A SHORT STORY by OKEY ANUEYIAGU
THE STORY CONTINUES….
The previous Christmas, tragedy struck at Chief Chukwurah’s party. Chief Chukwurah who was a very tall and huge man, was also an extremely handsome fellow. He stood shoulder-high taller than most men from the village. He was a gregarious man whose smile and laughter disarmed everyone. He was stupendously loved and respected not only in the village, but beyond. His generosity endeared him to the entire town. The tales about his philanthropy and his willingness to lend a hand to the poor and needy became legendary.
As Chief Chukwurah returned home for this Christmas’ celebration, he was oblivious of the tragedy that awaited his arrival. He drove into town with his family in his gleaming black Mercedes Benz car, and another pickup loaded with goodies for the villagers in tow. Everyone looked forward to Chief Chukwurah’s homecoming, as he had become the toast of the town.
During the midnight celebrations at Chief Chukwurah’s compound, a Christian musical group in a carol proceeding and outing had entered the premises singing melodious choruses and playing drums, tambourine, and trumpets. After eating and drinking to fullness, the Christmas carol troop gathered underneath Chief Chukwurah’s two-storied building. He stood on the deck overlooking the Christmas revelers while acknowledging their salutes and praises. As was a regular tradition of Chief Chukwurah, he pulled out his double barreled winchester rifle and began to fire rounds of ammunition in the air. With the pop of each round, the crowd responded with thunderous applause. Smiles of joy and satisfaction broke across his face as crisp smell of gun powder rent the air.
Then, the celebratory gunshows turned to an eternal nightmare when Chief Chukwurah’s gun rounds accidentally hit two members of the Church choir in the procession. They died instantly, and there was a general stampede. An abomination had occurred and Chief Chukwurah was in very deep trouble.
The midnight tragedy had slowly closed in on Chief Chukwurah. His entire life had just been truncated. From the top balcony, he lowered his eyes like an exhausted fighter to behold the bloodied carnage beneath the foliage of the two dead bodies. He closed his eyes hoping that he was dreaming. When he opened his eyes, the scene of murder remained a reality, and his misty, dilated pupils became transformed into a thoroughly sapped countenance.
The entire village was thrown into mourning. The villagers moved rapidly to contain the situation. There was no police report. Because Chief Chukwurah was so beloved, the unanimity of silence was upmost. Instead, the village chose to sit in judgment of this matter. A quick and private burial was conducted for the dead, and a date set for the hearing and judgment on the matter.
The judgement day had just arrived at the Ezi Nkweanya village square, and the darling of the town had suddenly become the villain. His case must be tried and judged according to the native laws and customs.
The huge man dressed in an all-black long robe, and a long red cap that carried two feathers of a very rare bird called ugo – a bird that has sacred status within the Igbo. The feathers of these rare birds are affixed to the caps of well-respected titled men as symbols of honour and authority. His case was called up by the designated village orator, a man of great garb. He announced the matter in a rather whimsical manner, carrying on as if he was the executioner. He began by telling the gathering the parable of the hangman, his noose and a fat man’s neck. The gathering stayed silent as the orator while narrating the details of the incident, veered off several times with stories of unrelated matters obviously attempting to impress the gathering with his oratorial skills.
As Chief Chukwurah stood in the center of the village square many men took turns to speak mostly in his praise and adulation. Then came his turn to speak, to offer his defence. He began in a soft and tender voice to thank God and His son Jesus Christ for the genuine bonds of fraternity in the village. He began a Church Chorus and most of the women joined and almost brought the house down. I whispered mischievously to the toothless heathen sitting by my side: “Do you see the power of Jesus, don’t you hear it in the sweet voices of our beautiful women?” He hissed, looked away, ignoring me.
Chief Chukwurah’s voice rose and he began to tremble as he spoke. His voice was filled with sadness and regret for what he did. The man who had for many years shared unshakable love with his people, especially the poor and the needy, and filled many hearts with joy, now stood alone and fighting for his life in the village square. As he delivered his speech which was not necessarily a defence, but a supplication to God, he kept staring at the sky which at that moment held no hope nor meaning for him. His heart that used to be filled with confidence and courage, now held no value and carried nothing but the weight of despondency. The truth that was before him was cold and merciless.
Chief Chukwurah continued to speak, this time looking directly at the village head and the elders. “The truth is heavier than fame and fortune.” He said: “I have failed you, and I have let my God down.” He paused, his eyes glittering under the fading sun. “I took the lives of two innocent souls… I am guilty. I am a man wrestling not with any disease, but with the fate of a fainting fame and a haunting echo of despair… This life is meaningless and I deserved to have died a worse death than that which I brought upon those innocent girls”. He stopped for a moment, and began to sob. Many of the women started to cry, some wailing. He continued: “Today, as I watch the sun melt into the horizon, so also do I watch my life melt into the pits of hell … I am a finished man, and I beg for God’s forgiveness and for you my brothers and sisters, my umunna, to find a place in your loving hearts to forgive me, and accept my apologies for the grave sins, the alu that I have committed.” With this he bowed, walked to his seat as the gathering exploded with cheers, applause and wailings. I could have sworn that even a few of the men were caught wiping away tears.
