CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE

•
Half of a Yellow Sun
FROM Zoetrope: All-Story

(Editor's note: This story was originally workshopped at the Zoetrope

The Igbo say that a mature eagle feather will always remain spotless.
It was the kind of day in the middle of the rainy season when
the sun felt like an orange flame placed close to my skin, yet it was
raining, and I remembered when I was a child, when I would run
around on days like this and sing songs about the dueling sun and
rain, urging the sun to win. The lukewarm raindrops mixed with
my sweat and ran down my face as I walked back to my hostel after
the rally in Nsukka. I was still holding the placard ,that read RE-
MEMBER THE MASSACRES, still marveling at my new- at OUr
new- identity. It was late May, Ojukwu had just announced the
secession, and we were no longer Nigerians. We were Biafrans.
When we gathered· in Freedom Square for the rally, 'thousands
of us students shouted Igbo songs and swayed, riverlike. Some-
body said that in the market outside our campus, the women were
dancing, giving away groundnuts and mangoes. Nnamdi and I
stood next to each other and our shoulders touched as we waved
green dogonyaro branches and cardboard placards. Nnamdi's
placard read SECESSION NOW. Even though he was one of the stu-
dent leaders, he chose to be with me in the crowd. The other lead-
 Half ofa Yellow Sun I 3
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie I 2

all of Black Africa!" somebody said. '1\h, Biafra will save Africa!"
ers were in front carrying a coffin with NIGERIA written on it in
another said. We laughed, deliriously proud of people we would
white chalk. When they dug a shallow hole and buried the coffin, a
never even know.
cheer rose and snaked around the crowd, uniting us, elevating us,
We laughed more in the following weeks - we laughed when
until it was one cheer, until we all became one.
our expatriate lecturers went back to Britain and India and Amer-
I cheered loudly, although the coffin reminded me of Aunty
ica, because even if war came, it would take us only one week to
Ifeka, Mama's half sister, the woman whose breast I sucked be-
crush Nigeria. We laughed at the Nigerian navy ships blocking our
cause Mama's dried up after I was born. Aunty Ifeka was killed
during the massacres in the north. So was Arize, her pregnant ports, because the blockade could not possibly last. We laughed as
we gathered under the gmelina trees to ·discuss Biafra' s future
daughter. They must have cut open Arize' s stomach and beheaded
foreign policy, as we took down the UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA,
the baby first - it was what they did to the pregnant women. I
NSUKKA sign and replaced it with UNIVERSITY OF BIAFRA,
didrit tell Nnamdi that I was thinking of Aunty Ifeka and Arize
NSUKKA. Nnamdi hammered in the first nail. He was first, too, to
again. Not because I had lost only two relatives while he had lost
three uncles and six cousins. But because he would caress my face join the Biafran Army, before the rest of his friends followed. I
went with him to the army enlistment office, which still smelled of
and say, 'Tve told you, dorit dwell on the massacres. Isrit it why we
fresh paint, to collect his uniform. He looked so broad-shouldered
seceded? Biafra is born! Dwell on that instead. We will turn our
pain into a mighty nation, we will turn our pain into the pride of in it, so capable, and later I did not let him take it all off; I held on
to the grainy khaki shirt as he moved inside me.
Africa." My life- our lives -had taken on a sheen. A sheen like pat-
Nnamdi was like that; sometimes I looked at him and saw what
he would have been two hundred years before: an Igbo warrior ent leather. We all felt as if liquid steel, instead of blood, flowed
leading his hamlet in battle (but only a fair battle), shouting and through our veins, as if we could stand barefoot over red-hot
charging with his fire-warmed machete, returning with the most embers.
I heard the guns from my hostel room. They sounded close, like
heads lolling on sticks.
