CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE - Half of a Yellow Sun

Susan came back and tugged at him but he didn’t want to leave and when he opened his mouth, he wasn’t sure what he was going to say. ‘It turns out Kainene and I have a mutual friend in London. Did I tell you about Wilfred at the Spectator ?’

‘Oh,’ Susan said, smiling. ‘How lovely. I’ll let you two catch up then. Be back in a bit.’

She exchanged kisses with an elderly couple before moving to a group at the other end of the room.

‘You just lied to your wife,’ Kainene said.

‘She’s not my wife.’ He was surprised at how giddy he felt to be left standing with her. She raised her glass to her lips and sipped. She inhaled and exhaled. Silver ashes swirled down to the floor. Everything seemed to be in slow motion: The hotel ballroom enlarged and deflated and the air was sucked in and out of a space that seemed to be, for a moment, occupied only by himself and Kainene.

‘Would you move away, please?’ she asked.

He was startled. ‘What?’

‘There is a photographer behind you who is keen to take a photo of me, and particularly of my necklace.’

He moved aside and watched as she stared at the camera. She did not pose but she looked comfortable; she was used to having her photograph taken at parties.

‘The necklace will be featured in tomorrow’s Lagos Life . I suppose that would be my way of contributing to our newly independent country. I am giving fellow Nigerians something to covet, an incentive to work hard,’ she said, coming back to stand beside him.

‘It’s a lovely necklace,’ he said, although it looked gaudy. He wanted to reach out and touch it, though, to lift it off her neck and then let it settle back against the hollow of her throat. Her collarbones jutted out sharply.

‘Of course it’s not lovely. My father has obscene taste in jewellery,’ she said. ‘But it’s his money. I see my sister and my parents looking for me, by the way. I should go.’

‘Your sister is here?’ Richard asked, quickly, before she could turn and leave.

‘Yes. We’re twins,’ she said and paused, as if that were a momentous disclosure. ‘Kainene and Olanna. Her name is the lyrical God’s Gold , and mine is the more practical Let’s watch and see what next God will bring .’

Richard watched the smile that pulled her mouth up at one end, a sardonic smile that he imagined hid something else, perhaps dissatisfaction. He didn’t know what to say. He felt as if time was slipping away from him.

‘Who is older?’ he asked.

‘Who is older? What a question.’ She arched her eyebrows. ‘I’m told I came out first.’

Richard cradled his wine glass and wondered if tightening his grasp any further would crush it.

‘There she is, my sister,’ Kainene said. ‘Shall I introduce you? Everybody wants to meet her.’

Richard didn’t turn to look. ‘I’d rather talk to you,’ he said. ‘If you don’t mind, that is.’ He ran his hand through his hair. She was watching him; he felt adolescent with her gaze on him.

‘You’re shy,’ she said.

‘I’ve been called worse.’

She smiled, in the way that meant she had found that funny, and he felt accomplished to have made her smile.

‘Have you ever been to the market in Balogun?’ she asked. ‘They display slabs of meat on tables, and you are supposed to grope and feel and then decide which you want. My sister and I are meat. We are here so that suitable bachelors will make the kill.’

‘Oh,’ he said. It seemed a strangely intimate thing to tell him, although it was said in the same dry, sarcastic tone that seemed natural to her. He wanted to tell her something about himself, too, wanted to exchange small kernels of intimacies with her.

‘Here comes the wife you denied,’ Kainene murmured.

Susan came back and pushed a glass into his hand. ‘Here, darling,’ she said, and then turned to Kainene. ‘How lovely to meet you.’

‘How lovely to meet you ,’ Kainene said and half-raised her glass towards Susan.

Susan steered him away. ‘She’s Chief Ozobia’s daughter, is she? Whatever happened to her? Quite extraordinary; her mother is stunning, absolutely stunning. Chief Ozobia owns half of Lagos but there is something terribly nouveau riche about him. He doesn’t have much of a formal education, you see, and neither has his wife. I suppose that’s what makes him so obvious .’

Richard was usually amused by Susan’s mini-biographies, but now the whispering irritated him. He did not want the champagne; her nails were digging into his arm. She led him to a group of expatriates and stopped to chat, laughing loudly, a little drunk. He searched the room for Kainene. At first, he could not find the red dress and then he saw her standing near her father; Chief Ozobia looked expansive, with the arching hand gestures he made as he spoke, the intricately embroidered agbada , whose folds and folds of blue cloth made him even wider than he was. Mrs Ozobia was half his size and wore a wrapper and headgear made out of the same blue fabric. Richard was momentarily startled by how perfectly almond-shaped her eyes were, wide-set in a dark face that was intimidating to look at. He would never have guessed that she was Kainene’s mother, nor would he have guessed that Kainene and Olanna were twins. Olanna took after their mother, although hers was a more approachable beauty with the softer face and the smiling graciousness and the fleshy, curvy body that filled out her black dress. A body Susan would call African . Kainene looked even thinner next to Olanna, almost androgynous, her tight maxi outlining the boyishness of her hips. Richard stared at her for a long time, willing her to search for him. She seemed aloof, watching the people in their group with a now indifferent, now mocking expression. Finally, she looked up and her eyes met his and she tilted her head and raised her eyebrows, as if she knew very well that he had been watching her. He averted his eyes. Then he looked back quickly, determined to smile this time, to make some useful gesture, but she had turned her back to him. He watched her until she left with her parents and Olanna.

Richard read the next issue of Lagos Life , and when he saw her photo, he searched her expression, looking for what he did not know. He wrote a few pages in a burst of manic productivity, fictional portraits of a tall, ebony-coloured woman with a near-flat chest. He went to the British Council Library and looked up her father in the business journals. He copied down all four of the numbers next to ozobia in the phone book. He picked up the phone many times and put it back when he heard the operator’s voice. He practised what he would say in front of the mirror, the gestures he would make, although he was aware that she would not see him if they spoke over the phone. He considered sending her a card or perhaps a basket of fruit. Finally, he called. She didn’t sound surprised to hear from him. Or perhaps it was just that she sounded too calm, while his heart hammered in his chest.

‘Would you like to meet for a drink?’ he asked.

‘Yes. Shall we say Zobis Hotel at noon? It’s my father’s, and I can get us a private suite.’

‘Yes, yes, that would be lovely.’

He hung up, shaken. He was not sure if he should be excited, if private suite was suggestive. When they met in the hotel lounge, she moved close so that he could kiss her cheek and then led the way upstairs, to the terrace, where they sat looking down at the palm trees by the swimming pool. It was a sunny, luminous day. Once in a while, a breeze swayed the palms, and he hoped it would not tousle his hair too much and that the umbrella above would keep away those unflattering ripe-tomato spots that appeared on his cheeks whenever he was out in the sun.