Purple Hibiscus

what we had seen? Or hadn’t they seen it and felt it, too?
    Father Amadi turned to study me; I saw him from the corner of my eye. There was a gentle smile on his face. Aunty Ifeoma glanced at me, then turned back and faced the road.
    “Kambili is right,” she said. “Something from God was happening there.”
    I WENT WITH FATHER AMADI to say his good-byes to the families on campus. Many of the lecturers’ children clung tightly to him, as if the tighter they held him, the less likely he could break free and leave Nsukka. We did not saymuch to each other. We sang Igbo chorus songs from his cassette player. It was one of those songs—“
Abum onye n’uwa, onye ka m bu n’uwa
”—that eased the dryness in my throat as we got into his car, and I said, “I love you.”
    He turned to me with an expression that I had never seen, his eyes almost sad. He leaned over the gear and pressed his face to mine. I wanted our lips to meet and hold, but he moved his face away. “You are almost sixteen, Kambili. You are beautiful. You will find more love than you will need in a lifetime,” he said. And I did not know whether to laugh or cry. He was wrong. He was so wrong.
    As he drove me home, I looked out of the open window at the compounds we drove past. The gaping holes in the hedges had closed up, and green branches snaked across to meet each other. I wished that I could see the backyards so I could occupy myself with imagining the lives behind the hanging clothes and fruit trees and swings. I wished I could think about something, anything, so that I would no longer feel. I wished I could blink away the liquid in my eyes.
    When I got back, Aunty Ifeoma asked if I was all right, if something was wrong.
    “I’m fine, Aunty,” I said.
    She was looking at me as though she knew I was not fine. “Are you sure,
nne
?”
    “Yes, Aunty.”
    “Brighten up,
inugo
? And please pray for my visa interview. I will leave for Lagos tomorrow.”
    “Oh,” I said, and I felt a new, numbing rush of sadness. “I will, Aunty.” Yet I knew that I would not, could not, pray that she get the visa. I knew it was what she wanted, that she didnot have many other choices. Or any other choices. Still, I would not pray that she get the visa. I could not pray for what I did not want.
    Amaka was in the bedroom, lying in bed, listening to music with the cassette player next to her ear. I sat on the bed and hoped she would not ask me how my day with Father Amadi had gone. She didn’t say anything, just kept nodding to the music.
    “You are singing along,” she said after a while.
    “What?”
    “You were just singing along with Fela.”
    “I was?” I looked at Amaka and wondered if she was imagining things.
    “How will I get Fela tapes in America, eh? Just how will I get them?”
    I wanted to tell Amaka that I was sure she would find Fela tapes in America, and any other tapes that she wanted, but I didn’t. It would mean I assumed that Aunty Ifeoma would get the visa—and besides, I was not sure Amaka wanted to hear that.
    MY STOMACH WAS UNSTEADY until Aunty Ifeoma came back from Lagos. We had been waiting for her on the verandah, although there was power and we could have been inside, watching TV The insects did not buzz around us, perhaps because the kerosene lamp was not on or perhaps because they sensed the tension. Instead, they flitted around the electric bulb above the door, making surprised
thuds
when they bumped against it. Amaka had brought the fan out, and its whir created music with the hum of the refrigerator inside.When a car stopped in front of the flat, Obiora jumped up and ran out.
    “Mom, how did it go? Did you get it?”
    “I got it,” Aunty Ifeoma said, coming onto the verandah.
    “You got the visa!” Obiora screamed, and Chima promptly repeated him, rushing over to hug his mother. Amaka and Jaja and I did not stand; we said welcome to Aunty Ifeoma and watched her go inside to change. She came out soon, with a wrapper tied casually around her chest. The wrapper that stopped above her calves would stop above the ankles of an average-size woman. She sat down and asked Obiora to get her a glass of water.
    “You do not look happy, Aunty,” Jaja said.
    “Oh,
nna m
, I am. Do you know how many people they refuse? A woman next to me cried until I thought that blood would run down her cheeks. She asked them, ‘How can you refuse me a visa? I have shown you that I have money in the bank. How can you say I will not