HOW SMALL JOY IS. I HAVE WAITED FOR THIS MOMENT, promising myself that the whole village will know if I pass JAMB, even if it means climbing to the top of Ugwu Asho Mountian and screaming it to the world. But everything I have planned—the wild celebration, the drinking spree, the ironed shirt, the chest-puffed-out-and-head-held-high stride—has faded into the smallness of pure joy.
It still surprises me how calmly I am taking my success. I score 230 marks in my JAMB and am offered admission by the University of Nigeria to study sociology and anthropology. It is as if my family has at last won a prize after many years of losses. My mother sings praises insisting that the God-of-Selected has done it for her, saying it in such a way that I wonder if the God-of-Selected is the same God all the other Christians worship at different churches. My father stirs like a wet fowl driven to the far corner of the wall with cold, but rising and shaking its feathers to the first stirrings of warmth from the fire tripod. He offers a libation to the gods in the secrecy of his room.
“But how will the family raise the money to train you in the university?” Machebe broaches the subject everyone seems to have been avoiding.
“I have saved some money, and I intend to keep my job as a cybercafé assistant on a part-time basis,” I explain.
He nods.
The days following are busy, and I spend them shuttling between home and the university to pay my acceptance fee and familiarize myself with the campus. I have been there only once or twice since we used to trek out to fetch water and wash students’ laundry as children. It radiates an aura of learning that intimidates me.
I go for a haircut at Aaron’s barbering salon, which is veiled by a thin muslin curtain, before my departure to school. Aaron is the only barber in the village, which is probably why he doesn’t care that his salon is dirty and dusty. A cracked mirror is screwed to the uneven plank wall. I have to sit on a rusty-backed chair and stare at a woolly pile of hair flaking with dandruff in a corner of the salon, hair begging to be disposed of, as Aaron works on me with gloved hands.
“We heard you are going to the university,” he says.
He is a shabby man with narrow features, in an apron over a faded shirt. He has long black fingers he covers with dirty gloves. As he works, he nods his egg-shaped head to the scratchy tune playing from squat old speakers, music that seems to be quarreling with his screaming power generator.
“I am going to study sociology and anthropology.”
“What’s that?”
“I will be learning about culture and social structures.”
He shrugs. “I will give you a smart haircut. Don’t bother about the pay. It is my own little way of supporting you. You are going to be our first university graduate.”
I thank him and shut my eyes to the caresses of his long gloved fingers, and as he rubs spirit into my scalp after cutting my hair, the evanescent spirit with an intensely cooling effect that tickles, reaching deep in my soul to soothe my troubled past and explore happier beginnings.
“Mind your book. Don’t join cult boys” is his parting gift as I walk away from his salon.
On the day I finally leave for school, my mother bathes the parting with tears. “Be a good boy. Don’t go there and join cult boys,” she says in the same tone as the barber. “Remember where you are coming from. Mind your books. If you run out of food, come home; at least we will have something for you to eat.”
My father’s wrinkled face is blank. He seems to have done what is required of him—handing my future over to Ezenwanyi—and now he has no words to waste.
“Be careful.” Machebe’s hug feels obligatory. In his eyes I see a wavering light, a mix of envy and doubt, as I set off with my bag.
The green-and-ash gates, bearing the words UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA, usher me in. The campus is serene, shadowed by overhanging branches of tall trees standing in regiments, the roads stained with their purple-blue-yellow blossoms. Students weave forth and back, shimmering like thick populations of winged termites. Some sit in quiet corners with heads buried in books in their laps; others lounge under shadows in couples, glued together like swans, hands and tongues exploring every crevice. Water fountains spurt into the skies as though determined to cleanse the air of moral pollution.
The early days are full of the young and enthusiastic faces of the first-years, like mine, with eagerness in their strides. But rushing to classes in the hot sun and being crushed wall-to-wall during long lectures will wither their confidence, half deflating it like a balloon. Now I can look back and see the reason for Nwodo’s outbursts. Life is not easy with students packed like sardines in hostel rooms, high tuition fees to pay, and costly books to buy.
Even now that I am finally poised to become the first university graduate from my village, I continue to feel held back. Sometimes I have nothing to eat for days on end. I still see Chikelue, who occasionally helps me with money, but this all stops when his National Youth Service ends and the time comes for him to return to his family in Lagos. I wish he’d extend his stay. He writes long and generous responses to the pieces of writing I share with him, making me feel less small, and making my future feel bright.