“He made a mistake,” Olanna said, and then wished she hadn’t because she didn’t want Kainene to think she was excusing Odenigbo.
“Isn’t it against the tenets of socialism, though, impregnating people of the lower classes?” Kainene asked.
“I’ll let you sleep.”
There was a slight pause, before Kainene said, with an amused tone, “Ngwanu. Good night.”
Olanna put the phone down. She should have known that Richard would not tell Kainene; his own relationship with her might not survive it. And perhaps it was best that he would no longer visit in the evenings.
———
Amala had a baby girl. It was a Saturday and Olanna was making banana fritters with Ugwu in the kitchen, and when the doorbell rang she knew right away that a message had come from Mama.
Odenigbo came to the kitchen door, his hands held behind his back. “O mu nwanyi,” he said quietly. “She had a girl. Yesterday.”
Olanna did not look up from the bowl smeared with mashed bananas because she did not want him to see her face. She did not know how it would look, if it could capture the cruel mix of emotions she felt, the desire to cry and slap him and steel herself all at once.
“We should go to Enugu this afternoon to see that everything is fine,” she said briskly, and stood up. “Ugwu, please finish.”
“Yes, mah.” Ugwu was watching her; she felt the responsibility of an actress whose family members expected the best performance.
“Thank you, nkem,” Odenigbo said. He placed his arm around her, but she shrugged it off.
“Let me take a quick bath.”
In the car, they were silent. He looked across at her often, as if he wanted to say something but did not know how to begin. She kept her eyes straight ahead and glanced at him only once, at the tentative way he held the steering wheel. She felt morally superior to him. Perhaps it was unearned and false, to think she was better than he was, but it was the only way she could keep her disparate emotions together, now that his child with a stranger was born.
He finally spoke as he parked in front of the hospital.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
Olanna opened the car door. “About my cousin Arize. She hasn’t even been married a year and she is desperate to get pregnant.”
Odenigbo said nothing. Mama met them at the entrance of the maternity ward. Olanna had expected Mama to dance and look at her with mocking eyes, but the lined face was dour, the smile as she hugged Odenigbo was strained. Chemical hospital smells were thick in the air.
“Mama, kedu?” Olanna asked. She wanted to seem in control, to determine how things would proceed.
“I am well,” Mama said.
“Where is the baby?”
Mama looked surprised by her briskness. “In the newborn ward.”
“Let’s see Amala first,” Olanna said.
Mama led them to a cubicle. The bed was covered in a yellowed sheet and Amala lay on it with her face to the wall. Olanna pulled her eyes away from the slight swell of her belly; it was newly unbearable, the thought that Odenigbo’s baby had been in that body. She focused on the biscuits, glucose tin, and glass of water on the side table.
“Amala, they have come,” Mama said.
“Good afternoon, nno,” Amala said, without turning to face them.
“How are you?” Odenigbo and Olanna asked, almost at the same time.
Amala mumbled a response. Her face was still to the wall. In the silence that followed, Olanna heard quick footfalls on the corridor outside. She had known this was coming for months now, and yet looking at Amala she felt an ashy hollowness. A part of her had hoped this day would never arrive.
“Let’s see the baby,” she said. As she and Odenigbo turned to leave, she noticed that Amala did not turn, did not move, did not do anything to show she had heard.
At the newborn ward a nurse asked them to wait on one of the benches that lined the wall. Olanna could see, through the louvers, the many cots and many crying infants, and she imagined that the nurse would be confused and would bring the wrong baby. But it was the right baby; the full head of softly curled black hair and the dark skin and the widely spaced eyes were unmistakable. Only two days old, and she