Okonkwo said yes, and only then realised for the first time that the child had
died on the same market-day as it had been born. The neighbours and relations also saw
the coincidence and said among themselves that it was very significant.
"Where do you sleep with your wife, in your obi or in her own hut?" asked the
medicine man.
"In her hut."
"In future call her into your obi."
The medicine man then ordered that there should be no mourning for the dead
child. He brought out a sharp razor from the goatskin bag slung from his left shoulder
and began to mutilate the child. Then he took it away to bury in the Evil Forest, holding
it by the ankle and dragging it on the ground behind him. After such treatment it would
think twice before coming again, unless it was one of the stubborn ones who returned,
carrying the stamp of their mutilation--a missing finger or perhaps a dark line where the
medicine man's razor had cut them.
By the time Onwumbiko died Ekwefi had become a very bitter woman. Her
husband's first wife had already had three sons, all strong and healthy. When she had
borne her third son in succession, Okonkwo had slaughtered a goat for her, as was the
custom. Ekwefi had nothing but good wishes for her. But she had grown so bitter about
her own chi that she could not rejoice with others over their good fortune. And so, on
the day that Nwoye's mother celebrated the birth of her three sons with feasting and
music, Ekwefi was the only person in the happy company who went about with a cloud
on her brow. Her husband's wife took this for malevolence, as husbands' wives were
wont to. How could she know that Ekwefi's bitterness did not flow outwards to others
but inwards into her own soul,- that she did not blame others for their good fortune but
her own evil chi who denied her any?
At last Ezinma was born, and although ailing she seemed determined to live. At
first Ekwefi accepted her, as she had accepted others--with listless resignation. But
when she lived on to her fourth, fifth and sixth years, love returned once more to her