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Odenigbo came and stood close to her and she wanted to back away, unsure what he was trying to do. He touched her collarbone. "Look how bony you are."
She glanced down, irritated by his touch, surprised to see how it jutted out; she did not know she had lost so much weight. She said nothing and went back to the living room. Richard was no longer there.
Kainene was still at the table. "So you and Odenigbo decided to look for a place?" she asked. "My humble home is not good enough?"
'Are you listening to him? We didn't decide anything. If he wants to find a place he can go ahead and live there alone," Ola
Kainene looked at her. "What is the matter?"
Ola
Kainene dipped a finger in palm oil and brought it to her mouth. "Ejima m, what is the matter?" she asked again.
"Nothing, really. There is nothing I can point at," Ola
"We are all in this war, and it is up to us to decide to become somebody else or not," Kainene said.
"He just drinks and drinks cheap kai-kai. The few times they pay him, the money goes quickly. I think he slept with Alice, that Asaba woman in our yard. I can't stand him. I can't stand him close to me."
"Good," Kainene said.
"Good?"
"Yes, good. There's something very lazy about the way you have loved him blindly for so long without ever criticizing him. You've never even accepted that the man is ugly," Kainene said. There was a small smile on her face and then she was laughing, and Ola
In the morning, Kainene showed Ola
Ola
"Chiamaka should see life as it is, ejima m," Kainene said, as they moisturized their faces. "You protect her too much from life."
"I just want to keep my child safe," Ola
"They protected us too much," Kainene said.
"Daddy and Mom?" Ola
"Yes." Kainene spread the cream on her face with her palms. "Good thing Mom left. Can you imagine her ever living without things like this? Or using palm-kernel oil?"
Ola
"Why were you always so keen to please Mom and Dad?" Kainene asked.
Ola
"You have always felt sorry for people who don't need you to feel sorry for them."
Ola
She worried about other things: how her periods were sparse and no longer red but a muddy brown, how Baby's hair was falling out, how hunger was stealing the memories of the children. She was determined that their minds be kept alert; they were Biafra 's future, after all. So every day she taught them under the flame tree, away from the horrible smells toward the back of the buildings. She would have them memorize one line of a poem, and the next day they would have forgotten it. They chased after lizards. They ate garri and water once a day now instead of twice because Kainene's suppliers could no longer cross over to Mbosi to buy garri; all the roads were occupied. Kainene launched a Plant Our Own Food movement, and when she joined the men and women and children in making ridges, Ola
In the evenings, Ola
"Have you asked him again about that Asaba woman?" Kainene said.
"Not yet."
"Before you ask him, just walk up to him and slap his face. If he dares to slap you back, I will come at him with Harrison 's kitchen knife. But the slap will shake the truth out of him."
Ola
"Grandpapa used to say that it gets worse and then it gets better. O dikata njo, o dikwa mma" Kainene said.
"I remember."
"The world will turn around soon, and Nigeria will stop this," Kainene said quietly. "We'll win."
"Yes." Ola
There were evenings when Kainene was distant, immersed in herself. Once she said, "I never really noticed Ikejide," and Ola
Then, one evening, it rained, a flinty blustery rain, a strange shower in the dry season, and perhaps it was why Odenigbo did not go to the bar. It was the evening that he finally accepted Richard's brandy, holding it to his nose and inhaling deeply before he drank, he and Richard still saying very little to each other. And it was the evening that Dr. Nwala came to tell them that Okeoma had been killed. Lightning flashed across the sky and thunder rumbled and Kainene said, laughing, "It sounds like shelling."