No Longer at Ease (10 page)

“What did you do after that?”

“We came away. We couldn’t possibly stay after that. By the way, we are now engaged. I gave her a ring this afternoon.”

“Very good,” said Joseph bitterly. He thought for a while and then asked: “Are you going to marry the English way or are you going to ask your people to approach her people according to custom?”

“I don’t know yet. It depends on what my father says.”

“Did you tell him about it during your visit?”

“No, because I hadn’t decided then.”

“He will not agree to it,” said Joseph. “Tell anyone that I said so.”

“I can handle them,” said Obi, “especially my mother.”

“Look at me, Obi.” Joseph invariably asked people to look at him. “What you are going to do concerns not only yourself but your whole family and future generations. If one finger brings oil it soils the others. In future, when we are all civilized, anybody may marry anybody. But that time has not come. We of this generation are only pioneers.”

“What is a pioneer? Someone who shows the way. That is what I am doing. Anyway, it is too late to change now.”

“It is not,” said Joseph. “What is an engagement ring? Our fathers did not marry with rings. It is not too late to change. Remember you are the one and only Umuofia son to be educated overseas. We do not want to be like the unfortunate child who grows his first tooth and grows a decayed one. What sort of encouragement will your action give to the poor men and women who collected the money?”

Obi was getting a little angry. “It was only a loan, remember. I shall pay it all back to the last anini.”

Obi knew better than anyone else that his family would violently oppose the idea of marrying an
osu
. Who wouldn’t? But for him it was either Clara or nobody. Family ties were all very well as long as they did not interfere with Clara. “If I could convince my mother,” he thought, “all would be well.”

There was a special bond between Obi and his mother. Of all her eight children Obi was nearest her heart. Her neighbors used to call her “Janet’s mother” until Obi was born, and then she immediately became “Obi’s mother.” Neighbors have an unfailing instinct in such matters. As a
child Obi took this special relationship very much for granted. But when he was about ten something happened which gave it concrete form in his young mind. He had a rusty razorblade with which he sharpened his pencil or sometimes cut up a grasshopper. One day he forgot this implement in his pocket and it cut his mother’s hand very badly when she was washing his clothes on a stone in the stream. She returned with the clothes unwashed and her hand dripping with blood. For some reason or other, whenever Obi thought affectionately of his mother, his mind went back to that shedding of her blood. It bound him very firmly to her.

When he said to himself: “If I could convince my mother,” he was almost certain that he could.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

The Umuofia Progressive Union, Lagos branch, held its meetings on the first Saturday of every month. Obi did not attend the November meeting because he was visiting Umuofia at the time. His friend Joseph made his excuses.

The next meeting took place on 1 December 1956. Obi remembered that date because it was important in his life. Joseph had telephoned him in the office to remind him that the meeting began at 4.30
P.M
. “You will not forget to call for me?” he asked.

“Of course not,” said Obi. “Expect me at four.”

“Good! See you later.” Joseph always put on an impressive manner when speaking on the telephone. He never spoke Ibo or pidgin English at such moments. When he hung up he told his colleagues: “That na my brother. Just return from overseas. B.A. (Honors) Classics.” He always preferred the fiction of Classics to the truth of English. It sounded more impressive.

“What department he de work?”

“Secretary to the Scholarship Board.”

“ ‘E go make plenty money there. Every student who wan’ go England go de see am for house.”

“ ‘E no be like dat,” said Joseph. “Him na gentleman. No fit take bribe.”

“Na so,” said the other in unbelief.

At four fifteen Obi arrived at Joseph’s in his new Morris Oxford. That was one reason why Joseph had looked forward to this particular meeting. He was going to share in the glory of the car. It was going to be a great occasion for the Umuofia Progressive Union when one of their sons arrived at their meeting in a pleasure car. Joseph as a very close friend of Obi would reflect some of the glory. He was impeccably turned out for the occasion: gray flannel trousers, white nylon shirt, spotted dark tie, and black shoes. Although he did not say it, he was disappointed at Obi’s casual appearance. It was true he wanted to share in the glory of the car, but he did not care to be called the outsider who wept louder than the bereaved. It was not beyond Umuofia men to make such embarrassing comments.

The reaction of the meeting was better than even Joseph expected. Although Obi had arrived at his place at four fifteen Joseph had delayed their departure until five when he knew the meeting would be full. The fine for lateness was one penny, but what was that beside the glory of stepping out of a pleasure car in the full gaze of Umuofia? As it turned out, nobody thought of the fine. They clapped and cheered and danced when they saw the car pull up.

“
Umuofia kwenu!
” shouted one old man.

“Ya!” replied everyone in unison.

“
Umuofia kwenu!
”

“Ya!”

“
Kwenu!
”

“Ya!”

“
Ife awolu Ogoli azua n’afia
,” he said.

Obi was given a seat beside the President and had to answer innumerable questions about his job and about his car before the meeting settled down again to business.

Joshua Udo, a messenger in the Post Office, had been sacked for sleeping while on duty. According to him, he had not been sleeping but thinking. But the Chief Clerk had been looking for a way to deal with him since he had not completed the payment of ten pounds’ bribe which he had promised when he was employed. Joshua was now asking his countrymen to “borrow” him ten pounds to look for another job.

The meeting had practically agreed to this when it was disturbed by Obi’s arrival. The President was just giving Joshua a piece of his mind on the subject of sleeping in the office, as a preliminary to lending him public funds.

