The stick went in a different direction from where the animal was comfortably perching, twitching its whiskers. By the time he broke another cassava stem and readied to hurl it, the squirrel saw Jamike’s movement and was nowhere to be found.
“Thank your god, you escaped today,” he said. “Your luck cannot continue forever. Try coming my way tomorrow and find out if your head will not cook in a pot. Idiot!”
Jamike moved deliberately in the bush in search of a quarry, attentive to every noise or movement on the ground or on the trees. He used his machete to cut impediments on his path. Suddenly he stopped. His foot stepped on a hard object. He cleared the ground with the tip of his machete. It was a big snail and would make good meat.
Three
Years of widowhood and harsh living took their toll on Uridiya’s body. The furrowed forehead, the gray hair, and slightly drawn cheeks bespoke this as she continued to survive the machinations of relatives who constantly wronged her when Jamike was growing up. Jamike proved brilliant in primary school. Many times he would come home and inform his mother he came first in class at the end of the school term. If Uridiya asked for the “piece of paper” the teacher gave him to prove what he told her, Jamike would explain that his report card was withheld because of fees he did not pay. Each time this was the case, Uridiya would curse the death that took Nnorom away, depriving him of the joy of seeing his only child grow up and excel in school.
“They can hold your report card for as long as they want. If they want, they can chew and swallow it too. But one day it will be given to you. Anyone who seizes a child’s possession and holds it high beyond the child’s reach will bring the item down when his or her hand starts hurting. Uridiya didn’t say this, it is a proverb I heard from the elders.”
On occasions when Jamike announced that he passed his examinations, Uridiya would come out in the middle of the compound to rejoice, calling her ancestors to join her. She would bend low at her waist and take successive dance steps in different directions and at the end of each routine, raise her leg and slap her loincloth. Then she would raise both open hands toward the sky, with or without Jamike’s report card, saying:
“If only Nnorom were alive this day! Alive to see his little seed of yesterday make him happy! Death, did you do this to me?” Uridiya would slap her open palm on her chest. “Did you say that a man who suffered would not see the fruit of his labor? No, death, do not rejoice, you are not victorious. I say you have not won. For as long as Jamike is alive, Nnorom is alive. Shame on you and the devil.”
Other women in the compound hearing her loud voice would come out to rejoice with her. Some would give her high five. Uridiya did not think they were all happy for her, but she couldn’t care less.
“My God, if Nnorom lived, maybe I would have given him another child,” she continued; “It is not a law that he would have only one child because he was an only child himself. But I swore I would not bring forth a child with another man. Shame to all those who promised heaven and earth to give Uridiya another child.” The women laughed and thought the menopausal Uridiya should be thankful to God for the miracle of Jamike rather than talk nonsense.
“Chineke, what did I do to deserve this? But I know it will be all right, that you will wipe my tears away through the son you have placed in my hands to look after. He does not belong to me. He is yours. I am only a caretaker. My Lord, the power is in your hands, not in mine.”
Jamike could not have finished primary school were it not for the village headmaster, Mr. Ahamba, who took over the payment of his fees. The headmaster was a middle-aged man from the distant town of Emekukwu where the missionaries first settled in that part of Eastern Nigeria. He was portly, and his head was beginning to bald. His people had been long in contact with the missionaries, and he was one of those to receive education early in the nineteen forties.
Though Jamike’s examination report cards were often with held, Uridiya managed to pay the fees in the end. It happened that for two consecutive terms, the same bright pupil that came first in Primary Standard Three examinations had his results withheld for not completing his fees. The headmaster was aware of this but did not know who the pupil was. When Jamike’s result was again withheld at the end of his first term in Primary Standard Four, the headmaster asked to see the pupil. Jamike was petrified when Ekweariri, his teacher, took him to see the headmaster, Mr. Ahamba, at the beginning of the second term.
The headmaster’s office was in fading blue color. Roof rafters and crossbeams were visible in the room with no ceiling. Jamike and his teacher stood a good distance from the headmaster’s wooden table with a green blotter that covered half the tabletop. There were class registers on one side of the table and teachers’ notes of lessons on another side. Three bottles of black, blue, and red ink, pencils and fountain pens were obvious.
“Good afternoon, sir. This is the pupil, sir.”
“What is your name, young man?” Ahamba asked the boy who stood at frozen attention.
“Jamike,” he replied, shaking in his knees.
“Who pays your school fees?” he asked in a deep voice, as he looked at him straight in his face. Jamike dropped his head.
“My mother.”
“Why does your father leave your mother to pay your fees?”
“My father is not alive,” Jamike stated.
“How long ago did he die?”
“Sir, I don’t know. My mother said I was a little boy then,” he answered.
“What type of work does your mother do to get money for your fees?”
“Sir, she sells whatever she gets from the farm.” Jamike began to sweat.
“Things like what?”
Jamike told the headmaster that his mother sold vegetables, cocoyam, pepper, palm oil, and palm kernel.
“ Does your mother not have some other person in the family who can help her pay your fees?” The boy regained his confidence.
“Sir, it is my father’s brother but he is not on good terms with my mother. They quarrel all the time. He did not want me to attend school.”
“What did he want you to do?”
“Sir, he wanted me to learn how to repair bicycles.”
“You know your last term’s result was withheld because you did not complete your fees?”
“Sir, I know.” Mr. Ahamba looked at the teacher and shook his bald head.
“What a waste of talent if this boy does not finish schooling.”
“There are many like him, sir, but this boy is different because he is always first in class examinations.” Jamike did not fully understand what the headmaster said about talent.
Jamike’s teacher noted that very soon students would be sent home for non-payment of the present term’s fees, and Jamike would be among them. At this point the headmaster told Mr. Ekweariri, and Jamike thought he heard him well, not to send the student away for lack of school fees until both of them discussed it. He asked Jamike to return to his classroom while his teacher stayed back. As he left the headmaster’s office, Jamike tried to think about why the headmaster
