Chinua Achebe Girls at War and Other Stories First published in 1973 _Contents:_ The Madman The Voter Marriage is a Private Affair Akueke Chike's School Days The Sacrificial Egg Polar Undergraduate Vengeful Creditor In a Village Church Dead Men's Path Uncle Ben's Choice Civil Peace Girls at War Preface It was with something of a shock that I realized that my earliest short stories were published as long ago as twenty years in the Ibadan student magazine, _The University Herald_. I suppose I had come to think that that exciting adjective 'new' so beloved of advertisers and salesmen would stick to me indefinitely. But alas a practitioner of twenty years standing should no longer be called new. All that he can do is probably to draw some comfort from looking at his art in the light of wine (which improves with age) rather than, say, detergent which has to be ever new. And I do not necessarily mean wine of the vine, for the palm-tree which I know better has its wine too, somewhat sweet when it is first brought down in the morning but harsher and more potent as the day advances. I have felt another kind of disappointment in the fewness of the stories. A dozen pieces in twenty years must be accounted a pretty lean harvest by any reckoning. A countryman of mine once described himself as 'a voracious writer'. On my present showing I could not possibly make a similar claim. I do hope, however, that this little collection does have some merit and interest, even the four student pieces (I dare not call all of them stories) which I have slightly touched up here and there without, I hope, destroying their primal ingenuousness. Another fellow countryman of mine, Wole Soyinka, once charged me, albeit in a friendly way, with an 'unrelieved competence' in my novels. I trust that some at least of these short stories stretching farther back in time than the novels and touching upon more varied areas of experience will please by occasional departures into relieved competence (to say nothing of relieved and unrelieved incompetence). I am grateful to Professors Thomas Melone of Yaoundé and G. D. Killam of Dar es Salaam for tracking down some of the earliest of these stories. CHINUA ACHEBE Institute of African Studies University of Nigeria, Nsukka The Madman He was drawn to markets and straight roads. Not any tiny neighbourhood market where a handful of garrulous women might gather at sunset to gossip and buy ogili for the evening's soup, but a huge, engulfing bazaar beckoning people familiar and strange from far and near. And not any dusty, old footpath beginning in this village, and ending in that stream, but broad, black, mysterious highways without beginning or end. After much wandering he had discovered two such markets linked together by such a highway; and so ended his wandering. One market was Afo, the other Eke. The two days between them suited him very well: before setting out for Eke he had ample time to wind up his business properly at Afo. He passed the night there putting right again his hut after a day of defilement by two fat-bottomed market women who said it was their market-stall. At first he had put up a fight but the women had gone and brought their men-folk--four hefty beasts of the bush--to whip him out of the hut. After that he always avoided them, moving out on the morning of the market and back in at dusk to pass the night. Then in the morning he rounded off his affairs swiftly and set out on that long, beautiful boa-constrictor of a road to Eke in the distant town of Ogbu. He held his staff and cudgel at the ready in his right hand, and with the left he steadied the basket of his belongings on his head. He had got himself this cudgel lately to deal with little beasts on the way who threw stones at him and made fun of their mothers' nakedness, not his own. He used to walk in the middle of the road, holding it in conversation. But one day the driver of a mammy-wagon and his mate came down on him shouting, pushing and slapping his face. They said their lorry very nearly ran over their mother, not him. After that he avoided those noisy lorries too, with the vagabonds inside them. Having walked one day and one night he was now close to the Eke market-place. From every little side-road crowds of market people poured into the big highway to join the enormous flow to Eke. Then he saw some young ladies with water-pots on their heads coming towards him, unlike all the rest, away from the market. This surprised him. Then he saw two more water-pots rise out of a sloping footpath leading off his side of the highway. He felt thirsty then and stopped to think it over. Then he set down his basket on the roadside and turned into the sloping footpath. But first he begged his highway not to be offended or continue the journey without him. 'I'll get some for you too,' he said coaxingly with a tender backward glance. 'I know you are thirsty.' Nwibe was a man of high standing in Ogbu and was rising higher; a man of wealth and integrity. He had just given notice to all the ozo men of the town that he proposed to seek admission into their honoured hierarchy in the coming initiation season. 'Your proposal is excellent,' said the men of title. 'When we see we shall believe.' Which was their dignified way of telling you to think it over once again and make sure you have the means to go through with it. For ozo is not a child's naming ceremony; and where is the man to hide his face who begins the ozo dance and then is foot-stuck to the arena? But in this instance the caution of the elders was no more than a formality for Nwibe was such a sensible man that no one could think of him beginning something he was not sure to finish. On that Eke day Nwibe had risen early so as to visit his farm beyond the stream and do some light work before going to the market at midday to drink a horn or two of palm-wine with his peers and perhaps buy that bundle of roofing thatch for the repair of his wives' huts. As for his own hut he had a couple of years back settled it finally by changing his thatch-roof to zinc. Sooner or later he would do the same for his wives. He could have done Mgboye's hut right away but decided to wait until he could do the two together, or else Udenkwo would set the entire compound on fire. Udenkwo was the junior wife, by three years, but she never let that worry her. Happily Mgboye was a woman of peace who rarely demanded the respect due to her from the other. She would suffer Udenkwo's provoking tongue sometimes for a whole day without offering a word in reply. And when she did reply at all her words were always few and her voice low. That very morning Udenkwo had accused her of spite and all kinds of wickedness on account of a little dog. 'What has a little dog done to you?' she screamed loud enough for half the village to hear. 'I ask you Mgboye, what is the offence of a puppy this early in the day?' 'What your puppy did this early in the day,' replied Mgboye, 'is that he put his shit-mouth into my soup-pot.' 'And then?' 'And then I smacked him.' 'You smacked him! Why don't you cover your soup-pot? Is it easier to hit a dog than cover a pot? Is a small puppy to have more sense than a woman who leaves her soup-pot about...?' 'Enough from you, Udenkwo.' 'It is not enough, Mgboye, it is not enough. If that dog owes you any debt I want to know. Everything I have, even a little dog I bought to eat my infant's excrement keeps you awake at nights. You are a bad woman, Mgboye, you are a very bad woman!' Nwibe had listened to all of this in silence in his hut. He knew from the vigour of Udenkwo's voice that she could go on like this till market-time. So he intervened, in his characteristic manner by calling out to his senior wife. 'Mgboye! Let me have peace this early morning!' 'Don't you hear all the abuses, Udenkwo...' 'I hear nothing at all from Udenkwo and I want peace in my compound. If Udenkwo is crazy must everybody else go crazy with her? Is one crazy woman not enough in my compound so early in the day?' 'The great judge has spoken,' sang Udenkwo in a sneering sing-song. 'Thank you, great judge. Udenkwo is mad. Udenkwo is always mad, but those of you who are sane let...' 'Shut your mouth, shameless woman, or a wild beast will lick your eyes for you this morning. When will you learn to keep your badness within this compound instead of shouting it to all Ogbu to hear? I say shut your mouth!' There was silence then except for Udenkwo's infant whose yelling had up till then been swallowed up by the larger noise of the adults. 'Don't cry, my father,' said Udenkwo to him. 