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even more restless, saying meaningless things.
‘Bring me his ofo,’ he said.
The sick man’s brother took the short wooden staff from the house-shrine held by ropes to a rafter. The medicine-man who was now crouching by the bed took it from him and opening the sick man’s right hand put it there.
‘Hold it!’ he commanded pressing the dry fingers round the staff. ‘Grasp it, and say no to them! Do you hear me? Say no!’
The meaning of his command seemed at last to seep through many clogged filters to the sick man’s mind and the fingers began to close, like claws, slowly round the staff.
‘That’s right,’ said the medicine-man beginning to remove his own hand and to leave the ofo in Amalu’s grasp. ‘Say no to them!’
But as soon as he took his hand completely away Amalu’s fingers jerked open and the ofo fell down on the floor. The little crowd in the hut exchanged meaningful glances but no words.
Soon after Ezeulu rose to go. ‘Take good care of him,’ he said.
‘Go well,’ replied the others.
When Obika’s bride arrived with her people and he looked upon her again it surprised him greatly that he had been able to let her go untouched during her last visit. He knew that few other young men of his age would have shown the same restraint which ancient custom demanded. But what was right was right. Obika began to admire this new image of himself as an upholder of custom – like the lizard who fell down from the high iroko tree he felt entitled to praise himself if nobody else did.
The bride was accompanied by her mother who was just coming out of an illness, many girls of her own age and her mother’s women friends. Most of the women carried small head-loads of the bride’s dowry to which they had all contributed – cooking-pots, wooden bowls, brooms, mortar, pestle, baskets, mats, ladles, pots of palm oil, baskets of cocoyam, smoked fish, fermented cassava, locust beans, heads of salt and pepper. There were also two lengths of cloth, two plates and an iron pot. These last were products of the white man and had been bought at the new trading post at Okperi.
The three compounds of Ezeulu and his sons were already full of relatives and friends before the bride and her people arrived. The twenty or so young maidens attending her were all fully decorated. But the bride stood out among them. It was not only that she was taller than any of them, she was altogether more striking in her looks and carriage. She wore a different coiffure befitting her imminent transition to full womanhood – a plait rather than regular patterns made with a razor.
The girls sang a song called Ifeoma. Goodly Thing had come, they said, so let everyone who had good things bring them before her as offering. They made a circle round her and she danced to their song. As she danced her husband-to-be and other members of Ezeulu’s family broke through the circle one or two at a time and stuck money on her forehead. She smiled and let the present fall at her feet from where one of the girls picked it up and put it in a bowl.
The bride’s name was Okuata. In tallness she took after her father who came of a race of giants. Her face was finely cut and some people already called her Oyilidie because she resembled her husband in comeliness. Her full breasts had a very slight upward curve which would save them from falling and sagging too soon.
Her hair was done in the new otimili fashion. There were eight closely woven ridges of hair running in perfect lines from the nape to the front of the head and ending in short upright tufts like a garland of thick bristles worn on the hair-line from ear to ear. She wore as many as fifteen strings of jigida on her waist. Most of them were blood-coloured but two or three were black, and some of the blood-coloured strings had been made up with a few black discs thrown in. Tomorrow she would tie a loincloth like a full-grown woman and henceforth her body would be concealed from the public gaze. The strings of jigida clinked as she danced. Behind they covered all her waist and the upper part of her buttocks. In front they lay string upon string from under her navel to her genitals, covering the greater part and providing a dark shade for the rest. The other girls were dressed in the same way except that most of them wore fewer strings of jigida.
The feasting which followed lasted till sunset. There were pots of yam pottage, foofoo, bitter-leaf soup and egusi soup, two boiled legs of goat, two large bowls of cooked asa fish taken out whole from the soup and kegs of sweet wine tapped from the raffia palm.
Whenever a particularly impressive item of food was set before the women their song-leader raised the old chant of thanks:
Kwo-kwo-kwo-kwo-kwo!
Kwo-o-o-oh!
We are going to eat again as we are wont to do!
Who provides?
Who is it?
Who provides?
Who is it?
Obika Ezeulu he provides
Ayo-o-o-o-o-oh!
But in the end her mother and all the protecting company from her village set out for home again leaving her behind. Okuata felt like an orphan child and tears came down her face. Her mother-in-law took her away into her hut where she would stay until the Sacrifice at the crossroads was performed.
The medicine-man and diviner who had been hired to perform the rite soon arrived and the party set out. In it were Obika, his elder half-brother, his mother and the bride. Ezeulu did not go with them because he rarely left his obi after dark. Oduche refused to go so as not to offend the Catechist who preached against sacrifices.
They made for the highway leading to Umuezeani, the village where the bride came from. It was now quite dark and there was no moon. The palm-oil lamp which Obika’s mother carried gave little light especially as she had to cup one hand round the wick to protect the flame from the wind. Even so it was blown out twice and she had to go into nearby compounds to light it again – first into Anosi’s compound and then into the hut of Membolu’s widow.
The medicine-man whose name was Aniegboka walked silently in front of the group. He was a small man but when he spoke he raised his voice as one might do in talking over the compound wall to a neighbour who was hard of hearing. Aniegboka was not one of the famous medicine-men in the clan; he was chosen because he was friendly with Ezeulu’s compound and besides the sacrifice he was going to perform did not call for exceptional skill. Children in all the neighbourhood knew him and fled on his approach because they said he could turn a person into a dog by slapping him on the buttocks. But they made fun of him when he was not there because one of his eyes was like a bad cowry. According to the story the eye was damaged by the sharpened end of a banana shaft which Aniegboka – then a little boy – was throwing up and catching again in mid-air.
