For the First Time

          I looked at him and then away. I wondered if Amaka would ever paint him, would ever capture the clay-smooth skin, the straight eyebrows, which were slightly raised as he watched me. "I played volleyball in class one," I said. "But I stopped playing because I . . . I was not that good and nobody liked to pick me." I kept my eyes focused on the bleak, unpainted spectator stands, abandoned for so long that tiny plants had started to push their green heads through the cracks in the cement.
          "Do you love Jesus?" Father Amadi asked, standing up.
          I was startled. "Yes. Yes, I love Jesus."
          "Then show me. Try and catch me, show me you love Jesus."
          He had hardly finished speaking before he dashed off and I saw the blue flash of his tank top. I did not stop to think; I stood up and ran after him. The wind blew in my face, into my eyes, across my ears. Father Amadi was like blue wind, elusive. I did not catch up until he stopped near the football goal post. "So you don't love Jesus," he teased.
          "You run too fast," I said, panting.
          "I will let you rest, and then you can have another chance to show me you love the Lord."
          We ran four more times. I did not catch him. We flopped down on the grass, finally, and he pushed a water bottle into my hand. "You have good legs for running. You should practice more," he said.
          I looked away. I had never heard anything like that before. It seemed too close, too intimate, to have his eyes on my legs, on any part of me.
          "Don't you know how to smile?" he asked.
          "What?"
          He reached across, tugged lightly at the sides of my lips. "Smile."
          I wanted to smile, but I could not. My lips and cheeks were frozen, unthawed by the sweat running down the sides of my nose. I was too aware that he was watching me.
          "What is that reddish stain on your hand?" he asked.
          I looked down at my hand, at the smudge of the hastily wiped lipstick that still clung to the sweaty back of my hands. I had not realized how much I had put on. "It's . . . a stain," I said, feeling stupid.
          "Lipstick?"
          I nodded.
          "Do you wear lipstick? Have you ever worn lipstick?"
          "No," I said. Then I felt the smile start to creep over my face, stretching my lips and cheeks, an embarrassed and amused smile. He knew I had tried to wear lipstick for the first time today. I smiled. I smiled again.
          "Good evening, Father!" echoed all around, and eight boys descended on us. They were all about my age, with shorts that had holes in them and shirts washed so often I didn't know what color they had originally been and similar crusty spots from insect bites on their legs. Father Amadi took his tank top off and dropped it on my lap before joining the boys on the football field. With his upper body bare, his shoulders were a broad square. I did not look down at his tank top on my lap as I inched my hand ever so slowly toward it. My eyes were on the football field, on Father Amadi's running legs, on the flying white-and-black football, on the many legs of the boys, which all looked like one leg. My hand finally touched the top on my lap, moving over it tentatively as though it could breathe, as though it were a part of Father Amadi, when he blew a whistle for a water break. He brought peeled oranges and water wrapped into tight cone shapes in plastic bags from his car. They all settled down on the grass to eat the oranges, and I watch Father Amadi laugh loudly with his head thrown back, leaning to rest his elbows on the grass. I wondered if the boys felt the same way I did with him, that they were all he could see.
          I held on to his tank top while I watched the rest of the play. A cool wind had started to blow, chilling the sweat on my body, when Father Amadi blew the final whistle, three times with the last time drawn out. Then the boys clustered around him, heads bowed, while he prayed. "Good-bye, Father!" echoed around as he made his way toward me. There was something confident about his gait, like a rooster in charge of all the neighborhood hens.
          In the car, he played a tape. It was a choir singing Igbo worship songs. I knew the first song: Mama sang it sometimes when Jaja and I brought our report cards home. Father Amadi sang along. His voice was smoother than the lead singer's on the tape. When the first song ended, he lowered the volume and asked, "Did you enjoy the game?"
          "Yes."
          "I see Christ in their faces, in the boys' faces."
          I looked at him. I could not reconcile the blond Christ hanging on the burnished cross in St. Agnes and the sting-scarred legs of those boys.
          "They live in Ugwu Oba. Most of them don't go to school anymore because their families can't afford it. Ekwueme--remember him, in the red shirt?"
          I nodded, although I could not remember. All the shirts had seemed similar and colorless.
          "His father was a driver here in the university. But they retrenched him, and Ekwueme had to drop out of Nsukka High School. He is working as a bus conductor now, and he is doing very well. They inspire me, those boys." Father Amadi stopped talking to join in the chorus. "I na-asi m esona ya! I na-asi m esona ya!"
          I nodded in time to the chorus. We really did not need the music, though, because his voice was melody enough. I felt that I was at home, that I was where I had meant to be for a long time. Father Amadi sang for a while; then he lowered the volume to a whisper again. "You haven't asked me a single question," he said.
          "I don't know what to ask."
          "You should have learned the art of questioning from Amaka. Why does the tree's shoot go up and the root down? Why is there a sky? What is life? Just why?"
          I laughed. It sounded stranger, as if I were listening to the recorded laughter of a stranger being played back. I was not sure I had ever heard myself laugh.
          "Why did you become a priest?" I blurted out, then wished I had not asked, that the bubbles in my throat had not let that through. Of course he had gotten the call, the same call that all the Reverend Sisters in school talked about when they asked us to always listen for the call when we prayed. Sometimes I imagined God calling my name, his rumbling voice British-accented. He would not say my name right; like Father Benedict, he would place the emphasis on the second syllable rather than the first.
          "I wanted to be a doctor at first. Then I went to church once and heard this priest speak and I was changed forever," Father Amadi said.
          "Oh."
          "I was joking," Father Amadi glanced at me. He looked surprised I did not realize that it was a joke. "It's a lot more complicated than that, Kambili. I had many questions, growing up. The priesthood came closest to answering them."
          I wondered what questions they were and if Father Benedict, too, had those questions. Then I though, with a fierce, unreasonable sadness, how Father Amadi's smooth skin would not be passed on to a child, how his square shoulders would not balance the legs of his toddle son who wanted to touch the ceiling fan.
          "Ewo, I am late for a chaplaincy council meeting," he said, looking at the clock. "I'll drop you off and leave right away."
          "I'm sorry."
          "Why? I've spent an enjoyable afternoon with you. You must come with me to the stadium again. I will tie your hands and legs up and carry you if I have to." He laughed.
          I stared at the dashboard, at the blue-and-gold Legion of Mary sticker on it. Didn't he know that I did not want him to leave, ever? That I did not need to be persuaded to go to the stadium, or anywhere, with him? The afternoon played across my mind as I got out of the car in front of the flat. I had smiled, run, laughed. My chest was filled with something like bath foam. Light. The lightness was so sweet I tasted it on my tongue, the sweetness of an overripe bright yellow cashew fruit. (pp. 176-180)