'They want to kill your dog, but our people say the man who decides to chase after a chicken, for him is the fall...' By the middle of the morning Nwibe had done all the work he had to do on his farm and was on his way again to prepare for market. At the little stream he decided as he always did to wash off the sweat of work. So he put his cloth on a huge boulder by the men's bathing section and waded in. There was nobody else around because of the time of day and because it was market day. But from instinctive modesty he turned to face the forest away from the approaches. The madman watched him for quite a while. Each time he bent down to carry water in cupped hands from the shallow stream to his head and body the madman smiled at his parted behind. And then remembered. This was the same hefty man who brought three others like him and whipped me out of my hut in the Afo market. He nodded to himself. And he remembered again: this was the same vagabond who descended on me from the lorry in the middle of my highway. He nodded once more. And then he remembered yet again: this was the same fellow who set his children to throw stones at me and make remarks about their mothers' buttocks, not mine. Then he laughed. Nwibe turned sharply round and saw the naked man laughing, the deep grove of the stream amplifying his laughter. Then he stopped as suddenly as he had begun; the merriment vanished from his face. 'I have caught you naked,' he said. Nwibe ran a hand swiftly down his face to clear his eyes of water. 'I say I have caught you naked, with your thing dangling about.' 'I can see you are hungry for a whipping,' said Nwibe with quiet menace in his voice, for a madman is said to be easily scared away by the very mention of a whip. 'Wait till I get up there.... What are you doing? Drop it at once... I say drop it!' The madman had picked up Nwibe's cloth and wrapped it round his own waist. He looked down at himself and began to laugh again. 'I will kill you,' screamed Nwibe as he splashed towards the bank, maddened by anger. 'I will whip that madness out of you today!' They ran all the way up the steep and rocky footpath hedged in by the shadowy green forest. A mist gathered and hung over Nwibe's vision as he ran, stumbled, fell, pulled himself up again and stumbled on, shouting and cursing. The other, despite his unaccustomed encumbrance steadily increased his lead, for he was spare and wiry, a thing made for speed. Furthermore, he did not waste his breath shouting and cursing; he just ran. Two girls going down to the stream saw a man running up the slope towards them pursued by a stark-naked madman. They threw down their pots and fled, screaming. When Nwibe emerged into the full glare of the highway he could not see his cloth clearly any more and his chest was on the point of exploding from the fire and torment within. But he kept running. He was only vaguely aware of crowds of people on all sides and he appealed to them tearfully without stopping: 'Hold the madman, he's got my cloth!' By this time the man with the cloth was practically lost among the much denser crowds far in front so that the link between him and the naked man was no longer clear. Now Nwibe continually bumped against people's backs and then laid flat a frail old man struggling with a stubborn goat on a leash. 'Stop the madman,' he shouted hoarsely, his heart tearing to shreds, 'he's got my cloth!' Everyone looked at him first in surprise and then less surprise because strange sights are common in a great market. Some of them even laughed. 'They've got his cloth he says.' 'That's a new one I'm sure. He hardly looks mad yet. Doesn't he have people, I wonder.' 'People are so careless these days. Why can't they keep proper watch over their sick relations, especially on the day of the market?' Farther up the road on the very brink of the market-place two men from Nwibe's village recognized him and, throwing down the one his long basket of yams, the other his calabash of palm-wine held on a loop, gave desperate chase, to stop him setting foot irrevocably within the occult territory of the powers of the market. But it was in vain. When finally they caught him it was well inside the crowded square. Udenkwo in tears tore off her top-cloth which they draped on him and led him home by the hand. He spoke just once about a madman who took his cloth in the stream. 'It is all right,' said one of the men in the tone of a father to a crying child. They led and he followed blindly, his heavy chest heaving up and down in silent weeping. Many more people from his village, a few of his in-laws and one or two others from his mother's place had joined the grief-stricken party. One man whispered to another that it was the worst kind of madness, deep and tongue-tied. 'May it end ill for him who did this,' prayed the other. The first medicine-man his relatives consulted refused to take him on, out of some kind of integrity. 'I could say yes to you and take your money,' he said. 'But that is not my way. My powers of cure are known throughout Olu and Igbo but never have I professed to bring back to life a man who has sipped the spirit-waters of ani-mmo. It is the same with a madman who of his own accord delivers himself to the divinities of the market-place. You should have kept better watch over him.' 'Don't blame us too much,' said Nwibe's relative. 'When he left home that morning his senses were as complete as yours and mine now. Don't blame us too much.' 'Yes, I know. It happens that way sometimes. And they are the ones that medicine will not reach. I know.' 'Can you do nothing at all then, not even to untie his tongue?' 'Nothing can be done. They have already embraced him. It is like a man who runs away from the oppression of his fellows to the grove of an alusi and says to him: Take me, oh spirit, I am your _osu_. No man can touch him thereafter. He is free and yet no power can break his bondage. He is free of men but bonded to a god.' The second doctor was not as famous as the first and not so strict. He said the case was bad, very bad indeed, but no one folds his arms because the condition of his child is beyond hope. He must still grope around and do his best. His hearers nodded in eager agreement. And then he muttered into his own inward ear: If doctors were to send away every patient whose cure they were uncertain of, how many of them would eat one meal in a whole week from their practice? Nwibe was cured of his madness. That humble practitioner who did the miracle became overnight the most celebrated mad-doctor of his generation. They called him Sojourner to the Land of the Spirits. Even so it remains true that madness may indeed sometimes depart but never with all his clamorous train. Some of these always remain--the trailers of madness you might call them--to haunt the doorway of the eyes. For how could a man be the same again of whom witnesses from all the lands of Olu and Igbo have once reported that they saw today a fine, hefty man in his prime, stark naked, tearing through the crowds to answer the call of the market-place? Such a man is marked for ever. Nwibe became a quiet, withdrawn man avoiding whenever he could the boisterous side of the life of his people. Two years later, before another initiation season, he made a new inquiry about joining the community of titled men in his town. Had they received him perhaps he might have become at least partially restored, but those ozo men, dignified and polite as ever, deftly steered the conversation away to other matters. The Voter Rufus Okeke--Roof for short--was a very popular man in his village. Although the villagers did not explain it in so many words Roof's popularity was a measure of their gratitude to an energetic young man who, unlike most of his fellows nowadays had not abandoned the village in order to seek work, any work, in the towns. And Roof was not a village lout either. Everyone knew how he had spent two years as a bicycle repairer's apprentice in Port Harcourt, and had given up of his own free will a bright future to return to his people and guide them in these difficult times. Not that Umuofia needed a lot of guidance. The village already belonged _en masse_ to the People's Alliance Party, and its most illustrious son, Chief the Honourable Marcus Ibe, was Minister of Culture in the outgoing government (which was pretty certain to be the in-coming one as well). Nobody doubted that the Honourable Minister would be elected in his constituency. Opposition to him was like the proverbial fly trying to move a dunghill. It would have been ridiculous enough without coming, as it did now, from a complete nonentity. As was to be expected Roof was in the service of the Honourable Minister for the coming elections. He had become a real expert in election campaigning at all levels--village, local government or