He sang it in his mind, and walked to its beat. If the song ended on his right foot,
his mother was alive. If it ended on his left, she was dead. No, not dead, but ill. It ended
on the right. She was alive and well. He sang the song again, and it ended on the left.
But the second time did not count. The first voice gets to Chukwu, or God's house. That
was a favourite saying of children. Ikemefuna felt like a child once more. It must be the
thought of going home to his mother.
One of the men behind him cleared his throat. Ikemefuna looked back, and the
man growled at him to go on and not stand looking back. The way he said it sent cold
fear down Ikemefuna's back. His hands trembled vaguely on the black pot he carried.
Why had Okonkwo withdrawn to the rear? Ikemefuna felt his legs melting under him.
And he was afraid to look back.
As the man who had cleared his throat drew up and raised his machete,
Okonkwo looked away. He heard the blow. The pot fell and broke in the sand. He heard
Ikemefuna cry, "My father, they have killed me!" as he ran towards him. Dazed with
fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought
weak.
As soon as his father walked in, that night, Nwoye knew that Ikemefuna had
been killed, and something seemed to give way inside him, like the snapping of a
tightened bow. He did not cry. He just hung limp. He had had the same kind of feeling
not long ago, during the last harvest season. Every child loved the harvest season. Those
who were big enough to carry even a few yams in a tiny basket went with grown-ups to
the farm. And if they could not help in digging up the yams, they could gather firewood
together for roasting the ones that would be eaten there on the farm. This roasted yam
soaked in red palm-oil and eaten in the open farm was sweeter than any meal at home. It
was after such a day at the farm during the last harvest that Nwoye had felt for the first
time a snapping inside him like the one he now felt. They were returning home with
baskets of yams from a distant farm across the stream when they heard the voice of an
infant crying in the thick forest. A sudden hush had fallen on the women, who had been
talking, and they had quickened their steps. Nwoye had heard that twins were put in
earthenware pots and thrown away in the forest, but he had never yet come across them.