“What is that? Have you all converted to heathen ways? What are you doing with that painting? Where did you get it?” Papa asked.
“O nkem. It’s mine,” Jaja said. He wrapped the painting around his chest with his arms.
“It’s mine,” I said.
Papa swayed slightly, from side to side, like a person about to fall at the feet of a charismatic pastor after the laying on of hands. Papa did not sway often. His swaying was like shaking a bottle of Coke that burst into violent foam when you opened it.
“Who brought that painting into this house?”
“Me,” I said.
“Me,” Jaja said.
If only Jaja would look at me, I would ask him not to blame himself. Papa snatched the painting from Jaja. His hands moved swiftly, working together. The painting was gone. It already represented something lost, something I had never had, would never have. Now even that reminder was gone, and at Papa’s feet lay pieces of paper streaked with earth-tone colors. The pieces were very small, very precise. I suddenly and maniacally imagined Papa-Nnukwu’s body being cut in pieces that small and stored in a fridge.
“No!” I shrieked. I dashed to the pieces on the floor as if to save them, as if saving them would mean saving Papa-Nnukwu. I sank to the floor, lay on the pieces of paper.
“What has gotten into you?” Papa asked. “What is wrong with you?”
I lay on the floor, curled tight like the picture of a child in the uterus in my Integrated Science for Junior Secondary Schools.
“Get up! Get away from that painting!”
I lay there, did nothing.
“Get up!” Papa said again. I still did not move. He started to kick me. The metal buckles on his slippers stung like bites from giant mosquitoes. He talked nonstop, out of control, in a mix of Igbo and English, like soft meat and thorny bones. Godlessness. Heathen worship. Hellfire. The kicking increased in tempo, and I thought of Amaka’s music, her culturally conscious music that sometimes started off with a calm saxophone and then whirled into lusty singing. I curled around myself tighter, around the pieces of the painting; they were soft, feathery. They still had the metallic smell of Amaka’s paint palette. The stinging was raw now, even more like bites, because the metal landed on open skin on my side, my back, my legs. Kicking. Kicking. Kicking. Perhaps it was a belt now because the metal buckle seemed too heavy. Because I could hear a swoosh in the air. A low voice was saying, “Please, biko, please.” More stings. More slaps. A salty wetness warmed my mouth. I closed my eyes and slipped away into quiet.
WHEN I OPENED MY EYES, I knew at once that I was not in my bed. The mattress was firmer than mine. I made to get up, but pain shot through my whole body in exquisite little packets. I collapsed back.
“Nne, Kambili. Thank God!” Mama stood up and pressed her hand to my forehead, then her face to mine. “Thank God. Thank God you are awake.”
Her face felt clammy with tears. Her touch was light, yet it sent needles of pain all over me, starting from my head. It was like the hot water Papa had poured on my feet, except now it was my entire body that burned. Each movement was too painful to even think about.
“My whole body is on fire,” I said.
“Shhh,” she said. “Just rest. Thank God you are awake.”
I did not want to be awake. I did not want to feel the breathing pain at my side. I did not want to feel the heavy hammer knocking in my head. Even taking a breath was agony. A doctor in white was in the room, at the foot of my bed. I knew that voice; he was a lector in church. He was speaking slowly and precisely, the way he did when he read the first and second readings, yet I could not hear it all. Broken rib. Heal nicely. Internal bleeding. He came close and slowly lifted my shirtsleeve. Injections had always scared me—whenever I had malaria, I prayed I would need to take Novalgin tablets instead of chloroquine injections. But now the prick of a needle was nothing. I would take injections every day over the pain in my body. Papa’s face was close to mine. It seemed so close that his nose almost brushed mine, and yet I could tell that his eyes were soft, that he was speaking and crying at the same time. “My precious daughter. Nothing will happen to you. My precious daughter.” I was not sure if it was a dream. I closed my eyes.
When I opened them again, Father Benedict stood above me. He was making the sign of the cross on my feet with oil; the oil smelled like onions, and even his light touch hurt. Papa was nearby. He, too, was muttering prayers, his hands resting gently on my side. I closed my eyes.
“It does not mean anything. They give extreme unction to anyone who is seriously ill,” Mama whispered, when Papa and Father Benedict left.
I stared at the movement of her lips. I was not seriously ill. She knew that. Why was she saying I was seriously ill? Why was I here in St. Agnes hospital?
“Mama, call Aunty Ifeoma,” I said.
Mama looked away. “Nne, you have to rest.”
“Call Aunty Ifeoma. Please.”
Mama reached out to hold my hand. Her face was puffy from crying, and her lips were cracked, with bits of discolored skin peeling off. I wished I could get up and hug her, and yet I wanted to push her away, to shove her so hard that she would topple over the chair.
FATHER AMADI’S FACE was looking down at me when I opened my eyes. I was dreaming it, imagining it, and yet I wished that it did not hurt so much to smile, so that I could.
“At first they could not find a vein, and I was so scared.” It was Mama’s voice, real and next to me. I was not dreaming.
“Kambili. Kambili. Are you awake?” Father Amadi’s voice was deeper, less melodious than in my dreams.