No Longer at Ease Read Free Page B

from which came a very strong smell of rotting flesh. It was the remains of a dog which had no doubt been run over by a taxi. Obi used to wonder why so many dogs were killed bycars in Lagos, until one day the driver he had engaged to teach him driving went out of his way to run over one. In shocked amazement Obi asked why he had done it. “Na good luck,” said the man. “Dog bring good luck for new car. But duck be different. If you kill duck you go get accident or kill man.”
    Beyond the storm drain there was a meat stall. It was quite empty of meat or meat-sellers. But a man was working a little machine on one of the tables. It looked like a sewing machine except that it ground maize. A woman stood by watching the man turn the machine to grind her maize.
    On the other side of the road a little boy wrapped in a cloth was selling bean cakes or akara under a lamppost. His bowl of akara was lying in the dust and he seemed half asleep. But he really wasn’t, for as soon as the night-soilman passed swinging his broom and hurricane lamp and trailing clouds of putrefaction the boy quickly sprang to his feet and began calling him names. The man made for him with his broom but the boy was already in flight, his bowl of akara on his head. The man grinding maize burst into laughter, and the woman joined in. The night-soilman smiled and went his way, having said something very rude about the boy’s mother.
    Here was Lagos, thought Obi, the real Lagos he hadn’t imagined existed until now. During his first winter in England he had written a callow, nostalgic poem about Nigeria. It wasn’t about Lagos in particular, but Lagos was part of the Nigeria he had in mind.
“ How sweet it is to lie beneath a tree
At eventime and share the ecstasy
Of jocund birds and flimsy butterflies;
How sweet to leave our earthbound body in its mud ,
And rise towards the music of the spheres ,
Descending softly with the wind ,
And the tender glow of the fading sun .”
    He recalled this poem and then turned and looked at the rotting dog in the storm drain and smiled. “I have tasted putrid flesh in the spoon,” he said through clenched teeth. “Far more apt.” At last Clara emerged from the side street and they drove away.
    They drove for a while in silence through narrow overcrowded streets. “I can’t understand why you should choose your dressmaker from the slums.” Clara did not reply. Instead she started humming “ Che sarà sarà .”
    The streets were now quite noisy and crowded, which was to be expected on a Saturday night at nine o’clock. Every few yards one met bands of dancers often wearing identical dress or “ aso ebi .” Gay temporary sheds were erected in front of derelict houses and lit with brilliant fluorescent tubes for the celebration of an engagement or marriage or birth or promotion or success in business or the death of an old relative.
    Obi slowed down as he approached three drummers and a large group of young women in damask and velvet swivelling their waists as effortlessly as oiled ball bearings. A taxi driver hooted impatiently and overtook him, leaning out atthe same time to shout: “ Ori oda , your head no correct!” “ Ori oda —bloody fool!” replied Obi. Almost immediately a cyclist crossed the road without looking back or giving any signal. Obi jammed on his brakes and his tires screamed on the tarmac. Clara let out a little scream and gripped his left arm. The cyclist looked back once and rode away, his ambition written for all to see on his black bicycle bag— FUTURE MINISTER .
    Going from the Lagos mainland to Ikoyi on a Saturday night was like going from a bazaar to a funeral. And the vast Lagos cemetery which separated the two places helped to deepen this feeling. For all its luxurious bungalows and flats and its extensive greenery, Ikoyi was like a graveyard. It had no corporate life—at any rate for those Africans who lived there. They had not always lived there, of course. It was once a