Читать книгу Against the Odds - Ben Igwe - Страница 11

Three

Years of widowhood and harsh living took their toll on Uridiya’s body. The furrowed forehead, the gray hair, and slightly drawn cheeks bespoke this as she continued to survive the machinations of relatives who constantly wronged her when Jamike was growing up. Jamike proved brilliant in primary school. Many times he would come home and inform his mother he came first in class at the end of the school term. If Uridiya asked for the “piece of paper” the teacher gave him to prove what he told her, Jamike would explain that his report card was withheld because of fees he did not pay. Each time this was the case, Uridiya would curse the death that took Nnorom away, depriving him of the joy of seeing his only child grow up and excel in school.

“They can hold your report card for as long as they want. If they want, they can chew and swallow it too. But one day it will be given to you. Anyone who seizes a child’s possession and holds it high beyond the child’s reach will bring the item down when his or her hand starts hurting. Uridiya didn’t say this, it is a proverb I heard from the elders.”

On occasions when Jamike announced that he passed his examinations, Uridiya would come out in the middle of the compound to rejoice, calling her ancestors to join her. She would bend low at her waist and take successive dance steps in different directions and at the end of each routine, raise her leg and slap her loincloth. Then she would raise both open hands toward the sky, with or without Jamike’s report card, saying:

“If only Nnorom were alive this day! Alive to see his little seed of yesterday make him happy! Death, did you do this to me?” Uridiya would slap her open palm on her chest. “Did you say that a man who suffered would not see the fruit of his labor? No, death, do not rejoice, you are not victorious. I say you have not won. For as long as Jamike is alive, Nnorom is alive. Shame on you and the devil.”

Other women in the compound hearing her loud voice would come out to rejoice with her. Some would give her high five. Uridiya did not think they were all happy for her, but she couldn’t care less.

“My God, if Nnorom lived, maybe I would have given him another child,” she continued; “It is not a law that he would have only one child because he was an only child himself. But I swore I would not bring forth a child with another man. Shame to all those who promised heaven and earth to give Uridiya another child.” The women laughed and thought the menopausal Uridiya should be thankful to God for the miracle of Jamike rather than talk nonsense.

“Chineke, what did I do to deserve this? But I know it will be all right, that you will wipe my tears away through the son you have placed in my hands to look after. He does not belong to me. He is yours. I am only a caretaker. My Lord, the power is in your hands, not in mine.”

Jamike could not have finished primary school were it not for the village headmaster, Mr. Ahamba, who took over the payment of his fees. The headmaster was a middle-aged man from the distant town of Emekukwu where the missionaries first settled in that part of Eastern Nigeria. He was portly, and his head was beginning to bald. His people had been long in contact with the missionaries, and he was one of those to receive education early in the nineteen forties.

Though Jamike’s examination report cards were often with held, Uridiya managed to pay the fees in the end. It happened that for two consecutive terms, the same bright pupil that came first in Primary Standard Three examinations had his results withheld for not completing his fees. The headmaster was aware of this but did not know who the pupil was. When Jamike’s result was again withheld at the end of his first term in Primary Standard Four, the headmaster asked to see the pupil. Jamike was petrified when Ekweariri, his teacher, took him to see the headmaster, Mr. Ahamba, at the beginning of the second term.

The headmaster’s office was in fading blue color. Roof rafters and crossbeams were visible in the room with no ceiling. Jamike and his teacher stood a good distance from the headmaster’s wooden table with a green blotter that covered half the tabletop. There were class registers on one side of the table and teachers’ notes of lessons on another side. Three bottles of black, blue, and red ink, pencils and fountain pens were obvious.

“Good afternoon, sir. This is the pupil, sir.”

“What is your name, young man?” Ahamba asked the boy who stood at frozen attention.

“Jamike,” he replied, shaking in his knees.

“Who pays your school fees?” he asked in a deep voice, as he looked at him straight in his face. Jamike dropped his head.

“My mother.”

“Why does your father leave your mother to pay your fees?”

“My father is not alive,” Jamike stated.

“How long ago did he die?”

“Sir, I don’t know. My mother said I was a little boy then,” he answered.

“What type of work does your mother do to get money for your fees?”

“Sir, she sells whatever she gets from the farm.” Jamike began to sweat.

“Things like what?”

