He led the way to the village square, already filling up with men and women and children, and sat under the oji tree with Mr. Richard. Children soon surrounded them, chanting “Onye ocha, white man,” reaching out to feel Mr. Richard’s hair. He said, “Kedu? Hello, what’s your name?” and they stared at him, giggling, nudging each other. Ugwu leaned against the tree and mourned the time he had spent thinking of seeing Nnesinachi. Now she was gone and some trader in the North would end up with his prize. He hardly noticed the mmuo: masculine figures covered in grass, their faces snarling wooden masks, their long whips dangling from their hands. Mr. Richard took photographs, wrote in his notebook, and asked questions, one after another—what was that called and what did they say and who were those men holding back the mmuo with a rope and what did that mean—until Ugwu felt irritable from the heat and the questions and the noise and the enormous disappointment of not seeing Nnesinachi.
He was silent on the drive back, looking out of the window.
“You’re already homesick, aren’t you?” Mr. Richard asked.
“Yes, sah,” Ugwu said. He wanted Mr. Richard to shut up. He wanted to be alone. He hoped Master would still be at the club so he could take the Renaissance from the living room and curl up on his bed in the Boys’ Quarters and read. Or he would watch the new television. If he was lucky, an Indian film would be on. The large-eyed beauty of the women, the singing, the flowers, the bright colors, and the crying, were what he needed now.
When he let himself in through the back door, he was shocked to find Master’s mother near the stove. Amala was standing by the door. Even Master did not know they were coming, or he would have been asked to clean the guest room.
“Oh,” he said. “Welcome, Mama. Welcome, Aunty Amala.” The last visit was fresh in his mind: Mama harassing Olanna, calling her a witch, hooting, and, worst of all, threatening to consult the dibia in the village.
“How are you, Ugwu?” Mama adjusted her wrapper before she patted his back. “My son said you went to show the white man the spirits in your village?”
“Yes, Mama.”
He could hear Master’s raised voice from the living room. Perhaps a visitor had dropped by and he had decided not to go to the club.
“You can go and rest, i nugo,” Mama said. “I am preparing my son’s dinner.”
The last thing he wanted now was for Mama to colonize his kitchen or use Olanna’s favorite saucepan for her strong-smelling soup. He wished so much that she would just leave. “I will stay in case you need help, Mama,” he said.
She shrugged and went back to shaking out black peppercorns from a pod. “Do you cook ofe nsala well?”
“I have never cooked it.”
“Why? My son likes it.”
“My madam has never asked me to cook it.”
“She is not your madam, my child. She is just a woman who is living with a man who has not paid her bride price.”
“Yes, Mama.”
She smiled, as if pleased that he had finally understood something important, and gestured to two small clay pots at the corner. “I brought fresh palm wine for my son. Our best wine-tapper brought it to me this morning.”
She pulled out the green leaves stuffed in the mouth of one pot and the wine frothed over, white and fresh and sweet-smelling. She poured some into a cup and gave it to Ugwu.
“Taste it.”
It was strong on his tongue, the kind of concentrated palm wine tapped in the dry season that made men in his village start to stagger too soon. “Thank you, Mama. It is very good.”
“Do your people tap wine well?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“But not as well as my people. In Abba, we have the best wine-tappers in the whole of Igboland. Is that not so, Amala?”
“It is so, Mama.”
“Wash that bowl for me.”
“Yes, Mama.” Amala began to wash the bowl. Her shoulders and arms shook as she scrubbed. Ugwu had not really looked at her and now he noticed that her slender, dark arms and face were shiny-wet, as if she had bathed in groundnut oil.
Master’s voice, loud and firm, came from the living room. “Our idiot government should break ranks with Britain too. We must take a stand! Why is Britain not doing more in Rhodesia? What bloody difference will limp economic sanctions make?”
Ugwu moved closer to the door to listen; he was fascinated by Rhodesia, by what was happening in the south of Africa. He could not comprehend people that looked like Mr. Richard taking away the things that belonged to people that looked like him, Ugwu, for no reason at all.
“Bring me a tray, Ugwu,” Mama said.