“I must carry the debt of a kolanut,” he said, re-tying a knot that had just come undone under his pull. “It got finished only this morning.”
“Don’t worry about kolanut,” I said, and added after a long pause: “You do not know me, I’m sure. I am one of the teachers at the Grammar School.”
“Yes,” he said looking up. “I knew it was a face I had seen.”
We shook hands again and he said “welcome” and apologized once more for not having kolanuts and I replied that it was not every day that people had kolanuts.
“Since the woman of the house went into hospital there hasn’t been anyone to look after these things,” he said.
“I hope she will become well again soon.”
“We are looking on the Man Above.”
After a suitable pause I asked about Edna.
“She is cooking the food to take to the hospital,” he replied coldly.
“I have a message for her from my friend Chief Nanga.”
“You are a friend of my in-law? Why did you not tell me so? Have you come from Bori, then?”
“Yes. I came back only yesterday.”
“True? How was he when you left him?”
“He was well.”
He turned round on his seat, towards a door leading into inner rooms and raising his voice called out. Edna’s voice came back from the interior of the compound, like a distant flute.
“Come and salute our guest,” hollered her father in the same loud voice. While we waited, I felt his eyes on me and so I made a special effort to look as casual as I could. I even turned round on my seat and inspected the approaches to the house and then formed my lips as though I was whistling to myself.
“Has your wife been in the hospital a long time?” I asked.
“Since three weeks. But her body has not been hers since the beginning of the rainy season.”
“God will hear our prayers,” I said.
“He holds the knife and He holds the yam.”
Because of my position I could see Edna as she came into the middle room. I suppose she must have washed her face with a little water tipped into her palm; she was now wiping it, as she approached us, with a corner of her lappa, which she dropped as soon as she saw me. A big something caught in my throat and I tried without success to swallow it down. She wore a loose blouse over her lappa and an old silken head-tie. As she emerged into the front room all my composure seemed to leave me. Instead of holding out my hand still seated as befitted a man (and one older than she to boot) I sprang to my feet like some woman-fearing Englishman. She screwed up her face ever so slightly in an effort to remember me.
“I am a teacher at the Grammar School,” I said a little hoarsely. “We met the day Chief Nanga lectured. . . .”
“Oh yes, it is true,” she said smiling gloriously. “You are Mr Samalu.”
“That’s right,” I said, greatly flattered. “You have a good memory on top of your beauty,” I said in English so the father would not understand.
“Thank you.”
Perhaps it was the way she was dressed and the domestic responsibility she was exercising, or perhaps she had simply grown a little more since October; whatever the reason she was now a beautiful young woman and not a girl looking as though she was waiting to be taken back to her convent.
“Sit down, teacher?” said her father, a little impatiently, I thought. Then turning to his daughter he announced that I had a message from Bori. She turned her largish, round eyes to me.
“Nothing really,” I said embarrassed, “Chief Nanga said I should come and greet you and find out about your mother.”
“You may tell him she is still in the hospital,” said Edna’s father in a most unpleasant tone, “and that her medicine costs money and that she planted neither cassava nor cocoyam this year.”
“Don’t listen to him,” said Edna to me, the happiness wrenched out of her eyes. She turned on her father: “Did he not send you something through his wife?”