Jaja will come home soon, Father Amadi wrote in his last letter, which is tucked in my bag. You must believe this. And I believed it, I believed him, even though we had not heard from the lawyers and were not sure. I believe what Father Amadi says; I believe the firm slant of his handwriting. Because he has said it and his word is true.
I always carry his latest letter with me until a new one comes. When I told Amaka that I do this, she teased me in her reply about being lovey-dovey with Father Amadi and then drew a smiling face. But I don’t carry his letters around because of anything lovey-dovey; there is very little lovey-dovey, anyway. He signs off with nothing more than “as always.” He never responds with a yes or a no when I ask if he is happy. His answer is that he will go where the Lord sends him. He hardly even writes about his new life, except for brief anecdotes, such as the old German lady who refuses to shake his hand because she does not think a black man should be her priest, or the wealthy widow who insists he have dinner with her every night.
His letters dwell on me. I carry them around because they are long and detailed, because they remind me of my worthiness, because they tug at my feelings. Some months ago, he wrote that he did not want me to seek the whys, because there are some things that happen for which we can formulate no whys, for which whys simply do not exist and, perhaps, are not necessary. He did not mention Papa—he hardly mentions Papa in his letters—but I knew what he meant, I understood that he was stirring what I was afraid to stir myself.
And I carry them with me, also, because they give me grace. Amaka says people love priests because they want to compete with God, they want God as a rival. But we are not rivals, God and I, we are simply sharing. I no longer wonder if I have a right to love Father Amadi; I simply go ahead and love him. I no longer wonder if the checks I have been writing to the Missionary Fathers of the Blessed Way are bribes to God; I just go ahead and write them. I no longer wonder if I chose St. Andrew’s church in Enugu as my new church because the priest there is a Blessed Way Missionary Father as Father Amadi is; I just go.
“Did we bring the knives?” Mama asks. Her voice is loud. She is setting out the cylindrical food flask full of jollof rice and chicken. She places a pretty china plate down, as if she were setting a fancy table, the kind Sisi used to set.
“Mama, Jaja doesn’t need knives,” I say. She knows Jaja always eats right from the flask, yet she takes a dinner plate with her every time, changes the colors and patterns weekly.
“We should have brought them, so he can cut the meat.”
“He doesn’t cut the meat, he just eats it.” I smile at Mama and reach out to touch her arm, to calm her. She places a gleaming silver spoon and fork on the dirt-encrusted table and leans back to survey it. The door opens, and Jaja comes in. I brought his T-shirt, new, only two weeks ago, but already it has brown patches like stains from cashew juice, which never come off. As children, we ate cashews bent over so that the gushing sweet juices did not get on our clothes. His shorts end a long way above his knees, and I look away from the scabs on his thighs. We do not rise to hug him, because he does not like us to.
“Mama, good afternoon. Kambili, ke kwanu?” he says. He opens the food flask and starts to eat. I feel Mama trembling next to me, and because I don’t want her to break down, I speak quickly. The sound of my voice may stop her tears. “The lawyers will get you out next week.”
Jaja shrugs. Even the skin of his neck is covered with scabs that look dry until he scratches them and the yellowish pus underneath seeps out. Mama has bribed all kinds of ointments in and none seem to work.
“This cell has many interesting characters,” Jaja says. He spoons the rice into his mouth as quickly as he can. His cheeks bulge as though he has stuffed them with whole, unripe guavas.
“I mean out of prison, Jaja. Not to a different cell,” I say.
He stops chewing and stares at me silently with those eyes that have hardened a little every month he has spent here; now they look like the bark of a palm tree, unyielding. I even wonder if we ever really had an asusu anya, a language of the eyes, or if I imagined it all.
“You’ll be out of here next week,” I say. “You’re coming home next week.”
I want to hold his hand, but I know he will shake it free. His eyes are too full of guilt to really see me, to see his reflection in my eyes, the reflection of my hero, the brother who tried always to protect me the best he could. He will never think that he did enough, and he will never understand that I do not think he should have done more.
“You are not eating,” Mama says. Jaja picks up the spoon and starts to wolf the rice down again. Silence hangs over us, but it is a different kind of silence, one that lets me breathe. I have nightmares about the other kind, the silence of when Papa was alive. In my nightmares, it mixes with shame and grief and so many other things that I cannot name, and forms blue tongues of fire that rest above my head, like Pentecost, until I wake up screaming and sweating. I have not told Jaja that I offer Masses for Papa every Sunday, that I want to see him in my dreams, that I want it so much I sometimes make my own dreams, when I am neither asleep nor awake: I see Papa, he reaches out to hug me, I reach out, too, but our bodies never touch before something jerks me up and I realize that I cannot control even the dreams that I have made. There is so much that is still silent between Jaja and me. Perhaps we will talk more with time, or perhaps we never will be able to say it all, to clothe things in words, things that have long been naked.
“You did not tie your scarf well,” Jaja says to Mama.
I stare in amazement. Jaja has never noticed what anybody wears. Mama hastily unties and reties her scarf—and this time, she knots it twice and tight at the back of her head.
“Time is up!” The guard comes in the room. Jaja says a brief, distant “Ka o di,” not making eye contact with either of us, before he lets the guard lead him away.
“We should go to Nsukka when Jaja comes out,” I say to Mama as we walk out of the room. I can talk about the future now.
Mama shrugs and says nothing. She is walking slowly; her limp has become more noticeable, her body moving sideways with each step. We are close to the car when she turns to me and says, “Thank you, nne.” It is one of the few times in the past three years that she has spoken without being first spoken to. I do not want to think about why she is thanking me or what it means. I only know that, all of a sudden, I no longer smell the damp and urine of the prison yard.
“We will take Jaja to Nsukka first, and then we’ll go to America to visit Aunty Ifeoma,” I say. “We’ll plant new orange trees in Abba when we come back, and Jaja will plant purple hibiscus, too, and I’ll plant ixora so we can suck the juices of the flowers.” I am laughing. I reach out and place my arm around Mama’s shoulder and she leans toward me and smiles.
Above, clouds like dyed cotton wool hang low, so low I feel I can reach out and squeeze the moisture from them. The new rains will come down soon.