Half of a Yellow Sun

‘Kainene is not just like a son, she is like two,’ her father said. He glanced at Kainene and Kainene looked away, as if the pride on his face did not matter, and Olanna quickly focused on her plate so that neither would know she had been watching them. The plate was elegant, light green, the same colour as the avocado.

‘Why don’t you all come to my house this weekend, eh?’ Chief Okonji asked. ‘If only to sample my cook’s fish pepper soup. The chap is from Nembe; he knows what to do with fresh fish.’

Her parents cackled loudly. Olanna was not sure how that was funny, but then it was the minister’s joke.

‘That sounds wonderful,’ Olanna’s father said.

‘It will be nice for all of us to go before Olanna leaves for Nsukka,’ her mother said.

Olanna felt a slight irritation, a prickly feeling on her skin. ‘I would love to come, but I won’t be here this weekend.’

‘You won’t be here?’ her father asked. She wondered if the expression in his eyes was a desperate plea. She wondered, too, how her parents had promised Chief Okonji an affair with her in exchange for the contract. Had they stated it verbally, plainly, or had it been implied?

‘I have made plans to go to Kano, to see Uncle Mbaezi and the family, and Mohammed as well,’ she said.

Her father stabbed at his avocado. ‘I see.’

Olanna sipped her water and said nothing.

After dinner, they moved to the balcony for liqueurs. Olanna liked this after-dinner ritual and often would move away from her parents and the guests to stand by the railing, looking at the tall lamps that lit up the paths below, so bright that the swimming pool looked silver and the hibiscus and bougainvillea took on an incandescent patina over their reds and pinks. The first and only time Odenigbo visited her in Lagos, they had stood looking down at the swimming pool and Odenigbo threw a bottle cork down and watched it plunk into the water. He drank a lot of brandy, and when her father said that the idea of Nsukka University was silly, that Nigeria was not ready for an indigenous university, and that receiving support from an American university – rather than a proper university in Britain – was plain daft, he raised his voice in response. Olanna had thought he would realize that her father only wanted to gall him and show how unimpressed he was by a senior lecturer from Nsukka. She thought he would let her father’s words go. But his voice rose higher and higher as he argued about Nsukka being free of colonial influence, and she had blinked often to signal him to stop, although he may not have noticed since the veranda was dim. Finally the phone rang and the conversation had to end. The look in her parents’ eyes was grudging respect, Olanna could tell, but it did not stop them from telling her that Odenigbo was crazy and wrong for her, one of those hot-headed university people who talked and talked until everybody had a headache and nobody understood what had been said.

‘Such a cool night,’ Chief Okonji said behind her. Olanna turned around. She did not know when her parents and Kainene had gone inside.

‘Yes,’ she said.

Chief Okonji stood in front of her. His agbada was embroidered with gold thread around the collar. She looked at his neck, settled into rolls of fat, and imagined him prying the folds apart as he bathed.

‘What about tomorrow? There’s a cocktail party at Ikoyi Hotel,’ he said. ‘I want all of you to meet some expatriates. They are looking for land and I can arrange for them to buy from your father at five or six times the price.’

‘I will be doing a St Vincent de Paul charity drive tomorrow.’

Chief Okonji moved closer. ‘I can’t keep you out of my mind,’ he said, and a mist of alcohol settled on her face.

‘I am not interested, Chief.’

‘I just can’t keep you out of my mind,’ Chief Okonji said again.

‘Look, you don’t have to work at the ministry. I can appoint you to a board, any board you want, and I will furnish a flat for you wherever you want.’ He pulled her to him, and for a while Olanna did nothing, her body limp against his. She was used to this, being grabbed by men who walked around in a cloud of cologne-drenched entitlement, with the presumption that, because they were powerful and found her beautiful, they belonged together. She pushed him back, finally, and felt vaguely sickened at how her hands sank into his soft chest. ‘Stop it, Chief.’

His eyes were closed. ‘I love you, believe me. I really love you.’

