No Longer at Ease Read online

He turned to the steward. “Two Heinekens.”

  “Oh, no. One will do. Let’s share one.”

  “Two Heinekens,” repeated Joseph, and the steward went to the bar and soon returned with two bottles on a tray.

  “Do they serve Nigerian food here?”

  Joseph was surprised at the question. No decent restaurant served Nigerian food. “Do you want Nigerian food?”

  “Of course. I have been dying to eat pounded yams and bitter-leaf soup. In England we made do with semolina, but it isn’t the same thing.”

  “I must ask my boy to prepare you pounded yams tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Good man!” said Obi, brightening up considerably. Then he added in English for the benefit of the European group that sat at the next table: “I am sick of boilèd potatoes.” By calling them boilèd he hoped he had put into it all the disgust he felt.

  A white hand gripped his chair behind. He turned quickly and saw it was the old manageress holding on to chairs to support her unsteady progress. She must have been well over seventy, if not eighty. She toddled across the lounge and behind the counter. Then she came out again holding a shivering glass of milk.

  “Who left that duster there?” she said, pointing a shaking left-hand finger at a yellow rag on the floor.

  “I no know,” said the steward who had been addressed.

  “Take it away,” she croaked. In the effort to give orders she forgot about the glass of milk. It tilted in her unsteady grip and spilt on her neat floral dress. She went to a seat in the corner and sank in, groaning and creaking like old machinery gone rusty from standing in the rain. It must have been her favorite corner, because her parrot’s cage was directly overhead. As soon as she sat down the parrot emerged from its cage on to a projecting rod, lowered its tail, and passed ordure, which missed the old lady by a tenth of an inch. Obi raised himself slightly on his seat to see the mess on the floor. But there was no mess. Everything was beautifully organized. There was a tray by the old lady’s chair nearly full of wet excrement.

  “I don’t think the place is owned by a Syrian,” said Obi. “She is English.”

  They had mixed grill, which Obi admitted wasn’t too bad. But he was still puzzling in his mind why Joseph had not put him up as he had asked before he left England. Instead, the Umuofia Progressive Union had arranged at their own expense for him to stay at a not particularly good hotel owned by a Nigerian, on the outskirts of Yaba.

  “Did you get my last letter from England?”

  Joseph said yes. As soon as he had got it he had discussed it with the executive of the U.P.U., and it was agreed that he should be put up in proper fashion at a hotel. As if he read Obi’s thoughts, he said: “You know I have only one room.”

  “Nonsense,” said Obi. “I’m moving out of this filthy hotel tomorrow morning and coming into your place.”

  Joseph was amazed, but also very pleased. He tried to raise another objection, but it was clear his heart was not in it.

  “What will the people of other towns say when they hear that a son of Umuofia returned from England and shared a room in Obalende?”

  “Let them say what they like.”

  They ate in silence for a short while and then Obi said: “Our people have a long way to go.” At the same time as he was saying it Joseph was also beginning to say something, but he stopped.

  “Yes, you were saying something.”

  “I said that I believe in destiny.”

  “Do you? Why?”

  “You remember Mr. Anene, our class teacher, used to say that you would go to England. You were so small then with a running nose, and yet at the end of every term you were at the top of the class. You remember we used to call you ‘Dictionary’?”

  Obi was very much embarrassed because Joseph was talking at the top of his voice.

  “As a matter of fact, my nose still runs. They say it’s hay fever.”

  “And then,” said Joseph, “you wrote that letter to Hitler.”

  Obi laughed one of his rare loud laughs. “I wonder what came over me. I still think about it sometimes. What was Hitler to me or I to Hitler? I suppose I felt sorry for him. And I didn’t like going into the bush every day to pick palm-kernels as our ‘Win the War Effort.’ ” He suddenly became serious. “And when you come to think of it, it was quite immoral of the headmaster to tell little children every morning that for every palm-kernel they picked they were buying a nail for Hitler’s coffin.”

