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"If we had more men like Major Nzeogwu in this country, we would not be where we are today," Master said. "He actually has a vision!"
"Isn't he a Communist?" It was the the green-eyed Professor Lehman. "He went to Czechoslovakia when he was at Sandhurst."
"You Americans, always peering under people's beds to look for communism. Do you think we have time to worry about that?" Master asked. "What matters is whatever will make our people move forward. Let's assume that a capitalist democracy is a good thing in principle, but if it is our kind-where somebody gives you a dress that they tell you looks like their own, but it doesn't fit you and the buttons have fallen off-then you have to discard it and make a dress that is your own size. You simply have to!"
"Too much rhetoric, Odenigbo," Miss Adebayo said. "You can't make a theoretical case for the military."
Ugwu felt better; this was the sparring he was used to.
"Of course I can. With a man like Major Nzeogwu, I can," Master said. "Ugwu! More ice!"
"The man is a Communist," Professor Lehman insisted. His nasal voice a
"Thank you, my good man." Master took the bowl of ice and clinked some into his glass.
"Yes, sah," Ugwu said, watching Ola
That night, he lay in his room in the Boys' Quarters and tried to concentrate on The Mayor of Casterbridge, but it was difficult. He hoped Chinyere would slip under the hedge and come over; they never pla
"Chinyere," he said.
"Ugwu," she said.
She smelled of stale onions. The light was off, and in the thin stream that came from the security bulb outside he saw the cone-shaped rise of her breasts as she pulled her blouse off, untied the wrapper around her waist, and lay on her back. There was something moist about the darkness, about their bodies close together, and he imagined that she was Nnesinachi and that the taut legs encircling him were Nnesinachi's. She was silent at first and then, hips thrashing, her hands tight around his back, she called out the same thing she said every time. It sounded like a name-Abonyi, Abonyi-but he wasn't sure. Perhaps she imagined that he was someone else too, someone back in her village.
She got up and left as silently as she came. When he saw her the next day across the hedge, hanging out clothes on the line, she said "Ugwu" and nothing else; she did not smile.
8
Ola
"But the Sardauna was not killed, madam," he whispered. "He escaped with Allah's help and is now in Mecca." Ola
She told Arize about the taxi driver's comment, and Arize shrugged and said, "There is nothing that they are not saying." Arize's wrapper was pushed low, below her waist, and her blouse was loose-fitting to accommodate the swell of her belly. They sat in the living room with photos of Arize and Nnakwanze's wedding on the oily wall, while Baby played with the children in the compound. Ola
"We'll catch the first flight to Lagos tomorrow, Ari, so you can rest before we start shopping. I don't want to do anything that will be difficult for you," Ola
"Ha, difficult! I am only pregnant, Sister, I am not sick, oh. Is it not women like me who work on the farm until the baby wants to come out? And am I not the one sewing that dress?" Arize pointed to the corner, where her Singer sewing machine was on a table amid a pile of clothes.
"My concern is for my godchild in there, not for you," Ola
"I don't care about the outside," Arize said. "But she must look like you on the inside. She must have your brain and know Book."
"Or he."
"No, this one is a girl, you will see. Nnakwanze says it will be a boy who will resemble him, but I told him that God will not allow my child to have that flat face."
Ola
"It was nice of her." Ola
"You and Sister Kainene should talk. What happened in the past is in the past."
"You can only talk to the person who wants to talk to you," Ola
She washed some sand off Baby's face and hands before they walked out of the compound and down the road. Uncle Mbaezi was not yet back from the market, and they sat with Aunty Ifeka on a bench in front of her kiosk, Baby on Ola
"What's fu
"That is Rex Lawson's song," Aunty Ifeka said.
"What is fu
"Our people say that the chorus sounds like mmee-mmee-mmee, the bleating of a goat." Aunty Ifeka chuckled. "They say the Sardauna sounded like that when he was begging them not to kill him. When the soldiers fired a mortar into his house, he crouched behind his wives and bleated, 'Mmee-mmee-mmee, please don't kill me, mmee-mmee-mmee!'"