Anthills of the Savannah - Chinua Achebe [106]
“Nothing except that his wife told him he is the father,” said Abdul, causing much laughter.
“Na true my brother,” said Braimoh. “Na woman de come tell man say na him born the child. Then the man begin make inyanga and begin answer father. Na yéyé father we be.”
“Exactly. So I think our tradition is faulty there. It is really safest to ask the mother what her child is or means or should be called. So Elewa should really be holding Ama and telling us what she is. What it was like to be loved by that beautiful man Ikem. But Elewa is too shy. Look at her!”
“I no shy at all,” she replied, her eyes smiling and holding back tears at the same time like bright sunshine through a thin drizzle. “I no shy but I no sabi book.”
“Dis no be book matter, my sister.”
“You no sabi book but you sabi plenty thing wey pass book, my dear girl.”
“Say that again,” said Emmanuel.
“I concur,” said Captain Medani.
“Dat na true word,” said Braimoh.
“I tell you!” said Aina.
“All of we,” continued Beatrice, “done see baad time; but na you one, Elewa, come produce something wonderful like this to show your sufferhead. Something alive and kicking.”
“That’s true. Very true,” said the Captain.
“But living ideas…” Emmanuel began haltingly.
“Ideas cannot live outside people,” said Beatrice rather peremptorily stopping him in mid-stride. He obeyed for a second, scratched his head and came right back blurting defiantly:
“I don’t accept that. The ideas in one lecture by Ikem changed my entire life from a parrot to a man.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. And the lives of some of my friends. It wasn’t Ikem the man who changed me. I hardly knew him. It was his ideas set down on paper. One idea in particular: that we may accept a limitation on our actions but never, under no circumstances, must we accept restriction on our thinking.”
“OK,” said Beatrice bowing to this superior, unstoppable passion. “I have also felt what you are saying, though I knew him too as a man. You win! People and Ideas, then. We shall drink to both of them.”
As Agatha brought in a tray of drinks and burst into one of the songs of her sect—something with which she had never before graced this house—Emmanuel took the tray from her and placed it on the centre table. Adamma fetched the glasses and they began to serve. Agatha’s hands freed meanwhile found more fitting occupation clapping her own accompaniment, and her waist swayed in slow dance.
Jehova is not a person anyone can deceive
Jehova is so great who is it can confuse him?
If Jehova wants to bless who will dare to raise a curse?
Jehova-jireh let us raise his name!
Aina raised herself from her seat, untied and re-tied her outer lappa and joined Agatha in her holy seductive dance.
“Abi Aina no be Moslem?” Beatrice asked Elewa in a whisper.
“Na proper grade one Moslem,” she replied wondering by way of a puzzled look what the point of the question was. Then she seemed all of a sudden to discern the questioner’s difficulty. “Dem talk say make Moslem no dance when Christian de sing?” she asked in return.
“No I didn’t mean that,” replied Beatrice rather emphatically. But to herself she said, “Well, if a daughter of Allah could join his rival’s daughter in a holy dance, what is to stop the priestess of the unknown god from shaking a leg?” She smiled to herself. She was already swaying her head from side to side in lieu of hands which were still attempting to rock Ama to sleep.
After five or six repeats of the same words of the catchy little song Braimoh shouted: “Heep! Heep! Heep!” and the ecumenical fraternization was neatly terminated with a lusty “Hooray!” and laughter.
It was at this point that a taxi pulled up outside and discharged