Okonkwo's mind. But he had long learnt how to lay that ghost. Whenever the thought of his father's weakness and failure troubled him he expelled it by thinking about his own strength and success. And so he did now. His mind went to his latest show of manliness.
'I cannot understand why you refused to come with us to kill that boy,' he asked Obierika. 'Because I did not want to,' Obierika replied sharply. 'I had something better to do.' 'You sound as if you question the authority and the decision of the Oracle, who said he should die.' 'I do not. Why should I? But the Oracle did not ask me to carry out its decision.' 'But someone had to do it. If we were all afraid of blood, it would not be done. And what do you think the Oracle would do then?'
'You know very well, Okonkwo, that I am not afraid of blood; and if anyone tells you that I am, he is telling a lie. And let me tell you one thing, my friend. If I were you I would have stayed at home. What you have done will not please the Earth. It is the kind of action for which the goddess wipes out whole families.'
'The Earth cannot punish me for obeying her messenger,' Okonkwo said.
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2652 / CHINUA ACHEBE
'A child's fingers are not scalded by a piece of hot yam which its mother puts into its palm.'
'That is true,' Obierika agreed. 'But if the Oracle said that my son should be killed I would neither dispute it nor be the one to do it.'
They would have gone on arguing had Ofoedu1 not come in just then. It was clear from his twinkling eyes that he had important news. But it would be impolite to rush him. Obierika offered him a lobe of the kola nut he had broken with Okonkwo. Ofoedu ate slowly and talked about the locusts. When he finished his kola nut he said:
'The things that happen these days are very strange.'
'What has happened?' asked Okonkwo.
'Do you know Ogbuefi Ndulue?'2 Ofoedu asked.
'Ogbuefi Ndulue of Ire village,' Okonkwo and Obierika said together.
'He died this morning,' said Ofoedu.
'That is not strange. He was the oldest man in Ire,' said Obierika.
'You are right,' Ofoedu agreed. 'But you ought to ask why the drum has not been beaten to tell Umuofia of his death.' 'Why?' asked Obierika and Okonkwo together. 'That is the strange part of it. You know his first wife who walks with a stick?'
'Yes. She is called Ozoemena.'3
'That is so,' said Ofoedu. 'Ozoemena was, as you know, too old to attend Ndulue during his illness. His younger wives did that. When he died this morning, one of these women went to Ozoemena's hut and told her. She rose from her mat, took her stick and walked over to the obi. She knelt on her knees and hands at the threshold and called her husband, who was laid on a mat. 'Ogbuefi Ndulue,' she called, three times, and went back to her hut. When the youngest wife went to call her again to be present at the washing of the body, she found her lying on the mat, dead.'
'That is very strange indeed,' said Okonkwo. 'They will put off Ndulue's funeral until his wife has been buried.'4
'That is why the drum has not been beaten to tell Umuofia.'
'It was always said that Ndulue and Ozoemena had one mind,' said Obierika. 'I remember when I was a young boy there was a song about them. He could not do anything without telling her.' 'I did not know that,' said Okonkwo. 'I thought he was a strong man in his youth.'
'He was indeed,' said Ofoedu.
Okonkwo shook his head doubtfully.
'He led Umuofia to war in those days,' said Obierika.
Okonkwo was beginning to feel like his old self again. All that he required was something to occupy his mind. If he had killed Ikemefuna during the busy planting season or harvesting it would not have been so bad; his mind would have been centred on his work. Okonkwo was not a man of thought but of action. But in the absence of work, talking was the next best.
Soon after Ofoedu left, Okonkwo took up his goatskin bag to go.
'I must go home to tap my palm trees for the afternoon,' he said.
1. The ancestors are our guide. sometimes considered guilty of his death, so the 2. Life has arrived. village preserves appearances by burying Ozoe3. Another bad thing will not happen. mena before announcing Ogbuefi Ndulue's death. 4. A wife dying shortly after her husband was
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THINGS FALL APART, PART 1 / 265 3
'Who taps your tall trees for you?' asked Obierika.
'Umezulike,' replied Okonkwo.
'Sometimes I wish 1 had not taken the ozo title,' said Obierika. 'It wounds my heart to see these young men killing palm trees in the name of tapping.'
'It is so indeed,' Okonkwo agreed. 'But the law of the land must be obeyed.'
'I don't know how we got that law,' said Obierika. 'In many other clans a man of title is not forbidden to climb the palm tree. Here we say he cannot climb the tall tree but he can tap the short ones standing on the ground. It is like Dimaragana, who would not lend his knife for cutting up dog-meat because the dog was taboo to him, but offered to use his teeth.'
