Nwafo soon returned and said she was coming. Akueke came in almost at once. She saluted her father and shook hands with Onwuzuligbo.
‘Is your wife, Ezinma, well?’ she asked.
‘She is well today. Tomorrow is what we do not know.’
‘And her children?’
‘We have no trouble except hunger.’
‘Aaah!’ said Akueke, ‘that cannot be true. Look how well fed you are.’
When Akueke went back to the inner compound Onwuzuligbo told Ezeulu that his people had sent him to say that they would like to pay a visit to their in-law on the following morning.
‘I shall not run away from my house,’ said Ezeulu.
‘We shall not bring war to you. We are coming to whisper together like in-law and in-law.’
Ezeulu was grateful for the one happy event in a week of trouble and vexation. He sent for his head wife, Matefi and told her to get ready to cook for his in-laws tomorrow.
‘Which in-laws?’ she asked.
‘Akueke’s husband and his people.’
‘There is no cassava in my hut, and today is not a market.’
‘So what do you want me to do?’ asked Ezeulu.
‘I don’t want you to do anything. But Akueke may have some cassava if you ask her.’
‘This madness which they say you have must now begin to know its bounds. You are telling me to go and find cassava for you. What has Akueke to do with it; is she my wife? I have told you many times that you are a wicked woman. I have noticed that you will not do anything happily unless it is for yourself or your children. Don’t let me speak my mind to you today.’ He paused. ‘If you want this compound to contain the two of us, go and do what I told you. If Akueke’s mother were alive she would not draw a line between her children and yours and you know it. Go away from here before I rise to my feet.’
Although Ezeulu was very anxious for his daughter, Akueke, to return to her husband nobody expected him to say so openly. A man who admitted that his daughter was not always welcome in his home or that he found her presence irksome was in effect telling her husband to treat her as roughly as he liked. So when Akueke’s husband finally came round to announcing his intention to take his wife home, Ezeulu made a show of objecting.
‘It is right for a man to take his wife home,’ he said. ‘But I want to remind you that when we begin to plant crops it will be one year since she began to live in my compound. Did you bring yams or cocoyams or cassava to feed her and her child? Or do you think that they are still carrying the breakfast they ate in your house last year?’
Ibe and his people made some vague, apologetic noises.
‘What I want to know,’ said Ezeulu, ‘is how you will pay me for taking care of your wife for one year.’
‘In-law, I understand you very well,’ said Onwuzuligbo. ‘Leave everything to us. You know that a man’s debt to his father-in-law can never be fully discharged. When we buy a goat or a cow we pay for it and it becomes our own. But when we marry a wife we must go on paying until we die. We do not dispute that we owe you. Our debt is even greater than you say. What about all the years from her birth to the day we took her from you? Indeed we owe you a great debt, but we ask you to give us time.’
‘Let me agree with you,’ said Ezeulu, ‘but I am agreeing in cowardice.’
Besides Ezeulu’s two grown-up sons, Edogo and Obika, his younger brother was also present. His name was Okeke Onenyi. He had said very little so far; but now it appeared to him that his brother was yielding too readily and he decided to speak.
‘My in-laws, I salute you. I have not said anything because the man who has no gift for speaking says his kinsmen have said all there is to say. Since you began to speak I have been listening very hard to hear one thing from your mouth, but I have not heard it. Different people have different reasons for marrying. Apart from children which we all want, some men want a woman to cook their meals, some want a woman to help on the farm, others want someone they can beat. What I want to learn from your mouth is whether our in-law has come because he has no one to beat when he wakes up in the morning nowadays.’
Onwuzuligbo promised on behalf of his kinsman that Akueke would not be beaten in future. Then Ezeulu sent for her to find out whether she wanted to return to her husband. She hesitated and then said she would go if her father was satisfied.
‘My in-laws, I salute you,’ said Ezeulu. ‘Akueke will return, but not today. She will need a little time to get ready. Today is Oye; she will come back to you on the Oye after next. When she comes, treat her well. It is not bravery for a man to beat his wife. I know a man and his wife must quarrel; there is no abomination in that. Even brothers and sisters from the same womb do disagree; how much more two strangers. No, you may quarrel, but let it not end in fighting. I shall say no more at present.’