I was in front of my hostel when the rain stopped; the sun had thunder funneling up from the lounge. Somebody was shouting
won the fight. Inside the lounge, crowds of girls were singing. outside with a loudspeaker. Evacuate now! Evacuate now! There
Girls I had seen struggle at the water pump and hit each other was the sound of feet, frenzied feet, in the hallway. I threw things
with plastic buckets, girls who had cut holes in each other's bras as into a suitcase, nearly forgetting my underwear in the drawer. As I
they hung out to dry, now held hands and sang. Instead of"Nige- left the hostel, I saw a girf s stylish sandal left lying on the stairs.
ria, we hail thee," they sang, "Biafra, we hail thee." I joined them,
singing, clapping, talking. We did not mention the massacres, the The Igbo say who knows how water entered the stalk ofa pumpkin?
way Igbos had been hunted house to house, pulled from where The air in Enugu smelled of rain and fresh grass and hope and
they crouched in trees, by bright-eyed people screaming jihad, new anthills. I watched as market traders and grandmothers and
screaming Nyamiri, nyamiri. Instead, we talked about Ojukwu, little boys hugged Nnamdi, caressed his army uniform. Justifiable
how his speeches brought tears to our eyes and goose bumps to heroism, Obi called it. Obi was thirteen, my bespectacled brother
our skin, how easily his charisma would make him stand out who read a book a day and went to the Advanced School for Gifted
among other leaders - Nkurumah would look like a plastic doll Children and was researching the African origin of Greek civiliza-
next to him. "Imakwa, Biafra has more doctors and lawyers than tion. He didrit just touch Nnamdi's uniform, he wanted to try it
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie I 4 Half ofa Yellow Sun I 5

on, wanted to know exactly what the guns sounded like. Mama in- we created car engines from scrap metal, we refined crude oil in
vited Nnamdi over and made him a mango pie. ttYour uniform is cooking pots, we had perfected a homegrown mine. The blockade
so debonair, darling," she said, and hung around him as ifhe were would not deter us. Often we ended those evenings by telling each
her son, as if she had not muttered that I was too young, that his other, ttWe have a just cause," as if we did not already know. Neces-
family was not quite ttsuitable," when we got engaged a year ago. sary affirmation, Obi called it.
Papa suggested Nnamdi and I get married right away, so that It was on one of those evenings that a friend dropped by to say
Nnamdi could wear his uniform at the wedding and our first son that Nnamdi's battalion had conquered Benin, that Nnamdi was
could be named Biafrus. Papa was joking, of course, but perhaps fine. We toasted Nnamdi with palm wine~ ttTo our future son-in-
because something had weighed on my chest since Nnamdi en- law," Papa said, raising his mug toward nie. Papa let Obi drink as
tered the army, I imagined having a child now. A child with skin much as he wanted. Papa was a cognac man, but he couldrit find
the color of a polished mahogany desk, like his. When I told Remy Martin even on the black market, because of the blockade.
Nnamdi about this, about the distant longing somewhere inside After a few mugs Papa said, with his upper lip coated in white
me, he pricked his thumb, pricked mine, and, although he was foam, that he preferred palm wine now: at least he didrit have to
not usually superstitious, we smeared our blood together. Then we drink it in snifters. And we all laughed too loudly.
laughed because we were not even sure what the hell that meant
exactly. The Igbo say the walking ground squirrel sometimes breaks into a trot,
in case the need to run arises.
The Igbo say that the maker ofthe lion does not let the lion eat grass. Enugu fell on the kind of day in the middle of the harmattan
I watched Nnamdi go, watched until the red dust had covered when the wind blew hard, carrying dust and bits of paper and
his boot prints, and felt the moistness of pride on my skin, in my dried leaves, covering hair and clothes with a fine brown film.
eyes. Pride at his smart olive uniform with the image of the sun Mama and I were cooking pepper soup - I cut up the tripe while
rising halfway on the sleeve. It was the same symbol, half of a yel- Mama ground the peppers -when we heard the guns. At first I
low sun, that was tacked onto the garish cotton tie Papa now wore thought it was thunder, the rumbling thunder that preceded
to his new job at the War Research Directorate every day. Papa ig- harmattan storms. It couldrit be the Federal guns because Radio
nored all his other ties, the silk ones, the symbol-free ones. And Biafra said the Federals were far away, being driven back. But Papa
Mama, elegant Mama with the manicured nails, sold some ofher dashed into the kitchen moments later, his cotton tie skewed. ttGet
London-bought dresses and organized a womeris group at St. in the car now!" he said. ttNow! Our directorate is evacuating."
