Read Online Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe - Free Book Online Page A

women went to Ozoemena’s hut and told her. She rose from her mat, took her stick and walked over to the
obi.
She knelt on her knees and hands at the threshold and called her husband, who was laid on a mat. ‘Ogbuefi Ndulue,’ she called, three times, and went back to her hut. When the youngest wife went to call her again to be present at the washing of the body, she found her lying on the mat, dead.”
    “That is very strange, indeed,” said Okonkwo. “They will put off Ndulue’s funeral until his wife has been buried.”
    “That is why the drum has not been beaten to tell Umuofia.”
    “It was always said that Ndulue and Ozoemena had one mind,” said Obierika. “I remember when I was a young boy there was a song about them. He could not do anything without telling her.”
    “I did not know that,” said Okonkwo. “I thought he was a strong man in his youth.”
    “He was indeed,” said Ofoedu.
    Okonkwo shook his head doubtfully.
    “He led Umuofia to war in those days,” said Obierika.

    Okonkwo was beginning to feel like his old self again. All that he required was something to occupy his mind. If he had killed Ikemefuna during the busy planting season or harvesting it would not have been so bad; his mind would have been centered on his work. Okonkwo was not a man of thought but of action. But in absence of work, talking was the next best.
    Soon after Ofoedu left, Okonkwo took up his goatskin bag to go.
    “I must go home to tap my palm trees for the afternoon,” he said.
    “Who taps your tall trees for you?” asked Obierika.
    “Umezulike,” replied Okonkwo.
    “Sometimes I wish I had not taken the
ozo
title,” said Obierika. “It wounds my heart to see these young men killing palm trees in the name of tapping.”
    “It is so indeed,” Okonkwo agreed. “But the law of the land must be obeyed.”
    “I don’t know how we got that law,” said Obierika. “In many other clans a man of title is not forbidden to climb the palm tree. Here we say he cannot climb the tall tree but he can tap the short ones standing on the ground. It is like Dimaragana, who would not lend his knife for cutting up dogmeat because the dog was taboo to him, but offered to use his teeth.”
    “I think it is good that our clan holds the
ozo
title in highesteem,” said Okonkwo. “In those other clans you speak of,
ozo
is so low that every beggar takes it.”
    “I was only speaking in jest,” said Obierika. “In Abame and Aninta the title is worth less than two cowries. Every man wears the thread of title on his ankle, and does not lose it even if he steals.”
    “They have indeed soiled the name of
ozo,”
said Okonkwo as he rose to go.
    “It will not be very long now before my in-laws come,” said Obierika.
    “I shall return very soon,” said Okonkwo, looking at the position of the sun.
    There were seven men in Obierika’s hut when Okonkwo returned. The suitor was a young man of about twenty-five, and with him were his father and uncle. On Obierika’s side were his two elder brothers and Maduka, his sixteen-year-old son.
    “Ask Akueke’s mother to send us some kola nuts,” said Obierika to his son. Maduka vanished into the compound like lightning. The conversation at once centered on him, and everybody agreed that he was as sharp as a razor.
    “I sometimes think he is too sharp,” said Obierika, somewhat indulgently. “He hardly ever walks. He is always in a hurry. If you are sending him on an errand he flies away before he has heard half of the message.”
    “You were very much like that yourself,” said his eldest brother. “As our people say, ‘When mother-cow is chewinggrass its young ones watch its mouth.’ Maduka has been watching your mouth.”
    As he was speaking the boy returned, followed by Akueke, his half-sister, carrying a wooden dish with three kola nuts and alligator pepper. She gave the dish to her father’s eldest brother and then shook hands, very shyly, with her suitor and his