My auntie did not open her restaurant. When the policemen came and knocked on her door looking for food to buy, she looked at them as if surprised by the request, and replied cryptically, ‘I thought you people didn’t need food and water like the rest of us.’ She shut the door in their faces. There was a triumphant smile on her face when she came to my room and called to me. ‘Come and help me clean some things.’

I followed her to her room. Her step was light, as if she was floating. She threw open her door and window. We took out every single item in the room: bed, seats, boxes, tables, carpet, photographs. Then we swept and washed the bare floor and walls. She did not falter or show any sign of fatigue in the two days that it took us to finish. She sang as she worked; she told me jokes and laughed loudly along with me. Even her face looked animated and young. When the room dried, she sorted her things into two piles: those that were going back inside and those that weren’t. On the unwanted heap were hundreds of empty whisky bottles; old, mildewed, black-and-white pictures; and shoes and trousers and shirts from an old portmanteau belonging to her late husband which had been under her bed all these years.

‘So much time has passed,’ she said as she handled the unwanted things. It was the first time she had sounded sad since we started the cleaning up. Then she sighed, and almost literally pushed aside the darkness from her face. ‘Well, I am sure some poor beggar will find some use for them. I have no use for them any more.’

On the third day, we went to Yaba market and bought new curtains, new bed sheets, and a new carpet. We stood in the centre of her room and clapped and exclaimed at the transformation. The light-blue curtains were a distinct improvement on the former heavy black ones. The room looked brighter, airier.

Tired from all the activity and excitement, we slept most of the next day. At six o’clock in the evening, at the start of the curfew, she came and woke me up. There were two men standing behind her. I had never seen them before. They were in suits; there was a solemn but mildly threatening air about them. Like policemen; but they were not in uniform.

‘Kela, wash your face and come. These gentlemen want a word with you,’ Auntie Rachael said. I heard the warning note in her voice.