No Longer at Ease Read online

  Obi made some vague noises.

  “I don’t expect you to agree with me, of course,” said Mr. Green, and disappeared.

  Obi rang Christopher and they arranged to go and play tennis that afternoon with two newly arrived teachers at a Roman Catholic convent in Apapa. He had never really found out how Christopher discovered them. All he knew was that about two weeks ago he had been asked to come round to Christopher’s flat and meet two Irish girls who were very interested in Nigeria. When Obi had got there at about six Christopher was already teaching them in turns how to dance the high-life. He was obviously relieved when Obi arrived; he immediately appropriated the better-looking of the two girls and left the other to Obi. She was all right when she wasn’t trying to smile. Unfortunately she tried to smile rather frequently. But otherwise she wasn’t too bad, and very soon it was too dark to see, anyway.

  The girls were really interested in Nigeria. They already knew a few words of Yoruba, although they had only been in the country three weeks or so. They were rather more anti-English than Obi, which made him somewhat uneasy. But as the evening wore on he liked them more and more, especially the one assigned to him.

  They had fried plantains with vegetable and meat for dinner. The girls said they enjoyed it very much, although it was clear from the running of their eyes and noses that there was too much pepper in it.

  They resumed their dancing soon afterwards, in semi-darkness and in silence except when they occasionally teased one another. “Why are you so silent, you two?” or: “Keep moving; don’t stand on one spot.”

  After a few opening skirmishes Obi won a couple of tentative kisses. But when he tried something more ambitious, Nora whispered sharply: “No! Catholics are not allowed to kiss like that.”

  “Why not?”

  It’s a sin.

  “How odd.”

  They continued dancing and occasionally kissing with their lips alone.

  Before they finally took them home at eleven Obi and Christopher had promised to go and play tennis with them on some evenings. They had gone twice in quick succession; then other things had claimed their interest. Obi had thought of them again because he wanted something, like a game of tennis, to occupy his mind in the afternoon and perhaps tire him out so that he could sleep at night.

  As soon as Christopher’s car drew up, a white-clad Mother appeared suddenly at the door of the convent chapel. Obi drew his attention to the fact. She was too far away for them to see the expression on her face, but he felt it was hostile. The girls were having their afternoon prep, and so the convent was very quiet. They went up the stairs that led to Nora and Pat’s flat above the classroom, the Mother following them with her eyes until they disappeared into the sitting room.

  The girls were having tea and buns. They looked pleased to see their visitors, but somehow not quite as pleased as usual. They seemed a little embarrassed.

  “Have some tea,” they said together, as if they had been rehearsing the phrase, and before their guests had settled down properly in their chairs. They drank their tea almost in silence. Although Obi and Christopher were dressed for tennis and carried rackets, the girls did not say anything about playing. After tea they sat where they were, attempting valiantly to keep what conversation there was going.

  “What about a game?” Christopher asked when the conversation finally expired. There was a pause. Then Nora explained quite simply without any false apologies that the Mother had spoken to them seriously about going around with African men. She had warned them that if the Bishop knew of it they might find themselves sent back to Ireland.

  Pat said it was all silly and ridiculous. She actually used the word ridiculosity, which made Obi smile internally. “But we don’t want to be sent back to Ireland.”

  Nora promised that they would occasionally go to visit the boys at Ikoyi. But it would be best if they did not come to the convent because the Mother and the Sisters were watching.

  “What are you two, anyway? Daughters?” asked Christopher. But this was not very well received and the visit was soon afterwards brought to a close.

  “You see,” said Christopher as soon as they got back into the car. “And they call themselves missionaries!”

  “What do you expect the poor girls to do?”

  “I wasn’t thinking of them. I mean the Mothers and Sisters and fathers and children.”

  Obi found himself in the unusual role of defending Roman Catholics.

  On their way home they stopped to say hello to Christopher’s newest girl friend Florence. He was so taken with her that he even mentioned marriage. But that was impossible because the girl was going to England next September to study nursing. She was out when they got to her place, and Christopher left a note for her.

  “I have not seen Bisi for a long time,” he said. And they went to see her. But she, too, was out.

  “What a day for visits!” said Obi. “We had better go home.”

  Christopher talked about Florence all the way. Should he try and persuade her not to go to England?

  “I shouldn’t if I were you,” Obi said. He told him of one old catechist in Umuofia many, many years ago when Obi was a little boy. This man’s wife was a very good friend of Obi’s mother and often visited them. One day he overheard her telling his mother how her education had been cut short at Standard One because the man was impatient to get married. She sounded very bitter about it, although it must have happened at least twenty years before. Obi remembered this particular visit very well because it took place on a Saturday. On the following morning the catechist had been unable to take the service because his wife had broken his head with the wooden pestle used for pounding yams. Obi’s father, as a retired catechist, had been asked to conduct the service at very short notice.

  “Talking about going to England reminds me of a girl who practically offered herself to me. Have I told you the story?”

  “No.”

  Obi told him the story of Miss Mark, starting with her brother’s visit to his office.

