fowl. She put back the empty pot on the circular pad in the corner, and looked at her
palms, which were black with soot. Ezinma was always surprised that her mother could
lift a pot from the fire with her bare hands.
"Ekwefi," she said, "is it true that when people are grown up, fire does not burn
them?" Ezinma, unlike most children, called her mother by her name.
"Yes," replied Ekwefi, too busy to argue. Her daughter was only ten years old
but she was wiser than her years.
"But Nwoye's mother dropped her pot of hot soup the other day and it broke on
the floor."
Ekwefi turned the hen over in the mortar and began to pluck the feathers.
"Ekwefi," said Ezinma, who had joined in plucking the feathers, "my eyelid is
twitching."
"It means you are going to cry," said her mother.
"No," Ezinma said, "it is this eyelid, the top one."
"That means you will see something."
"What will I see?" she asked.
"How can I know?" Ekwefi wanted her to work it out herself.
"Oho," said Ezinma at last. "I know what it is--the wrestling match."
At last the hen was plucked clean. Ekwefi tried to pull out the horny beak but it
was too hard. She turned round on her low stool and put the beak in the fire for a few
moments. She pulled again and it came off.
"Ekwefi!" a voice called from one of the other huts. It was Nwoye's mother,
Okonkwo's first wife.