Purple Hibiscus

us, what we needed was a renewed democracy.
Renewed Democracy
. It sounded important, the way he said it, but then most of what Papa said sounded important. He liked to lean back and look upwards when he talked, as though he were searching for something in the air. I would focus on his lips, the movement, and sometimes I forgot myself, sometimes I wanted to stay like that forever, listening to his voice, to the important things he said. It was the same way I felt when he smiled, his face breaking open like a coconut with the brilliant white meat inside.
    The day after the coup, before we left for evening benediction at St. Agnes, we sat in the living room and read the newspapers; our vendor delivered the major papers every morning, four copies each, on Papa’s orders. We read the
Standard
first. Only the
Standard
had a critical editorial, calling on the new military government to quickly implement a return to democracy plan. Papa read one of the articles in
Nigeria Today
out aloud, an opinion column by a writer who insisted that it was indeed time for a military president, since the politicians had gone out of control and our economy was in a mess.
    “The
Standard
would never write this nonsense,” Papa said, putting the paper down. “Not to talk of calling the man a ‘president.’”
    “‘President’ assumes he was elected,” Jaja said. “‘Head of state’ is the right term.”
    Papa smiled, and I wished I had said that before Jaja had.
    “The
Standard
editorial is well done,” Mama said.
    “Ade is easily the best out there,” Papa said, with an offhand pride, while scanning another paper. “‘Change of Guard.’ Whata headline. They are all afraid. Writing about how corrupt the civilian government was, as if they think the military will not be corrupt. This country is going down, way down.”
    “God will deliver us,” I said, knowing Papa would like my saying that.
    “Yes, yes,” Papa said, nodding. Then he reached out and held my hand, and I felt as though my mouth were full of melting sugar.

    In the following weeks, the newspapers we read during family time sounded different, more subdued. The
Standard
, too, was different; it was more critical, more questioning than it used to be. Even the drive to school was different. The first week after the coup, Kevin plucked green tree branches every morning and stuck them to the car, lodged above the number plate, so that the demonstrators at Government Square would let us drive past. The green branches meant Solidarity. Our branches never looked as bright as the demonstrators’, though, and sometimes as we drove past, I wondered what it would be like to join them, chanting “Freedom,” standing in the way of cars.
    In later weeks, when Kevin drove past Ogui Road, there were soldiers at the roadblock near the market, walking around, caressing their long guns. They stopped some cars and searched them. Once, I saw a man kneeling on the road beside his Peugeot 504, with his hands raised high in the air.
    But nothing changed at home. Jaja and I still followed our schedules, still asked each other questions whose answers we already knew. The only change was Mama’s belly: it started to bulge, softly and subtly. At first it looked like a deflated football, but by Pentecost Sunday, it had elevated her red and gold-embroidered church wrapper just enough to hint that it was not just the layer of cloth underneath or the knotted end of the wrapper. The altar was decorated in the same shade of red as Mama’s wrapper. Red was the color of Pentecost. The visiting priest said Mass in a red robe that seemed too short for him. He was young, and he looked up often as he read the gospel, his brown eyes piercing the congregation. He kissed the Bible slowly when he was done. It could have seemed dramatic if someone else had done it, but with him it was not. It seemed real. He was newly ordained, waiting to be assigned a parish, he told us. He and Father Benedict had a close mutual friend, and he was pleased when Father Benedict asked him to visit and say Mass. He did not say how beautiful our St. Agnes altar was, though, with its steps that glowed like polished ice blocks. Or that it was one of the best altars in Enugu, perhaps even in the whole of Nigeria. He did not suggest, as all the other visiting priests had, that God’s presence dwelled more in St. Agnes, that the iridescent saints on the floor-to-ceiling stained-glass windows stopped God from leaving. And