“Because of me . . .” Ify’s throat closes up. She fights the tears. “There was peace for almost a year before I . . . before Enugu was bombed. The ceasefire had ended, because I had led a group of suicide bombers into a Biafran city.” Her fingers curl into fists at her side. She turns to face Céline. “You want to know what happened down there? Someone tried to make everyone remember what had happened. The government had pushed people to move on, to forget the war. And someone there, someone I had trusted, tried to remind them, tried to remind the whole country what had happened.” She clenches her jaw and takes a moment to fight the sobs. “I stopped them. I fought, and I killed, and I stopped them.”

Céline is silent. The only thing Ify can read on her face is pity.

“You knew, didn’t you? You knew what I’d done.”

Céline opens her mouth to speak, then closes it. Her eyes scan the floor, looking for the words. “After you left, I . . . I looked into you. And I learned. It wasn’t easy, but I learned. After a while, you stopped trying to contact me, and I had no idea what was happening in your country, so I looked into it and . . .”

“You knew? You knew about the lie? What the government had convinced everyone had happened instead of war?”

Céline nods.

“You knew and you didn’t tell me?” She realizes she’s roaring. She stops and takes a moment to collect herself. “You knew what was happening and you didn’t think to tell me?”

“Ify, mon coeur, I . . .” Something hardens in Céline. “I knew horrible things had happened to you before you came here. That is war. But I did not know what you had done. And I couldn’t . . .”

“Couldn’t what?”

“I couldn’t forgive you.”

It staggers Ify to hear her say it. The thing she has most feared has come to life before her very eyes.

“I figured you’d done quelques choses horribles, but this? A whole city, bombed? Ify, that is what a war criminal does.”

Ify trembles. She feels as though the ground will swallow her up at any moment. Her bottom lip quivers. She grits her teeth and hisses, “So why did you come, then?”

“What?”

“Why are you here right now? Why did you come?” She can barely see for the tears in her eyes.

Céline considers her hands, then the floor, then she looks at the ceiling before finally training her gaze on Ify. “I wanted to see you. One last time.”

“Before you report me to the authorities?” Ify spits the words out at her. “Before you have me charged with war crimes and deported?”