Purple Hibiscus

me.”
    “Hei!
Omelora
! Thank sir. I have not drank milk this year.” The man still hovered at the door. Perhaps he imagined that leaving would make Papa’s promise of tea with milk disappear.
    “
Ogbunambala
! Go and sit down and wait for me.”
    The man retreated. Papa read from the psalms before saying the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Glory Be, and the Apostles Creed. Although we spoke aloud after Papa said the first few words alone, an outer silence enveloped us all, shrouding us. But when he said, “We will now pray to the spirit in our own words, for the spirit intercedes for us in accordance with His will,” the silence was broken. Our voices soundedloud, discordant. Mama started with a prayer for peace and for the rulers of our country. Jaja prayed for priests and for the religious. I prayed for the Pope. Finally, for twenty minutes, Papa prayed for our protection from ungodly people and forces, for Nigeria and the Godless men ruling it, and for us to continue to grow in righteousness. Finally, he prayed for the conversion of our Papa-Nnukwu, so that Papa-Nnukwu would be saved from hell. Papa spent some time describing hell, as if God did not know that the flames were eternal and raging and fierce. At the end we raised our voices and said, “Amen!”
    Papa closed the Bible. “Kambili and Jaja, you will go this afternoon to your grandfather’s house and greet him. Kevin will take you. Remember, don’t touch any food, don’t drink anything. And, as usual, you will stay not longer than fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes.”
    “Yes, Papa.” We had heard this every Christmas for the past few years, ever since we had started to visit Papa-Nnukwu. Papa-Nnukwu had called an umunna meeting to complain to the extended family that he did not know his grandchildren and that we did not know him. Papa-Nnukwu had told Jaja and me this, as Papa did not tell us such things. Papa-Nnukwu had told the umunna how Papa had offered to build him a house, buy him a car, and hire him a driver, as long as he converted and threw away the chi in the thatch shrine in his yard. Papa-Nnukwu laughed and said he simply wanted to see his grandchildren when he could. He would not throw away his chi; he had already told Papa this many times. The members of our umunna sided with Papa, they always did, but they urged him to let us visit Papa-Nnukwu, to greet him, because every man who was old enough to be called grandfather deserved to begreeted by his grandchildren. Papa himself never greeted Papa-Nnukwu, never visited him, but he sent slim wads of naira through Kevin or through one of our umunna members, slimmer wads than he gave Kevin as a Christmas bonus.
    “I don’t like to send you to the home of a heathen, but God will protect you,” Papa said. He put the Bible in a drawer and then pulled Jaja and me to his side, gently rubbed the sides of our arms.
    “Yes, Papa.”
    He went into the large living room. I could hear more voices, more people coming in to say
“Nno nu
” and complain about how hard life was, how they could not buy new clothes for their children this Christmas.
    “You and Jaja can have breakfast upstairs. I will bring the things up. Your father will eat with the guests,” Mama said.
    “Let me help you,” I offered.
    “No,
nne
, go upstairs. Stay with your brother.”
    I watched Mama walk toward the kitchen, in her limping gait. Her braided hair was piled into a net that tapered to a golf-ball-like lump at the end, like a Father Christmas hat. She looked tired.
    “Papa-Nnukwu lives close by, we can walk there in five minutes, we don’t need Kevin to take us,” Jaja said, as we went back upstairs. He said that every year, but we always climbed into the car so that Kevin could take us, so that he could watch us.
    As Kevin drove us out of the compound later that morning, I turned to allow my eyes to stroke, once again, the gleaming white walls and pillars of our house, the perfect silver-colored water arch the fountain made. Papa-Nnukwu had never set foot in it, because when Papa had decreed that heathens werenot allowed in his compound, he had not made an exception for his father.
    “Your father said you are to stay fifteen minutes,” Kevin said, as he parked on the roadside, near Papa-Nnukwu’s thatchenclosed compound. I stared at the scar on Kevin’s neck before I got out of the car. He had fallen from a palm tree in his hometown in the Niger Delta area, a few years ago while on vacation. The scar