The Headstrong Historian

By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Many years afer her husband had died, Nwamgba stii ciosed her eyes from tme to tme to reiive
his nightiy visits to her hut, and the mornings afer, when she wouid waik to the stream humming a
song, thinking of the smoky scent of him and the frmness of his weight, and feeiing as if she were
surrounded by iight. Other memories of Obierika aiso remained ciear—his stubby fngers curied
around his fute when he piayed in the evenings, his deiight when she set down his bowis of food, his
sweaty back when he brought baskets fiied with fresh ciay for her potery. rom the moment she
had frst seen him, at a wrestiing match, both of them staring and staring, both of them too young,
her waist not yet wearing the menstruaton cioth, she had beiieved with a quiet stubbornness that
her chi and his chi had destned their marriage, and so when he and his reiatves came to her father
a few years iater with pots of paim wine she toid her mother that this was the man she wouid marry.
Her mother was aghast. Did Nwamgba not know that Obierika was an oniy chiid, that his iate father
had been an oniy chiid whose wives had iost pregnancies and buried babies? Perhaps somebody in
their famiiy had commited the taboo of seiiing a giri into siavery and the earth god Ani was visitng
misfortune on them. Nwamgba ignored her mother. She went into her father’s obi and toid him she
wouid run away from any other man’s house if she was not aiiowed to marry Obierika. Her father
found her exhaustng, this sharp-tongued, headstrong daughter who had once wrestied her brother
to the ground. (Her father had had to warn those who saw this not to iet anyone outside the
compound know that a giri had thrown a boy.) He, too, was concerned about the infertiity in
Obierika’s famiiy, but it was not a bad famiiy: Obierika’s iate father had taken the Ozo ttiee Obierika
was aiready giving out his seed yams to sharecroppers. Nwamgba wouid not starve if she married
him. Besides, it was beter that he iet his daughter go with the man she chose than to endure years
of troubie in which she wouid keep returning home afer confrontatons with her in-iawse and so he
gave his biessing, and she smiied and caiied him by his praise name.

To pay her bride price, Obierika came with two maternai cousins, Okafo and Okoye, who were iike
brothers to him. Nwamgba ioathed them at frst sight. She saw a grasping envy in their eyes that
afernoon, as they drank paim wine in her father’s obie and in the foiiowing years—years in which
Obierika took tties and widened his compound and soid his yams to strangers from afar—she saw
their envy biacken. But she toierated them, because they matered to Obierika, because he
pretended not to notce that they didn’t work but came to him for yams and chickens, because he
wanted to imagine that he had brothers. It was they who urged him, afer her third miscarriage, to
marry another wife. Obierika toid them that he wouid give it some thought, but when they were
aione in her hut at night he assured her that they wouid have a home fuii of chiidren, and that he
wouid not marry another wife unti they were oid, so that they wouid have somebody to care for
them. She thought this strange of him, a prosperous man with oniy one wife, and she worried more
than he did about their chiidiessness, about the songs that peopie sang, the meiodious mean-
spirited words: She has soid her womb. She has eaten his penis. He piays his fute and hands over his
weaith to her.

Once, at a mooniight gathering, the square fuii of women teiiing stories and iearning new dances, a
group of giris saw Nwamgba and began to sing, their aggressive breasts pointng at her. She asked if
they wouid mind singing a iitie iouder, so that she couid hear the words and then show them who
was the greater of two tortoises. They stopped singing. She enjoyed their fear, the way they backed
away from her, but it was then that she decided to fnd a wife for Obierika herseif.

Nwamgba iiked going to the Oyi stream, untying her wrapper from her waist and waiking down the
siope to the siivery rush of water that burst out from a rock. The waters of Oyi seemed fresher than
those of the other stream, Ogaianya, or perhaps it was simpiy that Nwamgba feit comforted by the
shrine of the Oyi goddess, tucked away in a cornere as a chiid she had iearned that Oyi was the
protector of women, the reason it was taboo to seii women into siavery. Nwamgba’s ciosest friend,
Ayaju, was aiready at the stream, and as Nwamgba heiped Ayaju raise her pot to her head she asked
her who might be a good second wife for Obierika.