Paurs to sew for the soldiers. I joined the group; we sewed singlets We didrit know what to take. Mama took her manicure kit, her
and sang Igbo songs. Afterward, Mama and I walked home (we small radio, clothes, the pot of half-cooked pepper soup wrapped
didritdrive, to save petrol), and when Papa came home in the eve- in a dish towel. I snatched a packet of crackers. Obi grabbed the
nings, during those slow months, we would sit on the veranda and books on the dining table. As we drove away in Papa's Peugeot,
eat fresh anara with groundnut paste and listen to Radio Biafra, Mama said we would be back soon anyway, our troops would re-
the kerosene lamp casting amber shadows all around. Radio Bia- cover Enugu. So it didrit matter that all her lovely china was left
fra brought stories of victories, of Nigerian corpses lining the behind, our radiogram, her new wig imported from Paris in that
roads. And from the War Research Directorate, Papa brought sto- case of such an unusual lavender color. ttMy leather-bound books,"
ries of our people's genius: we made brake fluid from coconut oil, Obi added. I was grateful that nobody brought up the Biafran sol-
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 1 6 Half ofa Yellow Sun I 7

diers we saw dashing past, on the retreat. I did:rit want to imagine pieces of meat, the black-spotted bananas. The flies looked health-
Nnamdi like that, running like a chicken drenched by heavy rain. ier, fresher, than the meats and fruits. I looked over everything, I
Papa stopped the car often to wipe the dust off the windscreen, insisted, as if it were th~ peacetime market and I still had the lei-
and he drove at a crawl, because of the crowds. Women with ba- sure that came with choice. In the end, I bought cassava, always,
bies tied to their backs, pulling at toddlers, carrying pots on their because it was the most filling and economical. Sickly tubers, the
heads. Men pulling goats and bicycles, carrying wood boxes and ones with grisly pink skin. We had never eaten those before. I told
yams. Children, so many children. The dust swirled all around Mama, half teasing, that they could be poisonous .. And Mama
like a translucent brown blanket. An exodus clothed in dusty hope. laughed and said, "People are eating the peels now, honey. It used
It took a while before it struck me that, like these people, we were to be goat food."
now refugees. The months crawled past and I noted them when my periods
came, scant, more mud-colored than red now. I worried about
The Igbo say that the place from where one wakes up is his home. Nnamdi, that he would not find us, that something would hap-
Papa's old friend Akubueze was a man with a sad smile whose pen to him and nobody would know where to find me. I followed
greeting was "God bless Biafra." He had lost all his children in the the news on Radio Biafra carefully, although Radio Nigeria inter-
massacres. As he showed us the smoke-blackened kitchen and pit cepted the signal so often now. Deliberate jamming, Obi called it.
latrine and room with the stained walls, J wanted to cry. Not be- Radio Biafra described the thousands of Federal bodies floating on
cause of the room we would rent from Akubueze, but because of the Niger. Radio Nigeria listed the thousands of dead and defect-
Akubueze. Because of the apology in his eyes. I placed our raffia ing Biafran soldiers. I listened to both with equal attention, and af-
sleeping mats at the comers of the room, next to our bags and terward, I created my own truths and inhabited them, believed
food. But the radio stayed in the center of the room, and we walked them.
around it every day, listened to it, cleaned it. We sang along when
the soldiers' marching songs were broadcast. We are Biafrans, The Igbo say that unless a snake shows its venom, little children will use
fighting for survival, in the name ofjesus, we shall conquer, hip hop, it for tying.firewood.
