"Colin Williamson stopped by my office today," Kainene said.

"I didn't know he was back," Richard said, and Colin's sunburned face came to his mind, the flash of discolored teeth as he talked, too often, about how he left the BBC because his editors were supportive of Nigeria.

"He brought a letter from my mother," Kainene said.

"From your mother!"

"She read his story in the Observer and contacted him to ask whether he would be returning to Biafra and would he deliver a letter to her daughter in Port Harcourt. She was surprised when he said he knew us."

Richard loved the way she said us. "Are they all right?"

"Of course they are; nobody is bombing London. She says she has nightmares about Olanna and me dying, she's saying prayers, and they're involved with the Save Biafra Campaign in London -which must mean they sent a small donation." Kainene paused and handed him an envelope. "She rather cleverly taped some British pounds into the inner lining of a card. Quite impressive. She sent one for Olanna too."

He read the letter quickly. Regards to Richard was the only reference to him, at the bottom of the blue paper. He wanted to ask Kainene how she planned to deliver Olanna's but he would not. Silence had enshrined the subject of Olanna with each month, each year, that passed without their bringing it up. When Kainene received the three letters Olanna had written since the war started, she had said nothing except that she received them. And she had not replied.

"I'll send somebody to Umuahia next week to deliver Olanna's," Kainene said.

He gave the letter back to her. The silence was becoming curdled.

"The Nigerians won't stop talking about Port Harcourt," he said.

"They won't take Port Harcourt. Our best battalion is here." Kainene sounded casual enough, but there was a new wariness in her eyes, the same wariness she had when she told him, months ago, that she wanted to buy an uncompleted house in Orlu. She had said it was better to own property rather than cash but he suspected that, for her, it was a safety net in case Port Harcourt fell. For him, considering the fall of Port Harcourt was blasphemous. Every weekend, when they inspected the house to make sure her builders were not stealing the materials, he never spoke of their living there, as though to absolve himself from the blasphemy.

And he no longer wanted to travel. He wanted to guard Port Harcourt with his presence; as long as he was there, he felt, nothing would happen. But the public relations people in Europe had asked for an article about the airstrip in Uli, so he left reluctantly, very early in the morning, so he would be back before midday when Nigerian planes strafed vehicles driving on major roads. A wide bomb crater loomed ahead on Okigwe Road. The driver swerved to avoid it and Richard felt a familiar foreboding, but his thoughts lightened as they approached Uli. It was his first visit to Biafra 's only link to the outside world, this wonder of an airstrip where food and arms evaded Nigerian bombers. He climbed out of the car and looked at the strip of tarmac with thick bush on either side and thought of the people who did so much with so little. A tiny jet was parked at the far end. The morning sun was hot; three men were spreading palm fronds on the tarmac, working swiftly and sweating, pushing along large carts piled with fronds. Richard went over to say, "Well done, jisienu ike."

An official came out of the unfinished terminal building nearby and shook Richard's hand. "Don't write too much, oh! Don't give away our secrets," he joked.

"Of course not," Richard said. "Can I interview you?"

The man beamed and flexed his shoulders and said, "Well, I am in charge of customs and immigration." Richard hid a smile; people always felt important when he asked for an interview. They talked standing by the tarmac, and shortly after the man returned to the building, a tall fair-haired man walked out. Richard recognized him: Count Von Rosen. He looked older than in the picture Richard had seen, closer to seventy than sixty, but his was an elegant aging; his strides were long and his chin firm.

"They told me you were out here and I thought I'd say hello," he said, his handshake as unwavering as his green eyes. "I've just read your excellent article on the Biafran Boys Brigade."

"A pleasure to meet you, Count Von Rosen," Richard said. And it was a pleasure. Ever since he read about this Swedish aristocrat who bombed Nigerian targets with his own small plane, he had wanted to meet him.

"Remarkable men," the count said, glancing at the workers who were making sure that, from above, the black stretch of tarmac would look like bush. "Remarkable country."

"Yes," Richard said.

"Do you like cheese?" the count asked.

"Cheese? Yes. Yes, of course."

The count dug into his pocket and brought out a small packet. "Excellent cheddar."

Richard took it and tried to shield his surprise. "Thank you."

The count fumbled in his pocket again and Richard worried that he might be bringing out more cheese. But he pulled out a pair of sunglasses and put them on. "I'm told your wife is a wealthy Igbo, one of those who stayed back to fight for the cause."

Richard had never thought about it like that, Kainene staying back to fight for the cause, but he was pleased that the count had been told this and told also that he and Kainene were married. He felt a sudden fierce pride for Kainene. "Yes. She's an extraordinary woman."

There was a pause. The intimacy of the cheese present required a reciprocating gesture, so Richard opened his diary and showed the count first a photo of Kainene, taken by the pool with a cigarette between her lips, and then the photo of the roped pot.

"I fell in love with Igbo-Ukwu art and then fell in love with her," he said.

"Beautiful, both," the count said, before he took his sunglasses off to examine the photos.

"Are you going on a mission today?" Richard asked.

"Yes."

"Why are you doing this, sir?"

He put his glasses back on. "I worked with the freedom fighters in Ethiopia and before that I flew in relief to the Warsaw ghetto," he said with a slight smile, as if that answered the question. "Now I must get on. Keep up the good work."

Richard watched him walk away, a straight-backed courtier, and thought how different he was from the mercenary. "I love the Biafrans," the red-faced German had said. "Nothing like the bloody kaffirs in Congo." He had spoken to Richard in his house in the middle of the bush, drinking from a large bottle of whisky, watching his adopted child-a pretty Biafran toddler-playing with a collection of old shrapnel on the floor. Richard had felt annoyed by the affectionate contempt with which he treated the child and by the exception he made of Biafrans. It was as though the mercenary felt that here finally were black people he could like. The count was different. Richard glanced at the tiny jet again before he climbed into the car.

On the way back, just outside Port Harcourt, he heard the distant rattle of gunfire. It was not long before it stopped. It worried him. And when Kainene suggested they go to Orlu the next day to find a carpenter for her new house, Richard wished they did not have to go. Two consecutive days away from Port Harcourt worried him.

The new house was surrounded by cashew trees. Richard remembered how dejected it had looked when Kainene bought it-half-finished with layers of green mold on the unpainted walls-how the flies and bees clustered over the fallen cashews had nauseated him. The owner had been principal of the community secondary school down the road. Now that the school was a refugee camp, now that his wife had died, he was going into the interior with his goats and his children. He repeated, "This house is out of shelling range, completely out of shelling range," until Richard wondered how he could possibly know where the Nigerians would shell from. There was an unobtrusive charm about the bungalow, Richard conceded, as they walked through the empty, newly painted rooms. Kainene hired two carpenters from the refugee camp, made sketches on a sheet of paper, and, back in the car, told Richard, "I don't trust them to make a decent table."