“Please, Mr. Okonkwo, you must help me. I’ll do whatever you ask.” She avoided his eyes. Her voice was a little unsteady, and Obi thought he saw a hint of tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry, terribly sorry, but I don’t see that I can make any promises.”
Another car drew up outside with a screech of brakes, and Clara rushed in, as was her fashion, humming a popular song. She stopped abruptly on seeing the girl.
“Hello, Clara. This is Miss Mark.”
“How do you do?” she said stiffly, with a slight nod of the head. She did not offer her hand. “How did you like the soup?” she asked Obi. “I’m afraid I prepared it in a hurry.” In those two short sentences she sought to establish one or two facts for the benefit of the strange girl. First, by her sophisticated un-Nigerian accent she showed that she was a been-to. You could tell a been- to not only by her phonetics but by her walk—quick, short steps instead of the normal leisurely gait. In company of her less fortunate sisters she always found an excuse for saying: “When I was in England.…” Secondly, her proprietary air seemed to tell the girl: “You had better try elsewhere.”
“I thought you were on this afternoon.”
“It was a mistake. I’m off today.”
“Why did you have to go away then, after making the soup?”
“Oh, I had such a lot of washing to do. Aren’t you offering me anything to drink? O.K., I’ll serve myself.”
“I’m terribly sorry, dear. Sit down. I’ll get it for you.”
“No. Too late.” She went to the fridge and took out a bottle of ginger beer. “What’s happened to the other ginger beer?” she asked. “There were two.”
“I think you had one yesterday.”
“Did I? Oh, yes, I remember.” She came back and sank heavily into the sofa beside Obi. “Gosh, it’s hot!”
“I think I must be going,” said Miss Mark.
“I’m sorry I can’t promise anything definite,” said Obi, getting up. She did not answer, only smiled sadly.
“How are you getting back to town?”
“Perhaps I will see a taxi.”
“I’ll run you down to Tinubu Square. Taxis are very rare here. Come along, Clara, let’s take her down to Tinubu.”
“I’m sorry I came at such an awkward time,” said Clara as they drove back to Ikoyi from Tinubu Square.
“Don’t be ridiculous. What do you mean awkward time?”
“You thought I was on duty.” She laughed. “I’m sorry about that. Who is she, anyway? I must say she is very good-looking. And I went and poured sand into your garri. I’m sorry, my dear.”
Obi told her not to behave like a silly little girl. “I won’t say another word to you if you don’t shut up,” he said.
“You needn’t say anything if you don’t want to. Shall we call and say hello to Sam?”
The Minister was not in when they got to his house. It appeared there was a Cabinet meeting.
“Wetin Master and Madam go drink?” asked his steward.
“Make you no worry, Samson. Just tell Minister say we call.”
“You go return again?” asked Samson.
“Not today.”
“You say you no go drink small sometin?”
“No, thank you. We go drink when we come again. Bye-bye.”
When they got back to Obi’s flat he said: “I had a very interesting experience today.” And he told her of Mr. Mark’s visit to his office and gave her a detailed account of all that transpired between Miss Mark and himself before her arrival.
When he finished, Clara said nothing for a little while.
“Are you satisfied?” asked Obi.
“I think you were too severe on the man,” she said.
“You think I should have encouraged him to talk about bribing me?”
“After all, offering money is not as bad as offering one’s body. And yet you gave her a drink and a lift back to town.” She laughed. “Na so this world be.”
Obi wondered.
CHAPTER TEN
For one brief moment a year ago Mr. Green had taken an interest in Obi’s personal affairs—if one could call it taking an interest. Obi had just taken delivery of his new car.
“You will do well to remember,” said Mr. Green, “that at this time every year you will be called upon to cough up forty pounds for your insurance.” It was like the voice of Joel the son of Pethuel. “It is, of course, none of my business really. But in a country where even the educated have not reached the level of thinking about tomorrow, one has a clear duty.” He made the word “educated” taste like vomit. Obi thanked him for his advice.
And now at last the day of the Lord had come. He spread the insurance renewal letter before him on the table. Forty-two pounds! He had just a little over thirteen pounds in the bank. He folded the letter and put it into one of his drawers where he had his personal bits and pieces like postage stamps, receipts, and quarterly statements from the bank. A letter in a semiliterate hand caught his eye. He brought it out and read again.
Dear Sir,
It is absolutely deplorable to me hence I have to beg you respectfully to render me with help. At one side of it looks shameful of my asking you for this help, but if only I am sincere to myself, having the truth that I am wanting because of the need, I wish you pardon me. My request from you is 30/—(thirty shillings), assuring you of every truth to do the refund prompt, on the payday, 26 November 1957.
I wish the best of your consideration.
Yours obedient servant,
Charles Ibe.
Obi had forgotten all about it. No wonder Charles flitted in and out of his office nowadays without stopping to exchange greetings in Ibo. Charles was one of the messengers in the department. Obi had asked him what the great need was, and he said his wife had just given birth to their fifth child. Obi, who happened to be carrying about four pounds in his pocket, had lent him thirty shillings straightaway and forgotten all about it—until now. He sent for Charles and asked him in Ibo (so that Miss Tomlinson would not understand) why he had not fulfilled his promise. Charles scratched his head and renewed his promise, this time for the end of December.
