Arrow of God (The African Trilogy 3)

‘No be say I deaf sah but…’

‘Get out!’

The messenger sent people to sweep the guardroom and spread a new mat in it so that it might be taken for a guest-room. Then he went to Ezeulu who had been sitting in the Courtroom with Obika since their arrival and spoke nicely to him.

‘The big white man is sick but the other one says welcome to you,’ he said. ‘He says it is dark now and he will see you in the morning.’

Ezeulu said nothing to him. He followed him into the dark guardroom and sat on the mat. Obika also sat down. Ezeulu brought out his snuff bottle.

‘We shall send a lamp to you,’ said the messenger.

Soon afterwards John Nwodika came in with his wife who had a small load on her head. She set it down and it proved to be an enormous mound of pounded cassava and a bowl of bitter-leaf soup. John Nwodika made a ball of foofoo, dipped it in the soup and swallowed to show that there was no poison in it. Ezeulu thanked him and his wife (who turned out to be the daughter of his friend in Umuagu) but refused to eat.

‘Food is not my care now,’ he said.

‘Pray, eat a little – just one ball,’ said the son of Nwodika. But the old man would not be persuaded.

‘Obika will eat for both of us.’

‘A fowl does not eat into the belly of a goat,’ said the other, but the old man still refused.

The messenger came in again with a palm-oil lamp and Ezeulu thanked him.

Corporal Matthew Nweke who had gone to Umuaro with another policeman returned to find his wives weeping quietly and a large crowd in his one-room lodging. He was alarmed, his mind going to his little son who had measles. He rushed to the mat where he lay and touched him; he was wide awake.

‘What is the matter?’ he asked then.

No one spoke. The corporal who was called ‘Couple’ then turned to one of the policemen in the room and put the question specifically to him. The man cleared his voice and told him that they did not expect to see him and his companion back alive, especially when the man he had gone to arrest arrived on his own. ‘Couple’ wanted to explain how they had crossed each other but the man did not let him. He pressed on with a full account of all that had happened since morning and ended with the latest news from Nkisa Hospital to the effect that Captain Winterbottom would not see the dawn.

At that point John Nwodika came in.

‘But you were not well in the morning?’ asked Couple.

‘That is what I have come to tell you. The illness was a warning from the Chief Priest. I am happy I listened to it; otherwise we would be telling another story now.’ John then told them how the Chief Priest knew all about Winterbottom’s sickness before anyone told him about it.

‘What did he say?’ asked one or two people together.

‘He said: If he is ill he will also be well. I don’t know what he meant, but it seemed to me that there was mockery in his voice.’

At first ‘Couple’ Matthew Nweke was not too worried. He had a strong personal protection which a great dibia in his village made for him during his last leave. But as he heard more and more about Ezeulu his faith in his safety began to weaken. In the end he held a quick consultation with the policeman who had accompanied him to Umuaro and they decided that to be on the safe side they should go and see a local dibia straight away. It was past ten o’clock at night when they arrived at the man’s house. He was called throughout the village The Bow that shoots at the Sky.

As soon as they came in he told them the object of their mission. ‘You have done right to come straight to me because you indeed walked into the mouth of a leopard. But there is something bigger than a leopard. That is why I say welcome to you because you have reached the final refuge.’ He told them that they must not eat anything which they had taken from Umuaro. They must bring the two cocks and the money for sacrifice which they would carry and deposit on the highway. For what they had already eaten he gave them a preparation to drink and also to mix into their bath water.

Chapter Fourteen

As he ate the pounded cassava and bitter-leaf soup Obika watched his father with the tail of his eye and caught a certain restlessness in him. He knew it would be useless asking him questions in his present mood. Even at the best of times Ezeulu only spoke when he wanted to and not when people asked him.

He got up and made towards the narrow door, then seemed to change his mind or else to remember something he should have taken with him. He came back to his goatskin bag and searched for his snuff bottle. When he found it he made towards the door again and this time went outside saying from the doorway that he was going to urinate.

He had resolved that as long as he was in Okperi he would never look for the new moon. But the eye is very greedy and will steal a look at something its owner has no wish to see. So as Ezeulu urinated outside the guardroom his eyes looked for the new moon. But the sky had an unfamiliar face. It was impossible to put one’s finger anywhere on it and say that the moon would come out there. A momentary alarm struck Ezeulu but on thinking again he saw no cause for alarm. Why should the sky of Okperi be familiar to him? Every land had its own sky; it was as it should be.

That night Ezeulu saw in a dream a big assembly of Umuaro elders, the same people he had spoken to a few days earlier. But instead of himself it was his grandfather who rose up to speak to them. They refused to listen. They shouted together: He shall not speak; we will not listen to him. The Chief Priest raised his voice and pleaded with them to listen but they refused saying that they must bale the water while it was still only ankle-deep. ‘Why should we rely on him to tell us the season of the year?’ asked Nwaka. ‘Is there anybody here who cannot see the moon in his own compound? And anyhow what is the power of Ulu today? He saved our fathers from the warriors of Abam but he cannot save us from the white man. Let us drive him away as our neighbours of Aninta drove out and burnt Ogba when he left what he was called to do and did other things, when he turned round to kill the people of Aninta instead of their enemies.’ Then the people seized the Chief Priest who had changed from Ezeulu’s grandfather to himself and began to push him from one group to another. Some spat on his face and called him the priest of a dead god.

Ezeulu woke up with a start as though he had fallen from a great height.

‘What is it?’ asked Obika in the darkness.

‘Nothing. Did I say anything?’