one two. Sometimes the people in the yard joined us, our new Nnamdi appeared at our door on a dry-aired morning, with a
neighbors. Singing meant that we did not have to wonder aloud scar above his eye and the skin ofhis face stretched too thin and
about our old house with the marble staircase and airy verandas. his worn trousers barely staying on his. waist. Mam~ dashed out to
Singing meant we did not have to acknowledge aloud that Enugu the market and bought three chicken necks and two wings, and
remained fallen and that the War ·Research Directorate was no fried them in a little palm oil. ~~Especially for Nnamdi," she said
longer paying salaries and what Papa got now was an "allowance." gaily. Mama, who used to make coq au vin without a cookbook.
Papa gave every note, even the white slip with his name and ID I took Nnamdi to the nearby farm that had been harvested too
number printed in smudgy ink, to Mama. I would look at the early. All the farms looked that way now, raided at night, raided of
money and think how much prettier than Nigerian pounds Bia- corn ears so tender they had not yet formed kernels and yams so
fran pounds were, the elegant writing, the bold faces. Bu,t they young they were barely the size of my fist. Harvest of desperation,
could buy so little at the market. Obi called it. Nnamdi pulled me down to the ground, under an
The market was a cluster of dusty, sparse tables. There were ukpaka tree. I could feel his bones through his skin. He scratched
more flies than food, the flies buzzing thickly over the graying my back, bit my sweaty neck, held me down so hard I felt the sand
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie / 8 Ha!f ofa Yellow Sun / 9

pierce my skin. And he stayed inside me so long, so tightly, that I bombings are normal," Obi said, shaking his head. He picked a
felt our hearts were pumping blood at the same rhythm. I wished cool spot under the kolanut tree for our classroom. I placed planks
in a twisted way that the war would never end so that it would al- across cement blocks for benches, a wooden sheet against the
ways have this quality, like nutmeg, tart and lasting. Afterward, tree for a blackboard. I taught English, Obi taught mathematics
Nnamdi started to cry. I had never even considered that he could and history, and the children did not whisper and giggle in his
cry. He said the British were giving more arms to Nigeria, Nigeria classes as they did in mine. He seemed to hold them somehow, as
had Russian planes and Egyptian pilots, the Americans didrit he talked and gestured and scrawled on the board with charcoal
want to help us, we were still blockaded, his battalion was down to (when he ran his hands over his sweaty face, they left black pat-
two men using one gun, some battalions had resorted to machetes terns like a design).
and cutlasses. uDidrit they kill babies in the north for being born Perhaps it was that he mixed learning and playing - once he
Igbo, eh?" he asked. asked the children to role-play the Berlin Conference. They be-
I pressed my face to his, but he wouldrit stop crying. ttis there a came Europeans partitioning Africa, giving hills and rivers to each
God?" he asked me. ttis there a God?" So I held him close and lis- other although they didrit know where the hills and rivers were.
tened to him cry, and listened to the shrilling of the crickets. He Obi played Bismarck. ttMy contribution to the young Biafrans, our
said goodbye two days later, holding me too long. Mama gave him leaders of tomorrow," he said, glowing with mischief.
a small bag ofboiled rice. I laughed, because he seemed to forget that he too was a future
I hoarded that memory, and every other memory of Nnamdi, Biafran leader. Sometimes even I forgot how young he was. ttDo
used each sparingly. I used them most during the air raids, when you remember when I used to half-chew your beef and then put it
the screeching ka-ka-ka of the antiaircraft guns disrupted a hot in your mouth so it would be easier for you to chew?" I teased.
afternoon and everybody in the yard dashed to the bunker - the And Obi made a face and said he did not remember.
