No Longer at Ease (5 page)

Obi’s English, on the other hand, was most unimpressive. He spoke “is” and “was.” He told them about the value of education. “Education for service, not for white-collar jobs and comfortable salaries. With our great country on the threshold of independence, we need men who are prepared to serve her well and truly.”

When he sat down the audience clapped from politeness. Mistake Number Two.

Cold beer, minerals, palm-wine, and biscuits were then served, and the women began to sing about Umuofia and about Obi Okonkwo
nwa jelu oyibo
—Obi who had been to the land of the whites. The refrain said over and over again that the power of the leopard resided in its claws.

“Have they given you a job yet?” the chairman asked Obi over the music. In Nigeria the government was “they.” It had nothing to do with you or me. It was an alien institution and people’s business was to get as much from it as they could without getting into trouble.

“Not yet. I’m attending an interview on Monday.”

“Of course those of you who know book will not have any difficulty,” said the Vice-President on Obi’s left. “Otherwise I would have suggested seeing some of the men beforehand.”

“It would not be necessary,” said the President, “since they would be mostly white men.”

“You think white men don’t eat bribe? Come to our department. They eat more than black men nowadays.”

After the reception Joseph took Obi to have dinner at the “Palm Grove.” It was a neat little place, not very popular on Saturday nights, when Lagosians wanted a more robust kind of enjoyment. There were a handful of people in the lounge—a dozen or so Europeans and three Africans.

“Who owns this place?”

“I think a Syrian. They own everything in Lagos,” said Joseph.

They sat at one of the empty tables at the corner and then noticed that they were directly under a ceiling fan and moved to another table. Soft light came from large globes around which insects danced furiously. Perhaps they did not notice that each globe carried a large number of bodies which, like themselves, had danced once upon a time. Or if they noticed, they did not care.

“Service!” called Joseph importantly, and a steward appeared in white tunic and trousers, a red cummerbund and red fez. “What will you have?” he asked Obi. The steward bent forward waiting.

“Really, I don’t think I want to drink anything more.”

“Nonsense. The day is still young. Have a cold beer.”

He turned to the steward. “Two Heinekens.”

“Oh, no. One will do. Let’s share one.”

“Two Heinekens,” repeated Joseph, and the steward went to the bar and soon returned with two bottles on a tray.

“Do they serve Nigerian food here?”

Joseph was surprised at the question. No decent restaurant served Nigerian food. “Do you want Nigerian food?”

“Of course. I have been dying to eat pounded yams and bitter-leaf soup. In England we made do with semolina, but it isn’t the same thing.”

“I must ask my boy to prepare you pounded yams tomorrow afternoon.”

“Good man!” said Obi, brightening up considerably. Then he added in English for the benefit of the European group that sat at the next table: “I am sick of boilèd potatoes.” By calling them boilèd he hoped he had put into it all the disgust he felt.

A white hand gripped his chair behind. He turned quickly and saw it was the old manageress holding on to chairs to support her unsteady progress. She must have been well over seventy, if not eighty. She toddled across the lounge and behind the counter. Then she came out again holding a shivering glass of milk.

“Who left that duster there?” she said, pointing a shaking left-hand finger at a yellow rag on the floor.

“I no know,” said the steward who had been addressed.

“Take it away,” she croaked. In the effort to give orders
she forgot about the glass of milk. It tilted in her unsteady grip and spilt on her neat floral dress. She went to a seat in the corner and sank in, groaning and creaking like old machinery gone rusty from standing in the rain. It must have been her favorite corner, because her parrot’s cage was directly overhead. As soon as she sat down the parrot emerged from its cage on to a projecting rod, lowered its tail, and passed ordure, which missed the old lady by a tenth of an inch. Obi raised himself slightly on his seat to see the mess on the floor. But there was no mess. Everything was beautifully organized. There was a tray by the old lady’s chair nearly full of wet excrement.

“I don’t think the place is owned by a Syrian,” said Obi. “She is English.”

They had mixed grill, which Obi admitted wasn’t too bad. But he was still puzzling in his mind why Joseph had not put him up as he had asked before he left England. Instead, the Umuofia Progressive Union had arranged at their own expense for him to stay at a not particularly good hotel owned by a Nigerian, on the outskirts of Yaba.

“Did you get my last letter from England?”

Joseph said yes. As soon as he had got it he had discussed it with the executive of the U.P.U., and it was agreed that he should be put up in proper fashion at a hotel. As if he read Obi’s thoughts, he said: “You know I have only one room.”

“Nonsense,” said Obi. “I’m moving out of this filthy hotel tomorrow morning and coming into your place.”

Joseph was amazed, but also very pleased. He tried to
raise another objection, but it was clear his heart was not in it.

“What will the people of other towns say when they hear that a son of Umuofia returned from England and shared a room in Obalende?”

“Let them say what they like.”

They ate in silence for a short while and then Obi said: “Our people have a long way to go.” At the same time as he was saying it Joseph was also beginning to say something, but he stopped.

“Yes, you were saying something.”

“I said that I believe in destiny.”

“Do you? Why?”

“You remember Mr. Anene, our class teacher, used to say that you would go to England. You were so small then with a running nose, and yet at the end of every term you were at the top of the class. You remember we used to call you ‘Dictionary’?”

Obi was very much embarrassed because Joseph was talking at the top of his voice.

“As a matter of fact, my nose still runs. They say it’s hay fever.”

“And then,” said Joseph, “you wrote that letter to Hitler.”

