‘Oduche’s box is moving,’ he said, out of breath with excitement. The tumult in the compound grew louder. As usual the voice of Ezeulu’s daughter, Akueke, stood out above all others.
‘What is called “Oduche’s box is moving”?’ he asked, rising with deliberate slowness to belie his curiosity.
‘It is moving about the floor.’
‘There is nothing that a man will not hear nowadays.’ He went into his inner compound through the door at the back of his obi. Nwafo ran past him to the group of excited women outside his mother’s hut. Akueke and Matefi did most of the talking. Nwafo’s mother, Ugoye, was speechless. Now and again she rubbed her palms together and showed them to the sky.
Akueke turned to Ezeulu as soon as she saw him. ‘Father, come and see what we are seeing. This new religion…’
‘Shut your mouth,’ said Ezeulu, who did not want anybody, least of all his own daughter, to continue questioning his wisdom in sending one of his sons to join the new religion.
The wooden box had been brought from the room where Oduche and Nwafo slept and placed in the central room of their mother’s hut where people sat during the day.
The box, which was the only one of its kind in Ezeulu’s compound, had a lock. Only people of the church had such boxes made for them by the mission carpenter and they were highly valued in Umuaro. Oduche’s box was not actually moving; but it seemed to have something inside it struggling to be free. Ezeulu stood before it wondering what to do. Whatever was inside the box became more violent and actually moved the box around. Ezeulu waited for it to calm down a little, bent down and carried the box outside. The women and children scattered in all directions.
‘Whether it be bad medicine or good one, I shall see it today,’ he said as he carried the box at arm’s length like a potent sacrifice. He did not pass through his obi, but took the door in the red-earth wall of his compound. His second son, Obika, who had just come in followed him. Nwafo came closely behind Obika, and the women and children followed fearfully at a good distance. Ezeulu looked back and asked Obika to bring him a matchet. He took the box right outside his compound and finally put it down by the side of the common footpath. He looked back and saw Nwafo and the women and children.
‘Every one of you go back to the house. The inquisitive monkey gets a bullet in the face.’
They moved back not into the compound but in front of the obi. Obika took a matchet to his father who thought for a little while and put the matchet aside and sent him for the spear used in digging up yams. The struggling inside the box was as fierce as ever. For a brief moment Ezeulu wondered whether the wisest thing was not to leave the box there until its owner returned. But what would it mean? That he, Ezeulu, was afraid of whatever power his son had imprisoned in a box. Such a story must never be told of the priest of Ulu.
He took the spear from Obika and wedged its thin end between the box and its lid. Obika tried to take the spear from him, but he would not hear it.
‘Stand aside,’ he told him. ‘What do you think is fighting inside? Two cocks?’ He clenched his teeth in an effort to lever the top open. It was not easy and the old priest was covered with sweat by the time he succeeded in forcing the box. What they saw was enough to blind a man. Ezeulu stood speechless. The women and the children who had watched from afar came running down. Ezeulu’s neighbour, Anosi, who was passing by branched in, and soon a big crowd had gathered. In the broken box lay an exhausted royal python.
‘May the Great Deity forbid,’ said Anosi.
‘An abomination has happened,’ said Akueke.
Matefi said: ‘If this is medicine, may it lose its potency.’
Ezeulu let the spear fall from his hand. ‘Where is Oduche?’ he asked. No one answered. ‘I said where is Oduche?’ His voice was terrible.
Nwafo said he had gone to church. The sacred python now raised its head above the edge of the box and began to move in its dignified and unhurried way.
‘Today I shall kill the boy with my own hands,’ said Ezeulu as he picked up the matchet which Obika had brought at first.
‘May the Great Deity forbid such a thing,’ said Anosi.
‘I have said it.’
Oduche’s mother began to cry, and the other women joined her. Ezeulu walked slowly back to his obi with the matchet. The royal python slid away into the bush.
‘What is the profit of crying?’ Anosi asked Ugoye. ‘Won’t you find where your son is and tell him not to return home today?’
‘He has spoken the truth, Ugoye,’ said Matefi. ‘Send him away to your kinsmen. We are fortunate the python is not dead.’
‘You are indeed fortunate,’ said Anosi to himself as he continued on his way to Umunneora to buy seed-yams from his friend. ‘I have already said that what this new religion will bring to Umuaro wears a hat on its head.’ As he went he stopped and told anyone he met what Ezeulu’s son had done. Before midday the story had reached the ears of Ezidemili whose deity, Idemili, owned the royal python.
It was five years since Ezeulu promised the white man that he would send one of his sons to church. But it was only two years ago that he fulfilled the promise. He wanted to satisfy himself that the white man had not come for a short visit but to build a house and live.
At first Oduche did not want to go to church. But Ezeulu called him to his obi and spoke to him as a man would speak to his best friend and the boy went forth with pride in his heart. He had never heard his father speak to anyone as an equal.
‘The world is changing,’ he had told him. ‘I do not like it. But I am like the bird Eneke-nti-oba. When his friends asked him why he was always on the wing he replied: “Men of today have learnt to shoot without missing and so I have learnt to fly without perching.” I want one of my sons to join these people and be my eye there. If there is nothing in it you will come back. But if there is something there you will bring home my share. The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well you do not stand in one place. My spirit tells me that those who do not befriend the white man today will be saying had we known tomorrow.’
Oduche’s mother, Ugoye, was not happy that her son should be chosen for sacrifice to the white man. She tried to reason with her husband, but he was impatient with her.
‘How does it concern you what I do with my sons? You say you do not want Oduche to follow strange ways. Do you not know that in a great man’s household there must be people who follow all kinds of strange ways? There must be good people and bad people, honest workers and thieves, peace-makers and destroyers; that is the mark of a great obi. In such a place, whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.’