The Fishermen by Obioma Chigozie

Author:Obioma, Chigozie [Obioma, Chigozie]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction / Family Life, Fiction / Literary, Fiction / Coming Of Age, Fiction / Cultural Heritage
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2015-04-14T07:00:00+00:00

IKENNA A. AGWU (1981—1996),

survived by his parents,

Mr and Mrs Agwu and his siblings,

Boja, Obembe, Benjamin, David and Nkem Agwu.

At the funeral, before Ikenna was obliterated by sand-fill, Pastor Collins requested that members of our family gather round him while the others stepped back. “Step back a bit, please,” he said in English cadenced with a thick Igbo accent. “Oh, thank you, thank you. The Lord bless you. A little bit more please. The Lord bless you.”

My close family and our relatives surrounded the grave. There were faces I hadn’t seen since I was born. After nearly all had surrounded the grave, the Pastor asked that eyes be closed for prayers, but Mother burst into a piercing cry of anguish, sending a terrible wave of sorrow down the line. Pastor Collins ignored her and prayed on, his voice shimmying. Although his words—that you forgive and receive his soul in your kingdom… we know that in the same way you gave, you have taken… the fortitude to bear the loss… thank you Lord Jesus for we know you have heard us—seemed to me to have little meaning, all the people hummed a high-sounding “amen” at the end of them. Then one after the other, they scooped earth with a single shovel, threw it into the grave, and passed the shovel on to the next person in the ring. While waiting my turn, I looked up and noticed the horizon had become filled with wool-shaped clouds, so thickly ashen that I thought even white egrets would have been mocked into greyness were they to fly past at that very hour. I was lost in this observation when I heard my name. I dropped my eyes and saw Obembe tearfully muttering something inaudible as he held the shovel towards me with trembling hands. The shovel was big and heavy in my hands, weightier because of the patch of earth that clung to the back of it like a hunch. It was cold, too. My feet sank into the heap of sand when I dug the shovel into the earth and lifted some of it. I then threw it into the grave, and passed the shovel to Father. He took it, dug up a mighty heap of sand and threw it into the grave. Because he was the last person, he dropped the shovel and put his hand on my shoulder.

Then, as if someone had signalled him, the Pastor cleared his throat again, and attempted to move forward but dangled delicately over the edge of the grave, inadvertently pushing sand into it as he struggled to hold himself from falling. A man helped him regain balance and then he moved back a little more.

“It is now time to read briefly from the word of God,” the Pastor began when he’d steadied himself. He spoke in spurts as if his words were tropical grasshoppers that flew out of his mouth and paused, the way a grasshopper perches and hops off, again and again and again until he completed his speech.

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