Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Author:Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Tags: Political, Fiction, Literary, Historical, Nigeria, General
ISBN: 9781400095209
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 2006-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

20

Olanna sat across from her mother in the living room upstairs. Her mother called it the ladies' parlor, because it was where she entertained her friends, where they laughed and hailed each other by their nicknames—Art! Gold! Ugodiya!—and talked about whose son was messing around with women in London while his mates built houses on their fathers' land, and who had bought local lace and tried to pass it off as the latest from Europe, and who was trying to snatch so-and-so's husband, and who had imported superior furniture from Milan. Now, though, the room was muted. Her mother held a glass of tonic water in one hand and a handkerchief in the other. She was crying. She was telling Olanna about her father's mistress.

“He has bought her a house in Ikeja,” her mother said. “My friend lives on the same street.”

Olanna watched the delicate movement of her mother's hand as she dabbed at her eyes. It looked like satin, the handkerchief; it could not possibly be absorbent enough.

“Have you talked to him?” Olanna asked.

“What am I to say to him?Gwa ya gini?” Her mother placed the glass down. She had not sipped from it since one of the maids brought it in on a silver tray. “There is nothing I can say to him. I just wanted to let you know what is happening so that they will not say I did not tell somebody.”

“I'll talk to him,” Olanna said. It was what her mother wanted. She had been back from London a day, and already the glow of possibility that came after she saw the Kensington gynecologist was dulled. Already she could not remember the hope that spread through her when he said there was nothing wrong with her and she had only to—he had winked—work harder. Already she wished she were back in Nsukka.

“The worst part of it is that the woman is common riffraff,” her mother said, twisting the handkerchief. “A Yoruba goat from the bush with two children from two different men. I hear she is old and ugly.”

Olanna got up. As if it mattered what the woman looked like. As if “old and ugly” did not describe her father as well. What troubled her mother was not the mistress, she knew, but the significance of what her father had done: buying the mistress a house in a neighborhood where Lagos socialites lived.

“Maybe we should wait for Kainene to visit so she can talk to your father instead, nne?” her mother said, dabbing at her eyes again.

“I said I would talk to him, Mom,” Olanna said.

But that evening, as she walked into her father's room, she realized that her mother was right. Kainene was the best person for this. Kainene would know exactly what to say and would not feel the awkward ineptness that she did now, Kainene with her sharp edges and her bitter tongue and her supreme confidence.

“Dad,” she said, closing the door behind her. He was at his desk, sitting on the straight-backed chair made of dark wood.

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