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

stabbed at his avocado. “I see.”
    Olanna sipped her water and said nothing.
    After dinner, they moved to the balcony for liqueurs. Olanna liked this after-dinner ritual and often would move away from her parents and the guests to stand by the railing, looking at the tall lamps that lit up the paths below, so bright that the swimming pool looked silver and the hibiscuses and bougainvillea took on an incandescent patina over their reds and pinks. The first and only time Odenigbo visited her in Lagos, they had stood looking down at the swimming pool and Odenigbo threw a bottle cork down and watched it plunk into the water. He drank a lot of brandy, and when her father said that the idea of Nsukka University was silly, that Nigeria was not ready for an indigenous university and that receiving support from an American university—rather than a proper university in Britain—was plain daft, he raised his voice in response. Olanna had thought he would realize that her father only wanted to gall him and show how unimpressed he was by a senior lecturer from Nsukka. She thought he would let her father’s words go. But his voice rose higher and higher as he argued about Nsukka’s being free of colonial influence, and she had blinked often to signal him to stop, although he may not have noticed since the veranda was dim. Finally the phone rang and the conversation had to end. The look in her parents’ eyes was grudging respect, Olanna could tell, but it did not stop them from telling her that Odenigbo was crazy and wrong for her, one of those hotheaded university people who talked and talked until everybody had a headache and nobody understood what had been said.
    “Such a cool night,” Chief Okonji said behind her. Olanna turned around. She did not know when her parents and Kainene had gone inside.
    “Yes,” she said.
    Chief Okonji stood in front of her. His
agbada
was embroidered with gold thread around the collar. She looked at his neck, settled into rolls of fat, and imagined him prying the folds apart as he bathed.
    “What about tomorrow? There’s a cocktail party at Ikoyi Hotel,” he said. “I want all of you to meet some expatriates. They are looking for land and I can arrange for them to buy from your father at five or six times the price.”
    “I will be doing a St. Vincent de Paul charity drive tomorrow.”
    Chief Okonji moved closer. “I can’t keep you out of my mind,” he said, and a mist of alcohol settled on her face.
    “I am not interested, Chief.”
    “I just can’t keep you out of my mind,” Chief Okonji said again. “Look, you don’t have to work at the ministry. I can appoint you to a board, any board you want, and I will furnish a flat for you wherever you want.” He pulled her to him, and for a while Olanna did nothing, her body limp against his. She was used to this, being grabbed by men who walked around in a cloud of cologne-drenched entitlement, with the presumption that, because they were powerful and found her beautiful, they belonged together. She pushed him back, finally, and felt vaguely sickened at how her hands sank into his soft chest. “Stop it, Chief.”
    His eyes were closed. “I love you, believe me. I really love you.”
    She slipped out of his embrace and went indoors. Her parents’ voices were faint from the living room. She stopped to sniff the wilting flowers in a vase on the side table near the staircase, even though she knew their scent would be gone, before walking upstairs. Her room felt alien, the warm wood tones, the tan furniture, the wall-to-wall burgundy carpeting that cushioned her feet, the reams of space that made Kainene call their rooms
flats
. The copy of
Lagos Life
was still on her bed; she picked it up, andlooked at the photo of her and her mother, on page five, their faces contented and complacent, at a cocktail party hosted by the British high commissioner. Her mother had pulled her close as a photographer approached; later, after the flashbulb