up the rear, her face streaming with tears. In her hand was the cloth pad on which the
pot should have rested on her head.
"What happened?" her mother asked, and Obiageli told her mournful story. Her
mother consoled her and promised to buy her her another pot.
Nwoye's younger brothers were about to tell their mother the true story of the
accident when Ikemefuna looked at them sternly and they held their peace. The fact was
that Obiageli had been making inyanga with her pot. She had balanced it on her head,
folded her arms in front of her and began to sway her waist like a grown-up young lady.
When the pot fell down and broke she burst out laughing. She only began to weep when
they got near the iroko tree outside their compound.
The drums were still beating, persistent and unchanging. Their sound was no
longer a separate thing from the living village. It was like the pulsation of its heart. It
throbbed in the air, in the sunshine, and even in the trees, and filled the village with
excitement.
Ekwefi ladled her husband's share of the pottage into a bowl and covered it.
Ezinma took it to him in his obi.
Okonkwo was sitting on a goatskin already eating his first wife's meal. Obiageli,
who had brought it from her mother's hut, sat on the floor waiting for him to finish.
Ezinma placed her mother's dish before him and sat with Obiageli.
"Sit like a woman!" Okonkwo shouted at her. Ezinma brought her two legs
together and stretched them in front of her.
"Father, will you go to see the wrestling?" Ezinma asked after a suitable interval.
"Yes," he answered. "Will you go?"
"Yes." And after a pause she said: "Can I bring your chair for you?"