Read Online Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Free Book Online

would say, “Heavenly father, I command you to bless Uju’s mentor. May his enemies never triumph over him!” Or she would say, “We cover Uju’s mentor with the precious blood of Jesus!” And Ifemelu would mumble something nonsensical instead of saying “Amen.” Her mother said the word “mentor” defiantly, a thickness in her tone, as though the force of her delivery would truly turn The General into a mentor, and also remake the world into a place where young doctors could afford Aunty Uju’s new Mazda, that green, glossy, intimidatingly streamlined car.
    Chetachi, who lived upstairs, asked Ifemelu, “Your mom said Aunty Uju’s mentor also gave her a loan for the car?”
    “Yes.”
    “Eh! Aunty Uju is lucky o!” Chetachi said.
    Ifemelu did not miss the knowing smirk on her face. Chetachi and her mother must have already gossiped about the car; they were envious, chattering people who visited only to see what others had, to size up new furniture or new electronics.
    “God should bless the man o. Me I hope I will also meet a mentor when I graduate,” Chetachi said. Ifemelu bristled at Chetachi’s goading. Still, it was her mother’s fault, to so eagerly tell the neighbors her mentor story. She should not have; it was nobody’s business what Aunty Uju did. Ifemelu had overheard her telling somebody in the backyard, “You see, The General wanted to be a doctor when he was young, and so now he helps young doctors, God is really using him in people’s lives.” And she sounded sincere, cheerful, convincing. She believed her own words. Ifemelu could not understand this, her mother’s ability to tell herself stories about her reality that did not even resemble her reality. When Aunty Uju first told them about her new job—“The hospital has no doctor vacancy but The General made them create one for me” were her words—Ifemelu’s mother promptly said, “This is a miracle!”
    Aunty Uju smiled, a quiet smile that held its peace; she did not, of course, think it was a miracle, but would not say so. Or maybe there
was
something of a miracle in her new job as consultant at the military hospitalin Victoria Island, and her new house in Dolphin Estate, the cluster of duplexes that wore a fresh foreignness, some painted pink, others the blue of a warm sky, hemmed by a park with grass lush as a new rug and benches where people could sit—a rarity even on The Island. Only weeks before, she had been a new graduate and all her classmates were talking about going abroad to take the American medical exams or the British exams, because the other choice was to tumble into a parched wasteland of joblessness. The country was starved of hope, cars stuck for days in long, sweaty petrol lines, pensioners raising wilting placards demanding their pay, lecturers gathering to announce yet one more strike. But Aunty Uju did not want to leave; she had, for as long as Ifemelu could remember, dreamed of owning a private clinic, and she held that dream in a tight clasp.
    “Nigeria will not be like this forever, I’m sure I will find part-time work and it will be tough, yes, but one day I will start my clinic, and on The Island!” Aunty Uju had told Ifemelu. Then she went to a friend’s wedding. The bride’s father was an air vice marshal, it was rumored that the Head of State might attend, and Aunty Uju joked about asking him to make her medical officer at Aso Rock. He did not attend, but many of his generals did, and one of them asked his ADC to call Aunty Uju, to ask her to come to his car in the parking lot after the reception, and when she went to the dark Peugeot with a small flag flying from its front, and said, “Good afternoon, sir,” to the man in the back, he told her, “I like you. I want to take care of you.” Maybe there was a kind of miracle in those words,
I like you, I want to take care of you
, Ifemelu thought, but not in the way her mother meant it. “A miracle! God is faithful!” her mother said that