‘Do not repeat it,’ said one of the others. ‘It cannot be true.’
‘That is what everybody says: it cannot be true. But I saw it with my own eyes. Go to Umuachala now and see the whole village in turmoil.’
‘What that man Ezeulu will bring to Umuaro is pregnant and nursing a baby at the same time.’
‘I have heard many things, but never till today have I heard of an abomination of this kind.’
By the time Edogo reached home his father was still in a very bad temper, only that now his anger was not so much against Oduche as against all the double-faced neighbours and passers-by whose words of sympathy barely concealed the spitefulness in their hearts. And even if they had been sincere Ezeulu would still have resented anybody making him an object of pity. At first his anger smouldered inwardly. But the last group of women who went in to see his wives, looking like visitors to a place of death, inflamed his wrath. He heard them in the inner compound shouting: ‘E-u-u! What shall we do to the children of today?’ Ezeulu strode into the compound and ordered them to leave.
‘If I see any one of you still here when I go and come back she will know that I am an evil man.’
‘What harm have we done in coming to console another woman?’
‘I say leave this place at once!’
The women hurried out saying: ‘Forgive us; we have erred.’
It was therefore a very irate Ezeulu to whom Edogo told his story of what he had heard at the Nkwo market place. When he finished his father asked him curtly:
‘And what did you do when you heard that?’
‘What should I have done?’ Edogo was surprised and a little angry at his father’s tone.
‘Don’t you hear him?’ asked Ezeulu of no one. ‘My first son, somebody says to your hearing that your father has committed an abomination, and you ask me what you should have done. When I was your age I would have known what to do. I would have come out and broken the man’s head instead of hiding in the spirit-house.’
Edogo was now really angry but he controlled his tongue. ‘When you were my age your father did not send one of his sons to worship the white man’s god.’ He walked away to his own hut full of bitterness for having broken off his carving to come and see what was happening at home, only to be insulted.
‘I blame Obika for his fiery temper,’ thought Ezeulu, ‘but how much better is a fiery temper than this cold ash!’ He inclined backwards and rested his head on the wall behind him and began to gnash his teeth.
It was a day of annoyance for the Chief Priest – one of those days when it seemed he had woken up on the left side. As if he had not borne enough vexation already he was now visited, at sunset, by a young man from Umunneora. Because of the hostility between Ezeulu’s village and Umunneora he did not offer the man kolanut lest he should have a belly-ache later and attribute it to Ezeulu’s hospitality. The man did not waste much time before he gave his message.
‘I am sent by Ezidemili.’
‘True? I trust he is well.’
‘He is well,’ replied the messenger. ‘But at the same time he is not.’
‘I do not understand you.’ Ezeulu was now very alert. ‘If you have a message, deliver it because I have no time to listen to a boy learning to speak in riddles.’
The young man ignored the insult. ‘Ezidemili wants to know what you are going to do about the abomination which has been committed in your house.’
‘That what happened?’ asked the Chief Priest, holding his rage firmly with two hands.
‘Should I repeat what I have just said?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right. Ezidemili wants to know how you intend to purify your house of the abomination that your son committed.’
‘Go back and tell Ezidemili to eat shit. Do you hear me? Tell Ezidemili that Ezeulu says he should go and fill his mouth with shit. As for you, young man, you may go in peace because the world is no longer what it was. If the world had been what it was I would have given you something to remind you always of the day you put your head into the mouth of a leopard.’ The young man wanted to say something but Ezeulu did not allow him.
‘If you want to do something with your life, take my advice and say not another word here.’ Ezeulu rose threateningly to his full height; the young man decided to heed his advice and rose to go.
Chapter Five
Captain T. K. Winterbottom stared at the memorandum before him with irritation and a certain amount of contempt. It came from the Lieutenant-Governor through the Resident through the Senior District Officer to him, the last two adding each his own comment before passing the buck down the line. Captain Winterbottom was particularly angry at the tone of the Senior District Officer’s minute. It was virtually a reprimand for what he was pleased to describe as Winter-bottom’s stonewalling on the issue of the appointment of Paramount Chiefs. Perhaps if this minute had been written by any other person Captain Winterbottom would not have minded so much; but Watkinson had been his junior by three years and had been promoted over him.
‘Any fool can be promoted,’ Winterbottom always told himself and his assistants, ‘provided he does nothing but try. Those of us who have a job to do have no time to try.’
He lit his pipe and began to pace his spacious office. He had designed it himself and had made it open and airy. As he walked up and down he noticed for the first time, although it had always been there, the singing of prisoners, as they cut the grass outside. It was amazing how tall it had grown with the two rainfalls which had come so close together. He went to the window and watched the prisoners for a while. One of them supplied the beat with something that looked like a piece of stone on an empty bottle and sang a short solo; the others sang the chorus and swung their blades to the beat. Captain Winterbottom removed his pipe, placed it on the window-sill, cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted: ‘Shut up there!’ They all looked up and saw who it was and stopped their music. Their blades went up and down haphazardly thereafter. Then their warder who had been standing under the shade of a mango tree a little distance away thought it was safest to take his men to another spot where they would not disturb the D.O. So he marched them off in a ragged double file to another part of Government Hill. They all wore dirty-white jumpers made from baft and a skull cap to match. Two of them carried headpans and the soloist clutched his bottle and stone. As soon as they settled down in their new place he raised a song and blades swung up and down to the beat:
When I cut grass and you cut
What’s your right to call me names?
