Half of a Yellow Sun

"They told me my son had died," his father said, gripping his shoulders.

"Where is Mama?" he asked.

Before his father spoke, Ugwu knew. He had known from the moment Chioke ran out. It should have been his mother; she would have sensed his presence and met him at the grove of ube trees.

"Your mother is no longer with us," his father said.

Hot tears swarmed Ugwu's eyes. "God will never forgive them."

"Be careful what you say!" His father looked around fearfully, although he and Ugwu were alone. "It was not the vandals. She died of the coughing. Let me show you where she is lying."

The grave was unmarked. A vibrantly green cocoyam plant was growing on the spot.

"When?" Ugwu asked. "When did she die?"

It felt surreal, asking When did she die? about his own mother. And it did not matter when she died. As his father spoke words that made no sense, Ugwu sank to his knees, placed his forehead on the ground, and wrapped his hands around his head, as if to shield himself from something that would fall from above, as if it were the only position he could adopt to absorb his mother's death. His father left him and walked back into the hut. Later, Ugwu sat with Anulika under the breadfruit tree.

"How did Mama die?"

"From coughing."

She didn't answer any of his other questions in the way that he had expected, there were no energetic gestures, no sharp wit in her answers: yes, they had the wine-carrying just before the vandals occupied the village. Onyeka was well; he had gone to the farm. They did not have children yet. She looked away often, as if she felt uncomfortable sitting with him, and Ugwu wondered if he had imagined the easy bond they had shared. She looked relieved when Chioke called her, and she got up quickly and left.

Ugwu was watching the children ru

"I knew you did not die," she said. "I knew your chi was wide awake."

Ugwu touched the baby's cheek. "You married during the war?"

"I did not marrry." She moved the baby to the other hip. "I lived with a Hausa soldier."

"A vandal?" It was almost inconceivable to him.

Nnesinachi nodded. "They were living in our town and he was good to me, a very kind man. If I had been here at the time, what happened to Anulika would not have happened at all. But I had traveled to Enugu with him to buy some things."

"What happened to Anulika?"

"You didn't know?"

"What?"

"They forced themselves on her. Five of them." Nnesinachi sat down and placed the baby on her lap.

Ugwu stared at the distant sky. "Where did it happen?"

"It has been more than a year."

"I asked where?"

"Oh." Nnesinachi's voice quavered. "Near the stream."

"Outside?"

"Yes."

Ugwu bent down and picked up a stone.

"They said the first one that climbed on top of her, she bit him on the arm and drew blood. They nearly beat her to death. One of her eyes has refused to open well since."

Later, Ugwu took a walk around the village, and when he got to the stream he remembered the line of women going to fetch water in the mornings, and he sat down on a rock and sobbed.

Back in Nsukka, Ugwu did not tell Ola

"Yes, mah, you will," Ugwu said, because he had to believe, for her sake, that she would.

He cleaned the house. He went to the market. He went to Freedom Square to see the mound of blackened books that the vandals had emptied out of the library and set afire. He played with Baby. He sat outside on the steps that led to the backyard and wrote on scraps of paper. Chickens were squawking in the yard next door. He looked at the hedge and wondered about Chinyere, what she had thought of him, if she had survived. Dr. Okeke and his family had not returned, and now a bowlegged man, a professor of chemistry who cooked on firewood and had a chicken coop, lived there. One day, in the failing light of dusk, Ugwu looked up and saw three soldiers barge into the compound and leave moments later, dragging the professor.

Ugwu had heard that the Nigerian soldiers had promised to kill five percent of Nsukka academics, and nobody had heard of Professor Ezeka since he was arrested in Enugu, but it was suddenly real to him, seeing the professor next door dragged off. So, days later, when he heard the loud banging on the front door, he thought they had come for Master. He would tell them Master was not home; he would even tell them Master had died. He dashed first to the study, whispered, "Hide under the table, sah!" and then ran to the front door and wore a dumb look on his face. Instead of the menacing green of army uniforms, the shine of boot and gun, he saw a brown caftan and flat slippers and a familiar face that took him a moment to recognize: Miss Adebayo.

"Good evening," Ugwu said. He felt something close to disappointment.

She was peering in, behind him, and on her face was a great and stark fear; it made her look stripped down to nothing, like a skull with gaping holes as eyes.

"Odenigbo?" she was whispering. "Odenigbo?"

Ugwu understood right away that it was all she could say, that perhaps she had not even recognized him and could not get herself to ask the full question: Is Odenigbo alive?

"My master is well," Ugwu said. "He is inside."

She was staring at him. "Oh, Ugwu! Look how grown you are." She came inside. "Where is he? How is he?"

"I will call him, mah."

Master was standing by his study door. "What is going on, my good man?" he asked.

"It is Miss Adebayo, sah."

"You asked me to hide under a table because of Miss Adebayo?"

"I thought it was the soldiers, sah."

Miss Adebayo hugged Master and held on for too long. "They told me that either you or Okeoma didn't make it back-"

"Okeoma didn't make it back." Master repeated her expression as if he somehow disapproved of it.

Miss Adebayo sat down and began to sob. "You know, we didn't really understand what was happening in Biafra. Life went on and women were wearing the latest lace in Lagos. It was not until I went to London for a conference and read a report about the starvation." She paused. "Once it ended, I joined the Mayflower volunteers and crossed the Niger with food…"

Ugwu disliked her. He disliked her Nigeria

The banging on the door some evening later, when Mr. Richard was visiting, a

"Everybody in this house, come out and lie down flat!"