national. He could tell the mood and temper of the electorate at any given time. For instance he had warned the Minister months ago about the radical change that had come into the thinking of Umuofia since the last national election. The villagers had had five years in which to see how quickly and plentifully politics brought wealth, chieftaincy titles, doctorate degrees and other honours some of which, like the last, had still to be explained satisfactorily to them; for in their naïvety they still expected a doctor to be able to heal the sick. Anyhow, these honours and benefits had come so readily to the man to whom they had given their votes free of charge five years ago that they were now ready to try it a different way. Their point was that only the other day Marcus Ibe was a not too successful mission school teacher. Then politics had come to their village and he had wisely joined up, some said just in time to avoid imminent dismissal arising from a female teacher's pregnancy. Today he was Chief the Honourable; he had two long cars and had just built himself the biggest house anyone had seen in these parts. But let it be said that none of these successes had gone to Marcus's head as well they might. He remained devoted to his people. Whenever he could he left the good things of the capital and returned to his village which had neither running water nor electricity, although he had lately installed a private plant to supply electricity to his new house. He knew the source of his good fortune, unlike the little bird who ate and drank and went out to challenge his personal spirit. Marcus had christened his new house 'Umuofia Mansions' in honour of his village, and he had slaughtered five bulls and countless goats to entertain the people on the day it was opened by the Archbishop. Every one was full of praise for him. One old man said: 'Our son is a good man; he is not like the mortar which as soon as food comes its way turns its back on the ground.' But when the feasting was over, the villagers told themselves that they had underrated the power of the ballot paper before and should not do so again. Chief the Honourable Marcus Ibe was not unprepared. He had drawn five months' salary in advance, changed a few hundred pounds into shining shillings and armed his campaign boys with eloquent little jute bags. In the day he made his speeches; at night his stalwarts conducted their whispering campaign. Roof was the most trusted of these campaigners. 'We have a Minister from our village, one of our own sons,' he said to a group of elders in the house of Ogbuefi Ezenwa, a man of high traditional title. 'What greater honour can a village have? Do you ever stop to ask yourselves why we should be singled out for this honour? I will tell you; it is because we are favoured by the leaders of PAP. Whether or not we cast our paper for Marcus, PAP will continue to rule. Think of the pipe-borne water they have promised us...' Besides Roof and his assistant there were five elders in the room. An old hurricane lamp with a cracked, sooty, glass chimney gave out yellowish light in their midst. The elders sat on very low stools. On the floor, directly in front of each of them, lay two shilling pieces. Outside beyond the fastened door, the moon kept a straight face. 'We believe every word you say to be true,' said Ezenwa. 'We shall, every one of us, drop his paper for Marcus. Who would leave an ozo feast and go to a poor ritual meal? Tell Marcus he has our papers, and our wives' papers too. But what we do say is that two shillings is shameful.' He brought the lamp close and tilted it at the money before him as if to make sure he had not mistaken its value. 'Yes, two shillings is too shameful. If Marcus were a poor man--which our ancestors forbid--I should be the first to give him my paper free, as I did before. But today Marcus is a great man and does his things like a great man. We did not ask him for money yesterday; we shall not ask him tomorrow. But today is our day; we have climbed the iroko tree today and would be foolish not to take down all the firewood we need.' Roof had to agree. He had lately been taking down a lot of firewood himself. Only yesterday he had asked Marcus for one of his many rich robes--and had got it. Last Sunday Marcus's wife (the teacher that nearly got him in trouble) had objected (like the woman she was) when Roof pulled out his fifth bottle of beer from the refrigerator; she was roundly and publicly rebuked by her husband. To cap it all Roof had won a land case recently because, among other things, he had been chauffeur-driven to the disputed site. So he understood the elders about the firewood. 'All right,' he said in English and then reverted to Ibo. 'Let us not quarrel about small things.' He stood up, adjusted his robes and plunged his hand once more into the bag. Then he bent down like a priest distributing the host and gave one shilling more to every man; only he did not put it into their palms but on the floor in front of them. The men, who had so far not deigned to touch the things, looked at the floor and shook their heads. Roof got up again and gave each man another shilling. 'I am through,' he said with a defiance that was no less effective for being transparently faked. The elders too knew how far to go without losing decorum. So when Roof added: 'Go cast your paper for the enemy if you like!' they quickly calmed him down with a suitable speech from each of them. By the time the last man had spoken it was possible, without great loss of dignity, to pick up the things from the floor... The enemy Roof had referred to was the Progressive Organization Party (POP) which had been formed by the tribes down the coast to save themselves, as the founders of the party proclaimed, from 'total political, cultural, social and religious annihilation'. Although it was clear the party had no chance here it had plunged, with typical foolishness, into a straight fight with PAP, providing cars and loud-speakers to a few local rascals and thugs to go around and make a lot of noise. No one knew for certain how much money POP had let loose in Umuofia but it was said to be very considerable. Their local campaigners would end up very rich, no doubt. Up to last night everything had been 'moving according to plan', as Roof would have put it. Then he had received a strange visit from the leader of the POP campaign team. Although he and Roof were well known to each other, and might even be called friends, his visit was cold and business-like. No words were wasted. He placed five pounds on the floor before Roof and said, 'We want your vote.' Roof got up from his chair, went to the outside door, closed it carefully and returned to his chair. The brief exercise gave him enough time to weigh the proposition. As he spoke his eyes never left the red notes on the floor. He seemed to be mesmerized by the picture of the cocoa farmer harvesting his crops. 'You know I work for Marcus,' he said feebly. 'It will be very bad...' 'Marcus will not be there when you put in your paper. We have plenty of work to do tonight; are you taking this or not?' 'It will not be heard outside this room?' asked Roof. 'We are after votes not gossip.' 'All right,' said Roof in English. The man nudged his companion and he brought forward an object covered with a red cloth and proceeded to remove the cover. It was a fearsome little affair contained in a clay pot with feathers stuck into it. 'The _iyi_ comes from Mbanta. You know what that means. Swear that you will vote for Maduka. If you fail to do so, this _iyi_ take note.' Roof's heart nearly flew out when he saw the _iyi_; indeed he knew the fame of Mbanta in these things. But he was a man of quick decision. What could a single vote cast in secret for Maduka take away from Marcus's certain victory? Nothing. 'I will cast my paper for Maduka; if not this _iyi_ take note.' 'Das all,' said the man as he rose with his companion who had covered up the object again and was taking it back to their car. 'You know he has no chance against Marcus,' said Roof at the door. 