No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe Page A

Had not a Minister of State said, albeit in an unguarded, alcoholic moment, that the trouble was not in receiving bribes, but in failing to dothe thing for which the bribe was given? And if you refuse, how do you know that a “brother” or a “friend” is not receiving on your behalf, having told everyone that he is your agent? Stuff and nonsense! It was easy to keep one’s hands clean. It required no more than the ability to say: “I’m sorry, Mr. So-and-So, but I cannot continue this discussion. Good morning.” One should not, of course, be unduly arrogant. After all, the temptation was not really overwhelming. But in all modesty one could not say it had been nonexistent. Obi was finding it more and more impossible to live on what was left of his forty-seven pounds ten after he had paid twenty to the Umuofia Progressive Union and sent ten to his parents. Even now he had no idea where John’s school fees for next term would come from. No, one could not say he had no need of money.
    He had just finished his lunch of pounded yams and egusi soup and was sprawling on the sofa. The soup had been particularly well prepared—with meat and fresh fish—and he had overeaten. Whenever he ate too much pounded yam he felt like a boa that had swallowed a goat. He sprawled helplessly, waiting for some of it to digest, to give him room to breathe.
    A car pulled up outside. He thought it was one of the five other occupants of the block of six flats. He knew none of them by name, and only some by sight. They were all Europeans. He spoke about once a month with one of them, the tall P.W.D. man who lived on the other side of the same floor. But his speaking to him had nothing to do with sharing the same floor. This man was in charge of the common gardenand collected ten and sixpence every month from each occupant to pay the garden boy. So Obi knew him well by sight. He also knew one of those upstairs who regularly brought an African prostitute home on Saturday nights.
    The car started again. It was clearly a taxi, for only taxi drivers could rev up their engines that way. There was a timid knock on Obi’s door. Who could it be? Clara was on duty that afternoon. Joseph, perhaps. For months now he had been trying to regain the blissful seat in Obi’s affections which he had lost at that ill-fated meeting of the Umuofia Progressive Union. His crime was that he had told the President in confidence of Obi’s engagement to an outcast girl. He had pleaded for forgiveness: he had only told the President in confidence in the hope that he might use his position as the father of Umuofia people in Lagos to reason privately with Obi.
    “Never mind,” Obi had told him. “Let us forget about it.” But he had not forgotten. He had stopped visiting Joseph in his lodgings. As for Clara, she did not want to set eyes on Joseph again. Obi was sometimes amazed and terrified at the intensity of her hate, knowing how much she had liked him before. Now he was slippery, he was envious, he was even capable of poisoning Obi. The incident, like a bath of palm-wine on incipient measles, had brought all the ugly rashes to the surface.
    Obi opened the door with a very dark frown on his face. Instead of Joseph, there was a girl at the door.
    “Good afternoon,” he said, completely transformed.
    “I am looking for Mr. Okonkwo,” she said.
    “Speaking. Come right in.” He was surprised at his own sudden gaiety; the girl was, after all, a complete stranger, albeit a most attractive one. So he pulled in his horns.
    “Please sit down. By the way, I don’t think we’ve met before.”
    “No. I am Elsie Mark.”
    “Pleased to meet you, Miss Mark.” She smiled a most delicious smile, showing a faultless set of immaculate teeth. There was a little gap between the two front ones, rather like Clara’s. Someone had said that girls with that kind of teeth are very warm-blooded. He sat down. He wasn’t shy as he usually was with girls, and yet he didn’t know