Ezeulu was grateful to Ulu for bringing about so unexpectedly the mending of the quarrel between Akueke and her husband. He was sure that Ulu did it to put him in the right mind for purifying the six villages before they put their crops into the ground. That very evening his six assistants came to him for their orders and he sent them to announce each man in his own village that the Feast of the Pumpkin Leaves would take place on the following Nkwo.
Ugoye was still cooking supper when the crier’s ogene sounded. Ugoye was notorious for her late cooking. Although Ezeulu often rebuked Matefi for cooking late Ugoye deserved the rebuke even more. But she was wiser than the senior wife; she never cooked late on the days she sent food to her husband. But on all other days her pestle would be heard far into the night. She was particularly slack when, as now, she was forbidden to cook for any grown man on account of her uncleanness.
Her daughter, Obiageli, and Akueke’s daughter, Nkechi, were telling each other stories. Nwafo sat on the small mud-seat at the foot of the hut’s central pillar watching them with a superior air and pointing out now and again their mistakes.
Ugoye stirred the soup on the fire and tasted it by running her tongue on the back of the ladle. The sound of the ogene caught her in the action.
‘Keep quiet, you children, and let me hear what they are saying.’
GOME GOME GOME GOME. ‘Ora Obodo, listen! Ezeulu has asked me to announce that the Festival of the Pumpkin Leaves will take place on the coming Nkwo.’ GOME GOME GOME GOME. ‘Ora Obodo! Ezeulu has asked me…’
Obiageli had broken off her story so that her mother could hear the crier’s message. While she waited impatiently her eyes fell on the soup ladle and, to occupy herself, she picked it up from the wooden bowl where it lay and proceeded to lick it dry.
‘Glutton,’ said Nwafo. ‘It is this lick lick lick which prevents woman from growing a beard.’
‘And where, big man, is your beard?’ asked Obiageli.
GOME GOME GOME GOME. ‘Folks of the village. The Chief Priest of Ulu has asked me to tell every man and every woman that the Festival of the First Pumpkin Leaves will be held on the coming Nkwo market day.’ GOME GOME GOME GOME.
The crier’s voice was already becoming faint as he took his message down the main pathway of Umuachala.
‘Shall we go back to the beginning?’ asked Nkechi.
‘Yes,’ said Obiageli. ‘The big ukwa fruit has fallen on Nwaka Dimk-polo and killed him. I shall sing the story and you reply.’
‘But I was replying before,’ protested Nkechi, ‘it is now my turn to sing.’
‘You are going to spoil everything now. You know we did not complete the story before the crier came.’
‘Do not agree, Nkechi,’ said Nwafo. ‘She wants to cheat you because she is bigger than you are.’
‘Nobody has called your name in this, ant-hill nose.’
‘You are asking for a cry.’
‘Don’t listen to him, Nkechi. After this it will be your turn to sing and I shall reply.’ Nkechi agreed and Obiageli began to sing again:
And who will punish this Water for me?
E-e Nwaka Dimkpolo
Earth will d
ry up this water for me
E-e Nwaka Dimkpolo
Who will punish this Earth for me?…
‘No, no, no,’ Nkechi broke in.
‘What can happen to Earth, silly girl?’ asked Nwafo.
‘I said it on purpose to test Nkechi,’ said Obiageli.
‘It is a lie, as old as you are you can’t even tell a simple story.’
‘If it pains you, come and jump on my back, ant-hill nose.’
‘Mother, if Obiageli abuses me again I shall beat her.’
‘Touch her if you dare and I shall cure you of your madness this night.’
‘Let us change to another story,’ said Obiageli. ‘This one has no end.’ At the same time she reached for the ladle which had just returned from another visit to the soup pot on the fire. But her mother snatched it from her.