“You did not leave Umuofia four hundred miles away to come and sleep in Lagos,” he told him. “There are enough beds in Umuofia. If you don’t want to work, you should return there. You messengers are all like that. I have one in my office who is always getting permission to go to the latrine. Anyway, I move that we approve a loan of ten pounds to Mr. Joshua Udo for the … er … er the explicit purpose of seeking reengagement.” The last sentence was said in English because of its legal nature. The loan was approved. Then by
way of light relief someone took up the President on his statement that it was work that brought them four hundred miles to Lagos.

“It is money, not work,” said the man. “We left plenty of work at home.… Anyone who likes work can return home, take up his matchet and go into that bad bush between Umuofia and Mbaino. It will keep him occupied to his last days.” The meeting agreed that it was money, not work, that brought them to Lagos.

“Let joking pass,” said the old man who had earlier on greeted Umuofia in warlike salute. “Joshua is now without a job. We have given him ten pounds. But ten pounds does not talk. If you stand a hundred pounds here where I stand now, it will not talk. That is why we say that he who has people is richer than he who has money. Everyone of us here should look out for openings in his department and put in a word for Joshua.” This was greeted with approval.

“Thanks to the Man Above,” he continued, “we now have one of our sons in the senior service. We are not going to ask him to bring his salary to share among us. It is in little things like this that he can help us. It is our fault if we do not approach him. Shall we kill a snake and carry it in our hand when we have a bag for putting long things in?” He took his seat.

“Your words are very good,” said the President. “We have the same thought in our minds. But we must give the young man time to look round first and know what is what.”

The meeting supported the President by their murmurs. “Give the young man time.” “Let him settle down.” Obi felt
very uneasy. But he knew they meant well. Perhaps it would not be too difficult to manage them.

The next item on the agenda was a motion of censure on the President and executive for mishandling Obi’s reception. Obi was amazed. He had thought that his reception went very well. But not so the three young men who sponsored the motion. Nor, as it turned out, a dozen or so other young people. Their complaint was that they were not given any of the two dozen bottles of beer which had been bought. The top people and elders had monopolized it, leaving the young people with two kegs of sour palm-wine. As everyone knew, Lagos palm-wine was really no palm-wine at all but water—an infinite dilution.

This accusation caused a lively exchange of hard words for the better part of an hour. The President called the young men “ungrateful ingrates whose stock-in-trade was character-assassination.” One of the young people suggested that it was immoral to use public funds to buy beer for one’s private thirst. The words were hard, but Obi felt somehow that they lacked bitterness; especially since they were English words taken straight from today’s newspaper. When it was all over the President announced that their honored son Obi Okonkwo had a few words to say to them. This announcement was received with great joy.

Obi rose to his feet and thanked them for having such a useful meeting, for did not the Psalmist say that it was good for brethren to meet together in harmony? “Our fathers also have a saying about the danger of living apart. They say it is the curse of the snake. If all snakes lived together in one
place, who would approach them? But they live every one unto himself and so fall easy prey to man.” Obi knew he was making a good impression. His listeners nodded their heads and made suitable rejoinders. Of course it was all a prepared speech, but it did not sound overrehearsed.

He spoke about the wonderful welcome they had given him on his return. “If a man returns from a long journey and no one says
nno
to him he feels like one who has not arrived.” He tried to improvise a joke about beer and palm-wine, but it did not come off, and he hurried to the next point. He thanked them for the sacrifices they had made to send him to England. He would try his best to justify their confidence. The speech which had started off one hundred percent in Ibo was now fifty-fifty. But his audience still seemed highly impressed. They liked good Ibo, but they also admired English. At last he got round to his main subject. “I have one little request to place before you. As you all know, it takes a little time to settle down again after an absence of four years. I have many little private matters to settle. My request is this, that you give me four months before I start to pay back my loan.”

“That is a small matter,” said someone. “Four months is a short time. A debt may get moldy, but it never decays.”

Yes, it was a small matter. But it was clear that not everyone thought so. Obi even heard someone ask what he was going to do with the big money which Government would give him.

“Your words are very good,” said the President at length.
“I do not think anyone here will say no to your request. We will give you four months. Do I speak for Umuofia?”

“Ya!” they replied.

“But there are two words I should like to drop before you. You are very young, a child of yesterday. You know book. But book stands by itself and experience stands by itself. So I am’ not afraid to talk to you.”

Obi’s heart began to pound heavily.

“You are one of us, so we must bare our minds to you. I have lived in this Lagos for fifteen years. I came here on August the sixth, nineteen hundred and forty-one. Lagos is a bad place for a young man. If you follow its sweetness, you will perish. Perhaps you will ask why I am saying all this. I know what Government pays senior service people. What you get in one month is what some of your brothers here get in one year. I have already said that we will give you four months. We can even give you one year. But are we doing you any good?”

A big lump caught in Obi’s throat.

“What the Government pays you is more than enough unless you go into bad ways.” Many of the people said. “God forbid!” “We cannot afford bad ways,” went on the President. “We are pioneers building up our families and our town. And those who build must deny ourselves many pleasures. We must not drink because we see our neighbors drink or run after women because our thing stands up. You may ask why I am saying all this, I have heard that you are moving around with a girl of doubtful ancestry, and even thinking of marrying her.…”

Obi leapt to his feet trembling with rage. At such times words always deserted him.

“Please sit down, Mr. Okonkwo,” said the President calmly.