It was in the second year of Okonkwo’s exile that his friend, Obierika, came to visit him. He brought with him
two young men, each of them carrying a heavy bag on his head. Okonkwo helped them put down their loads. It was clear that the bags were full of cowries.
Okonkwo was very happy to receive his friend. His wives and children were very happy too, and so were his cousins and their wives when he sent for them and told them who his guest was.
“You must take him to salute our father,” said one of the cousins. “Yes,” replied Okonkwo. “We are going directly.” But before they
went he whispered something to his first wife. She nodded, and
soon the children were chasing one of their cocks.
Uchendu had been told by one of his grandchildren that three strangers had come to Okonkwo’s house. He was therefore waiting to receive them. He held out his hands to them when they came into his obi, and after they had shaken hands he asked Okonkwo who they were.
“This is Obierika, my great friend. I have already spoken to you about him.”
“Yes,” said the old man, turning to Obierika. “My son has told me about you, and I am happy you have come to see us. I knew your father, Iweka. He was a great man. He had many friends here and came to see them quite often. Those were good days when a man had friends in distant clans. Your generation does not know that. You stay at home, afraid of your next-door neighbor. Even a man’s motherland is strange to him nowadays.” He looked at Okonkwo. “I am an old man and I like to talk. That is all I am good for now.” He
got up painfully, went into an inner room and came back with a kola nut.
“Who are the young men with you?” he asked as he sat down again on his goatskin. Okonkwo told him.
“Ah,” he said. “Welcome, my sons.” He presented the kola nut to them, and when they had seen it and thanked him, he broke it and they ate.
“Go into that room,” he said to Okonkwo, pointing with his finger. “You will find a pot of wine there.”
Okonkwo brought the wine and they began to drink. It was a day old, and very strong.
“Yes,” said Uchendu after a long silence. “People traveled more in those days. There is not a single clan in these parts that I do not know very well. Aninta, Umuazu, Ikeocha, Elumelu, Abame—I know them all.”
“Have you heard,” asked Obierika, “that Abame is no more?” “How is that?” asked Uchendu and Okonkwo together.
“Abame has been wiped out,” said Obierika. “It is a strange and terrible story. If I had not seen the few survivors with my own eyes and heard their story with my own ears, I would not have believed. Was it not on an Eke day that they fled into Umuofia?” he asked his two companions, and they nodded their heads.
“Three moons ago,” said Obierika, “on an Eke market day a little band of fugitives came into our town. Most of them were sons of our land whose mothers had been buried with us. But there were some too who came because they had friends in our town, and others who could think of nowhere else open to escape. And so they fled into Umuofia with a woeful story.” He drank his palm-wine, and Okonkwo filled his horn again. He continued:
“During the last planting season a white man had appeared in their clan.”
“An albino,” suggested Okonkwo.
“He was not an albino. He was quite different.” He sipped his wine. “And he was riding an iron horse. The first people who saw him ran away, but he stood beckoning to them. In the end the fearless ones went near and even touched him. The elders consulted their Oracle and it told them that the strange man would break their clan and spread destruction among them.” Obierika again drank a little of his wine. “And so they killed the white man and tied his iron horse to their sacred tree because it looked as if it would run away to call the man’s friends. I forgot to tell you another thing which the Oracle said. It said that other white men were on their way. They were locusts, it said, and that first man was their harbinger sent to explore the terrain. And so they killed him.”
“What did the white man say before they killed him?” asked Uchendu.
“He said nothing,” answered one of Obierika’s companions.
“He said something, only they did not understand him,” said Obierika. “He seemed to speak through his nose.”
“One of the men told me,” said Obierika’s other companion, “that he repeated over and over again a word that resembled Mbaino. Perhaps he had been going to Mbaino and had lost his way.”