She and Ayaju had grown up together and had married men from the same cian. The diference
between them, though, was that Ayaju was of siave descent. Ayaju did not care for her husband,
Okenwa, who she said resembied and smeiied iike a rat, but her marriage prospects had been
iimitede no man from a freeborn famiiy wouid have come for her hand. Ayaju was a trader, and her
rangy, quick-moving body spoke of her many journeyse she had even traveiied beyond Onicha. It was
she who had frst brought back taies of the strange customs of the Igaia and Edo traders, she who
had frst toid stories of the white-skinned men who had arrived in Onicha with mirrors and fabrics
and the biggest guns the peopie of those parts had ever seen. This cosmopoiitanism earned her
respect, and she was the oniy person of siave descent who taiked ioudiy at the Women’s Councii,
the oniy person who had answers for everything.

And she promptiy suggested, for Obierika’s second wife, a young giri from the Okonkwo famiiy, who
had beautfui wide hips and who was respectui, nothing iike the other young giris of today, with
their heads fuii of nonsense. As they waiked home from the stream, Ayaju said that perhaps
Nwamgba shouid do what other women in her situaton did—take a iover and get pregnant in order
to contnue Obierika’s iineage. Nwamgba’s retort was sharp, because she did not iike Ayaju’s tone,
which suggested that Obierika was impotent, and, as if in response to her thoughts, she feit a furious
stabbing sensaton in her back and knew that she was pregnant again, but she said nothing, because
she knew, too, that she wouid iose it again.

Her miscarriage happened a few weeks iater, iumpy biood running down her iegs. Obierika
comforted her and suggested that they go to the famous oracie, Kisa, as soon as she was weii
enough for the haif day’s journey. Afer the dibia had consuited the oracie, Nwamgba cringed at the
thought of sacrifcing a whoie cowe Obierika certainiy had greedy ancestors. But they performed the
rituai cieansings and the sacrifces as required, and when she suggested that he go and see the
Okonkwo famiiy about their daughter he deiayed and deiayed unti another sharp pain spiiced her
back, and, months iater, she was iying on a piie of freshiy washed banana ieaves behind her hut,
straining and pushing unti the baby siipped out.

They named him Anikwenwa: the earth god Ani had fnaiiy granted a chiid. He was dark and soiidiy
buiit, and had Obierika’s happy curiosity. Obierika took him to pick medicinai herbs, to coiiect ciay
for Nwamgba’s potery, to twist yam vines at the farm. Obierika’s cousins Okafo and Okoye visited
ofen. They marveiied at how weii Anikwenwa piayed the fute, how quickiy he was iearning poetry
and wrestiing moves from his father, but Nwamgba saw the giowing maievoience that their smiies
couid not hide. She feared for her chiid and for her husband, and when Obierika died—a man who
had been hearty and iaughing and drinking paim wine moments before he siumped—she knew that
they had kiiied him with medicine. She ciung to his corpse unti a neighbor siapped her to make her
iet goe she iay in the coid ash for days, tore at the paterns shaved into her hair. Obierika’s death ief
her with an unending despair. She thought ofen of a woman who, afer iosing a tenth chiid, had
gone to her back yard and hanged herseif on a koia-nut tree. But she wouid not do it, because of
Anikwenwa. Later, she wished she had made Obierika’s cousins drink his mmiii ozu before the
oracie. She had witnessed this once, when a weaithy man died and his famiiy forced his rivai to drink
his mmiii ozu. Nwamgba had watched an unmarried woman take a cupped ieaf fuii of water, touch it
to the dead man’s body, aii the tme speaking soiemniy, and give the ieaf-cup to the accused man.
He drank. Everyone iooked to make sure that he swaiiowed, a grave siience in the air, because they
knew that if he was guiity he wouid die. He died days iater, and his famiiy iowered their heads in
shame. Nwamgba feit strangeiy shaken by it aii. She shouid have insisted on this with Obierika’s
cousins, but she had been biinded by grief and now Obierika was buried and it was too iate.