'It is enough that he gets a few votes now; next time he will get more. People will hear that he gives out pounds, not shillings, and they will listen.' Election morning. The great day every five years when the people exercise power. Weather-beaten posters on walls of houses, tree trunks and telegraph poles. The few that were still whole called out their message to those who could read. Vote for the People's Alliance Party! Vote for the Progressive Organization Party! Vote for PAP! Vote for POP! The posters that were torn called out as much of the message as they could. As usual Chief the Honourable Marcus Ibe was doing things in grand style. He had hired a highlife band from Umuru and stationed it at such a distance from the voting booths as just managed to be lawful. Many villagers danced to the music, their ballot papers held aloft, before proceeding to the booths. Chief the Honourable Marcus Ibe sat in the 'owner's corner' of his enormous green car and smiled and nodded. One enlightened villager came up to the car, shook hands with the great man and said in advance, 'Congrats!' This immediately set the pattern. Hundreds of admirers shook Marcus's hand and said 'Corngrass!' Roof and the other organizers were prancing up and down, giving last minute advice to the voters and pouring with sweat. 'Do not forget,' he said again to a group of illiterate women who seemed ready to burst with enthusiasm and good humour, 'our sign is the motor-car...' 'Like the one Marcus is sitting inside.' 'Thank you, mother,' said Roof. 'It is the same car. The box with the car shown on its body is the box for you. Don't look at the other with the man's head: it is for those whose heads are not correct.' This was greeted with loud laughter. Roof cast a quick and busy-like glance towards the Minister and received a smile of appreciation. 'Vote for the car,' he shouted, all the veins in his neck standing out. 'Vote for the car and you will ride in it!' 'Or if we don't, our children will,' piped the same sharp, old girl. The band struck up a new number: 'Why walk when you can ride...' In spite of his apparent calm and confidence Chief the Honourable Marcus was a relentless stickler for detail. He knew he would win what the newspapers called 'a landslide victory' but he did not wish, even so, to throw away a single vote. So as soon as the first rush of voters was over he promptly asked his campaign boys to go one at a time and put in their ballot papers. 'Roof, you had better go first,' he said. Roof's spirits fell; but he let no one see it. All morning he had masked his deep worry with a surface exertion which was unusual even for him. Now he dashed off in his springy fashion towards the booths. A policeman at the entrance searched him for illegal ballot papers and passed him. Then the electoral officer explained to him about the two boxes. By this time the spring had gone clean out of his walk. He sidled in and was confronted by the car and the head. He brought out his ballot paper from his pocket and looked at it. How could he betray Marcus even in secret? He resolved to go back to the other man and return his five pounds... Five pounds! He knew at once it was impossible. He had sworn on that _iyi_. The notes were red; the cocoa farmer busy at work. At this point he heard the muffled voice of the policeman asking the electoral officer what the man was doing inside. 'Abi na pickin im de born?' Quick as lightning a thought leapt into Roof's mind. He folded the paper, tore it in two along the crease and put one half in each box. He took the precaution of putting the first half into Maduka's box and confirming the action verbally: 'I vote for Maduka.' They marked his thumb with indelible purple ink to prevent his return, and he went out of the booth as jauntily as he had gone in. Marriage is a Private Affair 'Have you written to your dad yet?' asked Nene one afternoon as she sat with Nnaemeka in her room at 16 Kasanga Street, Lagos. 'No. I've been thinking about it. I think it's better to tell him when I get home on leave!' 'But why? Your leave is such a long way off yet--six whole weeks. He should be let into our happiness now.' Nnaemeka was silent for a while, and then began very slowly as if he groped for his words: 'I wish I were sure it would be happiness to him.' 'Of course it must,' replied Nene, a little surprised. 'Why shouldn't it?' 'You have lived in Lagos all your life, and you know very little about people in remote parts of the country.' 'That's what you always say. But I don't believe anybody will be so unlike other people that they will be unhappy when their sons are engaged to marry.' 'Yes. They are most unhappy if the engagement is not arranged by them. In our case it's worse--you are not even an Ibo.' This was said so seriously and so bluntly that Nene could not find speech immediately. In the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the city it had always seemed to her something of a joke that a person's tribe could determine whom he married. At last she said, 'You don't really mean that he will object to your marrying me simply on that account? I had always thought you Ibos were kindly-disposed to other people.' 'So we are. But when it comes to marriage, well, it's not quite so simple. And this,' he added, 'is not peculiar to the Ibos. If your father were alive and lived in the heart of Ibibio-land he would be exactly like my father.' 'I don't know. But anyway, as your father is so fond of you, I'm sure he will forgive you soon enough. Come on then, be a good boy and send him a nice lovely letter...' 'It would not be wise to break the news to him by writing. A letter will bring it upon him with a shock. I'm quite sure about that.' 'All right, honey, suit yourself. You know your father.' As Nnaemeka walked home that evening he turned over in his mind different ways of overcoming his father's opposition, especially now that he had gone and found a girl for him. He had thought of showing his letter to Nene but decided on second thoughts not to, at least for the moment. He read it again when he got home and couldn't help smiling to himself. He remembered Ugoye quite well, an Amazon of a girl who used to beat up all the boys, himself included, on the way to the stream, a complete dunce at school. _'I have found a girl who will suit you admirably--Ugoye Nweke, the eldest daughter of our neighbour, Jacob Nweke. She has a proper Christian upbringing. When she stopped schooling some years ago her father (a man of sound judgement) sent her to live in the house of a pastor where she has received all the training a wife could need. Her Sunday School teacher has told me that she reads her Bible very fluently. I hope we shall begin negotiations when you come home in December.'_ On the second evening of his return from Lagos Nnaemeka sat with his father under a cassia tree. This was the old man's retreat where he went to read his Bible when the parching December sun had set and a fresh, reviving wind blew on the leaves. 'Father,' began Nnaemeka suddenly, 'I have come to ask for forgiveness.' 'Forgiveness? For what, my son?' he asked in amazement. 'It's about this marriage question.' 'Which marriage question?' 'I can't--we must--I mean it is impossible for me to marry Nweke's daughter.' 'Impossible? Why?' asked his father. 'I don't love her.' 'Nobody said you did. Why should you?' he asked. 'Marriage today is different...' 'Look here, my son,' interrupted his father, 'nothing is different. What one looks for in a wife are a good character and a Christian background.' Nnaemeka saw there was no hope along the present line of argument. 'Moreover,' he said, 'I am engaged to marry another girl who has all of Ugoye's good qualities, and who...' His father did not believe his ears. 'What did you say?' he asked slowly and disconcertingly. 'She is a good Christian,' his son went on, 'and a teacher in a Girls' School in Lagos.' 'Teacher, did you say? If you consider that a qualification for a good wife I should like to point out to you, Emeka, that no Christian woman should teach. St Paul in his letter to the Corinthians says that women should keep silence.' He rose slowly from his seat and paced forwards and backwards. This was his pet subject, and he condemned vehemently those church leaders who encouraged women to teach in their schools. After he had spent his emotion on a long homily he at last came back to his son's engagement, in a seemingly milder tone. 'Whose daughter is she, anyway?' 'She is Nene Atang.' 'What!' All the mildness was gone again. 'Did you say Neneataga, what does that mean?' 'Nene Atang from Calabar. She is the only girl I can marry.' This was a very rash reply and Nnaemeka expected the storm to burst. But it did not. His father merely walked away into his room. This was most unexpected and perplexed Nnaemeka. His father's silence was infinitely more menacing than a flood of threatening speech. That night the old man did not eat. When he sent for Nnaemeka a day later he applied all possible ways of dissuasion. But the young man's heart was hardened, and his father eventually gave him up as lost. 'I owe it to you, my son, as a duty to show you what is right and what is wrong. Whoever put this idea into your head might as well have cut your throat. It is Satan's work.' He waved his son away. 