The Bride Price [antikvár]

Father Goes Away Aku-nna turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door of her family's one-room apartment in Lagos, Nigeria. To her surprise her father was standing there in his work clothes, with his hat in his hand. He looked like a criminal who had been caught stealing. Aku-nna and her brother Nna-nndo stared at him. 'You ought to be at work,' their silent looks said. 'You ought to be at the factory.' But their father did not offer any explanation. Nna-nndo was eleven. He was a tall boy for his age. At school he was just starting to write with ink, and he was proud of this. However, although he was very clever in other ways, Nna-nndo was very slow at book work. There was always ink on his fingers and on his school uniform. Sometimes he rubbed ink on his woolly hair. When people asked him why, he always replied, 'Ink makes my hair blacker!' He loved a joke, just like their mother, Ma Blackie. Ma Blackie was a huge woman, as tall and straight as a tree, with extremely black, shiny skin. She was always smiling. But behind her smile Ma Blackie had a problem. She seemed unable to have another baby. In 1945, the local men came back from the war in Burma. All their wives had babies soon afterwards - all except Ma Blackie. Now, five years later, there was still no sign of 1 •i,