“I shall find it difficult to trust you in future,” Obi said in English.
“Ah, no, Oga, Master. E no be like dat I beg. I go pay end of mont prompt.” He then reverted to Ibo. “Our people have a saying that a debt may become moldy but it never rots. There are many people in this department, but I did not go to them. I came to you.”
“That was very kind of you,” said Obi, knowing full well that the point would be missed. It was.
“Yes, there are many people here, but I did not go to them. I take you as my special master. Our people have a saying that when there is a big tree small ones climb on its back to reach the sun. You are a small boy in years, but …”
“O.K., Charles. End of December. If you fail I shall report the matter to Mr. Green.”
“Ah! I no go fail at all. If I fail my Oga, who I go go meet next time?”
And on that rhetorical note the matter rested for the moment. Obi looked at Charles’s letter again and saw with wry amusement that in the original manuscript he had written: “My request from you is only 30/—(thirty shillings)”; he had then crossed out only, no doubt after mature deliberation.
He shoved the letter back in the drawer to spend the night with the insurance notice. There was nothing for it but to go to the bank manager tomorrow morning and ask for an overdraft of fifty pounds. He had been told that it was fairly easy for a senior civil servant, whose salary was paid into the bank, to obtain an overdraft of that order. Meanwhile there was little point in thinking about it anymore. Charles’s attitude was undoubtedly the healthiest in these circumstances. If one didn’t laugh, one would have to cry. It seemed that was the way Nigeria was built.
But no amount of philosophy could take his mind right off that notice. “No one can say I have been extravagant. If I had not sent thirty-five pounds at the end of last month
to pay for mother’s treatment in a private hospital, I would have been all right—or if not exactly all right, at least above water. Anyway, I’ll pull through,” he assured himself. “The beginning was bound to be a little difficult. What do our people say? The start of weeping is always hard. Not a particularly happy proverb, but nonetheless true.”
If the Umuofia Progressive Union had granted him four months’ grace things might have turned out differently. But all that was now past history. He had made up his quarrel with the Union. It was quite clear they had meant no harm. And even if they had, was it not true, as the President had said at the reconciliation meeting, that anger against a kinsman was felt in the flesh, not in the marrow? The Union had pleaded with him to accept the four months’ grace from that moment. But he had refused with the lie that his circumstances were now happier.
And if one thought objectively of the matter—as though it related to Mr. B. and not to one’s self—could one blame those poor men for being critical of a senior service man who appeared reluctant to pay twenty pounds a month? They had taxed themselves mercilessly to raise eight hundred pounds to send him to England. Some of them earned no more than five pounds a month. He earned nearly fifty. They had wives and schoolgoing children; he had none. After paying the twenty pounds he would have thirty left. And very soon he would have an increment which alone was as big as some people’s salary.
Obi admitted that his people had a sizable point. What they did not know was that, having labored in sweat and tears to enroll their kinsman among the shining élite, they had to keep him there. Having made him a member of an exclusive club whose members greet one another with “How’s the car behaving?” did they expect him to turn round and answer: “I’m sorry, but my car is off the road. You see I couldn’t pay my insurance premium”? That would be letting the side down in a way that was quite unthinkable. Almost as unthinkable as a masked spirit in the old Ibo society answering another’s esoteric salutation: “I’m sorry, my friend, but I don’t understand your strange language. I’m but a human being wearing a mask.” No, these things could not be. Ibo people, in their fair-mindedness, have devised a proverb which says that it is not right to ask a man with elephantiasis of the scrotum to take on smallpox as well, when thousands of other people have not had even their share of small diseases. No doubt it is not right. But it happens. “Na so dis world be,” they say.
Having negotiated a loan of fifty pounds from the bank and gone straight to hand it over to the insurance company, Obi returned to his office to find his electricity bill for November. When he opened it he came very close to crying. Five pounds seven and three.
“Anything the matter?” asked Miss Tomlinson.
“Oh, no. Not at all.” He pulled himself together. “It’s only my electricity bill.”
“How much do you find it comes to a month?”
“This one is five-seven and three.”
“It’s sheer robbery what they charge for electricity here. In England you would pay less than that for a whole quarter.”
Obi was not in the mood for comparisons. The sudden impact of the insurance notice had woken him up to the real nature of his financial position. He had surveyed the prospects for the next few months and found them pretty alarming. At the end of the month he would have to renew his vehicle license. A whole year was out of the question, but even a quarter alone was four pounds. And then the tires. He could possibly postpone renewing them for another month or so, but they were already as smooth as the tube. Everyone said that it was surprising that his first set of tires did not give him two years or even eighteen months. He could not contemplate four new tires at thirty pounds. So he would have to retread his present set, one at a time beginning with the spare in the boot. That would cut the price down by half. They would probably last only six months as Miss Tomlinson told him. But six months might be long enough for things to improve a little. No one told him about income tax. That was to come, but not for another two months.
