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es not talk. If you stand a hundred pounds here where I stand now, it will not talk. That is why we say that he who has people is richer than he who has money. Everyone of us here should look out for openings in his department and put in a word for Joshua.” This was greeted with approval.
“Thanks to the Man Above,” he continued, “we now have one of our sons in the senior service. We are not going to ask him to bring his salary to share among us. It is in little things like this that he can help us. It is our fault if we do not approach him. Shall we kill a snake and carry it in our hand when we have a bag for putting long things in?” He took his seat.
“Your words are very good,” said the President. “We have the same thought in our minds. But we must give the young man time to look round first and know what is what.”
The meeting supported the President by their murmurs. “Give the young man time.” “Let him settle down.” Obi felt very uneasy. But he knew they meant well. Perhaps it would not be too difficult to manage them.
The next item on the agenda was a motion of censure on the President and executive for mishandling Obi’s reception. Obi was amazed. He had thought that his reception went very well. But not so the three young men who sponsored the motion. Nor, as it turned out, a dozen or so other young people. Their complaint was that they were not given any of the two dozen bottles of beer which had been bought. The top people and elders had monopolized it, leaving the young people with two kegs of sour palm-wine. As everyone knew, Lagos palm-wine was really no palm-wine at all but water—an infinite dilution.
This accusation caused a lively exchange of hard words for the better part of an hour. The President called the young men “ungrateful ingrates whose stock-in-trade was character-assassination.” One of the young people suggested that it was immoral to use public funds to buy beer for one’s private thirst. The words were hard, but Obi felt somehow that they lacked bitterness; especially since they were English words taken straight from today’s newspaper. When it was all over the President announced that their honored son Obi Okonkwo had a few words to say to them. This announcement was received with great joy.
Obi rose to his feet and thanked them for having such a useful meeting, for did not the Psalmist say that it was good for brethren to meet together in harmony? “Our fathers also have a saying about the danger of living apart. They say it is the curse of the snake. If all snakes lived together in one place, who would approach them? But they live every one unto himself and so fall easy prey to man.” Obi knew he was making a good impression. His listeners nodded their heads and made suitable rejoinders. Of course it was all a prepared speech, but it did not sound overrehearsed.
He spoke about the wonderful welcome they had given him on his return. “If a man returns from a long journey and no one says nno to him he feels like one who has not arrived.” He tried to improvise a joke about beer and palm-wine, but it did not come off, and he hurried to the next point. He thanked them for the sacrifices they had made to send him to England. He would try his best to justify their confidence. The speech which had started off one hundred percent in Ibo was now fifty-fifty. But his audience still seemed highly impressed. They liked good Ibo, but they also admired English. At last he got round to his main subject. “I have one little request to place before you. As you all know, it takes a little time to settle down again after an absence of four years. I have many little private matters to settle. My request is this, that you give me four months before I start to pay back my loan.”
“That is a small matter,” said someone. “Four months is a short time. A debt may get moldy, but it never decays.”
Yes, it was a small matter. But it was clear that not everyone thought so. Obi even heard someone ask what he was going to do with the big money which Government would give him.
“Your words are very good,” said the President at length. “I do not think anyone here will say no to your request. We will give you four months. Do I speak for Umuofia?”
“Ya!” they replied.
“But there are two words I should like to drop before you. You are very young, a child of yesterday. You know book. But book stands by itself and experience stands by itself. So I am’ not afraid to talk to you.”
Obi’s heart began to pound heavily.
“You are one of us, so we must bare our minds to you. I have lived in this Lagos for fifteen years. I came here on August the sixth, nineteen hundred and forty-one. Lagos is a bad place for a young man. If you follow its sweetness, you will perish. Perhaps you will ask why I am saying all this. I know what Government pays senior service people. What you get in one month is what some of your brothers here get in one year. I have already said that we will give you four months. We can even give you one year. But are we doing you any good?”
A big lump caught in Obi’s throat.
“What the Government pays you is more than enough unless you go into bad ways.” Many of the people said. “God forbid!” “We cannot afford bad ways,” went on the President. “We are pioneers building up our families and our town. And those who build must deny ourselves many pleasures. We must not drink because we see our neighbors drink or run after women because our thing stands up. You may ask why I am saying all this, I have heard that you are moving around with a girl of doubtful ancestry, and even thinking of marrying her.…”
Obi leapt to his feet trembling with rage. At such times words always deserted him.
“Please sit down, Mr. Okonkwo,” said the President calmly.
“Sit down, my foot!” Obi shouted in English. “This is preposterous! I could take you to court for that … for that … for that.…”
“You may take me to court when I have finished.”
“I am not going to listen to you anymore. I take back my request. I shall start paying you back at the end of this month. Now, this minute! But don’t you dare interfere in my affairs again. And if this is what you meet about,” he said in Ibo, “you may cut off my two legs if you ever find them here again.” He made for the door. A number of people tried to intercept him. “Please sit down.” “Cool down.” “There is no quarrel.” Everybody was talking at once. Obi pushed his way through and made blindly for his car with half a dozen people at his heels pleading that he return.
“Drive off!” he screamed at the driver as soon as he got into the car.
“Obi, please,” said Joseph, miserably leaning on the window.
“Get out!”
The car drove off. Halfway to Ikoyi he ordered the driver to stop and go back to Lagos, to Clara’s lodgings.
CHAPTER NINE
The prospect of working with Mr. Green and Mr. Omo did not particularly appeal to Obi, but he soon found that it was not as bad as he had thought. For one thing he was given a separate office, which he shared with Mr. Green’s attractive English secretary. He saw very little of Mr. Omo and only saw Mr. Green when he rushed in to bark orders at him or at Miss Marie Tomlinson.
“Isn’t he odd?” said Miss Tomlinson on one occasion. “But he’s really not a bad man.”
“Of course not,” replied Obi. He knew that many of these secretaries were planted to spy on Africans. One of their tactics was to pretend to be very friendly and broad-minded. One had to watch what one said. Not that he cared whether or not Mr. Green knew what he thought of his type. In fact, he ought to know. But he was not going to get it through an agent provocateur.
