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Yet, now, only a few years later, her taxi was on Airport Road, driving past the Igbo Union Grammar School. It was break time and the schoolyard was full of children. Boys were playing football in different teams on the same field, so that multiple balls flew in the air; Ola
"My aunty! Kedu?"
"I am even better now that I see you."
"Arize is not back from her sewing class?"
"She will be back anytime now."
"How is she doing? O na-agakwa? Is her sewing going well?"
"The house is full of patterns that she has cut."
"What of Odinchezo and Ekene?"
"They are there. They visited last week and asked after you."
"How is Maiduguri treating them? Is their trading picking up?"
"They have not said they are dying of hunger," Aunty Ifeka said, with a slight shrug. Ola
"Come, ada anyi" Aunty Ifeka said. "Let's go inside." She pulled down the wooden shutters of the kiosk, covering the neatly arranged cases of matches, chewing gum, sweets, cigarettes, and detergent, and then picked up Ola
Arize came home moments later and Ola
"Sister! You should have warned us that you were coming! At least we would have swept the yard better! Ah! Sister! Aru amaka gi! You look well! There are stories to tell, oh!"
Arize was laughing. Her plump body, her rounded arms, shook as she laughed. Ola
Aunty Ifeka walked casually toward a brown hen, grasped it quickly, and handed it to Arize to kill in the backyard. They sat outside the kitchen while Arize plucked it and Aunty Ifeka blew the chaff from the rice. A neighbor was boiling corn, and once in a while, when the water frothed over, the stove fire hissed. Children were playing in the yard now, raising white dust, shouting. A fight broke out under the kuka tree, and Ola
The sun had turned red in the sky, before it began its descent, when Uncle Mbaezi came home. He called out to Ola
"Our Ola
"Well done," Abdulmalik said. He opened his bag and brought out a pair of slippers and held them out to her, his narrow face creased in a smile, his teeth stained with kola nut and tobacco and whatever else Ola
She took the slippers with both hands. "Thank you, Abdulmalik. Thank you."
Abdulmalik pointed at the ripe gourdlike pods on the kuka tree and said, "You come my house. My wife cook very sweet kuka soup."
"Oh, I will come, next time," Ola
He muttered more congratulations before he sat with Uncle Mbaezi on the veranda, with a bucket of sugarcane in front of them. They gnawed off the hard green peels and chewed the juicy white pulp, speaking Hausa and laughing. They spit the chewed cane out on the dust. Ola
In the kitchen, Arize was cutting open the chicken and Aunty Ifeka was washing the rice. She showed them the slippers from Abdulmalik and put them on; the pleated red straps made her feet look slender, more feminine.
"Very nice," Aunty Ifeka said. "I shall thank him."
Ola
"I makwa, all her family eats every day is stockfish," Arize said, gesturing toward the neighbor with pursed lips. "I don't know if her poor children even know what meat tastes like." Arize threw her head back and laughed.
Ola
"O di egwu! Like it indeed! Do you know how cheap the thing is?" Arize was still laughing as she turned to the woman. "Ibiba, I am telling my big sister that your soup always smells so delicious."
The woman stopped blowing at the firewood and smiled, a knowing smile, and Ola
"So you are moving to Nsukka to marry Odenigbo, Sister?" Arize asked.
"I don't know about marriage yet. I just want to be closer to him, and I want to teach."
Arize's round eyes were admiring and bewildered. "It is only women that know too much Book like you who can say that, Sister. If people like me who don't know Book wait too long, we will expire." Arize paused as she removed a translucently pale egg from inside the chicken. "I want a husband today and tomorrow, oh! My mates have all left me and gone to husbands' houses."