I selected this, rather lengthy, passage because it not only seemed significant, but it also seemed pivotal in Kambili's development. For the first time, Kambili feels something other than curious fear. Throughout the novel, she is constantly worrying about her actions and inactions and wondering about the motives and dispositions of others. Although she remains observantly quiet during most situations, much is running through her mind--too much that she never has the time to simply "stop and smell the roses." She overthinks everything and always compares herself to others, often belittling herself with the perception that she is incompetent. Spending an afternoon with Father Amadi opened her eyes to a world she did not suspect she was capable of experiencing: a world full of happiness, a world full of life. For the first time, she smiles. For the first time, she runs for fun. For the first time, she laughs. For the first time, she experiences intimacy. For the first time, she feels happy.

As I typed out and reread the passage, I noticed several things as a writer about Adichie's writing. Her prose flowed seamlessly from Kambili's thoughts to the real world and back to Kambili's thoughts, depicting the interplay between the two. She incorporates much more euphonious diction, as opposed to other sections of the novel, including words such as smooth, elusive, lightly, settled, cool, gait, inspire, melody, bubbles, balance, chaplaincy, enjoyable, foam, lightness, and sweetness. Adichie's word choice for this passage demonstrates the peace and ease Kambili feels for the first time, from spending one-on-one time with Father Amadi.