Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Read Free Book Online Page A

bites.” He laughed, an over-hearty guffaw, and her parents promptly laughed as well.
    “It’s very good.” Olanna looked up. There was something wet about Chief Okonji’s smile. Last week, when he thrust his card into her hand at the Ikoyi Club, she had worried about that smilebecause it looked as if the movement of his lips made saliva fill his mouth and threaten to trickle down his chin.
    “I hope you’ve thought about coming to join us at the ministry, Olanna. We need first-class brains like yours,” Chief Okonji said.
    “How many people get offered jobs personally from the finance minister,” her mother said, to nobody in particular, and her smile lit up the oval dark-skinned face that was so nearly perfect, so symmetrical, that friends called her Art.
    Olanna placed her spoon down. “I’ve decided to go to Nsukka. I’ll be leaving in two weeks.”
    She saw the way her father tightened his lips. Her mother left her hand suspended in the air for a moment, as if the news were too tragic to continue sprinkling salt. “I thought you had not made up your mind,” her mother said.
    “I can’t waste too much time or they will offer it to somebody else,” Olanna said.
    “Nsukka? Is that right? You’ve decided to move to Nsukka?” Chief Okonji asked.
    “Yes. I applied for a job as instructor in the Department of Sociology and I just got it,” Olanna said. She usually liked her avocado without salt, but it was bland now, almost nauseating.
    “Oh. So you’re leaving us in Lagos,” Chief Okonji said. His face seemed to melt, folding in on itself. Then he turned and asked, too brightly, “And what about you, Kainene?”
    Kainene looked Chief Okonji right in the eyes, with that stare that was so expressionless, so blank, that it was almost hostile. “What about me indeed?” She raised her eyebrows. “I too will be putting my newly acquired degree to good use. I’m moving to Port Harcourt to manage Daddy’s businesses there.”
    Olanna wished she still had those flashes, moments when she could tell what Kainene was thinking. When they were in primary school, they sometimes looked at each other and laughed,without speaking, because they were thinking the same joke. She doubted that Kainene ever had those flashes now, since they never talked about such things anymore. They never talked about anything anymore.
    “So Kainene will manage the cement factory?” Chief Okonji asked, turning to her father.
    “She’ll oversee everything in the east, the factories and our new oil interests. She has always had an excellent eye for business.”
    “Whoever said you lost out by having twin daughters is a liar,” Chief Okonji said.
    “Kainene is not just like a son, she is like two,” her father said. He glanced at Kainene and Kainene looked away, as if the pride on his face did not matter, and Olanna quickly focused on her plate so that neither would know she had been watching them. The plate was elegant, light green, the same color as the avocado.
    “Why don’t you all come to my house this weekend, eh?” Chief Okonji asked. “If only to sample my cook’s fish pepper soup. The chap is from Nembe; he knows what to do with fresh fish.”
    Her parents cackled loudly. Olanna was not sure how that was funny, but then it was the minister’s joke.
    “That sounds wonderful,” Olanna’s father said.
    “It will be nice for all of us to go before Olanna leaves for Nsukka,” her mother said.
    Olanna felt a slight irritation, a prickly feeling on her skin. “I would love to come, but I won’t be here this weekend.”
    “You won’t be here?” her father asked. She wondered if the expression in his eyes was a desperate plea. She wondered, too, how her parents had promised Chief Okonji an affair with her in exchange for the contract. Had they stated it verbally, plainly, or had it been implied?
    “I have made plans to go to Kano, to see Uncle Mbaezi and the family, and Mohammed as well,” she said.
    Her father