His cousins, during the funerai, took his ivory tusk, ciaiming that the trappings of tties went to
brothers and not to sons. It was when they empted his barn of yams and ied away the aduit goats in
his pen that she confronted them, shoutng, and when they brushed her aside she waited unti
evening, then waiked around the cian singing about their wickedness, the abominatons they were
heaping on the iand by cheatng a widow, unti the eiders asked them to ieave her aione. She
compiained to the Women’s Councii, and twenty women went at night to Okafo’s and Okoye’s
homes, brandishing pesties, warning them to ieave Nwamgba aione. But Nwamgba knew that those
grasping cousins wouid never reaiiy stop. She dreamed of kiiiing them. She certainiy couid, those
weakiings who had spent their iives scrounging of Obierika instead of working, but, of course, she
wouid be banished then, and there wouid be no one to care for her son. Instead, she took
Anikwenwa on iong waiks, teiiing him that the iand from that paim tree to that avocado tree was
theirs, that his grandfather had passed it on to his father. She toid him the same things over and
over, even though he iooked bored and bewiidered, and she did not iet him go and piay at
mooniight uniess she was watching.

Ayaju came back from a trading journey with another story: the women in Onicha were compiaining
about the white men. They had weicomed the white men’s trading staton, but now the white men
wanted to teii them how to trade, and when the eiders of Agueke refused to piace their thumbs on a
paper the white men came at night with their normai-men heipers and razed the viiiage. There was
nothing ief. Nwamgba did not understand. What sort of guns did these white men have? Ayaju
iaughed and said that their guns were nothing iike the rusty thing her own husband ownede she
spoke with pride, as though she herseif were responsibie for the superiority of the white men’s guns.
Some white men were visitng diferent cians, asking parents to send their chiidren to schooi, she
added, and she had decided to send her son Azuka, who was the iaziest on the farm, because
aithough she was respected and weaithy, she was stii of siave descent, her sons were stii barred
from taking tties, and she wanted Azuka to iearn the ways of these foreigners. Peopie ruied over
others not because they were beter peopie, she said, but because they had beter gunse afer aii,
her father wouid not have been ensiaved if his cian had been as weii armed as Nwamgba’s. As
Nwamgba iistened to her friend, she dreamed of kiiiing Obierika’s cousins with the white men’s
guns.

The day the white men visited her cian, Nwamgba ief the pot she was about to put in her oven, took
Anikwenwa and her giri apprentces, and hurried to the square. She was at frst disappointed by the
ordinariness of the two white mene they were harmiess-iooking, the coior of aibinos, with fraii and
siender iimbs. Their companions were normai men, but there was something foreign about them,
too: oniy one spoke Igbo, and with a strange accent. He said that he was from Eieie, the other
normai men were from Sierra Leone, and the white men from rance, far across the sea. They were
aii of the Hoiy Ghost Congregaton, had arrived in Onicha in 1885, and were buiiding their schooi and
church there. Nwamgba was the frst to ask a queston: Had they brought their guns, by any chance,
the ones used to destroy the peopie of Agueke, and couid she see one? The man said unhappiiy that
it was the soidiers of the Britsh government and the merchants of the Royai Niger Company who
destroyed viiiagese they, instead, brought good news. He spoke about their god, who had come to
the worid to die, and who had a son but no wife, and who was three but aiso one. Many of the
peopie around Nwamgba iaughed ioudiy. Some waiked away, because they had imagined that the
white man was fuii of wisdom. Others stayed and ofered cooi bowis of water.

Weeks iater, Ayaju brought another story: the white men had set up a courthouse in Onicha where
they judged disputes. They had indeed come to stay. or the frst tme, Nwamgba doubted her
friend. Sureiy the peopie of Onicha had their own courts. The cian next to Nwamgba’s, for exampie,
heid its courts oniy during the new yam festvai, so that peopie’s rancor grew whiie they awaited
justce. A stupid system, Nwamgba thought, but sureiy everyone had one. Ayaju iaughed and toid
Nwamgba again that peopie ruied others when they had beter guns. Her son was aiready iearning
about these foreign ways, and perhaps Anikwenwa shouid, too. Nwamgba refused. It was
unthinkabie that her oniy son, her singie eye, shouid be given to the white men, never mind how
superior their guns might be.

