‘No, my son. It is better that you did not. This is not the time to quarrel and dispute.’
Before Obika and his wife, Okuata, retired to their own compound they went first to salute Ezeulu.
‘Father, is it the custom for the diviner to take home the hen bought for the sacrifice?’ asked Obika.
‘No, my son. Did Aniegboka do so?’
‘He did. I wanted to speak to him but my mother made a sign to me not to talk.’
‘It is not the custom. You must know that there are more people with greedy, long throats in the pursuit of medicine than anywhere else.’ He noticed the look of concern on Obika’s face. ‘Take your wife home and do not allow this to trouble you. If a diviner wants to eat the entrails of sacrifice like a vulture the matter lies between him and his chi. You have done your part by providing the animal.’
When they left him Ezeulu felt his heart warm with pleasure as it had not done for many days. Was Obika already a changed person? It was not like him to come to his father and ask questions with so much care on his face. Akuebue had always said that once Obika had a woman to provide for he would change his ways. Perhaps it was going to be so. Another thought came to Ezeulu to confirm it: in the past Obika would have stood over the diviner and made him bury the hen. He smiled.
Chapter Twelve
Although Okuata emerged at dawn feeling awkward and bashful in her unaccustomed loincloth it was a very proud bashfulness. She could go without shame to salute her husband’s parents because she had been ‘found at home’. Her husband was even now arranging to send the goat and other presents to her mother in Umuezeani for giving him an unspoilt bride. She felt greatly relieved for although she had always known she was a virgin she had had a secret fear which sometimes whispered in her ear and made her start. It was the thought of the moonlight play when Obiora had put his penis between her thighs. True, he had only succeeded in playing at the entrance but she could not be too sure.
She had not slept very much, not as much as her husband; but she had been happy. Sometimes she tried to forget her happiness and to think how she would have felt had things turned out differently. For many years to come she would have walked like one afraid the earth might bite her. Every girl knew of Ogbanje Omenyi whose husband was said to have sent to her parents for a matchet to cut the bush on either side of the highway which she carried between her thighs.
Every child in Ezeulu’s compound wanted to go to the stream and draw water that morning because their new wife was going. Even little Obiageli who hated the stream because of the sharp stones on the way was very quick in bringing out her water pot. For once she cried when her mother told her to stay back and look after Amoge’s child.
Obika’s younger sister, Ojiugo, rushed up and down with the proprietary air of one who had a special claim on the bride because even the smallest child in a man’s compound knew its mother’s hut from the others. Ojiugo’s mother, Matefi, carried the same air but with studied restraint which made it all the more telling. Needless to say she wanted it to tell on her husband’s younger wife and to prove to her that there was greater honour in having a daughter-in-law than in buying ivory anklets and starving your children.
‘See that you come back quickly,’ she said to her daughter and her son’s wife, ‘before this spit on the floor dries up.’ She spat.
‘It is only bathing that could delay us,’ said Nwafo. ‘If we just draw water now and bathe another time…’
‘I think you are mad,’ said his mother who had so far pretended to ignore her husband’s senior wife. ‘But let me see you come back from the stream with yesterday’s body and we shall see whose madness is greater, yours or mine.’ The vehemence with which she said this seemed so much greater than the cause of her annoyance. In fact she was angry with her son not for what he had proposed but for his disloyalty in joining the excited flurry of the other hut.
‘What are you still crawling about like a millipede for?’ Matefi asked her daughter. ‘Will going to the stream be your day’s work?’
Oduche wore his loincloth of striped towelling and white singlet which he normally put on only for church or school. This made his mother even more angry than had Nwafo’s proposal, but she succeeded in remaining silent.
Soon after the water party left Obiageli came into Ezeulu’s hut carrying Amoge’s child on her back. The child was clearly too big for her; one of his legs almost trailed the ground.
‘These people are mad,’ said Ezeulu. ‘Who left a sick child in your hands? Take him back to his mother at once.’
‘I can carry him,’ said Obiageli.
‘Who is carrying the other? Take him to his mother, I say.’
‘She has gone to the stream,’ replied Obiageli bouncing up on her toes in an effort to keep the child from slipping down her back. ‘But I can carry him. See.’
‘I know you can,’ said Ezeulu, ‘but he is sick and should not be shaken about. Take him to your mother.’
Obiageli nodded and went into the inner compound, but Ezeulu knew she still carried the child (who had now begun to cry). Obiageli’s tiny voice was striving valiantly to drown the crying and sing him to sleep:
Tell the mother her child
is crying
Tell the mother her child is crying
And then prepare a stew of úzízá
And also a stew of úzìzà
Make a watery pepper-soup