She slipped out of his embrace and went indoors. Her parents’ voices were faint from the living room. She stopped to sniff the wilting flowers in a vase on the side table near the staircase, even though she knew their scent would be gone, before walking upstairs. Her room felt alien, the warm wood tones, the tan furniture, the wall-to-wall burgundy carpeting that cushioned her feet, the reams of space that made Kainene call their rooms flats. The copy of LagosLife was still on her bed; she picked it up, and looked at the photo of her and her mother, on page five, their faces contented and complacent, at a cocktail party hosted by the British high commissioner. Her mother had pulled her close as a photographer approached; later, after the flashbulb went off, Olanna had called the photographer over and asked him please not to publish the photo. He had looked at her oddly. Now, she realized how silly it had been to ask him; of course he would never understand the discomfort that came with being a part of the gloss that was her parents’ life.

She was in bed reading when her mother knocked and came in.

‘Oh, you’re reading,’ her mother said. She was holding rolls of fabric in her hand. ‘Chief just left. He said I should greet you.’

Olanna wanted to ask if they had promised him an affair with her, and yet she knew she never would. ‘What are those materials?’

‘Chief just sent his driver to the car for them before he left. It’s the latest lace from Europe. See? Very nice, i fukwa? ’

Olanna felt the fabric between her fingers. ‘Yes, very nice.’

‘Did you see the one he wore today? Original! Ezigbo!’ Her mother sat down beside her. ‘And do you know, they say he never wears any outfit twice? He gives them to his houseboys once he has worn them.’

Olanna visualized his poor houseboys’ wood boxes incongruously full of lace, houseboys she was sure did not get paid much every month, owning cast-off kaftans and agbadas they could never wear. She was tired. Having conversations with her mother tired her.

‘Which one do you want, nne? I will make a long skirt and blouse for you and Kainene.’

‘No, don’t worry, Mum. Make something for yourself. I won’t wear rich lace in Nsukka too often.’

Her mother ran a finger over the bedside cabinet. ‘This silly housegirl does not clean furniture properly. Does she think I pay her to play around?’

Olanna placed her book down. Her mother wanted to say something, she could tell, and the set smile, the punctilious gestures, were a beginning.

‘So how is Odenigbo?’ her mother asked finally.

‘He’s fine.’

Her mother sighed, in the overdone way that meant she wished Olanna would see reason. ‘Have you thought about this Nsukka move well? Very well?’

‘I have never been surer of anything.’

‘But will you be comfortable there?’ Her mother said comfortable with a faint shudder, and Olanna almost smiled because her mother had Odenigbo’s basic university house in mind, with its sturdy rooms and plain furniture and uncarpeted floors.

‘I’ll be fine,’ she said.

‘You can find work here in Lagos and travel down to see him during weekends.’

‘I don’t want to work in Lagos. I want to work in the university, and I want to live with him.’

Her mother looked at her for a little while longer before she stood up and said, ‘Good night, my daughter,’ in a voice that was small and wounded.

Olanna stared at the door. She was used to her mother’s disapproval; it had coloured most of her major decisions, after all: when she chose two weeks’ suspension rather than apologize to her Heathgrove form mistress for insisting that the lessons on Pax Britannica were contradictory; when she joined the Students’ Movement for Independence at Ibadan; when she refused to marry Igwe Okagbue’s son, and later, Chief Okaro’s son. Still, each time, the disapproval made her want to apologize, to make up for it in some way.

She was almost asleep when Kainene knocked. ‘So will you be spreading your legs for that elephant in exchange for Daddy’s contract?’ Kainene asked.

Olanna sat up, surprised. She did not remember the last time that Kainene had come into her room.

‘Daddy literally pulled me away from the veranda, so we could leave you alone with the good cabinet minister,’ Kainene said. ‘Will he give Daddy the contract then?’

‘He didn’t say. But it’s not as if he will get nothing. Daddy will still give him ten per cent, after all.’

‘The ten per cent is standard, so extras always help. The other bidders probably don’t have a beautiful daughter.’ Kainene dragged the word out until it sounded cloying, sticky: beau-ti-ful. She was flipping through the copy of Lagos Life, her silk robe tied tightly around her skinny waist. ‘The benefit of being the ugly daughter is that nobody uses you as sex bait.’

‘They’re not using me as sex bait.’

Kainene did not respond for a while; she seemed focused on an article in the paper. Then she looked up. ‘Richard is going to Nsukka too. He’s received the grant, and he’s going to write his book there.’