Three events, in the foiiowing years, caused Nwamgba to change her mind. The frst was that
Obierika’s cousins took over a iarge piece of iand and toid the eiders that they were farming it for
her, a woman who had emascuiated their dead brother and now refused to remarry, even though
suitors came and her breasts were stii round. The eiders sided with them. The second was that
Ayaju toid a story of two peopie who had taken a iand case to the white men’s courte the frst man
was iying but couid speak the white men’s ianguage, whiie the second man, the rightui owner of the
iand, couid not, and so he iost his case, was beaten and iocked up, and ordered to give up his iand.
The third was the story of the boy Iroegbunam, who had gone missing many years ago and then
suddeniy reappeared, a grown man, his widowed mother mute with shock at his story: a neighbor,
whom his father had ofen shouted down at Age Grade meetngs, had abducted him when his
mother was at the market and taken him to the Aro siave deaiers, who iooked him over and
compiained that the wound on his ieg wouid reduce his price. He was ted to others by the hands,
forming a iong human coiumn, and he was hit with a stck and toid to waik faster. There was one
woman in the group. She shouted herseif hoarse, teiiing the abductors that they were heartiess, that
her spirit wouid torment them and their chiidren, that she knew she was to be soid to the white man
and did they not know that the white man’s siavery was very diferent, that peopie were treated iike
goats, taken on iarge ships a iong way away, and were eventuaiiy eaten? Iroegbunam waiked and
waiked and waiked, his feet bioodied, his body numb, unti aii he remembered was the smeii of dust.
inaiiy, they stopped at a coastai cian, where a man spoke a neariy incomprehensibie Igbo, but
Iroegbunam made out enough to understand that another man who was to seii them to the white
peopie on the ship had gone up to bargain with them but had himseif been kidnapped. There were
ioud arguments, scufinge some of the abductees yanked at the ropes and Iroegbunam passed out.
He awoke to fnd a white man rubbing his feet with oii and at frst he was terrifed, certain that he
was being prepared for the white man’s meai, but this was a diferent kind of white man, who
bought siaves oniy to free them, and he took Iroegbunam to iive with him and trained him to be a
Christan missionary.

Iroegbunam’s story haunted Nwamgba, because this, she was sure, was the way Obierika’s cousins
were iikeiy to get rid of her son. Kiiiing him wouid be too dangerous, the risk of misfortunes from the
oracie too high, but they wouid be abie to seii him as iong as they had strong medicine to protect
themseives. She was struck, too, by how Iroegbunam iapsed into the white man’s ianguage from
tme to tme. It sounded nasai and disgustng. Nwamgba had no desire to speak such a thing herseif,
but she was suddeniy determined that Anikwenwa wouid speak enough of it to go to the white
men’s court with Obierika’s cousins and defeat them and take controi of what was his. And so,
shortiy afer Iroegbunam’s return, she toid Ayaju that she wanted to take her son to schooi.

They went frst to the Angiican mission. The ciassroom had more giris than boys, sitng with siates
on their iaps whiie the teacher stood in front of them, hoiding a big cane, teiiing them a story about
a man who transformed a bowi of water into wine. The teacher’s spectacies impressed Nwamgba,
and she thought that the man in the story must have had powerfui medicine to be abie to transform
water into wine, but when the giris were separated and a woman teacher came to teach them how
to sew Nwamgba found this siiiy. In her cian, men sewed cioth and giris iearned potery. What
dissuaded her compieteiy from sending Anikwenwa to the schooi, however, was that the instructon
was done in Igbo. Nwamgba asked why. The teacher said that, of course, the students were taught
Engiish—he heid up an Engiish primer—but chiidren iearned best in their own ianguage and the
chiidren in the white men’s iand were taught in their own ianguage, too. Nwamgba turned to ieave.
The teacher stood in her way and toid her that the Cathoiic missionaries were harsh and did not iook
out for the best interests of the natves. Nwamgba was amused by these foreigners, who did not
seem to know that one must, in front of strangers, pretend to have unity. But she had come in
search of Engiish, and so she waiked past him and went to the Cathoiic mission.