'You will change your mind, Father, when you know Nene.' 'I shall never see her,' was the reply. From that night the father scarcely spoke to his son. He did not, however, cease hoping that he would realize how serious was the danger he was heading for. Day and night he put him in his prayers. Nnaemeka, for his own part, was very deeply affected by his father's grief. But he kept hoping that it would pass away. If it had occurred to him that never in the history of his people had a man married a woman who spoke a different tongue, he might have been less optimistic. 'It has never been heard,' was the verdict of an old man speaking a few weeks later. In that short sentence he spoke for all of his people. This man had come with others to commiserate with Okeke when news went round about his son's behaviour. By that time the son had gone back to Lagos. 'It has never been heard,' said the old man again with a sad shake of his head. 'What did Our Lord say?' asked another gentleman. 'Sons shall rise against their Fathers; it is there in the Holy Book.' 'It is the beginning of the end,' said another. The discussion thus tending to become theological, Madubogwu, a highly practical man, brought it down once more to the ordinary level. 'Have you thought of consulting a native doctor about your son?' he asked Nnaemeka's father. 'He isn't sick,' was the reply. 'What is he then? The boy's mind is diseased and only a good herbalist can bring him back to his right senses. The medicine he requires is _Amalile_, the same that women apply with success to recapture their husbands' straying affection.' 'Madubogwu is right,' said another gentleman. 'This thing calls for medicine.' 'I shall not call in a native doctor.' Nnaemeka's father was known to be obstinately ahead of his more superstitious neighbours in these matters. 'I will not be another Mrs Ochuba. If my son wants to kill himself let him do it with his own hands. It is not for me to help him.' 'But it was her fault,' said Madubogwu. 'She ought to have gone to an honest herbalist. She was a clever woman, nevertheless.' 'She was a wicked murderess,' said Jonathan who rarely argued with his neighbours because, he often said, they were incapable of reasoning. 'The medicine was prepared for her husband, it was his name they called in its preparation and I am sure it would have been perfectly beneficial to him. It was wicked to put it into the herbalist's food, and say you were only trying it out.' Six months later, Nnaemeka was showing his young wife a short letter from his father: _'It amazes me that you could be so unfeeling as to send me your wedding picture. I would have sent it back. But on further thought I decided just to cut off your wife and send it back to you because I have nothing to do with her. How I wish that I had nothing to do with you either.'_ When Nene read through this letter and looked at the mutilated picture her eyes filled with tears, and she began to sob. 'Don't cry, my darling,' said her husband. 'He is essentially good-natured and will one day look more kindly on our marriage.' But years passed and that one day did not come. For eight years, Okeke would have nothing to do with his son, Nnaemeka. Only three times (when Nnaemeka asked to come home and spend his leave) did he write to him. 'I can't have you in my house,' he replied on one occasion. 'It can be of no interest to me where or how you spend your leave--or your life, for that matter.' The prejudice against Nnaemeka's marriage was not confined to his little village. In Lagos, especially among his people who worked there, it showed itself in a different way. Their women, when they met at their village meeting, were not hostile to Nene. Rather, they paid her such excessive deference as to make her feel she was not one of them. But as time went on, Nene gradually broke through some of this prejudice and even began to make friends among them. Slowly and grudgingly they began to admit that she kept her home much better than most of them. The story eventually got to the little village in the heart of the Ibo country that Nnaemeka and his young wife were a most happy couple. But his father was one of the few people in the village who knew nothing about this. He always displayed so much temper whenever his son's name was mentioned that everyone avoided it in his presence. By a tremendous effort of will he had succeeded in pushing his son to the back of his mind. The strain had nearly killed him but he had persevered, and won. Then one day he received a letter from Nene, and in spite of himself he began to glance through it perfunctorily until all of a sudden the expression on his face changed and he began to read more carefully. _'... Our two sons, from the day they learnt that they have a grandfather, have insisted on being taken to him. I find it impossible to tell them that you will not see them. I implore you to allow Nnaemeka to bring them home for a short time during his leave next month. I shall remain here in Lagos...'_ The old man at once felt the resolution he had built up over so many years falling in. He was telling himself that he must not give in. He tried to steel his heart against all emotional appeals. It was a re-enactment of that other struggle. He leaned against a window and looked out. The sky was overcast with heavy black clouds and a high wind began to blow filling the air with dust and dry leaves. It was one of those rare occasions when even Nature takes a hand in a human fight. Very soon it began to rain, the first rain in the year. It came down in large sharp drops and was accompanied by the lightning and thunder which mark a change of season. Okeke was trying hard not to think of his two grandsons. But he knew he was now fighting a losing battle. He tried to hum a favourite hymn but the pattering of large rain drops on the roof broke up the tune. His mind immediately returned to the children. How could he shut his door against them? By a curious mental process he imagined them standing, sad and forsaken, under the harsh angry weather--shut out from his house. That night he hardly slept, from remorse--and a vague fear that he might die without making it up to them. Akueke Akueke lay on her sick-bed on one side of the wall of enmity that had suddenly risen between her and her brothers. She heard their muttering with fear. They had not yet told her what must be done, but she knew. She wanted to ask them to take her to their mother's father in Ezi but so great was the enmity that had so strangely come between them that her pride forbade her to speak. Let them dare. Last night Ofodile who was the eldest had wanted to speak but had only stood and looked at her with tears in his eyes. Who was he crying for? Let him go and eat shit. In the fitful half-sleep that later visited her Akueke was far away in her grandfather's compound in Ezi without even the memory of her sickness. She was once again the village beauty. Akueke had been her mother's youngest child and only daughter. There were six brothers and their father had died when she was still a little girl. But he had been a man of substance so that even after his death his family did not know real want, especially as some of his sons already planted their own farms. Several times every year Akueke's mother took her children to visit her own kinsmen in Ezi, a whole day's journey from Umuofia at the younger children's pace. Sometimes Akueke rode on her mother's back, sometimes she walked. When the sun came up her mother broke a little cassava twig from the roadside farm to protect her head. Akueke looked forward to these visits to her mother's father, a giant of a man with white hair and beard. Sometimes the old man wore his beard as a rope-like plait ending in a fine point from which palm-wine dripped to the ground when he drank. This never ceased to amuse Akueke. The old man knew it and improved the situation for her by gnashing his teeth between gulps of wine. He was very fond of his granddaughter who, they said, was the image of his own mother. He rarely called Akueke by her name: it was always _Mother_. She was in fact the older woman returned in the cycle of life. During the visits to Ezi, Akueke knew she could get away with anything; her grandfather forbade any one to rebuke her. The voices beyond the wall grew louder. Perhaps neighbours were remonstrating with her brothers. So they all knew now. Let them all eat shit. If she could get up she would chase them all out with the old broom lying near her bed. She wished her mother were alive. This would not have happened to her. Akueke's mother had died two years ago and was taken to Ezi to be buried with her own people. The old man who had seen many sorrows in