Things Fall Apart

  “He was not an albino. He was quite different.” He sipped his wine. “And he was riding an iron horse. The first people who saw him ran away, but he stood beckoning to them. In the end the fearless ones went near and even touched him. The elders consulted their Oracle and it told them that the strange man would break their clan and spread destruction among them.” Obierika again drank a little of his wine. “And so they killed the white man and tied his iron horse to their sacred tree because it looked as if it would run away to call the man’s friends. I forgot to tell you another thing which the Oracle said. It said that other white men were on their way. They were locusts, it said, and that first man was their harbinger sent to explore the terrain. And so they killed him.”

  “What did the white man say before they killed him?” asked Uchendu.

  “He said nothing,” answered one of Obierika’s companions.

  “He said something, only they did not understand him,” said Obierika. “He seemed to speak through his nose.”

  “One of the men told me,” said Obierika’s other companion, “that he repeated over and over again a word that resembled Mbaino. Perhaps he had been going to Mbaino and had lost his way.”

  “Anyway,” resumed Obierika, “they killed him and tied up his iron horse. This was before the planting season began. For a long time nothing happened. The rains had come and yams had been sown. The iron horse was still tied to the sacred silk-cotton tree. And then one morning three white men led by a band of ordinary men like us came to the clan. They saw the iron horse and went away again. Most of the men and women of Abame had gone to their farms. Only a few of them saw these white men and their followers. For many market weeks nothing else happened. They have a big market in Abame on every other Afo day and, as you know, the whole clan gathers there. That was the day it happened. The three white men and a very large number of other men surrounded the market. They must have used a powerful medicine to make themselves invisible until the market was full. And they began to shoot. Everybody was killed, except the old and the sick who were at home and a handful of men and women whose chi were wide awake and brought them out of that market.” He paused.

  “Their clan is now completely empty. Even the sacred fish in their mysterious lake have fled and the lake has turned the color of blood. A great evil has come upon their land as the Oracle had warned.”

  There was a long silence. Uchendu ground his teeth together audibly. Then he burst out:

  “Never kill a man who says nothing. Those men of Abame were fools. What did they know about the man?” He ground his teeth again and told a story to illustrate his point. “Mother Kite once sent her daughter to bring food. She went, and brought back a duckling. ‘You have done very well,’ said Mother Kite to her daughter, ‘but tell me, what did the mother of this duckling say when you swooped and carried its child away?’ ‘It said nothing,’ replied the young kite. ‘It just walked away.’ ‘You must return the duckling,’ said Mother Kite. ‘There is something ominous behind the silence.’ And so Daughter Kite returned the duckling and took a chick instead. ‘What did the mother of this chick do?’ asked the old kite. ‘It cried and raved and cursed me,’ said the young kite. ‘Then we can eat the chick,’ said her mother. ‘There is nothing to fear from someone who shouts.’ Those men of Abame were fools.”

  “They were fools,” said Okonkwo after a pause. “They had been warned that danger was ahead. They should have armed themselves with their guns and their machetes even when they went to market.”

  “They have paid for their foolishness,” said Obierika. “But I am greatly afraid. We have heard stories about white men who made the powerful guns and the strong drinks and took slaves away across the seas, but no one thought the stories were true.”

  “There is no story that is not true,” said Uchendu. “The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others. We have albinos among us. Do you not think that they came to our clan by mistake, that they have strayed from their way to a land where everybody is like them?”

  Okonkwo’s first wife soon finished her cooking and set before their guests a big meal of pounded yams and bitter-leaf soup. Okonkwo’s son, Nwoye, brought in a pot of sweet wine tapped from the raffia palm.

  “You are a big man now,” Obierika said to Nwoye. “Your friend Anene asked me to greet you.”

  “Is he well?” asked Nwoye.

  “We are all well,” said Obierika.

  Ezinma brought them a bowl of water with which to wash their hands. After that they began to eat and to drink the wine.

  “When did you set out from home?” asked Okonkwo.

  “We had meant to set out from my house before cockcrow,” said Obierika. “But Nweke did not appear until it was quite light. Never make an early morning appointment with a man who has just married a new wife.” They all laughed.

  “Has Nweke married a wife?” asked Okonkwo.

  “He has married Okadigbo’s second daughter,” said Obierika.

  “That is very good,” said Okonkwo. “I do not blame you for not hearing the cock crow.”

  When they had eaten, Obierika pointed at the two heavy bags.

  “That is the money from your yams,” he said. “I sold the big ones as soon as you left. Later on I sold some of the seed-yams and gave out others to sharecroppers. I shall do that every year until you return. But I thought you would need the money now and so I brought it. Who knows what may happen tomorrow? Perhaps green men will come to our clan and shoot us.”

  “God will not permit it,” said Okonkwo. “I do not know how to thank you.”

  “I can tell you,” said Obierika. “Kill one of your sons for me.”

  “That will not be enough,” said Okonkwo.

  “Then kill yourself,” said Obierika.