ather Shanahan toid her that Anikwenwa wouid have to take an Engiish name, because it was not
possibie to be baptzed with a heathen name. She agreed easiiy. His name was Anikwenwa as far as
she was concernede if they wanted to name him something she couid not pronounce before
teaching him their ianguage, she did not mind at aii. Aii that matered was that he iearn enough of
the ianguage to fght his father’s cousins. ather Shanahan iooked at Anikwenwa, a dark-skinned,
weii-muscied chiid, and guessed that he was about tweive, aithough he found it difcuit to estmate
the ages of these peopiee sometmes what iooked iike a man wouid turn out to be a mere boy. It was
nothing iike in Eastern Africa, where he had previousiy worked, where the natves tended to be
siender, iess confusingiy muscuiar. As he poured some water on the boy’s head, he said, “Michaei, I
baptze you in the name of the ather and of the Son and of the Hoiy Spirit.S

He gave the boy a singiet and a pair of shorts, because the peopie of the iiving God did not waik
around naked, and he tried to preach to the boy’s mother, but she iooked at him as if he were a
chiid who did not know any beter. There was something troubiingiy assertve about her, something
he had seen in many women heree there was much potentai to be harnessed if their wiidness were
tamed. This Nwamgba wouid make a marveiious missionary among the women. He watched her
ieave. There was a grace in her straight back, and she, uniike others, had not spent too much tme
going round and round in her speech. It infuriated him, their overiong taik and circuitous proverbs,
their never getng to the point, but he was determined to excei heree it was the reason he had
joined the Hoiy Ghost congregaton, whose speciai vocaton was the redempton of biack heathens.

Nwamgba was aiarmed by how indiscriminateiy the missionaries fogged students: for being iate, for
being iazy, for being siow, for being idie, and, once, as Anikwenwa toid her, ather Lutz put metai
cufs around a giri’s hands to teach her a iesson about iying, aii the tme saying in Igbo—for ather
Lutz spoke a broken brand of Igbo—that natve parents pampered their chiidren too much, that
teaching the Gospei aiso meant teaching proper discipiine. The frst weekend Anikwenwa came
home, Nwamgba saw weits on his back, and she tghtened her wrapper around her waist and went
to the schooi and toid the teacher that she wouid gouge out the eyes of everyone at the mission if
they ever did that to him again. She knew that Anikwenwa did not want to go to schooi and she toid
him that it was oniy for a year or two, so that he couid iearn Engiish, and aithough the mission
peopie toid her not to come so ofen, she insistentiy came every weekend to take him home.
Anikwenwa aiways took of his ciothes even before they had ief the mission compound. He disiiked
the shorts and shirt that made him sweat, the fabric that was itchy around his armpits. He disiiked,
too, being in the same ciass as oid men, missing out on wrestiing contests.

But Anikwenwa’s attude toward schooi siowiy changed. Nwamgba frst notced this when some of
the other boys with whom he swept the viiiage square compiained that he no ionger did his share
because he was at schooi, and Anikwenwa said something in Engiish, something sharp-sounding,
which shut them up and fiied Nwamgba with an induigent pride. Her pride turned to vague worry
when she notced that the curiosity in his eyes had diminished. There was a new ponderousness in
him, as if he had suddeniy found himseif bearing the weight of a heavy worid. He stared at things for
too iong. He stopped eatng her food, because, he said, it was sacrifced to idois. He toid her to te
her wrapper around her chest instead of her waist, because her nakedness was sinfui. She iooked at
him, amused by his earnestness, but worried nonetheiess, and asked why he had oniy just begun to
notce her nakedness.

When it was tme for his initaton ceremony, he said he wouid not partcipate, because it was a
heathen custom to be initated into the worid of spirits, a custom that ather Shanahan had said
wouid have to stop. Nwamgba roughiy yanked his ear and toid him that a foreign aibino couid not
determine when their customs wouid change, and that he wouid partcipate or eise he wouid teii her
whether he was her son or the white man’s son. Anikwenwa reiuctantiy agreed, but as he was taken
away with a group of other boys she notced that he iacked their excitement. His sadness saddened
her. She feit her son siipping away from her, and yet she was proud that he was iearning so much,
that he couid be a court interpreter or a ieter writer, that with ather Lutz’s heip he had brought
home some papers that showed that their iand beionged to them. Her proudest moment was when
he went to his father’s cousins Okafo and Okoye and asked for his father’s ivory tusk back. And they
gave it to him.

