Daughter of Thunder

THE STAGE IS SET-1

THE STAGE IS SET

It was a sunny morning in the land of Awka. The year was 1978, the 10th of December and the very air of the land carried a festive mood because of the Christmas, fast approaching. Many sons and daughters of the land, working all over the Federation, from Sokoto to Lagos had arrived home. Ngozi Ndubuisi was talking to her son Emeka who was about thirty years old but was already an Assistant Superintendent of the Police Force in Nigeria.

“Emeka, it’s time to grow up and leave childhood infatuations alone. Obiagelli is not the right type of girl for you. She is not in your class.” Ngozi was trying her best to persuade her son to forget everything about Obiagelli, a sweetheart from childhood, and marry Nkechi, the daughter of Chief Okafor. Ngozi was a big, buxom and domineering woman of about fifty-three and her only child and son Emeka, sitting demurely on one of the chairs in the spacious living room posed no problem for her “You know that when your father died,” Ngozi continued “I was the only one, Emeka... the only one who took up the responsibility of your education and upkeep. The Family abandoned me...they even abandoned you...”Ngozi deliberately choked on her words and her voice trailed to a hoarse whimper. She knew Emeka cannot stand her tears and that was the trump card she was trying to use now. Sitting down there quietly and staring at the floor with his head slightly tilted at an angle, Emeka looked exactly like his father Alozie.

Alozie Ndubuisi was a soldier who had fought gallantly for Biafra during the civil war and had later risen to the rank of a brigadier, after the war. Alozie was a rebel right from the word go. He had run away from home at the age of sixteen and enlisted in the Army, to the shame and embarrassment of the Family, which considered the Army, in those days, fit only for dropouts. But, when the Family saw his steady rise in the Army, they forgave him. Then he dealt the Family a second blow by marrying Ngozi. The Family did everything it could to stop the marriage, but Alozie was as stubborn as a he-goat and he went ahead anyway and married Ngozi. The Family had nothing against Ngozi, but there was quite a lot that could be said about her mother Ijeoma, who was believed to be a witch and had used her witchcraft to kill her husband. No one rubs the nose of the Family in the dust and so it abandoned Alozie. But Alozie, seemingly undeterred and unrepentant went ahead and made friends with fellow officers in the army from tribes the Family regarded as “low”, which was considered by many as another slight on the Family. However, his closest friend from childhood was still Chima Okafor, the same man who later became the Governor of Anambra State. When Alozie became a brigadier, he put up a magnificent mansion in Awka, although he never intended to pay his kinsmen visits or even planned to live in Awka. This act was regarded by many in the land, as the final embarrassment to the Family and an unforgivable mistake because no man, no matter how highly placed, should let the outside world know that, he could do without the Family. The Family was supposed to be everything. That was the unwritten law. One day, Alozie, the man of “timber and calibre”, as he was affectionately called by his friends, slumped in his office at Bonny Camp in Lagos and died. Just like that! Emeka was only two years old when his father died and when the news got to Awka, the proverb that made the rounds among the elders was: “You do not bury your placenta in Awka and hope to dig it out in Lagos.”

Emeka was a spitting image of his father but that was where the resemblance ended. His father loved the bottle and was garrulous but Emeka was a teetotaller and taciturn. After his graduation from the University of Nigeria, he joined the Nigeria Police Force and rose rapidly through the ranks. He could sit down for hours, just listening patiently to stories and statements made by suspects, picking out the flaws here and there and filing them away in his receptive memory, to be used much later, to the surprise and regret of the suspects, who realised, often too late that they had talked too much.

He had been listening quietly to his mother until she started her whimpers then he slowly lifted up his head and stared at her. Ngozi cut short her long tirade; she knew her son was now ready to talk. The cooing of the pigeons outside mixed with the fragrance of frangipani drifted into the room.

“Mum,” began Emeka slowly “I know you’ve done so much for me and I know the tremendous boost my career will receive in the Force with a powerful person like Governor Chima Okafor as my father-in-law.”

“Now, you’re thinking right my son.” interrupted Ngozi.

“But I also know of many more things you’re not even aware of, Mum.”

“You know of many things like what!” snapped Ngozi, as she jumped out of her seat. She bent her waist and placed her palms on her knees to stare at Emeka eyeball to eyeball. “Yes, tell me. You know of many things like what?” she challenged her son again and continued, without waiting for a response “I know without being told that Mazi Okagu, a good-for-nothing man, will cry out loud for all the land to hear, when you reject his daughter...and what, will that amount to? Is he not an opportunist? Imagine him! Dreaming to offload his ugly daughter on my son...”

“Obiageli is not an ugly girl” cut in Emeka.

“But she is a good-for-nothing girl, just like her father” came the quick and sharp response. Ngozi straightened herself and walked slowly away from her son towards the open window. Her mood suddenly became calm and sober “Emeka, I know what you’re afraid of. The women of this land, gossips they all are, will say this and that, and all, very nasty things about me. Right?”

Emeka kept silent

Ngozi turned round to face her son again “But who cares? Who cares what they say?”

“Mum, that’s not my fear. You still don’t know what I know.”

Ngozi stared at her son. She was now confused. She had thought she could read her son inside out. “OK, tell me Emeka, the things that I, am yet to know.”