room-size hole in the ground covered with logs- and slid into The classes were in the morning, before the afternoon sun
the moist earth underneath. Exhilarating, Obi called it, even though turned fierce. After the classes, Obi and I joined the local militia
he got scratches and cuts. I would smell the organic walls and - a mix of young people and married women and injured men -
floor, like a freshly tilled farm, and watch the children crawl around and went combing, to root out Federal soldiers or Biafran sabo-
looking for crickets and earthworms, until the bombing stopped. I teurs hiding in the bush, although all we found were dried fruits
would rub the soil between my fingers and savor thoughts of and groundnuts. We talked about dead. Nigerians, we talked about
Nnamdi's teeth, tongue, voice. the braveness of the French and Tanzanians in supporting Biafra,
the evil of the British. We did not talk about dead Biafrans. We
The Igbo say let us salute the deaf, for ifthe heavens don't hear, then the talked about anti-kwash too, how it really worked, how many chil-
earth will hear. dren in the early stages of kwashiorkor had been cured. I knew
So many things became transient, and more valuable. I savored that anti-kwash was absolute nonsense, that those leaves were
a plate of cornmeal that tasted like cloth, because I might have to from a tree nobody used to eat; they filled the childreris bellies but
leave it and run into the bunker, because when I came out a neigh- gave no nourishment, definitely no protein. But we needed to be-
bor might have eaten it or given it to one of the children. lieve stories like that. When you were stripped down to sickly cas-
Obi suggested that we teach classes for those children, so many sava, you used everything else fiercely and selfishly - especially
of them running around the yard chasing lizards. ttThey think the discretion to choose what to believe and what not to believe.
 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 1 10 Ha!f of a Yellow Sun I 11

I enjoyed those stories we told, the lull of our voices, until one tered in the kitchen, cooking and talking about salt. There was salt
day; we were at an abandoned farm wading through tall grass in Nigeria; salt was the reason our people were crossing the border
when we stumbled upon something. A body. I smelled it before I to the other side, salt was the reason a woman down the road was
saw it, an odor that gagged me, suffocated me, left me light- said to have run out of her kitchen and torn her clothes off and
headed. "Hei! He's a Nigerian!" a woman said. The flies rose from rolled in the dirt, wailing. I sat on the kitchen floor and listened to
the bloated body of the Nigerian soldier as we gathered around. the chatter and tried to remember what salt tasted like. It seemed
His skin was ashy, his eyes were open, his tribal marks were thick, surreal now, that we had a crystal saltshaker back home. That I
eerie lines running across his swollen face. "I wish we had seen had even wasted salt, rinsing away the. clumpy bottom before
him alive," a young boy said. "Nkakwu, ugly rat," somebody else refilling the shaker. Fresh salt. I interspersed thoughts ofNnamdi
said. A young girl spat at the body. Vultures landed a few feet away. with thoughts of salty food.
A woman vomited. Nobody suggested burying him. I stood there, And when Akubueze told us that our old pastor, Father Damian,
dizzy from the smell and the buzzing flies and the heat, and won- was working in a refugee camp in Amandugba, two towns away, I
dered how he had died, what his life had been like. I wondered thought about salt. Akubueze was not sure; stories drifted around
about his family. A wife who would be looking outside, her eyes on about so many people being in so many places. Still, I suggested to
the road, for news of her husband. Little children who would be Mama that we go and see Father Damian. Mama said yes, we
told, "Papa will be home soon." A mother who had cried when would go to see if he was well, it had been two long years since we
he left. Brothers and sisters and cousins. I imagined the things he saw him. I humored her and said it had been long - as if we still
left behind - clothes, a prayer mat, a wooden cup used to drink paid social calls. We did not say anything about the food Caritas
kunu. Internationalis sent to priests by secret night flights, the food the
I started to cry. priests gave away, the corned beef and glucose and dried milk.
