Mgbeke, nicknamed ‘the little old woman’ by disrespectful urchins, brooded in her small, round mud hut built on the outskirts of Awuka village. As in other huts in the village, two narrow mud platforms which served as beds were built against the side walls and took up most of the floor space. Between them, in the centre of the hut, burned a smoky wood fire. Two small stools were the only furniture and a few pots, earthenware bowls, and an old hand mirror with a beautifully carved handle were the only ornaments on the bright red walls.
There was just one small wooden door and it led to the backyard, a meagre semi-circular area fenced in with matting. In order to pass through this door, Mgbeke had to bend double even though she was not more than five foot tall.
It was already past midnight and the wedge-shaped village lay quiet and seemingly deserted. Even the lean, dirty dogs, which outnumbered the inhabitants, were silent, cowed perhaps by the sultry dark night. From the edge of the surrounding forest came the only sound – the weird hooting of an owl.
Presently Mgbeke yawned, showing teeth yellowed with age, and murmured in a cracked voice: ‘My son, my son, what is holding you back? I’ve already appeased Ajala whom you wronged and driven away the selfish spirits who would have taken your place. The way is now open … do you hear? Open … open!’ This last she said in a high quivering tone.
Nothing happened.
The palm-husk candle still bathed the room with its ghostly yellow light, accentuating, rather than lighting, the circular patch of darkness round the base of its crude candlestick. The silence piled higher, weighing even more heavily on the night. And the gentle wind blew ever so quietly, refusing to change lest Mgbeke interpret that as a reply from her son – her son who had been dead these four months.
The strain of sitting up made Mgbeke relax into her former slumped posture. She snuffed the candle with a bony, heavily veined hand and sprinkled some salt on it. The attendant momentary flare lit up her haggard features, revealing the skin drawn tightly over the bones of her small face like that of a drum. She had not slept for three nights running, and her small eyes were enfolded in tired wrinkles, her thin-lipped wide mouth drawn and her whole attitude a picture of weariness.
She wore round her waist a faded red lappa which smelt of wood smoke and her bare chest was like badly smoked leather. Like most priestesses when trying to glean some information from their gods, she had daubed her forehead, cheeks and chin with white chalk and camwood.
‘How long shall I keep this vigil, Ajala? Oh, how long!’ she declaimed as she restoked her fire. Then, her chin on her hands, she ran through the events that led to her dilemma, as she had done so many times.
There he had stood, a huge, broad-shouldered and beautiful specimen of well-developed manhood of whom any mother would be proud. On his well-shaped, full lips was his father’s peculiar lopsided smile.
‘They say you want me, Mother.’ His voice sounded like nne okom, the mother of drums, and the setting golden sun made his bare, dark body glow faintly.
Mgbeke had sighed and wished she had not sent for him. But what could she do? She was the priestess of Ajala and had to obey the goddess’s commands.
‘Yes, Nwankwo, won’t you come in?’
He stooped, entered and sat on the other mud platform covered with a mat, literally exuding youth, strength and well-being. He was only twenty-two years old.
‘Sorry I couldn’t come earlier. I had to cut down palm fruits for my wife and …’
‘I know, I know, it doesn’t matter.’ Mgbeke had an unpleasant duty to perform and wished to get it over and done with. Already she could see Nwankwo’s heavy, expressive face taking on the sullen, proud and impatient look she knew so well. That look had made his father disliked by most people. People rarely think well of anyone who regards them as fools.
‘Now what is it, Mother? Surely you didn’t send for me just to stare at me,’ exclaimed Nwankwo. ‘Or has your goddess spoken to you again?’ he added with a mocking smile.
‘Yes,’ Mgbeke cried angrily. It often annoyed her when Nwankwo made a joke of mysteries he didn’t know and couldn’t understand. ‘Yes, Nwankwo, Ajala has spoken through poor me, as she often does, to sinners like you. You’ve offended her seriously this time and you are fined a she-goat, a hen and seven stout yams. You must bring them to me in eight days’ time!’
‘And if I don’t?’ said Nwankwo, laughter lurking in the background of his voice.
