“ ULIUS OBI SAT GAZING AT HIS TYPEWRITER. The fat chief clerk, his boss, was snoring at his table. Outside, the gatekeeper in his green uniform was sleeping at his post. No customer had passed through the gate for nearly a week. There was an empty basket on the giant weighing machine. A few palm kernels lay in the dust around the machine. Julius went to the window that overlooked the great market on the banks of the Niger. This market, like all Ibo! markets, had been held on one of the four days of the week. But with the coming of the white man and the growth of Umuru into a big palm-oil port, it had become a daily market. In spite of that, however, it was still busiest on its original Nkwo day, because the deity that presided over it cast her spell only on that day. It was said that she appeared in the form of an old woman in the centre of the market just before cockcrow ? and waved her magic fan in the four directions of the earth ~ in front of her, behind her, to the right, and to the left — to draw to the market men and women from distant clans. And they came, these men and women, bringing the produce of their lands: palm-oil and kernels, kola nuts, cassava, 3 mats, baskets, and earthenware pols. And they took home many-coloured cloths, smoked fish. iron pots and plates 1. tho ['izbau] : a Nigerian tribe corkcrow : sunrise (the time when cocks begin to crow). swssaua plant with thick roots, grown for food.FouR CONTINENTS 26 Others came by the great river bringing yams land fish . es. Sometimes it was a big canoe w ith a dozen OF Mey ‘heir ant ; sometimes it was just a fisherman and his Wife in, sare ecsel hom the swift-flowing Anambara. They Moore cell canoe on the bank and sold their fish, after much haggling The woman then walked up the steep ba nks of the ae to the heart of the market to buy salt and oil and. if the oles en good, a length of cloth. And for her children at home she ought bean cakes or akara and maimai, which the Igara women cooked, As evening approached, they took up their paddles and paddles away, the water shimmering in the sunset and (nelr cane becoming smaller and smaller in the distance until it was justa dark crescent on the water’s face and two dark bodies swaying forwards and backwards in it. , Julius Obi was not a native of Umuru. He came from a bush! village twenty or so mile: Ss away. But having Passed his Standard Six? in a mission school + in 1920 he came to Umuru to work asa clerk in the offices of the Niger Company Mk » Which dealt in palm oil and kernels, The offices were Umuru market, so tha situated beside the famous At in his first ty to learn to work Vo or three weeks Julius had against the backgroun when the chief cle : ue fits Noise. Sometimes when, chi Sway or asleep he walked to the window and look hon the vast anthill 5 acti ese people ere yesterda market was Tk was ‘d dow, were not th vity. Most of as full. There must La” Re thought, and yet the world. Of course they say thar a many, many people in the Breat market was a real Person. Janet e -YONe Who came to the - s : r aia Mother had Said so. 1. *root i 5 ae ve Vegetables, rather like Potatoes, - bush : (Afric, and treaftica) remote country area Severed with 3. Standa : Natural S Stand Six the top lever of compulsory a bushes. - MISSION Schoo . " Ucati cn eet MOO Fo native eh en. 5. anthitt : ¥ Euro : Pean Beers Sed here beg, POUS and busy GAUSC theThe Sacrificial Egg 27 beautiful young women you see squeezing igome of the are not real people but manimy-wota from the crowds , aid. . a wenvel she s: ne know them?’ asked Julius, whose education. yes ONE “he too re qiow de hove such superstitious stuff, But he took care not jaced ite ving. He had long learned that it was bad to sound ooh Ma on such points. palsy t© ae ays tell’ she explained, ‘because they are beautiful VO ee that is not of this world. You catch a glimpse of wie onihe tail of your eye, then they disappear in the crowd.’ Julius thought about these things as he ao stood at the window looking down at the empty market. Who would have believed that the great market could ever be so empty? But such yasthe power of Kitikpa, or smallpox. When Umuru had been a little village, it had been swept and uptdean by its handful of inhabitants. But now it had grown aa busy, sprawling, | crowded, and dirty river port. And Riga came. No other disease is feared by the Ibo people as auch as they fear Kitikpa. It is personified as an evil deity. Its “dims are not mourned lest it be offended. It put an end to the ning and going between neighbours and between villages Thy said, “Kitikpa is in that v Q pisneighbours. ulius wr Jane : the yaa eet ce he had Savery gently that hy 7 going to marry. Ma had explained to ths thing is Sten b e should no longer come to see them ‘until te ut Christian, a 7 the power of Jehovah’. Ma was a very er daughter w. cont reason why she approved of Julius for 3 t must keep t that he sang in the church choir. ew ™ you might wa tooms,’ she had said. ‘You never at the howe on the streets. That family has got nd at the “ across the road. ‘That is what the oorway means. The family were all ‘ey, Pointed neg Pm fro aw, today j : ; ¥ in the big Sovernment lorry.’ though illage,” and immediately it was cut d because it was almost a week in Brawe “8 ' Cover, N rani, INY a lary, re, Pidly), "8 9 large area (often used of towns which haveFOUR CONTINENTS 3B RAY Yo Jane! walked a short way with him, and they saig (he night. And they shook hands, which was very odd, f ght. £ s did not go straight home. He went to the bank of ra ; aa i st walked up and down it, He must have been, they iene ae he was still there when the ekve, or Woode, along arn gong, of the night spirit sounded, ipa cer fey home, half walking and half running. le ha - ue an hoy to get home before the Spirit ran its race throug the own, As Julius hurried home he stepped on something i broke with a slight liquid explosion. He stopped and peeped ws a the footpath, The moon w, nol yet up, but there was some fain) light which showed that it would not be long delayed, thn thi light Julius saw that he had stepped on a sacrificial hg Were young palm fronds around it. Someone Oppressed by misfortune had brought the oering to the Crossroads in the dusk. And he hac stepped on it, and taken the sufferer’s ill luck to himself. ‘Nonsense," he Said and hurried away. But it Was too late; the night spirit was already abroad. Its voice rose high and clear in the still, black air, it was a long way away, but Julius knew that distance did not apply to these beings, So he made Straight tor the ceeyam | farm beside the road and threw himself sath eels He haed hardly done this when Ine heard the rattling se he pari and a thondering stream of esoteric speech. He shook all over. tthe mens came bearing down on him. And then he cout hes Ps. It was as if toy ar the fooiste, together, In venty men were running d he AME at all the Sounds had passed and 'SAP peared in the distance on the other side of the road. As Julius Stood at the Winda Market he lived ‘hrough th. ago, but already W looking out on the empty ¥ it seemed “ast emptines Mt night again. Tt was only a week > be separ, S. Thi ated from the present bya time. On tine a TTS emptinecs deepened with the passage of ieee cond aug gi © and on the other Ma and Janet, 5 Ted away, ¥ the smatiisox a y by Al pox. oe 1 cocoyam West i St African py | Plant grown fo, 2 sty MONE Wooden atic MP Me tood | eet |ACTIVITIES 29 ACTIVITIES ___x Characters cy Achebe writes that Julius’s ‘education placed him above ‘such superstitious stuff’. Find evidence in the story both for and against this statement. 9%” “Ma was a very devout Christian.’ What is surprising about this statement? Setting How does Achebe represent the unresolved tension between the modern world and African traditions through the setting of this story? ke Make a list of objects mentioned in the story which evoke the African background. » Structure We learn Ma's and Janet's destiny only in the last sentence of the story. How is it anticipated elsewhere? a. a 3 a = Symbolism 1. In addition to its function in the development of the story, can the egg ve said to symbolise something or someone? 2. Why should an egg be chosen as a sacrificial object? Language 1. What is suggested by ‘anthill activity’ (p, 26)? 2. How would you translate mammy-w; F context? -wota, judging from theACTIVITIES 30. 3. Why is there a change af tense from past to present in 4 , paragraph beginning ‘When Umuru had been a little Village (p. 27)? 4. What does Julius mean when he says ‘Nonsense’ tb himself? Narrator Which is the most accurate description of this Story? i. tis told by an omniscient narrator. ii, It is told in the third person fram one character's point of view, fli. It is told in the first person, Themes 1, Does Achebe treat su i 2 Perstition serioush ? YOu agree with his attitude? sae Slo? Be