Chinua Achebe - Anthills of the Savannah

'I don't accept that. The ideas in one lecture by Ikem changed my entire life from a parrot to a man.'

'Really?'

'Yes, really. And the lives of some of my friends. It wasn't Ikem the man who changed me. I hardly knew him. It was his ideas set down on paper. One idea in particular: that we may accept a limitation on our actions but never, under no circumstances, must we accept restriction on our thinking.'

'OK,' said Beatrice bowing to this superior, unstoppable passion. 'I have also felt what you are saying, though I knew him too as a man. You win! People and Ideas, then. We shall drink to both of them.'

As Agatha brought in a tray of drinks and burst into one of the songs of her sect — something with which she had never before graced this house — Emmanuel took the tray from her and placed it on the centre table. Adamma fetched the glasses and they began to serve. Agatha's hands freed meanwhile found more fitting occupation clapping her own accompaniment, and her waist swayed in slow dance.

Jehova is not a person anyone can deceive

Jehova is so great who is it can confuse him?

If Jehova wants to bless who will dare to raise a curse?

Jehova-jireh let us raise his name!

Aina raised herself from her seat, untied and re-tied her outer lappa and joined Agatha in her holy seductive dance.

'Abi Aina no be Moslem?' Beatrice asked Elewa in a whisper.

'Na proper grade one Moslem,' she replied wondering by way of a puzzled look what the point of the question was. Then she seemed all of a sudden to discern the questioner's difficulty. 'Dem talk say make Moslem no dance when Christian de sing?' she asked in return.

'No I didn't mean that ,' replied Beatrice rather emphatically. But to herself she said, 'Well, if a daughter of Allah could join his rival's daughter in a holy dance, what is to stop the priestess of the unknown god from shaking a leg?' She smiled to herself. She was already swaying her head from side to side in lieu of hands which were still attempting to rock Ama to sleep.

After five or six repeats of the same words of the catchy little song Braimoh shouted: 'Heep! Heep! Heep!' and the ecumenical fraternization was neatly terminated with a lusty 'Hooray!' and laughter.

It was at this point that a taxi pulled up outside and discharged Elewa's mother and uncle. Beatrice and Elewa turned spontaneously to each other, one saying, 'You were right,' and the other, 'I no tell you!', at the same time.

Beatrice knew Elewa's uncle by an unsavoury reputation which he now seemed quite determined to live up to. Before he fairly sat down his eyes had become glued to the tray of drinks and his Adam's apple danced restlessly like the trapped bubble in a bricklayer's spirit-level.

'Elewa, won't you offer a drink to Mama and your uncle?'

Mama accepted a bottle of mineral water but the uncle declined the beer which was offered him demanding 'Snaps' instead. When he was told there was no schnapps in the house he merely said, 'Ah?' — a compressed but eloquent way of saying: A naming ceremony indeed, without schnapps.

Beatrice got up, put the baby down in her cot, went to the sideboard and soon returned with a bottle of White Horse whisky. Elewa's uncle accepted the substitute quite readily and proceeded to swill two thimblefuls in quick succession throwing his head slightly back for the operation and working his cheeks like a pair of little bellows before swallowing. He put the little glass down and then asked for a bottle of beer.

Looking sideways at her late husband's half-brother Elewa's mother said: 'It is better that we begin the work we came to do. I don't want anyone dropping my grandchild.'

'Nobody is going to drop anybody,' replied the uncle lifting his glass of beer to his lips with a lightly quivering hand… 'Drink does not loosen a man's grip. It makes it stronger,' he added after gulping down half of the glass… 'But since my wife here is troubled, let us agree with her and do as she says. A wise man agrees with his wife and eats lumps of smoked fish in his soup. A fool contradicts his wife and eats lumps of cocoyam.'

Abdul's head was tilted towards Emmanuel who was translating the old people for him. Now all eyes turned to Beatrice. She had picked up the baby again, but instead of handing her to the old man who had set down his glass once more to receive it she said:

'This baby has already received its name. She is called Amaechina.'

The old people were visibly stunned. The man recovered first and asked: 'Who gave her the name?'

'All of us here,' said Beatrice.

'All of you here,' repeated the old man. 'All of you are her father?'

'Yes, and mother.'

His explosion into laughter took everybody by surprise and then dragged them all into his bombshell of gaiety. Except Elewa's mother.

'You young people,' said the old man. 'What you will bring this world to is pregnant and nursing a baby at the same time… Give me a little more of that hot drink.'

Elewa rushed the whisky bottle and the little glass back to him.

'A jolly old fellow,' said Abdul.

'You no know am. So make you wait small.'

Elewa's poor mother was left high and dry carrying the anger of outraged custom and usage made none the lighter for having no one to focus it on. In the end she turned and heaped it on the opportunistic old man, a medicine-man hired to chase evil spirits whom evil spirits were now chasing.

'You will return my bottle of Snaps and the fowl,' she said to him, to everyone's surprise. His face clouded over for a very brief instant and quickly cleared up again.

'As to that,' he said, 'what is brought out before a masquerade cannot be taken indoors again. Food goes one way — downwards. If you see it going up you know the man is in trouble.'

'You will return my Snaps and the fowl,' she repeated obstinately.

'Listen to me my wife and let me give you advice. You are annoyed and I cannot say that I blame you. But what is the use of bending your neck at me like the chicken to the pot when its real enemy is not the pot in which it cooks nor even the fire which cooks it but the knife. Your quarrel is with these young people. Hold your daughter and her friends to refund to you your bottle of Snaps and your fowl. But as for the tribute placed in front of a masquerade, that one is gone with the masquerade into its ant-hole.' He went into another paroxysm of laughter scraping his sides which he now held like a loosening bundle between his palms. Everybody joined him once more, except Elewa's mother. He stopped abruptly and turned to the rest:

'Let me tell you people something. When my wife here came to me and said: Our daughter has a child and I want you to come and give her a name, I said to myself: Something is amiss. We did not hear kpom to tell us that the palm branch has been cut before we heard waa when it crashed through the bush. I did not hear of bride-price and you are telling me about naming a child. But I did not contradict my wife because I want fish in my soup… Do you know why I am laughing like this? I am laughing because in you young people our world has met its match. Yes! You have put the world where it should sit… My wife here was breaking her head looking for kolanuts, for alligator pepper, for honey and for bitter-leaf…'

'And Snaps and agriculture chicken.'

'True. Those as well. And while she is cracking her head you people gather in this whiteman house and give the girl a boy's name… That is how to handle this world… If anybody thinks that I will start a fight because somebody has done the work I should do that person does not know me. I only fight when somebody else eats what I should eat. So I will not fight. Rather I will say thank you. I will say whoever ate the foofoo let him mop up the soup as well. A child has been named. What else is one looking for at the bottom of the soup-bowl if not fish? Wherever the child sleeps let it wake up in the morning, is my prayer… My wife, where is that kolanut? I shall break it after all.'