Purple Hibiscus

your hair after lunch,” she said, turning to leave.
    “Yes, Mama.”
    I followed her downstairs. She limped slightly, as though one leg were shorter than the other, a gait that made her seem even smaller than she was. The stairs curved elegantly in an S shape, and I was halfway down when I saw Jaja standing in the hallway. Usually he went to his room to read before lunch, but he had not come upstairs today; he had been in the kitchen the whole time, with Mama and Sisi.
    “
Ke kwanu
?” I asked, although I did not need to ask how he was doing. I had only to look at him. His seventeen-year-old face had grown lines; they zigzagged across his forehead, and inside each line a dark tension had crawled in. I reached out and clasped his hand shortly before we went into the dining room. Papa and Mama were already seated, and Papa was washing his hands in the bowl of water Sisi held before him. He waited until Jaja and I sat down opposite him, and started the grace. For twenty minutes he asked God to bless the food. Afterward, he intoned the Blessed Virgin in several different titles while we responded, “Pray for us.” His favorite title was Our Lady, Shield of the Nigerian People. He had made it up himself. If only people would use it every day, he told us, Nigeria would not totter like a Big Man with the spindly legs of a child.
    Lunch was fufu and onugbu soup. The fufu was smooth and fluffy. Sisi made it well; she pounded the yam energetically, adding drops of water into the mortar, her cheeks contracting with the
thump-thump-thump
of the pestle. The soup wasthick with chunks of boiled beef and dried fish and dark green onugbu leaves. We ate silently. I molded my fufu into small balls with my fingers, dipped it in the soup, making sure to scoop up fish chunks, and then brought it to my mouth. I was certain the soup was good, but I did not taste it, could not taste it. My tongue felt like paper.
    “Pass the salt, please,” Papa said.
    We all reached for the salt at the same time. Jaja and I touched the crystal shaker, my finger brushed his gently, then he let go. I passed it to Papa. The silence stretched out even longer.
    “They brought the cashew juice this afternoon. It tastes good. I am sure it will sell,” Mama finally said.
    “Ask that girl to bring it,” Papa said. Mama pressed the ringer that dangled above the table on a transparent wire from the ceiling, and Sisi appeared.
    “Yes, Madam?”
    “Bring two bottles of the drink they brought from the factory.”
    “Yes, Madam.”
    I wished Sisi had said “What bottles, Madam?” or “Where are they, Madam?” Just something to keep her and Mama talking, to veil the nervous movements of Jaja molding his fufu. Sisi was back shortly and placed the bottles next to Papa. They had the same faded-looking labels as every other thing Papa’s factories made—the wafers and cream biscuits and bottled juice and banana chips. Papa poured the yellow juice for everyone. I reached out quickly for my glass and took a sip. It tasted watery. I wanted to seem eager; maybe if I talked about how good it tasted, Papa might forget that he had not yet punished Jaja.
    “It’s very good, Papa,” I said.
    Papa swirled it around his bulging cheeks. “Yes, yes.”
    “It tastes like fresh cashew,” Mama said.
    Say something, please, I wanted to say to Jaja. He was supposed to say something now, to contribute, to compliment Papa’s new product. We always did, each time an employee from one of his factories brought a product sample for us.
    “Just like white wine,” Mama added. She was nervous, I could tell—not just because a fresh cashew tasted nothing like white wine but also because her voice was lower than usual. “White wine,” Mama said again, closing her eyes to better savor the taste. “Fruity white wine.”
    “Yes,” I said. A ball of fufu slipped from my fingers and into the soup.
    Papa was staring pointedly at Jaja. “Jaja, have you not shared a drink with us,
gbo
? Have you no words in your mouth?” he asked, entirely in Igbo. A bad sign. He hardly spoke Igbo, and although Jaja and I spoke it with Mama at home, he did not like us to speak it in public. We had to sound civilized in public, he told us; we had to speak English. Papa’s sister, Aunty Ifeoma, said once that Papa was too much of a colonial product. She had said this about Papa in a mild, forgiving way, as if it were not Papa’s fault, as one would talk about a person who was shouting