  “What happened to her in the end?”

  “Oh, she is in England. She got the scholarship all right.”

  “You are the biggest ass in Nigeria,” said Christopher, and they began a long argument on the nature of bribery.

  “If a girl offers to sleep with you, that is not bribery,” said Christopher.

  “Don’t be silly,” replied Obi. “You mean you honestly cannot see anything wrong in taking advantage of a young girl straight from school who wants to go to a university?”

  “You are being sentimental. A girl who comes the way she did is not an innocent little girl. It’s like the story of the girl who was given a form to fill in. She put down her name and her age. But when she came to sex she wrote: ‘Twice a week.’ ” Obi could not help laughing.

  “Don’t imagine that girls are angels.”

  “I was not imagining any such thing. But it is scandalous that a man of your education can see nothing wrong in going to bed with a girl before you let her appear before the board.”

  “This girl was appearing before the board, anyway. That was all she expected you to do: to see that she did appear. And how do you know she did not go to bed with the board members?”

  “She probably did.”

  “Well, then, what good have you done her?”

  “Very little, I admit,” said Obi, trying to put his thoughts in order, “but perhaps she will remember that there was one man at least who did not take advantage of his position.”

  “But she probably thinks you are impotent.”

  There was a short pause.

  “Now tell me, Christopher. What is your definition of bribery?”

  “Well, let’s see.… The use of improper influence.”

  “Good. I suppose—”

  “But the point is, there was no influence at all. The girl was going to be interviewed, anyway. She came voluntarily to have a good time. I cannot see that bribery is involved at all.”

  “
Of course, I know you’re not really serious.”

  “I am dead serious.”

  “But I’m surprised you cannot see that the same argument can be used for taking money. If the applicant is getting the job, anyway, then there is no harm in accepting money from him.”

  “Well—”

  “Well, what?”

  “You see, the difference is this.” He paused. “Let’s put it this way. No man wants to part with his money. If you accept money from a man you make him poorer. But if you go to bed with a girl who asks for it, I don’t see that you have done any harm.”

  They argued over dinner and late into the night. But no sooner had Christopher said good night than Obi’s thoughts returned to the letter he had received from his father.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Obi was granted two weeks’ local leave from 10th to 24th February. He decided to set out for Umuofia very early on the 11th, spend the night at Benin, and conclude the journey the following day. Clara exchanged duties with another nurse so as to be free to help with his packing. She spent the whole day—and the night—in Obi’s flat.

  When they went to sleep she said she had something to tell him and began to cry. Obi had not learnt to cope with tears; he was always alarmed. “What’s the matter, Clara?” But he only got warm tears on the arm which lay between her head and the pillow. Clara cried silently, but Obi could feel from the way her body shook that she was crying violently. He kept asking: “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” and getting more and more alarmed.

  “Excuse me,” she said. She got up and went to the dressing table, where her handbag stood, brought out a handkerchief, and blew her nose. Then she went back to the bed with the handkerchief and sat on the edge.

  “Come and tell me what is the trouble,” said Obi, gently pulling her down. He kissed her and it tasted salty. “What is it?”

  Clara said she was very sorry to let him down at this eleventh hour. But she was sure it would be in everybody’s best interest if they broke off their engagement. Obi was deeply stung, but he said nothing for a long time. Afterwards Clara repeated that she was very sorry. There was another long silence.

  Then Obi said: “I can understand.… It’s perfectly all right.… I don’t blame you in the least.” He wanted to add: “Why should you throw yourself away on someone who can’t make both ends meet?” But he did not want to sound sentimental. He said instead: “Thank you very much for everything.” He sat up in bed. Then he got up altogether and began to pace the room in his pyjamas. It was too dark for Clara to see him—which heightened the effect. But he soon realized that he would have regarded such action, if somebody else had performed it, as cheaply theatrical, and so he stopped and returned to bed, but not close to Clara. He was, however, soon persuaded to move closer and to talk.

  Clara begged him not to misunderstand her. She said she was taking her present step because she did not want to ruin his life. “I have thought about the whole matter very carefully. There are two reasons why we should not get married.”

  “What are they?”

  “Well, the first is that your family will be against it. I don’t want to come between you and your family.”

  “Bunk! Anyway, what is the second reason?” She could not remember what it was. It didn’t matter, anyway. The first reason was quite enough.

  “I’ll tell you what the second reason is,” said Obi.

  “What is it?”

  “You don’t want to marry someone who has to borrow money to pay for his insurance.” He knew it was a grossly unfair and false accusation, but he wanted her to be on the defensive. She nearly started crying again. He pulled her towards him and began to kiss her passionately. She soon responded with equal spirit. “No, no, no! Don’t be a naughty boy.… You should apologize first for what you said.”

  “I’m very sorry, darling.”

  “O.K. I forgive you. No! Wait a minute.”

