Purple Hibiscus

fridge when we heard Papa coming.
    LUNCH WAS YAM PORRIDGE , the smell wafting around the house even before we went to the dining table. It smelled good—pieces of dried fish drifting in yellow sauce alongside the greens and cubed yams. After prayers, as Mamadished out the food, Papa said, “These pagan funerals are expensive. One fetish group will ask for a cow, then a witch doctor will demand a goat for some god of stone, then another cow for the hamlet and another for the
umuada
. Nobody ever asks why the so-called gods don’t ever eat the animals and instead greedy men share the meat among themselves. The death of a person is just an excuse for heathens to feast.”
    I wondered why Papa was saying this, what had prompted him. The rest of us remained silent while Mama finished dishing out the food.
    “I sent Ifeoma money for the funeral. I gave her all she needed,” Papa said. After a pause, he added, “For
nna anyi’s
funeral.”
    “Thanks be to God,” Mama said, and Jaja and I repeated her.
    Sisi came in before we finished lunch to tell Papa that Ade Coker was at the gate with another man. Adamu had asked them to wait at the gate; he always did that when people visited during weekend meal times. I expected Papa to ask them to wait on the patio until we finished lunch, but he told Sisi to have Adamu let them in and to open the front door. He said the prayer after meals while we still had food on our plates and then asked us to keep eating, he would be right back.
    The guests came in and sat down in the living room. I could not see them from the dining table, but while I ate, I tried hard to make out what they were saying. I knew Jaja was listening, too. I saw the way his head was slightly tilted, his eyes focused on the empty space in front of him. They were talking in low tones, but it was easy to make out the name Nwankiti Ogechi, especially when Ade Coker spoke, becausehe did not lower his voice as much as Papa and the other man did.
    He was saying that Big Oga’s assistant—Ade Coker referred to the head of state as Big Oga even in his editorials—had called to say that Big Oga was willing to give him an exclusive interview. “But they want me to cancel the Nwankiti Ogechi story. Imagine the stupid man, he said they knew some useless people had told me stories that I planned to use in my piece and that the stories were lies…”
    I heard Papa interrupt in a low voice, and the other man added something afterward, something about the Big People in Abuja not wanting such a story out now that the Commonwealth Nations were meeting.
    “You know what this means? My sources were right. They have really wasted Nwankiti Ogechi,” Ade Coker said. “Why didn’t they care when I did the last story about him? Why do they care now?”
    I knew what story Ade was referring to, since it was in the
Standard
about six weeks ago, right around the time Nwankiti Ogechi first disappeared without a trace. I remembered the huge black question mark above the caption “Where is Nwankiti?” And I remembered that the article was full of worried quotes from his family and colleagues. It was nothing like the first
Standard
feature I’d read about him, titled “A Saint among Us,” which had focused on his activism, on his pro-democracy rallies that filled the stadium at Surulere.
    “I am telling Ade we should wait, sir,” the other guest was saying. “Let him do the interview with Big Oga. We can do the Nwankiti Ogechi story later.”
    “No way!” Ade burst out, and if I had not known that slightlyshrill voice, it would have been hard for me to imagine the round, laughing Ade sounding that way, so angry. “They don’t want Nwankiti Ogechi to become an issue now. Simple! And you know what it means, it means they have wasted him! Which one is for Big Oga to try and bribe me with an interview? I ask you, eh, which one is that?”
    Papa cut him short then, but I could not hear much of what he said, because he spoke in low, soothing tones, as though he were calming Ade down. The next thing I heard him say was, “Come, let us go to my study. My children are eating.”
    They walked past us on their way upstairs. Ade smiled as he greeted us, but it was a strained smile. “Can I come and finish the food for you?” he teased me, making a mock attempt to swoop down on my food.
    After lunch, as I sat in my room, studying, I tried hard to hear what Papa and Ade Coker were saying in the study. But I couldn’t. Jaja walked