Ngozi Chimamanda - Half of a Yellow Sun

Olanna ignored her.

She walked to the major road and stood under a tree. Each time a car drove past, she tried to flag it down. A soldier in a rusty station wagon stopped. She saw the leer in his eyes even before she climbed in beside him, so she exaggerated her English accent, certain that he did not understand all she said, and spoke throughout the drive about the cause and mentioned that her car and driver were at the mechanic. He said very little until he dropped her off at the directorate building. He did not know who she was or who she knew.

Professor Ezeka's hawk-faced secretary slowly looked at Olanna, from her carefully brushed wig to her shoes, and said, "He's not in!"

"Then ring him right now and tell him I am waiting. My name is Olanna Ozobia."

The secretary looked surprised. "What?"

"Do I need to say it again?" Olanna asked. "I'm sure Prof will want to hear about this. Where shall I sit while you ring him?"

The secretary stared at her and Olanna stared back steadily. Then she mutely gestured to a chair and picked up the phone. A half hour later, Professor Ezeka's driver came in to take her to his house, tucked onto a hidden dirt road.

"I thought a VIP like you would live in the Government Reserved Area, Prof," Olanna said, after she greeted him.

"Oh, certainly not. It's too obvious a target for bombings." He had not changed. His fastidious sense of superiority lined his voice as he waved her in and asked her to wait for him while he finished up in his study

Olanna had seen little of Mrs. Ezeka in Nsukka; she was timid and barely educated, the kind of wife his village had found him, Odenigbo had said once. Olanna struggled to hide her surprise, then, when Mrs. Ezeka came out and hugged her twice in the spacious living room.

"It's so nice to see old friends! Our socializing these days is so official, this government-house event today and another one tomorrow." Mrs. Ezeka's gold pendant hung low on a chain around her neck. "Pamela! Come and greet Aunty."

The little girl who came out holding a doll was older than Baby, perhaps about eight years old. She had her mother's fat-cheeked face, and the pink satin ribbons in her hair swayed.

"Good afternoon," she said. She was undressing her doll, prising the skirt off the plastic body.

"How are you?" Olanna asked.

"Fine, thank you."

Olanna sank into a plush red sofa. A dollhouse, with tiny exquisite doll plates and teacups, was set out on the center table.

"What will you drink?" Mrs. Ezeka asked brightly. "I remember Odenigbo loved his brandy We do have some rather good brandy."

Olanna looked at Mrs. Ezeka. She could not possibly remember what Odenigbo drank because she had never visited in the evenings with her husband.

"I'd like some cold water, please," Olanna said.

"Just cold water?" Mrs. Ezeka asked. "Anyway, we can have something else after lunch. Steward!"

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 Olanna. "She's so restless now. You see, we should have gone abroad last week. The two older ones have gone. His Excellency gave us permission ages ago. We were supposed to leave on a relief plane, but none of them landed. They said there were too many Nigerian bombers. Can you imagine? Yesterday, we waited in Uli, inside that unfinished building they call a terminal, for more than two hours and no plane landed. But hopefully we'll leave on Sunday. We will fly to Gabon and then on to England — on our Nigerian passports, of course! The British have refused to recognize Biafra!" Her laughter filled Olanna with a resentment as fine, as painful, as the prick of a new pin.

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, Olanna?" Mrs. Ezeka asked, after the steward left. "We made it today."

"No, thank you."

Professor Ezeka came in holding some files. "Is that all you're drinking? Water?"

"Your house is surreal," Olanna said.

"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 Olanna's mouth and she realized how much she hated to ask, how much she wanted to get it over with and leave this house with the red rug and the matching red sofas and the television set and the fruity scent of Mrs. Ezeka's perfume.

"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," Olanna said. "And thank you again for the provisions."

"Have some cake," Mrs. Ezeka said.

"No, I don't want any cake."

"Maybe after lunch."

Olanna stood up. "I can't stay for lunch. I must go. I teach some children in the yard and I told them to come in an hour's time."

"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."

Olanna forced her lips to form a smile.

"The driver will take you back," Professor Ezeka said.

"Thank you," Olanna said.

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," Olanna said and stared at the smooth floor and two beds, a furnished underground room.

When she got back to the yard, Baby was crying. Mucus ran thinly down her nose.

"They ate Bingo," Baby said.

'What?"

'Adanna's mummy ate Bingo."

"Ugwu, what happened?" Olanna asked, taking Baby in her arms.

Ugwu shrugged. "That is what the people in the yard are saying. Mama Adanna took the dog out some time ago and does not answer when they ask her where it is. And she has just cooked her soup with meat."

Olanna hushed Baby, wiped her eyes and nose, and thought for a moment about the dog with its head full of sores.

Kainene came in the middle of a hot afternoon. Olanna was in the kitchen soaking some dried cassava in water when Mama Oji called, "There is a woman in a car asking for you!"

Olanna hurried out and stopped when she saw her sister standing near the banana trees. She looked elegant in a knee-length tan dress.

"Kainene!" Olanna extended her arms slightly, uncertainly, and Kainene moved forward; their embrace was brief, their bodies barely touching before Kainene stepped back.

"I went to your old house and somebody told me to come here."

"Our landlord kicked us out, we were not good for business." Olanna laughed at her poor joke, although Kainene did not laugh. Kainene was peering into the room. Olanna wished so much that Kainene had come when they were still in a house, wished she did not feel so painfully self-conscious.

"Come in and sit down."

Olanna dragged the bench in from the veranda and Kainene looked warily at it before she sat down and placed her hands on the leather bag that was the same earth-brown shade as her coiffed wig. Olanna raised the dividing curtain and sat on the bed and smoothed her wrapper. They did not look at each other. The silence was charged with things unsaid.

"So how have you been?" Olanna asked, finally.

"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."