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"But Nwoye's mother dropped her pot of hot soup the other day and it broke on the floor."
Ekwefi turned the hen over in the mortar and began to pluck the feathers.
"Ekwefi," said Ezinma, who had joined in plucking the feathers, "my eyelid is twitching."
"It means you are going to cry," said her mother.
"No," Ezinma said, "it is this eyelid, the top one."
"•";' "That means you will see something."
"What will I se
e?" she asked.
"How can I know?" Ekwefi wanted her to work it out herself.
"Oho," said Ezinma at last. "I know what it is—the wrestling match."
At last the hen was plucked clean. Ekwefi tried to pull out the horny beak but it was too hard. She turned round on her low stool and put the beak in the fire for a few moments. She pulled again and it came off.
"Ekwefi!" a voice called from one of the other huts. It was Nwoye's mother, Okonkwo's first wife.
"Is that me?" Ekwefi called back. That was the way people answered calls from outside. They never answered yes for fear it might be an evil spirit calling.
"Will you give Ezinma some fire to bring to me?" Her own children and Ikemefuna had gone to the stream.
Ekwefi put a few live coals into a piece of broken pot and Ezinma carried it across the clean swept compound to Nwoye's mother.
"Thank you, Nma," she said. She was peeling new yams, and in a basket beside her were green vegetables and beans.
"Let me make the fire for you," Ezinma offered.
"Thank you, Ezigbo," she said. She often called her Ezigbo, which means "the good one."
Ezinma went outside and brought some sticks from a huge bundle of firewood. She broke them into little pieces across the sole of her foot and began to build a fire, blowing it with her breath.
"You will blow your eyes out," said Nwoye's mother, looking up from the yams she was peeling. "Use the fan." She stood up and pulled out the fan which was fastened into one of the rafters. As soon as she got up, the troublesome nan-nygoat, which had been dutifully eating yam peelings, dug her teeth into the real thing, scooped out two mouthfuls and fled from the hut to chew the cud in the goats' shed. Nwoye's mother swore at her and settled down again to her peeling. Ezinma's fire was now sending up thick clouds of smoke. She went on fanning it until it burst into flames. Nwoye's mother thanked her and she went back to her mother's hut.
Just then the distant beating of drums began to reach them. It came from the direction of the ilo , the village playground. Every village had its own ilo which was as old as the village itself and where all the great ceremonies and dances took place/The drums beat the unmistakable wrestling dance—quick, light and gay, and it came floating on the wind.
Okonkwo cleared his throat and moved his feet to the beat of the drums. It filled him with fire as it had always done from his youth. He trembled with the desire to conquer and subdue. It was like the desire for woman.
"We shall be late for the wrestling," said Ezinma to her mother.
"They will not begin until the sun goes down."
"But they are beating the drums."
"Yes. The drums begin at noon but the wrestling waits until the sun begins to sink. Go and see if your father has brought out yams for the afternoon."
"He has. Nwoye's mother is already cooking."
"Go and bring our own, then. We must cook quickly or we shall be late for the wrestling."
Ezinma ran in the direction of the barn and brought back two yams from the dwarf wall.
Ekwefi peeled the yams quickly. The troublesome nanny-goat sniffed about, eating the peelings. She cut the yams into small pieces and began to prepare a pottage, using some of the chicken.
