"Yes?" Master's voice was muffled.

"It is me, sah. I want to ask if I can take the kerosene stove, sah." After he took the cooker, he would pretend to have forgotten the garri cup, the last bit of yam, the ladle. He was prepared to fake a seizure, an epileptic fit, anything that would keep Master from continuing what he was doing with that woman. It took long minutes before Master opened the door. His glasses were off and his eyes looked swollen.

"Sah?" Ugwu asked, looking past him. The room was empty. "Is it well, sah?"

"Of course it's not well, you ignoramus," Master said, staring at the pair of slippers on the floor. He looked lost in his own mind. Ugwu waited. Master sighed. "Professor Ekwenugo was on his way to lay land mines with the Science Group when they went over some potholes and the mines went off."

"The mines went off?"

"Ekwenugo was blown up. He's dead."

Blown up rang in Ugwu's ears.

Master moved back. "Take the stove, then."

Ugwu came in and picked up the kerosene stove that he did not need and thought of Professor Ekwenugo's long tapering nail. Blown up. Professor Ekwenugo had always been his proof that Biafra would triumph, with the stories of rockets and armored cars and fuel made from nothing. Would Professor Ekwenugo's body parts be charred, like bits of wood, or would it be possible to recognize what was what? Would there be many dried fragments, like squashing a harmattan-dried leaf? Blown up.

Master left moments later for Tanzania Bar. Ugwu changed into his good trousers and hurried to Eberechi's house. It seemed the most natural thing, the only thing, to do. He refused to think of how upset Olanna would be if Mama Oji told her that he had gone out, or of what Eberechi's reaction would be, whether she would ignore him or welcome him or shout at him. He needed to see her.

She was sitting on the veranda alone, wearing that buttocks-molding tight skirt he remembered, but her hair was different, cut in a short rounded shape rather than plaited with thread.

"Ugwu!" she said, surprised, and stood up.

"You cut your hair."

"Is there thread anywhere, talk less of the money to buy it?"

"It suits you," he said.

She shrugged.

"I should have come since," he said. He should never have stopped speaking to her because of an army officer he did not know. "Forgive me. Gbaghalu."

They looked at each other, and she reached out and pinched the skin of his neck. He slapped her hand away, playfully, and then held on to it. He did not let go when they both sat on the stairs, and she told him how the family renting Master's former house was wicked, how the boys on the street hid in the ceiling when the conscripting soldiers came, how the last air raid had left a hole in their wall that rats came through.

Finally, Ugwu said that Professor Ekwenugo had died. "You remember I told you about him? The one in the Science Group, the one who made great things," he said.

"I remember," she said. "The one with the long nail."

"It was cut," Ugwu said and started to cry; his tears were sparse and itchy. She placed a hand on his shoulder and he sat very still so as not to move her hand, so as to keep it where it was. There was a newness to her, or perhaps it was his perception of things that had become new. He believed now in preciousness.

"You said he cut his long nail?" she asked.

"He cut it," Ugwu said. It was suddenly a good thing he had cut his nail; Ugwu could not bear the thought of that nail being blown up.

"I should go," he said. "Before my master comes home."

"I shall come and visit you tomorrow," she said. "I know a shortcut to your place."

Master was not back when Ugwu got home. Mama Oji was screaming, "Shame on you! Shame on you!" at her husband, and Pastor Ambrose was praying that God scatter Britain with holy-spirit dynamite, and a child was crying. Slowly, one after the other, the sounds ceased. Darkness fell. Oil lamps went off. Ugwu sat outside the room and waited until, finally, Master walked in with a small smile on his face and his eyes a glaring red.

"My good man," he said.

"Welcome, sah. Nno." Ugwu stood up. Master was unsteady on his feet, swaying ever so slightly to the left. Ugwu hurried forward and placed his arm around him and supported him. They had just stepped inside the room when Master doubled over with a fierce jerk and threw up. The foaming vomit splattered on the floor. Sour smells filled the room. Master sat down on the bed. Ugwu brought a rag and some water and, while he cleaned, he listened to Master's uneven breathing.

"Don't tell any of this to your madam," Master said.

"Yes, sah."

Eberechi visited often, and her smile, a brush of her hand, or her pinching his neck became exquisite joys. The afternoon he first kissed her, Baby was asleep. They were inside, sitting on the bench and playing Biafran whot andshe had just said "Check up!" and placed down her last card when he leaned closer and tasted the tart dirt behind her ear. Then he kissed her neck, her jaw, her lips; under the pressure of his tongue, she opened her mouth and the gushing warmth of it overwhelmed him. His hand moved to her chest and enclosed her small breast. She pushed it away. He lowered it to her belly and kissed her mouth again before quickly slipping his hand under her skirt.

"Just let me see," he said, before she could stop him. "Just see."

She stood up. She did not hold him back as he raised her skirt and pulled down the cotton underwear with a small tear at the waistband and looked at the large rounded lobes of her buttocks. He pulled the underwear back up and let go of her skirt. He loved her. He wanted to tell her that he loved her.

"I am going," she said, and straightened her blouse.

"What of your friend the army officer?"

"He is in another sector."

"What did you do with him?"

She rubbed the back of her hand against her lips as if to wipe something off.

"Did you do anything with him?" Ugwu asked.

She walked to the door, still silent.

"You like him," Ugwu said, feeling desperate now.

"I like you more."

It didn't matter that she was still seeing the officer. What mattered was the more, whom she preferred. He pulled her to him but she moved away.

"You will kill me," she said, and laughed. "Let me go."

"I'll escort you halfway," he said.

"No need. Baby will be alone."

"I'll be back before she wakes up."

He wanted to hold her hand; instead, he walked so close to her that, once in a while, their bodies brushed against each other. He didn't go far before turning back. He was a short pathway away from home when he saw two soldiers standing next to a van and holding guns.

"You! Stop there!" one of them called.

Ugwu began to run until he heard the gunshot, so deafening, so alarmingly close that he fell to the ground and waited for the pain to drill into his body, certain he had been hit. But there was no pain. When the soldier ran up to him, the first thing Ugwu saw was the pair of canvas shoes, before he looked up at the wiry body and scowling face. A rosary hung around his neck. The burnt smell of gunpowder came from his gun.

"Come on, stand up, you bloody civilian! Join them there!"

Ugwu stood up and the soldier slapped the back of his head and a splintering light spread to his eyes; he dug his feet into the loose sand to steady himself for a moment before he walked over to join the two men standing with their arms raised high. One was elderly, at least sixty-five, while the other was a teenager of perhaps fifteen. Ugwu mumbled a "good afternoon" to the elderly man and stood next to him, arms raised.

"Enter the van," the second soldier said. His thick beard covered most of his cheeks.