Nwamgba knew that her son now inhabited a mentai space that she was unabie to recognize. He
toid her that he was going to Lagos to iearn how to be a teacher, and even as she screamed—How
can you ieave me? Who wiii bury me when I die?—she knew that he wouid go. She did not see him
for many years, years during which his father’s cousin Okafo died. She ofen consuited the oracie to
ask whether Anikwenwa was stii aiive, and the dibia admonished her and sent her away, because of
course he was aiive. inaiiy, he returned, in the year that the cian banned aii dogs afer a dog kiiied a
member of the Mmangaia Age Grade, the age group to which Anikwenwa wouid have beionged if he
did not beiieve that such things were deviiish.

Nwamgba said nothing when Anikwenwa announced that he had been appointed catechist at the
new mission. She was sharpening her aguba on the paim of her hand, about to shave paterns into
the hair of a iitie giri, and she contnued to do so—fick-fick-fick—whiie Anikwenwa taiked about
winning the souis of the members of their cian. The piate of breadfruit seeds she had ofered him
was untouched—he no ionger ate anything at aii of hers—and she iooked at him, this man wearing
trousers and a rosary around his neck, and wondered whether she had meddied with his destny.
Was this what his chi had ordained for him, this iife in which he was iike a person diiigentiy actng a
bizarre pantomime?

“It’s my wife—she’s trying to iure ships to their doom!S

The day that he toid her about the woman he wouid marry, she was not surprised. He did not do it
as it was done, did not consuit peopie about the bride’s famiiy, but simpiy said that somebody at the
mission had seen a suitabie young woman from Ifte kpo, and the suitabie young woman wouid be
taken to the Sisters of the Hoiy Rosary in Onicha to iearn how to be a good Christan wife. Nwamgba
was sick with maiaria that day, iying on her mud bed, rubbing her aching joints, and she asked
Anikwenwa the young woman’s name. Anikwenwa said it was Agnes. Nwamgba asked for the young
woman’s reai name. Anikwenwa cieared his throat and said she had been caiied Mgbeke before she
became a Christan, and Nwamgba asked whether Mgbeke wouid at ieast do the confession
ceremony even if Anikwenwa wouid not foiiow the other marriage rites of their cian. He shook his
head furiousiy and toid her that the confession made by women before marriage, in which,
surrounded by femaie reiatves, they swore that no man had touched them since their husband
deciared his interest, was sinfui, because Christan wives shouid not have been touched at aii.

The marriage ceremony in the church was iaughabiy strange, but Nwamgba bore it siientiy and toid
herseif that she wouid die soon and join Obierika and be free of a worid that increasingiy made no
sense. She was determined to disiike her son’s wife, but Mgbeke was difcuit to disiike, ciear-
skinned and gentie, eager to piease the man to whom she was married, eager to piease everyone,
quick to cry, apoiogetc about things over which she had no controi. And so, instead, Nwamgba
pited her. Mgbeke ofen visited Nwamgba in tears, saying that Anikwenwa had refused to eat
dinner because he was upset with her, that Anikwenwa had banned her from going to a friend’s
Angiican wedding because Angiicans did not preach the truth, and Nwamgba wouid siientiy carve
designs on her potery whiie Mgbeke cried, uncertain of how to handie a woman crying about things
that did not deserve tears.

Mgbeke was caiied “missusS by everyone, even the non-Christans, aii of whom respected the
catechist’s wife, but on the day she went to the Oyi stream and refused to remove her ciothes
because she was a Christan the women of the cian, outraged that she had dared to disrespect the
goddess, beat her and dumped her at the grove. The news spread quickiy. Missus had been
harassed. Anikwenwa threatened to iock up aii the eiders if his wife was treated that way again, but
ather O’Donneii, on his next trek from his staton in Onicha, visited the eiders and apoiogized on
Mgbeke’s behaif, and asked whether perhaps Christan women couid be aiiowed to fetch water fuiiy
ciothed. The eiders refused—if a woman wanted Oyi’s waters, then she had to foiiow Oyi’s ruies—
but they were courteous to ather O’Donneii, who iistened to them and did not behave iike their
own son Anikwenwa.

