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When the discussion began again someone suggested that they should go to the elders of Umuaro and tell them that they could no longer work on the white man’s road. But as speaker after speaker revealed the implications of such a step it lost all support. Moses told them that the white man would reply by taking all their leaders to prison at Okperi.
‘You all know how friendly we are with Okperi. Do you think that any Umuaro man who goes to prison there will come back alive? But that apart, do you forget that this is the moon of planting? Do you want to grow this year’s crops in the prison house in a land where your fathers owe a cow? I speak as your elder brother. I have travelled in Olu and I have travelled in Igbo, and I can tell you that there is no escape from the white man. He has come. When Suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat left for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool. The white man is like that. Before any of you here was old enough to tie a cloth between the legs I saw with my own eyes what the white man did to Abame. Then I knew there was no escape. As daylight chases away darkness so will the white man drive away all our customs. I know that as I say it now it passes by your ears, but it will happen. The white man has power which comes from the true God and it burns like fire. This is the God about Whom we preach every eighth day…’
Unachukwu’s opponents were now shouting that this was a meeting of an age group, that they had not assembled to join with him in chewing the seed of foolishness which they called their new religion.
‘We are talking about the white man’s road,’ said a voice above the others.
‘Yes, we are talking about the white man’s road. But when the roof and walls of a house fall in, the ceiling is not left standing. The white man, the new religion, the soldiers, the new road – they are all part of the same thing. The white man has a gun, a matchet, a bow and carries fire in his mouth. He does not fight with one weapon alone.’
Nweke Ukpaka spoke next. ‘What a man does not know is greater than he. Those of us who want Unachukwu to go away forget that none of us can say come in the white man’s language. We should listen to his advice. If we go to our elders and tell them that we shall no longer work on the white man’s road, what do we expect them to do? Will our fathers take up hoes and matchets and go out to work themselves while we sit at home? I know that many of us want to fight the white man. But only a foolish man can go after a leopard with his bare hands. The white man is like hot soup and we must take him slowly-slowly from the edges of the bowl. Umuaro was here before the white man came from his own land to seek us out. We did not ask him to visit us; he is neither our kinsman nor our in-law. We did not steal his goat or his fowl; we did not take his land or his wife. In no way whatever have we done him wrong. And yet he has come to make trouble for us. All we know is that our ofo is held high between us and him. The stranger will not kill his host with his visit; when he goes may he not go with a swollen back. I know that the white man does not wish Umuaro well. That is why we must hold our ofo by him and give him no cause to say that we did this or failed to do that. For if we give him cause he will rejoice. Why? Because the very house he has been seeking ways of pulling down will have caught fire of its own will. For this reason we shall go on working on his road; and when we finish we shall ask him if he has more work for us. But in dealing with a man who thinks you a fool it is good sometimes to remind him that you know what he knows but have chosen to appear foolish for the sake of peace. This white man thinks we are foolish; so we shall ask him one question. This was the question I had wanted to ask him this morning but he would not listen. We have a saying that a man may refuse to do what is asked of him but may not refuse to be asked, but it seems the white man does not have that kind of saying where he comes from. Anyhow the question which we shall beg Unachukwu to ask him is why we are not paid for working on his road. I have heard that throughout Olu and Igbo, wherever people do this kind of work the white man pays them. Why should our own be different?’
Ukpaka was a persuasive speaker and after him nobody else rose to speak. And the only decision of the meeting was then taken. The Otakagu age group asked Unachukwu to find out, at a well-chosen moment when it was safe to approach the white man, why he had not given them any money for working on his road.
‘I shall carry your message to him,’ said Unachukwu.
‘That message is not complete,’ said Nwoye Udora. ‘It is not enough to ask him why we are not paid. He knows why and we know why. He knows that in Okperi those who do this kind of work are paid. Therefore the question you should ask him is this: Others are paid for this work; why are we not paid? Or is our own different? It is important to ask whether our own is different.’
This was agreed and the meeting broke up.
‘Your words were very good,’ someone said to Nwoye Udora as they left the market place. ‘Perhaps the white man will tell us whether we killed his father or his mother.’
Ezeulu was not as broken down as his young wife had feared. True he had pains in his feet and thighs and his spittle had a bitter taste. But he had forestalled the worst effects of his exertion by having his body rubbed with a light ointment of camwood as soon as he returned home and by ensuring that a log fire burned beside his low bamboo bed all night. There was no medicine equal to camwood and fire. Very soon the priest would rise as sound as newly fired clay.
