A Man of the People

in my life that there was something wrong with my affairs. My father’s first wife, whom we all call Mama, brought me up like one of her own children; still I sensed there was something missing. One day at play another child with whom I had fallen out called me “Bad child that crunched his mother’s skull”. That was it.

I am not saying that I had an unhappy or a lonely childhood. There were too many of us in the family for anyone to think of loneliness or unhappiness. And I must say this for my father that he never tolerated any of his wives drawing a line no matter how thin between her own children and those of others. We had only one Mama. The other two wives (at the time—there are more now) were called Mother by their children, or so and so’s mother by the rest.

Of course as soon as I grew old enough to understand a few simple proverbs I realized that I should have died and let my mother live. Whenever my people go to console a woman whose baby has died at birth or soon after, they always tell her to dry her eyes because it is better the water is spilled than the pot broken. The idea being that a sound pot can always return to the stream.

My father was a District Interpreter. In those days when no one understood as much as “come” in the white man’s language, the District Officer was like the Supreme Deity, and the Interpreter the principal minor god who carried prayers and sacrifice to Him. Every sensible supplicant knew that the lesser god must first be wooed and put in a sweet frame of mind before he could undertake to intercede with the Owner of the Sky.

So Interpreters in those days were powerful, very rich, widely known and hated. Wherever the D.O.’s power was felt —and that meant everywhere—the Interpreter’s name was held in fear and trembling.

We grew up knowing that the world was full of enemies. Our father had protective medicine located at crucial points in our house and compound. One, I remember, hung over the main entrance; but the biggest was in a gourd in a corner of his bedroom. No child went alone into that room which was virtually always under lock and key anyway. We were told that such and such homes were never to be entered; and those people were pointed out to us from whom we must not accept food.

But we also had many friends. There were all those people who brought my father gifts of yams, pots of palm-wine or bottles of European drink, goats, sheep, chicken. Or those who brought their children to live with us as house-boys or their brides-to-be for training in modern housekeeping. In spite of the enormous size of our family there was always meat in the house. At one time, I remember, my father used to slaughter a goat every Saturday, which was more than most families did in two years, and this sign of wealth naturally exposed us to their jealousy and malevolence.

But it was not until many years later that I caught one fleeting, terrifying glimpse of just how hated an Interpreter could be. I was in secondary school then and it was our half-term holiday. As my home village was too far away and I didn’t want to spend the holiday in school I decided to go with one of my friends to his home which was four or five miles away. His parents were very happy to see us and his mother at once went to boil some yams for us.

After we had eaten, the father who had gone out to buy himself some snuff came hurrying back. To my surprise he asked his son what he said my name was again.

“Odili Samalu.”

“Of what town?”

There was anxiety, an uneasy tension in his voice. I was afraid.

“Urua, sir,” I said.

“I see,” he said coldly. “Who is your father?”

“Hezekiah Samalu,” I said and then added quickly, “a retired District Interpreter.” It was better, I thought, to come out with it all at once and end the prolonged interrogation.

“Then you cannot stay in my house,” he said with that evenness of tone which our people expect a man of substance to use in moments of great crisis when lesser men and women would make loud, empty noises.

“Why, Papa, what has he done?” asked my friend in alarm.

“I have said it. . . . I don’t blame you, my son, or you either, because no one has told you. But know it from today that no son of Hezekiah Samalu’s shelters under my roof.” He looked outside. “There is still light and time for you to get back to the school.”

I don’t think I shall ever know just in what way my father had wronged that man. A few weeks later, during the next holidays I tried to find out, but all my father did was to rave at me for wandering like a homeless tramp when I should be working at the books he sent me to school to learn.

I was only fifteen then and many more years were to pass before I knew how to stand my ground before him. What I should have told him then was that he had not sent me anywhere. I was in that school only because I was able to win a scholarship. It was the same when I went to the University.

The trouble with my father was his endless desire for wives and children. Or perhaps I should say children and wives. Right now he has five wives—the youngest a mere girl whom he married last year. And he is at least sixty-eight, possibly seventy. He gets a small pension which would be adequate for him if he had a small family instead of his present thirty-five children. Of course he doesn’t even make any pretence of providing for his family nowadays. He leaves every wife to her own devices. It is not too bad for the older ones like Mama whose grown-up children help to support them; but the younger ones have to find their children’s school fees from farming and petty trading.

All the old man does is buy himself a jar of palm-wine every morning and a bottle of schnapps now and again. Recently he had plunged into the politics of our village and was the local chairman of the P.O.P.

My father and I had our most serious quarrel about eighteen months ago when I told him to his face that he was crazy to be planning to marry his fifth wife. In my anger I said he was storing up trouble for others. This was, of course, a most reprehensible remark to make. The meaning was that I didn’t expect him to have much longer to live, which was indelicate and wicked. Had Mama not intervened he probably would have pronounced a curse on me. As it was, he satisfied himself by merely vowing never to touch a penny of mine since he must not store up trouble for me. Mama persuaded me to sue for peace by going down on my knees to ask forgiveness and making a peace offering of a bottle of schnapps, two bottles of White Horse and a bottle of Martell.

We were now technically at peace and I was going to tell him about my plans for the post-graduate course. But I knew in advance what he would say. He would tell me that I already had more than enough education, that all the important people in the country today—ministers, businessmen, Members of Parliament, etc., did not have half my education. He would then tell me for the hundredth time to leave “this foolish teaching”, and look for a decent job in the government and buy myself a car.

• • •

As it turned out I arrived in the capital, Bori, exactly one month after Chief Nanga’s unexpected invitation. Although I had written a letter to say when I would be arriving and had followed it up with a telegram, I still had a lingering fear as I announced the address rather importantly and settled back in the taxi that morning. I was thinking that a man of Chief Nanga’s easy charm and country-wide popularity must throw out that kind of invitation several times each day without giving it much thought. Wasn’t I being unreasonable in trying to hold him down to it? Anyhow I had taken the precaution of writing to an old friend, a newly qualified lawyer struggling to set up in private practice. I would watch Nanga’s reaction very closely and if necessary move out smartly again on the following day as though that had always been my intention.

When we got to the Minister’s residence my fear increased as his one-eyed stalwart stopped the car at the gate and began to look me over.

“Who you want?” he scowled.

“Chief Nanga.”

“He give you appointment?”