‘Lumumba was prime minister of Congo. Do you know where Congo is?’ Master asked.
‘No, sah.’
Master got up quickly and went into the study. Ugwu’s confused fear made his eyelids quiver. Would Master send him home because he did not speak English well, kept chicken in his pocket overnight, did not know the strange places Master named? Master came back with a wide piece of paper that he unfolded and laid out on the dining table, pushing aside books and magazines. He pointed with his pen. ‘This is our world, although the people who drew this map decided to put their own land on top of ours. There is no top or bottom, you see.’ Master picked up the paper and folded it, so that one edge touched the other, leaving a hollow between. ‘Our world is round, it never ends. Nee anya, this is all water, the seas and oceans, and here’s Europe and here’s our own continent, Africa, and the Congo is in the middle. Farther up here is Nigeria, and Nsukka is here, in the southeast; this is where we are.’ He tapped with his pen.
‘Yes, sah.’
‘Did you go to school?’
‘Standard two, sah. But I learn everything fast.’
‘Standard two? How long ago?’
‘Many years now, sah. But I learn everything very fast!’
‘Why did you stop school?’
‘My father’s crops failed, sah.’
Master nodded slowly. ‘Why didn’t your father find somebody to lend him your school fees?’
‘Sah?’
‘Your father should have borrowed!’ Master snapped, and then, in English, ‘Education is a priority! How can we resist exploitation if we don’t have the tools to understand exploitation?’
‘Yes, sah!’ Ugwu nodded vigorously. He was determined to appear as alert as he could, because of the wild shine that had appeared in Master’s eyes.
‘I will enrol you in the staff primary school,’ Master said, still tapping on the piece of paper with his pen.
Ugwu’s aunty had told him that if he served well for a few years, Master would send him to commercial school where he would learn typing and shorthand. She had mentioned the staff primary school, but only to tell him that it was for the children of the lecturers, who wore blue uniforms and white socks so intricately trimmed with wisps of lace that you wondered why anybody had wasted so much time on mere socks.
‘Yes, sah,’ he said. ‘Thank, sah.’
‘I suppose you will be the oldest in class, starting in standard three at your age,’ Master said. ‘And the only way you can get their respect is to be the best. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sah!’
‘Sit down, my good man.’
Ugwu chose the chair farthest from Master, awkwardly placing his feet close together. He preferred to stand.
‘There are two answers to the things they will teach you about our land: the real answer and the answer you give in school to pass. You must read books and learn both answers. I will give you books, excellent books.’ Master stopped to sip his tea. ‘They will teach you that a white man called Mungo Park discovered River Niger. That is rubbish. Our people fished in the Niger long before Mungo Park’s grandfather was born. But in your exam, write that it was Mungo Park.’
‘Yes, sah.’ Ugwu wished that this person called Mungo Park had not offended Master so much.
‘Can’t you say anything else?’
‘Sah?’
‘Sing me a song.’
‘Sah?’
‘Sing me a song. What songs do you know? Sing!’ Master pulled his glasses off. His eyebrows were furrowed, serious. Ugwu began to sing an old song he had learned on his father’s farm. His heart hit his chest painfully. ‘Nzogbo nzogbu enyimba, enyi …’
He sang in a low voice at first, but Master tapped his pen on the table and said ‘Louder!’ so he raised his voice, and Master kept saying ‘Louder!’ until he was screaming. After singing over and over a few times, Master asked him to stop. ‘Good, good,’ he said. ‘Can you make tea?’
‘No, sah. But I learn fast,’ Ugwu said. The singing had loosened something inside him, he was breathing easily and his heart no longer pounded. And he was convinced that Master was mad.
‘I eat mostly at the staff club. I suppose I shall have to bring more food home now that you are here.’
‘Sah, I can cook.’
‘You cook?’
Ugwu nodded. He had spent many evenings watching his mother cook. He had started the fire for her, or fanned the embers when it started to die out. He had peeled and pounded yams and cassava, blown out the husks in rice, picked out the weevils from beans, peeled onions, and ground peppers. Often, when his mother was sick with the coughing, he wished that he, and not Anulika, would cook. He had never told anyone this, not even Anulika; she had already told him he spent too much time around women cooking, and he might never grow a beard if he kept doing that.
‘Well, you can cook your own food then,’ Master said. ‘Write a list of what you’ll need.’
‘Yes, sah.’
‘You wouldn’t know how to get to the market, would you? I’ll ask Jomo to show you.’
‘Jomo, sah?’
‘Jomo takes care of the compound. He comes in three times a week. Funny man, I’ve seen him talking to the croton plant.’ Master paused. ‘Anyway, he’ll be here tomorrow.’
Later, Ugwu wrote a list of food items and gave it to Master.
Master stared at the list for a while. ‘Remarkable blend,’ he said in English. ‘I suppose they’ll teach you to use more vowels in school.’
Ugwu disliked the amusement in Master’s face. ‘We need wood, sah,’ he said.
‘Wood?’
‘For your books, sah. So that I can arrange them.’
‘Oh, yes, shelves. I suppose we could fit more shelves somewhere, perhaps in the corridor. I will speak to somebody at the Works Department.’
‘Yes, sah.’
‘Odenigbo. Call me Odenigbo.’
Ugwu stared at him doubtfully. ‘Sah?’
‘My name is not Sah. Call me Odenigbo.’
‘Yes, sah.’
‘Odenigbo will always be my name. Sir is arbitrary. You could be the sir tomorrow.’
‘Yes, sah – Odenigbo.’
Ugwu really preferred sah, the crisp power behind the word, and when two men from the Works Department came a few days later to install shelves in the corridor, he told them that they would have to wait for Sah to come home; he himself could not sign the white paper with typewritten words. He said Sah proudly.
‘He’s one of these village houseboys,’ one of the men said dismissively, and Ugwu looked at the man’s face and murmured a curse about acute diarrhoea following him and all of his offspring for life. As he arranged Master’s books, he promised himself, stopping short of speaking aloud, that he would learn how to sign forms.
In the following weeks, the weeks when he examined every corner of the bungalow, when he discovered that a beehive was lodged in the cashew tree and that the butterflies converged in the front yard when the sun was brightest, he was just as careful in learning the rhythms of Master’s life. Every morning, he picked up the Daily Times and Renaissance that the vendor dropped off at the door and folded them on the table next to