Jamike told the headmaster that his mother sold vegetables, cocoyam, pepper, palm oil, and palm kernel.

“ Does your mother not have some other person in the family who can help her pay your fees?” The boy regained his confidence.

“Sir, it is my father’s brother but he is not on good terms with my mother. They quarrel all the time. He did not want me to attend school.”

“What did he want you to do?”

“Sir, he wanted me to learn how to repair bicycles.”

“You know your last term’s result was withheld because you did not complete your fees?”

“Sir, I know.” Mr. Ahamba looked at the teacher and shook his bald head.

“What a waste of talent if this boy does not finish schooling.”

“There are many like him, sir, but this boy is different because he is always first in class examinations.” Jamike did not fully understand what the headmaster said about talent.

Jamike’s teacher noted that very soon students would be sent home for non-payment of the present term’s fees, and Jamike would be among them. At this point the headmaster told Mr. Ekweariri, and Jamike thought he heard him well, not to send the student away for lack of school fees until both of them discussed it. He asked Jamike to return to his classroom while his teacher stayed back. As he left the headmaster’s office, Jamike tried to think about why the headmaster would ask his teacher not to send him away if he did not pay his fees. Did he mean Jamike would not pay school fees anymore, or is it that the headmaster would now pay for him? He did not understand it. The teacher came closer to the headmaster’s table.

“Who will take care of his fees, sir? You know it would be unfair to send other students home without Jamike being sent home too.”

“I will take over the payment from now on. A bright young man like this should be assisted, or he would leave school and begin to waste his life in the village and never realize his potential.”

“Do you mean this, sir?”

“ I would not say so if I did not mean it.”

“What you have said is true, sir, about children not being able to realize their potential because of lack of money,” the teacher said. “What you have done, sir, has no comparison. It is wonderful, sir. You know, sir, that you need to arrange to see his mother so she won’t have to worry herself to death about this term’s fees. Parents lose sleep and pine away when it is time for school fees and money is not available.”

“I plan to do so. I will, however, need someone to direct me to his home.” The headmaster thought for a few seconds. “No, I think the best thing to do will be to follow Jamike home after school next Friday. That’s what I am going to do.”

“That would be the best way to go about it. Thank you, sir.” Teacher Ekweariri left the office thinking how lucky Jamike was among other students. “Well, he is intelligent,” he muttered.

That night the headmaster and his wife, Asamuka, discussed his intention. She said it was worthwhile and gave her support. That was not the first time the headmaster and his wife had helped an indigent student, but for Jamike they planned to be responsible for his fees until he completed elementary school in Primary Standard Six, three years away.

It was a little after two o’clock in the afternoon on a Friday. The sun was still hot. Hawks flew high and drifted in clear skies. Dry oil-bean pods exploded on trees from the sun’s heat, and children ran with speed into bushes in different directions, not minding thorns, shrubs, and other impediments to pick oil-bean seeds. Though the market was settling to its usual noisy business at this time, some men could be seen strolling leisurely and chatting on their way while women with baskets of goods to sell walked at a more than normal pace.

Most villagers had gone to the market, and the village was generally quiet. School children who played ball along the road were still heading home. Uridiya, usually prompt for the market, was still in her backyard arranging and tying her basket. Akudike, her late husband’s brother, tired from the day’s farm work sent his grandson to the market for tobacco and palm wine while he swept out the goat shed and organized his veranda.

The headmaster dismounted his white Raleigh bicycle at the gate of the compound and stood it to the left of Akudike’s out house. School children who saw him on his way down the dirt road were surprised but excited that he was in their neighborhood. Some ran off to tell their parents that their headmaster had gone into Jamike’s compound with him, but they were doubted. Others stood and stared, wondering what might have happened. They thought the boy must have committed a serious offense at school for the headmaster to bring him home. Uridiya answered her son from her backyard. Jamike hurried back there and in a moment was out with his mother.

Uridiya was gripped with apprehension when Jamike introduced the headmaster. She greeted him but did not know what to make of this unusual visit.

“Headmaster, what brought you to our compound this day? Whatever it is, it must be your spirit that has been delaying me. I would have long been in the market by now. I hope it is nothing bad. Children are very rascally these days.”

“Your son brought me, but it is for a good reason. I like to visit in the village from time to time, but I just haven’t made it to this area before now.”

