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“No, Baby.” Olanna took the doll and placed it back.

They shopped for a while longer and then left for Yaba market, where Arize could shop for fabrics for herself. Tejuosho Road was crowded, families huddled around pots of bubbling food, women roasting corn and plantains in charred basins, bare-chested men loading bags into lorries with hand-painted wisdoms: NO CONDITION IS PERMANENT. GOD KNOWS BEST. Ibekie parked near the newspaper stands. Olanna glanced at the people standing and reading the Daily Times and her feet grew light with pride. They were reading Odenigbo’s article, she was sure; it was easily the best there. She had edited it herself and toned down his rhetoric, so that his argument—that only a unitary government could remove the divisions of regionalism—was clearer.

She took Baby’s hand and led the way past the roadside hawkers who sat under umbrellas with batteries and padlocks and cigarettes carefully arranged on enamel trays. The main market entrance was strangely empty. Then Olanna saw the crowd ahead. A man in a yellowed singlet stood at the center while two men slapped him, one after the other, methodical leathery-sounding slaps. “Why now? Why are you denying?” The man stared at them, blank, bending his neck slightly after each slap. Arize stopped.

Somebody from the crowd called out, “We are counting the Igbo people. Oya, come and identify yourself. You are Igbo?”

Arize muttered under her breath, “I kwuna okwu,” as if Olanna was thinking of saying anything, and then shook her head and started to speak fluent loud Yoruba, all the while casually turning so they could go back the way they had come. The crowd lost interest in them. Another man in a safari suit was being slapped on the back of the head. “You are Igbo man! Don’t deny it! Simply identify yourself!”

Baby began to cry. “Mummy Ola! Mummy Ola!”

Olanna picked Baby up. She and Arize did not talk until they got back in the car. Ibekie had already reversed and kept glancing at the rearview mirror. “I saw people running,” he said.

“What is happening?” Olanna asked.

Arize shrugged. “We hear rumors that they have been doing this in Kaduna and Zaria since the coup; they go out in the streets and start to harass Igbo people because they said the coup was an Igbo coup.”

“Ezi okwu? Really?”

“Yes, Aunty,” Ibekie said quickly, as if he had been waiting for the opportunity to speak. “My uncle in Ebutte Metta does not sleep in his house anymore since the coup. All his neighbors are Yoruba, and they said some men have been looking for him. He sleeps in different houses every night, while he takes care of his business. He has sent his children back home.”

“Ezi okwu? Really?” Olanna repeated. She felt hollow. She did not know that things had come to this; in Nsukka, life was insular and the news was unreal, functioning only as fodder for the evening talk, for Odenigbo’s rants and impassioned articles.

“Things will calm down,” Arize said, and touched Olanna’s arm. “Don’t worry.”

Olanna nodded and looked out at the words printed on a nearby lorry: NO TELEPHONE TO HEAVEN. She could not believe how easy it had been to deny who they were, to shrug off being Igbo.

“She will wear that white dress for her christening, Sister,” Arize said.

“What, Ari?”

Arize pointed at her belly. “Your goddaughter will wear that white dress for her christening. Thank you so much, Sister.”

The light in Arize’s eyes made Olanna smile; things would indeed calm down. She tickled Baby, but Baby did not laugh. Baby stared back at her with frightened eyes that were not yet dried of tears.

9

Richard watched as Kainene zipped up the lilac dress and turned to him. The hotel room was brightly lit, and he looked at her and at her reflection in the mirror behind her.

“Nke a ka mma,” he said. It was prettier than the black dress on the bed, the one she had earlier picked out for her parents’ party. She bowed mockingly and sat down to put on her shoes. She looked almost pretty with her smoothing powder and red lipstick and relaxed demeanor, not as knotted up as she had been lately, chasing a contract with Shell-BP. Before they left, Richard brushed aside some of her wig hair and kissed her forehead, to avoid spoiling her lipstick.

There were garish balloons in her parents’ living room. The party was under way. Stewards in black and white walked around with trays and fawning smiles, their heads held inanely high. The champagne sparkled in tall glasses, the chandeliers’ light reflected the glitter of jewelry on fat women’s necks, and the High Life band in the corner played so loudly, so vigorously, that people clumped close together to hear one another.

“I see many Big Men of the new regime,” Richard said.

“Daddy hasn’t wasted any time in ingratiating himself,” Kainene said in his ear. “He ran off until things calmed down, and now he’s back to make new friends.”

Richard scanned the rest of the room. Colonel Madu stood out right away, with his wide shoulders and wide face and wide features and head that was above everyone else’s. He was talking to an Arab man in a tight dinner jacket. Kainene walked over to say hello to them and Richard went to look for a drink, to avoid talking to Madu just yet.

Kainene’s mother came up and kissed his cheek; he knew she was drunk, or she would have greeted him with the usual frosty “How do you do?” Now, though, she told him he looked well and cornered him at an unfortunate end of the room, with the wall to his back and an intimidating piece of sculpture, something that looked like a snarling lion, to his side.

“Kainene tells me you are going home to London soon?” she asked. Her ebony complexion looked waxy with too much makeup. There was something nervous about her movements.

“Yes. I’ll be away for about ten days.”

“Just ten days?” She half smiled. Perhaps she had hoped he would be away for longer, so she could finally find a suitable partner for her daughter. “To visit your family?”

“My cousin Martin is getting married,” Richard said.