They led them in. There was silence now. It was to him a bad place. His father was his confidence. He could not abandon him.
Asiegbu began to sum up.
‘Lies in us, lies in our hearts, the hearts of man, the hearts of warrior’s pain and fear. Strange are the ways of the gods and strange are the interpretations we give them. We could have preferred it better than this but…’
As he was still with the words in his mouth, the three able-bodied men grabbed hold of him.
“Nna,” he called.
“Enyi,” he replied, “you must fulfil my promise, my call, and my mission; the gods will do you no harm. To serve the men for the gods and ...”
“Enyi,” he repeated, “you must fulfil my promise, my call and my mission. The gods do no harm”.
“Nna,” he called three times and his father backed him. The boy was tied and hung up on the shrine and then the young girl, who died instantly. He cried as the men and his real father backed him. As he called the father, it was to Emenike like a pin being driven deep in his foreskin and the meat of his heart.
Ndirim cried until he died on the third day and decayed in the innermost part of the shrine.
Those memories remained in his heart and that of his family, who knew Ndirim so well.
The two men reflected on this. It was a long story. Emenike lost his next son the next day from fever and their mother in the next planting season and had to start a new life.
“Take heart, my brother. The tears of a man weaken the gods if they have no hands in what caused our tears. I have planned to come and see you as soon as I finish those thatches,” he told Uzoebu, pointing at them.
Uzoebu sat speechless, and looked emotionally confused.
“Emenike, I have given it a second thought that our killing Udeanyi was coming back to me critically,” he complained.
He sighed heavily and deeply.
“We cleared the land of bad and nothing more,” he said.
“Onyema from Ojata village came to my obi.” Emenike shook his head.
“Ehe, what did he say?”
“He said I am reaping from my wickedness.”
“You are being weak. You should have cut his two legs. Who will ask? Who will take the case? Am I not going to be included?”
“There is kola,” he said.
“Kola is in the king's hand. Don’t worry about breaking it. You know that the gods have slaughtered me well enough. I should sit down here to thank them for all the things they have done to me. That would be bad. They should have killed me and leave my sons alone. What was their offence? Answer me. What was their offence? I wish I never saw this day.”
He stood up and walked away to the path. Emenike stood up and shook his head.
The pain of the loss continued and the old man could not easily allow the old memories go. As he sat in his hut one night, he felt a cold shudder run through him at the terrible prospect of annihilation of his children and abandoning the gods. It was late. It would not bring the young men back to life. They had paid for something he did not know. They sold to the white men at Okene the ofo and arusi of their grandfather, without the knowledge of their father. The gods instantly killed them before they could use the foreign money.
He remembered Ikem and Odoka who he begot for his late elder brother when he inherited his wife. The man died too young and had only two children, girls who later married. So the wife was to be inherited. These two young men and their sisters had all grown and married, with their own children. They were among the most prosperous young men in the clan. The two young men were the fruit of his youthful vigour, his bone, the first of his progenies. His mind was always on them. They were really his perfect replica in strength and character. He wished they were his. But the sons of his brother were his too. So, he bothered a little. But it was preferable for one to have his own belongings than a shared one. The children were not his in the real sense. They grew up for another man. So, each time he looked at them, he smiled, he sighed.
How he wished they were his and that someday, though it would take many seasons and years, he would have his!