Half of a Yellow Sun

Olanna ran past the town square on her way to Akwakuma Primary School in the morning. She always did that in open spaces, running until she got to the thick shade of trees that would give good cover in case of an air raid. Some children were standing under the mango tree in the school compound, throwing stones up at the fruit. She shouted, “Go to your classes, osiso!” and they scattered briefly before coming back to aim at the mangoes. She heard a cheer when one fell, and then the raised voices as they quarreled over whose throw had brought the fruit down.

Mrs. Muokelu was in front of her classroom fiddling with the bell. The thick black hair on her arms and legs, the fuzz on her upper lip, the curled strands on her chin, and the squat muscular limbs often made Olanna wonder if perhaps Mrs. Muokelu would have been better off being born a man.

“Do you know where I can buy antibiotics, my sister?” Olanna asked, after they hugged. “Baby has a cough, and they did not have any at the hospital.”

Mrs. Muokelu hummed for a while to show that she was thinking. His Excellency’s face glared from the fabric of the boubou she wore every day; she often announced that she would wear nothing else until the state of Biafra was fully established.

“Anybody can sell medicine, but you don’t know who is mixing chalk in his backyard and calling it Nivaquine,” she said. “Give me the money and I will go to Mama Onitsha. She is authentic. She will sell you Gowon’s dirty pant if you pay the right price.”

“Let her keep the pant and just give us medicine.” Olanna was laughing.

Mrs. Muokelu smiled and picked up the bell. “I saw a vision yesterday,” she said. Her boubou was too long for her short body; it dragged along the ground and Olanna feared that she would trip on it and fall.

“What was the vision?” Olanna asked. Mrs. Muokelu always had visions. In the last one, she had seen Ojukwu personally leading the battle in the Ogoja sector, which meant that the enemy had been completely wiped out there.

“Traditional warriors from Abiriba used their bows and arrows and finished the vandals in the Calabar sector. I makwa, children were walking over their bones to go to the stream.”

“Really,” Olanna said, and kept her face serious.

“It means Calabar will never fall,” Mrs. Muokelu said, and began to ring the bell. Olanna watched the swift movements of the masculine arm. They really had nothing in common, herself and this barely educated primary-school teacher from Eziowelle who believed in visions. Yet Mrs. Muokelu had always seemed familiar. It was not because Mrs. Muokelu plaited her hair and went with her to the Women’s Voluntary Services meetings and taught her how to preserve vegetables, but because Mrs. Muokelu exuded fearlessness, a fearlessness that reminded Olanna of Kainene.

That evening, when Mrs. Muokelu brought the antibiotic capsules wrapped in newspaper, Olanna asked her to come inside and showed her a photo of Kainene, sitting by the pool with a cigarette between her lips.

“This is my twin sister. She lives in Port Harcourt.”

“Your twin!” Mrs. Muokelu exclaimed, fingering the plastic half of a yellow sun that she wore on a string around her neck. “Wonders shall never end. I did not know you were a twin, and, nekene, she does not look like you at all.”

“We have the same mouth,” Olanna said.

Mrs. Muokelu glanced at the photo again and shook her head. “She does not look like you at all,” she repeated.

The antibiotics yellowed Baby’s eyes. Her coughing got better, less chesty and less whistling, but her appetite disappeared. She pushed her garri around her plate and left her pap uneaten until it congealed in a waxy lump. Olanna spent most of the cash in the envelope and bought biscuits and toffees in shiny wrappers from a woman who traded behind enemy lines, but Baby only nibbled at them. She placed Baby on her lap and forced bits of mashed yam into her mouth, and when Baby choked and started to cry, Olanna, too, fought tears. Her greatest fear was that Baby would die. It was there, the festering fear, underlying everything she thought and did. Odenigbo skipped the Agitator Corps activities and rushed home earlier, and Olanna knew he shared her fear. But they did not talk about it, as though verbalizing it would make Baby’s death imminent, until the morning she sat watching Baby sleep while Odenigbo got dressed for work. The resonating voice on Radio Biafra filled the room.

These African states have fallen prey to the British-American imperialist conspiracy to use the committee’s recommendations as a pretext for a massive arms support for their puppet and tottering neocolonialist regime in Nigeria.…

“That’s right!” Odenigbo said, buttoning his shirt with quick movements.

On the bed, Baby stirred. Her face had lost its fat and was eerily adult, sunken and thin-skinned. Olanna watched her.

“Baby won’t make it,” she said quietly.

Odenigbo stopped and looked at her. He turned the radio off and came over and held her head against his belly. Because he said nothing at first, his silence became a confirmation that Baby would die. Olanna shifted away.

“It’s only normal that she doesn’t have an appetite,” he said finally. But his tone lacked the certitude she was used to.

“Look how much weight she’s lost!” Olanna said.

“Nkem, her cough is getting better and her appetite will come back.” He began to comb his hair. She was angry with him for not saying what she wanted to hear, for not assuming the power of fate and telling her that Baby would be well, for being normal enough to continue to dress for work. His kiss before he left was quick, not the usual lingering press of lips, and that too she held against him. Tears filled her eyes. She thought about Amala. Amala had made no contact with them since the day at the hospital but she wondered now if she would be expected to tell Amala if Baby were to die.

Baby yawned and woke up. “Good morning, Mummy Ola.” Even her voice was thin.

“Baby, ezigbo nwa, how are you?” Olanna picked her up, hugged her, blew into her neck, and struggled with her tears. Baby felt so slight, so light. “Will you eat some pap, my baby? Or some bread? What do you want?”

Baby shook her head. Olanna was trying to cajole Baby into drinking some Ovaltine when Mrs. Muokelu arrived with a knotted raffia bag and a self-satisfied smile.

“They have opened a relief center on Bishop Road and I went very early this morning,” she said. “Ask Ugwu to bring me a bowl.”

She poured some yellow powder into the bowl Ugwu brought.