do you hear me?' But Jaja did not come out of his room, and Papa said nothing about it while we ate; he ate very little of his food but drank a lot of water, telling Mama to ask 'that girl' to bring more bottles of water. The rashes on his face seemed to have become bigger and flatter, less defined, so that they made his face look even puffier.
Yewande Coker came with her little daughter while we were at dinner. As I greeted her and shook her hand, I examined her face, her body, looking for signs of how different life was now that Ade Coker had died. But she looked the same, except for her attire-a black wrapper, black blouse, and a black scarf covering all of her hair and most of her forehead. Her daughter sat stiffly on the sofa, tugging at the red ribbon that held her braided hair up in a ponytail. When Mama asked if she would drink Fanta, she shook her head, still tugging at the ribbon. 'She has finally spoken, sir,' Yewande said, her eyes on her daughter. 'She said 'mommy' this morning. I came to let you know that she has finally spoken.'
'Praise God!' Papa said, so loudly that I jumped.
'Thanks be to God,' Mama said.
Yewande stood up and knelt before Papa. 'Thank you, sir,' she said. 'Thank you for everything. If we had not gone to the hospital abroad, what would have become of my daughter?'
'Get up, Yewande,' Papa said. 'It is God. It is all from God.'
That evening, when Papa was in the study praying-I could hear him reading aloud a psalm-I went to Jaja's door, pushed it and heard the scraping sound of the study desk lodged against it as it opened. I told Jaja about Yewande's visit, and he nodded and said Mama had told him about it. Ade Coker's daughter had not spoken since her father died. Papa had paid to have her see the best doctors and therapists in Nigeria and abroad. 'I didn't know she hadn't talked since he died,' I said. 'It is almost four months now. Thanks be to God.'
Jaja looked at me silently for a while. His expression reminded me of the old looks Amaka used to give me, that made me feel sorry for what I was not sure of. 'She will never heal,' Jaja said. 'She may have started talking now, but she will never heal.'
As I left Jaja's room, I pushed the study desk a little way aside. And I wondered why Papa could not open Jaja's door when he tried earlier; the desk was not that heavy.
I dreaded Easter Sunday. I dreaded what would happen when Jaja did not go to communion again. And I knew that he would not go; I saw it in his long silences, in the set of his lips, in his eyes that seemed focused on invisible objects for a long time.
On Good Friday, Aunty Ifeoma called. She might have missed us if we had gone to the morning Mass, as Papa had planned. But during breakfast, Papa's hands kept shaking, so much that he spilled his tea; I watched the liquid creep across the glass table. Afterward, he said he needed to rest and we would go to the evening Mass, the one Father Benedict usually said after the kissing of the cross. We had gone to the evening Mass on Good Friday of last year, because Papa had been busy with something at the Standard in the morning. Jaja and I walked side by side to the altar to kiss the cross, and Jaja pressed his lips to the wooden crucifix first, before the Mass server wiped the cross and held it out to me. It felt cool to my lips. A shiver ran across me and I felt goose bumps appear on my arms. I cried afterward, when we were seated, silent crying with tears running down my cheeks. Many people around me cried, too, the way they did during the Stations of the Cross when they moaned and said, 'Oh, what the Lord did for me' or 'He died for a common me!' Papa was pleased with my tears; I still remembered clearly how he leaned toward me and caressed my cheek. And although I was not sure why I was crying, or if I was crying for the same reasons as those other people kneeling in front of the pews, I felt proud to have Papa do that.
I was thinking about this when Aunty Ifeoma called. The phone rang for too long, and I thought Mama would pick it up, since Papa was asleep. But she didn't, so I went to the study and answered it. Aunty Ifeoma's voice was many notches lower than usual. 'They have given me notice of termination,' she said, without even waiting for me to reply to her 'How are you?' 'For what they call illegal activity. I have one month. I have applied for a visa at the American Embassy. And Father Amadi has been notified. He is leaving for missionary work in Germany at the end of the month.'
It was a double blow. I staggered. It was as if my calves had sacks of dried beans tied to them. Aunty Ifeoma asked for Jaja, and I nearly tripped, nearly fell to the floor, as I went to his room to call him. After Jaja talked to Aunty Ifeoma, he put the phone down and said, 'We are going to Nsukka today. We will spend Easter in Nsukka.' I did not ask him what he meant, or how he would convince Papa to let us go. I watched him knock on Papa's door and go in. 'We are going to Nsukka. Kambili and I,' I heard him say. I did not hear what Papa said, then I heard Jaja say, 'We are going to Nsukka today, not tomorrow. If Kevin will not take us, we will still go. We will walk if we have to.'
I stood still in front of the staircase, my hands trembling violently. Yet I did not think to close my ears; I did not think to count to twenty. Instead, I went into my room and sat by the window, looking out at the cashew tree. Jaja came in to say that Papa had agreed that Kevin could take us. He held a bag so hastily packed he had not even done up the zipper, and he watched me throw some things into a bag, saying nothing. He was moving his weight from one leg to the other impatiently.
'Is Papa still in bed?' I asked, but Jaja did not answer as he turned to go downstairs.
I knocked on Papa's door and opened it. He was sitting up in bed; his red silk pajamas looked disheveled. Mama was pouring water into a glass for him. 'Bye, Papa,' I said. He got up to hug me. His face looked much brighter than in the morning, and the rashes seemed to be clearing. 'We will see you soon,' he said, kissing my forehead. I hugged Mama before I left the room.
The stairs seemed delicate all of a sudden, as if they would crumble and a huge hole would appear and prevent me from leaving. I walked slowly until I got downstairs. Jaja was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, and he reached out to take my bag. Kevin stood by the car when we came outside.
'Who will take your father to church, now?' he asked, looking at us suspiciously. 'Your father is not well enough to drive himself.'
Jaja remained silent for so long that I realized he was not going to give Kevin an answer, and I said, 'He said you should take us to Nsukka.'
Kevin shrugged, and muttered, 'This kind of trip, can't you go tomorrow?' before starting the car. He remained silent throughout the drive, and I saw his eyes often dart to us, mostly to Jaja, in the rearview mirror.
A film of sweat coated my entire body like a transparent second skin. It gave way to a dripping wetness on my neck, my forehead, underneath my breasts. We had left the back door of Aunty Ifeoma's kitchen wide open although flies buzzed in, circling over a pot of old soup. It was a choice between flies and even more heat, Amaka
