Girls at War Read Free

had still to be explained satisfactorily to them; for in their naïvety they still expected a doctor to be able to heal the sick. Anyhow, these honours and benefits had come so readily to the man to whom they had given their votes free of charge five years ago that they were now ready to try it a different way.
    Their point was that only the other day Marcus Ibe was a not too successful mission school teacher. Then politics had come to their village and he had wisely joined up, some said just in time to avoid imminent dismissal arising from a female teacher’s pregnancy. Today he was Chief the Honourable; he had two long cars and had just built himself the biggest house anyone had seen in these parts. But let it be said that none of these successes had gone to Marcus’s head as well they might. He remained devoted to his people. Whenever he could he left the good things of the capital and returned to his village which had neither running water nor electricity, although he had latelyinstalled a private plant to supply electricity to his new house. He knew the source of his good fortune, unlike the little bird who ate and drank and went out to challenge his personal spirit. Marcus had christened to his new house “Umuofia Mansions” in honour of his village, and he had slaughtered five bulls and countless goats to entertain the people on the day it was opened by the Archbishop.
    Everyone was full of praise for him. One old man said: “Our son is a good man; he is not like the mortar which as soon as food comes its way turns its back on the ground.” But when the feasting was over, the villagers told themselves that they had underrated the power of the ballot paper before and should not do so again. Chief the Honourable Marcus Ibe was not unprepared. He had drawn five months’ salary in advance, changed a few hundred pounds into shining shillings and armed his campaign boys with eloquent little jute bags. In the day he made his speeches; at night his stalwarts conducted their whispering campaign. Roof was the most trusted of these campaigners.
    “We have a Minister from our village, one of our own sons,” he said to a group of elders in the house of Ogbuefi Ezenwa, a man of high traditional title. “What greater honour can a village have? Do you ever stop to ask yourselves why we should be singled out for this honour? I will tell you; it is because we are favoured by the leaders of PAP. Whether or not we cast our paper for Marcus, PAP will continue to rule. Think of the pipe-borne water they have promised us …”
    Besides Roof and his assistant there were five elders in the room. An old hurricane lamp with a cracked, sooty, glass chimney gave out yellowish light in their midst. The elders sat on very low stools. Onthe floor, directly in front of each of them, lay two shilling pieces. Outside beyond the fastened door, the moon kept a straight face.
    “We believe every word you say to be true,” said Ezenwa. “We shall, every one of us, drop his paper for Marcus. Who would leave an o z o feast and go to a poor ritual meal? Tell Marcus he has our papers, and our wives’ papers too. But what we do say is that two shillings is shameful.” He brought the lamp close and tilted it at the money before him as if to make sure he had not mistaken its value. “Yes, two shillings is too shameful. If Marcus were a poor man which our ancestors forbid—I should be the first to give him my paper free, as I did before. But today Marcus is a great man and does his things like a great man. We did not ask him for money yesterday; we shall not ask him tomorrow. But today is our day; we have climbed the iroko tree today and would be foolish not to take down all the firewood we need.”
    Roof had to agree. He had lately been taking down a lot of firewood himself. Only yesterday he had asked Marcus for one of his many rich robes—and had got it. Last Sunday Marcus’s wife (the teacher that nearly got him in trouble) had objected