Purple Hibiscus

watched the rest of the play. A cool wind had started to blow, chilling the sweat on my body, when Father Amadi blew the final whistle, three times with the last time drawn out. Then the boys clustered around him, heads bowed, while he prayed. “Good-bye, Father!” echoed around as he made his way toward me. There was something confident about his gait, like a rooster in charge of all the neighborhood hens.
    In the car, he played a tape. It was a choir singing Igbo worship songs. I knew the first song: Mama sang it sometimes when Jaja and I brought our report cards home. Father Amadi sang along. His voice was smoother than the lead singer’s on the tape. When the first song ended, he lowered the volume and asked, “Did you enjoy the game?”
    “Yes.”
    “I see Christ in their faces, in the boys’ faces.”
    I looked at him. I could not reconcile the blond Christ hanging on the burnished cross in St. Agnes and the sting-scarred legs of those boys.
    “They live in Ugwu Oba. Most of them don’t go to schoolanymore because their families can’t afford it. Ekwueme—remember him, in the red shirt?”
    I nodded, although I could not remember. All the shirts had seemed similar and colorless.
    “His father was a driver here in the university. But they retrenched him, and Ekwueme had to drop out of Nsukka High School. He is working as a bus conductor now, and he is doing very well. They inspire me, those boys.” Father Amadi stopped talking to join in the chorus.
“I na-asi m esona ya! I na-asi m esona ya
!”
    I nodded in time to the chorus. We really did not need the music, though, because his voice was melody enough. I felt that I was at home, that I was where I had been meant to be for a long time. Father Amadi sang for a while; then he lowered the volume to a whisper again. “You haven’t asked me a single question,” he said.
    “I don’t know what to ask.”
    “You should have learned the art of questioning from Amaka. Why does the tree’s shoot go up and the root down? Why is there a sky? What is life? Just why?”
    I laughed. It sounded strange, as if I were listening to the recorded laughter of a stranger being played back. I was not sure I had ever heard myself laugh.
    “Why did you become a priest?” I blurted out, then wished I had not asked, that the bubbles in my throat had not let that through. Of course he had gotten the call, the same call that all the Reverend Sisters in school talked about when they asked us to always listen for the call when we prayed. Sometimes I imagined God calling me, his rumbling voice British-accented. He would not say my name right; like Father Benedict, hewould place the emphasis on the second syllable rather than the first.
    “I wanted to be a doctor at first. Then I went to church once and heard this priest speak and I was changed forever,” Father Amadi said.
    “Oh.”
    “I was joking,” Father Amadi glanced at me. He looked surprised I did not realize that it was a joke. “It’s a lot more complicated than that, Kambili. I had many questions, growing up. The priesthood came closest to answering them.”
    I wondered what questions they were and if Father Benedict, too, had those questions. Then I thought, with a fierce, unreasonable sadness, how Father Amadi’s smooth skin would not be passed on to a child, how his square shoulders would not balance the legs of his toddler son who wanted to touch the ceiling fan.
    “
Ewo
, I am late for a chaplaincy council meeting,” he said, looking at the clock. “I’ll drop you off and leave right away.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Why? I’ve spent an enjoyable afternoon with you. You must come with me to the stadium again. I will tie your hands and legs up and carry you if I have to.” He laughed.
    I stared at the dashboard, at the blue-and-gold Legion of Mary sticker on it. Didn’t he know that I did not want him to leave, ever? That I did not need to be persuaded to go to the stadium, or anywhere, with him? The afternoon played across my mind as I got out of the car in front of the flat. I had smiled, run, laughed. My chest was filled with something like bath foam. Light. The lightness was so sweet I tasted it on my tongue, the sweetness of an overripe bright yellow cashew fruit.
    Aunty Ifeoma was standing behind Papa-Nnukwu on the verandah, rubbing his shoulders. I greeted them.
    “Kambili,
nno
,” Papa-Nnukwu said. He looked tired; his eyes were dull.
    “Did you enjoy yourself?” Aunty Ifeoma