Chinua Achebe: Anthills of the Savannah

'Say that again!' said Emmanuel.

'You know why I cried? Chris was only just beginning to understand the lesson of that bitter joke. The bottles are up there on the wall hanging by a hair's breadth, yet looking down pompously on the world. Chris was sending us a message to beware. This world belongs to the people of the world not to any little caucus, no matter how talented…'

'And particularly absurd when it is not even talented,' said Abdul.

'It was the same message Elewa's uncle was drumming out this afternoon, wasn't it? On his own crazy drum of course. Chris, in spite of his brilliance, was just beginning to be vaguely aware of people like that old man. Remember his prayer? He had never been inside a whiteman house like this before, may it not be his last.'

'And we said Isé! ' said Abdul.

'We did. It was a pledge. It had better be better than some pledges we have heard lately.'

'Isée!!'

At last the prodigious passions of that extraordinary day seemed at an end. Silence descended as completely on the party indoors as had darkness outside. Ama whom Beatrice nicknamed Greedymouth having drunk both from the bottle and from Elewa's breast, pendant like a gorgeous ripe papaya on the tree, was sleeping quietly in her cot.

No one spoke or stirred. No one sought another's eyes. Beatrice sat erect, her arms folded across her chest…

Then at last, like one just returned from a distant journey of the mind bearing a treasure in her eyes she murmured, to a welcoming party? merely to herself? Beautiful! And she said it a second time even more softly: Beautiful!

The rest had now turned their faces on her. She alone gazed still at something remote — a third party invisible to the rest, a presence to whom she had spoken her quiet apostrophe?

The change in her when it came was sudden. A deep breath audible through the room and a melting down of the statuesque told of her return…

'I can't thank you enough, Emmanuel, for being there and bringing back the message. And you too, of course, Adamma.' She looked at each in turn with a strained smile on her countenance. 'Truth is beauty, isn't it? It must be you know to make someone dying in that pain, to make him… smile. He sees it and it is… How can I say it?… it is unbearably, yes unbearably beautiful. That's it! Like Kunene's Emperor Shaka, the spears of his assailants raining down on him. But he realized the truth at that moment, we're told, and died smiling… Oh my Chris!'

Two lines of tears coursed down under her eyes but she did not bother to wipe them…

'BB, weting be dis now?' Elewa remonstrated, showing her two palms of innocence to the powers above. 'Even my self I no de cry like dat! What kind trouble you wan begin cause now? I beg-o. Hmm!'

The End