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PART ONE

The Early Sixties

1

Master was a little crazy; he had spent toobooks overseas, talked to his, and had too wu’s aunty said this in a low voice as they walked on the path “But he is a goodas you ell, you will eat well You will even eat meat every day” She stopped to spit; the saliva left her rass

Ugwu did not believe that anybody, not even thisto live with, ate h, because he was too choked with expectation, too busy ie They had been walking for a while now, since they got off the lorry at the motor park, and the afternoon s

un burned the back of his neck But he did not mind He was prepared to walk hourslike the streets that appeared after they went past the university gates, streets so smooth and tarred that he itched to lay his cheek down on them He would never be able to describe to his sister Anulika how the bungalows here were painted the color of the sky and sat side by side like polite well-dressedthem were trimmed so flat on top that they looked like tables wrapped with leaves

His aunty walked faster, her slippers ondered if she, too, could feel the coal tar getting hotter underneath, through her thin soles They went past a sign, ODIM STREET, and Ugwu lish word that was not too long He s sweet, heady, as they walked into a compound, and was sure it came from the white flowers clustered on the bushes at the entrance The bushes were shaped like slender hills The lawn glistened Butterflies hovered above

“I told Master you will learn everything fast, osiso-osiso,” his aunty said Ugwu nodded attentively although she had already told him this ood fortune ca the corridor in the o, she heard Master say that he needed a houseboy to do his cleaning, and she i before his typist or officesomeone

“I will learn fast, Aunty,” Ugwu said He was staring at the car in the garage; a strip of metal ran around its blue body like a necklace

“Remember, what you will anshenever he calls you is Yes, sah!”

“Yes, sah!” Ugwu repeated

They were standing before the glass door Ugwu held back fro out to touch the cement wall, to see how different it would feel from the mud walls of hisfingers For a brief moment, he wished he were back there now, in his mother’s hut, under the dim coolness of the thatch roof; or in his aunty’s hut, the only one in the village with a corrugated iron roof

His aunty tapped on the glass Ugwu could see the white curtains behind the door A voice said, in English, “Yes? Come in”

They took off their slippers before walking in Ugwu had never seen a rooed in a semicircle, the side tables between them, the shelves crammed with books, and the center table with a vase of red and white plastic flowers, the room still see a singlet and a pair of shorts He was not sitting upright but slanted, a book covering his face, as though oblivious that he had just asked people in

“Good afternoon, sah! This is the child,” Ugwu’s aunty said

Master looked up His complexion was very dark, like old bark, and the hair that covered his chest and legs was a lustrous, darker shade He pulled off his glasses “The child?”

“The houseboy, sah”

“Oh, yes, you have brought the houseboy I kpotago ya” Master’s Igbo felt feathery in Ugwu’s ears It was Igbo colored by the sliding sounds of English, the Igbo of one who spoke English often

“He ork hard,” his aunty said “He is a very good boy Just tell him what he should do Thank, sah!”

Master grunted in response, watching Ugwu and his aunty with a faintly distracted expression, as if their presence wu’s aunty patted Ugwu’s shoulder, whispered that he should do well, and turned to the door After she left, Master put his glasses back on and faced his book, relaxing further into a slanting position, legs stretched out Even when he turned the pages he did so with his eyes on the book

Ugwu stood by the door, waiting Sunlight streaentle breeze lifted the curtains The roo Ugwu stood for a while before he began to edge closer and closer to the bookshelf, as though to hide in it, and then, after a while, he sank down to the floor, cradling his raffia bag between his knees He looked up at the ceiling, so high up, so piercingly white He closed his eyes and tried to reiine this spacious room with the alien furniture, but he couldn’t He opened his eyes, overcome by a neonder, and looked around to make sure it was all real To think that he would sit on these sofas, polish this slippery-sauzy curtains

“Kedu afa gi? What’s your na him

Ugwu stood up

“What’s your naht He filled the arh on his head, his ined an older ht not please this master who looked so youthfully capable, who looked as if he needed nothing