A Private Experience

“Later, Chika will learn that, as she and the woman are speaking, Hausa Muslims are hacking down Igbo Christians with machetes, clubbing them with stones.”

This is the first of several flash-forwards, in which the reader gets a glimpse of future Chika. The flash-forwards depict Chika learning details of the atrocities she so narrowly escaped, and each detail represents a corresponding loss of innocence. Each flash-forward is accompanied by a return to the present, and the juxtaposition of the two timeframes emphasizes Chika’s current naïveté.

“[S]he knows nothing about riots: the closest she has come is the pro-democracy rally at the university a few weeks ago, where she had held a bright green branch and joined in chanting ‘The military must go! Abacha must go! Democracy now!’”

Chika’s knowledge of politics comes from her political activist sister, Nnedi. Despite the earnestness with which the students protest, their knowledge of political injustice is theoretical rather than direct. As Chika will later discover, the reality is much worse than they imagine.

“[S]he would not even have participated in that rally if her sister Nnedi had not been one of the organizers who had gone from hostel to hostel to hand out fliers and talk to students about the importance of ‘having our voices heard.’”

Nnedi, Chika’s charismatic sister, appears to have the stronger personality, and Chika is content to follow her lead. Juxtaposed with each other, their differences highlight how ill-prepared Chika is to deal with the riots and her current situation.

“The streets where she ran blindly not sure in which direction Nnedi had run, not sure if the man running beside her was a friend or an enemy, not sure if she should stop and pick up one of the bewildered-looking children separated from their mothers in the rush, not even sure who was who or who was killing whom.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie uses repetition of the words “not sure” to underline the extent of Chika’s confusion, bewilderment, and fear in the face of so much hatred and violence. She is so overwhelmed that she can’t even decide whether to help an endangered child. It is as if she herself has regressed back to childhood.

“Later she will […] find out it had all started at the motor park, when a man drove over a copy of the Holy Koran that lay on the roadside, a man who happened to be Igbo and Christian. The men nearby, men who sat around all day playing draughts, men who happened to be Muslim, pulled him out of his pickup truck, cut his head off with one flash of a machete, and carried it to the market, asking others to join in; the infidel had desecrated the Holy Book.”

This murder is the inciting incident that sets the plot in motion. It takes place off-stage, and Chika does not learn the full details until after the riot it triggers has ended. The arbitrary nature of the incident is reinforced by Adichie’s repetition of “happened to be.” Likewise, the situation is ironic—the Muslim men say the Christian man desecrated the Koran, but the book was left on the ground, already disrespected.

“She looks down at her own denim skirt and red T-shirt embossed with a picture of the Statue of Liberty, both of which she bought when she and Nnedi spent a few summer weeks with relatives in New York.”

Chika’s T-shirt symbolizes her privileged life: She was able to travel to New York and return with a souvenir. It highlights the financial gulf between Chika and the woman and symbolizes her naïve belief, referenced later in the story, that riots are something that happens to other people. This trip to Kano is supposed to be a simple excursion, an opportunity to visit with family and perhaps pick up another souvenir.

“[M]aking one of her political arguments. Like how the government of General Abacha was using its foreign policy to legitimize itself in the eyes of other African countries. Or how the huge popularity in blond hair attachments was a direct result of British colonialism.”

Adichie uses bathos (the mention of something trivial or ordinary in a more serious context) when mentioning blond hair extensions, highlighting how colonialism left a lasting legacy of conflict and chaos in Nigeria. This is also an indirect reminder of the racist underpinnings of colonial empires.

“‘We have only spent a week here with our aunty, we have never even been to Kano before,’ Chika says, and she realizes that what she feels is this: she and her sister should not be affected by the riot. Riots like this were what she read about in newspapers. Riots like this were what happened to other people.”

Chika struggles to make sense of the riot. Until now, her knowledge of the riots has been historical or theoretical. The reality behind the sanitized stories she has read has shocked and overwhelmed her, and she struggles with disbelief. She attempts to recreate this original distance between here and these events, represented by the repetition of “Riots like this.”

“She wishes Nnedi were here. She imagines the cocoa brown of Nnedi’s eyes lighting up, her lips moving quickly explaining that riots do not happen in a vacuum, that religion and ethnicity are often politicized because the ruler is safe if the hungry ruled are killing one another.”

In the middle of the riot, Chika struggles to understand what is happening. She reflects on her sister as a knowledge keeper, someone who can make sense of the events and provide reasons behind things happening. This political and historical context is accurate, but while Chika seeks the comfort of this knowledge, it is not keeping Nnedi safe—later flash-forwards reveal that she disappears and is presumably dead.

“Dr. Olunloyo wanted all the students to feel the stage 4 heart murmur of a little boy who was watching them with curious eyes. The doctor asked her to go first and she became sweaty, her mind blank, no longer sure where the heart was. She had finally placed a shaky hand on the left side of the boy’s nipple, and the brrr-brrr-brrr vibration of swishing blood going the wrong way, pulsing against her fingers, made her stutter and say ‘Sorry, sorry’ to the boy even though he was smiling at her.”

This scene reveals Chika’s lack of confidence and raises the possibility that a career in medicine may not be a good fit for her since it requires that she intrude into the private spaces of others. Later, when she gives medical advice to the woman, she is more confident, suggesting that the riot has already changed her perception of herself and her capabilities.

“The woman watches Chika for a while, as if this disclosure has created a bond. ‘All right, I get it and use.’ She plays with her scarf for a moment and then says, ‘I am looking for my daughter. We go market together this morning. She is selling groundnut near bus stop, because there are many customers. Then riot begin and I am looking up and down market for her.’”

After first being physically vulnerable, the woman is ready to be emotionally vulnerable. This is symbolized by her removing her scarf, which she would normally wear for modesty—she is creating intimacy between her and Chika. The shared detail of groundnuts—both of their missing loved ones were dealing with groundnuts at the market when the riot began—creates a commonality between the two women.

“The woman shakes her head and there is a flash of impatience, even anger, in her eyes. ‘You have ear problem? You don’t hear what I am saying? […] This one is first daughter. Halima.’ The woman starts to cry. She cries quietly her shoulders heaving up and down, not the kind of loud sobbing that the women Chika knows do, the kind that screams Hold me and comfort me because I cannot deal with this alone. The woman’s crying is private, as though she is carrying out a necessary ritual that involves no one else.”

The conflict between the woman and Chika here reflects the tenuous nature of their new relationship; they don’t quite understand each other, and a nonsensical question from Chika sparks the woman’s anger. Chika in her turn is impressed by her straightforward and honest expression of grief, a contrast from what she has seen in her own experience.

“Chika has not reached the end of the second street, toward the market, when she sees the body. She almost doesn’t see it, walks so close to it that she feels its heat. The body must have been very recently burned. The smell is sickening, of roasted flesh, unlike that of any she has ever smelled.

Later […] she will see other bodies, many burned, lying lengthwise along the sides of the street, as though someone carefully pushed them there, straightening them. She will look at only one of the corpses, naked, stiff, facedown, and it will strike her that she cannot tell if the partially burned man is Igbo or Hausa, Christian or Muslim, from looking at that charred flesh.”

Chika’s discovery of the burned body is a turning point for her, marking a loss of innocence. She also gains an understanding of the human capacity for violence. While the conflict is deep-rooted and complex, Chika cannot tell who is on what side in this desecrate state, underlining the fact that people are all the same deep down. At the same time, illustrating this point through a heap of burned corpses suggests that humanity will not learn this lesson before many others suffer and die.