No Longer at Ease (17 page)

Behind Eunice came Joy and Mercy, distant relations who had been sent by their parents to be trained in housekeeping by Mrs. Okonkwo.

Afterwards, when they were alone again, she listened
silently and patiently to the end. Then she raised herself up and said: “I dreamt a bad dream, a very bad dream one night. I was lying on a bed spread with white cloth and I felt something creepy against my skin. I looked down on the bed and found that a swarm of white termites had eaten it up, and the mat and the white cloth. Yes, termites had eaten up the bed right under me.”

A strange feeling like cold dew descended on Obi’s head.

“I did not tell anybody about that dream in the morning. I carried it in my heart wondering what it was. I took down my Bible and read the portion for the day. It gave me some strength, but my heart was still not at rest. In the afternoon your father came in with a letter from Joseph to tell us that you were going to marry an
osu
. I saw the meaning of my death in the dream. Then I told your father about it.” She stopped and took a deep breath. “I have nothing to tell you in this matter except one thing. If you want to marry this girl, you must wait until I am no more. If God hears my prayers, you will not wait long.” She stopped again. Obi was terrified by the change that had come over her. She looked strange as if she had suddenly gone off her head.

“Mother!” he called, as if she was going away. She held up her hand for silence.

“But if you do the thing while I am alive, you will have my blood on your head, because I shall kill myself.” She sank down completely exhausted.

Obi kept to his room throughout that day. Occasionally he fell asleep for a few minutes. Then he would be woken up
by the voices of neighbors and acquaintances who came to see him. But he refused to see anybody. He told Eunice to say that he was unwell from long traveling. He knew that it was a particularly bad excuse. If he was unwell, then surely that was all the more reason why he should be seen. Anyway, he refused to be seen, and the neighbors and acquaintances felt wounded. Some of them spoke their mind there and then, others managed to sound as if nothing had happened. One old woman even prescribed a cure for the illness, even though she had not seen the patient. Long journeys, she said, were very troublesome. The thing to do was to take strong purgative medicine to wash out all the odds and ends in the belly.

Obi did not appear for evening prayers. He heard his father’s voice as if from a great distance, going on for a very long time. Whenever it appeared to have finished, his voice rose again. At last Obi heard several voices saying the Lord’s Prayer. But everything sounded far away, as voices and the cries of insects sound to a man in a fever.

His father came into his room with his hurricane lamp and asked how he felt. Then he sat down on the only chair in the room, took up his lamp again and shook it for kerosene. It sounded satisfactory and he turned the wick down, until the flame was practically swallowed up in the lamp’s belly. Obi lay perfectly still on his back, looking up at the bamboo ceiling, the way he had been told as a child not to sleep. For it was said if he slept on his back and a spider crossed the ceiling above him he would have bad dreams.

He was amazed at the irrelevant thoughts that passed
through his mind at this the greatest crisis in his life. He waited for his father to speak that he might put up another fight to justify himself. His mind was troubled not only by what had happened but also by the discovery that there was nothing in him with which to challenge it honestly. All day he had striven to rouse his anger and his conviction, but he was honest enough with himself to realize that the response he got, no matter how violent it sometimes appeared, was not genuine. It came from the periphery, and not the center, like the jerk in the leg of a dead frog when a current is applied to it. But he could not accept the present state of his mind as final, so he searched desperately for something that would trigger off the inevitable reaction. Perhaps another argument with his father, more violent than the first; for it was true what the Ibos say, that when a coward sees a man he can beat he becomes hungry for a fight. He had discovered he could beat his father.

But Obi’s father sat in silence, declining to fight. Obi turned on his side and drew a deep breath. But still his father said nothing.

“I shall return to Lagos the day after tomorrow,” Obi said finally.

“Did you not say you had a week to spend with us?”

“Yes, but I think it will be better if I return earlier.”

After this there was another long silence. Then his father spoke, but not about the thing that was on their minds. He began slowly and quietly, so quietly that his words were barely audible. It seemed as if he was not really speaking to
Obi. His face was turned sideways so that Obi saw it in vague profile.

“I was no more than a boy when I left my father’s house and went with the missionaries. He placed a curse on me. I was not there but my brothers told me it was true. When a man curses his own child it is a terrible thing. And I was his first son.”

Obi had never heard about the curse. In broad daylight and in happier circumstances he would not have attached any importance to it. But that night he felt strangely moved with pity for his father.

“When they brought me word that he had hanged himself I told them that those who live by the sword must perish by the sword. Mr. Braddeley, the white man who was our teacher, said it was not the right thing to say and told me to go home for the burial. I refused to go. Mr. Braddeley thought I spoke about the white man’s messenger whom my father killed. He did not know I spoke about Ikemefuna, with whom I grew up in my mother’s hut until the day came when my father killed him with his own hands.” He paused to collect his thoughts, turned in his chair, and faced the bed on which Obi lay. “I tell you all this so that you may know what it was in those days to become a Christian. I left my father’s house, and he placed a curse on me. I went through fire to become a Christian. Because I suffered I understand Christianity—more than you will ever do.” He stopped rather abruptly. Obi thought it was a pause, but he had finished.