  They went back to the lounge from the dining room. Joseph was about to order more beer, but Obi stoutly refused.

  From where he sat Obi could see cars passing on Broad Street. A long De Soto pulled up exactly at the entrance and a young handsome man walked into the lounge. Everyone turned to look at him and faint sibilant sounds filled the room as each told his neighbor that it was the Minister of State.

  “That’s Hon Sam Okoli,” whispered Joseph. But Obi had suddenly become like one thunderstruck gazing at the De Soto in the half-darkness.

  The Honorable Sam Okoli was one of the most popular politicians in Lagos and in Eastern Nigeria where his constituency was. The newspapers called him the best-dressed gentleman in Lagos and the most eligible bachelor. Although he was definitely over thirty, he always looked like a boy just out of school. He was tall and athletic with a flashing smile for all. He walked across to the bar and paid for a tin of Churchman’s. All the while Obi’s gaze was fixed on the road outside where Clara lounged in the De Soto. He had only caught a lightning glimpse of her. Perhaps it wasn’t her at all. The Minister went back to the car, and as he opened the door the pale interior light again bathed the plush cushions. There was no doubt about it now. It was Clara.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. I know that girl, that’s all.”

  “In England?”

  Obi nodded.

  “Good old Sam! He doesn’t spare them.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Obi’s theory that the public service of Nigeria would remain corrupt until the old Africans at the top were replaced by young men from the universities was first formulated in a paper read to the Nigerian Students’ Union in London. But unlike most theories formed by students in London, this one survived the first impact of home-coming. In fact, within a month of his return Obi came across two classic examples of his old African.

  He met the first one at the Public Service Commission, where he was boarded for a job. Fortunately for Obi, he had already created a favorable impression on the board before this man made him lose his temper.

  It happened that the Chairman of the Commission, a fat jolly Englishman, was very keen on modern poetry and the modern novel, and enjoyed talking about them. The other four members—one European and three Africans—not knowing anything about that side of life, were duly impressed. Or perhaps we should say in strict accuracy that three of them were duly impressed because the fourth was asleep throughout the interview, which on the surface might appear to be quite unimportant had not this gentleman been the sole representative of one of the three regions of Nigeria. (In the interests of Nigerian unity the region shall remain nameless.)

  The Chairman’s conversation with Obi ranged from Graham Greene to Tutuola and took the greater part of half an hour. Obi said afterwards that he talked a lot of nonsense, but it was a learned and impressive kind of nonsense. He surprised even himself when he began to flow.

  “You say you’re a great admirer of Graham Greene. What do you think of The Heart of the Matter?”

  “The only sensible novel any European has written on West Africa and one of the best novels I have read.” Obi paused, and then added almost as an afterthought: “Only it was nearly ruined by the happy ending.”

  The Chairman sat up in his chair.

  “Happy ending? Are you sure it’s The Heart of the Matter you’re thinking about? The European police officer commits suicide.”

  “Perhaps happy ending is too strong, but there is no other way I can put it. The police officer is
torn between his love of a woman and his love of God, and he commits suicide. It’s much too simple. Tragedy isn’t like that at all. I remember an old man in my village, a Christian convert, who suffered one calamity after another. He said life was like a bowl of wormwood which one sips a little at a time world without end. He understood the nature of tragedy.”

  “You think that suicide ruins a tragedy,” said the Chairman.

  “Yes. Real tragedy is never resolved. It goes on hopelessly forever. Conventional tragedy is too easy. The hero dies and we feel a purging of the emotions. A real tragedy takes place in a corner, in an untidy spot, to quote W. H. Auden. The rest of the world is unaware of it. Like that man in A Handful of Dust who reads Dickens to Mr. Todd. There is no release for him. When the story ends he is still reading. There is no purging of the emotions for us because we are not there.”

  “That’s most interesting,” said the Chairman. Then he looked round the table and asked the other members if they had any questions for Mr. Okonkwo. They all said no, except the man who had been sleeping.

