CHAPTER ELEVEN
The night was impenetrably dark. The moon had been rising later and later every night
until now it was seen only at dawn. And whenever the moon forsook evening and rose
at cock-crow the nights were as black as charcoal.
Ezinma and her mother sat on a mat on the floor after their supper of yam foofoo and bitter-leaf soup. A palm-oil lamp gave out yellowish light. Without it, it would
have been impossible to eat,-one could not have known where one's mouth was in the
darkness of that night. There was an oil lamp in all the four huts on Okonkwo's
compound, and each hut seen from the others looked like a soft eye of yellow half-light
set in the solid massiveness of night.
The world was silent except for the shrill cry of insects, which was part of the
night, and the sound of wooden mortar and pestle as Nwayieke pounded her foo-foo.
Nwayieke lived four compounds away, and she was notorious for her late cooking.
Every woman in the neighbourhood knew the sound of Nwayieke's mortar and pestle. It
was also part of the night.
Okonkwo had eaten from his wives' dishes and was now reclining with his back
against the wall. He searched his bag and brought out his snuff-bottle. He turned it on to
his left palm, but nothing came out. He hit the bottle against his knee to shake up the
tobacco. That was always the trouble with Okeke's snuff. It very quickly went damp,
and there was too much saltpetre in it. Okonkwo had not bought snuff from him for a
long time. Idigo was the man who knew how to grind good snuff. But he had recently
fallen ill.
Low voices, broken now and again by singing, reached Okonkwo from his
wives' huts as each woman and her children told folk stories. Ekwefi and her daughter,
Ezinma, sat on a mat on the floor. It was Ekwefl's turn to tell a story.