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“What is that?” Olanna asked.

“Dried egg yolk.” Mrs. Muokelu turned to Ugwu. “Fry it for Baby.”

“Fry it?”

“Is something wrong with your ears? Mix it with some water and fry it, osiso! They say children love the taste of this thing.”

Ugwu gave her a slow look before he went into the kitchen. The dried egg yolk, fried in red palm oil, looked soggy and unnervingly bright-colored on the plate. Baby ate all of it.

The relief center used to be a girls’ secondary school. Olanna imagined the grassy walled compound before the war, young women hurrying to classes in the morning and sneaking to the gate in the evening to meet young men from the government college down the road. Now it was dawn and the gate was locked. A large crowd had gathered outside. Olanna stood awkwardly among the men and women and children, who all seemed used to standing and waiting for a rusted iron gate to be opened so they could go in and be given food donated by foreign strangers. She felt discomfited. She felt as if she were doing something improper, unethical: expecting to get food in exchange for nothing. Inside the compound, she could see people moving about, tables set out with sacks of food, a board that said WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES. Some of the women clutched their baskets and peered over the gate and mutter

ed about these relief people wasting time. The men were talking among themselves; the oldest-looking man wore his red chieftaincy hat with a feather stuck in it. A young man’s voice stood out from the others, high-pitched, shouting gibberish, like a child learning to speak.

“He has serious shell shock,” Mrs. Muokelu whispered, as if Olanna did not know. It was the only time Mrs. Muokelu spoke. She had slowly edged her way to the front of the gate, nudging Olanna to follow her each time. Somebody behind had begun a story about a Biafran victory. “I am telling you, all of the Hausa soldiers turned and ran, they had seen what was bigger than them…” The voice trailed away as a man inside the compound strode toward the gate. His T-shirt, LAND OF THE RISING SUN written on it in black, was loose around his slim body and he carried a sheaf of papers. He walked with an air of importance, his shoulders held high. He was the supervisor.

“Order! Order!” he said, and opened the gate.

The swift scrambling rush of the crowd surprised Olanna. She felt jostled; she swayed. It was as if they all shoved her aside in one calculated move since she was not one of them. The firm elbow of the elderly man beside her landed painfully on her side as he launched his run into the compound. Mrs. Muokelu was ahead, dashing toward one of the tables. The old man in the feathered hat fell down, promptly picked himself up, and continued his lopsided run to the queue. Olanna was surprised, too, by the militia members flogging with long whips and shouting “Order! Order!” and by the stern faces of the women at the tables, who bent and scooped into the bags held out before them and then said, “Yes! Next!”

“Join that one!” Mrs. Muokelu said, when Olanna moved to stand some way behind her. “That is the egg-yolk line! Join it! This one is stockfish.”

Olanna joined the queue and held herself from pushing back at the woman who tried to nudge her out. She let the woman stand in front of her. The incongruity of queuing to beg for food made her feel uncomfortable, blemished. She folded her arms, then let them lie by her sides, and then folded them again. She was close to the front when she noticed that the powder being scooped into bags and bowls was not yellow but white. Not egg yolk but cornmeal. The egg-yolk line was the next one. Olanna hurried over to join it, but the woman who was dishing out the yolk stood up and said, “Egg yolk is finished! O gwula!”

Panic rose in Olanna’s chest. She ran after the woman. “Please,” she said.

“What is it?” the woman asked. The supervisor, standing close by, turned to stare at Olanna.

“My little child is sick—” Olanna said.

The woman cut her short. “Join that line for milk.”

“No, no, she has not been eating anything, but she ate egg yolk.” Olanna held the woman’s arm. “Biko, please; I need the egg yolk.”

The woman pulled her arm away and hurried into the building and slammed the door. Olanna stood there. The supervisor, still staring, fanned himself with his sheaf of papers and said, “Ehe! I know you.”

His bald head and bearded face did not look familiar at all. Olanna turned to walk away because she was sure he was one of those men who claimed to have met her before only to have a chance to make a pass.

“I have seen you before,” he said. He moved closer, smiling now, but without the leer she expected; his face was frank and delighted. “Some years ago at Enugu Airport when I went to meet my brother who was returning from overseas. You talked to my mother. I kasiri ya obi. You calmed her down when the plane landed and did not stop right away.”

That day at the airport came back to Olanna hazily. It had to be about seven years ago. She remembered his bush accent and his nervous excitement and that he had seemed older than he looked now.

“Is it you?” she asked. “But how did you recognize me?”

“How can anybody forget a face like your own? My mother has always told the story of a beautiful woman who held her hand. All the members of my family know the story. Every time somebody talks about my brother’s return, she will tell it.”

“And how is your brother?”

Pride lit up his face. “He is a senior man in the directorate. He is the one who gave me this job with relief.”

Olanna immediately wondered whether he could help her get some egg yolk. But what she asked was, “And your mother is well?”

“Very well. She is at Orlu in my brother’s house. She was very ill when my elder sister did not return from Zaria at first; we all thought those animals had done to her what they did to the others, but my sister returned—she had Hausa friends who helped her—so my mother got better. She will be happy when I tell her that I saw you.”

He paused to glance at one of the food tables where two young girls were fighting, one saying, “I am telling you that this stockfish is mine,” and the other saying, “Ngwanu, both of us will die today.”

He turned back to her. “Let me go and see what is going on there. But wait by the gate. I will send somebody to you with egg yolk.”

“Thank you.” Olanna was relieved that he had offered and yet felt awkward at the exchange. At the gate, she skulked; she felt like a thief.