  “Why do you want a job in the civil service? So that you can take bribes?” he asked.

  Obi hesitated. His first impulse was to say it was an idiotic question. He said instead: “I don’t know how you expect me to answer that question. Even if my reason is to take bribes, you don’t expect me to admit it before this board. So I don’t think it’s a very useful question.”

  “It’s not for you to decide what questions are useful, Mr. Okonkwo,” said the Chairman, trying unsuccessfully to look severe. “Anyhow, you’ll be hearing from us in due course. Good morning.”

  Joseph was not very happy when Obi told him the story of the interview. His opinion was that a man in need of a job could not afford to be angry.

  “Nonsense!” said Obi. “That’s what I call colonial mentality.”

  “Call it what you like,” said Joseph in Ibo. “You know more book than I, but I am older and wiser. And I can tell you that a man does not challenge his chi to a wrestling match.”

  Joseph’s houseboy, Mark, brought in rice and stew and they immediately fell to. He then went across the street to a shop where iced water was sold at a penny a bottle and brought them two bottles, carrying all the way and back a smudge of soot at the tip of his nose. His eyes were a little red and watery from blowing the fire with his breath.

  “You know you have changed a good deal in four years,” Obi remarked after they had been eating for a while in silence. “Then you had two interests—politics and women.”

  Joseph smiled. “You don’t do politics on an empty stomach.”

  “Agreed,” said Obi jovially. “What about women? I have been two days here now and I haven’t seen one yet.”

  “Didn’t I tell you I was getting married?”

  “So what?”

  “When you have paid a hundred and thirty pounds bride-price and you are only a second-class clerk, you find you haven’t got any more to spare on other women.”

  “You mean you paid a hundred and thirty? What about the bride-price law?”

  “It pushed up the price, that’s all.”

  “It’s a pity my three elder sisters got married too early for us to make money on them. We’ll try and make up on the others.”

  “It’s no laughing matter,” said Joseph. “Wait until you want to marry. They will probably ask you to pay five hundred, seeing that you are in the senior service.”

  “I’m not in the senior service. You have just been telling me that I won’t get the job because I told that idiot what I thought of him. Anyway, senior service or no senior service, I’m not paying five hundred pounds for a wife. I shall not even pay one hundred, not even fifty.”

  “You are not serious,” said Joseph. “Unless you are going to be a Reverend Father.”

  While he waited for the result of his interview, Obi paid a short visit to Umuofia, his home town, five hundred miles away in the Eastern Region. The journey itself was not very exciting. He boarded a mammy wagon called God’s Case No Appeal and traveled first class; which meant that he shared the front seat with the driver and a young woman with her baby. The back seats were taken up by traders who traveled regularly between Lagos and the famous Onitsha market on the bank of the Niger. The lorry was so heavily laden that the traders had no room to hang their legs down. They sat with their feet on the same level as their buttocks, their knees drawn up to their chins like roast chickens. But they did not seem to mind. They beguiled themselves with gay and bawdy songs addressed mostly to young women who had become nurses or teachers instead of mothers.

  The driver of the lorry was a very quiet man. He was either eating kola nuts or smoking cigarettes. The kola was to keep him awake at night because the journey began in the late afternoon, took all night, and ended in the early morning. From time to time he asked Obi to strike a match and light his cigarette for him. Actually it was Obi who offered to do it in the first instance. He had been alarmed to see the man controlling the wheel with his elbows while he fumbled for a match.

  Some forty miles or so beyond Ibadan the driver suddenly said: “Dees b— f— police!” Obi noticed two policemen by the side of the road about three hundred yards away, signaling the lorry to a stop.

  “Your particulars?” said one of them to the driver. It was at this point that Obi noticed that the seat they sat on was also a kind of safe for keeping money and valuable documents. The driver asked his passengers to get up. He unlocked the box and brought out a sheaf of papers. The policeman looked at them critically. “Where your roadworthiness?” The driver showed him his certificate of roadworthiness.