Most Amudo village meetings at that time would have been inconclusive without an input from Uncle Nwoye. Nwoye who was considered to be an “intellectualdrunk” must speak, and he spoke only in the English language – and it didn’t matter to him that the majority of the villagers did not understand a word he spoke, but in the English language, he must speak. Surprisingly, the village illiterates were the ones who applauded Nwoye the most with every thunderous word he dropped.
Nwoye the very brilliant son of Nweke, had spent about ten years at Cambridge University in Britain, pursuing a degree in Classics and Literature, but had returned empty – handed without a degree to the consternation of his distraught father. Nweke had spent his entire life’s savings earned from working as a road – maintenance engineer with the PWD, sending his first son to England. Nwoye returned with nothing but a pipe for tobacco smoking, a musical flute, a guitar, a drunken head, and purely unadulterated Queen’s English accent. He rarely spoke to anyone in the lgbo language, and when he did, it was laddened with an English slant and perforations.
It was rumoured that when Nwoye arrived England for studies in the late 1940s he got tangled with a bunch of English royalties who didn’t care much about studying, but were more induced by the life of partying, drunkenness and womanizing. Nwoye fitted in properly as he was a very handsome, strong and well-mannered African student. He began to play in the university rugby and hockey teams, and instantly became a star on campus. His stardom got to his head, and he began to pay less attention to his studies, and instead dilly dallied into alcohol and woman. As the white women loved Nwoye, so did the alcohol seize his life. He derailed and never was able to finish school. His father was heartbroken.
Nwoye returned to live in his father’s mansion in Amudo village without a job. He played his flute and guitar at the village square under the moonlight at nights entertaining villagers who found his lifestyle fascinating. He never married but may have fathered as many as ten children with several women who had fallen for his charm. He was the village gigolo often living off widows and desperate women.
Nwoye dressed in a typical English gentleman’s style that stressed timelessness and impeccable fit of a garment made of grey tweed suit with a careful curation on a light blue wingtipped shirt. Nwoye looked stunning, but in the midst of the locals, was very inappropriately attired. Clutching his tobacco pipe, and a full flask of liquor neatly tucked in his breast pocket, Nwoye didn’t care, and was ready to exercise his rights in the defence of Chief Chukwurah who since he returned from England, had been one of his main benefactors.
As soon as Nwoye took his position to speak, the villagers in anticipation, rose up in thunderous shouts of excitement and joyful rancour. His father who sat quietly in the back, rose up, with tears in his eyes, left the village square and began a return to his home. Nwoye began to address the villagers in his Queen’s English with a full display of elongated vowels with distinctive sounds and pronunciations reserved only for the English royalties and the upper-class. This was happening in the Amudo village square in Awka.
Nwoye a master of the Shakespearean English speaking style, began with famous Shakespeare quotes: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” “When we are born we cry that we are come – to this great stage of fools … the web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together … you cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will not more willingly part withal-except my life, except my life, except my life.” Nwoye looked up to the sky, and then returned his gaze to the stunned villagers, who mostly didn’t understand a word he had spoken, and sensing their general sense of amusement, released his last Shakespearean quote, this time choosing from HENRY IV PART I, ACT 5 SCENE 2: “The time of life is short … To spend that shortness basely were too long.”
Nwoye broke from his quotes, dipped his right hand in his inner breast pocket and whisked out a silver-coloured flask, twisted the cork open and took a long gulp of substance I reckoned was a local brew of gin known as a eshilieshi. He took a deliberate belch that echoed off the silence of the observant crowd, while stocking back his alcohol pouch in his chest pocket. From his outer breast pocket stuck out his tobacco pipe made of glittering wooden ensemble. He lifted it, and lit it up blowing a wild smoke. The smell of the aromatic erinmore brand of tobacco filled the air. It was a very sweet scented smell that I liked so very much – it made me want to smoke so badly.
The smart Englishman from Awka had captured the attention of the constellated cluster of the Amudo village gathering with his wit and loaded grammar. He strolled nonchalantly like a monarch to the stand where the village head and the elders sat, bowed and tipped his hat, adjusted his bowtie and began to speak in a sonorous and imposing, deep and confident voice. He was not in any hurry with his speech as he picked and chose his words very carefully, giving them very weighty tones and harmonious resonance.
Using an old and archaic English phrase used in speeches to attract public attention, Nwoye began to speak in defence of his friend, Chukwurah: “Hear ye, hear ye, I have come before you my brethren not to inveigh, or to protest with great anger and hostility about the possibility of any sanctions against our brother, because if we take any drastic decisions against him, it would harm our community… when we misstep we must deploy tolerance, inclusivity and understanding amongst ourselves and eschew bitterness, hostility or hatred towards one another. I do not desire to disport or frolic about this serious matter, neither do I wish to hornswoggle you unnecessarily.” Nwoye turned to the rest of the gathering, raising his voice, he continued: “This imbroglio must end… what this complicated situation will serve our people is nothing but intricate conflict leading to a state of confusion and uncertainty that will convolute and perplex our already tangled customs.”
As Nwoye spoke, he kept acknowledging positive nods coming mostly from the village Illiterates who didn’t understand a word he spoke, with reassuring smiles signifying that more high-sounding words were on their way. Sensing a kill, Nwoye’s magniloquence rose, and the villagers responded with loud gasps and shouts with every big words he spoke.