CHAPTER NINE
For the first time in three nights, Okonkwo slept. He woke up once in the middle of the
night and his mind went back to the past three days without making him feel uneasy. He
began to wonder why he had felt uneasy at all. It was like a man wondering in broad
daylight why a dream had appeared so terrible to him at night. He stretched himself and
scratched his thigh where a mosquito had bitten him as he slept. Another one was
wailing near his right ear. He slapped the ear and hoped he had killed it. Why do they
always go for one's ears? When he was a child his mother had told him a story about it.
But it was as silly as all women's stories. Mosquito, she had said, had asked Ear to
marry him, whereupon Ear fell on the floor in uncontrollable laughter. "How much
longer do you think you will live?" she asked. "You are already a skeleton." Mosquito
went away humiliated, and any time he passed her way he told Ear that he was still
alive.
Okonkwo turned on his side and went back to sleep. He was roused in the
morning by someone banging on his door.
"Who is that?" he growled. He knew it must be Ekwefi.
Of his three wives Ekwefi was the only one who would have the audacity to
bang on his door.
"Ezinma is dying," came her voice, and all the tragedy and sorrow of her life
were packed in those words.
Okonkwo sprang from his bed, pushed back the bolt on his door and ran into
Ekwefi's hut.
Ezinma lay shivering on a mat beside a huge fire that her mother had kept
burning all night.