Professor Ezeka motioned for his orderly to bring a piece of paper and he scribbled a note and gave it to Ugwu. His silver pen gleamed. “Tell them the Director for Mobilization came.”
“Yes, sah.” Ugwu remembered his fastidious peering at glasses in Nsukka, his thin legs always crossed, disagreeing with Master. After the car drove down the street very slowly, as if the driver knew how many people were watching, Eberechi walked across. She was wearing that tight skirt that molded her buttocks to a perfect roundness.
“Neighbor, how are you?” she asked.
“I am well. How are you?”
She shrugged to say she was so-so. “Was that the Director for Mobilization himself who just left?”
“Professor Ezeka?” he asked breezily. “Yes, we knew him well in Nsukka. He used to come to our house every day to eat my pepper soup.”
“Eh!” She laughed, wide-eyed. “He is a Big Man. Ihukwara moto? Did you see that car?”
“Original imported chassis.”
They were silent for a while. He had never had a conversation this long with her before and had never seen her so close up. It was difficult to keep his eyes from moving down to that magnificent flare of buttocks. He struggled to focus on her face, her large eyes, the rash of pimples on her forehead, her hair plaited in thread-covered spikes. She was looking at him, too, and he wished he was not wearing the trousers with the hole near the knee.
“How is the small girl?” she asked.
“Baby is fine. She’s asleep.”
“Are you coming to do the primary school roof?”
Ugwu knew that an army contractor had donated some corrugated iron for replacing the blown-off roof and that volunteers were camouflaging it with palm fronds. But he had not planned to join them.
“Yes, I shall come,” he said.
“See you then.”
“Bye-bye.” Ugwu waited for her to turn so that he could stare at her retreating backside.
When Olanna came back, her basket empty, she read Professor Ezeka’s note with a half smile on her face. “Yes, we just heard yesterday that he’s the new director. And how like him to write something like this.”
Ugwu had read the note—Odenigbo and Olanna, dropped by to say hello. Shall drop by again next week, if this tedious new job allows. Ezeka—but he asked, “How, mah?”
“Oh, he’s always felt a bit better than everybody else.” Olanna placed the note on the table. “Professor Achara is going to help get us some books and benches and blackboards. Many women have told me they will send their children to us next week.” She looked excited.
“That is good, mah.” Ugwu shifted on his feet. “I’m going down to help with the school roof. I’ll be back to make Baby’s food.”
“Oh,” Olanna said.
Ugwu knew she was thinking about the conscriptions. “I think it is important to help in something like this, mah,” he said.
“Of course. Yes, you should help. But please be careful.”
Ugwu saw Eberechi right away; she was with some men and women who were bent over a pile of palm fronds, cutting, matting, passing them on to a man on a wooden ladder.
“Neighbor!” she said. “I have been telling everyone that your people know the director personally.”
Ugwu smiled and said a general good afternoon. The men and women murmured good afternoon and ehe, kedu, and nno with the admiring respect that came with knowing who he knew. He felt suddenly important. Somebody gave him a cutlass. A woman sat on the stairs grinding melon seeds, and some little girls were playing cards under the mango tree, and a man was carving a walking stick whose handle was the carefully realized bearded face of His Excellency. There was a rotten smell in the air.
“Imagine living in this kind of place.” Eberechi leaned close to him to whisper. “And many more will come now that Abakaliki has fallen. You know that since Enugu fell, accomm
odation has been a big problem. Some people who work in the directorates are even sleeping in their cars.”
“That is true,” Ugwu agreed, although he did not know this for sure. He loved that she was talking to him, loved her familiar friendliness. He began to trim some palm fronds with firm strokes. From the classroom, someone turned the radio on: gallant Biafran soldiers were completing a mopping-up operation in a sector Ugwu did not hear clearly.
“Our boys are showing them!” the woman grinding melon seeds said.