It rained heavily the day Ade Coker died, a strange, furious rain in the middle of the parched harmattan. Ade Coker was at breakfast with his family when a courier delivered a package to him. His daughter, in her primary school uniform, was sitting across the table from him. The baby was nearby, in a high chair. His wife was spooning Cerelac into the baby's mouth. Ade Coker was blown up when he opened the package - a package anyone would have known was from the Head of State even if his wife Yelande had not said that Ade Coker looked at the envelope and said 'It has the State House seal' before he opened it.
When Jaja and I came home from school, we were almost drenched by the walk from the car to the front door; the rain was so heavy it had formed a small pool beside the hibiscuses. My feet itched inside my wet leather sandals. Papa was crumpled on a sofa in the living room, sobbing. He seemed so small.
Papa who was so tall that he sometimes lowered his head to get through doorways, that his tailor always used extra fabric to sew his trousers. Now he seemed small; he looked like a rumpled roll of fabric.
"I should have made Ade hold that story," Papa was saying. "I should have protected him. I should have made him stop that story.”
Mama held him close to her, cradling his face on her chest. "No," she said. "O zugo. Don't.”
Jaja and I stood watching. I thought about Ade Coker's glasses, I imagined the thick, bluish lenses shattering, the white frames melting into sticky goo. Later, after Mama told us what had happened, how it had happened, Jaja said, "It was God's will, Papa," and Papa smiled at Jaja and gently patted his back.
Papa organized Ade Coker's funeral; he set up a trust for Yewande Coker and the children, bought them a new house. He paid the Standard staff huge bonuses and asked them all to take a long leave. Hollows appeared under his eyes during those weeks, as if someone had suctioned the delicate flesh, leaving his eyes sunken in.
My nightmares started then, nightmares in which I saw Ade Coker's charred remains spattered on his dining table, on his daughters school uniform, on his baby's cereal bowl, on his plate of eggs. In some of the nightmares, I was the daughter and the charred remains became Papa’s.
Weeks after Ade Coker died, the hollows were still carved under Papa's eyes, and there was a slowness in his movements, as though his legs were too heavy to lift, his hands
Extract from p206-7
Comment on how the writer has used language to create tension, imagery & to foreshadow events in the novel.
Focus on:
Sentence structures
Repeated ideas
Metaphorical imagery
Other devices
Emotive language
Narrative voice
