Excerpt from Before the Mango Ripens by Afabwaje Kurian, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"You have to know your long division," Nami said, "and how to do percentages."

"I guess," Elijah said. 

He put his head down on the table and spun a pencil between his fingers, twisting it back and forth. Jummai could see he wanted to be banging bottle caps with a rock to flatten them or playing with his slingshot, hunting snakes or shooting at birds and lizards.

"It is not 'you guess,'" Nami said, plucking the pencil from him. "You have to learn. Don't you want to be a smart boy who is first in the class?"

Elijah shrugged. "Not really."

Nami laughed at this, and Jummai did not know why Nami laughed when the boy was saying he wanted to be an idiot. Was this how she laughed with Zanya? Did she make Zanya laugh in his flat so that his mouth, full and wide, showed his strong teeth, and lines extending from the curve of his nose to the corners of his mouth deepened? It seemed a long time ago when Jummai used to go to Chubz's flat where Zanya was certain to be found, drinking stout and rolling wiwi with Chubz. She and Zanya had danced and laughed in the darkened room with smoke reaching the ceiling. 

One night, he had taken her to Keffi, and they danced in the open-air nightclub among the throng, and they swayed to Highlife music, and to the drum solo of the Ominah Band. 

"Fine girl," he had said, his hands on her waist, pulling her in.

"You and your mouth," she said, laughing. He had seemed the only person who could bring laughter out of her.

"No." His voice had been serious, his mouth very close to her ears. "It's true."

This was when Zanya had first come to Rabata in '67, before the Reverend started preaching to him in the evenings and telling him about his Christian god. Zanya had been like the other men in this town. After his conversion, he began to wear more of the European fashions. He was not as stylish as some of the young men in town, with their wide Keep Lagos Clean trousers and solid platform shoes, their open shirts exposing hairless chests and glinting gold chains sinking into the valley of their shirts. But he had purchased new shirts and trousers when he began to translate in front of the church on Sunday mornings. 

Zanya was not like some of the locals who pretended to accept the missionaries' religion so that the missionaries might give them money for their businesses or help their children with school fees. He had accepted the things they said and had begun to live like them. Remnants of the former Zanya, the man with the stained shirt and trousers hitched up to his calves, smelling of sweat and tobacco and local brew, had disappeared. She was not surprised he had chosen a woman like Nami; she suited this new person he had become.

Nami said in a firmer voice, "Sit up, Elijah. You must finish these problems."

Elijah pulled himself up straight, and Nami returned his pencil. "You know that you can learn, too," Nami said.

Jummai nearly dropped the plate in her hand. Nami had looked up and found her staring at them from the open kitchen window. 

"Me?" Jummai said.

Nami retightened the knot of her green and yellow necktie. "With how fine you are, if you start learning more eh? All the men will keep following you, they won't be able to leave you alone."

Jummai smiled. Zanya had not left her alone even without her finishing school. She did not like how people thought she was stupid because she had attended only one year. 

"If you want," Nami said, "I will tell Malama Delores you want to learn. She will give you books. She has many of them." "Me, I'm fine," Jummai said.

"I can help you if you do not want Malama Delores to teach you."

"I'm fine, sha." How many times did she have to be here repeating herself?

She did not like how Nami turned her shoulders, as if she pitied Jummai for not wanting to learn. She was sitting there, comparing Jummai to small Elijah and how he went about saying things like "not really." She imagined Nami and Zanya laughing together in his pickup later this afternoon. "Foolish Jummai," Nami would say, "I offered to teach her, and she said she wanted to remain an idiot like Elijah." They would laugh close with each other, and Nami would be fresh and beautiful, her hair styled, wearing her bright teacher clothes.

Excerpted from Before the Mango Ripens by Afabwaje Kurian. Copyright © 2024 by Afabwaje Kurian. Excerpted by permission of Dzanc Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.