As soon as he left Ezeulu called Oduche and asked him if it was true that his people were offering sanctuary to those who wished to escape the vengeance of Ulu. Oduche said he did not understand.
‘You do not understand? Are your people saying to Umuaro that if anyone brings his sacrifice to your shrine he will be safe to harvest his yams? Now do you understand?’
‘Yes. Our teacher told them so.’
‘Your teacher told them so? Did you report it to me?’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
Silence.
‘I said why did you not report it to me?’
For a long time father and son looked steadily at each other in silence. When Ezeulu spoke again his tone was calm and full of grief.
‘Do you remember, Oduche, what I told you when I sent you among those people?’
Oduche shifted his eyes to the big toe of his right foot which he placed a little forward.
‘Since you have become dumb let me remind you. I called you as a father calls his son and told you to go and be my eye and ear among those people. I did not send Obika or Edogo; I did not send Nwafo, your mother’s son. I called you by name and you came here – in this obi – and I sent you to see and hear for me. I did not know at that time that I was sending a goat’s skull. Go away, go back to your mother’s hut. I have no spirit for talking now. When I am ready to talk I shall tell you what I think. Go away and rejoice that your father cannot count on you. I say, go away from here, lizard that ruined his mother’s funeral.’
Oduche went out at the brink of tears. Ezeulu felt a slight touch of comfort.
At last another new moon came and he ate the twelfth yam. The next morning he sent word to his assistants to announce that the New Yam Feast would be eaten in twenty-eight days.
Throughout that day the drums beat in Amalu’s compound because the funeral feast was tomorrow. The sound reached every village in Umuaro to remind them; not that anyone needed reminding at such a time when men were as hungry as locusts.
In the night Ezeulu dreamt one of those strange dreams which were more than ordinary dreams. When he woke up everything stood out with the detail and clarity of daylight, like the one he had dreamt in Okperi.
He was sitting in his obi. From the sound of the voices the mourners seemed to be passing behind his compound, beyond the tall, red walls. This worried him a good deal because there was no path there. Who were these people then who made a path behind his compound? He told himself that he must go out and challenge them because it was said that unless a man wrestled with those who walked behind his compound the path never closed. But he lacked resolution and stood where he was. Meanwhile the voices and the drums and the flutes grew louder. They sang the song with which a man was carried to the bush for burial:
Look! a python
Look! a python
Yes, it lies across the way.
As usual the song came in different waves like gusts of storm following on each other’s heels. The mourners in front sang a little ahead of those in the middle near the corpse and these were again ahead of those at the rear. The drums came with this last wave.
Ezeulu raised his voice to summon his family to join him in challenging the trespassers but his compound was deserted. His irresolution turned into alarm. He ran into Matefi’s hut but all he saw were the ashes of a long-dead fire. He rushed out and ran into Ugoye’s hut calling her and her children but her hut was already falling in and a few blades of green grass had sprouted on the thatch. He was running towards Obika’s hut when a new voice behind the compound brought him to a sudden halt. The noise of the burial party had since disappeared in the distance. But beside the sorrow of the solitary voice that now wailed after them they might have been returning with a bride. The sweet agony of the solitary singer settled like dew on the head.
I was born when lizards were in ones and twos
A child of Idemili. The difficult tear-drops
Of Sky’s first weeping drew my spots. Being
Sky-born I walked the earth with royal gait
And mourners saw me coiled across their path.
But of late
A strange bell
Has been ringing a song of desolation: