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The steward appeared right away, as if he had been standing by the door. "Bring cold water and Coke," Mrs. Ezeka said.
Pamela began to whine, still tugging at the doll's clothes.
"Come, come, let me do it for you," Mrs. Ezeka said. She turned to Ola
The steward brought the water on a silver tray.
"Are you sure that water is properly cold?" Mrs. Ezeka asked. "Was it in the new freezer or the old one?"
"The new one, mah, like you tell me."
"Will you eat cake, Ola
"No, thank you."
Professor Ezeka came in holding some files. "Is that all you're drinking? Water?"
"Your house is surreal," Ola
"What a choice of words, surreal," Professor Ezeka said.
"Odenigbo is very unhappy in his directorate. Can you help transfer him somewhere else?" The words moved slowly out of Ola
"Everything is tight now, really, very tight," Professor Ezeka said. "Requests pour in from everywhere." He sat down, placed the files on his lap, and crossed his legs. "But I'll see what I can do."
"Thank you," Ola
"Have some cake," Mrs. Ezeka said.
"No, I don't want any cake."
"Maybe after lunch."
Ola
"Oh, how lovely," Mrs. Ezeka said, walking her to the door. "If only I wasn't going overseas so soon, we would have done something together too, for the win-the-war effort."
Ola
"The driver will take you back," Professor Ezeka said.
"Thank you," Ola
Before she climbed into the car, Mrs. Ezeka asked her to come to the back and see the new bunker her husband had had built; it was concrete, sturdy.
"Imagine what these vandals have reduced us to. Pamela and I sometimes sleep here when they bomb us," Mrs. Ezeka said. "But we shall survive."
"Yes," Ola
When she got back to the yard, Baby was crying. Mucus ran thinly down her nose.
"They ate Bingo," Baby said.
'What?"
'Ada
"Ugwu, what happened?" Ola
Ugwu shrugged. "That is what the people in the yard are saying. Mama Ada
Ola
Kainene came in the middle of a hot afternoon. Ola
Ola
"Kainene!" Ola
"I went to your old house and somebody told me to come here."
"Our landlord kicked us out, we were not good for business." Ola
"Come in and sit down."
Ola
"So how have you been?" Ola
"Things were normal until Port Harcourt fell. I was an army contractor, and I had a license to import stockfish. I'm in Orlu now. I'm in charge of a refugee camp there."
"Oh."
"Are you silently condemning me for profiteering from the war? Somebody had to import the stockfish, you know." Kainene raised her eyebrows; they were penciled in, thin fluid arcs. "Many contractors were paid and didn't deliver. At least I did."
"No, no, I wasn't thinking that at all."
"You were."
Ola
"I got the letter you sent to Madu." Kainene rearranged the straps of her handbag. "You said you were teaching. Do you still? Your noble win-the-war effort?"
"The school is a refugee center now. I sometimes teach the children in the yard."
"And how is the revolutionary husband?"
"He's still with the Manpower Directorate."
"You don't have a wedding photo."
"There was an air raid during our reception. The photographer threw his camera down."
Kainene nodded, as if there were no need to feel sympathy at this news. She opened her bag. "I came to give you this. Mum sent it through a British journalist."
Ola
"I also brought two dresses for Baby," Kainene said, and gestured to the bag she had placed on the floor. "A woman who came back from Sao Tome had some good children's clothes for sale."
"You bought clothes for Baby?"
"How shocking indeed. And it's about time the girl began to be called Chiamaka. This Baby business is tiresome."
Ola
To think that her sister was sitting across from her, that her sister had come to visit her, that her sister had brought clothes for her child. "Will you drink water? It's all we have."
"No, I'm fine." Kainene got up and walked to the wall, where the mattress leaned, and then came back and sat down. "You didn't know my steward Ikejide, did you?"
"Isn't he the one Maxwell brought from his hometown?"
"Yes." Kainene got up again. "He was killed in Port Harcourt. They were bombing and shelling us, and a piece of shrapnel cut off his head, completely beheaded him, and his body kept ru
"Oh, God."
"I saw him."
Ola
"I thought about changing your money for you," Kainene said. "But you can do it at the bank and then deposit, can't you?"
"Haven't you seen the bomb craters all around the bank? My money is staying under my bed."
"Make sure the cockroaches don't get to it. Life is harder for them these days." Kainene leaned against Ola