Obi knew the sad story of Ikemefuna who was given to Umuofia by her neighbors in appeasement. Obi’s father and
Ikemefuna became inseparable. But one day the Oracle of the Hills and the Caves decreed that the boy should be killed. Obi’s grandfather loved the boy. But when the moment came it was his matchet that cut him down. Even in those days some elders said it was a great wrong that a man should raise his hands against a child that called him father.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

Obi did the 500-odd miles between Umuofia and Lagos in a kind of daze. He had not even stopped for lunch at Akure, which was the normal halfway house for travelers from Eastern Nigeria to Lagos, but had driven numbly, mile after mile, from morning till evening. Only once did the journey come alive, just before Ibadan. He had taken a sharp corner at speed and come face to face with two mammy-wagons, one attempting to overtake the other. Less than half a second lay between Obi and a total smash. In that half-second he swerved his car into the bush on the left.

One of the lorries stopped, but the other went on its way. The driver and passengers of the good lorry rushed to see what had happened to him. He himself did not know yet whether anything had happened to him. They helped him push his car out, much to the joy of the women passengers who were already crying and holding their breasts. It was only after Obi had been pushed back to the road that he began to tremble.

“You very lucky-o,” said the driver and his passengers,
some in English and others in Yoruba. “Dese reckless drivers,” he said shaking his head sadly. “
Olorun!
” He left the matter in the hands of God. “But you lucky-o as no big tree de for dis side of road. When you reach home make you tank your God.”

Obi examined his car and found no damage except one or two little dents.

“Na Lagos you de go?” asked the driver. Obi nodded, still unable to talk.

“Make you take am
jeje
. Too much devil de for dis road. If you see one accident way we see for Abeokuta side—
Olorun!
” The women talked excitedly, with their arms folded across their breasts, gazing at Obi as if he was a miracle. One of them repeated in broken English that Obi must thank God. A man agreed with her. “Na only by God of power na him make you still de talk.” Actually Obi wasn’t talking, but the point was cogent nonetheless.

“Dese drivers! Na waya for dem.”

“No be all drivers de reckless,” said the good driver. “Dat one na foolish somebody. I give am signal make him no overtake but he just come
fiam
.” The last word, combined with a certain movement of the arm meant
excessive speed
.

The rest of the journey had passed without incident. It was getting dark when Obi arrived in Lagos. The big signboard which welcomes motorists to the federal territory of Lagos woke in him a feeling of panic. During the last night he spent at home he had worked out how he was going to tell Clara. He would not go to his flat first and then return to tell her. It would be better to stop on his way and take her
with him. But when he got to Yaba where she lived he decided that it was better to get home first and then return. So he passed.

He had a wash and changed his clothes. Then he sat down on the sofa and for the first time felt really tired. Another thought occurred to him. Christopher might be able to give him useful advice. He got into the car and drove off, not knowing definitely whether he was going to Christopher’s or Clara’s. But in the end it was to Clara that he went.

On his way he ran into a long procession of men, women, and children in white flowing gowns gathered at the waist with red and yellow sashes. The women, who were in the majority, wore white head ties that descended to their back. They sang and clapped their hands and danced. One of the men kept beat with a handbell. They held up all traffic, for which Obi was inwardly grateful. But impatient taxi drivers serenaded them with long and deafening blasts of their horns as they slowly parted for them to pass. In front two white-clad boys carried a banner which proclaimed the Eternal Sacred Order of Cherubim and Seraphim.

Obi had done his best to make the whole thing sound unimportant. Just a temporary setback and no more. Everything would work out nicely in the end. His mother’s mind had been affected by her long illness but she would soon get over it. As for his father, he was as good as won over. “All we need do is lie quiet for a little while,” he said.

Clara had listened in silence, rubbing her engagement ring with her right fingers. When he stopped talking, she
looked up at him and asked if he had finished. He did not answer.

“Have you finished?” she asked again.

“Finished what?”

“Your story.”

Obi drew a deep breath by way of answer.

“Don’t you think … Anyway, it doesn’t matter. There is only one thing I regret. I should have known better anyway. It doesn’t really matter.”

“What are you talking about, Clara? … Oh, don’t be silly,” he said as she pulled off her ring and held it out to him.

“If you don’t take it, I shall throw it out of the window.”

“Please do.”

She didn’t throw it away, but went outside to his car and dropped it in the glove box. She came back and, holding out her hand in mock facetiousness, said: “Thank you very much for everything.”

“Come and sit down, Clara. Let’s not be childish. And please don’t make things more difficult for me.”

“You are making things difficult for yourself. How many times did I tell you that we were deceiving ourselves? But I was always told I was being childish. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. There is no need for long talk.”

Obi sat down again. Clara went to lean on the window and look outside. Once Obi began to say something, but gave it up after the first three words or so. After another ten minutes of silence Clara asked, hadn’t he better be going?

“Yes,” he said, and got up.

“Good night.” She did not turn from her position. She had her back to him.

“Good night,” he said.

“There was something I wanted to tell you, but it doesn’t matter. I ought to have been able to take care of myself.”

Obi’s heart flew into his mouth. “What is it?” he asked in great alarm.

“Oh, nothing. Forget about it. I’ll find a way out.”

Obi had been shocked by the crudity of Christopher’s reaction to his story. He said the most uncharitable things, and he was always interrupting. As soon as Obi mentioned his parents’ opposition he took over from him.

“You know, Obi,” he said, “I had wanted to discuss that matter with you. But I have learnt not to interfere in a matter between a man and a woman, especially with chaps like you who have wonderful ideas about love. A friend came to me last year and asked my advice about a girl he wanted to marry. I knew this girl very very well. She is, you know, very liberal. So I told my friend: ‘You shouldn’t marry this girl.’ Do you know what this bloody fool did? He Went and told the girl what I said. That was why I didn’t tell you anything about Clara. You may say that I am not broad-minded, but I don’t think we have reached the stage where we can ignore all our customs. You may talk about education and so on, but I am not going to marry an
osu
.”