Arrow of God (12 page)

‘So they are tired of waiting, small beasts of the bush. I thought they were waiting for you to take palm wine to beg them.’

‘Don’t abuse my husband’s people, or we shall fight,’ said Akueke pretending anger.

‘Please forgive me. I did not know that you and he had suddenly become palm oil and salt again. When are you going back to him?’

‘One market come next Oye.’

Chapter Eight

The new road which Mr Wright was building to connect Okperi with its enemy, Umuaro, had now reached its final stages. Even so it would not be finished before the onset of the rainy season if it was left to the paid gang he was using. He had thought of increasing the size of this gang but Captain Winterbottom had told him that far from authorizing any increase he was at that very moment considering a retrenchment as the Vote for Capital Works for the financial year was already largely overspent. Mr Wright had then toyed with the idea of reducing the labourers’ pay from threepence a day to something like twopence. But this would not have increased the labour force substantially; not even halving their pay would have achieved the desired result, even if Mr Wright could have found it in his heart to treat the men so meanly. In fact he had got very much attached to this gang and knew their leaders by name now. Many of them were, of course, bone lazy and could only respond to severe handling. But once you got used to them they could be quite amusing. They were as loyal as pet dogs and their ability to improvise songs was incredible. As soon as they were signed on the first day and told how much they would be paid they devised a work song. Their leader sang: ‘
Lebula toro toro
’ and all the others replied: ‘
A day
’, at the same time swinging their matchets or wielding their hoes. It was a most effective work song and they sang it for many days:

Lebula toro toro

A day

Lebula toro toro

A day

And they sang it in English too!

Anyhow there was only one alternative left to Mr Wright if he was to complete the road before June and get away from this hole of a place. He had to use unpaid labour. He asked for permission to do this, and after due consideration Captain Winterbottom gave his approval. In the letter conveying it he pointed out that it was the policy of the Administration to resort to this method only in the most exceptional circumstances… ‘The natives cannot be an exception to the aphorism that the labourer is worthy of his hire.’

Mr Wright who had come to Government Hill from his P.W.D. Road Camp about five miles away to get this reply, glanced through it, crumpled it and put it in the pocket of his khaki shorts. Like all practical types he had little respect for administrative red tape.

When the leaders of Umuaro were told to provide the necessary labour for the white man’s new, wide road they held a meeting and decided to offer the services of the two latest age groups to be admitted into full manhood: the age group that called itself Otakagu, and the one below it which was nicknamed Omumawa.

These two groups never got on well together. They were, like two successive brothers, always quarrelling. In fact it was said that the elder group who when they came of age took the name Devourer Like Leopard were so contemptuous of their younger brothers when they came of age two years later that they nicknamed them Omumawa, meaning that the man’s cloth they tied between the legs was a feint to cover small boys’ penes. It was a good joke, and so overpowered the attempt of the new group to take a more befitting name. For this reason they nursed a grudge against Otakagu, and a meeting of the two was often like the meeting of fire and gunpowder. Whenever they could, therefore, they went by separate ways; as in the case of the white man’s new road. All that Mr Wright asked for was two days in the week, and so the two age groups arranged to work separately on alternate Eke days. On these occasions the white man came over from the paid gang which he had turned into an orderly and fairly skilled force to supervise the free but undisciplined crowd from Umuaro.

Because of his familiarity with the white man’s language the carpenter, Moses Unachukwu, although very much older than the two age groups, had come forward to organize them and to take words out of the white man’s mouth for them. At first Mr Wright was inclined to distrust him, as he distrusted all uppity natives but he soon found him very useful and was now even considering giving him some little reward when the road was finished. Meanwhile Unachukwu’s reputation in Umuaro rose to unprecedented heights. It was one thing to claim to speak the white man’s tongue and quite another to be seen actually doing it. The story spread throughout the six villages. Ezeulu’s one regret was that a man of Umunneora should have this prestige. But soon, he thought, his son would earn the same or greater honour.