“God bless you that you remember us. May it be good to you.” Akudike raised his head and kept an ear in the direction of the conversation.

Uridiya called on Akudike to come out to see who had come to visit them. He chided her for keeping the headmaster standing while she talked to him.

“Find the headmaster a seat,” he scolded Uridiya. He shook the headmaster’s hand and motioned him to his veranda. Once they sat down, he offered kola nut and alligator pepper, which he fished out of his bag, and apologized for not having any palm wine.

“Please pardon our inadequacy.”

“ You have offered kola nut to welcome me and that is enough in our tradition. After all, I did not inform you I was coming to visit.”

Jamike was standing and holding on to the wood column that supported Akudike’s veranda, his feet crossed as if he was about to swing around the wood.

“I thank you for the kola nut. Let me not hold you from leaving for the market. It is past time. Uridiya, is this your son?” He looked at Uridiya and pointed at Jamike.

“He is the only child God gave to me and his father.”

“He did not ask you for a story, Uridiya, storyteller. If you begin your story I will leave you to continue. He asked you a simple question. He hasn’t told you why he is here,” Akudike cautioned.

“Oh, I will shut up. When he asks me the next question, you tell me what to answer. Pardon me, headmaster. This is the way they shut me up in this compound. I have no say, not even to tell you that Jamike is my child without a rebuke from those who own me.” The headmaster was amused. He understood family squabbles.

“The reason I came here is to talk about your son, Jamike. He is an intelligent student and does well in class, coming first in examinations most of the time. I found out from his teacher that his end of school term result is always withheld, either because he has not completed his fees for the term or he failed to pay anything at all…” Uridiya cut in.

“Your observation is right. I pay, as I am able, when I can. Things are hard for the two of us. But I have sworn to my god that he will go to school. Let God do his wish on him.”

Jamike listened to every word that came out of the headmaster’s mouth and watched as well the look of consternation on his mother’s face. Jamike had told his mother about the meeting with the headmaster and his teacher early in the week but Uridiya did not think much about it. She thought the boy did not understand what he was talking about.

“Hold on, Uridiya.” Akudike interjected. “Headmaster, though she took the word from your mouth, what she said is true. Since the boy’s father, my brother, died, the woman you are looking at here has suffered in raising this boy. Whether they see what to eat or not they carry on. It is from what she scratches out of the farm that she uses for both of them. These days the farm does not yield much. However, God has blessed her with a good boy. Of all the children in the kindred, this child is number one in character. Just mention the errand and he is on his way. If you give him a message for someone he does not forget it while playing, like other children do these days. He is a good boy. Please, continue your statement,” Akudike said.

“Woman, you have tried very much. I praise you for your determination that your boy will be educated.”

Uridiya adjusted herself on the bamboo bench in Akudike’s cool veranda. On hot days this bench serves as a bed for the old man.

“Since I did not go to school, let him go there and read the books for himself and for me,” she cut in again. Akudike was irritated.

“Headmaster, do you see that? This is what I am talking about. Uridiya, please allow the man to talk. You have started the behavior that brings you in conflict and gets you in trouble with the village people. Keep your mouth shut.”

“I have kept it shut. God gave me a mouth to talk with, but all of you in our kindred say Uridiya will not talk. I agree. Jamike, do you see what I tell you all the time? Thank God these things keep happening before you.”

A kinsman came into the compound to see Akudike but he was asked to wait outside for him. This man heard that the headmaster was in the compound and had come to verify. He asked to tell Akudike he would return, but did not.

“I don’t have a long statement to make. I come to talk about Jamike, your son. He is a bright young man who does outstandingly well in schoolwork. I found out that he has continuous difficulty in paying fees or school levies. He informed me that his father died when he was a child, leaving his mother the burden of raising him and now struggling with his school needs. I fully understand his plight. My own father died when I was a schoolboy, but my situation was different. Not many children attended school in those days, so the Catholic mission helped to support me. I am here to tell you that starting from this term I will take over the payment of your son’s fees until he finishes Primary Standard Six in three years. I will give him what is called scholarship. It is from me and not from the mission or the government.”

“What did he say he is giving Jamike?” Uridiya asked Akudike.

“It is scholarship. It simply means I will pay his fees and buy his books while he attends school. So, let’s leave it at that so you can go on to the market. I need to leave too to take care of school matters.” He did not say that, Uridiya thought. She moved closer to Akudike and held his lap. Her body shivered.

