Although she knew Mohammed was abroad, she gave the operator his number in Kano; the nasal voice said, “You are phoning too much today!” before connecting her. She held on to the receiver long after there was no response. Rustling sounds came from the ceiling again. She sat on the cold floor and leaned her head against the wall to see if it would feel less light, less unmoored. Odenigbo’s mother’s visit had ripped a hole in her safe mesh of feathers, startled her, snatched something away from her. She felt one step away from where she should be. She felt as if she had left her pearls lying loose for too long and it was time to gather them and guard them more carefully. The thought came to her slowly: She wanted to have Odenigbo’s child. They had never really discussed children. She once told him that she did not have that fabled female longing to give birth, and her mother had called her abnormal until Kainene said she didn’t have it either. He laughed and said that to bring a child into this unjust world was an act of a blasé bourgeoisie anyway. She had never forgotten that expression: childbirth as an act of blasé bourgeoisie—how funny, how untrue it was. Just as she had never seriously thought of having a child until now; the longing in the lower part of her belly was sudden and searing and new. She wanted the solid weight of a child, his child, in her body.
When the doorbell rang that evening as she climbed out of the bathtub, she went to the door wrapped in a towel. Odenigbo was holding a newspaper-wrapped package of suya; she could smell the smoky spiciness from where she stood.
“Are you still angry?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Get dressed and we’ll go back together. I will talk to my mother.”
He smelled of brandy. He came inside and placed the suya on the table, and in his bloodshot eyes she glimpsed the vulnerability that hid itself so well underneath his voluble confidence. He could be afraid, after all. She rested her face against his neck as he hugged her and said to him, quietly, “No, you don’t have to do that. Stay here.”
———
After his mother left, Olanna went back to Odenigbo’s house. Ugwu said, “Sorry, mah,” as if he were somehow responsible for Mama’s behavior. Then he fiddled with his apron pocket and said, “I saw a black cat yesterday night, after Mama and Amala left.”
“A black cat?”
“Yes, mah. Near the garage.” He paused. “A black cat means evil.”
“I see.”
“Mama said she would go to the dibia in the village.”
“You think the dibia has sent the black cat to bite us?” Olanna was laughing.
“No, mah.” Ugwu folded his arms forlornly. “It happened in my village, mah. A junior wife went to the dibia and got medicine to kill the senior wife, and the night before the senior wife died a black cat came to the front of her hut.”
“So Mama will use the dibia’s medicine and kill me?” Olanna asked.
“She wants to divide you and Master, mah.”
His solemnness touched her. “I’m sure it was just the neighbor’s cat, Ugwu,” she said. “Your master’s mother can’t use any medicine to divide us. Nothing can divide us.”
She watched him go back to the kitchen, thinking of what she had said. Nothing can divide us. Of course Odenigbo’s mother’s medicine from the dibia—indeed, all supernatural fetishes—meant nothing to her, but she worried again about her future with Odenigbo. She wanted certainty. She longed for a sign, a rainbow, to signify security. Still she was relieved to ease back into her life, their life, of teaching and tennis and friends that filled the living room. Because they came in the late evenings, she was surprised to hear the doorbell ring one afternoon, a week later, when Odenigbo was still at a lecture. It was Richard.
“Hello,” she said, letting him in. He was very tall; she had to tilt her head to look at his face, to see his eyes that were the blue color of a still sea and his hair that fell across his forehead.
“I just wanted to leave this for Odenigbo,” he said, handing Olanna a book. She loved the way he pronounced Odenigbo’s name, stressing it so earnestly. He was avoiding her eyes.
“Won’t you sit down?” she asked.
“I’m in a bit of a hurry, unfortunately. I have to catch the train.”
“Are you going to Port Harcourt to see Kainene?” Olanna wondered why she had asked. It was obvious enough.
“Yes. I go every weekend.”
“Say hello to her for me.”
“I will.”
“I talked to her last week.”
“Yes. She mentioned it.” Richard still stood there. He glanced at her and quickly looked away, and she saw the redness creep up his face. She had seen that look too many times not to know that he found her beautiful.
“How is the book coming along?” she asked.
“Quite well. It’s incredible, really, how well-crafted some of the ornaments are, and they were clearly intended to be art; it wasn’t an accident at all… I mustn’t bore you.”