Half of a Yellow Sun

Master had changed; he looked at Olanna too often, touched her too much, and when Ugwu opened the front door for him, his eyes expectantly darted past into the living room to see if Olanna was there. Only yesterday, Master told Ugwu, ‘My mother will be visiting this weekend, so clean the guest room.’ Before Ugwu could say Yes, sah, Olanna said, ‘I think Ugwu should move to the Boys’ Quarters. That way we’ll have a free guest room. Mama may stay a while.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Master said, so promptly that it annoyed Ugwu; it was as if Master would stick his head in a raging fire if Olanna asked him to. It was as if she had become the master. But Ugwu didn’t mind moving to the room in the Boys’ Quarters, which was empty except for some cobwebs and cartons. He could hide things he had saved there; he could make it fully his. He had never heard Master speak about his mother, and, as he cleaned the guest room later, he imagined what she would be like, this woman who had bathed Master as a baby, fed him, wiped his running nose. Ugwu was in awe of her already, for having produced Master.

He finished the lunch dishes quickly. If he was as quick in preparing the greens for the dinner pottage, he could go down to Mr Richard’s house and talk to Harrison for a little while before Master and Olanna came back. These days, he shredded the greens with his hands instead of slicing them. Olanna liked them that way; she said they retained more of their vitamins. He, too, had started to like them, just as he liked the way she taught him to fry eggs with a little milk, to cut fried plantains in dainty circles rather than ungainly ovals, to steam moi-moi in aluminium cups rather than banana leaves. Now that she left most of the cooking to him, he liked to look through the kitchen door from time to time, to see who murmured the most compliments, who liked what, who took second helpings. Dr Patel liked the chicken boiled with uziza. So did Mr Richard, although he never ate the chicken skin. Perhaps the pale chicken skin reminded Mr Richard of his own skin. There was no other reason Ugwu could think of; the skin was, after all, the tastiest part. Mr Richard always said, ‘Fantastic chicken, Ugwu, thank you,’ when Ugwu came out to bring more water or to clear something away. Sometimes, while the other guests retired to the living room, Mr Richard would come into the kitchen to ask Ugwu questions. They were laughable questions. Did his people have carvings or sculptures of gods? Had he ever been inside the shrine by the river? Ugwu was even more amused that Mr Richard wrote his answers down in a small book with a leather cover. Some days ago, when Ugwu offhandedly mentioned the ori-okpa festival, Mr Richard’s eyes turned a brighter blue and he said he wanted to see the festival; he would ask Master if he and Ugwu could drive to his hometown.

Ugwu laughed as he brought the greens out of the refrigerator. He could not imagine Mr Richard during the ori-okpa festival, where the mmuo (Mr Richard said they were masquerades, weren’t they, and Ugwu agreed, as long as masquerades meant spirits) paraded the village, flogged young men, and chased after young women. The mmuo themselves might even laugh at the sight of a pale stranger scribbling in a notebook. But he was pleased that he had mentioned the festival to Mr Richard, because it meant an opportunity to see Nnesinachi before she left for the North. To think how impressed she would be when he arrived in a white man’s car, driven by the white man himself! She would certainly notice him this time, he was sure, and he could not wait to impress Anulika and his cousins and relatives with his English, his new shirt, his knowledge of sandwiches and running tap water, his scented powder.

Ugwu had just washed the shredded greens when he heard the doorbell. It was too early for Master’s friends. He went to the door, wiping his hands on his apron. For a moment, he wondered if his aunty was really standing there or if he was seeing an image of her only because he had been thinking about home.

‘Aunty?’

‘Ugwuanyi’, she said, ‘you have to come home. Oga gikwanu? Where is your master?’

‘Come home?’

‘Your mother is very sick.’

Ugwu examined the scarf tied round his aunty’s head. He could see where it was threadbare, the fabric stretched thin. He remembered that when his cousin’s father died, the family had sent word to her in Lagos, telling her to come home because her father was very sick. If you were far from home, they told you the dead person was very sick.

‘Your mother is sick,’ his aunty repeated. ‘She is asking for you. I will tell Master that you will be back tomorrow, so he will not think we are asking for too much. Many houseboys do not even get to go home in years, you know that.’

Ugwu did not move, rolling the edge of the apron around his finger. He wanted to ask his aunt to tell him the truth, to say so if his mother was dead. But his mouth would not form the words. Remembering his mother’s last illness, when she had coughed and coughed until his father left before dawn to get the dibia while the junior wife, Chioke, rubbed her back, frightened him.

‘Master is not in,’ he said finally. ‘But he will be back soon.’

‘I will wait and plead with him to let you come home.’

He led the way to the kitchen, where his aunty sat down and watched him slice a yam and then cut the slices into cubes. He worked fast, feverishly. The sunlight that came in through the window seemed too bright for late afternoon, too full of an ominous radiance.

‘Is my father well?’ Ugwu asked.