his life asked, 'Why do they take my children and leave me?' But some days later he told people who came to console him, 'We are God's chicken. Sometimes He chooses a young chicken to eat and sometimes He chooses an old one.' Akueke remembered these scenes vividly and for once came near to crying. What would the old man do when he heard of her abominable death. Akueke's age-grade brought out their first public dance in the dry season that followed her mother's death. Akueke created a sensation by her dancing, and her suitors increased ten-fold. From one market to another some man brought palm-wine to her brothers. But Akueke rejected them all. Her brothers began to be worried. They all loved their only sister, and especially since their mother's death, they seemed to vie with one another in seeking her happiness. And now they were worried because she was throwing away chances of a good marriage. Her eldest brother, Ofodile, told her as sternly as he could that proud girls who refused every suitor often came to grief, like Onwuero in the story, who rejected every man but in the end ran after three fishes which had taken the form of handsome young men in order to destroy her. Akueke did not listen. And now her protective spirit despairing of her had taken a hand in the matter and she was stricken with this disease. At first people pretended not to notice the swelling stomach. Medicine-men were brought in from far and wide to minister to her. But all their herbs and roots had no effect. An _afa_ oracle sent Akueke's brothers in search of a certain palm-tree smothered by a climbing vine. 'When you see it,' he said to them, 'take a matchet and cut away the strangling climber. The spirits which have bound your sister will then release her.' The brothers searched Umuofia and the neighbouring villages for three days before they saw such a palm-tree and cut it loose. But their sister was not released; rather she got worse. At last they took counsel together and decided with heavy hearts that Akueke had been stricken with the swelling disease which was an abomination to the land. Akueke knew the purpose of her brothers' consultation. As soon as the eldest set foot in her sick-room she began to scream at him, and he fled. This went on for a whole day, and there was a real danger that she might die in the house and bring down the anger of _Ani_ on the whole family, if not the entire village. Neighbours came in and warned the brothers of the grave danger to which they were exposing the nine villages of Umuofia. In the evening they carried her into the bad bush. They had constructed a temporary shelter and a rough bed for her. She was now silent from exhaustion and hate and they left her and went away. In the morning three of the brothers went again to the bush to see whether she was still alive. To their great shock the shelter was empty. They ran all the way back to report to the others, and they all returned and began a search of the bush. There was no sign of their sister. Obviously she had been eaten by wild animals, which sometimes happened in such cases. Two or three moons passed and their grandfather sent a messenger to Umuofia to ascertain whether it was true that Akueke was dead. The brothers said 'Yes' and the messenger returned to Ezi. A week or two later the old man sent another message commanding all the brothers to come to see him. He was waiting in his _obi_ when his grandchildren arrived. After the formalities of welcome muted by thoughts of their recent loss he asked them where their sister was. The eldest told him the story of Akueke's death. The old man listened to the end with his head supported on the palm of his right hand. 'So Akueke is dead,' he said, half question, half statement. 'And why did you not send a message to me?' There was silence, then the eldest said they had wanted to complete all the purification rites. The old man gnashed his teeth, and then rose painfully three-quarters erect and tottered towards his sleeping-room, moved back the carved door and the ghost of Akueke stood before them, unsmiling and implacable. Everyone sprang to their feet and one or two were already outside. 'Come back,' said the old man with a sad smile. 'Do you know who this young woman is? I want an answer. You Ofodile, you are the eldest, I want you to answer. Who is this?' 'She is our sister Akueke.' 'Your sister Akueke? But you have just told me that she died of the swelling disease. How could she die and then be here?' Silence. 'If you don't know what the swelling disease is why did you not ask those who do?' 'We consulted medicine-men throughout Umuofia and Abame.' 'Why did you not bring her here to me?' Silence. The old man then said in very few words that he had called them together to tell them that from that day Akueke was to become his daughter and her name would become Matefi. She was no longer a daughter of Umuofia but of Ezi. They stared before them in silence. 'When she marries,' the old man concluded, 'her bride-price will be mine not yours. As for your purification rites you may carry on because Akueke is truly dead in Umuofia.' Without even a word of greeting to her brothers Matefi went back to the room. Chike's School Days Sarah's last child was a boy, and his birth brought great joy to the house of his father, Amos. The child received three names at his baptism--John, Chike, Obiajulu. The last name means 'the mind at last is at rest'. Anyone hearing this name knew at once that its owner was either an only child or an only son. Chike was an only son. His parents had had five daughters before him. Like his sisters Chike was brought up 'in the ways of the white man', which meant the opposite of traditional. Amos had many years before bought a tiny bell with which he summoned his family to prayers and hymn-singing first thing in the morning and last thing at night. This was one of the ways of the white man. Sarah taught her children not to eat in their neighbours' houses because 'they offered their food to idols'. And thus she set herself against the age-old custom which regarded children as the common responsibility of all so that, no matter what the relationship between parents, their children played together and shared their food. One day a neighbour offered a piece of yam to Chike, who was only four years old. The boy shook his head haughtily and said, 'We don't eat heathen food.' The neighbour was full of rage, but she controlled herself and only muttered under her breath that even an _Osu_ was full of pride nowadays, thanks to the white man. And she was right. In the past an _Osu_ could not raise his shaggy head in the presence of the free-born. He was a slave to one of the many gods of the clan. He was a thing set apart, not to be venerated but to be despised and almost spat at. He could not marry a free-born, and he could not take any of the titles of his clan. When he died, he was buried by his kind in the Bad Bush. Now all that had changed, or had begun to change. So that an _Osu_ child could even look down his nose at a free-born, and talk about heathen food! The white man had indeed accomplished many things. Chike's father was not originally an _Osu_, but had gone and married an _Osu_ woman in the name of Christianity. It was unheard of for a man to make himself _Osu_ in that way, with his eyes wide open. But then Amos was nothing if not mad. The new religion had gone to his head. It was like palm-wine. Some people drank it and remained sensible. Others lost every sense in their stomach. The only person who supported Amos in his mad marriage venture was Mr Brown, the white missionary, who lived in a thatch-roofed, red-earth-walled parsonage and was highly respected by the people, not because of his sermons, but because of a dispensary he ran in one of his rooms. Amos had emerged from Mr Brown's parsonage greatly fortified. A few days later he told his widowed mother, who had recently been converted to Christianity and had taken the name Elizabeth. The shock nearly killed her. When she recovered, she went down on her knees and begged Amos not to do this thing. But he would not hear; his ears had been nailed up. At last, in desperation, Elizabeth went to consult the diviner. This diviner was a man of great power and wisdom. As he sat on the floor of his hut beating a tortoise shell, a coating of white chalk round his eyes, he saw not only the present, but also what had been and what was to be. He was called 'the man of the four eyes'. As soon as old Elizabeth appeared, he cast his stringed cowries and told her what she had come to see him about. 