As soon as he finished his lunch he immediately set about introducing sweeping economy measures in his flat. His new steward boy, Sebastian, stood by, no doubt wondering what had possessed his master. He had started off his lunch by complaining that there was too much meat in the soup.
“I am not a millionaire, you know,” he had said. God knows, Clara used twice as much meat when she made the soup herself! thought Sebastian.
“And in future,” Obi continued, “I shall only give you money to go to the market once a week.”
Every switch in the flat lit two bulbs. Obi set about pruning them down. The rule in future was to be one switch, one bulb. He had often wondered why there should be two lamps in the bathroom and lavatory. It was typical Government planning. There was no single light on the flight of concrete stairs running through the middle of the block, with the result that people often collided with one another there or slipped one step. And yet there were two lamps in the lavatory where no one wanted to look closely at what one was doing.
Having dealt with the lamps, he turned to Sebastian again. “In future the water heater must not be turned on. I will have cold baths. The fridge must be switched off at seven o’clock in the evening and on again at twelve noon. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir. But meat no go spoil so?”
“No need to buy plenty meat at once.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Buy small today; when he finish buy small again.”
“Yes, sir. Only I tink you say I go de go market once every week.”
“I said nothing of the sort. I said I would only give you money once.”
Sebastian now understood. “Na de same ting. Instead to give me money two times. You go give me now one time.”
Obi knew he would not get very far pursuing the matter in the abstract.
That evening he had a serious disagreement with Clara. He had not wanted to tell her about the overdraft, but as soon as she saw him she asked what the matter was. He tried to fob her off with some excuse. But he had not planned it, so it didn’t hold together. Clara’s way of getting anything from him was not to argue but to refuse to talk. And as she usually did three-quarters of the talking when they were together, the silence soon became too heavy to bear. Obi would then ask her what the matter was, which was usually the prelude to doing whatever she wanted.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked when he had told her about the overdraft.
“Well, there was no need. I’ll pay it easily in five monthly installments.”
“That’s not the point. You don’t think I should be told when you’re in difficulty.”
“I wasn’t in difficulty. I wouldn’t have mentioned it if you hadn’t pressed me.”
“I see,” was all she said. She went across the room and picked up a woman’s magazine lying on the floor and began to read.
After a couple of minutes, Obi said with synthetic lightheartedness: “It’s very rude to be reading when you have a visitor.”
“You should have known I was very badly brought up.” Any reflection on her family was a very risky subject and often ended in tears. Even now her eyes were beginning to look glazed.
“Clara,” he said, putting his arm round her. She was all tensed up. “Clara.” She did not answer. She was turning the pages of the magazine mechanically. “I don’t understand why you want to quarrel.” Not a sound. “I think I had better be going.”
“I think so, too.”
“Clara, I’m very sorry.”
“About what? Leave me, ojare.” She pushed his arm off.
Obi sat for another couple of minutes gazing at the floor.
“All right.” He sprang to his feet. Clara remained where she was, turning the pages.
“Bye-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
When he got back to the flat he told Sebastian not to cook any supper.
“I don start already.”
“Then you can stop,” he shouted, and went into his bedroom. He stopped for a br
ief moment to look at Clara’s photograph on the dressing table. He turned it on its face and went to undress. He threw his cloth over his shoulder, toga-wise, and returned to his sitting room to get a book. He looked along the shelves a number of times without deciding what to read. Then his eye rested on A. E. Housman’s Collected Poems. He took it down and returned to his bedroom. He picked up Clara’s photograph and stood it on its feet again. Then he went and lay down.
He opened the book where a piece of paper was showing, its top frayed and browned from exposure to dust. On it was written a poem called “Nigeria.”
God bless our noble fatherland,
Great land of sunshine bright,
Where brave men chose the way of peace,
To win their freedom fight.
May we preserve our purity,
Our zest for life and jollity.
God bless our noble countrymen
And women everywhere.
Teach them to walk in unity
To build our nation dear;
Forgetting region, tribe or speech,
But caring always each for each.
At the bottom was written “London, July 1955.” He smiled, put the piece of paper back where he found it, and began to read his favorite poem, “Easter Hymn.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Obi was now on the best of terms with Miss Tomlinson. He had begun to lower his guard “small small” from the day she went into raptures over Clara. She was now Marie to him and he was Obi to her.
“Miss Tomlinson is rather a mouthful,” she had said one day. “Why not plain Marie?”
“I was going to suggest that myself. But you’re not plain Marie. You are the exact opposite of plain.”
“Oh,” she said with a delightful jerk of the head. “Thank you.” She stood up and executed a mock curtsy.
They talked, frankly, of many things. Whenever there was nothing urgent to do, Marie had the habit of folding her arms and resting them on her typewriter. She would wait in that posture until Obi raised his eyes from what he was doing. Mr. Green was usually the subject of discussion, or at least the occasion for starting it. Once started, it took whatever direction it pleased.