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Emeka laughed. “Papa is asking what kind of white man is this? Why did he come here and what is he doing?”

As he drove toward Nsukka, Richard, too, wondered just what he was doing and, more worrying, what he was going to write.

The university house on Imoke Street was reserved for visiting researchers and artists; it was sparse, near ascetic, and Richard looked over the two armchairs in the living room, the single bed, the bare kitchen cupboards, and felt instantly at home. The house was filled with a suitable silence. When he visited Olanna and Odenigbo, though, she said, “I’m sure you must want to make the place a little more habitable,” so he said “Yes,” although he liked the soulless furnishing. He agreed only because Olanna’s smile was like a prize, because her attention flattered him. She insisted that he hire their gardener, Jomo, to come in twice a week and plant some flowers in the yard. She introduced him to their friends; she showed him the market; she said she had found him the perfect houseboy.

Richard envisaged somebody young and alert like their houseboy, Ugwu, but Harrison turned out to be a small stooped stick of a man, middle-aged, wearing an oversize white shirt that stopped below his knees. He bowed extravagantly at the beginning of each conversation. He told Richard with unconcealed pride that he had formerly worked for the Irish priest Father Bernard and the American professor Land. “I am making very good beet salad,” he said that first day, and later Richard realized that he was proud not only of his salad but also of cooking with beets, which he had to buy in the “specialty vegetable” stall because most Nigerians did not eat them. The first dinner Harrison cooked was a savory fish, with the beet salad as a starter. A crimson beet stew appeared next to his rice the following evening. “It is from an American recipe for potato stew that I am making this one,” Harrison said, as he watched Richard eat. The next day there was a beet salad, and the next another beet stew, now frighteningly red, next to the chicken.

“No more, please, Harrison,” Richard said, raising his hand. “No more beets.”

Harrison looked disappointed, and then

his face brightened. “But, sah, I am cooking the food of your country; all the food you are eating as children I cook. In fact, I’m not cooking Nigerian foods, only foreign recipe.”

“Nigerian food is quite all right, Harrison,” Richard said. If only Harrison knew how much he had disliked the food of his childhood, the sharp-tasting kippers full of bones, the porridge with the appalling thick skin on top like a waterproof lining, the overcooked roast beef with fat around the edges drenched in gravy.

“Okay, sah.” Harrison looked morose.

“By the way, Harrison, do you happen to know of any herbs for men?” Richard asked, hoping he sounded casual.

“Sah?”

“Herbs.” Richard gestured vaguely.

“Vegetables, sah? Oh, I make any of the salad of your country very good, sah. For Professor Land, I am making many different-different salad.”

“Yes, but I mean vegetables for sickness.”

“Sickness? You see doctor in Medical Center.”

“I am interested in African herbs, Harrison.”

“But sah, they are bad, from the witch doctor. They are devilish.”

“Of course.” Richard gave up. He should have known that Harrison, with his excessive love for all things non-Nigerian, was not the right person to ask. He would ask Jomo instead.

Richard waited until Jomo arrived and then stood at the window watching him water the newly planted lilies. Jomo placed the watering can aside and began to pick the umbrella tree fruit; they had fallen during the previous night, and lay, oval and pale yellow, on the lawn. Richard often smelled the over-sweetness of their rotting, a scent he knew he would always associate with living in Nsukka. Jomo held a raffia bag full of fruit when Richard came up to him.

“Oh. Good morning, Mr. Richard, sah,” he said, in his solemn manner. “I want take the fruits to Harrison in case you want, sah. I no take them for myself.” Jomo placed the bag down and picked up his watering can.

“It’s all right, Jomo. I don’t want any of the fruit,” Richard said. “By the way, would you know of any herbs for men? For men who have problems with … with being with a woman?”

“Yes, sah.” Jomo kept watering as if this was a question he heard every day.

“You know of some herbs for men?”

“Yes, sah.”

Richard felt a triumphant leap in his stomach. “I should like to see them, Jomo.”

“My brother get problem before because the first wife is not pregnant and the second wife is not pregnant. There is one leaf that the dibia give him and he begin to chew. Now he has pregnant the wives.”

“Oh. Very good. Could you get me this herb, Jomo?”

Jomo stopped and looked at him, his wise wizened face full of fond pity. “It no work for white man, sah.”

“Oh, no. I want to write about it.”

Jomo shook his head. “You go to dibia and you chew it there in front of him. Not for writing, sah.” Jomo turned back to his watering, humming tunelessly.