Chapter Seven
The market place was filling up steadily with men and women from every quarter. Because it was specially their day, the women wore their finest cloths and ornaments of ivory and beads according to the wealth of their husbands or, in a few exceptional cases, the strength of their own arms. Most of the men brought palm wine in pots carried on the head or gourds dangling by the side from a loop of rope. The first people to arrive took up positions under the shade of trees and began to drink with their friends, their relations and their in-laws. Those who came after sat in the open which was not hot yet.
A stranger to this year’s festival might go away thinking that Umuaro had never been more united in all its history. In the atmosphere of the present gathering the great hostility between Umunneora and Umuachala seemed, momentarily, to lack significance. Yesterday if two men from the two villages had met they would have watched each other’s movement with caution and suspicion; tomorrow they would do so again. But today they drank palm wine freely together because no man in his right mind would carry poison to a ceremony of purification; he might as well go out into the rain carrying potent, destructive medicines on his person.
Ezeulu’s younger wife examined her hair in a mirror held between her thighs. She could not help feeling that she did a better job on Akueke’s hair than Akueke did on hers. But she was very pleased with the black patterns of uli and faint yellow lines of ogalu on her body. In previous years she would have been among the first to arrive at the market place; she would have been carefree and joyful. But this year her feet seemed to drag because of the load on her mind. She was going to pray for the cleansing of her hut which Oduche had defiled. She was no longer one of many, many Umuaro women taking part in a general and all-embracing rite. Today she stood in special need. The weight of this feeling all but crushed the long-awaited pleasure of wearing her new ivory bracelets which had earned her so much envy and hostility from her husband’s other wife, Matefi.
She was still polishing the ivory when Matefi set out for the Nkwo market place. Before she went she called out from the middle of the compound:
‘Is Obiageli’s mother ready?’
‘No. We shall be following. You need not wait.’
When she was fully prepared Ugoye went behind her hut to the pumpkin which she specially planted after the first rain and cut four leaves, tied them together with banana string and returned to her hut. She put the leaves down on a stool and went to the bamboo shelf to examine the soup pot and the foofoo which Obiageli and Nwafo would eat at midday.
Akueke stooped at the threshold and peeped into Ugoye’s hut.
‘So you are not ready to go yet? What are you fussing about like a hen in search of a nest?’ she asked. ‘At this rate we shall find nowhere to stand at the market place.’ Then she came into the hut carrying her own bunch of pumpkin leaves. They admired each other’s cloths and Akueke praised Ugoye’s ivory once again.
As soon as they set out Akueke asked:
‘What do you think was Matefi’s annoyance this morning?’
‘I should ask you; is she not your father’s wife?’
‘Her face was as big as a mortar. Did she ask if you were ready to go?’
‘She did; but it went no deeper than the lips.’
‘In all the time I have come across bad people,’ said Akueke, ‘I have not yet met anyone like her. Her own badness whistles. Since my father asked her to cook for my husband and his people the day before yesterday her belly has been full of bile.’
On ordinary Nkwo days the voice of the market carried far in all directions like the approach of a great wind. Today it was as though all the bees in the world were passing overhead. And people were still flowing in from all the pathways of Umuaro. As soon as they emerged from their compound Ugoye and Akueke joined one such stream. Every woman of Umuaro had a bunch of pumpkin leaves in her right hand; any woman who had none was a stranger from the neighbouring villages coming to see the spectacle. As they approached Nkwo its voice grew bigger and bigger until it drowned their conversation.
They were just in time to see the arrival of the five wives of Nwaka and the big stir they caused. Each of them wore not anklets but two enormous rollers of ivory reaching from the ankle almost to the knee. Their walk was perforce slow and deliberate, like the walk of an Ijele Mask lifting and lowering each foot with weighty ceremony. On top of all this the women were clad in many coloured velvets. Ivory and velvets were not new in Umuaro but never before had they been seen in such profusion from the house of one man.
Obika and his good friend, Ofoedu, sat with three other young men from Umuagu on the crude mat woven on the ground by exposed roots of an ogbu tree. In their midst stood two black pots of palm wine. Just outside their circle one empty pot lay on its side. One of the men was already drunk, but neither Obika nor Ofoedu appeared to have drunk a drop yet.