“Akudike, what did he say? I doubt if I heard him right. Please tell me what he said, so I won’t misunderstand him.” Akudike could not believe what he heard, either.

“I am not deaf yet, but hold on while I ask the headmaster to repeat what he said so it would not be that we did not hear him properly.

“Headmaster, what did you say? Please say it again so we may hear it well.”

Jamike himself thought he heard the headmaster very well. He was now thinking about the flogging and being sent away for school fees. These would be no more, and he would not have to cry on his way to school because Uridiya did not have the fees to give him. His school report card would not be withheld anymore, and he could now jubilate like other students when school results were announced at the end of the school term instead of leaving the assembly hall downcast. He believed he heard the headmaster clearly. The headmaster answered Akudike and repeated what he just said.

“I said I will take over the payment of Jamike’s fees from now on. This means from his present class, Primary Standard Four, up to Standard Six. I will be his father in this respect. You only have to provide him food, clothing, and other things a boy needs. Do not worry about his school fees and books.” Uridiya fell to the ground on her knees. Her hands up and palms open, she said:

“Headmaster, I thank you. Who said that man is not God to man? Yes, man is the God we see everyday. He works His miracles like this one through man. Headmaster, you are God this day for my child and me. Nnorom, are you seeing the good that is coming into your household? Death be shamed! Akudike, can you see? You said I should shut my mouth. This time I don’t have the mouth to talk. You can do all the talking now. How do we thank him? How will I be able to thank this savior? I leave that in your hands.” She moved closer to the headmaster and held his knees, tears welling in her eyes. Imagine not paying school fees any more!

An arrow of envy shot through Akudike because Uridiya’s hardship was about to lessen. He had mocked that Uridiya had a grand plan to educate her son when she had no means to do so and failed to heed his advice that the boy should learn bicycle repairing or blacksmithing, for which he seemed gifted. He used to comment that Uridiya thought education would be cheap or something one could obtain by hoping and praying God to provide. The boy, Jamike, he told people, would have been a blacksmith by now instead of all these years he was wasting in school he would never complete.

“Headmaster, I thank you,” Akudike said. “Our Lord bless you. You saw a widow’s son, and you want to do the work of a father for him. May God reward you and bless your family. I am speechless. I will pass on this good news to our people. They will be overjoyed. It has been a long time this woman has been suffering. She tries to borrow money from here and there but villagers have their own problems. How can you give to someone when you have none to eat?” He turned to Jamike.

“Jamike, you have heard it. Your headmaster said you would complete your schooling. You have nothing else to worry about but only to read your books. The heavy load has been taken off your mother. So wherever the book goes you follow it. The headmaster has said you have brains. I am not surprised. I, myself, have known you have brains since you were born.”

Jamike, still standing, his eyes roving over everything on Akudike’s veranda, nodded his head. A goat suddenly jumped out from the goat shed and made toward the gate to enter a neighbor’s farm. The woman who owned the farm had complained that Akudike’s goats are never reined in but instead left to eat her vegetables.

“Jamike, go after that foolish goat and chase him right back.” Jamike grabbed a long stick and went in pursuit as he always did. The gate was closed. The goat gave him a couple of run-arounds, racing and galloping all over the compound and kicking down a clay pot of water in his path before jumping back into the shed with speed. There was water everywhere. Jamike followed the errant goat into the shed and gave a good hit of his stick.

As the headmaster got up to leave, he said to Jamike,

“I will talk with your teacher on Monday. I will introduce you to my family. Obi is in the same class with you, though you are much older.”

“Sir, I know him. Is there nobody who doesn’t know the headmaster’s son?” Jamike said.

“Yes, everyone ought to know the son of the headmaster. If the headmaster’s son is not known, whose son will be known?” Uridiya joined.

“Come to me if you have any problem in school. I don’t expect any but do not be afraid to come to my office or my home. I will introduce you to my family.”

“Jamike, did you hear him? Everything is now in your hands. The headmaster said you are now his son and a member of his family.” Uridiya was pleased.

They all saw the headmaster off to the road. He mounted his white bicycle and they kept looking at him until he rode out of their sight. Akudike asked Uridiya if the headmaster said that the fees should be repaid. He wished that would be the case.