It was the turn of the Otakagu age group to work on the new road on the day following the Festival of the Pumpkin Leaves. Ezeulu’s second son, Obika, and his friend, Ofoedu, belonged to this group. But they had drunk so much palm wine on the day before that when all the other people went to work they were still asleep. Obika who had staggered home almost at cock-crow defied the combined effort of his mother and sister to rouse him.

It had happened on the festival day that as Obika and Ofoedu drank with the three men at the market place, one of the men had thrown a challenge to them. The conversation had turned on the amount of palm wine a good drinker could take without losing knowledge of himself.

‘It all depends on the palm tree and the tapper,’ said one of the men.

‘Yes,’ agreed his friend, Maduka. ‘It depends on the tree and the man who taps it.’

‘That is not so. It depends on the man who drinks. You may bring any tree in Umuaro and any tapper,’ said Ofoedu, ‘and I shall still drink my bellyful and go home with clear eyes.’

Obika agreed with his friend. ‘It is true that some trees are stronger than others and some tappers are better than others, but a good drinker will defeat them both.’

‘Have you heard of the palm tree in my village which they call Okposalebo?’

Obika and Ofoedu said no.

‘Anyone who has not heard of Okposalebo and yet claims to be a good drinker deceives himself.’

‘What Maduka says is very true,’ said one of the others. ‘The wine from this tree is never sold in the market, and no one can drink three hornfuls and still know his way home.’

‘This Okposalebo is a very old tree. It is called
Disperser of a Kindred
because two brothers would fight like strangers after drinking two hornfuls of its wine.’

‘Tell us another story,’ Obika said, filling his horn. ‘If the tapper adds medicine to his wine that is another matter, but if you are telling us of the fluid as the tree yields it, then I say tell us another story.’

Then Maduka threw the challenge. ‘It is not profitable to speak too many words. The palm tree is not in the distant riverain country, but here in Umuaro. Let us go from here to Nwokafo’s compound and ask him to give us a gourd from this tree. It is very costly – the gourd may be
ego-nese
– but I shall pay. If you two drink three hornfuls each and still go home let it be my loss. But if not you must give me
ego-neli
whenever you come to your senses again.’

It was as Maduka had said. The two boasters had fallen asleep where they sat, and when night came he left them there and retired to his bed. But he came out twice in the night and found them still snoring. When he woke up finally in the morning, they were gone. He wished he had seen them depart. Perhaps when they heard their betters talking about palm wine in future they would not open their mouths so wide.

Ofoedu did not seem to have fared as badly as Obika. When he woke up and found that the sun was already shining he rushed to Ezeulu’s compound to call Obika. But although they shouted his name and shook him he showed no sign of stirring. Eventually Ofoedu poured a gourd of cold water over him and he woke up. The two then set out to join their age group working on the new road. They were like a pair of Night Masks caught abroad by daylight.

Ezeulu who lay in his
obi
prostrate from the exhaustion of the festival was wakened by all the commotion in the inner compound. He asked Nwafo the meaning of all the noise and was told that they were trying to rouse Obika. He said nothing more, only gnashed his teeth. The young man’s behaviour was like a heavy load on his father’s head. In a few days, Ezeulu said within himself, Obika’s new bride would arrive. She would have come already if her mother had not fallen sick. When she arrived what a husband she would find! A man who could not watch his hut at night because he was dead with palm wine. Where did the manhood of such a husband lie? A man who could not protect his wife if night marauders knocked at his door. A man who was roused in the morning by the women.
Tufia!
spat the old priest. He could not contain his disgust.

Although Ezeulu did not ask for details he knew without being told that Ofoedu was behind this latest episode. He had said it over and over again that this fellow Ofoedu did not contain the smallest drop of human presence inside his entire body. It was hardly two years since he sent everybody running to his father’s compound in a false fire alarm for which his father, who was not a rich man, paid a fine of one goat. Ezeulu had told Obika again and again that such a person was not a fit friend for anyone who wanted to do something with his life. But he had not heeded and today there was as little to choose between them as between rotten palm nuts and a broken mortar.