But Emeka just kept silent, staring at the floor. Slowly, he lifted up his head and looked at his mother and he began to speak in a quiet and soft voice, quite unlike the vituperative outburst of his mother. “I know that you should not have sent a delegation to Governor Okafor to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage for me without first seeking my opinion and consent,”

“Chineke!” Ngozi exclaimed as she lifted up her two arms to the roof “don’t I have the right to desire the good things of life for my son? What is wrong in seeking the best for one’s own child? Chineke! What has your world come to? My son, my only son said I cannot be a mother to him anymore. The tiny chick thinks he is strong enough to rip the bowels of the earth just because he has been able to run his puny claws through the soft furrows behind his mother. O Chineke! What has your world come to?”

Emeka rose to his feet “Shut up Mum! All these raving and... and yelling will only increase your blood pressure.”

“You rather shut up and listen to me!” Ngozi yelled back at her son.

Emeka was not ready for any yelling match with his mother. He backed out and sat down again.

“Listen and listen well” continued Ngozi “Governor Okafor and your father were very, very close friends.” She locked her two fore fingers together in apparent reference to the bond of affection between these two friends.

“I know that” interjected Emeka.

“Oh no, you don’t! You know nothing. That’s why I said you should rather listen to me.” Ngozi drew a chair and sat down to face her son squarely. “Do you know how I kept body and soul together after the death of your father?”

Emeka kept silent

“Heh! Answer me Emeka.”

“Carry on, Mum.”

“Do you know who financed your education from the primary school through to the university? Do you know who was pulling the strings in the Police Force which led to your rapid promotion? Heh! Tell me.?”

Emeka still kept silent.

“It was Mazi Chima Okafor, your father’s closest friend. The same man who is today the Governor of this State. When the Family abandoned you and me and fled from their responsibilities, Mazi Okafor took them up as the only tribute he could pay to the memory of his best friend and finally...”Ngozi sighed heavily and sat back in the chair. “Listen, my son, this marriage between you and Nkechi is what was planned between the two friends a long time ago and I, Ngozi, had no hand in it.” This last revelation made Emeka looked sad and deflated. Ngozi leaned forward and placed her right hand on her son’s left shoulder. “You have nothing to worry about, my son. Governor Okafor has promised to foot the entire bill of the wedding. What do you have to say my son?” Ngozi felt she had taken care of every little detail.

Emeka shook his head slowly. Although, he was a sharp and meticulous police officer, he was completely floored by this story of his mother. If it was another person, Emeka would have probably discovered the flaw in the story. Though, he was able to pick out the detraction years later, it was then simply too late to do anything about it. Emeka kept quiet for a long while, with his head bowed.

“What is it that’s still worrying you?” Ngozi wanted to know.

Emeka still kept silent.

“Unburden your heart to your mother Emeka. The toad wondered why he could not hop as high as the grasshopper. No one told him that he must need to shed his weight before he could fly, so he remained earthbound.”

Emeka sighed heavily before speaking in his usual slow manner “Mum...Obiageli is pregnant.” Ngozi shot up like an arrow but Emeka was not finished “Obiageli is seven months pregnant. Mum, I love Obiageli...I love her and we have kept it secret because I...”Emeka stopped talking and stared at his mother. It was obvious that Ngozi was not listening to him anymore. She was staring into empty space; her right thumb was in her mouth, clamped between her teeth, which had sunk deep into the flesh, drawing blood.

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Three days later, a meeting of the Elders of Awka was convened at the instance of Mazi Agu Okagu, the father of Obiageli. Summoned to this meeting were: Ngozi Ndubuisi, Emeka Ndubuisi, Obiageli Okagu and Ebube Okagu, the nine-year old brother of Obiageli. They all sat down facing the nineteen Elders, who also sat, in the shape of a crescent, in the Meeting House. The number of Elders, sitting on any case, could be seventeen, nineteen and even twenty-one, depending on the gravity of the case, but always an odd number so that there could always be a resolution at the end of any sitting even when it came to casting of votes. The Elders of Awka had never risen up from an inconclusive meeting. Even a blind man, they said, should know the difference between a pit latrine and a well. If he could not see, at least he could smell, therefore he had no excuse for defecating in the wrong place. Ngozi and Emeka sat at one end of the crescent and Mazi Okagu and his children occupied the other end. The Meeting House was quite an ancient but big building and adorning the walls of the meeting room on all four sides, hung elephant tusks and hides of different wild beasts. There were no Kings in Awka, so the oldest man in the land usually presided over these meetings. Everything was set for the meeting to commence. This meeting was not opened to all and sundry because Awka does not believe in washing its dirty linen in public. A man who shows his shrunken manhood to his friends should not complain if his enemies say it is his fault that his wife has remained barren.

Mazi Okonkwo, the presiding Elder, called on Mazi Okafor, the complainant to present his case. Outside the Meeting House, clustered in groups drinking palm-wine were the young and virile men of the land. The Elders believed that some cases needed sober reflections and had wisely kept the young men out of the Meeting House, to loiter outside. But, whether prohibited or not, they still get to follow the proceedings in the Meeting House. The Elders sometimes found them useful on errands that would have otherwise disrupted the proceedings; therefore their presence and sometimes, their interruptions from outside were tolerated and ignored.