I stood up and walked to the garden. I plucked off yellow allamanda flowers, still wet, and slid them over my fingers, as I had seen Chima do. It was like wearing a scented glove. “I was thinking about my father. I don’t know what will happen when we go back.”
“Has he called?”
“Yes. Jaja refused to go to the phone, and I did not go, either.”
“Did you want to?” He asked gently. It was not what I expected him to ask.
“Yes,” I whispered, so Jaja wouldn’t hear, although he was not even in the area. I did want to talk to Papa, to hear his voice, to tell him what I had eaten and what I had prayed about so that he would approve, so that he would smile so much his eyes would crinkle at the edges. And yet, I did not want to talk to him; I wanted to leave with Father Amadi, or with Aunty Ifeoma, and never come back. “School starts in two weeks, and Aunty Ifeoma might be gone then,” I said. “I don’t know what we will do. Jaja does not talk about tomorrow or next week.”
Father Amadi walked over to me, standing so close that I if I puffed out my belly, it would touch his body. He took my hand in his, carefully slid one flower off my finger and slid it onto his. “Your aunt thinks you and Jaja should go to boarding school. I am going to Enugu next week to talk to Father Benedict; I know your father listens to him. I will ask him to convince your father about boarding school so you and Jaja can start next term. It will be fine, inugo?”
I nodded and looked away. I believed him, that it would be fine, because he said so. I thought then of catechism classes, about chanting the answer to a question, an answer that was “because he has said it and his word is true.” I could not remember the question.
“Look at me, Kambili.”
I was afraid to look into the warm brownness of his eyes, I was afraid I would swoon, that I would throw my hands around him and lace my fingers together behind his neck and refuse to let go. I turned.
“Is this the flower you can suck? The one with the sweet juices?” he asked. He had slid the allamanda off his finger and was examining its yellow petals.
I smiled. “No. It’s ixora you suck.”
He threw the flower away and made a wry face. “Oh.”
I laughed. I laughed because the allamanda flowers were so yellow. I laughed imagining how bitter their white juices would taste if Father Amadi had really sucked them. I laughed because Father Amadi’s eyes were so brown I could see my reflection in them.
THAT NIGHT WHEN I BATHED, with a bucket half full of rainwater, I did not scrub my left hand, the hand that Father Amadi had held gently to slide the flower off my finger. I did not heat the water, either, because I was afraid that the heating coil would make the rainwater lose the scent of the sky. I sang as I bathed. There were more earthworms in the bathtub, and I left them alone, watching the water carry them arid send them down the drain.
The breeze following the rain was so cool that I wore a sweater and Aunty Ifeoma wore a longsleeved shirt, although she usually walked around the house in only a wrapper. We were all sitting on the verandah, talking, when Father Amadi’s car nosed its way to the front of the flat.
“You said you would be very busy today, Father,” Obiora said.
“I say these things to justify being fed by the church,” Father Amadi said. He looked tired. He handed Amaka a piece of paper and told her he had written some suitably boring names on it, that she had only to choose one and he would leave. After the bishop used it in confirming her, she need never even mention the name again. Father Amadi rolled his eyes, speaking with a painstaking slowness, and although Amaka laughed, she did not take the paper.
“I told you I am not taking an English name, Father,” she said.
“And have I asked you why?”
“Why do I have to?”
“Because it is the way it’s done. Let’s forget if it’s right or wrong for now,” Father Amadi said, and I noticed the shadows under his eyes.
“When the missionaries first came, they didn’t think Igbo names were good enough. They insisted that people take English names to be baptized. Shouldn’t we be moving ahead?”
“It’s different now, Amaka, don’t make this what it’s not,” Father Amadi said, calmly. “Nobody has to use the name. Look at me. I’ve always used my Igbo name, but I was baptized Michael and confirmed Victor.”
Aunty Ifeoma looked up from the forms she was going through. “Amaka, ngwa, pick a name and let Father Amadi go and do his work.”
“But what’s the point, then?” Amaka said to Father Amadi, as if she had not heard her mother. “What the church is saying is that only an English name will make your confirmation valid. ‘Chiamaka’ says God is beautiful. ‘Chima’ says God knows best, ‘Chiebuka’ says God is the greatest. Don’t they all glorify God as much as ‘Paul’ and ‘Peter’ and ‘Simon’?”
Aunty Ifeoma was getting annoyed; I knew by her raised voice, by her snappy tone. “O gini! You don’t have to prove a senseless point here! Just do it and get confirmed, nobody says you have to use the name!”
But Amaka refused. “Ekwerom,” she said to Aunty Ifeoma—I do not agree. Then she walked into her room and turned her music on very loud until Aunty Ifeoma knocked on the door and shouted that Amaka was asking for a slap if she did not turn it down right away. Amaka turned the music down. Father Am
adi left, with a bemused sort of smile on his face.
That evening, tempers cooled and we had dinner together, but there was not much laughter. And the next day, Easter Sunday, Amaka did not join the rest of the young people who wore all white and carried lit candles, with folded newspapers to trap the melting wax. They all had pieces of paper pinned to their clothes, with names written on them. Paul. Mary. James. Veronica. Some of the girls looked like brides, and I remembered my own confirmation, how Papa had said I was a bride, Christ’s bride, and I had been surprised because I thought the Church was Christ’s bride.
AUNTY IFEOMA WANTED to go on pilgrimage to Aokpe. She was not sure why she suddenly wanted to go, she told us, probably the thought that she might be gone for a long time. Amaka and I said we would go with her. But Jaja said he would not go, then was stonily silent as if he dared anyone to ask him why. Obiora said he would stay back, too, with Chima. Aunty Ifeoma did not seem to mind. She smiled and said that since we didn’t have a male, she would ask Father Amadi if he wanted to accompany us.