Obi held me and looked at me with a calm disgust. "It was And salt.
people like him who killed Aunty Ifeka," Obi said. "It was people Father Damian was thinner, with hollows and shadows on his
like him who beheaded unborn babies." I brushed Obi away and face. But he looked healthy next to the children in the refugee
kept crying. camp. Stick-thin children whose bones stuck out, so unnaturally,
so sharply. Children with rust-colored hair and stomachs like bal-
The Igbo say that a fish that does not swallow other fish does not loons. Children whose eyes were swqllowed deep' in their faces.
grow fat. Father Damian introduced Mama and me to the other priests,
There was no news of Nnamdi. When neighbors heard from Irish missionaries of the Holy Ghost, white men with sun-red-
their sons or husbands on the front, I hung around their rooms dened skin and smiles so brave I wanted to tug at their faces and
for days, willing their good fortunes to mysel£ "Nnamdi is fine," see if they were real. Father Damian talked a lot about his work,
Obi said in a tone so normal I wanted to believe him. He said it of- about the dying children, but Mama kept changing the subject.
ten during those months of boiled cassava, months of moldy yams, It was so unlike her, something she would call "unmannered"
months when we shared our dreams of vegetable oil and fish if somebody else did it. Father Damian finally stopped talking
and salt. about the children, about kwashiorkor, and he looked almost dis-
Because of the neighbors, I hid what little food we had, wrapped appointed as he watched us leave, Mama holding the bag of salt
in a mat and stuck behind the door. The neighbors hid their own and corned beef and fish powder he had given us.
food, too. In the evenings, we all unwrapped our food and clus- "Why was Father Damian telling us about those children?"
 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 1 12 Half ofa Yellow Sun I 13

Mama shouted as we walked home. "What can we do for them?" I talked less about Biafra and more about the past, like did I remem-
calmed her down, told her he probably just needed to talk to some- ber how Mama used to give herself facials with a paste of honey
one about his work and did she remember how he used to sing and milk? And did I remember the soursop tree in our backyard,
those silly, off-tune songs at church bazaars to make the children how the yellow bees formed columns on it? Mama went to Alba-
laugh? tross Hospital and dropped the names of all the famous doctors
But Mama kept shouting. And I too began shouting, the words she had known in Enugu, so that the doctor would see her before
tumbling out of my mouth. Why the hell did Father Damian tell us the hundreds of women thronging the corridors. It worked, and
about those dying children, anyway? Did we need to know? Didrtt he gave her diarrhea tablets. He could spare only five and told her
we have enough to deal with? to break each in two so they would last. long enough to control
Shouting. A man walked up the street, beating a metal gong, Obi's diarrhea. Mama said she doubted that the "doctor" had even
asking us to pray for the good white people who were flying food reached his fourth year in medical school, but this was Biafra two
in for the relief center, the new one they set up in St. Johns. Not all years into the war, and medical students had to play doctors be-
white people were killers, gong, gong, gong, not all were arming the cause the real doctors were cutting off arms and legs to keep peo-
Nigerians, gong, gong, gong. ple alive. Then Mama said that part of the roof of Albatross Hospi-
At the relief center, I fought hard, kicking through the crowds, tal had been blown off during an air raid. I didrtt know what was
risking the flogging militia. I lied, cajoled, begged. I spoke British- funny about that, but Obi laughed, and Mama joined in, and
accented English to show how educated I was, to distinguish my- finally I did too.
self from the common villagers, and afterward I felt tears building Obi was still sick, still in bed, when Ihuoma came running into
up, as if I only had to blink and they would flow down. But I didrtt our room. Her daughter was lying in the yard, inhaling a foul con-
blink as I walked home, I kept my eyes roundly open, my hands coction of spices and urine that somebody said cured asthma.
tightly wrapped around whatever food I got. When I got food. "The soldiers are coming," Ihuoma said. She was a simple
Dried egg yolk. Dried milk. Dried fish. Cornmeal. woman, a market trader, the kind of woman who would have had
Shell-shocked soldiers in filthy shirts roamed around the relief nothing· in common with Mama before Biafra. But now she and
center, muttering gibberish, children running away from them. Mama plaited each other's hair every week. ~~Hurry," she said.