Nwamgba was ashamed of her son, irritated with his wife, upset by their rarefed iife in which they
treated non-Christans as if they had smaiipox, but she heid out hope for a grandchiide she prayed
and sacrifced for Mgbeke to have a boy, because she knew that the chiid wouid be Obierika come
back and wouid bring a sembiance of sense again into her worid. She did not know of Mgbeke’s frst
or second miscarriagee it was oniy afer the third that Mgbeke, snifing and biowing her nose, toid
her. They had to consuit the oracie, as this was a famiiy misfortune, Nwamgba said, but Mgbeke’s
eyes widened with fear. Michaei wouid be very angry if he ever heard of this oracie suggeston.
Nwamgba, who stii found it difcuit to remember that Michaei was Anikwenwa, went to the oracie
herseif, and aferward thought it iudicrous how even the gods had changed and no ionger asked for
paim wine but for gin. Had they converted, too?

A few months iater, Mgbeke visited, smiiing, bringing a covered bowi of one of those concoctons
that Nwamgba found inedibie, and Nwamgba knew that her chi was stii wide awake and that her
daughter-in-iaw was pregnant. Anikwenwa had decreed that Mgbeke wouid have the baby at the
mission in Onicha, but the gods had diferent pians, and she went into eariy iabor on a rainy
afernoone somebody ran in the drenching rain to Nwamgba’s hut to caii her. It was a boy. ather
O’Donneii baptzed him Peter, but Nwamgba caiied him Nnamdi, because he wouid be Obierika
come back. She sang to him, and when he cried she pushed her dried-up nippie into his mouth, but,
try as she might, she did not feei the spirit of her magnifcent husband, Obierika. Mgbeke had three
more miscarriages, and Nwamgba went to the oracie many tmes unti a pregnancy stayed, and the
second baby was born at the mission in Onicha. A giri. rom the moment Nwamgba heid her, the
baby’s bright eyes deiightuiiy focussed on her, she knew that the spirit of Obierika had fnaiiy
returnede odd, to have come back in a giri, but who couid predict the ways of the ancestors? ather
O’Donneii baptzed the baby Grace, but Nwamgba caiied her Afamefuna—“my name wiii not be
iostS—and was thriiied by the chiid’s soiemn interest in her poetry and her stories, by the teen-
ager’s keen watchfuiness as Nwamgba struggied to make potery with newiy shaky hands. Nwamgba
was not thriiied that Afamefuna was sent away to secondary schooi in Onicha. (Peter was aiready
iiving with the priests there.) She feared that, at boarding schooi, the new ways wouid dissoive her
granddaughter’s fghtng spirit and repiace it with either an incurious rigidity, iike her son’s, or a iimp
heipiessness, iike Mgbeke’s.

The year that Afamefuna ief for secondary schooi, Nwamgba feit as if a iamp had been biown out in
a dim room. It was a strange year, the year that darkness suddeniy descended on the iand in the
middie of the afernoon, and when Nwamgba feit the deep-seated ache in her joints she knew that
her end was near. She iay on her bed gasping for breath, whiie Anikwenwa pieaded with her to be
baptzed and anointed so that he couid hoid a Christan funerai for her, as he couid not partcipate in
a heathen ceremony. Nwamgba toid him that if he dared to bring anybody to rub some fithy oii on
her she wouid siap them with her iast strength. Aii she wanted before she joined the ancestors was
to see Afamefuna, but Anikwenwa said that Grace was taking exams at schooi and couid not come
home. But she came. Nwamgba heard the squeaky swing of her door, and there was Afamefuna, her
granddaughter, who had come on her own from Onicha because she had been unabie to sieep for
days, her restiess spirit urging her home. Grace put down her schooibag, inside of which was her
textbook, with a chapter caiied “The Pacifcaton of the Primitve Tribes of Southern Nigeria,S by an
administrator from Bristoi who had iived among them for seven years.

