Girls at War Read Online Free PDF Page A

risen between her and her brothers. She heard their muttering with fear. They had not yet told her what must be done, but she knew. She wanted to ask them to take her to their mother’s father in Ezi but so great was the enmity that had so strangely come between them that her pride forbade her to speak. Let them dare. Last night Ofodile who was the eldest had wanted to speak but had only stood and looked at her with tears in his eyes. Who was he crying for? Let him go and eat shit.
    In the fitful half-sleep that later visited her Akueke was far away in her grandfather’s compound in Ezi without even the memory of her sickness. She was once again the village beauty.
    Akueke had been her mother’s youngest child and only daughter. There were six brothers and their father had died when she was still a little girl. But he had been a man of substance so that even after hisdeath his family did not know real want, especially as some of his sons already planted their own farms.
    Several times every year Akueke’s mother took her children to visit her own kinsmen in Ezi, a whole day’s journey from Umuofia at the younger children’s pace. Sometimes Akueke rode on her mother’s back, sometimes she walked. When the sun came up her mother broke a little cassava twig from the roadside farm to protect her head.
    Akueke looked forward to these visits to her mother’s father, a giant of a man with white hair and beard. Sometimes the old man wore his beard as a rope-like plait ending in a fine point from which palm-wine dripped to the ground when he drank. This never ceased to amuse Akueke. The old man knew it and improved the situation for her by gnashing his teeth between gulps of wine.
    He was very fond of his granddaughter who, they said, was the image of his own mother. He rarely called Akueke by her name: it was always
Mother.
She was in fact the older woman returned in the cycle of life. During the visits to Ezi, Akueke knew she could get away with anything; her grandfather forbade anyone to rebuke her.
    The voices beyond the wall grew louder. Perhaps neighbours were remonstrating with her brothers. So they all knew now. Let them all eat shit. If she could get up she would chase them all out with the old broom lying near her bed. She wished her mother were alive. This would not have happened to her.
    Akueke’s mother had died two years ago and was taken to Ezi to be buried with her own people. The old man who had seen many sorrows in his life asked, “Why do they take my children and leave me?” But some days later he told people who came to consolehim, “We are God’s chickens. Sometimes He chooses a young chicken to eat and sometimes He chooses an old one.” Akueke remembered these scenes vividly and for once came near to crying. What would the old man do when he heard of her abominable death?
    Akueke’s age-grade brought out their first public dance in the dry season that followed her mother’s death. Akueke created a sensation by her dancing, and her suitors increased tenfold. From one market to another some man brought palm-wine to her brothers. But Akueke rejected them all. Her brothers began to be worried. They all loved their only sister, and especially since their mother’s death, they seemed to vie with one another in seeking her happiness.
    And now they were worried because she was throwing away chances of a good marriage. Her eldest brother, Ofodile, told her as sternly as he could that proud girls who refused every suitor often came to grief, like Onwuero in the story, who rejected every man but in the end ran after three fishes which had taken the form of handsome young men in order to destroy her.
    Akueke did not listen. And now her protective spirit despairing of her had taken a hand in the matter and she was stricken with this disease. At first people pretended not to notice the swelling stomach.
    Medicine-men were brought in from far and wide to minister to her. But their herbs and roots had no effect.