Page 27

“Welcome, sah.”

“Yes, my good man.” Master placed his racket down on the kitchen table. “Some water, please. I lost all my games today.”

Ugwu had the water ready, ice cold in a glass placed on a saucer.

“Good evening, sah,” his aunty greeted.

“Good evening,” Master said, looking slightly perplexed, as if he was not certain who she was. “Oh, yes. How are you?”

Before she could say more, Ugwu said, “My mother is sick, sah. Please, sah, if I go to see her I will return tomorrow.”

“What?”

Ugwu repeated himself. Master stared at him and then at the pot on the stove. “Have you finished cooking?”

“No, sah. I will finish fast-fast, before I go. I will set the table and arrange everything.”

Master turned to Ugwu’s aunty. “Gini me? What is wrong with his mother?”

“Sah?”

“Are you deaf?” Master jabbed at his ear as if Ugwu’s aunty did not know what it meant to be deaf. “What is wrong with his mother?”

“Sah, her chest is on fire.”

“Chest on fire?” Master snorted. He drank all his water and then turned to Ugwu and spoke English. “Put on a shirt and get in the car. Your village isn’t far away, really. We should be back in good time.”

“Sah?”

“Put on a shirt and get in the car!” Master scribbled a note on the back of a flyer and left it on the table. “We’ll bring your mother here and have Patel take a look at her.”

“Yes, sah.” Ugwu felt breakable as he walked to the car, beside his aunty and Master. He felt as though his bones were broomsticks, the kind that snapped easily during the harmattan. The ride to his village was mostly silent. As they drove past some farms with rows and rows of corn and cassava like a neatly plaited hairstyle, Master said, “See? This is what our government should focus on. If we learn irrigation technology, we can feed this country easily. We can overcome this colonial dependence on imports.”

“Yes, sah.”

“But instead, all the ignoramuses in government do is lie and steal. A number of my students joined the group that went to Lagos this morning to demonstrate, you know.”

“Yes, sah,” Ugwu said. “Why are they demonstrating, sah?”

“The census,” Master said. “The census was a mess, everybody forged figures. Not that Balewa will do anything about it, because he is as complicit as they all are. But we must speak out!”

“Yes, sah,” Ugwu replied, and in the midst of his worry about his mother, he felt a twinge of pride because he knew his aunty would have her eyes wide in wonder at the deep conversations he had with Master. And in English, too. They stopped a little way before the family hut.

“Get your mother’s things, quickly,” Master said. “I have friends visiting from Ibadan tonight.”

“Yes, sah!” Ugwu and his aunty spoke at the same time.

Ugwu climbed out of the car and stood there. His aunty dashed into the hut, and soon his father came out, eyes red-rimmed, looking more stooped than Ugwu remembered. He knelt in the dirt and clutched Master’s legs. “Thank, sah. Thank, sah. May another person do for you.”

Master stepped back and Ugwu watched his father sway, almost falling over backward. “Get up, kunie,” Master said.

Chioke came out of the hut. “This is my other wife, sah,” his father said, standing up.

Chioke shook Master’s hands with both of hers. “Thank you, Master. Deje!” She ran back inside and emerged with a small pineapple that she pressed into Master’s hand.

“No, no,” Master said, pushing the pineapple back. “Local pineapples are too acidic, they burn my mouth.”

The village children wer