'Your son has joined the white man's religion. And you too in your old age when you should know better. And do you wonder that he is stricken with insanity? Those who gather ant-infested faggots must be prepared for the visit of lizards.' He cast his cowries a number of times and wrote with a finger on a bowl of sand, and all the while his _nwifulu_, a talking calabash, chatted to itself. 'Shut up!' he roared, and it immediately held its peace. The diviner then muttered a few incantations and rattled off a breathless reel of proverbs that followed one another like the cowries in his magic string. At last he pronounced the cure. The ancestors were angry and must be appeased with a goat. Old Elizabeth performed the rites, but her son remained insane and married an _Osu_ girl whose name was Sarah. Old Elizabeth renounced her new religion and returned to the faith of her people. We have wandered from our main story. But it is important to know how Chike's father became an _Osu_, because even today when everything is upside down, such a story is very rare. But now to return to Chike who refused heathen food at the tender age of four years, or maybe five. Two years later he went to the village school. His right hand could now reach across his head to his left ear, which proved that he was old enough to tackle the mysteries of the white man's learning. He was very happy about his new slate and pencil, and especially about his school uniform of white shirt and brown khaki shorts. But as the first day of the new term approached, his young mind dwelt on the many stories about teachers and their canes. And he remembered the song his elder sisters sang, a song that had a somewhat diquieting refrain: _Onye nkuzi ewelu itali piagbusie umuaka._ One of the ways an emphasis is laid in Ibo is by exaggeration, so that the teacher in the refrain might not actually have flogged the children to death. But there was no doubt he did flog them. And Chike thought very much about it. Being so young, Chike was sent to what was called the 'religious class' where they sang, and sometimes danced, the catechism. He loved the sound of words and he loved rhythm. During the catechism lesson the class formed a ring to dance the teacher's question. 'Who was Caesar?' he might ask, and the song would burst forth with much stamping of feet. _Siza bu eze Rome Onye nachi enu uwa dum._ It did not matter to their dancing that in the twentieth century Caesar was no longer ruler of the whole world. And sometimes they even sang in English. Chike was very fond of 'Ten Green Bottles'. They had been taught the words but they only remembered the first and the last lines. The middle was hummed and hieed and mumbled: _Ten grin botr angin on dar war, Ten grin botr angin on dar war, Hm hm hm hm hm Hm, hm hm hm hm hm, An ten grin botr angin on dar war._ In this way the first year passed. Chike was promoted to the 'Infant School', where work of a more serious nature was undertaken. We need not follow him through the Infant School. It would make a full story in itself. But it was no different from the story of other children. In the Primary School, however, his individual character began to show. He developed a strong hatred for arithmetic. But he loved stories and songs. And he liked particularly the sound of English words, even when they conveyed no meaning at all. Some of them simply filled him with elation. 'Periwinkle' was such a word. He had now forgotten how he learned it or exactly what it was. He had a vague private meaning for it and it was something to do with fairyland. 'Constellation' was another. Chike's teacher was fond of long words. He was said to be a very learned man. His favourite pastime was copying out jaw-breaking words from his _Chambers' Etymological Dictionary_. Only the other day he had raised an applause from his class by demolishing a boy's excuse for lateness with unanswerable erudition. He had said: 'Procrastination is a lazy man's apology.' The teacher's erudition showed itself in every subject he taught. His nature study lessons were memorable. Chike would always remember the lesson on the methods of seed dispersal. According to teacher, there were five methods: by man, by animals, by water, by wind, and by explosive mechanism. Even those pupils who forgot all the other methods remembered 'explosive mechanism'. Chike was naturally impressed by teacher's explosive vocabulary. But the fairyland quality which words had for him was of a different kind. The first sentences in his _New Method Reader_ were simple enough and yet they filled him with a vague exultation: 'Once there was a wizard. He lived in Africa. He went to China to get a lamp.' Chike read it over and over again at home and then made a song of it. It was a meaningless song. 'Periwinkles' got into it, and also 'Damascus'. But it was like a window through which he saw in the distance a strange, magical new world. And he was happy. The Sacrificial Egg Julius Obi sat gazing at his typewriter. The fat Chief Clerk, his boss, was snoring at his table. Outside, the gatekeeper in his green uniform was sleeping at his post. You couldn't blame him; no customer had passed through the gate for nearly a week. There was an empty basket on the giant weighing machine. A few palm-kernels lay desolately in the dust around the machine. Only the flies remained in strength. Julius went to the window that overlooked the great market on the bank of the River Niger. This market, though still called Nkwo, had long spilled over into Eke, Oye, and Afo with the coming of civilization and the growth of the town into a big palm-oil port. In spite of this encroachment, however, it was still busiest on its original Nkwo day, because the deity who had presided over it from antiquity still cast her spell only on her own day--let men in their greed spill over themselves. It was said that she appeared in the form of an old woman in the centre of the market just before cock-crow and waved her magic fan in the four directions of the earth--in front of her, behind her, to the right and to the left--to draw the market men and women from distant places. And they came bringing the produce of their lands--palm-oil and kernels, kola nuts, cassava, mats, baskets and earthenware pots; and took home many-coloured cloths, smoked fish, iron pots and plates. These were the forest peoples. The other half of the world who lived by the great rivers came down also--by canoe, bringing yams and fish. Sometimes it was a big canoe with a dozen or more people in it; sometimes it was a lone fisherman and his wife in a small vessel from the swift-flowing Anambara. They moored their canoe on the bank and sold their fish, after much haggling. The woman then walked up the steep banks of the river to the heart of the market to buy salt and oil and, if the sales had been very good, even a length of cloth. And for her children at home she bought bean cakes and mai-mai which the Igara women cooked. As evening approached, they took up their paddles again and paddled away, the water shimmering in the sunset and their canoe becoming smaller and smaller in the distance until it was just a dark crescent on the water's face and two dark bodies swaying forwards and backwards in it. Umuru then was the meeting place of the forest people who were called Igbo and the alien riverain folk whom the Igbo called Olu and beyond whom the world stretched in indefiniteness. Julius Obi was not a native of Umuru. He had come like countless others from some bush village inland. Having passed his Standard Six in a mission school he had come to Umuru to work as a clerk in the offices of the all-powerful European trading company which bought palm-kernels at its own price and sold cloth and metalware, also at its own price. The offices were situated beside the famous market so that in his first two or three weeks Julius had to learn to work within its huge enveloping hum. Sometimes when the Chief Clerk was away he walked to the window and looked down on the vast ant-hill activity. Most of these people were not there yesterday, he thought, and yet the market had been just as full. There must be many, many people in the world to be able to fill the market day after day like this. Of course they say not all who came to the great market were real people. Janet's mother, Ma, had said so. 'Some of the beautiful young women you see squeezing through the crowds are not people like you or me but mammy-wota who have their town in the depths of the river,' she said. 