Ike’s mother sat outside the house, a corn-filled basket between her legs. She stopped husking as he entered.
“What took you so long?” she asked. Her eyes animated her sweaty face. “I was about to send Alice to the pastor’s house with food for the two of you.”
“I left the man’s house a long time ago,” Ike said. “Mama, what do you know about this man you call pastor?”
She sat up. “He’s a holy man of God. And he’s going to bless you.”
“How about his past?”
“How about it?”
“Do you know he’s the grandson of a terrible robber?”
She sprang to her feet, clenched arms placed on her hip, a fighter’s posture. “Ikechukwu, who are you talking about?”
“Pastor Uka,” Ike said gruffly. “But Uka is not his real name.”
“My ears won’t hear your sick words.” She raised both hands and plugged her ears. She sat back down, her face an expression of pained bewilderment.
Ike waited until she removed her thumbs, humming a religious song.
“I heard things today about Uka.”
“Why are you listening to Satan that wants to deceive you?”
“I went to visit my uncle.”
She made a swift sweeping movement as if something had stung her. “Which uncle?” she asked, drawing up her legs as if about to rise once again to her feet.
“How many do I have?” He was unfazed, his temper shortened by gin, ready for a fight. He then spelled it out: “My only uncle. My father’s brother. Osuakwu.”
It was as if the very devil had materialized before her. In an instant her eyes flared, filled with ire. Her face scowled up, took on a shape of menace. The air was combustible. She released a deep, disgusted sigh and a grunt. Then she hunkered back down on her husking task. A vanquished foe, she’d skulked away from a duel.
Ike felt a fleeting pity. In his younger days, he’d lived in terror of her. Cross her and he—or his sister—courted flogging. Her instrument of flagellation was a cane so sturdy it lasted for years. She hurled rebukes as the cane crashed against the flexed muscle of the buttocks. She caned like one possessed, impervious to any pleas for mercy. There was no relenting until she was drenched in sweat, her victim’s buttocks on fire, raw with welts. Afterward, the beaten skin swelled so hideously that for the next few days sitting would be out of the question.
It was now years since she had last caned anybody. For all her indignation, he knew she dared not raise a hand to him. A perverse, fractured sympathy flowed out from him toward her, the sympathy of a man who still savored every bit of his victory. He was just sorry to see her wilt so easily, dominated by her child. She was a hurt, hampered lioness. His sympathy was that of a hunter taking aim at a lioness hobbled by age and injury, a cowering, feeble foe.
The gin had sickened him. Walking was as much of a chore as standing still; the ground shifted and played pranks with his unsteady feet. The world whirled about him, left him giddy. He’d taken care of his mother; he now craved a pillow on which to nestle his head.
Stepping into the house, he threw one last glance at his mother. She’d thrown her entire being into husking. He scuffed away to answer the call of his bed.
His body was lulled into a near-tranquilized state the moment he lowered himself, shoes and all, on the bed. He lay face down. Hanging on to a fading consciousness, he began to retrace the day’s events.
He replayed his encounter with Pastor Uka. As some of the episodes floated in and out of his mind, he summoned a smile.
On balance, he reckoned the day a success, if not something of a coup. The scare he’d felt moments before stepping into Osuakwu’s shrine—and the way he’d quivered as Osuakwu prayed over the kola nut—seemed now distant. Distant and uncalled for. If the statue of Ngene disappeared—when the deity disappeared—Osuakwu would swear that one man, and one man only, was responsible. That man was Pastor Uka, who carried the burden of cause, motivation, and declared intent. Osuakwu knew that Ngene was Uka’s Baal. He knew about Uka’s boast that Ngene would be destroyed, decimated in a puff of smoke that would come from heaven. It suited Ike’s purpose. He could plot and execute his goal in absolute anonymity, beyond the pale of suspicion.
Ike tried to shape his face into a smile but couldn’t, the skin on his face set as the bark of deadwood. Above him, the ceiling spun and spun with gathering speed. He became a miniaturized being, a mere eye, encased inside a cyst. He floated, tumbled freely, in the spheres. Light as gossamer, this eye was on a journey to see. It bobbed and bumped until he attained an altitude that should have hampered scale. Surprisingly, everything could be seen in replete, complete splendor. Everything in the world and beyond spread itself out, surrendered to the gaze of the eye. He could see a sea, a shimmering, emerald sea. The sea’s waves roared with laughter. The sea’s froth sang of idyllic joy. Looking at the sea’s rollick, Ike knew the wondrous language that linked past and present things.