Purple Hibiscus

bright-eyed.” Amaka was laughing.
    I did not know whether or not she was serious. I did not want to dwell on how strange it felt discussing whether or not I had had sex with Father Amadi.
    “Maybe when we are in the university you will join me in agitating for optional celibacy in the priesthood?” Amaka asked. “Or maybe fornication should be permitted all priests once in a while. Say, once a month?”
    “Amaka, please stop it.” I turned and walked to the verandah.
    “Do you want him to leave the priesthood?” Amaka sounded more serious now.
    “He will never leave.”
    Amaka tilted her head thoughtfully, and then smiled. “You never know,” she said, before walking into the living room.
    I copied Father Amadi’s German address over and over in my notebook. I was copying it again, trying at different writingstyles, when he came back. He took the notebook from me and closed it. I wanted to say, “I will miss you” but instead I said, “I will write you.”
    “I will write you first,” he said.
    I did not know that tears slipped down my cheeks until Father Amadi reached out and wiped them away, running his open palm over my face. Then he enclosed me in his arms and held me.
    AUNTY IFEOMA COOKED DINNER for Father Amadi, and we all ate the rice and beans at the dining table. I knew that there was much laughter, much talk about the stadium and about remembering, but I did not feel that I was involved. I was busy locking little parts of me up, because I would not need them if Father Amadi was not here.
    I did not sleep well that night; I tossed around so often that I woke Amaka up. I wanted to tell her about my dream where a man chased me down a rocky path littered with bruised allamanda leaves. First the man was Father Amadi, his soutane flying behind him, then it was Papa, in the floor-length gray sack he wore when he distributed ash on Ash Wednesday. But I didn’t tell her. I let her hold and soothe me like a little child, until I fell asleep. I was glad to wake up, glad to see morning stream in through the window in shimmering strips the color of a ripe orange.
    THE PACKING WAS DONE ; the hallway looked oddly big now that the bookshelves were gone. In Aunty Ifeoma’s room, only a few things remained on the floor, the things we would use until we all left for Enugu: a bag of rice, a tin ofmilk, a tin of Boumvita. The other cartons and boxes and books had been cleared up or given away. When Aunty Ifeoma gave some clothes to the neighbors, the woman from the flat upstairs told her, “
Mh
, why won’t you give me that blue dress you wear to church? After all, you will get more in America!”
    Aunty Ifeoma had narrowed her eyes, annoyed. I was not sure if it was because the woman was asking for the dress or because she had brought up America. But she did not give her the blue dress.
    There was restlessness in the air now, as if we had all packed everything too quickly and too well and we needed something else to do.
    “We have fuel, let’s go for a drive,” Aunty Ifeoma suggested.
    “A good-bye tour of Nsukka,” Amaka said, with a wry smile.
    We piled into the car. It swerved as Aunty Ifeoma turned onto the stretch of road bordered by the faculty of engineering, and I wondered if it would crash into the gutter and then Aunty Ifeoma would not get the fair rate she said a man in town had offered for it. She had also said that the money she would get for the car would pay only for Chima’s ticket, which was half the full price of a ticket.
    Since my dream, the night before, I had had a feeling that something big would happen. Father Amadi would come back; it had to be what would happen. Maybe there was a mistake in his departure date; maybe he had postponed his trip. So as Aunty Ifeoma drove, I looked at the cars on the road, seeking Father Amadi, looking for that pastel-colored small Toyota.
    Aunty Ifeoma stopped at the foot of Odim hill and said, “Let’s climb to the top.”
    I was surprised. I was not sure Aunty Ifeoma had planned to have us climb up the hill; it sounded like something she had said on impulse. Obiora suggested we have a picnic up the hill, and Aunty Ifeoma said it was a good idea. We drove to town and bought moi-moi and bottles of Ribena from Eastern Shop and then came back to the hill. The climb was easy because there were many zigzagging paths. There was a fresh smell in the air and, once in a while, a crackling in the long grass that bordered the paths.
    “The