“I talked to Alice today.”
“Alice?”
“The neighbor that plays the piano.”
“Oh, yes.” He was staring at the separating curtain.
“You look tired,” she said. What she wanted to say was, You look sad. If only he was better occupied, if only he had something to do in which the moments of grief that sneaked up on him could be immersed.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“I think you should go and see Ezeka. Ask him to help move you somewhere else. Even if it isn’t his directorate, he must have some influence with the other directors.”
Odenigbo hung his trousers on a nail in the wall.
“Did you hear me?” Olanna asked.
“I won’t ask Ezeka.”
She recognized his expression: He was disappointed. She had forgotten that they had high ideals. They were people of principle; they did not ask favors of highly placed friends.
“You can serve Biafra better if you work somewhere else where you can use your brain and talent,” she said.
“I’m serving Biafra well enough at the Manpower Directorate.”
Olanna glanced at the clutter that was their room and home—the bed, two yam tubers, and the mattress that leaned against the dirt-smeared wall, the cartons and bags piled in a corner, the kerosene stove that she took to the kitchen only when it was needed—and felt a surge of revulsion, the urge to run and run and run until she was far away from it all.
They slept with their backs turned to each other. He was gone when she woke up. She touched his side of the bed, ran her hand over it, savored the last of the rumpled warmth that lingered on the sheet. She would go and see Ezeka herself. She would ask him to do something for Odenigbo. She went outside to the bathroom, saying “Good morning” and “Did you come out well this morning?” to some neighbors as she went. Baby was with the younger children, crowded near the banana trees, listening to Papa Oji telling a story of how he shot down an enemy plane in Calabar with his pistol. The older children were sweeping the yard and singing.
Biafra, kunie, buso Nigeria agha
Anyi emelie ndi awusa,
Ndi na-amaro chukwu, Tigbue fa, zogbue fa,
Nwelu nwude Gowon.
When their singing stopped, Pastor Ambrose’s morning prayers sounded even louder. “God bless His Excellency! God give Tanzania and Gabon strength! God destroy Nigeria and Britain and Egypt and Algeria and Russia! In the mighty name of Jesus!”
Some people shouted Amen! from their rooms. Pastor Ambrose held his Bible up, as if some solid miracle would fall on it from the sky, and shouted nonsensical words: she baba she baba she baba.
“Stop babbling, Pastor Ambrose, and go and join the army! How is your speaking-in-tongues helping our cause?” Mama Oji said. She was in front of her room with her son, his cloth-covered head bent over a steaming bowl. When he raised his head to get a breath of air, Olanna looked at the concoction of urine and oils and herbs and God knew what else that Mama Oji had decided was the cure for asthma.
“Was the night bad for him?” she asked Mama Oji.
Mama Oji shrugged. “It was bad but not too bad.” She turned to her son. “Do you want me to slap you before you inhale it? Why are you letting the thing evaporate and waste?”
He bent his head over the bowl again.
“Jehovah destroy Gowon and Adekunle!” Pastor Ambrose screamed.
“Be quiet and join the army!” Mama Oji said.
Somebody shouted from one of the rooms. “Mama Oji, leave Pastor alone! First let your husband go back to the army he ran away from!”
“At least he went!” Mama Oji’s retort was swift. “While your own husband lives the shivering life of a coward in the forest of Ohafia so that the soldiers will not see him.”
Baby came around from behind the house; the dog trailed behind her. “Mummy Ola! Bingo can see spirits. When he barks at night it means he sees spirits.”