Mgbeke looked away to hide the tears smarting her eyes. She had been warned of this! Pride, ignorance and blindness! She felt like beating this strapping son of hers till he learnt to take matters of life and death seriously. If it had been another man, she would have answered the question immediately. But this was her son, her only son for that matter. How could she … no, she could not. But then he would never believe if she did not. She would give him the answer, after all she had brought him up properly. He would not scoff at it.
‘If you don’t,’ Mgbeke said slowly, ‘you’ll die!’
Nwankwo burst into great laughter.
‘You expect me to believe that, Mother?’ he gasped. ‘What a fool you take me for! Don’t you know, Mother, the days of the gods are past? No sensible man believes in them these days. They’re all rubbish. Even the heathens have turned away from them. Now, tell me one thing, Mother, how many times has your goddess answered your prayers? None? There you are! And you expect me to spend my hard-earned money on a wooden image? Not on your sweet life, dear Mother. Tell your goddess I defy her … but what are you doing, Mother! Mother! Mother! Get up please … Mother … Mother!’
But Mgbeke continued to kneel in front of her son, her hands clasped in an attitude of supplication.
‘… Mother Earth, Ajala the great mother,’ she muttered fervently, ‘forgive him, forgive him in his ignorance! Don’t, oh, don’t strike him yet … Ajala … Ajala … Ajala!’
Nwankwo kept staring as his mother rose slowly and resumed her seat. From somewhere in the village, dogs barked and goats bleated. But the tense silence in the little round hut could have cut through the back of a tortoise.
‘Mother,’ Nwankwo asked in a subdued tone, ‘what was that you just did? You know you frightened me!’
‘Did I? I thought you were too strong to be frightened. What’s the use of ridiculing something you don’t know, Nwankwo? Why throw a challenge to a power that existed even before your great-great-grandfathers? Do you think you’re tougher and wiser than they who bowed to her rule? And …’
‘But Mother, I never …’
‘Quiet, let me finish! You’re not even a Christian. If you had been then you’d have had an excuse. But you believe in nothing. Nwankwo, a man must believe in something and must have a power to call upon! Which have you? None, none! Now, listen. Perhaps you don’t know what Ajala means. From the day of your birth to your death you’ll not escape the earth. If you fly, you’ll come back to her. If your head touches the clouds, your feet will remain on her. When you die you return to her! And you sit there and laugh at what was, is and will always be, puny mortal like you! You challenge a power that owns you, sustains you, and will take care of you when your days here are over!’
‘That was in the old days,’ Nwankwo said quickly so as not to be silenced again. ‘Old things have changed, Mother. They are giving way to new. The things we dreamed of are now realities.’
Mgbeke stared at her son, amazed. Where had he learnt such devilish reasoning? Then she said thoughtfully: ‘So that’s why you sin unrestrained? Of course, you no longer have a visible controller! Well, my son, just remember that old natural laws never change. The earth has never changed. The winds still continue to blow, the rains to fall, and men to be born and die. Only little things that don’t matter change. Don’t say because things change you’ll stop believing in God and believe in the devil. I tell you the greatest punishment that can be meted out to a man is the knowledge that when he is dead he’ll be forgotten like a fowl. What then is the use of keeping to the strict and narrow path of goodness? Therefore, beware! If you continue to offend Ajala you will not be born again but will remain in the shades forever.’
‘But Mother,’ cried Nwankwo, ‘what have I done to annoy Ajala?’ His mother’s impassioned talk had made him less sure of himself. He was beginning to be afraid.
Mgbeke looked at him for some time and then said, ‘You want me to recount the sins you committed in the past few days? All right. Six days ago, you stole Okafor’s palm fruits! Four days ago you killed and sold two animals from Ajala’s forest. For some days now, you and your friends have been looking for ways to get your uncle sacked from the police force, because you say he’s very proud. And you’re the proudest man I’ve ever known! Just recently you have tried to spoil a young girl …’
‘How on earth did you know all these things, Mother?’
‘Never mind how I knew. Perhaps now you’ll bring those things.’
