Страница 59 из 113
"I didn't know Amala came with Mama," she said.
"Yes." He began to rearrange the newspapers, avoiding her eyes. And, slowly, shock spread over Ola
"You touched Amala," Ola
"You touched Amala," Ola
She turned toward the kitchen and nearly fell beside the dining table because the weight in her chest was too large, not measured to fit her size.
"Ola
She ignored him. He would not come after her because he was frightened, full of the fear of the guilty. She did not get in her car right away and drive to her flat. Instead, she went outside and sat on the backyard steps and watched a hen near the lemon tree, guarding six chicks, nudging them toward crumbs on the ground. Ugwu was plucking avocados from the tree near the Boys' Quarters. She was not sure how long she sat there before the hen began to squawk loudly and spread its wings to shield the chicks, but they did not run into the shelter quickly enough. A kite swooped down and carried one of them off, a brown-and-white chick. It was so fast, the descent of the kite and the gliding away with the chick grasped in hooked claws, that Ola
The blurred days crawled into one another. Ola
Her flight stopped first in Lagos, and as she sat waiting in the lounge a tall, thin woman hurried past. She stood up and was about to call out Kainene! when she realized it could not be. Kainene was darker-ski
In Kano, Arize was furious.
"Wild animal from Abba. His rotten penis will fall off soon. Doesn't he know he should wake up every morning and kneel down and thank his God that you looked at him at all?" she said, while showing Ola
Aunty Ifeka said nothing about Odenigbo until a few days had passed. Ola
"How are you?" Aunty Ifeka asked. She was stirring a doughy paste of ground beans in a mortar.
"I'm fine, Aunty. I'm finer for being here."
Aunty Ifeka reached inside the paste to pick out a small black insect. Ola
"I think I will postpone my program at Nsukka and stay here in Kano," she said. "I could teach for a while at the institute."
"No." Aunty Ifeka put the pestle down. "Mba. You will go back to Nsukka."
"I can't just go back to his house, Aunty."
"I am not asking you to go back to his house. I said you will go back to Nsukka. Do you not have your own flat and your own job? Odenigbo has done what all men do and has inserted his penis in the first hole he could find when you were away Does that mean somebody died?"
Ola
"When your uncle first married me, I worried because I thought those women outside would come and displace me from my home. I now know that nothing he does will make my life change. My life will change only if I want it to change."
"What are you saying, Aunty?"
"He is very careful now, since he realized that I am no longer afraid. I have told him that if he brings disgrace to me in any way, I will cut off that snake between his legs."
Aunty Ifeka went back to her stirring, and Ola
"You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man. Do you hear me?" Aunty Ifeka said. "Your life belongs to you and you alone, soso gi. You will go back on Saturday. Let me hurry up and make some abacha for you to take."
She tasted a little of the paste and spat it out.
Ola
"Yes. Thank you." Ola
"They have finally removed that Igbo vice chancellor from the University of Lagos," he said.
"Oh."
"It's on the back cover."
Ola
"Why should an Igbo man be the vice chancellor in Lagos?" he asked and, when Ola