Half of a Yellow Sun

“I work at Nsukka University and I have traveled throughout the Eastern region. I’m writing a book about the area. And my fiancée is from Umunnachi, not too far from you.” He felt a flush of achievement, at how easily fiancée had slipped out of him, a sign of future uxorious bliss. He smiled, then realized that his smile threatened to grow into a giggle and that he might be slightly delirious. It was that note.

“Your fiancée, sir?” The young man looked disapproving.

“Yes. Her name is Kainene.” Richard spoke slowly, making sure to drag out the second syllable fully.

“You speak Igbo, sir?” There was a slender respect in the man’s eyes now.

“Nwanne di na mba,” Richard said, enigmatically, hoping that he had not mixed things up and that the proverb meant that one’s brother could come from a different land.

“Eh! You speak! Ina-asu Igbo!” The young man took Richard’s hand in his moist one and shook it warmly and started to talk about himself. His name was Nnaemeka.

“I know Umunnachi people well, they find too much trouble,” he said. “My people warned my cousin not to marry an Umunnachi man, but she did not hear. Every day they beat her until she packed her things and returned to her father’s house. But not everybody in Umunnachi is bad. My mother’s people are from there. Have you not heard of my mother’s mother? Nwayike Nkwelle? You should write about her in your book. She was a wonderful herbalist, and she had the best cure for malaria. If she had charged people big money, I will be studying medicine overseas now. But my family cannot send me overseas, and the people in Lagos are giving scholarships to the children of the people who can bribe them. It is because of Nwayike Nkwelle that I want to learn how to be a doctor. But I am not saying that this my customs work is bad. After all, we have to take exam to get the job, and many people are jealous. By the time I become a full officer, life will be better and there will be less suffering …”

A voice, speaking English with an elegant Hausa accent, announced that the passengers from the London flight should proceed to board the flight for Lagos. Richard was relieved. “It has been nice talking to you, jisie ike,” he said.

“Yes, sir. Greet Kainene.”

Nnaemeka turned to go back to his desk. Richard picked up his briefcase. The side entrance burst open and three men ran in holding up long rifles. They were wearing green army uniforms, and Richard wondered why soldiers would make such a spectacle of themselves, dashing in like that, until he saw how red and wildly glassy their eyes were.

The first soldier waved his gun around. “Ina nyamiri! Where are the Igbo people? Who is Igbo here? Where are the infidels?”

A woman screamed.

“You are Igbo,” the second soldier said to Nnaemeka.

“No, I come from Katsina! Katsina!”

The soldier walked over to him. “Say Allahu Akbar!”

The lounge was silent. Richard felt cold sweat weighing on his eyelashes.

“Say Allahu Akbar!” the soldier repeated.

Nnaemeka knelt down. Richard saw fear etched so deeply onto his face that it collapsed his cheeks and transfigured him into a mask that looked nothing like him. He would not say Allahu Akbar because his accent would give him away. Richard willed him to say the words, anyway, to try; he willed something, anything, to happen in the stifling silence and as if in answer to his thoughts, the rifle went off and Nnaemeka’s chest blew open, a splattering red mass, and Richard dropped the note in his hand.

Passengers were crouched behind the chairs. Men got on their knees to lower their heads to the floor. Somebody was shouting in Igbo, “My mother, oh! My mother, oh! God has said no!” It was the bartender. One of the soldiers walked up close and shot him and then aimed at the bottles of liquor lined up behind and shot those. The room smelled of whisky and Campari and gin.

There were more soldiers now, more shots, more shouts of “Nyamiri!” and “Araba, araba!” The bartender was writhing on the floor and the gurgle that came from his mouth was guttural. The soldiers ran out to the tarmac and into the airplane and pulled out Igbo people who had already boarded and lined them up and shot them and left them lying there, their bright clothes splashes of color on the dusty black stretch. The security guards folded their arms across their uniforms and watched. Richard felt himself wet his trousers. There was a painful ringing in his ears. He almost missed his flight because, as the other passengers walked shakily to the plane, he stood aside, vomiting.

Susan was still in her bathrobe. She didn’t look surprised to see him arrive unannounced. “You look exhausted,” she said, touching his cheek. Her hair was dull and matted, loosely held back to reveal her reddened ears.

“I’ve just got in from London. Our flight stopped first in Kano,” he said.

“Did it?” Susan said. “And how was Martin’s wedding?”

Richard sat still on the sofa; he remembered nothing of what had happened in London. Susan didn’t seem to notice that he had not spoken. “Small whisky with lots of water?” she asked, already pouring the drinks. “Kano is interesting, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Richard said, although what he had wanted to tell her was how he had watched the hawkers and cars and buses on the crowded Lagos roads with bemusement, because life continued to hurtle on here in the normal way that it always had, as if nothing was happening in Kano.

“It’s rather silly how the Northerners will pay foreigners twice more rather than hire a Southerner. But there’s quite a bit of money to be made there. Nigel’s just rung to tell me about his friend, John, a ghastly Scot. Anyway, John’s a charter pilot and has made a small fortune flying Igbo people to safety these past few days. He said hundreds were killed in Zaria alone.”

Richard felt as if his body was gearing up to do something, to shiver, to collapse. “You know what’s happening there, then?”

“Of course I do. I just hope it doesn’t spread to Lagos. One really can’t predict these things.” Susan downed her drink in a gulp. He noticed the ashen tone of her skin, the tiny beads of sweat above her lip. “There are lots and lots of Igbo people here—wel

l, they are everywhere really, aren’t they? Not that they didn’t have it coming to them, when you think about it, with their being so clannish and uppity and controlling the markets. Very Jewish, really. And to think they are relatively uncivilized; one couldn’t compare them to the Yoruba, for example, who have had contact with Europeans on the coast for years. I remember somebody telling me when I first came to be careful about hiring an Igbo houseboy because, before I knew it, he would own my house and the land it was built on. Another small whisky?”

Richard shook his head. Susan poured herself another drink and this time did not add any water. “You didn’t see anything at the airport in Kano, did you?”