“Standard two, sah. But I learn everything fast.”
“Standard two? How long ago?”
“Many years now, sah. But I learn everything very fast!”
“Why did you stop school?”
“My father’s crops failed, sah.”
Master nodded slowly. “Why didn’t your father find somebody to lend him your school fees?”
“Sah?”
“Your father should have borrowed!” Master snapped, and then, in English, “Education is a priority! How can we resist exploitation if we don’t have the tools to understand exploitation?”
“Yes, sah!” Ugwu nodded vigorously. He was determined to appear as alert as he could, because of the wild shine that had appeared in Master’s eyes.
“I will enroll you in the staff primary school,” Master said, still tapping on the piece of paper with his pen.
Ugwu’s aunty had told him that if he served well for a few years, Master would send him to commercial school where he would learn typing and shorthand. She had mentioned the staff primary school, but only to tell him that it was for the children of the lecturers, who wore blue uniforms and white socks so intricately trimmed with wisps of lace that you wondered why anybody had wasted so much time on mere socks.
“Yes, sah,” he said. “Thank, sah.”
“I suppose you will be the oldest in class, starting in standard thr
ee at your age,” Master said. “And the only way you can get their respect is to be the best. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sah!”
“Sit down, my good man.”
Ugwu chose the chair farthest from Master, awkwardly placing his feet close together. He preferred to stand.
“There are two answers to the things they will teach you about our land: the real answer and the answer you give in school to pass. You must read books and learn both answers. I will give you books, excellent books.” Master stopped to sip his tea. “They will teach you that a white man called Mungo Park discovered River Niger. That is rubbish. Our people fished in the Niger long before Mungo Park’s grandfather was born. But in your exam, write that it was Mungo Park.”
“Yes, sah.” Ugwu wished that this person called Mungo Park had not offended Master so much.
“Can’t you say anything else?”
“Sah?”
“Sing me a song.”
“Sah?”
“Sing me a song. What songs do you know? Sing!” Master pulled his glasses off. His eyebrows were furrowed, serious. Ugwu began to sing an old song he had learned on his father’s farm. His heart hit his chest painfully. “Nzogbo nzogbu enyimba, enyi. …”
He sang in a low voice at first, but Master tapped his pen on the table and said “Louder!” so he raised his voice, and Master kept saying “Louder!” until he was screaming. After singing over and over a few times, Master asked him to stop. “Good, good,” he said. “Can you make tea?”
“No, sah. But I learn fast,” Ugwu said. The singing had loosened something inside him, he was breathing easily and his heart no longer pounded. And he was convinced that Master was mad.
“I eat mostly at the staff club. I suppose I shall have to bring more food home now that you are here.”
“Sah, I can cook.”
“You cook?”
Ugwu nodded. He had spent many evenings watching his mother cook. He had started the fire for her, or fanned the embers when it started to die out. He had peeled and pounded yams and cassava, blown out the husks in rice, picked out the weevils from beans, peeled onions, and ground peppers. Often, when his mother was sick with the coughing, he wished that he, and not Anulika, would cook. He had never told anyone this, not even Anulika; she had already told him he spent too much time around women cooking, and he might never grow a beard if he kept doing that.