  “Forgive me,” said Okonkwo, smiling. “I shall not talk about thanking you any more.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  When nearly two years later Obierika paid another visit to his friend in exile the circumstances were less happy. The missionaries had come to Umuofia. They had built their church there, won a handful of converts and were already sending evangelists to the surrounding towns and villages. That was a source of great sorrow to the leaders of the clan; but many of them believed that the strange faith and the white man’s god would not last. None of his converts was a man whose word was heeded in the assembly of the people. None of them was a man of title. They were mostly the kind of people that were called efulefu, worthless, empty men. The imagery of an efulefu in the language of the clan was a man who sold his machete and wore the sheath to battle. Chielo, the priestess of Agbala, called the converts the excrement of the clan, and the new faith was a mad dog that had come to eat it up.

  What moved Obierika to visit Okonkwo was the sudden appearance of the latter’s son, Nwoye, among the missionaries in Umuofia.

  “What are you doing here?” Obierika had asked when after many difficulties the missionaries had allowed him to speak to the boy.

  “I am one of them,” replied Nwoye.

  “How is your father?” Obierika asked, not knowing what else to say.

  “I don’t know. He is not my father,” said Nwoye, unhappily.

  And so Obierika went to Mbanta to see his friend. And he found that Okonkwo did not wish to speak about Nwoye. It was only from Nwoye’s mother that he heard scraps of the story.

  The arrival of the missionaries had caused a considerable stir in the village of Mbanta. There were six of them and one was a white man. Every man and woman came out to see the white man. Stories about these strange men had grown since one of them had been killed in Abame and his iron horse tied to the sacred silk-cotton tree. And so everybody came to see the white man. It was the time of the year when everybody was at home. The harvest was over.

  When they had all gathered, the white man began to speak to them. He spoke through an interpreter who was an Ibo man, though his dialect was different and harsh to the ears of Mbanta
. Many people laughed at his dialect and the way he used words strangely. Instead of saying “myself” he always said “my buttocks.” But he was a man of commanding presence and the clansmen listened to him. He said he was one of them, as they could see from his color and his language. The other four black men were also their brothers, although one of them did not speak Ibo. The white man was also their brother because they were all sons of God. And he told them about this new God, the Creator of all the world and all the men and women. He told them that they worshipped false gods, gods of wood and stone. A deep murmur went through the crowd when he said this. He told them that the true God lived on high and that all men when they died went before Him for judgment. Evil men and all the heathen who in their blindness bowed to wood and stone were thrown into a fire that burned like palm-oil. But good men who worshipped the true God lived forever in His happy kingdom. “We have been sent by this great God to ask you to leave your wicked ways and false gods and turn to Him so that you may be saved when you die,” he said.

  “Your buttocks understand our language,” said someone light-heartedly and the crowd laughed.

  “What did he say?” the white man asked his interpreter. But before he could answer, another man asked a question: “Where is the white man’s horse?” he asked. The Ibo evangelists consulted among themselves and decided that the man probably meant bicycle. They told the white man and he smiled benevolently.

  “Tell them,” he said, “that I shall bring many iron horses when we have settled down among them. Some of them will even ride the iron horse themselves.” This was interpreted to them but very few of them heard. They were talking excitedly among themselves because the white man had said he was going to live among them. They had not thought about that.

  At this point an old man said he had a question. “Which is this god of yours,” he asked, “the goddess of the earth, the god of the sky, Amadiora or the thunderbolt, or what?”

  The interpreter spoke to the white man and he immediately gave his answer. “All the gods you have named are not gods at all. They are gods of deceit who tell you to kill your fellows and destroy innocent children. There is only one true God and He has the earth, the sky, you and me and all of us.”

  “If we leave our gods and follow your god,” asked another man, “who will protect us from the anger of our neglected gods and ancestors?”

  “Your gods are not alive and cannot do you any harm,” replied the white man. “They are pieces of wood and stone.”

  When this was interpreted to the men of Mbanta they broke into derisive laughter. These men must be mad, they said to themselves. How else could they say that Ani and Amadiora were harmless? And Idemili and Ogwugwu too? And some of them began to go away.

  Then the missionaries burst into song. It was one of those gay and rollicking tunes of evangelism which had the power of plucking at silent and dusty chords in the heart of an Ibo man. The interpreter explained each verse to the audience, some of whom now stood enthralled. It was a story of brothers who lived in darkness and in fear, ignorant of the love of God. It told of one sheep out on the hills, away from the gates of God and from the tender shepherd’s care.

  After the singing the interpreter spoke about the Son of God whose name was Jesu Kristi. Okonkwo, who only stayed in the hope that it might come to chasing the men out of the village or whipping them, now said:

  “You told us with your own mouth that there was only one god. Now you talk about his son. He must have a wife, then.” The crowd agreed.

  “I did not say He had a wife,” said the interpreter, somewhat lamely.

  “Your buttocks said he had a son,” said the joker. “So he must have a wife and all of them must have buttocks.”

  The missionary ignored him and went on to talk about the Holy Trinity. At the end of it Okonkwo was fully convinced that the man was mad. He shrugged his shoulders and went away to tap his afternoon palm-wine.

