Chinua Achebe - Anthills of the Savannah

As the morning wore on she seemed to become less and less composed. She looked at her watch frequently. Once, after she had changed a record she picked up the telephone, heard the dialling tone and replaced.

When finally it rang she looked at her watch again. It was eleven exactly. She let the telephone ring five or six times and might have left it longer had Agatha not rushed in from the kitchen to answer it.

It was who she thought it was. Chris.

'So you are back,' he joked.

'Yes, I am back,' she answered.

'Anything the matter?'

'Like what?'

'Are you all right, BB?'

'Why, of course. Do I sound as if I might not be all right?'

'Yes, you do… Are you alone?'

'What do you mean?'

'Look, I'm coming over. See you.'

Twenty minutes later his car pulled up outside. Beatrice went not to the front door but to the kitchen door first, opened it and told Agatha that she was expecting someone and did not wish to be disturbed when he came up. Agatha's saucy and suggestive look at this news led Beatrice to lock the kitchen door altogether. Then she went to answer the doorbell.

Chris decided to take the bull by the horn. As soon as he was let in he asked how the party went.

'Party? But that was last night.'

'Yes, it was last night. And I am asking how did it go?'

'It went all right.'

They were both seated now, she on the sofa, he on a chair across the low centre table standing on a brown circular rug. They sat staring at each other for minutes, if not hours. Chris was completely at a loss. He had never had to cope with BB in such a mood and was quite unprepared. At last he got up, walked a few steps and stopped in front of her.

'Will you be good enough, BB, to tell me in what way I have now offended you.'

'Offended me? Who said you offended me?'

'Then why are you behaving so strange.'

'I am not behaving strange. You are! Chris, you are behaving very strange indeed. Listen, let me ask you a simple question, Chris. I am the girl you say you want to marry. Right? OK, I am taken away in strange, very strange circumstances last night. I call you beforehand and tell you. You come over here and all you say to me is: don't worry, it's all right.'

'I never said anything of the sort to you.'

'Chris, you asked me, the girl you want to marry, to travel forty miles at night to Abichi…'

'To Abichi? You didn't say it was Abichi, did you?'

'That's not the point. You asked the girl you want to marry to go along and keep all options open. Do you remember that? Well, I'm sorry to inform you I did not take your advice.'

'You are being…'

'Please, don't interrupt. I go off forty miles to this weird party.'

'BB, you never told me it was to Abichi.'

'Please, let me finish. I am carried off to this strange place and my future husband retires to his bed, sleeps well, wakes up, listens to the BBC at seven, has his bath, eats his breakfast and sits down afterwards to read the papers. Perhaps even take a walk in the garden. It is still only nine o'clock, so perhaps you go to your study and attend to some work you brought home. And then, finally at midday you remember the girl you asked to keep all the options open. You pick up the phone and tell her oh, you're back!'

'I didn't want to call earlier if that's what you are complaining about…'

'I am not complaining about anything. You didn't want to call earlier. Exactly. You didn't! You know why you didn't? Because you didn't want to find out if I slept in Abichi with your boss.'

'What the hell are you talking about?'

'You didn't want to catch me out. Why? Because you are a very reasonable man, Chris. You are a very considerate man. You wouldn't hurt a fly. Well, I have bad news for you. You are damn too reasonable for this girl. I want a man who cares, not a man…'

'BB, you are out of your mind!'

'She wants a man who cares enough to be curious about where his girl sleeps. That's the kind of man this girl wants.'

'Well, well!'

'Well, well. Yes, well, well. And about time.'

'Listen BB.' (He took the remaining steps and made to place a hand on her shoulder.)

'Take your hand off me,' she screamed.

'Don't bark at me, BB.'

'I'm not barking.'

'You are. I don't know what has come over you. Screaming at me like some Cherubim and Seraphim prophetess or something. What's the matter? I don't understand.'

He stood there where the hand he had tried to place on her shoulder had been rebuffed, and gazed down at her. She had now folded her arms across her breast and bent her head forward on her chest as if in silent prayer. Neither of them moved again or spoke for a very long time. Then Chris noticed the slightest heaving of her chest and shoulders and went and sat down on the sofa beside her and placed his left arm across her shoulder and with his right hand raised her chin gently and saw she was crying. She did not resist then as he pulled her to him and reverently tasted the salt of her tears.

As their struggle intensified to get inside each other, to melt and lose their separateness on that cramping sofa, she whispered, her breathing coming fast and urgent: 'Let's go inside. It's too uncomfortable here.' And they fairly scrambled out of the sofa into the bedroom and peeled off their garments and cast them away like things on fire, and fell in together into the wide, open space of her bed and began to roll over and over until she could roll no more and said: 'Come in.' And as he did she uttered a strangled cry that was not just a cry but also a command or a password into her temple. From there she took charge of him leading him by the hand silently through heaving groves mottled in subdued yellow sunlight, treading dry leaves underfoot till they came to streams of clear blue water. More than once he had slipped on the steep banks and she had pulled him up and back with such power and authority as he had never seen her exercise before. Clearly this was her grove and these her own peculiar rites over which she held absolute power. Priestess or goddess herself? No matter. But would he be found worthy? Would he survive? This unending, excruciating joyfulness in the crossroads of laughter and tears. Yes, I must, oh yes I must, yes, oh yes, yes, oh yes. I must, must, must. Oh holy priestess, hold me now. I am slipping, slipping, slipping. And now he was not just slipping but falling, crumbling into himself.

Just as he was going to plead for mercy she screamed an order: 'OK!' and he exploded into stars and floated through fluffy white clouds and began a long and slow and weightless falling and sinking into deep, blue sleep.

When he woke like a child cradled in her arms and breasts her eyes watching anxiously over him, he asked languorously if she slept.

'Priestesses don't sleep.'

He kissed her lips and her nipples and closed his eyes again.

'You called me a priestess. No, a prophetess, I think. I mind only the Cherubim and Seraphim part of it. As a matter of fact I do sometimes feel like Chielo in the novel, the priestess and prophetess of the Hills and the Caves.'

'It comes and goes, I imagine.'

'Yes. It's on now. And I see trouble building up for us. It will get to Ikem first. No joking, Chris. He will be the precursor to make straight the way. But after him it will be you. We are all in it, Ikem, you, me and even Him. The thing is no longer a joke. As my father used to say, it is no longer a dance you can dance carrying your snuff in one cupped hand. You and Ikem must quickly patch up this ridiculous thing between you that nobody has ever been able to explain to me.'

'BB, I can't talk to Ikem any more. I am tired. And drained of all stamina,'

'No, Chris. You have more stamina than you think.'

'Well, I certainly seem to. But only under your management, you know.' He smiled mischievously and kissed her.