Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe [46]
“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 raffia 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.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
When nearly two years later Obierika paid another visit to his friend in exile the circumstances were less happy. The missionaries had come to Umuofia. They had built their church there, won a handful of converts and were already sending evangelists to the surrounding towns and villages. That was a source of great sorrow to the leaders of the clan; but many of them believed that the strange faith and the white man’s god would not last. None of his converts was a man whose word was heeded in the assembly of the people. None of them was a man of title. They were mostly the kind of people that were called efulefu, worthless, empty men. The imagery of an efulefu in the language of the clan was a man who sold his machete and wore the sheath to battle. Chielo, the priestess of Agbala, called the converts the excrement of the clan, and the new faith was a mad dog that had come to eat it up.
What moved Obierika to visit Okonkwo was the sudden appearance of the latter’s son, Nwoye, among the missionaries in Umuofia.
“What are you doing here?” Obierika had asked when after many difficulties the missionaries