“I was never a child,” Obiora said, heading for the door.
“Where are you going?” Amaka asked. “To chase aku?”
“I’m not going to run after those flying termites, I am just going to look,” Obiora said. “To observe.”
Amaka laughed, and Aunty Ifeoma echoed her.
“Can I go, Mom?” Chima asked. He was already heading for the door.
“Yes. But you know we will not fry them.”
“I will give the ones I catch to Ugochukwu. They fry aku in their house,” Chima said.
“Watch that they do not fly into your ears, inugo? Or they will make you go deaf!” Aunty Ifeoma called as Chima dashed outside.
Aunty Ifeoma put on her slippers and went upstairs to talk to a neighbor. I was left alone with Amaka, standing side by side next to the railings. She moved forward to lean on the railings, her shoulder brushing mine. The old discomfort was gone.
“You have become Father Amadi’s sweetheart,” she said. Her tone was the same light tone she had used with Obiora. She could not possibly know how painfully my heart lurched. “He was really worried when you were sick. He talked about you so much. And, amam, it wasn’t just priestly concern.”
“What did he say?”
Amaka turned to study my eager face. “You have a crush on him, don’t you?”
“Crush” was mild. It did not come close to what I felt, how I felt, but I said, “Yes.”
“Like every other girl on campus.”
I tightened my grip on the railings. I knew Amaka would not tell me more unless I asked. She wanted me to speak out more, after all. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Oh, all the girls in church have crushes on him. Even some of the married women. People have crushes on priests all the time, you know. It’s exciting to have to deal with God as a rival.” Amaka ran her hand over the railings, smearing the water droplets. “You’re different. I’ve never heard him talk about anyone like that. He said you never laugh. How shy you are although he knows there’s a lot going on in your head. He insisted on driving Mom to Enugu to see you. I told him he sounded like a person whose wife was sick.”
“I was happy that he came to the hospital,” I said. It felt easy saying that, letting the words roll off my tongue. Amaka’s eyes still bored into me.
“It was Uncle Eugene who did that to you, okwia?” she asked.
I let go of the railings, suddenly needing to ease myself. Nobody had asked, not even the doctor at the hospital or Father Benedict. I did not know what Papa had told them. Or if he had even told them anything. “Did Aunty Ifeoma tell you?” I asked.
“No, but I guessed so.”
“Yes. It was him,” I said, and then headed for the toilet. I did not turn to see Amaka’s reaction.
THE POWER WENT OFF that evening, just before the sun fell. The refrigerator shook and shivered and then fell silent. I did not notice how loud its nonstop hum was until it stopped. Obiora brought the kerosene lamps out to the verandah and we sat around them, swatting at the tiny insects that blindly followed the yellow light and bumped against the glass bulbs. Father Amadi came later in the evening, with roast corn and ube wrapped in old newspapers.
“Father, you are the best! Just what I was thinking about, corn and ube,” Amaka said.
“I brought this on the condition that you will not raise any arguments today,” Father Amadi sa
id. “I just want to see how Kambili is doing.”
Amaka laughed and took the package inside to get a plate.
“It’s good to see you are yourself again,” Father Amadi said, looking me over, as if to see if I was all there. I smiled. He motioned for me to stand up for a hug. His body touching mine was tense and delicious. I backed away. I wished that Chima and Jaja and Obiora and Aunty Ifeoma and Amaka would all disappear for a while. I wished I were alone with him. I wished I could tell him how warm I felt that he was here, how my favorite color was now the same fired-clay shade of his skin.
A neighbor knocked on the door and came in with a plastic container of aku, anara leaves, and red peppers. Aunty Ifeoma said she did not think I should eat any because it might disturb my stomach. I watched Obiora flatten an anara leaf on his palm. He sprinkled the aku, fried to twisted crisps, and the peppers on the leaf and then rolled it up. Some of them slipped out as he stuffed the rolled leaf in his mouth.
“Our people say that after aku flies, it will still fall to the toad,” Father Amadi said. He dipped a hand into the bowl and threw a few into his mouth. “When I was a child, I loved chasing aku. It was just play, though, because if you really wanted to catch them, you waited till evening, when they all lost their wings and fell down.” He sounded nostalgic.
I closed my eyes and let his voice caress me, let myself imagine him as a child, before his shoulders grew square, chasing aku outside, over soil softened by new rains.