“Yes,” Aunty Ifeoma said. “And he has a brilliant editor, Ade Coker, although I wonder how much longer before they lock him up for good. Even Eugene’s money will not buy everything.”
“I was reading somewhere that Amnesty World is giving your brother an award,” Father Amadi said. He was nodding slowly, admiringly, and I felt myself go warm all over, with pride, with a desire to be associated with Papa. I wanted to say something, to remind this handsome priest that Papa wasn’t just Aunty Ifeoma’s brother or the Standard’s publisher, that he was my father. I wanted some of the cloudlike warmth in Father Amadi’s eyes to rub off on me, settle on me.
“An award?” Amaka asked, bright-eyed. “Mom, we should at least buy the Standard once in a while so we’ll know what is going on.”
“Or we could ask for free copies to be sent to us, if prides were swallowed,” Obiora said.
“I didn’t even know about the award,” Aunty Ifeoma said. “Not that Eugene would tell me anyway, igasikwa. We can’t even have a conversation. After all, I had to use a pilgrimage to Aokpe to get him to say yes to the children’s visiting us.”
“So you plan to go to Aokpe?” Father Amadi asked.
“I was not really planning to. But I suppose we will have to go now, I will find out the next apparition date.”
“People are making this whole apparition thing up. Didn’t they say Our Lady was appearing at Bishop Shanahan Hospital the other time? And then that she was appearing in Transekulu?” Obiora asked.
“Aokpe is different. It has all the signs of Lourdes,” Amaka said. “Besides, it’s about time Our Lady came to Africa. Don’t you wonder how come she always appears in Europe? She was from the Middle East, after all.”
“What is she now, the Political Virgin?” Obiora asked, and I looked at him again. He was a bold, male version of what I could never have been at fourteen, what I still was not.
Father Amadi laughed. “But she’s appeared in Egypt, Amaka. At least people flocked there, like they are flocking to Aokpe now. O bugodi, like migrating locusts.”
“You don’t sound like you believe, Father.” Amaka was watching him.
“I don’t believe we have to go to Aokpe or anywhere else to find her. She is here, she is within us, leading us to her Son.” He spoke so effortlessly, as if his mouth were a musical instrument that just let sound out when touched, when opened.
“But what about the Thomas inside us, Father? The part that needs to see to believe?” Amaka asked. She had that expression that made me wonder if she was serious or not.
Father Amadi did not respond; instead he made a face, and Amaka laughed, the gap between her teeth wider, more angular, than Aunty Ifeoma’s, as if someone had pried her two front teeth apart with a metal instrument.
After dinner, we all retired to the living room, and Aunty Ifeoma asked Obiora to turn the TV off so we could pray while Father Amadi was here. Chima had fallen asleep on the sofa, and Obiora leaned against him throughout the rosary. Father Amadi led the first decade, and at the end, he started an Igbo praise song. While they sang, I opened my eyes and stared at the wall, at the picture of the family at Chima’s baptism. Next to it was a grainy copy of the pietà, the wooden frame cracked at the corners. I pressed my lips together, biting my lower lip, so my mouth would not join in the singing on its own, so my mouth would not betray me.
We put our rosaries away and sat in the living room eating corn and ube and watching Newsline on television. I looked up to find Father Amadi’s eyes on me, and suddenly I could not lick the ube flesh from the seed. I could not move my tongue, could not swallow. I was too aware of his eyes, too aware that he was looking at me, watching me. “I haven’t seen you laugh or smile today, Kambili,” he said, finally.
I looked down at my corn. I wanted to say I was sorry that I did not smile or laugh, but my words would not come, and for a while even my ears could hear nothing.
“She is shy,” Aunty Ifeoma said.
I muttered a word I knew was nonsense and stood up and walked into the bedroom, making sure to close the door that led to the hallway. Father Amadi’s musical voice echoed in my ears until I fell asleep.
Laughter always rang out in Aunty Ifeoma’s house, and no matter where the laughter came from, it bounced around all the walls, all the rooms. Arguments rose quickly and fell just as quickly. Morning and night prayers were always peppered with songs, Igbo praise songs that usually called for hand clapping. Food had little meat, each person’s piece the width of two fingers pressed close together and the length of half a finger. The flat always sparkled—Amaka scrubbed the floors with a stiff brush, Obiora did the sweeping, Chima plumped up the cushions on the chairs. Everybody took turns washing plates. Aunty Ifeoma included Jaja and me in the plate-washing schedule, and after I washed the garri-encrusted lunch plates, Amaka picked them off the tray where I had placed them to dry and soaked them in water. “Is this how you wash plates in your house?” she asked. “Or is plate washing not included in your fancy schedule?”
I stood there, staring at her, wishing Aunty Ifeoma were there to speak for me. Amaka glared at me for a moment longer and then walked away. She said nothing else to me until her friends came over that afternoon, when Aunty Ifeoma and Jaja were in the garden and the boys were playing football out front. “Kambili, these are my friends from school,” she said, casually.
The two girls said hello, and I smiled. They had hair as short as Amaka’s, wore shiny lipstick and trousers so tight I knew they would walk differently if they were wearing something more comfortable. I watched them examine themselves in the mirror, pore over an American magazine with a brown-skinned, honey-haired woman on the cover, and talk about a math teacher who didn’t know the answers to his own tests, a girl who wore a miniskirt to evening lesson even though she had fat yams on her legs, and a boy who was fine. “Fine, sha, not attractive,” one of them stressed. She wore a dangling earring on one ear and a shiny, false gold stud on the other.
“Is it all your hair?” the other one asked, and I did not realize she was referring to me, until Amaka said, “Kambili!”
I wanted to tell the girl that it was all my hair, that there were no attachments, but the words would not come. I knew they were still talking about hair, how long and thick mine looked. I wanted to talk with them, to laugh with them so much that I would start to jump up and down in one place the way they did, but my lips held stubbornly together. I did not want to stutter, so I started to cough and then ran out and into the toilet.
That evening, as I set the table for dinner, I heard Amaka say, “Are you sure they’re not abnormal, mom? Kambili just behaved like an atulu when my friends came.” Amaka had neither raised nor lowered her voice, and it drifted clearly in from the kitchen.
“Amaka, you are free to have your opinions, but you must treat your cousin with respect. Do you understand that?” Aunty Ifeoma replied in English, her voice firm.
“I was just asking a question.”
“Showing respect is not calling your cousin a sheep.”
“She behaves funny. Even Jaja is strange. Something is not right with them.”