Arrow of God (The African Trilogy 3)

Chapter One

This was the third nightfall since he began to look for signs of the new moon. He knew it would come today but he always began his watch three days early because he must not take a risk. In this season of the year his task was not too difficult; he did not have to peer and search the sky as he might do when the rains came. Then the new moon sometimes hid itself for days behind rain clouds so that when it finally came out it was already halfgrown. And while it played its game the Chief Priest sat up every evening waiting.

His obi was built differently from other men’s huts. There was the usual, long threshold in front but also a shorter one on the right as you entered. The eaves on this additional entrance were cut back so that sitting on the floor Ezeulu could watch that part of the sky where the moon had its door. It was getting darker and he constantly blinked to clear his eyes of the water that formed from gazing so intently.

Ezeulu did not like to think that his sight was no longer as good as it used to be and that some day he would have to rely on someone else’s eyes as his grandfather had done when his sight failed. Of course he had lived to such a great age that his blindness became like an ornament on him. If Ezeulu lived to be so old he too would accept such a loss. But for the present he was as good as any young man, or better because young men were no longer what they used to be. There was one game Ezeulu never tired of playing on them. Whenever they shook hands with him he tensed his arm and put all his power into the grip, and being unprepared for it they winced and recoiled with pain.

The moon he saw that day was as thin as an orphan fed grudgingly by a cruel foster-mother. He peered more closely to make sure he was not deceived by a feather of cloud. At the same time he reached nervously for his ogene. It was the same at every new moon. He was now an old man but the fear of the new moon which he felt as a little boy still hovered round him. It was true that when he became Chief Priest of Ulu the fear was often overpowered by the joy of his high office; but it was not killed. It lay on the ground in the grip of the joy.

He beat his ogene GOME GOME GOME GOME… and immediately children’s voices took up the news on all sides. Onwa atuo!… onwa atuo!… onwa atuo!… He put the stick back into the iron gong and leaned it on the wall.

The little children in his compound joined the rest in welcoming the moon. Obiageli’s tiny voice stood out like a small ogene among drums and flutes. He could also make out the voice of his youngest son, Nwafo. The women too were in the open, talking.

‘Moon,’ said the senior wife, Matefi, ‘may your face meeting mine bring good fortune.’

‘Where is it?’ asked Ugoye,

the younger wife. ‘I don’t see it. Or am I blind?’

‘Don’t you see beyond the top of the ukwa tree? Not there. Follow my finger.’

‘Oho, I see it. Moon, may your face meeting mine bring good fortune. But how is it sitting? I don’t like its posture.’

‘Why?’ asked Matefi.

‘I think it sits awkwardly – like an evil moon.’

‘No,’ said Matefi. ‘A bad moon does not leave anyone in doubt. Like the one under which Okuata died. Its legs were up in the air.’

‘Does the moon kill people?’ asked Obiageli, tugging at her mother’s cloth.

‘What have I done to this child? Do you want to strip me naked?’

‘I said does the moon kill people?’

‘It kills little girls,’ said Nwafo, her brother.

‘I did not ask you, ant-hill nose.’

‘You will soon cry, long throat.’

The moon kills little boys

The moon kills ant-hill nose

The moon kills little boys… Obiageli turned everything into a song.

*

Ezeulu went into his barn and took down one yam from the bamboo platform built specially for the twelve sacred yams. There were eight left. He knew there would be eight; nevertheless he counted them carefully. He had already eaten three and had the fourth in his hand. He checked the remaining ones again and went back to his obi, shutting the door of the barn carefully after him.

His log fire was smouldering. He reached for a few sticks of firewood stacked in the corner, set them carefully on the fire and placed the yam, like a sacrifice, on top.

As he waited for it to roast he planned the coming event in his mind. It was Oye. Tomorrow would be Afo and the next day Nkwo, the day of the great market. The festival of the Pumpkin Leaves would fall on the third Nkwo from that day. Tomorrow he would send for his assistants and tell them to announce the day to the six villages of Umuaro.

Whenever Ezeulu considered the immensity of his power over the year and the crops and, therefore, over the people he wondered if it was real. It was true he named the day for the feast of the Pumpkin Leaves and for the New Yam feast; but he did not choose it. He was merely a watchman. His power was no more than the power of a child over a goat that was said to be his. As long as the goat was alive it could be his; he would find it food and take care of it. But the day it was slaughtered he would know soon enough who the real owner was. No! the Chief Priest of Ulu was more than that, must be more than that. If he should refuse to name the day there would be no festival – no planting and no reaping. But could he refuse? No Chief Priest had ever refused. So it could not be done. He would not dare.

Ezeulu was stung to anger by this as though his enemy had spoken it.

‘Take away that word dare,’ he replied to this enemy. ‘Yes I say take it away. No man in all Umuaro can stand up and say that I dare not. The woman who will bear the man who will say it has not been born yet.’

But this rebuke brought only momentary satisfaction. His mind never content with shallow satisfactions crept again to the brink of knowing. What kind of power was it if it would never be used? Better to say that it was not there, that it was no more than the power in the anus of the proud dog who sought to put out a furnace with his puny fart… He turned the yam with a stick.

His youngest son, Nwafo, now came into the obi, saluted Ezeulu by name and took his favourite position on the mud-bed at the far end, close to the shorter threshold. Although he was still only a child it looked as though the deity had already marked him out as his future Chief Priest. Even before he had learnt to speak more than a few words he had been strongly drawn to the god’s ritual. It could almost be said that he already knew more about it than even the eldest. Nevertheless no one would be so rash as to say openly that Ulu would do this or do that. When the time came that Ezeulu was no longer found in his place Ulu might choose the least likely of his sons to succeed him. It had happened before.

Ezeulu attended the yam very closely, rolling it over with the stick again and again. His eldest son, Edogo, came in from his own hut.

‘Ezeulu!’ he saluted.

‘E-e-i!’

Edogo passed through the hut into the inner compound to his sister Akueke’s temporary home.

‘Go and call Edogo,’ said Ezeulu to Nwafo.

The two came back and sat down on the mud-bed. Ezeulu turned his yam once more before he spoke.

‘Did I ever tell you anything about carving a deity?’

Edogo did not reply. Ezeulu looked in his direction but did not see him clearly because that part of the obi was in darkness. Edogo on his part saw his father’s face lit up by the fire on which he was roasting the sacred yam.

‘Is Edogo not there?’

‘I am here.’

‘I said what did I tell you about carving the image of gods? Perhaps you did not hear my first question; perhaps I spoke with water in my mouth.’

‘You told me to avoid it.’

‘I told you that, did I? What is this story I hear then – that you are carving an alusi for a man of Umuagu?’

‘Who told you?’

‘Who told me? Is it true or not is what I want to know, not who told me.’

‘I want to know who told you because I don’t think he can tell the difference between the face of a deity and the face of a Mask.’

‘I see. You may go, my son. And if you like you may carve all the gods in Umuaro. If you hear me asking you about it again take my name and give it to a dog.’