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Professor Ekwenugo knocked on the open door and walked in. His hands were swathed in cream-colored bandages.

“Dianyi, what happened to you?” Master asked.

“Just a little burn.” Professor Ekwenugo stared at his bandaged hands as if he had only just realized that they meant he no longer had a long nail to stroke. “We are putting together something very big.”

“Is it our first Biafran-built bomber jet?” Olanna teased.

“Something very big that will reveal itself with time,” Professor Ekwenugo said, with a mysterious smile. He ate clumsily; bits of cake fell away before they got to his mouth.

“It should be a saboteur-detecting machine,” Master said.

“Yes! Bloody saboteurs.” Special Julius made the sound of spitting. “They sold Enugu out. How can you leave civilians to defend our capital with mere machetes? This is the same way they lost Nsukka, by pulling back for no reason. Doesn’t one of the commanding offic

ers have a Hausa wife? She has put medicine in his food.”

“We will recapture Enugu,” Professor Ekwenugo said.

“How can we recapture Enugu when the vandals have occupied it?” Special Julius said. “They are even looting toilet seats! Toilet seats! A man who escaped from Udi told me. And they choose the best houses and force people’s wives and daughters to spread their legs for them and cook for them.”

Images of his mother and Anulika and Nnesinachi splayed out underneath a dirty sun-blackened Hausa soldier came to Ugwu so clearly that he shivered. He went out and sat on a cement block and wished, desperately, that he could go home, if only for a minute, to make sure that nothing had happened to them. Perhaps the vandals were already there and had taken over his aunty’s hut with the corrugated iron roof. Or perhaps his family had fled with their goats and chickens, like all the people streaming into Umuahia. The refugees: Ugwu saw them, more and more each day, new faces on the streets, at the public borehole, in the market. Women knocked on the door often to ask if there was any work they could do in exchange for food. They came with their thin naked children. Sometimes, Olanna gave them garri soaked in cold water before telling them she had no work. Mrs. Muokelu had taken in a family of eight relatives. She brought the children to play with Baby, and each time, after they left Olanna asked Ugwu to search Baby’s hair carefully for lice. The neighbors took in relatives. Master’s cousins came for a few weeks and slept in the living room until they left to join the army. There were so many fleeing, tired, homeless people that Ugwu was not surprised the afternoon Olanna came home and said that Akwakuma Primary School would be turned into a refugee camp.

“They have brought bamboo beds and cooking utensils already. And the new Director for Mobilization is coming next week.” She sounded tired. She opened the pot on the stove and stared at the slices of boiled yam.

“What about the children, mah?”

“I was asking Headmistress if we could be relocated, and she looked at me and started laughing. We are the last. All the schools in Umuahia have become refugee camps or army training camps.” She closed the pot. “I’m going to organize classes here in the yard.”

“With Mrs. Muokelu?”

“Yes, and you too, Ugwu. You will teach a class.”

“Yes, mah.” The thought excited and flattered him. “Mah?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think the vandals are in my hometown?”

“Of course not,” Olanna said sharply. “Your hometown is too small. If they stay anywhere, it will be in the university.”

“But if they took the Opi road into Nsukka—”

“I said your hometown is too small! They will not be interested in staying there. There is nothing there to stay for, you see. It is just a small bush.”

Ugwu looked at her and she looked at him. The silence was heavy and accusing.

“I’m going to sell my brown shoes to Mama Onitsha, and I will make a new pretty dress for Baby,” Olanna said finally and Ugwu thought her voice was forced.

He began to wash the plates.

Ugwu saw the black Mercedes-Benz gliding down the road; the word DIRECTOR written on its metallic number plate sparkled in the sun. Near Eberechi’s house, it slowed down, shiny and enormous, and Ugwu hoped they would stop and ask him where the primary school was so he would get a good look at the dashboard. They did not just stop, though; they drove past him and into the compound. An orderly in a stiff uniform jumped out to open the back door before the car came to a complete halt. He saluted as the director climbed out.

It was Professor Ezeka. He did not look as tall as Ugwu remembered; he had put on some weight and his thin neck had filled out. Ugwu stared. There was something sleek and new about him, about the fine cut of his suit, but his supercilious expression was the same, as was his hoarse voice. “Young man, is your master in?”

“No, sah,” Ugwu said. In Nsukka, Professor Ezeka had called him Ugwu; now he looked as if he did not recognize him. “He has gone to work, sah.”

“And your madam?”

“She has gone to the relief center, sah.”