Foreign Gods, Inc. by Okey Ndibe

Author:Okey Ndibe
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Literary, African American, General, Cultural Heritage, Fiction
ISBN: 9781616953140
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2014-01-14T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ike stepped out into a breezeless, sweltering afternoon. The sun was overhead. Its rays singed, its heat sizzled on his skin.

He’d intended to walk home and tell his mother all about his spat with Pastor Uka but decided to call on his uncle right away.

Ike’s shadow was a squat, disfigured thing on the ground. He walked briskly through the heat. His legs seemed powered by some strange energy. Having blitzed Pastor Uka, he was in a buoyant mood, free of resentment. Drums of victory beat in his head, but he cautioned himself against over-celebrating. From the outset, he’d known that the pastor would be the weaker of the foes he would have to engage and dominate. His uncle, Osuakwu, was bound to be far tougher.

In planning the operation in the comfort of his apartment in New York, Ike had not foreseen any obstacles. But now, his two feet planted in Utonki, his mother’s home within shouting distance of the shrine, he found himself increasingly powerless against the fear-tinged breeze that lashed him when he least expected.

Ike knew this much: that until he entered the shrine and sat among other men and looked his uncle in the face and spoke words that would shake off the nervousness in his voice and dislodge the doubt in his heart, until he peered at the statue itself and remained steely, he could afford no sense of victory.

The twin emotions of elation and terror tussled within him as he walked. He was aware of the irony of hastening to see an uncle he would betray in a matter of days.

Betray! The word stung. But Ngene was no longer what it used to be, a war deity. The warriors of Utonki had not fought a war in more than a hundred years. In fact, there were no warriors to speak of.

Years ago, before he traveled to America, Ike had listened, captivated, as a frail old man recounted the story of Utonki’s last war—a short-lived campaign to punish the people of Amanuke whose fishermen had encroached on the Utonki River.

“The fight lasted only a day,” the bent warrior recalled through fits of coughing. “Our warriors were so fierce that we wasted the enemy’s blood.” He exposed yellowed teeth in a sly nostalgic smile. “The next day, we gathered at the glade of Ngene to gird ourselves for another battle. We found ourselves suddenly surrounded by soldiers in peak hats, their guns trained on us. Then a white man stepped forward and asked for our leader. Ataa, our greatest warrior, stood up. In battle, pellets bounced off his body. Machetes grazed him, but they could never scathe him. A warrior of his stature had not been seen in Utonki for many, many moons. The white man took him away, and he never returned, alive or dead, to Utonki. The white man also gathered and hauled away our guns and machetes. He said the queen who ruled his country was now also our ruler. This woman we’d never seen—and who had never seen us—had declared that the river no longer belonged to us.

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