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‘I knew it was a spirit; my head swelled.’
‘Did he not turn into the Bush That Ruined Little Birds? On the left?’
His father’s confidence revived Obika. He nodded and Ezeulu nodded twice. The other women were now ranged round the door.
‘What did he look like?’
‘Taller than any man I know.’ He swallowed a lump. ‘His skin was very light… like… like…’
‘Was he dressed like a poor man or was it like a man of great wealth?’
‘He was dressed like a wealthy man. He had an eagle’s feather in his red cap.’
His teeth began to knock together again.
‘Hold yourself together. You are not a woman. Had he an elephant tusk?’
‘Yes. He carried a big tusk across his shoulder.’
The rain had now begun to fall, at first in big drops that sounded like pebbles on the thatch.
‘There is no cause to be afraid, my son. You have seen Eru, the Magnificent, the One that gives wealth to those who find favour with him. People sometimes see him at that place in this kind of weather. Perhaps he was returning home from a visit to Idemili or the other deities. Eru only harms those who swear falsely before his shrine.’ Ezeulu was carried away by his praise of the god of wealth. The way he spoke one would have thought he was the proud priest of Eru rather than Ulu who stood above Eru and all the other deities. ‘When he likes a man wealth flows like a river into his house; his yams grow as big as human beings, his goats produce threes and his hens hatch nines.’
Matefi’s daughter, Ojiugo, brought in a bowl of foofoo and a bowl of soup, saluted her father and set them before him. Then she turned to Nwafo and said: ‘Go to your mother’s hut; she has finished cooking.’
‘Leave the boy alone,’ said Ezeulu who knew that Matefi and her daughter resented his partiality for his other wife’s son. ‘Go and call your mother for me.’ He made no move to start eating and Ojiugo knew there was going to be trouble. She went back to her mother’s hut and called her.
‘I don’t know how many times I have said in this house that I shall not eat my supper when every other man in Umuaro is retiring to sleep,’ he said as soon as Matefi came in. ‘But you will not listen. To you whatever I say in this house is no more effective than the fart a dog breaks to put out a fire…’
‘I went all the way to Nwangene to fetch water and…’
‘If you like you may go to Nkisa. What I am saying is that if you want that madness of yours to be cured, bring my supper at this time another day…’
When Ojiugo came to collect the bowls she found Nwafo polishing off the soup. She waited for him to finish, full of anger. Then she gathered the bowls and went to tell her mother about it. This was not the first time or the second or third. It happened every day.
‘Do you blame a vulture for perching over a carcass?’ said Matefi. ‘What do you expect a boy to do when his mother cooks soup with locust beans for fish? She saves her money to buy ivory bracelets. But Ezeulu will never see anything wrong in what she does. If it is me then he knows what to say.’
Ojiugo was looking towards the other woman’s hut which was separated from theirs by the whole length of the compound. All she could see was the yellowish glow of the palm oil lamp between the low eaves and the threshold. There was a third hut which formed a half moon with the other two. It had belonged to Ezeulu’s first wife, Okuata, who died many years ago. Ojiugo hardly knew her; she only remembered she used to give a piece of fish and some locust beans to every child who went to her hut when she was making her soup. She was the mother of Adeze, Edogo and Akueke. After her death her children lived in the hut until the girls married. Then Edogo lived there alone until he married two years ago and built a small compound of his own besides his father’s. Now Akueke had been living in the hut again since she left her husband’s house. They said the man ill-treated her. But Ojiugo’s mother said it was a lie and that Akueke was headstrong and proud, the kind of woman who carried her father’s compound into the house of her husband.
Just when Ojiugo and her mother were about to begin their meal, Obika came home singing and whistling.
‘Bring me his bowl,’ said Matefi. ‘He is early today.’
Obika stooped at the low eaves and came in hands first. He saluted his mother and she said ‘Nno’ without any warmth. He sat down heavily on the mud-bed. Ojiugo had brought his soup bowl of fired clay and was now bringing down his foofoo from the bamboo ledge. Matefi blew into the soup bowl to remove dust and ash and ladled soup into it. Ojiugo set it before her brother and went outside to bring water in a gourd.
After the first swallow Obika tilted the bowl of soup towards the light and inspected it critically.
‘What do you call this, soup or cocoyam porridge.’
The women ignored him and went on with their own interrupted meal. It was clear he had drunk too much palm wine again.
Obika was one of the handsomest young men in Umuaro and all the surrounding districts. His face was very finely cut and his nose stood gem, like the note of a gong. His skin was, like his father’s, the colour of terracotta. People said of him (as they always did when they saw great comeliness) that he was not born for these parts among the Igbo people of the forests; that in his previous life he must have sojourned among the riverain folk whom the Igbo called Olu.
But two things spoilt Obika. He drank palm wine to excess, and he was given to sudden and fiery anger. And being as strong as rock he was always inflicting injury on others. His father who preferred him to Edogo, his quiet and brooding half-brother, nevertheless said to him often: ‘It is praiseworthy to be brave and fearless, my son, but sometimes it is better to be a coward. We often stand in the compound of a coward to point at the ruins where a brave man used to live. The man who has never submitted to anything will soon subm
it to the burial mat.’
But for all that Ezeulu would rather have a sharp boy who broke utensils in his haste than a slow and careful snail.