If anyone had told Ezeulu about his younger wife’s concern he would have laughed. It showed how little of a man his wives knew especially when, like Ugoye, they were no older than the man’s first children. If Ugoye had known her husband in his earliest years as priest she might have realized that the exhaustion he felt after the festival had nothing to do with advancing age. Had it been that Ezeulu would not have yielded to it. His daughters made light of the wife’s concern because they were wiser, being his daughters. They knew that this was a necessary conclusion to the festival. It was part of the sacrifice. For who could trample the sins and abominations of all Umuaro into the dust and not bleed in the feet? Not even a priest as powerful as Ezeulu could hope to do that.
The story that the white man had whipped Obika spread through the villages while the age group held its meeting under the shade of ogbu trees in the market place. The story was brought home to Ezeulu’s compound by Edogo’s wife who was returning from the bush with a bundle of firewood on her head. Ezeulu was wakened from sleep by Obika’s mother and sister weeping. He threw off the mat with which he had covered himself and sprang to his feet, his mind having run immediately to death. But then he heard Edogo’s wife talking, which would not happen if anyone had died. He sat down on the edge of his bed and, raising his voice, called Edogo’s wife. She immediately came into the obi followed by her husband who had been carving an iroko door for the compound of a titled man when his wife returned.
‘What are you saying?’ Ezeulu asked Amoge. She repeated the story she had heard.
‘Whip?’ he asked, unable to understand. ‘But what offence did he commit?’
‘Those who told the story did not say.’
Ezeulu screwed his face in thought. ‘I think he was late in going. But the white man would not whip a grown man who is also my son for that. He would be asked to pay a fine to his age group for being late; he would not be whipped. Or perhaps he hit the white man first…’
Edogo was touched by the distress which his father felt but tried to c
onceal. It ought to have made him jealous of his younger brother but did not.
‘I think I shall go to Nkwo where they are meeting,’ said Edogo. ‘I cannot yet find meaning in this story.’ He returned to his hut, took his matchet and made to go out.
His father who was still trying to understand how it could have happened called after him. When he came back into his obi Ezeulu advised him not to be rash.
‘From what I know of your brother he is likely to have struck the first blow. Especially as he was drunk when he left home.’ There was already a change in his tone, and Edogo nearly smiled.
He set out again, wearing only his work cloth – a long, thin strip passed between the legs and secured around the waist, with one end dangling in front and the other behind.
Obika’s mother came out of the compound sniffling and drawing the back of her fist across her eyes.
‘Where is that one going?’ asked Ezeulu. ‘I see that those who will fight the white man are lining up.’ He laughed as Matefi turned round to hear what he was saying. ‘Go back to your hut, woman!’ Edogo had now reached the main footpath and turned left.
Ezeulu now sat down on the iroko panel with his back against the wall so that he could see the approaches to his compound. His mind raced up and down in different directions trying vainly to make sense of the whipping story. Now he was thinking about the white man who did it. Ezeulu had seen him and heard his voice when he spoke to the elders of Umuaro about the new road. When the story had first spread that a white man was coming to talk to the elders Ezeulu had thought it would be his friend, Wintabota, the Destroyer of Guns. He had been greatly disappointed when he saw it was another white man. Wintabota was tall and erect and carried himself like a great man. His voice sounded like thunder. This other man was short and thick, as hairy as a monkey. He spoke in a queer way without opening his mouth. Ezeulu thought he must be some kind of manual labourer in the service of Wintabota.
Some people appeared at the junction of the main footpath and the approaches to Ezeulu’s compound. He jerked his head forward, but the men passed.
Ezeulu came finally to the conclusion that unless his son was at fault he would go in person to Okperi and report the white man to his master. His thoughts were stopped by the sudden appearance of Obika and Edogo. Behind them came a third whom he soon recognized as Ofoedu. Ezeulu could never get used to this worthless young man who trailed after his son like a vulture after a corpse. He was filled with anger which was so great that it also engulfed his son.
‘What was the cause of the whipping?’ he asked Edogo, ignoring the other two. Obika’s mother and all the others in the compound had now hastened into Ezeulu’s obi.