‘He is well.’ His aunty’s face was opaque, her tone flat: the demeanour of a person who carried more bad news than she had delivered. She must be hiding something. Perhaps his mother really was dead; perhaps both his parents had fallen down dead that morning. Ugwu continued to slice, in a turgid silence, until Master came home, tennis whites plastered to his back with sweat. He was alone. Ugwu wished that Olanna had come home as well so that he could look at her face as he spoke.

‘Welcome, sah.’

‘Yes, my good man.’ Master placed his racket down on the kitchen table. ‘Some water, please. I lost all my games today.’

Ugwu had the water ready, ice cold in a glass placed on a saucer.

‘Good evening, sah,’ his aunty greeted.

‘Good evening,’ Master said, looking slightly perplexed, as if he was not certain who she was. ‘Oh, yes. How are you?’

Before she could say more, Ugwu said, ‘My mother is sick, sah. Please, sah, if I go to see her I will return tomorrow.’

‘What?’

Ugwu repeated himself. Master stared at him and then at the pot on the stove. ‘Have you finished cooking?’

‘No, sah. I will finish fast-fast, before I go. I will set the table and arrange everything.’

Master turned to Ugwu’s aunty. ‘Gini me? What is wrong with his mother?’

‘Sah?’

‘Are you deaf?’ Master jabbed at his ear as if Ugwu’s aunty did not know what it meant to be deaf. ‘What is wrong with his mother?’

‘Sah, her chest is on fire.’

‘Chest on fire?’ Master snorted. He drank all his water and then turned to Ugwu and spoke English. ‘Put on a shirt and get in the car. Your village isn’t far away, really. We should be back in good time.’

‘Sah?’

‘Put on a shirt and get in the car!’ Master scribbled a note on the back of a flyer and left it on the table. ‘We’ll bring your mother here and have Patel take a look at her.’

‘Yes, sah.’ Ugwu felt breakable as he walked to the car, beside his aunty and Master. He felt as though his bones were broomsticks, the kind that snapped easily during the harmattan. The ride to his village was mostly silent. As they drove past some farms with rows and rows of corn and cassava like a neatly plaited hairstyle, Master said, ‘See? This is what our government should focus on. If we learn irrigation technology, we can feed this country easily. We can overcome this colonial dependence on imports.’

‘Yes, sah.’

‘But instead, all the ignoramuses in government do is lie and steal. A number of my students joined the group that went to Lagos this morning to demonstrate, you know.’

‘Yes, sah,’ Ugwu said. ‘Why are they demonstrating, sah?’

‘The census,’ Master said. ‘The census was a mess, everybody forged figures. Not that Balewa will do anything about it, because he is as complicit as they all are. But we must speak out!’

‘Yes, sah,’ Ugwu replied, and in the midst of his worry about his mother, he felt a twinge of pride because he knew his aunty would have her eyes wide in wonder at the deep conversations he had with Master. And in English, too. They stopped a little way before the family hut.

‘Get your mother’s things, quickly,’ Master said. ‘I have friends visiting from Ibadan tonight.’

‘Yes, sah!’ Ugwu and his aunty spoke at the same time.

Ugwu climbed out of the car and stood there. His aunty dashed into the hut, and soon his father came out, eyes red-rimmed, looking more stooped than Ugwu remembered. He knelt in the dirt and clutched Master’s legs. ‘Thank, sah. Thank, sah. May another person do for you.’

Master stepped back and Ugwu watched his father sway, almost falling over backwards. ‘Get up, kunie,’ Master said.

Chioke came out of the hut. ‘This is my other wife, sah,’ his father said, standing up.

Chioke shook Master’s hands with both of hers. ‘Thank you, master. Deje!’ She ran back inside and emerged with a small pineapple that she pressed into Master’s hand.

‘No, no,’ Master said, pushing the pineapple back. ‘Local pineapples are too acidic, they burn my mouth.’

The village children were gathering around the car to peer inside and run awed fingers over the blue body. Ugwu shooed them away. He wished Anulika were home, so she would go with him into their mother’s hut. He wished Nnesinachi would drop by now and take his hand in hers and tell him soothingly that his mother’s illness was not serious at all, and then lead him to the grove by the stream and untie her wrapper and offer him her breasts, lifting them up and forward towards him. The children were chattering loudly. Some women stood by and spoke in lower tones, their arms folded. His father kept asking Master to have some kola nut, palm wine, a stool to sit down, some water, and Master kept saying no, no, no. Ugwu wanted his father to shut up. He moved closer to the hut and looked in. His eyes met his mother’s in the dim light. She looked shrivelled.

‘Ugwu,’ she said. ‘Nno, welcome.’

‘Deje,’ he greeted, and then remained silent, watching, while his aunty helped her tie her wrapper around her waist and led her out.

Ugwu was about to help his mother into the car when Master said, ‘Step aside, my good man.’ Master helped her into the car, asked her to lie down on the backseat, to stretch out as much as she could.