Anthills of the Savannah - Chinua Achebe [107]
Beatrice knew Elewa’s uncle by an unsavoury reputation which he now seemed quite determined to live up to. Before he fairly sat down his eyes had become glued to the tray of drinks and his Adam’s apple danced restlessly like the trapped bubble in a bricklayer’s spirit-level.
“Elewa, won’t you offer a drink to Mama and your uncle?”
Mama accepted a bottle of mineral water but the uncle declined the beer which was offered him demanding “Snaps” instead. When he was told there was no schnapps in the house he merely said, “Ah?”—a compressed but eloquent way of saying: A naming ceremony indeed, without schnapps.
Beatrice got up, put the baby down in her cot, went to the sideboard and soon returned with a bottle of White Horse whisky. Elewa’s uncle accepted the substitute quite readily and proceeded to swill two thimblefuls in quick succession throwing his head slightly back for the operation and working his cheeks like a pair of little bellows before swallowing. He put the little glass down and then asked for a bottle of beer.
Looking sideways at her late husband’s half-brother Elewa’s mother said: “It is better that we begin the work we came to do. I don’t want anyone dropping my grandchild.”
“Nobody is going to drop anybody,” replied the uncle lifting his glass of beer to his lips with a lightly quivering hand… “Drink does not loosen a man’s grip. It makes it stronger,” he added after gulping down half of the glass… “But since my wife here is troubled, let us agree with her and do as she says. A wise man agrees with his wife and eats lumps of smoked fish in his soup. A fool contradicts his wife and eats lumps of cocoyam.”
Abdul’s head was tilted towards Emmanuel who was translating the old people for him. Now all eyes turned to Beatrice. She had picked up the baby again, but instead of handing her to the old man who had set down his glass once more to receive it she said:
“This baby has already received its name. She is called Amaechina.”
The old people were visibly stunned. The man recovered first and asked: “Who gave her the name?”
“All of us here,” said Beatrice.
“All of you here,” repeated the old man. “All of you are her father?”
“Yes, and mother.”
His explosion into laughter took everybody by surprise and then dragged them all into his bombshell of gaiety. Except Elewa’s mother.
“You young people,” said the old man. “What you will bring this world to is pregnant and nursing a baby at the same time… Give me a little more of that hot drink.”
Elewa rushed the whisky bottle and the little glass back to him.
“A jolly old fellow,” said Abdul.
“You no know am. So make you wait small.”
Elewa’s poor mother was left high and dry carrying the anger of outraged custom and usage made none the lighter for having no one to focus it on. In the end she turned and heaped it on the opportunistic old man, a medicine-man hired to chase evil spirits whom evil spirits were now chasing.
“You will return my bottle of Snaps and the fowl,” she said to him, to everyone’s surprise. His face clouded over for a very brief instant and quickly cleared up again.
“As to that,” he said, “what is brought out before a masquerade cannot be taken indoors again. Food goes one way—downwards. If you see it going up you know the man is in trouble.”
“You will return my Snaps and the fowl,” she repeated obstinately.
“Listen to me my wife and let me give you advice. You are annoyed and I cannot say that I blame you. But what is the use of bending your neck at me like the chicken to the pot when its real enemy is not the pot in which it cooks nor even the fire which cooks it but the knife. Your quarrel is with these young people. Hold your daughter and her friends to refund to you your bottle of Snaps and your fowl. But as for the tribute placed in front of a masquerade, that one is gone with the masquerade into its ant-hole.” He went into another paroxysm of laughter scraping his sides