Half of a Yellow Sun

She combed Baby's hair, and again some of it fell out. Ola

Ugwu looked up from his writing. "Maybe you should not braid her hair, mah."

"Yes. Maybe that's why it's falling out, too much braiding."

"My hair is not falling out!" Baby said, and patted her head.

Ola

"How was it plaited?" Ugwu asked.

Ola

Then she described the head itself, the open eyes, the graying skin. Ugwu was writing as she spoke, and his writing, the earnestness of his interest, suddenly made her story important, made it serve a larger purpose that even she was not sure of, and so she told him all she remembered about the train full of people who had cried and shouted and urinated on themselves.

She was still speaking when Odenigbo and Richard came back. They were walking; they had left in the Peugeot early in the morning to go and search for Kainene in the hospital in Ahiara.

Ola

"No," Richard said, and walked inside.

"Where is the car? Did the soldiers take it?"

"The fuel finished on the road. I will find fuel and go back and get it," Odenigbo said. He hugged her. "We saw Madu. He said he is certain she is still on the other side. The vandals must have blocked the way she had gone in and she is waiting for a new route to open. It happens all the time."

"Yes, of course." Ola

"I will go," she said. Madu had sent them some garri and sugar and a little fuel. She would drive herself.

"There's no point," Odenigbo said.

"No point? There is no point in looking for my sister's body?"

"Your sister is alive. There is no body."

"Yes, God."

She turned to leave.

"Even if they shot her, Ola

"Please, my father is missing since the bombing."

"Please, I ca

Ola

"You should lie down, nkem," Odenigbo said.

"Do you remember the words of Okeoma's poem about making the sun rise if it refused to rise?" she asked.

'"Clay pots fired in zeal, they will cool our feet as we climb,'" he said.

"Yes, yes."

"It was my favorite line. I can't remember the rest."

A woman from the refugee camp dashed into the yard, shouting, waving a green branch. Such a brilliant wet-looking green. Ola

"It is over!" the woman shouted. "It is over!"

Odenigbo quickly turned the radio on, as though he had been expecting the woman with this news. The male voice was unfamiliar.

Throughout history, injured people have had to resort to arms in their self-defense where peaceful negotiations fail. We are no exception. We took up arms because of the sense of insecurity generated in our people by the massacres. We havefought in defense of that cause.

Ola

I take this opportunity to congratulate officers and men of our armed forces for their gallantry and bravery, which have earned for them the admiration of the whole world. I thank the civil population for their steadfastness and courage in the face of overwhelming odds and starvation. I am convinced that the suffering of our people must be brought to an immediate end. I have, therefore, instructed an orderly disengagement of troops. I urge General Gowon, in the name of humanity, to order his troops to pause while an armistice is negotiated.

After the broadcast, Ola

A week passed. A Red Cross van arrived at the refugee camp and two women handed out cups of milk. Many families left the camp, to search for relatives or to hide in the bush from the Nigerian soldiers who were coming with whips. But the first time Ola