Free Girls at War by Chinua Achebe Page B

Year your pocket is heavy. So that day I went to the Club.
    When I see you young men of nowadays say you drink, I just laugh. You don’t know what drink is. You drink one bottle of beer or one shot of whisky and you begin to holler like crazeman. That night I was taking it easy on White Horse.
All that are desirous to pass from Edinburgh to London or any other place on their road, let them repair to the White Horse cellar.
… God Almighty!
    One thing with me is I never mix my drinks. The day I want to drink whisky I know that that is whisky-day; if I want to drink beer tomorrow then I know it it beer-day; I don’t touch any other thing. That night I was on White Horse. I had one roasted chicken and a tin of Guinea Gold. Yes, I used to smoke in those days. I only stopped when one German doctor told me my heart was as black as a cooking-pot. Those German doctors were spirits. You know they used to give injections in the head or belly or anywhere. You just point where the thing is paining you and they give it to you right there—they don’t waste time.
    What was I saying?… Yes, I drank a bottle of White Horse and put one roasted chicken on top of it … Drunk? It is not in my dictionary. I have never been drunk in my life. My father used to say that the cure for drink is to say no. When I want to drink I drink, when I want to stop I stop. So about three o’clock that night I said to myself, you have had enough. So I jumped on my new Raleigh bicycle and went home quietly to sleep.
    At that time our senior clerk was jailed for stealing bales of calico and I was acting in that capacity. So I lived in a small company house. You know where G.B. Olivant is today?… Yes, overlooking the RiverNiger. That is where my house was. I had two rooms on one side of it and the store-keeper had two rooms on the other side. But as luck would have it this man was on leave, so his side was vacant.
    I opened the front door and went inside. Then I locked it again. I left my bicycle in the first room and went into the bedroom. I was too tired to begin to look for my lamp. So I pulled my dress and packed them on the back of the chair, and fell like a log into my big iron bed. And to God who made me, there was a woman in my bed. My mind told me at once it was Margaret. So I began to laugh and touch her here and there. She was hundred per cent naked. I continued laughing and asked her when did she come. She did not say anything and I suspected she was annoyed because she asked me to take her to the Club that day and I said no. I said to her: if you come there we will meet, I don’t take anybody to the Club as such. So I suspected that is what is making her vex.
    I told her not to vex but still she did not say anything. I asked her if she was asleep—just for asking sake. She said nothing. Although I told you that I did not like women to come to my house, but for every rule there must be an exception. So if I say that I was very angry to find Margaret that night I will be telling a white lie. I was still laughing when I noticed that her breasts were straight like the breasts of a girl of sixteen—or seventeen, at most. I thought that perhaps it was because of the way she was lying on her back. But when I touched the hair and it was soft like the hair of a European my laughter was quenched by force. I touched the hair on her head and it was the same. I jumped out of the bed and shouted: “Who are you?” My head swelled up like a barrel and I was shaking. The woman sat up and stretched her hands tocall me back; as she did so her fingers touched me. I jumped back at the same time and shouted again to her to call her name. Then I said to myself: How can you be afraid of a woman? Whether a white woman or a black woman, it is the same ten and tenpence. So I said: “All right, I will soon open your mouth,” at the same time I began to look for matches on the table. The woman suspected what I was looking for. She said, “Biko akpakwana