Chinua Achebe - Anthills of the Savannah

Everybody applauded this strange man's sudden decision, sparked off perhaps by the utterance of the word prayer. Elewa's mother could not keep up against the powerful current in favour of the old man. She opened her bag and handed a kolanut to him.

'Elewa, go and wash this and put it into a plate and bring me water to wash my hands.'

Elewa and Agatha went into the kitchen to do as the old man had commanded. After he had washed his hands and wiped them importantly with a sparkling napkin that contrasted so harshly with his own dirt-and-sweat-tarnished jumper that used to be of white lace he assumed a sacramental posture, picked up the kolanut in his right hand and held it between four fingers and thumb, palm up, to the Almighty.

'Owner of the world! Man of countless names! The church people call you three-in-one. It is a good name. But it carries miserly and insufficient praise. Four-hundred-in-one would seem more fitting in our eyes. But we have no quarrel with church people; we have no quarrel with mosque people. Their intentions are good, their mind on the right road. Only the hand fails to throw as straight as the eye sees. We praise a man when he slaughters a fowl so that if his hand becomes stronger tomorrow he will slaughter a goat…

'What brings us here is the child you sent us. May her path be straight…'

'Isé!' replied all the company.

'May she have life and may her mother have life.'

'Isé!'

'What happened to her father, may it not happen again.'

'Isé!'

'When I asked who named her they told me All of Us. May this child be the daughter of all of us.'

'Isé!'

'May all of us have life!'

'Isé!'

'May these young people here when they make the plans for their world not forget her. And all other children.'

'Isé!'

'May they also remember useless old people like myself and Elewa's mother when they are making their plans.'

'Isé!'

'We have seen too much trouble in Kangan since the white man left because those who make plans make plans for themselves only and their families.'

Abdul was nodding energetically, his head bent gently towards his simultaneous translator, Emmanuel.

'I say, there is too much fighting in Kangan, too much killing. But fighting will not begin unless there is first a thrusting of fingers into eyes. Anybody who wants to outlaw fights must first outlaw the provocation of fingers thrust into eyes.'

'Isé! Isé!!'

Abdul, a relative stranger to the kolanut ritual, was carried away beyond the accustomed limits of choral support right into exuberant hand-clapping.

'I have never entered a house like this before. May this not be my last time.'

'Isé!'

'You are welcome any time,' added Beatrice following Abdul's breaking of ritual bounds.

'If something pursues us we shall escape but if we pursue something we shall catch it.'

'Isé!'

'As long as what we pursue does not belong to somebody else.'

'Isé!'

'Everybody's life!'

'Isé!'

'The life of Bassa!'

'Isé!'

'The life of Kangan.'

'Isé!'

After Elewa's mother and uncle had left with Aina and Braimoh in the old taxi, the party continued in the quiet and relaxed afterglow of the day's ritual intensity. But it proved a day extraordinary in stamina and before long a new surge of passion was building up secretly below its placid expansiveness.

It began in ripples of simple reminiscence. Emanuel, it was plain to see, was rather pleased with himself and so chose to congratulate someone else, Beatrice, on the evolution, as he called it, of the two-headed toast to people and ideas. She, on her part, was a captain whose leadership was sharpened more and more by sensitivity to the peculiar needs of her company.

'I must say I liked your spirited stand for ideas.'

'Mutual Admiration Club forming up again,' sang Abdul.

'And jealousy will get us nowhere,' sang Beatrice.

'But looking back on it,' continued Emmanuel passing up the bait of banter, 'I think you taught me something very important by holding out for people. Do you remember the day you told me that Chris had taught me to be a gentleman?'

'It was only a joke.'

'Jokes are serious,' said Abdul impishly.

'Yes they are… That day and again today you were making me aware of my debt to Chris. I don't know why I never thought of it before but the greatest thing he taught me was seeing the way he died.'

The jesting mood died instantly in the air, folded its wings and fell like a stone; the tributary conversations dried up.

'I was kneeling on the road at his side weeping uselessly. She,' he nodded his head in Adamma's direction, 'was trying to do something. Then I said something idiotic like Don't go, don't leave us please. And, I can't describe it, that effort — you could touch it almost — to dismiss pain from his face and summon a smile and then crack a joke. He called it The Last Grin.'

Beatrice started in her seat.

'Yes I remember,' said silent Adamma. 'The last green. But he did not finish it.'

Beatrice rushed away into her bedroom. Elewa followed after her. While they were away nothing more was said. After a few minutes Elewa came back.

'Is she all right?' asked Abdul a little ahead of other inquirers.

'No trouble. To cry small no be bad thing. BB no be like me wey de cry every day like baby wey him mother die.'

'Madam too strong,' said Agatha. 'To strong too much no de good for woman.'

'E no good for anybody whether na man-o or na woman-o, na the same thing,' said Elewa. 'E good make person cry small… I been try to stop am, I try sotay then I come say no, make you lef am.'

'Why are you all sitting in darkness?' she said turning the lights on as she walked back into the room almost half an hour after she had left it. She spoke with great calmness in her voice. She had made up her face, and even tried on a smile as she resumed her seat. Then she said:

'I am very sorry.'

'Well, I am sorry to have raised that matter today. I didn't…'

'No no no, Emmanuel. I am happy you raised it. In fact you can't know how grateful I feel. I can tell you I am happier now, much happier than I have been since that day.' She said no more. Perhaps in spite of this composure she could not continue.

To fill the aching void, or perhaps he was already powerless in the grip of a gathering underflow, Emmanuel began again:

'You see I have been present only at two deaths…'

'Make you put that your useless story for inside your pocket,' ordered Elewa. 'Why you de look for trouble so? Abi the one you done cause no belleful you?'

'Leave the young man alone. Emmanuel, please continue.'

'The first death I witnessed was my father and then Chris. Without Chris I could not have known that it was possible to die with dignity.'

'Your father didn't die with dignity?' asked Abdul quizzically.

'No, he didn't. Though he was an old man compared to Chris, he had not learnt how to die. He snapped at people; he even cried. He was frightened, scared to death. He ran from one doctor to another and when he had run through them all he took up prayer-houses. He had cancer of the prostate. Every day some vulture would descend on us from nowhere with the story of a prophet or prophetess in some outlandish village and my father would drag my poor mother there the next morning. It was a terrible relief when he died, I am ashamed to admit… But look at Chris, a young man with all his life still in front of him and yet he was able to look death in the eyes and smile and make a joke. It was too wonderful…'

'You don't know why I went in to cry… That joke was a coded message to me, to us,' said Beatrice, to everyone's surprise. 'By the way, Adamma heard it better. What he was trying to say was The last green . It was a private joke of ours. The last green bottle. It was a terrible, bitter joke. He was laughing at himself. That was the great thing, by the way, about those two, Chris and Ikem. They could laugh at themselves and often did. Not so the pompous asses that have taken over.'