He wanted to do more, wanted to give Master every reason to keep him, and so one morning, he ironed Master’s socks. They didn’t look rumpled, the black ribbed socks, but he thought they would look even better straightened. The hot iron hissed and when he raised it, he saw that half of the sock was glued to it. He froze. Master was at the dining table, finishing up breakfast, and would come in any minute now to pull on his socks and shoes and take the files on the shelf and leave for work. Ugwu wanted to hide the sock under the chair and dash to the drawer for a new pair but his legs would not move. He stood there with the burnt sock, knowing Master would find him that way.
‘You’ve ironed my socks, haven’t you?’ Master asked. ‘You stupid ignoramus.’ Stupid ignoramus slid out of his mouth like music.
‘Sorry, sah! Sorry, sah!’
‘I told you not to call me sir.’ Master picked up a file from the shelf. ‘I’m late.’
‘Sah? Should I bring another pair?’ Ugwu asked. But Master had already slipped on his shoes, without socks, and hurried out. Ugwu heard him bang the car door and drive away. His chest felt weighty; he did not know why he had ironed the socks, why he had not simply done the safari suit. Evil spirits, that was it. The evil spirits had made him do it. They lurked everywhere, after all. Whenever he was ill with the fever, or once when he fell from a tree, his mother would rub his body with okwuma, all the while muttering, ‘We shall defeat them, they will not win.’
He went out to the front yard, past stones placed side by side around the manicured lawn. The evil spirits would not win. He would not let them defeat him. There was a round, grassless patch in the middle of the lawn, like an island in a green sea, where a thin palm tree stood. Ugwu had never seen any palm tree that short, or one with leaves that flared out so perfectly. It did not look strong enough to bear fruit, did not look useful at all, like most of the plants here. He picked up a stone and threw it into the distance. So much wasted space. In his village, people farmed the tiniest plots outside their homes and planted useful vegetables and herbs. His grandmother had not needed to grow her favourite herb, arigbe, because it grew wild everywhere. She used to say that arigbe softened a man’s heart. She was the second of three wives and did not have the special position that came with being the first or the last, so before she asked her husband for anything, she told Ugwu, she cooked him spicy yam porridge with arigbe. It had worked, always. Perhaps it would work with Master.
Ugwu walked around in search of arigbe. He looked among the pink flowers, under the cashew tree with the spongy beehive lodged on a branch, the lemon tree that had black soldier ants crawling up and down the trunk, and the pawpaw trees whose ripening fruits were dotted with fat, bird-burrowed holes. But the ground was clean, no herbs; Jomo’s weeding was thorough and careful, and nothing that was not wanted was allowed to be.
The first time they met, Ugwu had greeted Jomo and Jomo nodded and continued to work, saying nothing. He was a small man with a tough, shrivelled body that Ugwu felt needed a watering more than the plants that he targeted with his metal can. Finally, Jomo looked up at Ugwu. ‘Afa m bu Jomo,’ he announced, as if Ugwu did not know his name. ‘Some people call me Kenyatta, after the great man in Kenya. I am a hunter.’
Ugwu did not know what to say in return because Jomo was staring right into his eyes, as though expecting to hear something remarkable that Ugwu did.
‘What kind of animals do you kill?’ Ugwu asked. Jomo beamed, as if this was exactly the question he had wanted, and began to talk about his hunting. Ugwu sat on the steps that led to the backyard and listened. From the first day, he did not believe Jomo’s stories – of fighting off a leopard barehanded, of killing two baboons with a single shot – but he liked listening to them and he put off washing Master’s clothes to the days Jomo came so he could sit outside while Jomo worked. Jomo moved with a slow deliberateness. His raking, watering, and planting all somehow seemed filled with solemn wisdom. He would look up in the middle of trimming a hedge and say, ‘That is good meat,’ and then walk to the goatskin bag tied behind his bicycle to rummage for his catapult. Once, he shot a bush pigeon down from the cashew tree with a small stone, wrapped it in leaves, and put it into his bag.
‘Don’t go to that bag unless I am around,’ he told Ugwu. ‘You might find a human head there.’
Ugwu laughed but had not entirely doubted Jomo. He wished so much that Jomo had come to work today. Jomo would have been the best person to ask about arigbe – indeed, to ask for advice on how best to placate Master.
He walked out of the compound, to the street, and looked through the plants on the roadside until he saw the rumpled leaves close to the root of a whistling pine. He had never smelt anything like the spicy sharpness of arigbe in the bland food Master brought back from the staff club; he would cook a stew with it, and offer Master some with rice, and afterwards plead with him. Please don’t send me back home, sah. I will work extra for the burnt sock. I will earn the money to replace it. He did not know exactly what he could do to earn money for the sock, but he planned to tell Master that anyway.
If the arigbe softened Master’s heart, perhaps he could grow it and some other herbs in the backyard. He would tell Master that the garden was something to do until he started school, since the headmistress at the staff school had told Master that he could not start midterm. He might be hoping for too much, though. What was the point of thinking about a herb garden if Master asked him to leave, if Master would not forgive the burnt sock? He walked quickly into the kitchen, laid the arigbe down on the counter, and measured out some rice.
Hours later, he felt a tautness in his stomach when he heard Master’s car: the crunch of gravel and the hum of the engine before it stopped in the garage. He stood by the pot of stew, stirring, holding the ladle as tightly as the cramps in his stomach felt. Would Master ask him to leave before he had a chance to offer him the food? What would he tell his people?
‘Good afternoon, sah – Odenigbo,’ he said, even before Master had come into the kitchen.
‘Yes, yes,’ Master said. He was holding books to his chest with one hand and his briefcase with the other. Ugwu rushed over to help with the books. ‘Sah? You will eat?’ he asked in English.
‘Eat what?’
Ugwu’s stomach got tighter. He feared it might snap as he bent to place the books on the dining table. ‘Stew, sah.’
‘Stew?’
‘Yes, sah. Very good stew, sah.’
‘I’ll try some, then.’
‘Yes, sah!’
‘Call me Odenigbo!’ Master snapped before going in to take an afternoon bath.
After Ugwu served the food, he stood by the kitchen door, watching as Master took a first forkful of rice and stew, took another, and then called out, ‘Excellent, my good man.’
Ugwu appeared from behind the door. ‘Sah? I can plant the herbs in a small garden. To cook more stews like this.’
‘A garden?’ Master stopped to sip some water and turn a journal page. ‘No, no, no. Outside is Jomo’s territory, and inside is yours. Division of labour, my good man. If we need herbs, we’ll ask Jomo to take care of it.’ Ugwu loved the sound of Division of labour, my good man, spoken in English.
‘Yes, sah,’ he said, although he was already thinking of what spot would be best