They followed me, first begging, then trying to snatch my food. I ~~Bring Obi to the outer room- he can hide in the ceiling!" It took
shoved at them and cursed them and spat in their direction. Once me a moment to understand, although Mama was already helping
I shoved so hard one of the men fell down, and I didrtt turn to see Obi up, rushing him out of the room. We had heard that the
if he got up all right. I didrtt want to imagine, either, that they had Biafran soldiers were conscripting young men, children really,
once been proud Biafran soldiers, like Nnamdi. and taking them to the front, that it had happened in the yard
down our street a week ago, although Obi said he doubted they
Perhaps it was the food from the relief center that made Obi sick, had really taken a twelve-year-old. We heard too that the mother of
or all the other things we ate, the things we brushed blue mold the boy was from Abakaliki, where people cut their hair when
from, or picked ants out of. He threw up, and when he was emp- their children died, and after she watched them take her son, she
tied, he still retched and clutched at his belly. Mama brought in an took a razor and shaved all her hair off.
old bucket for him, helped him use it, took it out afterward. I'm a The soldiers came shortly after Obi and two other boys climbed
chamber-pot man, Obi joked. He still taught his classes but he into a hole in the ceiling, a hole that had appeared when the wood
 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie I 14 Ha!f of a Yellow Sun I 15

gave way after a bombing. Four soldiers with bony bodies and about the street, some painfully close to the bunker entrance, were
tired eyes. I asked if they knew Nnamdi, if they'd heard of him, still quivering, writhing. They reminded me of the chickens our
even though I knew they hadn't. The soldiers looked inside the la- steward used to kill in Enugu, how they flapped around in the dust
trine, asked Mama if she was sure she was not hiding anybody, be- after their throats had been slit, over and over, before finally lying
cause that would make her a saboteur and saboteurs were worse quiet. Dignity dance, Obi called it. I was bawling as I stared at the
than Nigerians. Mama smiled at them, then used her old voice, bodies, all people I knew, trying to identify Mama and Obi. But
·the voice of when she hosted three-course dinners for Papa's they were not there. They were in the yard, Mama helping to wash
friends, and offered them some water before they left. Afterward, the wounded, Obi writing in the dust with his finger. Mama did
Obi said he would enlist when he felt better. He owed it to Biafra, not scold Obi for his earlier carelessness, and I did not rebuke
and besides, fifteen-year-olds had fought in the Persian War. Be- Mama for dashing out like that either. I went into the kitchen to
fore Mama left the room, she walked up to Obi and slapped his soak some dried cassava for dinner.
face so hard I saw the immediate slender welts on his cheek.
Obi died that night. Or maybe he died in the morning. I don't
The Igbo say that the chicken frowns at the cooking pot, and yet ignores know. I simply know that when Papa tugged at him in the morn-
the knife. ing and then when Mama threw herself on him, he did not stir. I
Mama and I were close to the bunker when we heard the anti- went over and shook him, shook him, shook him. He was cold.
