Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah, Purple Hibiscus: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Three-Book Collection. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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      Is ‘going native’ still used? I always knew you would! Mother tells me you have given up on the tribal art book and are pleased with this one, a sort of fictionalized travelogue? And on European Evils in Africa! I’m quite keen to hear more about it when you are in London. Pity you gave up the old title: ‘The Basket of Hands’. Were hands chopped off in Africa as well? I’d imagined it was only in India. I’m intrigued!

      Richard imagined that smile Martin often had when they were schoolboys, during those years that Aunt Elizabeth had immersed them in activities with her manic determination that there be no sitting around: cricket tournaments, boxing lessons, tennis, piano lessons from a Frenchman with a lisp. Martin had thrived at them all, always with that superior smile of people who were born to belong and excel.

      Richard reached out to pluck a wildflower that looked like a poppy. He wondered what Martin’s wedding would be like; Martin’s fiancée was a fashion designer, of all things. If only Kainene could go with him; if only she didn’t have to stay to sign the new contract. He wanted Aunt Elizabeth and Martin and Virginia to see her, but most of all he wanted them to see him, the man he had become after his years here: to see that he was browner and happier.

      Ikejide came up to him. ‘Mr Richard, sah! Madam say make you come. There is another coup,’ Ikejide said. He looked excited.

      Richard hurried indoors. He was right; Madu was wrong. The moist July heat had plastered his hair limply to his head, and he ran his hand through it as he went. Kainene was on a sofa in the living room, her arms wrapped around herself, rocking back and forth. The British voice on the radio was so loud that she raised her voice when she said, ‘Northern officers have taken over. The BBC says they are killing Igbo officers in Kaduna. Nigerian Radio isn’t saying anything.’ She spoke too fast. He stood behind her and began to rub her shoulders, kneading her stiff muscles in circular motions. On the radio, the breathless British voice said it was quite extraordinary that a second coup had occurred only six months after the first.

      ‘Extraordinary. Extraordinary indeed,’ Kainene said. She reached out, in a sudden jerky move, and pushed the radio off the table. It fell on the carpeted floor, and a dislodged battery rolled out. ‘Madu is in Kaduna,’ she said, and put her face in her hands. ‘Madu is in Kaduna.’

      ‘It’s all right, my darling,’ Richard said. ‘It’s all right.’

      For the first time, he considered the possibility of Madu’s death. He decided not to go back to Nsukka for a while and was not sure why. Was it really because he wanted to be with her when she heard Madu was dead? In the next few days, she was so taut with anxiety that he too began to worry about Madu and then resent himself for doing so, and then resent his resentment. He should not be so petty. She included him in her worry, after all, as if Madu was their friend and not just hers. She told him about the people she called, about the inquiries she made to find out what had happened. Nobody knew. Madu’s wife had heard nothing. Lagos was in chaos. Her parents had left for England. Many Igbo officers were dead. The killings were organized; she told him about a soldier who said the alarm for a battalion muster parade was sounded in his barracks and after everyone assembled, the Northerners picked out all the Igbo soldiers and took them away and shot them.

      Kainene was muted and quiet but never tearful, so the day she told him, ‘I heard something,’ with a sob in her voice, he was sure it was news of Madu. He thought about how to console her, whether he would be able to console her.

      ‘Udodi,’ Kainene said. ‘They killed Colonel Udodi Ekechi.’

      ‘Udodi?’ He had been so certain it was about Madu that for a moment he was blank.

      ‘Northern soldiers put him in a cell in the barracks and fed him his own shit. He ate his own shit.’ Kainene paused. ‘Then they beat him senseless and tied him to an iron cross and threw him back in his cell. He died tied to an iron cross. He died on a cross.’

      Richard sat down slowly. His dislike for Udodi – loud, drunken, duplicity dripping from his pores – had only deepened in the past years. Yet hearing about his death left him sober. He thought, again, of Madu dying and realized he did not know how he would feel.

      ‘Who told you this?’

      ‘Maria Obele. Udodi’s wife is her cousin. She said they are saying that no Igbo officer in the North escaped. But some Umunnachi people said they heard Madu escaped. Adaobi has not heard anything. How could he have escaped. How?’

      ‘He might be hiding out somewhere.’

      ‘How?’ Kainene asked again.

      Colonel Madu appeared in Kainene’s house two weeks later, much taller-looking now because he had lost so much weight; the angles of his shoulder bones were visible through his white shirt.

      Kainene screamed. ‘Madu! Is this you? O gi di ife a?’

      Richard was not sure who walked towards whom first, but Kainene and Madu were holding each other close, Kainene touching his arms and face with a tenderness that made Richard look away. He went to the liquor cabinet and poured a whisky for Madu and a gin for himself.

      ‘Thank you, Richard,’ Madu said, but he did not take the drink and Richard stood there, holding two glasses, before he placed one down.

      Kainene sat on a side table in front of Madu. ‘They said they shot you in Kaduna, then they said they buried you alive in the bush, then they said you escaped, then they said you were in prison in Lagos.’

      Madu said nothing. Kainene stared at him. Richard finished his drink and poured another.

      ‘You remember my friend Ibrahim? From Sandhurst?’ Madu asked finally.

      Kainene nodded.

      ‘Ibrahim saved my life. He told me about the coup that morning. He was not directly involved, but most of them – the Northern officers – knew about it. He drove me to his cousin’s house, but I didn’t really understand until he asked his cousin to take me to the backyard, where he kept his domestic animals. I slept in the chicken house for two days.’

      ‘No! Ekwuzina!’

      ‘And do you know that soldiers came to search his cousin’s house to look for me? Everybody knew how close Ibrahim and I were, and they suspected he helped me escape. They didn’t check the chicken house, though.’ Colonel Madu paused, nodding and looking into the distance. ‘I did not know how bad chicken shit smelt until I slept in it for three days. On the third day, Ibrahim sent me some kaftans and money through a small boy and asked me to leave right away. I dressed as a Fulani nomad and walked through the smaller villages because Ibrahim said that artillery soldiers had set up blocks on all the major roads in Kaduna. I was lucky to find a lorry driver, an Igbo man from Ohafia, who took me to Kafanchan. My cousin lives there. You know Onunkwo, don’t you?’ Madu did not wait for Kainene to respond. ‘He is the station master at the railway, and he told me that Northern soldiers had sealed off Makurdi Bridge. That bridge is a grave. They searched every single vehicle, they delayed passenger trains for up to eight hours, and they shot all the Igbo soldiers they discovered there and threw the bodies over. Many of the soldiers wore disguises, but they used their boots to find them.’

      ‘What?’ Kainene leaned forwards.

      ‘Boots.’ Madu glanced at his shoes. ‘You know we soldiers wear boots all the time so they examined the feet of each man, and any Igbo man whose feet were clean and uncracked by harmattan, СКАЧАТЬ