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After the singing the interpreter spoke about the Son of God whose name was Jesu Kristi. Okonkwo, who only stayed in the hope that it might come to chasing the men out of the village or whipping them, now said:
'You told us with your own mouth that there was only one god. Now you talk about his son. He must have a wife, then.' Th e crowd agreed.
'1 did not say He had a wife,' said the interpreter, somewhat lamely.
'Your buttocks said he had a son,' said the joker. 'So he must have a wife and all of them must have buttocks.'
The missionary ignored him and went on to talk about the Holy Trinity. At the end of it Okonkwo was fully convinced that the man was mad. He shrugged / his shoulders and went away to tap his afternoon palm-wine.
But there was a young lad who had been captivated. His name was Nwoye, Okonkwo's first son. It was not the ma d logic of the Trinity that captivated him. He did not understand it. It was the poetry of the new religion, something felt in the marrow. The hymn about brothers who sat in darkness and in fear seemed to answer a vague and persistent question that haunted his young soul?the question of the twins crying in the bush and the question of Ikemefuna who was killed. He felt a relief within as the hymn poured into his parched soul. Th e words of the hym n were like the drops of frozen rain melting on the dry palate of the panting earth. Nwoye's callow mind was greatly puzzled.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Th e missionaries spent their first four or five nights in the market-place,
and went into the village in the morning to preach the gospel. They asked who
the king of the village was, but the villagers told them that there was no king.
'We have men of high title and the chief priests and the elders,' they said.
It was not very easy getting the me n of high title and the elders together after the excitement of the first day. But the missionaries persevered, and in the end they were received by the rulers of Mbanta. They asked for a plot of land to build their church.
Every clan and village had its 'evil forest'. In it were buried all those who
died of the really evil diseases, like leprosy and smallpox. It was also the dump
ing ground for the potent fetishes of great medicine-men when they died. An
'evil forest' was, therefore, alive with sinister forces and powers of darkness.
It was such a forest that the rulers of Mbanta gave to the missionaries. They
did not really want them in their clan, and so they made them that offer which
nobody in his right senses would accept.
'They want a piece of land to build their shrine,' said Uchendu to his peers
when they consulted among themselves. 'We shall give them a piece of land.'
He paused, and there was a murmu r of surprise and disagreement. 'Let us
give them a portion of the Evil Forest. They boast about victory over death.
Let us give them a real battlefield in which to show their victory.' They laughed
and agreed, and sent for the missionaries, whom they had asked to leave them
for a while so that they might 'whisper together'. They offered them as much
of the Evil Forest as they cared to take. An d to their greatest amazement the
missionaries thanked them and burst into song.
'They do not understand,' said some of the elders. 'But they will understand
when they go to their plot of land tomorrow morning.' And they dispersed.
Th e next morning the crazy me n actually began to clear a part of the forest
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2686 / CHINUA ACHEBE
and to build their house. The inhabitants of Mbanta expected them all to be dead within four days. Th e first day passed and the second and third and fourth, and none of them died. Everyone was puzzled. An d then it became known that the white man's fetish had unbelievable power. It was said that he wore glasses on his eyes so that he could see and talk to evil spirits. Not long after, he won his first three converts.
Although Nwoye had been attracted to the new faith from the very first day, he kept it secret. He dared not go too near the missionaries for fear of his father. But whenever they came, to preach in the open market-place or the village playground, Nwoye was there. And he was already beginning to know some of the simple stories they told.
'We have now built a church,' said Mr Kiaga, the interpreter, who was now in charge of the infant congregation. The white man had gone back to Umuofia, where he built his headquarters and from where he paid regular visits to Mr Kiaga's congregation at Mbanta.
'We have now built a church,' said Mr Kiaga, 'and we want you all to come in every seventh day to worship the true God.'
