The steward appeared right away, as if he had been standing by the door. "Bring cold water and Coke," Mrs. Ezeka said.

Pamela began to whine, still tugging at the doll's clothes.

"Come, come, let me do it for you," Mrs. Ezeka said. She turned to Olanna. "She's so restless now. You see, we should have gone abroad last week. The two older ones have gone. His Excellency gave us permission ages ago. We were supposed to leave on a relief plane, but none of them landed. They said there were too many Nigerian bombers. Can you imagine? Yesterday, we waited in Uli, inside that unfinished building they call a terminal, for more than two hours and no plane landed. But hopefully we'll leave on Sunday. We will fly to Gabon and then on to England -on our Nigerian passports, of course! The British have refused to recognize Biafra!" Her laughter filled Olanna with a resentment as fine, as painful, as the prick of a new pin.

The steward brought the water on a silver tray.

"Are you sure that water is properly cold?" Mrs. Ezeka asked. "Was it in the new freezer or the old one?"

"The new one, mah, like you tell me."

"Will you eat cake, Olanna?" Mrs. Ezeka asked, after the steward left. "We made it today."

"No, thank you."

Professor Ezeka came in holding some files. "Is that all you're drinking? Water?"

"Your house is surreal," Olanna said.

"What a choice of words, surreal," Professor Ezeka said.

"Odenigbo is very unhappy in his directorate. Can you help transfer him somewhere else?" The words moved slowly out of Olanna's mouth and she realized how much she hated to ask, how much she wanted to get it over with and leave this house with the red rug and the matching red sofas and the television set and the fruity scent of Mrs. Ezeka's perfume.

"Everything is tight now, really, very tight," Professor Ezeka said. "Requests pour in from everywhere." He sat down, placed the files on his lap, and crossed his legs. "But I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you," Olanna said. "And thank you again for the provisions."

"Have some cake," Mrs. Ezeka said.

"No, I don't want any cake."

"Maybe after lunch."

Olanna stood up. "I can't stay for lunch. I must go. I teach some children in the yard and I told them to come in an hour's time."

"Oh, how lovely," Mrs. Ezeka said, walking her to the door. "If only I wasn't going overseas so soon, we would have done something together too, for the win-the-war effort."

Olanna forced her lips to form a smile.

"The driver will take you back," Professor Ezeka said.

"Thank you," Olanna said.

Before she climbed into the car, Mrs. Ezeka asked her to come to the back and see the new bunker her husband had had built; it was concrete, sturdy.

"Imagine what these vandals have reduced us to. Pamela and I sometimes sleep here when they bomb us," Mrs. Ezeka said. "But we shall survive."

"Yes," Olanna said and stared at the smooth floor and two beds, a furnished underground room.

When she got back to the yard, Baby was crying. Mucus ran thinly down her nose.

"They ate Bingo," Baby said.

'What?"

'Adanna's mummy ate Bingo."

"Ugwu, what happened?" Olanna asked, taking Baby in her arms.

Ugwu shrugged. "That is what the people in the yard are saying. Mama Adanna took the dog out some time ago and does not answer when they ask her where it is. And she has just cooked her soup with meat."

Olanna hushed Baby, wiped her eyes and nose, and thought for a moment about the dog with its head full of sores.

Kainene came in the middle of a hot afternoon. Olanna was in the kitchen soaking some dried cassava in water when Mama Oji called, "There is a woman in a car asking for you!"

Olanna hurried out and stopped when she saw her sister standing near the banana trees. She looked elegant in a knee-length tan dress.

"Kainene!" Olanna extended her arms slightly, uncertainly, and Kainene moved forward; their embrace was brief, their bodies barely touching before Kainene stepped back.

"I went to your old house and somebody told me to come here."

"Our landlord kicked us out, we were not good for business." Olanna laughed at her poor joke, although Kainene did not laugh. Kainene was peering into the room. Olanna wished so much that Kainene had come when they were still in a house, wished she did not feel so painfully self-conscious.

"Come in and sit down."

Olanna dragged the bench in from the veranda and Kainene looked warily at it before she sat down and placed her hands on the leather bag that was the same earth-brown shade as her coiffed wig. Olanna raised the dividing curtain and sat on the bed and smoothed her wrapper. They did not look at each other. The silence was charged with things unsaid.

"So how have you been?" Olanna asked, finally.

"Things were normal until Port Harcourt fell. I was an army contractor, and I had a license to import stockfish. I'm in Orlu now. I'm in charge of a refugee camp there."

"Oh."

"Are you silently condemning me for profiteering from the war? Somebody had to import the stockfish, you know." Kainene raised her eyebrows; they were penciled in, thin fluid arcs. "Many contractors were paid and didn't deliver. At least I did."

"No, no, I wasn't thinking that at all."

"You were."

Olanna looked away. There were too many things swirling around in her head. "I was so worried when Port Harcourt fell. I sent messages."

"I got the letter you sent to Madu." Kainene rearranged the straps of her handbag. "You said you were teaching. Do you still? Your noble win-the-war effort?"

"The school is a refugee center now. I sometimes teach the children in the yard."

"And how is the revolutionary husband?"

"He's still with the Manpower Directorate."

"You don't have a wedding photo."

"There was an air raid during our reception. The photographer threw his camera down."

Kainene nodded, as if there were no need to feel sympathy at this news. She opened her bag. "I came to give you this. Mum sent it through a British journalist."

Olanna held the envelope in her hand, unsure whether to open it in front of Kainene.

"I also brought two dresses for Baby," Kainene said, and gestured to the bag she had placed on the floor. "A woman who came back from Sao Tome had some good children's clothes for sale."

"You bought clothes for Baby?"

"How shocking indeed. And it's about time the girl began to be called Chiamaka. This Baby business is tiresome."

Olanna laughed.

To think that her sister was sitting across from her, that her sister had come to visit her, that her sister had brought clothes for her child. "Will you drink water? It's all we have."

"No, I'm fine." Kainene got up and walked to the wall, where the mattress leaned, and then came back and sat down. "You didn't know my steward Ikejide, did you?"

"Isn't he the one Maxwell brought from his hometown?"

"Yes." Kainene got up again. "He was killed in Port Harcourt. They were bombing and shelling us, and a piece of shrapnel cut off his head, completely beheaded him, and his body kept running. His body kept running and it didn't have a head."

"Oh, God."

"I saw him."

Olanna got up and sat next to Kainene on the bench and put an arm around her. Kainene smelled of home. They said nothing for long minutes.

"I thought about changing your money for you," Kainene said. "But you can do it at the bank and then deposit, can't you?"

"Haven't you seen the bomb craters all around the bank? My money is staying under my bed."

"Make sure the cockroaches don't get to it. Life is harder for them these days." Kainene leaned against Olanna and then, as if she had suddenly remembered something, she got up and straightened her dress; Olanna felt the slow sadness of missing a person who was still there.