Just then Obierika's son, Maduka, came into the obi from outside, greeted
Okonkwo and turned towards the compound, "Come and shake hands with me,"
Okonkwo said to the lad. "Your wrestling the other day gave me much happiness." The
boy smiled, shook hands with Okonkwo and went into the compound.
"He will do great things," Okonkwo said. "If I had a son like him I should be
happy. I am worried about Nwoye. A bowl of pounded yams can throw him in a
wrestling match. His two younger brothers are more promising. But I can tell you,
Obierika, that my children do not resemble me. Where are the young suckers that will
grow when the old banana tree dies? If Ezinma had been a boy I would have been
happier. She has the right spirit."
"You worry yourself for nothing," said Obierika. "The children are still very
young."
"Nwoye is old enough to impregnate a woman. At his age I was already fending
for myself. No, my friend, he is not too young. A chick that will grow into a cock can be
spotted the very day it hatches. I have done my best to make Nwoye grow into a man,
but there is too much of his mother in him."
"Too much of his grandfather," Obierika thought, but he did not say it. The same
thought also came to Okonkwo's mind. But he had long learned how to lay that ghost.
Whenever the thought of his father's weakness and failure troubled him he expelled it
by thinking about his own strength and success. And so he did now. His mind went to
his latest show of manliness.
"I cannot understand why you refused to come with us to kill that boy," he asked
Obierika.
"Because I did not want to," Obierika replied sharply. "I had something better to
do."
"You sound as if you question the authority and the decision of the Oracle, who
said he should die."