  But there was a young lad who had been captivated. His name was Nwoye, Okonkwo’s first son. It was not the mad logic of the Trinity that captivated him. He did not understand it. It was the poetry of the new religion, something felt in the marrow. The hymn about brothers who sat in darkness and in fear seemed to answer a vague and persistent question that haunted his young soul—the question of the twins crying in the bush and the question of Ikemefuna who was killed. He felt a relief within as the hymn poured into his parched soul. The words of the hymn were like the drops of frozen rain melting on the dry palate of the panting earth. Nwoye’s callow mind was greatly puzzled.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The missionaries spent their first four or five nights in the marketplace, and went into the village in the morning to preach the gospel. They asked who the king of the village was, but the villagers told them that there was no king. “We have men of high title and the chief priests and the elders,” they said.

  It was not very easy getting the men of high title and the elders together after the excitement of the first day. But the missionaries persevered, and in the end they were received by the rulers of Mbanta. They asked for a plot of land to build their church.

  Every clan and village had its “evil forest.” In it were buried all those who died of the really evil diseases, like leprosy and smallpox. It was also the dumping ground for the potent fetishes of great medicine men when they died. An “evil forest” was, therefore, alive with sinister forces and powers of darkness. It was such a forest that the rulers of Mbanta gave to the missionaries. They did not really want them in their clan, and so they made them that offer which nobody in his right senses would accept.

  “They want a piece of land to build their shrine,” said Uchendu to his peers when they consulted among themselves. “We shall give them a piece of land.” He paused, and there was a murmur of surprise and disagreement. “Let us give them a portion of the Evil Forest. They boast about victory over death. Let us give them a real battlefield in which to show their victory.” They laughed and agreed, and sent for the missionaries, whom they had asked to leave them for a while so that they might “whisper together.” They offered them as much of the Evil Forest as they cared to take. And to their greatest amazement the missionaries thanked them and burst into song.

  “They do not understand,” said some of the elders. “But they will understand when they go to their plot of land tomorrow morning.” And they dispersed.

  The next morning the crazy men actually began to clear a part of the forest and to build their house. The inhabitants of Mbanta expected them all to be dead within four days. The first day passed and the second and third and fourth, and none of them died. Everyone was puzzled. And then it became known that the white man’s fetish had unbelievable power. It was said that he wore glasses on his eyes so that he could see and talk to evil spirits. Not long after, he won his first three converts.

  Although Nwoye had been attracted to the new faith from the very first day, he kept it secret. He dared not go too near the missionaries for fear of his father. But whenever they came to preach in the open marketplace or the village playground, Nwoye was there. And he was already beginning to know some of the simple stories they told.

  “We have now built a church,” said Mr. Kiaga, the interpreter, who was now in charge of the infant congregation. The white man had gone back to Umuofia, where he built his headquarters and from where he paid regular visits to Mr. Kiaga’s congregation at Mbanta.

  “We have now built a church,” said Mr. Kiaga, “and we want you all to come in every seventh day to worship the true God.”

  On the following Sunday, Nwoye passed and repassed the little red-earth and thatch building without summoning enough courage to enter. He heard the voice of singing and although it came from a handful of men it was loud and confident. Their church stood on a circular clearing that looked like the open mouth of the Evil Forest. Was it waiting to snap its teeth together? After passing and re-passing by the church, Nwoye returned home.

  It was well known among th
e people of Mbanta that their gods and ancestors were sometimes long-suffering and would deliberately allow a man to go on defying them. But even in such cases they set their limit at seven market weeks or twenty-eight days. Beyond that limit no man was suffered to go. And so excitement mounted in the village as the seventh week approached since the impudent missionaries built their church in the Evil Forest. The villagers were so certain about the doom that awaited these men that one or two converts thought it wise to suspend their allegiance to the new faith.

  At last the day came by which all the missionaries should have died. But they were still alive, building a new red-earth and thatch house for their teacher, Mr. Kiaga. That week they won a handful more converts. And for the first time they had a woman. Her name was Nneka, the wife of Amadi, who was a prosperous farmer. She was very heavy with child.

  Nneka had had four previous pregnancies and child-births. But each time she had borne twins, and they had been immediately thrown away. Her husband and his family were already becoming highly critical of such a woman and were not unduly perturbed when they found she had fled to join the Christians. It was a good riddance.

  One morning Okonkwo’s cousin, Amikwu, was passing by the church on his way from the neighboring village, when he saw Nwoye among the Christians. He was greatly surprised, and when he got home he went straight to Okonkwo’s hut and told him what he had seen. The women began to talk excitedly, but Okonkwo sat unmoved.

  It was late afternoon before Nwoye returned. He went into the obi and saluted his father, but he did not answer. Nwoye turned round to walk into the inner compound when his father, suddenly overcome with fury, sprang to his feet and gripped him by the neck.

  “Where have you been?” he stammered.

  Nwoye struggled to free himself from the choking grip.

  “Answer me,” roared Okonkwo, “before I kill you!” He seized a heavy stick that lay on the dwarf wall and hit him two or three savage blows.