‘I will, Mother, I will,’ Nwankwo said, getting up hastily. He was thoroughly frightened now and, to his horror, he really had no stronger power to call upon. He had never fully realized the uncanny powers his mother had, because he always looked upon her as a crank. And this Ajala! It was no longer an image, but something more tangible, something he walked on, slept on and ate by.
As he walked home what his mother had said to him years ago seemingly whispered in his ears again: ‘My son, Ajala was made by God. It’s because she is nearer to us that we use her as our mediatrix. We don’t worship her; we pray through her.’
The days rolled slowly by, and as it became obvious that Nwankwo would bring the sacrifices too late, if at all, Mgbeke had the greatest battle with her mother’s instinct. Was she to sacrifice her own goat, hen and yams and so save her son from death, or let him die and be reborn quickly, his sins washed away by his death? It was a tough decision for a doting mother to make. She loved her son dearly and had brought him up with care, but he had got out of hand as soon as his father died. Once, in her annoyance, she had nearly cursed him, and now she was to choose between his living in sin and his death.
Anyway, she had a power to call on, and to her she went. She fasted three days, keeping vigil for the same number of nights, then like a ray of sunshine came the decision.
She would let him die!
In the evening of the ninth day, Nwankwo brought a sickly looking goat, a little hen, and seven yams. It was a market day and he had been drinking all afternoon and was in high spirits. Furthermore, his friends had convinced him it didn’t matter when he sent in the sacrifices since his mother was the priestess.
‘Mother,’ he said breezily as he sat down on the mud bed. ‘I’ve brought the things you asked for.’
Mgbeke said nothing, but fixed him with a stony stare, the kind a snake uses in hypnotizing its prey before the strike. It had a sobering effect on Nwankwo.
‘Mother, didn’t you hear me? I’ve brought the goat, hen and yams. Don’t you want them anymore? Why do you continue to look at me like that? I haven’t done anything wrong again, have I? Answer me, speak to me, Mother!’
But the woman to whom he spoke was no longer his mother, but the priestess of Ajala. She had hardened her heart against his cries. As far as she was concerned, he was dead.
Suddenly, Nwankwo’s nerve gave way. He blubbered like what he was, a young man unsure of himself.
‘Mother. Mother, why do you look at me as if I’m a ghost? All right, I’m a day late. But I couldn’t help it. I had no money to buy a goat. I had so much work to do I couldn’t go to the market earlier. Please, Mother, speak to me. I’m your son, you know, your only son, the son you loved so much. I’m sorry, Mother, it won’t happen again …’
But slowly and inexorably, Mgbeke turned her back on him and faced the wall. The quick do not talk with the dead.
Three days later Nwankwo fell from a tall palm tree and died. And the surprising thing was, he had used an old worn-out rope in preference to his new one! Everyone in Awuka mourned him except his mother.
And so, four months later Mgbeke brooded and waited for the call that would tell her she had chosen the right way out of her dilemma. Presently she roused herself as she fancied she heard footsteps. She was mistaken.
She snuffed her candle and went to the backyard to wash her face. She was getting tired of the long wait. Coming back to her room she was startled to find two men standing at the door. Without their saying one word she knew why they had come.
‘Obi’s son is dying,’ said one of the men.
Mgbeke picked up her candle and went with them. They soon came to a large house in the centre of the village and in one of the rooms lay a sick child on a mat-covered mud bed. Two women watched over it with sorrowful faces.
Mgbeke looked at the child and asked, ‘Have you found out yet who he was in the other world?’
‘No,’ said Obi. ‘He’s only three months old.’
‘You should have done it when he was a month old. The dead person wants to be recognized. Get me a white kolanut.’
Before long she was performing the intricate rites for determining who had been born again. The two men and two women watched silently. From the roof top of one of the houses, the first cock crew.
Suddenly Mgbeke jumped up with a cry of joy and, before the men could stop her, danced out of the room laughing and singing, ‘Nwankwo has come back! Nwankwo has come back! Nwankwo is …’
And, as her mad song died away in the distance, the child who had made no noise for the past twenty-four hours began to cry.