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The two men seemed by the look on their faces to agree with this too.
‘Do you know what my enemies at home call me?’ Ezeulu asked. At this point John Nwodika came in to express his joy at what had happened.
‘Ask him; he will tell you. They call me the friend of the white man. They say Ezeulu brought the white man to Umuaro. Is that not so, Son of Nwodika?’
‘It is true,’ said the other, looking a little confused from being asked to confirm the end of a story whose beginning he had not heard.
Ezeulu killed a fly that had perched on his shin. It fell down on the floor and he looked at the palm with which he killed it: then he rubbed the palm on the mat to remove the stain and examined it again.
‘They say I betrayed them to the white man.’ He was still looking at his palm. Then he seemed to ask himself: Why am I telling these things to strangers? and stopped.
‘You should not give too much thought to that,’ said John Nwodika. ‘How many of those who deride you at home can wrestle with the white man as you have done and press his back to the ground?’
Ezeulu laughed. ‘You call this wrestling? No, my clansman. We have not wrestled; we have merely studied each other’s hand. I shall come again, but before that I want to wrestle with my own people whose hand I know and who know my hand. I am going home to challenge all those who have been poking their fingers into my face to come outside their gate and meet me in combat and whoever throws the other will strip him of his anklet.’
‘The challenge of Eneke Ntulukpa to man, bird and beast,’ said John Nwodika with childlike excitement.
‘You know it?’ said Ezeulu happily.
John Nwodika broke into the taunting song with which the bird, Eneke, once challenged the whole world. The two strangers laughed; it was just like Nwodika.
‘Whoever puts the other down,’ said Ezeulu when the song was ended, ‘will strip him of his anklet.’
Ezeulu’s sudden release was the first major decision Clarke had taken on his own. It was exactly one week since his visit to Nkisa to obtain a satisfactory definition of the man’s offence and in that time he had already developed considerable self-confidence. In letters he had written home to his father and his fiancée after the incident he had made fun of his earlier amateurishness – a certain sign of present self-assurance. No doubt his new confidence had been helped by the letter from the Resident authorizing him to take day to day decisions and to open confidential correspondence not addressed personally to Winterbottom.
The mail runner brought in two letters. One looked formidable with red wax and seal – the type junior Political Officers referred to lightly as Top Secret: Burn Before You Open. He examined it carefully and saw it was not personal to Winterbottom. He felt like a man who had just been initiated into an important secret society. He put the packet aside for the moment to read the smaller one first. It turned out to be no more than the weekly Reuter’s telegram sent as an ordinary letter from the nearest telegraphic office fifty miles away. It carried the news that Russian peasants in revolt against the new régime had refused to grow crops. ‘Serve them right,’ he said, and put it aside; he would take it at the close of day to the notice board in the Regimental Mess. He sat up and took the other packet.
It was a report by the Secretary for Native Affairs on Indirect Rule in Eastern Nigeria. The accompanying note from the Lieutenant-Governor said that the report had been discussed fully at the recent meeting of Senior Political Officers at Enugu which Captain Winter-bottom had unfortunately been too ill to attend. It went on to say that in spite of the very adverse report attached he had not been given any directive for a change of policy. That was a matter for the Governor. But as a decision might be taken one way or another soon it was clearly inadvisable to extend the appointment of Warrant Chiefs to new areas. It was significant that the Warrant Chief for Okperi was singled out in the report for criticism. The letter concluded by asking Winterbottom to handle the matter with tact so that the Administration did not confuse the minds of the natives or create the impression of indecision or lack of direction as such an impression would do untold harm.
When days later Clarke was able to tell Winterbottom about the Report and the Lieutenant-Governor’s letter he showed an amazing lack of interest, no doubt the result of the fever. He only muttered under his breath something like: Shit on the Lieutenant-Governor!
Chapter Sixteen
Although it was now the heart of the wet season Ezeulu and his companion had set out for home in dry, hopeful, morning weather. His companion was John Nwodika who would not hear of his plan to do the long journey alone. Ezeulu begged him not to trouble himself but it was all in vain.
‘It is not a journey which a man of your station can take alone,’ he said. ‘If you are bent on returning today I must come with you. Otherwise stay till tomorrow when Obika is due to visit.’
‘I cannot stay another day,’ said Ezeulu. ‘I am the tortoise who was trapped in a pit of excrement for two whole markets; but when helpers came to haul him out on the eighth day he cried! Quick, quick: I cannot stand the stench.’
So they set out. Ezeulu wore his shimmering, yellow loincloth underneath and a thick, coarse, white toga over it; this outer cloth was passed under the right armpit and its two ends thrown across the left shoulder. Over the same shoulder he carried his long-strapped goatskin bag. On his right hand he held his alo – a long, iron, walking-staff with a sharp, spear-like lower end which every titled man carried on important occasions. On his head was a red ozo cap girdled with a leather band from which an eagle feather pointed slightly backwards.
John Nwodika wore a thick brown shirt over khaki trousers.
The weather held until they were about half-way between Okperi and Umuaro. Then the rain seemed to say: Now is the time; there are no houses on the way where they can seek shelter. It took both hands off its support and fell down with immense, smothering abandon.
John Nwodika said: ‘Let us shelter under a tree for a while to see if it will diminish.’
‘It is dangerous to stand under a tree in a storm like this. Let us go on. We are not salt and we are not carrying evil medicine on our body. At least I am not.’
So they pressed on, the cloth clinging as if terrified to their bodies. Ezeulu’s goatskin bag was full of water and he knew his snuff was already ruined. The red cap too never liked water and would be the worse for it. But Ezeulu was not depressed; if anything he felt a certain elation which torrential rain sometimes gave – the heady feeling which sent children naked into the rain singing:
Mili zobe ezobe!
Ka mgbaba ogwogwo!
But Ezeulu’s elation had an edge of bitterness to it. This rain was part of the suffering to which he had been exposed and for which he must exact the fullest redress. The more he suffered now the greater would be the joy of revenge. His mind sought out new grievances to pile upon all the others.
He crooked the first finger of his left hand and drew it across his brow and over his eyes to clear the water that blinded him. The broad, new road was like an agitated, red swamp. Ezeulu’s staff no longer hit the earth with a hard thud; its pointed end sank in with a swish up to the length