‘Is it true, Obika,’ asked one of the men, ‘that your new bride has not returned after her first visit?’
‘Yes, my friend,’ Obika replied light-heartedly. ‘My things always turn out differently from other people’s. If I drink water it sticks between my teeth.’
‘Do not heed him,’ said Ofoedu. ‘Her mother is ill and her father asked if she could stay back and look after her for a while.’
‘Aha, I knew the story I heard could not be true. How could a young bride hesitate over a handsome ugonachomma like Obika?’
‘Ah, my friend, come out from that,’ said the half-drunk man. ‘She may not like the size of his penis.’
‘But she has never seen it,’ said Obika.
‘You are talking to small boys of yesterday: She has not seen it!’
Soon after, the great Ikolo sounded. It called the six villages of Umuaro one by one in their ancient order: Umunneora, Umuagu, Umuezeani, Umuogwugwu, Umuisiuzo and Umuachala. As it called each village an enormous shout went up in the market place. It went through the number again but this time starting from the youngest. People began to hurry through their drinking before the arrival of the Chief Priest.
The Ikolo now beat unceasingly; sometimes it called names of important people of Umuaro, like Nwaka, Nwosisi, Igboneme and Uduezue. But most of the time it called the villages and their deities. Finally it settled down to saluting Ulu, the deity of all Umuaro.
Obiozo Ezikolo was now an old man, but his mastery of the king of all drums was still unrivalled. Many years ago when he was still a young man the six villages had decided to confer the ozo title on him for his great art which stirred the hearts of his kinsmen so powerfully in times of war. Now in his old age it was a marvel where he got the strength to work as he did. Even climbing on to the Ikolo was a great feat for a man half his age. Now those who were near enough surrounded the drum and looked upwards to admire the ancient drummer. A man well known to him raised his voice and saluted him. He shouted back: ‘An old woman is never old when it comes to the dance she knows.’ The crowd laughed.
The Ikolo was fashioned in the olden days from a giant iroko tree at the very spot where it was felled. The Ikolo was as old as Ulu himself at whose order the tree was cut down and its trunk hollowed out into a drum. Since
those days it had lain on the same spot in the sun and in the rain. Its body was carved with men and pythons and little steps were cut on one side; without these the drummer could not climb to the top to beat it. When the Ikolo was beaten for war it was decorated with skulls won in past wars. But now it sang of peace.
A big ogene sounded three times from Ulu’s shrine. The Ikolo took it up and sustained an endless flow of praises to the deity. At the same time Ezeulu’s messengers began to clear the centre of the market place. Although they were each armed with a whip of palm frond they had a difficult time. The crowd was excited and it was only after a struggle that the messengers succeeded in clearing a small space in the heart of the market place, from which they worked furiously with their whips until they had forced all the people back to form a thick ring at the edges. The women with their pumpkin leaves caused the greatest diffi-culty because they all struggled to secure positions in front. The men had no need to be so near and so they formed the outside of the ring.
The ogene sounded again. The Ikolo began to salute the Chief Priest. The women waved their leaves from side to side across their faces, muttering prayers to Ulu, the god that kills and saves.
Ezeulu’s appearance was greeted with a loud shout that must have been heard in all the neighbouring villages. He ran forward, halted abruptly and faced the Ikolo. ‘Speak on,’ he said to it, ‘Ezeulu hears what you say.’ Then he stooped and danced three or four steps and rose again.
He wore smoked raffia which descended from his waist to the knee. The left half of his body – from forehead to toes – was painted with white chalk. Around his head was a leather band from which an eagle’s feather pointed backwards. On his right hand he carried Nne Ofo, the mother of all staffs of authority in Umuaro, and in his left he held a long iron staff which kept up a quivering rattle whenever he stuck its pointed end into the earth. He took a few long strides, pausing on each foot. Then he ran forward again as though he had seen a comrade in the vacant air; he stretched his arm and waved his staff to the right and to the left. And those who were near enough heard the knocking together of Ezeulu’s staff and another which no one saw. At this, many fled in terror before the priest and the unseen presences around him.