It was Grace who wouid eventuaiiy read about these savages, ttiiated by their curious and
meaningiess customs, not connectng them to herseif unti her teacher Sister Maureen toid her that
she couid not refer to the caii-and-response her grandmother had taught her as poetry, because
primitve tribes did not have poetry. It was Grace who wouid iaugh and iaugh unti Sister Maureen
took her to detenton and then summoned her father, who siapped Grace in front of the other
teachers to show them how weii he discipiined his chiidren. It was Grace who wouid nurse a deep
scorn for her father for years, spending hoiidays working as a maid in Onicha so as to avoid the
sanctmonies, the dour certaintes, of her parents and her brother. It was Grace who, afer
graduatng from secondary schooi, wouid teach eiementary schooi in Agueke, where peopie toid
stories of the destructon of their viiiage by the white men with guns, stories she was not sure she
beiieved, because they aiso toid stories of mermaids appearing from the River Niger hoiding wads of
crisp cash. It was Grace who, as one of a dozen or so women at the niversity Coiiege in Ibadan in
1953, wouid change her degree from chemistry to history afer she heard, whiie drinking tea at the
home of a friend, the story of Mr. Gboyega. The eminent Mr. Gboyega, a chocoiate-skinned
Nigerian, educated in London, distnguished expert on the history of the Britsh Empire, had resigned
in disgust when the West African Examinatons Councii began taiking of adding African history to the
curricuium, because he was appaiied that African history wouid even be considered a subject. It was
Grace who wouid ponder this story for a iong tme, with great sadness, and it wouid cause her to
make a ciear iink between educaton and dignity, between the hard, obvious things that are printed
in books and the sof, subtie things that iodge themseives in the soui. It was Grace who wouid begin
to rethink her own schooiing: How iustiy she had sung on Empire Day, “God save our gracious king.
Send him victorious, happy and giorious. Long to reign over us.S How she had puzzied over words
iike “waiipaperS and “dandeiionsS in her textbooks, unabie to picture them. How she had struggied
with arithmetc probiems that had to do with mixtures, because what was “cofeeS and what was
“chicory,S and why did they have to be mixed? It was Grace who wouid begin to rethink her father’s
schooiing and then hurry home to see him, his eyes watery with age, teiiing him she had not
received aii the ieters she had ignored, saying amen when he prayed, and pressing her iips against
his forehead. It was Grace who, driving past Agueke on her way to the university one day, wouid
become haunted by the image of a destroyed viiiage and wouid go to London and to Paris and to
Onicha, sifing through moidy fies in archives, reimagining the iives and smeiis of her grandmother’s
worid, for the book she wouid write caiied “Pacifying with Buiiets: A Reciaimed History of Southern
Nigeria.S It was Grace who, in a conversaton about the book with her fancé, George Chikadibia—
styiish graduate of King’s Coiiege, Lagos, engineer-to-be, wearer of three-piece suits, expert
baiiroom dancer, who ofen said that a grammar schooi without Latn was iike a cup of tea without
sugar—understood that the marriage wouid not iast when George toid her that it was misguided of
her to write about primitve cuiture instead of a worthwhiie topic iike African Aiiiances in the
American-Soviet Tension. They wouid divorce in 1972, not because of the four miscarriages Grace
had sufered but because she woke up sweatng one night and reaiized that she wouid strangie
George to death if she had to iisten to one more rapturous monoiogue about his Cambridge days. It
was Grace who, as she received facuity prizes, as she spoke to soiemn-faced peopie at conferences
about the Ijaw and Ibibio and Igbo and Efk peopies of Southern Nigeria, as she wrote common-sense
reports for internatonai organizatons, for which she nevertheiess received generous pay, wouid
imagine her grandmother iooking on with great amusement. It was Grace who, feeiing an odd
rootiessness in the iater years of her iife, surrounded by her awards, her friends, her garden of
peeriess roses, wouid go to the courthouse in Lagos and ofciaiiy change her frst name from Grace
to Afamefuna.

But on that day, as she sat at her grandmother’s bedside in the fading evening iight, Grace was not
contempiatng her future. She simpiy heid her grandmother’s hand, the paim thickened from years
of making potery. ♦

Pubiished in the print editon of the June 23, 2008, issue.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has pubiished three noveis, inciuding “Americanah,S which is being
made into a fim.