“ I watched his mouth to see if he would say so, but I did not hear him say that.”

“It must be free then. This is your own gift from God for the year. My son, Jamike, rejoice because your brain gave this to you.”

Uridiya left late for the market, remarking that what God had given her through the headmaster she could not get on her own even if she sold herself a hundred times over. She asked Jamike to eat the leftover plantain porridge they had the previous night and to be sure to fetch some firewood.

After his meal, Jamike went out to play soccer with his age-mates along the dirt road. They were envious of him because the headmaster came to their house. They did not believe him when he told them what the headmaster said. Later he went into a nearby bush and quickly got some firewood. Uridiya had warned Jamike about that particular bush, because the owner swore to put some evil charm in it against intruders searching for firewood. Jamike did not worry about that, because he had seen the farm owner’s children enter the same bush too to pick firewood.

Another person who played a role in Jamike’s education was Reverend Father Thomas Murrow, Aludo’s parish priest. He was a tall and thin Irishman who walked with a slight stoop. Villagers liked him because he was very kind to them. But they wondered why he remained thin if he ate all those large quantities of eggs, fowls and other food items that female parishioners donated every week. The Catholic mission gave Jamike the scholarship that enabled him to attend Teachers’ College for four years after primary school and later employed him as a pupil-teacher in the parish. It was Bishop Kelly’s policy to send the top three students of the graduating class in each elementary school in the diocese to Teacher Training College. It was his way of preparing future teachers for the Catholic mission.

Jamike was already eighteen years of age when he arrived at Bishop Shannahan Teachers’ College to begin his four -year teacher’s training. On the successful completion of this course, he would become a trained teacher. It was the first time he would leave home for another town.

Life began to change for Uridiya and her son during Jamike’s first year at the teachers’ college. The little stipend he received from the parish priest enabled him to help his mother with food money. At first Uridiya refused the offer, because she did not think Jamike had enough for himself. But Jamike insisted. For Easter he bought her some cheap new clothes. Uridiya thanked her son and commented that she could not remember the last time she wore new clothes. Villagers could see a gradual difference in Uridiya’s clothes and behavior while her son was a student.

Jamike completed the four-year teacher-training course successfully, scoring merit and distinction in many subjects. As was the practice, after teacher training, newly graduated teachers were employed in their respective parishes as trained-teachers in the primary schools. Father Thomas Murrow employed Jamike as an elementary school teacher at a new school in the village. He taught Primary Standard Four and soon became popular as Games Master. Life for him and his mother would never be the same again.

The headmaster continued his mentoring. At his urging, the first project Jamike embarked upon was to add a two-room house next to Uridiya’s. It took less than two weeks for the mud walls to reach roof level. Jamike’s class pupils fetched water needed for mixing the mud. His age-mates spent a Saturday helping him to put the bamboo roof and thatch. Attached to the sidewall of his mother’s house, Jamike’s house was higher than other houses that dotted the compound in a semi-circular form.

In three months, Teacher Jamike was settled in a two-room mud house. The frontal side of the outside walls was plastered with a thin layer of cement, an achievement for that time. Headmaster Ahamba gave Jamike the whitewash that was painted on the cemented surface. Uncle Akudike marveled at the sudden turn of fortune for Uridiya and her son. Some people in the village felt proud of the young man, others were envious.

While Jamike was having his two-room addition built, he also turned his attention to other matters he had vowed to address as soon as he began to earn money. He wanted to get back a couple of the farmlands and fruit trees that his mother pawned to put him in primary school. Surprisingly, Jamike did not have any problem in regaining the three pieces of land involved. One particular person who it was feared would not return the land Uridiya pledged to him was Mr. Ngere, a petty businessman in the village. He had money by village standards and was known to put difficulties in the way of debtors who wished to recover any property pawned to him.

Despite his meanness, however, he was the last resort, the lesser of two evils, for villagers in dire need of money. Mr. Ngere sometimes took them to court or threatened to do so if they did not pay his exorbitant interest when it came time to recover their property. Because these debtors could not afford court costs, some abandoned their property or farmland to him. Mr. Ngere accepted back the money Uridiya borrowed from him and returned their farmland to Jamike without difficulty. Some villagers believed the reason he quickly gave back the land was because his son had been a pupil in Jamike’s class or because he feared he might be challenged if he contemplated appropriating Uridiya’s land.