Olanna shook her head but said nothing for a while. “After your sister’s wine-carrying, we will go to Abba to spend some time there since the campus is so empty,” she said finally. “You can stay with your people if you want to. We will come back for you when we return; we won’t be gone for more than a month, at the most. Our soldiers will drive the Nigerians back in a week or two.”
“I will come with you and Master, mah.”
Olanna smiled, as if she had wanted him to say that. “This soup is not thickening at all,” she muttered. Then she told him about the first time she cooked soup as a young girl, how she managed to burn the bottom of the pot to a charred purple and yet the soup turned out very tasty. He was absorbed in Olanna’s voice and so he did not hear the sound—boom-boom-boom—from somewhere distant outside the windows, until she stopped stirring and looked up.
“What is that?” she asked. “Do you hear it, Ugwu? What is it?”
Olanna dropped the ladle and ran into the living room. Ugwu followed. Master was standing by the window, holding a folded copy of the Biafran Sun.
“What is that?” Olanna asked. She pulled Baby to her. “Odenigbo!”
“They are advancing,” Master said calmly. “I think we should plan on leaving today.”
Then Ugwu heard the loud honk of a car outside. Suddenly he was afraid to go to the door, even to go to the window and peek out.
Master opened the door. The green Morris Minor had parked so hurriedly that one tire was outside the driveway, crushing the lilies that bordered the lawn; when the man came out of the car, Ugwu was shocked to see that he was only wearing a singlet and trousers. And bathroom slippers too!
“Evacuate now! The federals have entered Nsukka! We are evacuating now! Right now! I am going to all the houses still occupied. Evacuate now!”
It was after he had spoken and rushed back into his car and driven off, honking continuously, that Ugwu recognized him: Mr. Vincent Ikenna, the registrar. He had visited a few times. He drank his beer with Fanta.
“Get a few things together, nkem,” Master said. “I’ll check the water in the car. Ugwu, lock up quick! Don’t forget the Boys’ Quarters.”
“Gini? What things?” Olanna asked. “What will I take?”
Baby started to cry. There was the sound again, boom-boomboom, closer and louder.
“It won’t be for long, we’ll be back soon. Just take a few things, clothes.” Master gestured vaguely before he grabbed the car keys from the shelf.
“I’m still cooking,” Olanna said.
“Put it in the car,” Master said.
Olanna looked dazed; she wrapped the pot of soup in a dish towel and took it out to the car. Ugwu ran around throwing things into bags: Baby’s clothes and toys, biscuits from the fridge, his clothes, Master’s clothes, Olanna’s wrappers and dresses. He wished he knew what to take. He wished that sound did not seem even closer. He dumped the bags in the backseat of the car and dashed back inside to lock the doors and close the window louvers. Master was honking outside. He stood in the middle of the living room, feeling dizzy. He needed to urinate. He ran into the kitchen and turned the stove off. Master was shouting his name. He took the albums from the shelves, the three photo albums Olanna so carefully put together, and ran out to the car. He had hardly shut the car door when Master drove off. The campus streets were eerie; silent and empty.
At the gates, Biafran soldiers were waving cars through. They looked distinguished in their khaki uniforms, boots shining, half of a yellow sun sewn on their sleeves. Ugwu wished he was one of them. Master waved and said, “Well done!”
Dust swirled all around, like a see-through brown blanket. The main road was crowded; women with boxes on their heads and babies tied to their backs, barefoot children carrying bundles of clothes or yams or boxes, men dragging bicycles. Ugwu wondered why they were holding lit kerosene lanterns although it was not yet dark. He saw a little child stumble and fall and the mother bend and yank him up, and he thought about home, about his little cousins and his parents and Anulika. They were safe. They would not have to run because their village was too remote. This only meant that he would not see Anulika get married, that he would not hold Nnesinachi in his arms as he had planned. But he would be back soon. The war would last just long enough for the Biafran army to gas the Nigerians to kingdom come. He would yet taste Nnesinachi’s sweetness, he would yet caress that soft flesh.
Master drove slowly because of the crowds and road blocks, but slowest when they got to Milliken Hill. The lorry ahead of them had NO ONE KNOWS TOMORROW printed on its body. As it crawled up the steep incline, a young man jumped out and ran alongside, carrying a wood block, ready to throw it behind the back tire if the lorry were to roll back.
When they finally arrived at Abba, it was dusk, the windshield was coated in ocher dust, and Baby was asleep.
16
Richard was surprised when he heard the announcement that the federal government had declared a police action to bring the rebels to order. Kainene was not.
“It’s the oil,” she said. “They can’t let us go easily with all that oil. But the war will be brief. Madu says Ojukwu has big plans. He suggested I donate some foreign exchange to the war cabinet, so that when this ends I’ll get any contract I bid for.”
Richard stared at her. She did not seem to understand that he could not comprehend a war at all, brief or not.
“It’s best if you move your things to Port Harcourt until we drive the Nigerians back,” Kainene said. She was scanning a newspaper and nodding her head to the Beatles on the stereo and she made it seem normal, that war was the inevitable outcome of events and that moving his things from Nsukka was simply as it should be.
“Yes, of course,” he said.
Her driver took him. Checkpoints had sprung up everywhere, tires and nail-studded bo
ards placed across the road, men and women in khaki shirts with expressionless, disciplined demeanors standing by. The first two were easy to pass. “Where are you going?” they asked, and waved the car through. But near Enugu, the civil defenders had blocked the road with tree trunks and old rusty drums. The driver stopped.