every other Afo day and, as you know, the whole clan gathers there. That was
6. Bicycle.
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268 2 / CHINUA ACHEBE
the day it happened. The three white men and a very large number of other men surrounded the market. They must have used a powerful medicine to make themselves invisible until the market was full. An d they began to shoot. Everybody was killed, except the old and the sick who were at home and a handful of men and women whose chi were wide awake and brought them out of that market.'7 He paused.
'Their clan is now completely empty. Even the sacred fish in their mysterious lake have fled and the lake has turned the colour of blood. A great evil has come upon their land as the Oracle had warned.'
There was a long silence. Uchendu ground his teeth together audibly. Then he burst out:
'Never kill a man who says nothing. Those men of Abame were fools. What did they know about the man?' He ground his teeth again and told a story to illustrate his point. 'Mother Kite once sent her daughter to bring food. She went, and brought back a duckling. 'You have done very well,' said Mother Kite to her daughter, 'but tell me, what did the mother of this duckling say when you swooped and carried its child away?' 'It said nothing,' replied the young kite. 'It just walked away.' 'You must return the duckling,' said Mother Kite. 'There is something ominous behind the silence.' An d so Daughter Kite returned the duckling and took a chick instead. 'What did the mother of this chick do?' asked the old kite. 'It cried and raved and cursed me,' said the young kite. 'Then we can eat the chick,' said her mother. 'There is nothing to fear from someone who shouts.' Those men of Abame were fools.'
'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 matchets 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 cock-crow,' said Obierika.
'But Nweke did not appear until it was quite light. Never make an early morn
ing appointment with a man who has just married a new wife.' They all
laughed.
7. Achebe bases his account on a similar incident in 1905 when British troops massacred the town of Ahiara in reprisal for the death of a missionary.
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TH INGS FALL APART, PART 3 / 268 3
'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.' Whe n 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. Wh o 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
Whe n 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
