Half of a Yellow Sun

“Are you silently condemning me for profiteering from the war? Somebody had to import the stockfish, you know.” Kainene raised her eyebrows; they were penciled in, thin fluid arcs. “Many contractors were paid and didn’t deliver. At least I did.”

“No, no, I wasn’t thinking that at all.”

“You were.”

Olanna looked away. There were too many things swirling around in her head. “I was so worried when Port Harcourt fell. I sent messages.”

“I got the letter you sent to Madu.” Kainene rearranged the straps of her handbag. “You said you were teaching. Do you still? Your noble win-the-war effort?”

“The school is a refugee center now. I sometimes teach the children in the yard.”

“And how is the revolutionary husband?”

“He’s still with the Manpower Directorate.”

“You don’t have a wedding photo.”

“There was an air raid during our reception. The photographer threw his camera down.”

Kainene nodded, as if there were no need to feel sympathy at this news. She opened her bag. “I came to give you this. Mum sent it through a British journalist.”

Olanna held the envelope in her hand, unsure whether to open it in front of Kainene.

“I also brought two dresses for Baby,” Kainene said, and gestured to th

e bag she had placed on the floor. “A woman who came back from São Tomé had some good children’s clothes for sale.”

“You bought clothes for Baby?”

“How shocking indeed. And it’s about time the girl began to be called Chiamaka. This Baby business is tiresome.”

Olanna laughed.

To think that her sister was sitting across from her, that her sister had come to visit her, that her sister had brought clothes for her child. “Will you drink water? It’s all we have.”

“No, I’m fine.” Kainene got up and walked to the wall, where the mattress leaned, and then came back and sat down. “You didn’t know my steward Ikejide, did you?”

“Isn’t he the one Maxwell brought from his hometown?”

“Yes.” Kainene got up again. “He was killed in Port Harcourt. They were bombing and shelling us, and a piece of shrapnel cut off his head, completely beheaded him, and his body kept running. His body kept running and it didn’t have a head.”

“Oh, God.”

“I saw him.”

Olanna got up and sat next to Kainene on the bench and put an arm around her. Kainene smelled of home. They said nothing for long minutes.

“I thought about changing your money for you,” Kainene said. “But you can do it at the bank and then deposit, can’t you?”

“Haven’t you seen the bomb craters all around the bank? My money is staying under my bed.”

“Make sure the cockroaches don’t get to it. Life is harder for them these days.” Kainene leaned against Olanna and then, as if she had suddenly remembered something, she got up and straightened her dress; Olanna felt the slow sadness of missing a person who was still there.

“Goodness. I didn’t know how much time had passed,” Kainene said.

“Will you visit again?”

There was a pause before Kainene said, “I spend most of the day at the refugee camp. Maybe you can come and see it.” She fumbled for a piece of paper in her handbag and wrote down the directions to her house.