Purple Hibiscus

Jaja?” she asked.
    “He’s asleep. He has a headache.”
    “A headache three days to Christmas? No way. I will wake him up and cure that headache.” Aunty Ifeoma laughed. “We got here before noon; we left Nsukka really early and would have gotten here sooner if the car didn’t break down on the road, but it was near Ninth Mile, thank God, so it was easy finding a mechanic.”
    “Thanks be to God,” I said. Then, after a pause I asked, “How are my cousins?” It was the polite thing to say; still, I felt strange asking about the cousins I hardly knew.
    “They’re coming soon. They’re with your Papa-Nnukwu, and he had just started one of his stories. You know how he likes to go on and on.”
    “Oh,” I said. I did not know that Papa-Nnukwu liked to go on and on. I did not even know that he told stories.
    Mama came in holding a tray piled high with bottles of soft and malt drinks lying on their sides. A plate of chin-chin was balanced on top of the drinks.
    “
Nwunye m
, who are those for?” Aunty Ifeoma asked.
    “You and the children,” Mama said. “Did you not say the children were coming soon,
okwia
?”
    “You should not have bothered, really. We bought
okpa
on our way and just ate it.”
    “Then I will put the chin-chin in a bag for you,” Mama said. She turned to leave the room. Her wrapper was dressy, with yellow print designs, and her matching blouse had yellow lace sewn onto the puffy, short sleeves.
    “Nwunye m
,” Aunty Ifeoma called, and Mama turned back.
    The first time I heard Aunty Ifeoma call Mama
“nwunye m
,” years ago, I was aghast that a woman called another woman “my wife.” When I asked, Papa said it was the remnants of ungodly traditions, the idea that it was the family and not the man alone that married a wife, and later Mama whispered, although we were alone in my room, “I am her wife, too, because I am your father’s wife. It shows that she accepts me.”
    “
Nwunye m
, come and sit down. You look tired. Are you well?” Aunty Ifeoma asked.
    A tight smile appeared on Mama’s face. “I am well, very well. I have been helping the wives of our
umunna
with the cooking.”
    “Come and sit down,” Aunty Ifeoma said again. “Come and sit down and rest. The wives of our
umunna
can look for the salt themselves and find it. After all, they are all here to take from you, to wrap meat in banana leaves when nobody is looking and then sneak it home.” Aunty Ifeoma laughed.
    Mama sat down next to me. “Eugene is arranging for extra chairs to be put outside, especially on Christmas day. So many people have come already.”
    “You know our people have no other work at Christmas than to go from house to house,” Aunty Ifeoma said. “But you can’t stay here serving them all day. We should take the children to Abagana for the Aro festival tomorrow, to look at the
mmuo
.”
    “Eugene will not let the children go to a heathen festival,” Mama said.
    “Heathen festival,
kwa
? Everybody goes to Aro to look at the
mmuo
.”
    “I know, but you know Eugene.”
    Aunty Ifeoma shook her head slowly. “I will tell him we are going for a drive, so we can all spend time together, especially the children.”
    Mama fiddled with her fingers and said nothing for a while. Then she asked, “When will you take the children to their father’s hometown?”
    “Perhaps today, although I don’t have the strength for Ifediora’s family right now. They eat more and more shit every year. The people in his
umunna
said he left money somewhere and I have been hiding it. Last Christmas, one of the women from their compound even told me I had killed him. I wanted to stuff sand in her mouth. Then I thought that I should sit her down, eh, and explain that you do not kill a husband you love, that you do not orchestrate a car accident in which a trailer rams into your husband’s car, but again, why waste my time? They all have the brains of guinea fowls.” Aunty Ifeoma made a loud hissing sound. “I don’t know how much longer I will take my children there.”
    Mama clucked in sympathy. “People do not always talk with sense. But it is good that the children go, especially the boys. They need to know their father’s homestead and the members of their father’s
umunna
.”
    “I honestly do not know how Ifediora came from an
umunna
like that.”
    I watched their lips move as they spoke; Mama’s bare lips were pale compared to Aunty Ifeoma’s, covered in a shiny bronze