Purple Hibiscus

Aunty Ifeoma came to the verandah and watched him drive off.

“Thank you, nna m,” she called out to Jaja, who was cleaning her car parked in front of the flat. I had never heard her call Jaja “nna m,” “my father”—it was what she sometimes called her sons.

Jaja came up to the verandah. “It’s nothing, Aunty.” He lifted his shoulders as he stood there, like someone proudly wearing clothes that were not his size. “What did the doctor say?”

“He wants us to get some tests done. I will take your Papa-Nnukwu to the medical center tomorrow, at least the labs there are still open.”

AUNTY IFEOMA TOOK Papa-Nnukwu to the University Medical Center in the morning and came back shortly afterward, her mouth set in a full pout. The lab staff was on strike, too, so Papa-Nnukwu could not have the tests done. Aunty Ifeoma stared at the middle distance and said she would have to find a private lab in town and, in a lower voice, said the private labs jacked up their fees so much that a simple typhoid fever test cost more than the medicine for the fever. She would have to ask Dr. Nduoma if she really had to have all the tests done. She would not have paid a kobo at the medical center; at least there was still that benefit to being a lecturer. She left Papa-Nnukwu to rest and went out to buy the medicine that Doctor Nduoma had prescribed, worry lines etched in her forehead.

That evening, though, Papa-Nnukwu felt well enough to get up for dinner, and the knots on Aunty Ifeoma’s face loosened a little. We had leftover ofe nsala and garri, pounded to a sticky softness by Obiora.

“Eating garri at night is not right,” Amaka said. But she was not scowling as she usually did when she complained; instead, she had that fresh smile that showed the gap in her teeth, the smile she seemed to always have when Papa-Nnukwu was around. “It rests heavy in your stomach when you eat it at night.”

Papa-Nnukwu clucked. “What did our fathers eat at night in their time, gbo? They ate pure cassava. Garri is for you modern ones. It does not even have the flavor of pure cassava.”

“But you have to eat all of yours, anyway, nna anyi.” Aunty Ifeoma reached over and plucked a morsel from Papa-Nnukwu’s garri; she dug a hole in it with one finger, inserted a white medicine tablet, and then molded the morsel into a smooth ball. She placed it on Papa-Nnukwu’s plate. She did the same with four other tablets. “He will not take the medicine unless I do this,” she said in English. “He says tablets are bitter, but you should taste the kola nuts he chews happily—they taste like bile.”

My cousins laughed.

“Morality, as well as the sense of taste, is relative,” Obiora said.

“Eh? What are you saying about me, gbo?” Papa-Nnukwu asked.

“Nna anyi, I want to see you swallow them,” Aunty Ifeoma said.

Papa-Nnukwu dutifully picked up each molded morsel, dunked it in soup, and swallowed. When the five were gone, Aunty Ifeoma asked him to drink some water so the tablets could break down and start to help his body heal. He took a gulp of water and set the glass down. “When you become old, they treat you like a child,” he muttered.

Just then the TV made a scratchy sound like pouring dry sand on paper and the lights went off. A blanket of darkness covered the room.

“Hei,” Amaka groaned. “This is not a good time for NEPA to take light. I wanted to watch something on TV.”

Obiora moved through the darkness to the two kerosene lamps that stood at the corner of the room and lit them. I smelled the kerosene fumes almost immediately; they made my eyes water and my throat itch.

“Papa-Nnukwu, tell us a folk story, then, just like we do in Abba,” Obiora said. “It is better than TV anyway.”

“O di mma. But first, you have not told me how those people in the TV climb into it.”

My cousins laughed. It was something Papa-Nnukwu said often to make them laugh. I could tell from the way they started to laugh even before he finished speaking.

“Tell us the story of why the tortoise has a cracked shell!” Chima piped up.

“I would like to know why the tortoise features so much in our people’s stories,” Obiora said in English.

“Tell us the story of why the tortoise has a cracked shell!” Chima repeated.

Papa-Nnukwu cleared his throat. “Long ago, when animals talked and lizards were few, there was a big famine in the land of the animals. Farms dried up and the soil cracked. Hunger killed many of the animals and the ones left behind did not even have the strength to dance the mourning dance at funerals. One day all the male animals had a meeting to decide what could be done, before hunger wiped out the whole village.

“They all staggered to the meeting, bony and weak. Even Lion’s roar was now like the whine of a mouse. Tortoise could hardly carry his shell. It was only Dog that looked well. His fur shone with good health and you could not see the bones under his skin because they were padded with flesh. The animals all asked Dog how he remained so well in the midst of famine. ‘I have been eating feces like I always do,’ Dog answered.

“The other animals used to laugh at Dog because he and his family were known to eat feces. None of the other animals could imagine themselves eating feces. Lion took control of the meeting and said, ‘Since we cannot eat feces like Dog, we must think of a way to feed ourselves.’

“The animals thought long and hard until Rabbit suggested that all the animals kill their mothers and eat them. Many of the animals disagreed with this, they still remembered the sweetness of their mothers’ breast milk. But finally they all agreed that it was the best alternative, since they would all die anyway if nothing was done.”

“I could never eat Mommy,” Chima said, giggling.

“It might not be a good idea, that tough skin,” Obiora said.

“The mothers did not mind being sacrificed,” Papa-Nnukwu continued. “And so each week a mother was killed and the animals shared the meat. Soon they were all looking well again. Then, a few days before it was time for Dog’s mother to be killed, Dog ran out wailing the mourning song for his mother. She had died of the disease. The other animals sympathized with Dog and offered to help bury her. Since she had died of the disease, they could not eat her. Dog refused any help and said he would bury her himself. He was distraught that she would not have the honor of dying like the other mothers who were sacrificed for the village.