“Anyway,” resumed Obierika, “they killed him and tied up his iron horse. This was before the planting season began. For a long time nothing happened. The rains had come and yams had been sown. The iron horse was still tied to the sacred silk-cotton tree. And then one morning three white men led by a band of ordinary men like us came to the clan. They saw the iron horse and went away again. Most of the men and women of Abame had gone to their farms. Only a few of them saw these white men and their followers. For many market weeks nothing else happened. They have a big market in Abame on every other Afo day and, as you know, the whole clan gathers there. That was the day it happened. The three white men and a very large number of other men surrounded the market. They must have used a powerful medicine to make themselves invisible until the market was full. And they began to
shoot. Everybody was killed, except the old and the sick who were at home and a handful of men and women whose chi were wide awake and brought them out of that market.” He paused.
“Their clan is now completely empty. Even the sacred fish in their mysterious lake have fled and the lake has turned the color of blood. A great evil has come upon their land as the Oracle had warned.”
There was a long silence. Uchendu ground his teeth together audibly. Then he burst out:
“Never kill a man who says nothing. Those men of Abame were fools. What did they know about the man?” He ground his teeth again and told a story to illustrate his point. “Mother Kite once sent her daughter to bring food. She went, and brought back a duckling. ‘You have done very well,’ said Mother Kite to her daughter, ‘but tell me, what did the mother of this duckling say when you swooped and carried its child away?’ ‘It said nothing,’ replied the young kite. ‘It just walked away.’ ‘You must return the duckling,’ said Mother Kite. ‘There is something ominous behind the silence.’ And so Daughter Kite returned the duckling and took a chick instead. ‘What did the mother of this chick do?’ asked the old kite. ‘It cried and raved and cursed me,’ said the young kite. ‘Then we can eat the chick,’ said her mother. ‘There is nothing to fear from someone who shouts.’ Those men of Abame were fools.”
“They were fools,” said Okonkwo after a pause. “They had been warned that danger was ahead. They should have armed themselves with their guns and their machetes even when they went to market.”
“They have paid for their foolishness,” said Obierika. “But I am greatly afraid. We have heard stories about white men who made the powerful guns and the strong drinks and took slaves away across the seas, but no one thought the stories were true.”
“There is no story that is not true,” said Uchendu. “The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others. We have albinos among us. Do you not think that they came
to our clan by mistake, that they have strayed from their way to a land where everybody is like them?”
Okonkwo’s first wife soon finished her cooking and set before their guests a big meal of pounded yams and bitter-leaf soup. Okonkwo’s son, Nwoye, brought in a pot of sweet wine tapped from the ra a palm.
“You are a big man now,” Obierika said to Nwoye. “Your friend Anene asked me to greet you.”
“Is he well?” asked Nwoye.
“We are all well,” said Obierika.
Ezinma brought them a bowl of water with which to wash their hands. After that they began to eat and to drink the wine.
“When did you set out from home?” asked Okonkwo.
“We had meant to set out from my house before cockcrow,” said Obierika. “But Nweke did not appear until it was quite light. Never make an early morning appointment with a man who has just married a new wife.” They all laughed.
“Has Nweke married a wife?” asked Okonkwo.
“He has married Okadigbo’s second daughter,” said Obierika. “That is very good,” said Okonkwo. “I do not blame you for not
hearing the cock crow.”
When they had eaten, Obierika pointed at the two heavy bags. “That is the money from your yams,” he said. “I sold the big ones
as soon as you left. Later on I sold some of the seed-yams and gave
out others to sharecroppers. I shall do that every year until you return. But I thought you would need the money now and so I brought it. Who knows what may happen tomorrow? Perhaps green men will come to our clan and shoot us.”
“God will not permit it,” said Okonkwo. “I do not know how to thank you.”
“I can tell you,” said Obierika. “Kill one of your sons for me.”
“That will not be enough,” said Okonkwo. “Then kill yourself,” said Obierika.
“Forgive me,” said Okonkwo, smiling. “I shall not talk about thanking you any more.”