Back at his desk Captain Winterbottom read the Lieutenant-Governor’s memorandum again:
‘My purpose in these paragraphs is limited to impressing on all Political Officers working among the tribes who lack Natural Rulers the vital necessity of developing without any further delay an effective system of “indirect rule” based on native institutions.
‘To many colonial nations native administration means government by white men. You are all aware that H.M.G. considers this policy as mistaken. In place of the alternative of governing directly through Administrative Officers there is the other method of trying while we endeavour to purge the native system of its abuses to build a higher civilization upon the soundly rooted native stock that had its foundation in the hearts and minds and thoughts of the people and therefore on which we can more easily build, moulding it and establishing it into lines consonant with modern ideas and higher standards, and yet all the time enlisting the real force of the spirit of the people, instead of killing all that out and trying to start afresh. We must not destroy the African atmosphere, the African mind, the whole foundation of his race…’
Words, words, words. Civilization, African mind, African atmosphere. Has His Honour ever rescued a man buried alive up to his neck, with a piece of roast yam on his head to attract vultures? He began to pace up and down again. But why couldn’t someone tell the bloody man that the whole damn thing was stupid and futile. He knew why. They were all afraid of
losing their promotion or the O.B.E.
Mr Clarke walked in to say he was off on his first tour of the district. Captain Winterbottom waved him away with ‘Have a good trip’ which he said almost without looking at him. But as he turned to go he called him back.
‘When you are in Umuaro find out as much as you can – very discreetly of course – about Wright and his new road. I’ve heard all kinds of ugly stories of whippings and that kind of business. Without prejudging the issue I may say that I wouldn’t put anything past Wright, from sleeping with native women to birching their men… All right I’ll see you in a week’s time. Take care of yourself. Remember, no chances with the water. Have a good trip.’
This short interruption made it possible for Captain Winterbottom to return to the Lieutenant-Governor’s memorandum with diminished anger. Instead he now felt tired and resigned. The great tragedy of British colonial administration was that the man on the spot who knew his African and knew what he was talking about found himself being constantly overruled by starry-eyed fellows at Headquarters.
Three years ago they had put pressure on Captain Winterbottom to appoint a Warrant Chief for Okperi against his better judgement. After a long palaver he had chosen one James Ikedi, an intelligent fellow who had been among the very first people to receive missionary education in these parts. But what had happened? Within three months of this man receiving his warrant Captain Winterbottom began to hear rumours of his high-handedness. He had set up an illegal court and a private prison. He took any woman who caught his fancy without paying the customary bride-price. Captain Winter-bottom went into the whole business thoroughly and uncovered many more serious scandals. He decided to suspend the fellow for six months, and accordingly withdrew his warrant. But after three months the Senior Resident who had just come back from leave and had no first-hand knowledge of the matter ruled that the rascal be reinstated. And no sooner was he back in power than he organized a vast system of mass extortion.
There was at that time a big programme of road and drainage construction following a smallpox epidemic. Chief James Ikedi teamed up with a notorious and drunken road overseer who had earned the title of Destroyer of Compounds from the natives. The plans for the roads and drains had long been completed and approved by Captain Winterbottom himself and as far as possible did not interfere with people’s homesteads. But this overseer went around intimidating the villagers and telling them that unless they gave him money the new road would pass through the middle of their compound. When some of them reported the matter to their chief he told them there was nothing he could do; that the overseer was carrying out the orders of the white man and anyone who had no money to give should borrow from his neighbour or sell his goats or yams. The overseer took his toll and moved on to another compound, choosing only the wealthy villagers. And to convince them that he meant business he actually demolished the compounds of three people who were slow in paying, although no road or drain was planned within half a mile of their homes. Needless to say, Chief Ikedi took a big slice of this illegal tax.
Thinking of this incident Captain Winterbottom could find some excuse for the overseer. He was a man from another clan; in the eyes of the native, a foreigner. But what excuse could one offer for a man who was their blood brother and chief? Captain Winterbottom could only put it down to cruelty of a kind which Africa alone produced. It was this elemental cruelty in the psychological make-up of the native that the starry-eyed European found so difficult to understand.
Chief Ikedi was of course a very clever man and when Captain Winterbottom began to investigate this second scandal it was quite impossible to incriminate him; he had covered up his tracks so well. So Captain Winterbottom lost his main quarry, at any rate for the present; he had no doubt however that he would catch him one of these days. As for the overseer he sentenced him to eighteen months’ penal servitude.
