“Well mama, I have seen it. It will happen this evening at the village square, I want the two of you to come and watch him. He will make the legendary Ojadili to look like a beginner”.
Okeke and Ngbankwo had seen a lot about their daughter to know that her words never fail. There was no basis to argue with her so they accepted all she said and asked her to bring Obinze home after the wrestling festival to share a meal with them.
By evening the village square in Ukeh was filled with people from far and near. The village troop danced to ebullient drumming by young drummers. There was fanfare and boasting as each clan in Ukeh boasted that they would win the wrestling championship. Except the few young men who Urenma rebuked at the river and the chief priest, no one else knew Obinze was going to take part in that year’s wrestling championship and that he was coming to take revenge for all the ridicule he and his clan had suffered. Every year his clan had managed to send three wrestlers who always were beaten at the early stages of the wrestling competition. While the people waited for all the wrestlers to arrive they were entertained by dance groups and masquerades.
Obinze was the last wrestler to arrive at the village square. When he showed up, he was dressed in costly apparel and had Urenma by his side holding his hand and occasionally brushing her cheek against his. There was a hush at square; one could have heard a pin drop. The drummers stopped beating the drums and the dancers missed their steps, as all eyes were fixed on Obinze matching into the square with Urenma.
He led Urenma to the corner were his clan took their position and announced that he had come to wrestle. His clan brothers were shocked, none amongst them had seen him neither practice nor wrestle before, but with Urenma by his side they could not deny him. Her beauty was such that men acted cowardly before her presence. He was asked at what time he would like to enter the wrestling, he replied. “From the beginning”. With his entrance and the amazement that followed it, the drumming and dancing came to an end.
The elders who were presiding over the wrestling competition took the centre stage and announced to all present and the wrestlers that the competition had begun.They announced the rules of the competition and invited the clans who were to do the first round of wrestling. When it was time for the Umu Umeh clan to wrestle, Obinze stepped into the center square and the crowed booed. Then his opponent was called out and he ran into the square and began to gyrate and the crowd cheered him on.
When the referee signaled that the wrestling had begun, Obinze’s opponent ran toward him to sweep him off his feet. Obinze grabbed him with his left arm and swung him around in the air like a rag and then flung him to the ground like a log of wood. The painful cry of the young man hushed the crowd. His thigh bones had been fractured by the impact of his body on the ground. He couldn’t stand up, his cry sent attendants into the square, when they found out he had broken bones, they put him on an Nkpoko and bore him to a native orthopedist.
The crowd, his fellow wrestlers and the elders were all shock to see a wrestler break another wrestler’s bones. It had not been heard or seen in Ukeh for many decades. There was no one alive in the land to testify of having seen that at anytime.
Meanwhile Obinze took his position for another round of wrestling match with a new opponent. His new opponent took to the wrestling ground with some pomp and pageantry, having made a name for himself the pervious year in the competition.The crowd roared and cheered as he pomped his fist into the air and beat his chest with pride and zest. Obinze didn’t take any interest in his opponent’s ostentatious bravado; he just waited for the fight to begin.
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