Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Author:Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Format: epub
Published: 2006-08-13T16:00:00+00:00

When Olanna heard her mother’s raised voice the next morning—“Good-for-nothing! Stupid man!”—she hurried downstairs. She imagined them fighting, her mother grasping the front of her father’s shirt in a tight knot as women often did to cheating husbands. The sounds came from the kitchen. Olanna stopped at the door. A man was kneeling in front of her mother with his hands raised high, palms upward in supplication.

“Madam, please; madam, please.”

Her mother turned to the steward, Maxwell, who stood aside watching. “Ifugo? Does he think we employed him to steal us blind, Maxwell?”

“No, mah,” Maxwell said.

Her mother turned back to the man kneeling on the floor. “So this is what you have been doing since you came here, you useless man? You came here to steal from me?”

“Madam, please; madam, please. I am using God to beg you.”

“Mum, what is it?” Olanna asked.

Her mother turned. “Oh, nne, I didn’t know you were up.”

“What is it?”

“It’s this wild animal here. We employed him only last month, and he already wants to steal everything in my house.” She turned back to the kneeling man. “This is how you repay people for giving you a job? Stupid man!”

“What did he do?” Olanna asked.

“Come and see.” Her mother led her out to the backyard where a bicycle leaned against the mango tree. A woven bag had fallen from the backseat, spilling rice onto the ground.

“He stole my rice and was about to go home. It was only by God’s grace that the bag fell. Who knows what else he has stolen from me in the past? No wonder I have been looking for some of my necklaces.” Her mother was breathing quickly.

Olanna stared at the rice grains on the ground and wondered how her mother could have worked herself up like this over them and if her mother really believed her own outrage.

“Aunty, please beg Madam. It is the devil that made me do it.” The driver’s pleading hands faced Olanna now. “Please beg madam.”

Olanna looked away from the man’s lined face and yellowed eyes; he was older than she had first thought, certainly above sixty. “Get up,” she said.

He looked uncertain, glancing at her mother.

“I said get up!” Olanna had not intended to raise her voice, but it had come out sharp. The man stood up awkwardly, eyes downcast.

“Mum, if you’re going to sack him, then sack him and have him go right away,” Olanna said.

The man gasped, as if he had not expected her to say that. Her mother looked surprised too and glanced at Olanna, at the man, at Maxwell, before she put down the hand placed on her hip. “I will give you one more chance, but don’t ever touch anything in this house unless you are permitted. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, madam. Thank you, madam. God bless you, madam.”

The man was still singing his thanks as Olanna took a banana from the table and left the kitchen.

She told Odenigbo about it on the phone, how it repulsed her to see

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