'You can always tell them, because they are beautiful with a beauty that is too perfect and too cold. You catch a glimpse of her with the tail of your eye, then you blink and look properly, but she has already vanished in the crowd.' Julius thought about these things as he now stood at the window looking down on the silent, empty market. Who would have believed that the great boisterous market could ever be quenched like this? But such was the strength of Kitikpa, the incarnate power of smallpox. Only he could drive away all those people and leave the market to the flies. When Umuru was a little village, there was an age-grade who swept its market-square every Nkwo day. But progress had turned it into a busy, sprawling, crowded and dirty river port, a no-man's-land where strangers outnumbered by far the sons of the soil, who could do nothing about it except shake their heads at this gross perversion of their prayer. For indeed they had prayed--who will blame them--for their town to grow and prosper. And it had grown. But there is good growth and there is bad growth. The belly does not bulge out only with food and drink; it might be the abominable disease which would end by sending its sufferer out of the house even before he was fully dead. The strangers who came to Umura came for trade and money, not in search of duties to perform, for they had those in plenty back home in their village which was real home. And as if this did not suffice, the young sons and daughters of Umuru soil, encouraged by schools and churches were behaving no better than the strangers. They neglected all their old tasks and kept only the revelries. Such was the state of the town when Kitikpa came to see it and to demand the sacrifice the inhabitants owed the gods of the soil. He came in confident knowledge of the terror he held over the people. He was an evil deity, and boasted it. Lest he be offended those he killed were not killed but decorated, and no one dared weep for them. He put an end to the coming and going between neighbours and between villages. They said, 'Kitikpa is in that village,' and immediately it was cut off by its neighbours. Julius was sad and worried because it was almost a week since he had seen Janet, the girl he was going to marry. Ma had explained to him very gently that he should no longer go to see them 'until this thing is over, by the power of Jehovah'. (Ma was a very devout Christian convert and one reason why she approved of Julius for her only daughter was that he sang in the choir of the CMS church.) 'You must keep to your rooms,' she had said in hushed tones, for Kitikpa strictly forbade any noise or boisterousness. 'You never know whom you might meet on the streets. That family has got it.' She lowered her voice even more and pointed surreptitiously at the house across the road whose doorway was barred with a yellow palm-frond. 'He has decorated one of them already and the rest were moved away today in a big government lorry.' Janet walked a short way with Julius and stopped; so he stopped too. They seemed to have nothing to say to each other yet they lingered on. Then she said goodnight and he said goodnight. And they shook hands, which was very odd, as though parting for the night were something new and grave. He did not go straight home, because he wanted desperately to cling, even alone, to this strange parting. Being educated he was not afraid of whom he might meet, so he went to the bank of the river and just walked up and down it. He must have been there a long time because he was still there when the wooden gong of the night-mask sounded. He immediately set out for home, half-walking and half-running, for night-masks were not a matter of superstition; they were real. They chose the night for their revelry because like the bat's their ugliness was great. In his hurry he stepped on something that broke with a slight liquid explosion. He stopped and peeped down at the footpath. The moon was not up yet but there was a faint light in the sky which showed that it would not be long delayed. In this half-light he saw that he had stepped on an egg offered in sacrifice. Someone oppressed by misfortune had brought the offering to the crossroads in the dusk. And he had stepped on it. There were the usual young palm-fronds around it. But Julius saw it differently as a house where the terrible artist was at work. He wiped the sole of his foot on the sandy path and hurried away, carrying another vague worry in his mind. But hurrying was no use now; the fleet-footed mask was already abroad. Perhaps it was impelled to hurry by the threatening imminence of the moon. Its voice rose high and clear in the still night air like a flaming sword. It was yet a long way away, but Julius knew that distances vanished before it. So he made straight for the cocoyam farm beside the road and threw himself on his belly, in the shelter of the broad leaves. He had hardly done this when he heard the rattling staff of the spirit and a thundering stream of esoteric speech. He shook all over. The sounds came bearing down on him, almost pressing his face into the moist earth. And now he could hear the footsteps. It was as if twenty evil men were running together. Panic sweat broke all over him and he was nearly impelled to get up and run. Fortunately he kept a firm hold on himself... In no time at all the commotion in the air and on the earth--the thunder and torrential rain, the earthquake and flood--passed and disappeared in the distance on the other side of the road. The next morning, at the office the Chief Clerk, a son of the soil spoke bitterly about last night's provocation of Kitikpa by the headstrong youngsters who had launched the noisy fleet-footed mask in defiance of their elders, who knew that Kitikpa would be enraged, and then... The trouble was that the disobedient youths had never yet experienced the power of Kitikpa themselves; they had only heard of it. But soon they would learn. As Julius stood at the window looking out on the emptied market he lived through the terror of that night again. It was barely a week ago but already it seemed like another life, separated from the present by a vast emptiness. This emptiness deepened with every passing day. On this side of it stood Julius, and on the other Ma and Janet whom the dread artist decorated. Polar Undergraduate The fact has now become indisputable that in an autonomous University College it is misleading to talk of undergraduates in a collective sense, as one might talk of sheep or cattle. Undergraduates differ very widely one from another, and this difference is most pronounced in the varying lengths of their day. Geographers tell us that the day varies in length from one latitude to another. This variation, in my opinion, is also the soundest basis for a classification of undergraduates. This leads me to an important digression. The duty of a University, we are told, is to train students to fit themselves into society. But our University is doing much more than that. It is training students to fit them into the different geographical latitudes of the earth. Within the walls of the College, (or rather within its barbed-wire fences), one may find a student whose day is only twelve hours, next door to another who has twenty-four. It appears to me that Ibadan is destined to play a very important part in furthering world education and culture. A friend of mine, who enjoys a twenty-two-hour day, told me recently that after graduation he would take up an appointment in the North Pole. Unfortunately, he has just been informed that in the North Pole there are six months of darkness during which the people and their governments go to sleep, or something very like it. Now, this constitutes a really serious problem, because the very word 'sleep', be it tropical or polar, is repugnant to my friend. He hopes to overcome this difficulty by flying to the South Pole on the 22 September every year and returning six months later. He will thus be oscillating north and south, in sympathy with the seasons. My friend belongs to a group of undergraduates that rejoices under the name of 'Polar Type'. It is a very interesting group, and so, we shall describe a day in the life of one of them. By their very nature, they are entitled to priority of treatment in an article like this. To begin with, their potential field of service to humanity is more extensive than that of any other group. It embraces, as we have seen, the two extremities of the earth. Apart from this, they are the boldest group of undergraduates in the College. This is hardly surprising, seeing that people who fly in the face of nature, ignoring sleep which is her way of crying 'halt!', must possess more than their due of moral courage. It is significant that more than one member of this group featured prominently in the historic attempt to mob a President of the Students' Union while on duty. A mere coincidence, perhaps. The criterion for membership of this group has been summarized mathematically as 20