  Obi set out just before six in the morning. If Clara had not been there he would not have been able to wake up as early as five-thirty. He felt a little light in the head and heavy in the eyes. He had a cold bath, washing his arms and legs first, then the head, the stomach, and the back in that order. He hated cold baths, but he could not afford to switch on the electric heater, and there was no doubt, he thought as he dried himself, that one felt very brisk after a cold bath. As with weeping, it was only the beginning that was difficult.

  Although he had two weeks, he proposed to spend only one at home for reasons of money. To home people, leave meant the return of the village boy who had made good in the town, and everyone expected to share in his good fortune. “After all,” they argued, “it was our prayers and our libations that did it for him.” They called leave lifu, meaning to squander.

  Obi had exactly thirty-four pounds, nine and three-pence when he set out. Twenty-five pounds was his local leave allowance, which was paid to all senior civil servants for no other reason than that they went on local leave. The rest was the remains of his January salary. With thirty-four pounds one might possibly last two weeks at home, although a man like Obi, with a car and a “European post,” would normally be expected to do better. But sixteen pounds ten shillings was to go into brother John’s school fees for the second term, which began in April. Obi knew that unless he paid the fees now that he had a lump sum in his pocket he might not be able to do so when the time came.

  Obi seemed to look over the shoulders of everyone who came out to welcome him home.

  “Where is Mother?” his eyes kept asking. He did not know whether she was still in hospital or at home, and he was afraid to ask.

  “Your mother returned from hospital last week,” said his father as they entered the house.

  “Where is she?”

  “In her room,” said Eunice, his youngest sister.

  Mother’s room was the most distinctive in the whole house, except perhaps for Father’s. The difficulty in deciding arose from the fact that one could not compare incomparable things. Mr. Okonkwo believed utterly and completely in the things of the white man. And the symbol of the white man’s power was the written word, or better still, the printed word. Once before he went to England, Obi heard his father talk with deep feeling about the mystery of the written word to an illiterate kinsman:

  “Our women made black patterns on their bodies with the juice of the uli tree. It was beautiful, but it soon faded. If it lasted two market weeks it lasted a long time. But sometimes our elders spoke about uli that never faded, although no one had ever seen it. We see it today in the writing of the white man. If you go to the native court and look at the books which clerks wrote twenty years ago or more, they are still as they wrote them. They do not say one thing today and another tomorrow, or one thing this year and another next year. Okoye in the book today cannot become Okonkwo tomorrow. In the Bible Pilate said: ‘What is written is written.’ It is uli that never fades.”

  The kinsman had nodded his head in approval and snapped his fingers.

  The result of Okonkwo’s mystic regard for the written word was that his room was full of old books and papers—from Blackie’s Arithmetic, which he used in 1908, to Obi’s Durrell, from obsolete cockroach-eaten translations of the Bible into the Onitsha dialect to yellowed Scripture Union Cards of 1920 and earlier. Okonkwo never destroyed a piece of paper. He had two boxes full of them. The rest were preserved on top of his enormous cupboard, on tables, on boxes and on one corner of the floor.

  Mother’s room, on the other hand, was full of mundane things. She had her box of clothes on a stool. On the other side of the room were pots of solid palm-oil with which she made black soap. The palm-oil was separated from the clothes by the whole length of the room, because, as she always said, clothes and oil were not kinsmen, and just as it was the duty of clothes to try and avoid oil it was also the duty of the oil to do everything to avoid clothes.

  Apart from these two, Mother’s room also had such things as last year’s coco yams, kola nuts pres
erved with banana leaves in empty oil pots, palm-ash preserved in an old cylindrical vessel which, as the older children told Obi, had once contained biscuits. In the second stage of its life it had served as a water vessel until it sprang about five leaks which had to be carefully covered with paper before it got its present job.

  As he looked at his mother on her bed, tears stood in Obi’s eyes. She held out her hand to him and he took it—all bone and skin like a bat’s wing.

  “You did not see me when I was ill,” she said. “Now I am as healthy as a young girl.” She laughed without mirth. “You should have seen me three weeks ago. How is your work? Are Umuofia people in Lagos all well? How is Joseph? His mother came to see me yesterday and I told her we were expecting you.…”

  Obi answered: “They are well, yes, yes and yes.” But his heart all the while was bursting with grief.

  Later that evening a band of young women who had been making music at a funeral was passing by Okonkwo’s house when they heard of Obi’s return, and decided to go in and salute him.

  Obi’s father was up in arms. He wanted to drive them away, but Obi persuaded him that they could do no harm. It was ominous the way he gave in without a fight and went and shut himself up in his room. Obi’s mother came out to the pieze and sat on a high chair by the window. She liked music even when it was heathen music. Obi stood in the main door, smiling at the singers who had formed themselves on the clean-swept ground outside. As if from a signal the colorful and noisy weaver birds on the tall palm tree flew away in a body, deserting temporarily their scores of brown nests, which looked like giant bootees.

  Obi knew some of the singers well. But there were others who had been married into the village after he had gone to England. The leader of the song was one of them. She had a strong piercing voice that cut the air with a sharp edge. She sang a long recitative before the others joined in. They called it “The Song of the Heart.”