'It means you are going to cry,' said her mother.
'No,' Ezinma said, 'it is this eyelid, the top one.'
'That means you will see something.'
'What will I see?' she asked.
'How can I know?' Ekwefi wanted her to work it out herself.
'Oho,' said Ezinma at last. 'I know what it is?the wrestling match.'
At last the hen was plucked clean. Ekwefi tried to pull out the horny beak but it was too hard. She turned round on her low stool and put the beak in the fire for a few moments. She pulled again and it came off. 'Ekwefi!' a voice called from one of the other huts. It was Nwoye's mother, Okonkwo's first wife.
'Is that me?' Ekwefi called back. That was the way people answered calls from outside. They never answered yes for fear it might be an evil spirit calling. 'Will you give Ezinma some fire to bring to me?' Her own children and
Ikemefuna had gone to the stream. Ekwefi put a few live coals into a piece of broken pot and Ezinma carried it across the clean-swept compound to Nwoye's mother. 'Thank you, Nma,' she said. She was peeling new yams, and in a basket beside her were green vegetables and beans.
'Let me make the fire for you,' Ezinma offered.
'Thank you, Ezigbo,' she said. She often called her Ezigbo, which means 'the good one.'
Ezinma went outside and brought some sticks from a huge bundle of firewood. She broke them into little pieces across the sole of her foot and began to build a fire, blowing it with her breath.
'You will blow your eyes out,' said Nwoye's mother, looking up from the yams she was peeling. 'Use the fan.' She stood up and pulled out the fan which was fastened into one of the rafters. As soon as she got up, the troublesome nanny-goat, which had been dutifully eating yam peelings, dug her teeth into the real thing, scooped out two mouthfuls and fled from the hut to chew the cud in the goats' shed. Nwoye's mother swore at her and settled down again to her peeling. Ezinma's fire was now sending up thick clouds of smoke. She went on fanning it until it burst into flames. Nwoye's mother thanked her and she went back to her mother's hut.
Just then the distant beating of drums began to reach them. It came from the direction of the ilo, the village playground. Every village had its own ilo which was as old as the village itself and where all the great ceremonies and dances took place. The drums beat the unmistakable wrestling dance?quick, light and gay, and it came floating on the wind.
Okonkwo cleared his throat and moved his feet to the beat of the drums. It
filled him with fire as it had always done from his youth. He trembled with
the desire to conquer and subdue. It was like the desire for woman.
'We shall be late for the wrestling,' said Ezinma to her mother.
'They will not begin until the sun goes down.'
'But they are beating the drums.'
'Yes. The drums begin at noon but the wrestling waits until the sun begins
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264 2 / CHINUA ACHEBE
to sink. Go and see if your father has brought out yams for the afternoon.'
'He has. Nwoye's mother is already cooking.'
'Go and bring our own, then. We must cook quickly or we shall be late for the wrestling.'
Ezinma ran in the direction of the barn and brought back two yams from the dwarf wall.
Ekwefi peeled the yams quickly. The troublesome nanny-goat sniffed about, eating the peelings. She cut the yams into small pieces and began to prepare a pottage, using some of the chicken.
At that moment they heard someone crying just outside their compound. It was very much like Obiageli,' Nwoye's sister.
'Is that not Obiageli weeping?' Ekwefi called across the yard to Nwoye's mother.
'Yes,' she replied. 'She must have broken her water-pot.'
The weeping was now quite close and soon the children filed in, carrying on their heads various sizes of pots suitable to their years. Ikemefuna came first with the biggest pot, closely followed by Nwoye and his two younger brothers. Obiageli brought up the rear, her face streaming with tears. In her hand was the cloth pad on which the pot should have rested on her head.
'What happened?' her mother asked, and Obiageli told her mournful story. Her mother consoled her and promised to buy her another pot.
Nwoye's younger brothers were about to tell their mother the true story of the accident when Ikemefuna looked at them sternly and they held their peace. The fact was that Obiageli had been making inyanga2 with her pot. She had balanced it on her head, folded her arms in front of her and began to sway her waist like a grown-up young lady. When the pot fell down and broke she burst out laughing. She only began to weep when they got near the iroko tree outside their compound.
The drums were still beating, persistent and unchanging. Their sound was no longer a separate thing from the living village. It was like the pulsation of its heart. It throbbed in the air, in the sunshine, and even in the trees, and filled the village with excitement.
Ekwefi ladled her husband's share of the pottage into a bowl and covered it. Ezinma took it to him in his
