Purple Hibiscus

you plan to go to Aokpe?” Father Amadi asked.
    “I was not really planning to. But I suppose we will have to go now, I will find out the next apparition date.”
    “People are making this whole apparition thing up. Didn’t they say Our Lady was appearing at Bishop Shanahan Hospital the other time? And then that she was appearing in Transekulu?” Obiora asked.
    “Aokpe is different. It has all the signs of Lourdes,” Amaka said. “Besides, it’s about time Our Lady came to Africa. Don’tyou wonder how come she always appears in Europe? She was from the Middle East, after all.”
    “What is she now, the Political Virgin?” Obiora asked, and I looked at him again. He was a bold, male version of what I could never have been at fourteen, what I still was not.
    Father Amadi laughed. “But she’s appeared in Egypt, Amaka. At least people flocked there, like they are flocking to Aokpe now.
O bugodi
, like migrating locusts.”
    “You don’t sound like you believe, Father.” Amaka was watching him.
    “I don’t believe we have to go to Aokpe or anywhere else to find her. She is here, she is within us, leading us to her Son.” He spoke so effortlessly, as if his mouth were a musical instrument that just let sound out when touched, when opened.
    “But what about the Thomas inside us, Father? The part that needs to see to believe?” Amaka asked. She had that expression that made me wonder if she was serious or not.
    Father Amadi did not respond; instead he made a face, and Amaka laughed, the gap between her teeth wider, more angular, than Aunty Ifeoma’s, as if someone had pried her two front teeth apart with a metal instrument.
    After dinner, we all retired to the living room, and Aunty Ifeoma asked Obiora to turn the TV off so we could pray while Father Amadi was here. Chima had fallen asleep on the sofa, and Obiora leaned against him throughout the rosary. Father Amadi led the first decade, and at the end, he started an Igbo praise song. While they sang, I opened my eyes and stared at the wall, at the picture of the family at Chima’s baptism. Next to it was a grainy copy of the pietà, the wooden frame cracked at the corners. I pressed my lips together, biting my lower lip,so my mouth would not join in the singing on its own, so my mouth would not betray me.
    We put our rosaries away and sat in the living room eating corn and ube and watching
Newsline
on television. I looked up to find Father Amadi’s eyes on me, and suddenly I could not lick the ube flesh from the seed. I could not move my tongue, could not swallow. I was too aware of his eyes, too aware that he was looking at me, watching me. “I haven’t seen you laugh or smile today, Kambili,” he said, finally.
    I looked down at my corn. I wanted to say I was sorry that I did not smile or laugh, but my words would not come, and for a while even my ears could hear nothing.
    “She is shy,” Aunty Ifeoma said.
    I muttered a word I knew was nonsense and stood up and walked into the bedroom, making sure to close the door that led to the hallway. Father Amadi’s musical voice echoed in my ears until I fell asleep.

    Laughter always rang out in Aunty Ifeoma’s house, and no matter where the laughter came from, it bounced around all the walls, all the rooms. Arguments rose quickly and fell just as quickly. Morning and night prayers were always peppered with songs, Igbo praise songs that usually called for hand clapping. Food had little meat, each person’s piece the width of two fingers pressed close together and the length of half a finger. The flat always sparkled—Amaka scrubbed the floors with a stiff brush, Obiora did the sweeping, Chima plumped up the cushions on the chairs. Everybody took turns washing plates. Aunty Ifeoma included Jaja and me in the plate-washing schedule, and after I washed the garri-encrusted lunch plates, Amaka picked them off the tray where I had placed them to dry and soaked them in water. “Is this how you wash plates in your house?” she asked. “Or is plate washing not included in your fancy schedule?”
    I stood there, staring at her, wishing Aunty Ifeoma were there to speak for me. Amaka glared at me for a moment longer and then walked away. She said nothing else to me until her friends came over that afternoon, when Aunty Ifeoma and Jaja were in the garden and the boys were playing football out front. “Kambili, these are my friends from school,” she said, casually.
    The two girls said hello, and I