“Do you know they have already renamed the Rising Sun Bar?” she asked, laughing. “It is now called Tanzania Bar!”
He looked at her and said nothing.
“People were playing Tanzanian music and dancing, and one businessman came and ordered chicken and beer for everybody,” she said.
His jealousy was visceral; it clutched at his throat and tried to strangle him.
“Where is Aunty Olanna?” she asked.
“She is reading with Baby,” Ugwu managed to say. He wanted to shake her until she told him the full truth of the afternoon, what she had done with the man, why the lipstick was gone from her lips.
Eberechi sighed. “Is there some water? I am thirsty. I drank beer today.”
Ugwu could not believe how casual and comfortable she was. He poured some water into a cup and she drank it slowly.
“I met the major some weeks ago; he gave me a lift when I went to Orlu, but I did not think he would even remember me. He is such a nice man.” Eberechi paused. “I told him you are my brother. He said he will make sure nobody comes here to conscript you.” She looked proud of what she had accomplished, and Ugwu felt as if she were deliberately pulling out his teeth, one after the other.
He turned away. He needed no favors from her lover. “I have to clean up,” he said stiffly.
She drank another cup of water before she said, “Ngwanu; let the day break,” and left.
———
Ugwu stopped going over to Eberechi’s house. He ignored her greetings, was angered by her wide-eyed look and her asking, “What is it, Ugwu? What did I do to offend you?” Eventually, she stopped asking or speaking to him. He didn’t care. Yet when he heard a car drive past, he rushed to see if it was the BIAFRAN ARMY Peugeot 403. He saw her leave in the mornings and thought perhaps she and the major had arranged a regular meeting place until she came by one evening to give some stockfish to Olanna. He opened the door and took the small package without a word.
“Such a nice girl, ezigbo nwa,” Olanna said. “She must be doing well at that relief center.”
Ugwu said nothing. Olanna’s affection offended him, as did the way Baby asked when Aunty Eberechi would come and play with her. He wanted them to feel the same sense of angry betrayal that he did. He would tell Olanna what had happened. It was true that he had never spoken of such personal things to her before but he felt that he could. He planned it carefully for Friday, the day Master went to Tanzania Bar with Special Julius after work. Olanna had taken Baby to visit Mrs. Muokelu, and while he waited for them to come back Ugwu weeded the garden and worried that his story was insubstantial. Olanna would laugh at him in that patient way she laughed at Master when he said something ridiculous. Eberechi had never spoken about her feelings for him, after all. But surely she could not pretend not to know how he felt about her. It was callous to have thrown her army-officer lover in his face like that, even if she did not feel the same way about him.
He steeled himself and went inside when he heard Olanna. They were in the living room, Baby was sitting on the floor and unwrapping something in an old newspaper.
“Welcome, mah,” Ugwu said.
Olanna turned to look at him, and the blankness in her eyes startled him. Something was wrong. Perhaps she had discovered that he had given some of the condensed milk to Eberechi. But her eyes were too hollow, too depthless, to be just about her anger at his milk theft of weeks ago. Something was very wrong. Was Baby sick again? Ugwu glanced at Baby, who was occupied with the newspaper wrapping. His stomach cramped at the prospect of bad news.
“Mah? Did something happen?”
“Your master’s mother is dead.”
Ugwu moved closer because her words had solidified, become suspended objects hovering just above his reach. It took him a moment to understand.
“His cousin sent a message,” Olanna said. “They shot her in Abba.”
“Hei!” Ugwu placed his hand on his head and struggled to remember what Mama had looked like the last time he saw her, standing by the kola nut tree, refusing to leave home. But he could not visualize her. Instead he recalled a blurred image of her in the kitchen in Nsukka, opening a pod of peppercorns. His eyes filled with tears. He wondered what other calamities he was yet to learn of. Perhaps the Hausa vandals had stayed back in his hometown; perhaps they had killed his own mother too.
When Master came home and went into his bedroom, Ugwu was unsure whether to go to the bedroom or wait for him to come out. He decided to wait. He lit the kerosene stove and mixed Baby’s pap. He wished that he had been less resentful of Mama’s strong-smelling soups.
Olanna walked into the kitchen.
“Why are you using the kerosene stove?” she shouted. “I na-ezuzu ezuzu? Are you stupid? Haven’t I told you to save our kerosene?”
Ugwu was startled. “But mah, you said I should cook Baby’s food on the stove.”
“I did not say that! Go outside and light a fire!”
“Sorry, mah.” But she had indeed said that; only Baby ate three times a day now—the rest of them ate twice—and Olanna had asked him to cook her food on the kerosene stove because the smell of firewood smoke made Baby cough.
“Do you know how much kerosene costs? Just because you don’t pay for the things you use you think you can do with them as you like? Is firewood itself not a luxury where you come from?”