‘They should not have killed him,’ Olanna said quietly. ‘They should have put him in prison.’
Aunty Ifeka snorted. ‘Put him in which prison? In this Nigeria where he controlled everything?’ She got up and began to close up the kiosk. ‘Come, let’s go inside so I can find Baby something to eat.’
The Rex Lawson song was playing loudly in Arize’s compound when Olanna returned. Nnakwanze found it hilarious too. He had two huge front teeth, and when he laughed, it was as if too many teeth had been painfully crammed into his small mouth. Mmeee-mmeee-mmeee, a goat begging not to be killed: mmeee-mmeee-mmeee.
‘It’s not funny,’ Olanna said.
‘Sister, but it is funny, oh,’ Arize said. ‘Because of too much Book, you no longer know how to laugh.’
Nnakwanze was sitting on the floor at Arize’s feet, rubbing her belly in light circular motions. He had worried a lot less than Arize when she did not get pregnant the first, second, and third year of their marriage; when his mother visited them too often, poking at Arize’s belly and urging her to confess how many abortions she had had before marriage, he asked his mother to stop visiting. He asked her, too, to stop bringing foul-smelling concoctions for Arize to drink in bitter gulps. Now that Arize was pregnant, he did more overtime at the railway and asked her to cut down on her sewing.
He was still singing the song and laughing. A goat begging not to be killed: mmeee-mmeee-mmeee.
Olanna got up. The night breeze was unpleasantly cool. ‘Ari, you should get to bed, so you are rested in the morning for Lagos.’
Nnakwanze made as if to help Arize up, but she brushed him aside. ‘I have told you people that I am not sick. I am only pregnant.’
Olanna was pleased that the house in Lagos would be empty. Her father had called to say they were going overseas. She knew it was because he wanted to be away until things calmed down, because he was wary of his ten per cents and lavish parties and slick connections, but neither he nor her mother said so. They called it a holiday. It was their policy to leave things unsaid, the same way they pretended not to notice that she and Kainene no longer spoke and that she came home only when she was sure Kainene was not visiting.
In the airport taxi, Arize taught Baby a song while Olanna watched Lagos careen by: the tumultuous traffic, the rusty buses and exhausted masses waiting for them, the touts, the beggars sliding on flat, wooden trolleys, the shabby hawkers thrusting trays towards people who either would not or could not buy.
The driver stopped in front of her parents’ walled compound in Ikoyi. He peered at the high gate. ‘The minister they killed used to live around here, abi, aunty?’ he asked. Olanna pretended not to have heard and instead said to Baby, ‘Now, look what you did to your dress! Hurry inside so we can wash it off!’
Later, her mother’s driver, Ibekie, took them to Kingsway. The supermarket smelt of new paint. Arize walked from aisle to aisle, cooing, touching the plastic wrappings, picking out baby clothes, a pink pram, a plastic doll with blue eyes.
‘Everything is so shiny in supermarkets, Sister,’ Arize said, laughing. ‘No dust!’
Olanna held up a white dress trimmed with pink lace. ‘O maka. This is lovely.’
‘It’s too expensive,’ Arize said.
‘Nobody asked you.’
Baby pulled down a doll from a low shelf and turned it upside down, and it let out a crying sound.
‘No, Baby.’ Olanna took the doll and placed it back.
They shopped for a while longer and then left for Yaba market, where Arize could shop for fabrics for herself. Tejuosho Road was crowded, families huddled around pots of bubbling food, women roasting corn and plantains in charred basins, bare-chested men loading bags into lorries with hand-painted wisdoms: no condition is permanent. god knows best. Ibekie parked near the newspaper stands. Olanna glanced at the people standing and reading the Daily Times and her feet grew light with pride. They were reading Odenigbo’s article, she was sure; it was easily the best there. She had edited it herself and toned down his rhetoric, so that his argument – that only a unitary government could remove the divisions of regionalism – was clearer.
She took Baby’s hand and led the way past the roadside hawkers who sat under umbrellas with batteries and padlocks and cigarettes carefully arranged on enamel trays. The main market entrance was strangely empty. Then Olanna saw the crowd ahead. A man in a yellowed singlet stood at the centre while two men slapped him, one after the other, methodical, leathery-sounding slaps. ‘Why now? Why are you denying?’ The man stared at them, blank, bending his neck slightly after each slap. Arize stopped.
Somebody from the crowd called out, ‘We are counting the Igbo people. Oya, come and identify yourself. You are Igbo?’
Arize muttered under her breath, ‘I kwuna okwu,’ as if Olanna was thinking of saying anything, and then shook her head and started to speak fluent, loud Yoruba, all the while casually turning so they could go back the way they had come. The crowd lost interest in them. Another man in a safari suit was being slapped on the back of the head. ‘You are Igbo man! Don’t deny it! Simply identify yourself!’
Baby began to cry. ‘Mummy Ola! Mummy Ola!’
Olanna picked Baby up. She and Arize did not talk until they got back in the car. Ibekie had already reversed and kept glancing at the rearview mirror. ‘I saw people running,’ he said.
‘What is happening?’ Olanna asked.
Arize shrugged. ‘We hear rumours that they have been doing this in Kaduna and Zaria since the coup; they go out in the streets and start to harass Igbo people because they said the coup was an Igbo coup.’
‘Ezi okwu? Really?’
‘Yes, Aunty,’ Ibekie said quickly, as if he had been waiting for the opportunity to speak. ‘My uncle in Ebutte Metta does not sleep in his house any more since the coup. All his neighbours are Yoruba, and they said some men have been looking for him. He sleeps in different houses every night, while he takes care of his business. He has sent his children back home.’
‘Ezi okwu? Really?’ Olanna repeated. She felt hollow. She did not know that things had come to this; in Nsukka, life was insular and the news was unreal, functioning only as fodder for the evening talk, for Odenigbo’s rants and impassioned articles.
‘Things will calm down,’ Arize said, and touched Olanna’s arm. ‘Don’t worry.’
Olanna nodded and looked out at the words printed on a nearby lorry: NO TELEPHONE TO HEAVEN. She could not believe how easy it had been to deny who they were, to shrug off being Igbo.
‘She will wear that white dress for her christening, Sister,’ Arize said.
‘What, Ari?’
Arize pointed at her belly. ‘Your goddaughter will wear that white dress for her christening. Thank you so much, Sister.’
The light in Arize’s eyes made Olanna smile; things would indeed calm down. She tickled Baby, but Baby did not laugh. Baby stared back at her with frightened eyes that were not yet dried of tears.
Richard watched as Kainene zipped up the lilac dress and turned to him. The hotel room was brightly lit, and he looked at her and at her reflection in the mirror behind her.
‘Nke a ka mma,’ he said. It was prettier than the black dress on the bed, the one she had earlier picked out