Obi laughed one of his rare loud laughs. “I wonder what came over me. I still think about it sometimes. What was Hitler to me or I to Hitler? I suppose I felt sorry for him. And I didn’t like going into the bush every day to pick palm-kernels as our ‘Win the War Effort.’ ” He suddenly became
serious. “And when you come to think of it, it was quite immoral of the headmaster to tell little children every morning that for every palm-kernel they picked they were buying a nail for Hitler’s coffin.”

They went back to the lounge from the dining room. Joseph was about to order more beer, but Obi stoutly refused.

From where he sat Obi could see cars passing on Broad Street. A long De Soto pulled up exactly at the entrance and a young handsome man walked into the lounge. Everyone turned to look at him and faint sibilant sounds filled the room as each told his neighbor that it was the Minister of State.

“That’s Hon Sam Okoli,” whispered Joseph. But Obi had suddenly become like one thunderstruck gazing at the De Soto in the half-darkness.

The Honorable Sam Okoli was one of the most popular politicians in Lagos and in Eastern Nigeria where his constituency was. The newspapers called him the best-dressed gentleman in Lagos and the most eligible bachelor. Although he was definitely over thirty, he always looked like a boy just out of school. He was tall and athletic with a flashing smile for all. He walked across to the bar and paid for a tin of Churchman’s. All the while Obi’s gaze was fixed on the road outside where Clara lounged in the De Soto. He had only caught a lightning glimpse of her. Perhaps it wasn’t her at all. The Minister went back to the car, and as he opened the door the pale interior light again bathed the plush cushions. There was no doubt about it now. It was Clara.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I know that girl, that’s all.”

“In England?”

Obi nodded.

“Good old Sam! He doesn’t spare them.”

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

Obi’s theory that the public service of Nigeria would remain corrupt until the old Africans at the top were replaced by young men from the universities was first formulated in a paper read to the Nigerian Students’ Union in London. But unlike most theories formed by students in London, this one survived the first impact of home-coming. In fact, within a month of his return Obi came across two classic examples of his old African.

He met the first one at the Public Service Commission, where he was boarded for a job. Fortunately for Obi, he had already created a favorable impression on the board before this man made him lose his temper.

It happened that the Chairman of the Commission, a fat jolly Englishman, was very keen on modern poetry and the modern novel, and enjoyed talking about them. The other four members—one European and three Africans—not knowing anything about that side of life, were duly impressed. Or perhaps we should say in strict accuracy that three of them were duly impressed because the fourth was asleep throughout the interview, which on the surface might appear to be
quite unimportant had not this gentleman been the sole representative of one of the three regions of Nigeria. (In the interests of Nigerian unity the region shall remain nameless.)

The Chairman’s conversation with Obi ranged from Graham Greene to Tutuola and took the greater part of half an hour. Obi said afterwards that he talked a lot of nonsense, but it was a learned and impressive kind of nonsense. He surprised even himself when he began to flow.

“You say you’re a great admirer of Graham Greene. What do you think of
The Heart of the Matter?
”

“The only sensible novel any European has written on West Africa and one of the best novels I have read.” Obi paused, and then added almost as an afterthought: “Only it was nearly ruined by the happy ending.”

The Chairman sat up in his chair.

“Happy ending? Are you sure it’s
The Heart of the Matter
you’re thinking about? The European police officer commits suicide.”

“Perhaps happy ending is too strong, but there is no other way I can put it. The police officer is torn between his love of a woman and his love of God, and he commits suicide. It’s much too simple. Tragedy isn’t like that at all. I remember an old man in my village, a Christian convert, who suffered one calamity after another. He said life was like a bowl of wormwood which one sips a little at a time world without end. He understood the nature of tragedy.”

“You think that suicide ruins a tragedy,” said the Chairman.

“Yes. Real tragedy is never resolved. It goes on hopelessly
forever. Conventional tragedy is too easy. The hero dies and we feel a purging of the emotions. A real tragedy takes place in a corner, in an untidy spot, to quote W. H. Auden. The rest of the world is unaware of it. Like that man in
A Handful of Dust
who reads Dickens to Mr. Todd. There is no release for him. When the story ends he is still reading. There is no purging of the emotions for us because we are not there.”

“That’s most interesting,” said the Chairman. Then he looked round the table and asked the other members if they had any questions for Mr. Okonkwo. They all said no, except the man who had been sleeping.

“Why do you want a job in the civil service? So that you can take bribes?” he asked.

Obi hesitated. His first impulse was to say it was an idiotic question. He said instead: “I don’t know how you expect me to answer that question. Even if my reason is to take bribes, you don’t expect me to admit it before this board. So I don’t think it’s a very useful question.”

“It’s not for you to decide what questions are useful, Mr. Okonkwo,” said the Chairman, trying unsuccessfully to look severe. “Anyhow, you’ll be hearing from us in due course. Good morning.”

Joseph was not very happy when Obi told him the story of the interview. His opinion was that a man in need of a job could not afford to be angry.

“Nonsense!” said Obi. “That’s what I call colonial mentality.”

“Call it what you like,” said Joseph in Ibo. “You know
more book than I, but I am older and wiser. And I can tell you that a man does not challenge his
chi
to a wrestling match.”

Joseph’s houseboy, Mark, brought in rice and stew and they immediately fell to. He then went across the street to a shop where iced water was sold at a penny a bottle and brought them two bottles, carrying all the way and back a smudge of soot at the tip of his nose. His eyes were a little red and watery from blowing the fire with his breath.

“You know you have changed a good deal in four years,” Obi remarked after they had been eating for a while in silence. “Then you had two interests—politics and women.”

Joseph smiled. “You don’t do politics on an empty stomach.”