The house looked as though the architect had realized too late that he was designing residential quarters, not a church. The arch that led to the dining area looked like an altar entrance; the alcove with the cream telephone looked ready to receive the Blessed Sacrament; the tiny study room off the living room could have been a sacristy crammed with holy books and Mass vestments and extra chalices.
“Brother Eugene!” Father Benedict said. His pale face broke into a smile when he saw Papa. He was at the dining table, eating. There were slices of boiled yam, like lunch, but then a plate of fried eggs, too, more like breakfast. He asked us to join him. Papa refused on our behalf and then went up to the table to talk in muted tones.
“How are you, Beatrice?” Father Benedict asked, raising his voice so Mama would hear from the living room. “You don’t look well.”
“I’m fine, Father. It’s only my allergies because of the weather, you know, the clash of harmattan and rainy season.”
“Kambili and Jaja, did you enjoy Mass, then?”
“Yes, Father.” Jaja and I spoke at the same time.
We left shortly afterward, a little sooner than on the usual visit to Father Benedict. Papa said nothing in the car, his jaw moving as if he were gritting his teeth. We all stayed silent and listened to the “Ave Maria” on the cassette player. When we got home, Sisi had Papa’s tea set out, in the china teapot with a tiny, ornate handle. Papa placed his missal and bulletin on the dining table and sat down. Mama hovered by him.
“Let me pour your tea,” she offered, although she never served Papa’s tea.
Papa ignored her and poured his tea, and then he told Jaja and me to take sips. Jaja took a sip, placed the cup back on the saucer. Papa picked it up and gave it to me. I held it with both hands, took a sip of the Lipton tea with sugar and milk, and placed it back on the saucer.
“Thank you, Papa,” I said, feeling the love burn my tongue.
We went upstairs to change, Jaja and Mama and I. Our steps on the stairs were as measured and as silent as our Sundays: the silence of waiting until Papa was done with his siesta so we could have lunch; the silence of reflection time, when Papa gave us a scripture passage or a book by one of the early church fathers to read and meditate on; the silence of evening rosary; the silence of driving to the church for benediction afterward. Even our family time on Sundays was quiet, without chess games or newspaper discussions, more in tune with the Day of Rest.
“Maybe Sisi can cook lunch by herself today,” Jaja said, when we got to the top of the curved staircase. “You should rest before lunch, Mama.”
Mama was going to say something, but then she stopped, her hand flew to her mouth, and she hurried into her room. I stayed to hear the sharp groans of vomiting from deep in her throat before I went into my room.
Lunch was jollof rice, fist-size chunks of azu fried until the bones were crisp, and ngwo-ngwo. Papa ate most of the ngwo-ngwo, his spoon swooping through the spicy broth in the glass bowl. Silence hung over the table like the blue-black clouds in the middle of rainy season. Only the chirping of the ochiri birds outside interrupted it. Every year, they arrived before the first rains came and nested on the avocado tree right outside the dining room. Jaja and I sometimes found fallen nests on the ground, nests made of entwined twigs and dried grass and bits of thread that Mama had used to plait my hair, which the ochiri picked out of the backyard dustbin.
I finished lunch first. “Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Papa. Thank you, Mama.” I folded my arms and waited until everybody was done so we could pray. I did not look at anybody’s face; I focused instead on the picture of Grandfather that hung on the opposite wall.
When Papa started the prayer, his voice quavered more than usual. He prayed for the food first, then he asked God to forgive those who had tried to thwart His will, who had put selfish desires first and had not wanted to visit His servant after Mass. Mama’s “Amen!” resounded throughout the room.
I WAS IN MY ROOM after lunch, reading James chapter five because I would talk about the biblical roots of the anointing of the sick during family time, when I heard the sounds. Swift, heavy thuds on my parents’ hand-carved bedroom door. I imagined the door had gotten stuck and Papa was trying to open it. If I imagined it hard enough, then it would be true. I sat down, closed my eyes, and started to count. Counting made it seem not that long, made it seem not that bad. Sometimes it was over before I even got to twenty. I was at nineteen when the sounds stopped. I heard the door open. Papa’s gait on the stairs sounded heavier, more awkward, than usual.
I stepped out of my room just as Jaja came out of his. We stood at the landing and watched Papa descend. Mama was slung over his shoulder like the jute sacks of rice his factory workers bought in bulk at the Seme Border. He opened the dining room door. Then we heard the front door open, heard him say something to the gate man, Adamu.
“There’s blood on the floor,” Jaja said. “I’ll get the brush from the bathroom.”
We cleaned up the trickle of blood, which trailed away as if someone had carried a leaking jar of red watercolor all the way downstairs. Jaja scrubbed while I wiped.
MAMA DID NOT COME home that night, and Jaja and I had dinner alone. We did not talk about Mama. Instead, we talked about the three men who were publicly executed two days before, for drug trafficking. Jaja had heard some boys talking about it in school. It had been on television. The men were tied to poles, and their bodies kept shuddering even after the bullets were no longer being pumped into them. I told Jaja what a girl in my class had said: that her mother turned their TV off, asking why she should watch fellow human beings die, asking what was wrong with all those people who had gathered at the execution ground.
After dinner, Jaja said grace, and at the end he added a short prayer for Mama. Papa came home when we were in our rooms studying, according to our schedules. I was drawing pregnant stick images on the inner flap of my Introductory Agriculture for Junior Secondary Schools when he came into my room. His eyes were swollen and red, and somehow that made him look younger, more vulnerable.
“Your mother will be back tomorrow, about the time you get back from school. She will be fine,” he said.
“Yes, Papa.” I looked away from his face, back at my books.
He held my shoulders, rubbing them in gentle circular motions.
“Stand up,” he said. I stood up and he hugged me, pressed me close so that I felt the beat of his heart under
his soft chest.
MAMA CAME HOME the next afternoon. Kevin brought her in the Peugeot 505 with the factory name emblazoned on the passenger door, the one that often took us to and from school. Jaja and I stood waiting by the front door, close enough for our shoulders to touch, and we opened the door before she got to it.
“Umu m,” she said, hugging us. “My children.” She wore the same white T-shirt with GOD IS LOVE written on the front. Her green wrapper hung lower than usual on her waist; it had been knotted with a lazy effort at the side. Her eyes were vacant, like the eyes of those mad people who wandered around the roadside garbage dumps in town, pulling grimy, torn canvas bags with their life fragments inside.
“There was an accident, the baby is gone,” she said.