No Longer at Ease (The African Trilogy 2)

“Thank you,” Obi said, fighting back the mist which threatened to cover his eyes.

“Give them about eight bottles, and keep the rest for those who will come tomorrow.”

Everybody on arrival went to Obi and said “Ndo” to him. He answered some with a word and some with a nod of the head. No one dwelt unduly on his sorrow. They simply told him to take heart and were soon talking about the normal affairs of life. The news of the day was about the Minister of Land who used to be one of the most popular politicians until he took it into his head to challenge the national hero.

“He is a foolish somebody,” said one of the men in English.

“He is like the little bird nza who after a big meal so far forgot himself as to challenge his chi to single combat,” said another in Ibo.

“What he saw in Obodo will teach him sense,” said yet another. “He went to address his people, but everyone in the crowd covered his nose with a handkerchief because his words stank.”

“Was that not where they beat him?” asked Joseph.

“No, that was in Abame. He went there with lorry-loads of women supporters. But you know Abame people; they don’t waste time. They beat him up well well and seized his women’s head ties. They said it was not proper to beat women, so they took their head ties from them.”

In the far corner a little group was having a different conversation. There was a lull in the bigger discussion and the voice of Nathaniel was heard telling a story.

“Tortoise went on a long journey to a distant clan. But before he went he told his people not to send for him unless something new under the sun happened. When he was gone, his mother died. The question was how to make him return to bury his mother. If they told him that his mother had died, he would say it was nothing new. So they told him th

at his father’s palm tree had borne a fruit at the end of its leaf. When tortoise heard this, he said he must return home to see this great monstrosity. And so his bid to escape the burden of his mother’s funeral was foiled.”

There was a long and embarrassed silence when Nathaniel finished his story. It was clear that he had not meant it for more than a few ears around him. But he had suddenly found himself talking to the whole room. And he was not the man to stop in midstory.

Again Obi slept all night and woke up in the morning with a feeling of guilt. But it was not as poignant as yesterday’s. And it very soon vanished altogether, leaving a queer feeling of calm. Death was a very odd thing, he thought. His mother was not three days dead and yet she was already so distant. When he tried last night to picture her he found the picture a little blurred at the edges.

“Poor mother!” he said, trying by manipulation to produce the right emotion. But it was no use. The dominant feeling was of peace.

He had a large and unseemly appetite when breakfast came, but he deliberately refused to eat more than a very little. At eleven, however, he could not help drinking a little garri soaked in cold water with sugar. As he drank it with a spoon he caught himself humming a dance tune.

“Terrible!” he said.

Then he remembered the story of King David, who refused food when his beloved son was sick, but washed and ate when he died. He, too, must have felt this kind of peace. The peace that passeth all understanding.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

When the period of guilt was over Obi felt like metal that has passed through fire. Or, as he himself put it in one of his spasmodic entries in his diary: “I wonder why I am feeling like a brand-new snake just emerged from its slough.” The picture of his poor mother returning from the stream, her washing undone and her palm bleeding where his rusty blade had cut into it, vanished. Or rather it took a secondary place. He now remembered her as the woman who got things done.

His father, although uncompromising in conflicts between church and clan, was not really a man of action but of thought. It was true he sometimes took precipitous and violent decisions, but such occasions were rare. When faced with a problem under normal circumstances, he was apt to weigh it and measure it and look it up and down, postponing action. He relied heavily on his wife at such moments. He always said in jest that it all started on their wedding day. And he would tell how she had cut the cake first.

When the missionaries brought their own kind of marriage, they also brought the wedding cake. But it was soon adapted to suit the people’s sense of drama. The bride and the groom were given a knife each. The master of ceremonies counted “One, two, three, go!” And the first to cut through the cake was the senior partner. On Isaac’s wedding day his wife had cut the cake first.

But the story that Obi came to cherish even more was that of the sacred he-goat. In his second year of marriage his father was catechist in a place called Aninta. One of the great gods of Aninta was Udo, who had a he-goat that was dedicated to him. This goat became a menace at the mission. Apart from resting and leaving droppings in the church, it destroyed the catechist’s yam and maize crops. Mr. Okonkwo complained a number of times to the priest of Udo, but the priest (no doubt a humorous old man) said that Udo’s he-goat was free to go where it pleased and do what it pleased. If it chose to rest in Okonkwo’s shrine, it probably showed that their two gods were pals. And there the matter would have stood had not the he-goat one day entered Mrs. Okonkwo’s kitchen and eaten up the yam she was preparing to cook—and that at a season when yam was as precious as elephant tusks. She took a sharp matchet and hewed off the beast’s head. There were angry threats from village elders. The women for a time refused to buy from her or sell to her in the market. But so successful had been the emasculation of the clan by the white man’s religion and government that the matter soon died down. Fifteen years before this incident the men of Aninta had gone to war with their neighbors and reduced them to submission. Then the white man’s government had stepped in and ordered the surrender of all firearms in Aninta. When they had all been collected, they were publicly broken by soldiers. There is an age grade in Aninta today called the Age Group of the Breaking of the Guns. They are the children born in that year.

These thoughts gave Obi a queer kind of pleasure. They seemed to release his spirit. He no longer felt guilt. He, too, had died. Beyond death there are no ideals and no humbug, only reality. The impatient idealist says: “Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.” But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace. The most horrible sight in the world cannot put out the eye. The death of a mother is not like a palm tree bearing fruit at the end of its leaf, no matter how much we want to make it so. And that is not the only illusion we have.…

It was again the season for scholarships. There was so much work now that Obi had to take some files home every day. He was just settling down to work when a new model Chevrolet pulled up outside. He saw it quite clearly from his writing desk. Who could it be? It looked like one of those prosperous Lagos businessmen. Whom could he want? All the other occupants of the flat were unimportant Europeans on the lower rungs of the civil service.

The man knocked on Obi’s door, and Obi jumped up to open it for him. He probably wanted to ask him the way to somewhere else. Nonresidents of Ikoyi always got lost among its identical flats.

“Good afternoon,” he said.

“Good afternoon. Are you Mr. Okonkwo?”

Obi said yes. The man came in and introduced himself. He wore a very expensive agbada.

“Please have a seat.”

“Thank you.” He brought out a little towel from somewhere in the folds of his flowing gown and mopped his face. “I don’t want to waste your time,” he said, mopping one forearm and then the other under the wide sleeves of his agbada. “My son is going to England in September. I want him to get scholarship. If you can do it for me here is fifty pounds.” He brought out a wad of notes from the front pocket of his agbada.