Free Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

look at her. There was a tilt to his head, a narrowing of his eyes, that meant he still harbored hope.
    “I’m moving to Nsukka,” she said.
    “So you are finally going to become an intellectual and marry your lecturer.”
    “Nobody said anything about marriage. And how is Janet? Or is it Jane? I mix up your American women.”
    Mohammed raised one eyebrow. She could not help admiring his caramel complexion. She used to tease him about being prettier than she was.
    “What did you do to your hair?” he asked. “It doesn’t suit you at all. Is this how your lecturer wants you to look, like a bush woman?”
    Olanna touched her hair, newly plaited with black thread. “My aunty did it. I quite like it.”
    “I don’t. I prefer your wigs.” Mohammed moved closer and hugged her again. When she felt his arms tighten around her, she pushed him away.
    “You won’t let me kiss you.”
    “No,” she said, although it had not been a question. “You’re not telling me about Janet-Jane.”
    “Jane. So this means I won’t see you anymore when you go to Nsukka.”
    “Of course I’ll see you.”
    “I know that lecturer of yours is crazy, so I won’t come to Nsukka.” Mohammed laughed. His tall slim body and tapering fingers spoke of fragility, gentleness. “Would you like a soft drink? Or some wine?”
    “You have alcohol in this house? Someone must inform your uncle,” Olanna teased.
    Mohammed rang a bell and asked a steward to bring some drinks. Afterward, he sat thoughtfully rubbing his thumb and forefinger together. “Sometimes, I feel my life is going nowhere. I travel and drive imported cars, and women follow me. But something isn’t there, something isn’t right. You know?” She watched him; she knew where he was going with this. Yet when he said, “I wish things didn’t change,” she was touched and flattered.
    “You’ll find a good woman,” she said limply.
    “Rubbish,” he said, and as they sat side by side drinking Coke, she recalled the disbelieving pain on his face that had only deepened when she told him she had to end it right away because she did not want to be unfaithful to him. She expected that he would resist, she knew very well how much he loved her, but she had been shocked when he told her to go ahead and sleep with Odenigbo as long as she did not leave him: Mohammed, who often half joked about coming from a lineage of holy warriors, the very avatars of pious masculinity. Perhaps it was why her affection for him would always be mingled with gratitude, a selfish gratitude. He could have made their breakup more difficult for her; he could have left her with much more guilt.
    She placed her glass down. “Let’s go for a drive. I hate it when I visit Kano and only get to see the ugly cement and zinc of Sabon Gari. I want to see that ancient mud statue and go around the lovely city walls again.”
    “Sometimes you are just like the white people, the way they gawk at everyday things.”
    “Do I?”
    “It’s a joke. How are you going to learn not to take everything so seriously if you live with that crazy lecturer?” Mohammed stood up. “Come, we should stop by first so you can greet my mother.”
    As they walked past a small gate at the back and into the courtyard that led to his mother’s chambers, Olanna remembered the trepidation she used to feel coming here. The reception area was the same, with gold-dyed walls and thick Persian rugs and grooved patterns on the exposed ceilings. Mohammed’s mother looked unchanged, too, with the ring in her nose and the silk scarves around her head. She was finespun in the way that used to make Olanna wonder if she wasn’t uncomfortable, dressing up every day and simply sitting at home. But the older woman did not have that old standoffish expression, did not speak stiffly with her eyes focused somewhere between Olanna’s face and the hand-carved paneling. Instead she got up and hugged Olanna.
    “You look so lovely, my dear. Don’t let