There was no doubt whatever in the mind of Captain Winterbottom that Chief Ikedi was still corrupt and high-handed, only cleverer than ever before. The latest thing he did was to get his people to make him an obi or king, so that he was now called His Highness Ikedi the First, Obi of Okperi. This among a people who abominated kings! This was what British administration was doing among the Ibos, making a dozen mushroom kings grow where there was none before.
Captain Winterbottom slept on the Lieutenant-Governor’s memorandum and decided that there was little he could do to stop the stupid trend. He had already sacrificed his chances of promotion by too frequently speaking his mind; practically all the officers who joined the Nigerian Service when he did were now Residents and he was not even a Senior District Officer. Not that he cared particularly, but in this matter of Indirect Rule there did not seem to be any point in continuing his objection when fellows who until now had been one with him in opposition had suddenly swung round to blame him for not implementing it. He was now under orders to find a chief and his duty was clear. But he must not repeat the mistake of looking for some mission-educated smart alec. As far as Umuaro was concerned his mind was practically made up. He would go for that impressive-looking fetish priest who alone of all the witnesses who came before him in the Okperi versus Umuaro land case spoke the truth. Provided of course he was still alive. Captain Winterbottom remembered seeing him again once or twice during his routine visits to Umuaro. But that was at least two years ago.
Chapter Six
The outrage which Ezeulu’s son committed against the sacred python was a very serious matter; Ezeulu was the first to admit it. But the ill will of neighbours and especially the impudent message sent him by the priest of Idemili left him no alternative but to hurl defiance at them all. He was full of amazement at the calumny which even people he called his friends were said to be spreading against him.
‘It is good for a misfortune like this to happen once in a while,’ he said, ‘so that we can know the thoughts of our friends and neighbours. Unless the wind blows we do not see the fowl’s rump.’
He sent for his wife and asked her where her son was. She stood with her arms folded across her breasts and said nothing. For the past two days she had been full of resentment against her husband because it was he who sent Oduche to the church people in spite of her opposition. Why should he now sharpen his matchet to kill him for doing what they taught him in the church?
‘Am I talking to a person or a carved nkwu?’
‘I don’t know where he is.’
‘You do not know? He he he he he he,’ he laughed mechanically and then became very serious again. ‘You must be telling me in your mind that a man who brings home ant-infested faggots should not complain if he is visited by lizards. You are right. But do not tell me you don’t know where your son is…’
‘Is he my son now?’
He ignored her question.
‘Do not tell me you don’t know where he is because it is a lie. You may call him out from where you are hiding him. I have not killed anybody before and I will not start with my son.’
‘But he will not go to that church again.’
‘That is a lie also. I have said that he will go there and he will go. If anybody does not like it he can come and jump on my back.’
That afternoon Oduche returned, looking like a fowl soaked in the rain. He greeted his father fearfully but he ignored him completely. In the inner compound the women welcomed him without enthusiasm. The little children, especially Obiageli, searched him closely as if to see whether he had altered in any way.
Although Ezeulu did not want anybody to think that he was troubled or to make him appear like an object of pity, he did not ignore the religious implications of Oduche’s act. He thought about it seriously on the night of the incident. The custom of Umuaro was well known and he did not require the priest of Idemili to instruct him. Every Umuaro child knows that if a man kills the python inadvertently he must placate Idemili by arranging a funeral for the snake almost as elaborate as a man’s funeral. But there was nothing in the custom of Umuaro for the man who puts
the snake into a box. Ezeulu was not saying that it was not an offence, but it was not serious enough for the priest of Idemili to send him an insulting message. It was the kind of offence which a man put right between himself and his personal god. And what was more the Festival of the New Pumpkin Leaves would take place in a few days. It was he, Ezeulu, who would then cleanse the six villages of this and countless other sins, before the planting season.
Not very long after Oduche’s return Ezeulu was visited by one of his in-laws from Umuogwugwu. This man, Onwuzuligbo, was one of those who came to Ezeulu one year this planting season to find out why their kinsman and husband of Ezeulu’s daughter had been beaten and carried away from their village.
‘It looks as if my death is near,’ said Ezeulu.
‘Why is that, in-law? Do I look like death?’
‘When a man sees an unfamiliar sight, then perhaps his death is coming.’
‘You are right, in-law, it is indeed a long time since I came to see you. But we have a saying that the very thing which kills mother rat prevents its little ones from opening their eyes. If all goes well we hope to come and go again as in-laws should.’
Ezeulu sent his son, Nwafo, to bring a kolanut from his mother. Meanwhile he reached for the little wooden bowl which had a lump of white clay in it.
‘Here is a piece of nzu,’ he said as he rolled the chalk towards his guest, who picked it up and drew on the floor between his legs three erect lines and a fourth lying down under them. Then he painted one of his big toes and rolled the chalk back to Ezeulu who put it away again.
After they had eaten a kolanut Onwuzuligbo cleared his throat and thanked Ezeulu, and then asked:
‘Is our wife well?’
‘Your wife? She is well. Nothing troubles her except hunger. Nwafo, go and call Akueke to salute her husband’s kinsman.’