  Meanwhile the driver’s mate was approaching the other policeman. But just as he was about to hand something over to him Obi looked in their direction. The policeman was not prepared to take a risk; for all he knew Obi might be a C.I.D. man. So he drove the driver’s mate away with great moral indignation. “What you want here? Go away!” Meanwhile the other policeman had found fault with the driver’s papers and was taking down his particulars, the driver pleading and begging in vain. Finally he drove away, or so it appeared. About a quarter of a mile farther up the road he stopped.

  “Why you look the man for face when we want give um him two shillings?” he asked Obi.

  “Because he has no right to take two shillings from you,” Obi answered.

  “Na him make I no de want carry you book people,” he complained. “Too too know na him de worry una. Why you put your nose for matter way no concern you? Now that policeman go charge me like ten shillings.”

  It was only some minutes later that Obi realized why they had stopped. The driver’s mate had run back to the policemen, knowing that they would be more amenable when there were no embarrassing strangers gazing at them. The man soon returned panting from much running.

  “How much they take?” asked the driver.

  “Ten shillings,” gasped his assistant.

  “You see now,” he said to Obi, who was already beginning to feel a little guilty, especially as all the traders behind, having learnt what was happening, had switched their attacks from career girls to “too know” young men. For the rest of the journey the driver said not a word more to him.

  “What an Augean stable!” he muttered to himself. “Where does one begin? With the masses? Educate the masses?” He shook his head. “Not a chance there. It would take centuries. A handful of men at the top. Or even one man with vision—an enlightened dictator. People are scared of the word nowadays. But what kind of democracy can exist side by side with so much corruption and ignorance? Perhaps a halfway house—a sort of compromise.” When Obi’s reasoning reached this point he reminded himself that England had been as corrupt not so very long ago. He was not really in the mood for consecutive reasoning. His mind was impatient to roam in a more pleasant landscape.

  The young woman sitting on his left was now asleep, clasping her baby tightly to her breast. She was going to Benin. That was all he knew about her. She hardly
spoke a word of English and he did not speak Bini. He shut his eyes and imagined her to be Clara; their knees were touching. It did not work.

  Why did Clara insist that he must not tell his people about her yet? Could it be that she had not quite made up her mind to marry him? That could hardly be. She was as anxious as himself to be formally engaged, only she said he should not go to the expense of buying a ring until he had got a job. Perhaps she wanted to tell her people first. But if so, why all the mystery? Why had she not simply said that she was going to consult her people? Or maybe she was not as guileless as he had assumed and was using this suspense to bind him more strongly to her. Obi examined each possibility in turn and rejected it.

  As the night advanced the rushing air became at first cool and refreshing and then chilly. The driver pulled out a dirty brown cloth cap from the mass of rags on which he sat and covered his head with it. The young Benin woman retied her headcloth to cover her ears. Obi had an old sports jacket which he had bought in his first year in England. He had used it until now to soften the wooden backrest. He threw it over his back and shoulders. But his feet and legs were now the only really comfortable parts of him. The heat of the engine, which had been a little uncomfortable before, had now been mellowed down by the chilly air until it gently caressed the feet and legs.

  Obi was beginning to feel sleepy and his thoughts turned more and more on the erotic. He said words in his mind that he could not say out aloud even when he was alone. Strangely enough, all the words were in his mother tongue. He could say any English word, no matter how dirty, but some Ibo words simply would not proceed from his mouth. It was no doubt his early training that operated this censorship, English words filtering through because they were learnt later in life.

  Obi continued in his state of half-asleep until the driver suddenly pulled up by the side of the road, rubbed his eyes, and announced that he had caught himself sleeping once or twice. Everyone was naturally concerned about it and tried to be helpful.

  “You no get kola nut for eat?” asked one of the traders from the back.