aircraft guns. uGood timing," Mama joked, and although I tried, I tt Nwa m anwugo," Papa said, as ifhe had to say it aloud to believe

could not smile. My lips were too sore; the harmattan winds had it. Mama brought out her manicure kit and started to clip Obi's
dried them to a bloody crisp during our walk to the relief center, nails. uWhat are you doing?" Papa asked. He was crying. Not the
and besides, we had not been lucky: we got no food. kind of manly crying that is silence accompanied by tears. He was
Inside the bunker, people were shouting Lord, jesus, God Al- wailing, sobbing. I watched him, he seemed to swell before my
mighty, jehovah. A woman was crumpled next to me, holding her eyes, the room was unsteady. Something was on my chest, some-
toddler in her arms. The bunker was dim, but I could see the thing heavy like a jerry can full of water. I started to roll on the
crusty ringworm marks all over the toddler's body. Marna was floor to ease the weight. Outside, I heard shouting. Or was it in-
looking around. uWhere is Obi?" she asked, clutching my arm. side? Was it Papa? Was it Papa saying Nwa m anwugo, nwa m
uWhat is wrong with that boy, didn't he hear the guns?" Mama got anwugo? Obi was dead. I grasped around, frantic, trying to remem-
up, saying she had to find Obi, saying the bombing was far away. ber Obi, to remember the concrete things about him. And I could
But it wasn't, it was really close, loud, and I tried to hold Mama, to not. My baby brother who made wisecracks, and yet I could notre-
keep her still, but I was weak from the walk and hunger and member any of them. I could not even remember anything he said
Mama pushed past me and climbed out. the night before. I had felt I would have Obi for a long, long time
The explosion that followed shook something inside my ear and that I didn't need to notice him, really notice him. He was
loose, and I felt that if I bent my head sideways, something hard- there, I believed he would always be there. With Obi, I never had
soft, like cartilage, would fall out. I heard things breaking and fall- the fear I had with Nnamdi, the fear that I might mourn someday.
ing above, cement walls and glass louvers and trees. I closed my And so I did not know how to mourn Obi, if I could mourn Obi.
eyes and thought ofNnamdi's voice, just his voice, until the bomb- My hair was itching and I started to tear at it, to feel the warm
ing stopped and I scrambled out of the bunker. The bodies strewn blood on my scalp. I tore some more and then more. With my hair
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 1 16 Half of a Yellow Sun I 17

littering our floor, I wrapped my arms around myself and watched threatened Mama with a fierce dog when Mama defied Papa and
as Mama calmly filed Obi's nails. went to see her beloved house. All she wanted was our china and
There was something feverish about the days after Obi's death, our radiogram, she told the woman. But the woman whistled for
something malarial, something so numbingly fast it left me free the dog. ·
not to feel. Even Obi's burial in the backyard was fast, although "Wait," Mama said to Papa, and came over to fix my hat. She
Papa spent hours fashioning a cross from old wood. After the had made my wedding dress and sewn sequins onto a secondhand
neighbors and Father Damian and the crying children dispersed, hat. After the wedding we had pastries in a cafe, and as we ate,
Mama called the cross shabby and kicked it, broke it, flung the Papa told me about the wedding cake he used to dream about for
wood away. me, a pink multilayered cake, so tall it would shield my face and
Papa stopped going to the War Research Directorate and Nnamdi's face and the cake-cutting photo would capture only the
dropped his patriotic tie into the pit latrine, and day after day, week groomsman's face, only Obi's face.
after week, we sat in front of our room - Papa, Mama, and me - I envied Papa, that he could talk about Obi like that. It was the
staring at the yard. The morning a woman from down the street year Obi would have turned seventeen, the year Nigeria changed
dashed into our yard I did not look up, until I heard her shouting. from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right. We were
She was waving a green branch. Such a brilliant, wet-looking Nigerians again.
green. I wondered where she got it; the plants and trees around us
were scorched by January's harmattan sun, blown bare by the
dusty winds. The earth was sallow.
The war is lost, Papa said. He didn't need to say it though; weal-
ready knew. We knew when Obi died. The neighbors were packing
in a hurry, to go into the smaller villages because we had heard the
Federal soldiers were coming with truckloads of whips. We got up
to pack. It struck me how little we had, as we packed, and how we
had stopped noticing how little we had.

The Igbo say that when a man falls, it is his god who has pushed
him down.
Nnamdi clutched my hand too tightly at our wedding. He did
everything with extra effort now, as if he were compensating for
his amputated left arm, as if he were shielding his shame. Papa
took photos, telling me to smile wider, telling Nnamdi not to
slouch. But Papa slouched himself, he had slouched since the war
ended, since the bank gave him fifty Nigerian pounds for all the
money he had in Biafra. And he had lost his house - our house,
with the marble staircase - because it was declared abandoned
property and now a civil servant lived there, a woman who had