Purple Hibiscus

unfolded and refolded her wrapper around her waist, knotting it at her side.
    “Why?” Amaka burst out. “Because rich people do not prepare
orah
in their houses? Won’t she participate in eating the
orah
soup?”
    Aunty Ifeoma’s eyes hardened—she was not looking at Amaka, she was looking at me. “
O ginidi
, Kambili, have you no mouth? Talk back to her!”
    I watched a wilted African lily fall from its stalk in the garden. The crotons rustled in the late morning breeze. “You don’t have to shout, Amaka,” I said, finally. “I don’t know how to do the
orah
leaves, but you can show me.” I did not know where the calm words had come from. I did not want to look at Amaka, did not want to see her scowl, did not want to prompt her to say something else to me, because I knew I could not keep up. I thought I was imagining it when I heard the cackling, but then I looked at Amaka—and sure enough, she was laughing.
    “So your voice can be this loud, Kambili,” she said.
    She showed me how to prepare the orah leaves. The slippery, light green leaves had fibrous stalks that did not become tender from cooking and so had to be carefully plucked out. I balanced the tray of vegetables on my lap and set to work, plucking the stalks and putting the leaves in a bowl at my feet. I was done by the time Aunty Ifeoma drove in, about an hour later, and sank onto a stool, fanning herself with a newspaper. Sweat streaks had washed away her pressed powder in parallel lines of darker-colored skin down the sides of her face. Jaja and Obiora were bringing in the foodstuffs from the car, and Aunty Ifeoma asked Jaja to place the bunch of plantains on the verandah floor.
    “Amaka,
ka
? Guess how much?” she asked.
    Amaka stared at the bunch critically before she guessed an amount. Aunty Ifeoma shook her head and said that the plantains had cost forty naira more than what Amaka guessed.
    “Hei! For this small thing?” Amaka shouted.
    “The traders say it is hard to transport their food because there is no fuel, so they add on the costs of transportation,
o di egwu
,” Aunty Ifeoma said.
    Amaka picked up the plantains and pressed each between her fingers, as if she would figure out why they cost so much by doing that. She took them inside just as Father Amadi drove in and parked in front of the flat. His windscreen caught the sun and glittered. He bounded up the few stairs to the verandah, holding his soutane up like a bride holding a wedding dress. He greeted Papa-Nnukwu first, before hugging Aunty Ifeoma and shaking hands with the boys. I extended my hand so that we could shake, my lower lip starting to tremble.
    “Kambili,” he said, holding my hand a little longer than the boys’.
    “Are you going somewhere, Father?” Amaka asked, coming onto the verandah. “You must be baking in that soutane.”
    “I am going over to give some things to a friend of mine, the priest who came back from Papua New Guinea. He returns next week.”
    “Papua New Guinea. How did he say the place is, eh?” Amaka asked.
    “He was telling a story of crossing a river by canoe, with crocodiles right underneath. He said he is not sure which happened first, hearing the teeth of the crocodiles snapping or discovering that he had wet his trousers.”
    “They had better not send you to a place like that,” Aunty Ifeoma said with a laugh, still fanning herself and sipping from a glass of water.
    “I don’t even want to think about your leaving, Father,” Amaka said. “You still don’t have an idea where and when,
okwia
?”
    “No. Sometime next year, perhaps.”
    “Who is sending you?” Papa-Nnukwu asked, in his sudden way that made me realize he had been following every word spoken in Igbo.
    “Father Amadi belongs to a group of priests,
ndi
missionary, and they go to different countries to convert people,” Amaka said. She hardly peppered her speech with English words when she spoke to Papa-Nnukwu, as the rest of us inadvertently did.
    “Ezi okwu
?” Papa-Nnukwu looked up, his milky eye on Father Amadi. “Is that so? Our own sons now go to be missionaries in the white man’s land?”
    “We go to the white man’s land and the black man’s land, sir,” Father Amadi said. “Any place that needs a priest.”
    “It is good, my son. But you must never lie to them. Never teach them to disregard their fathers.” Papa-Nnukwu looked away, shaking his head.
    “Did you hear that, Father?” Amaka asked. “Don’t lie to those poor