When the two friends first set out to join their age group they walked in silence. Obika felt an emptiness on top as if his head had been numbed by a whole night’s fall of dew. But the walking was already doing him some good; the feeling was returning that the head belonged to him.

After one more turning on the narrow, ancient footpath they saw, a little distance ahead of them, a vast opening which was the beginning of the new road. It opened like day after a thick night.

‘What do you think of that thing Maduka gave us?’ asked Ofoedu. This was the first mention either of them made to the incident of the previous day. Obika did not reply. He merely produced a sound which lay half-way between a sigh of relief and a groan.

‘It was not naked palm wine,’ said Ofoedu. ‘They put some potent herbs in it. When I think of it now we were very foolish to have followed such a dangerous man to his own house. Do you remember that he did not drink even one hornful.’

Obika still said nothing.

‘I shall not pay the
ego-neli
to him.’

‘Were you thinking at any time that you would pay?’ Obika looked surprised. ‘I regard anything we said yesterday as words spoken in honour of palm wine.’

They were now on the portion of the new road that had been built. It made one feel lost like a grain of maize in an empty goatskin bag. Obika changed his matchet from the left hand to the right and his hoe from right to left. The feeling of openness and exposure made him alert.

As the new road did not point in the direction of a stream or a market Ofoedu and Obika did not encounter many villagers, only a few women now and again carrying heavy loads of firewood.

‘What is that I am hearing?’ asked Obika. They were now approaching the old, ragged
egbu
tree from which the night spirits called Onyekulum began their journey loaded with song and gossip in the carefree season after the harvest.

‘I was just about to ask you. It sounds like a funeral song.’

As they drew nearer to the work site there was no longer any doubt. It was indeed the dirge with which a corpse was taken into the burial forest:

Look! a python!

Look! a python!

Yes, it lies across the way.

The two men recognized it now and also recognized the singers as men of their age group. They burst out laughing together. Someone had given the ancient song a new and irreverent twist and changed it into a half familiar, half strange and hilarious work song. Ofoedu was certain that he saw the hand of Nweke Ukpaka in it, it was the kind of malicious humour he had.

The approach of Obika and his friend brought about a sudden change among the workers. Their singing stopped and with it the sound of scores of matchets cutting together into tree-trunks. Those who bent forward with hoes to level the cleared parts stopped and straightened up, their feet still planted wide apart, covered with red earth.

Nweke Ukpaka raised his voice and shouted: ‘Kwo Kwo Kwo Kwo Kwo!’ All the men replied: ‘Kwooooh oh!’ and everyone burst out laughing at this imitation of women acknowledging a present.

Mr Wright’s irritation mounted dangerously. He clutched the whip in his right hand more firmly and planted the other hand menacingly on his hip. His white helmet made him look even more squat than he was. Moses Unachukwu was talking excitedly to him, but he did not seem to be listening. He stared unwaveringly at the two approaching late-comers and his eyes seemed to Moses to get smaller and smaller. The others wondered what was going to happen. Although the white man always carried a whip he had rarely used it; and when he had done he had appeared to be half joking. But this morning he must have got out of bed from the left side. His face smoked with anger.

Noticing the man’s posture Obika put more swagger into his walk. This brought more laughter from the men. He made to pass Mr Wright who, unable to control his anger any more, lashed out violently with his whip. It flashed again and this time caught Obika around the ear, and stung him into fury. He dropped his matchet and hoe and charged. But Moses Unachukwu had thrown himself between the two men. At the same time Mr Wright’s two assistants jumped in quickly and held Obika while he gave him half a dozen more lashes on his bare back. He did not struggle at all; he only shivered like the sacrificial ram which must take in silence the blows of funeral dancers before its throat is cut. Ofoedu trembled also, but for once in his life he saw a fight pass before him and could do nothing but look on.