Since the initiation, my silé lessons had been almost forgotten. Whole weeks passed when I was too busy to call on the fighter (as we called him), and then Daely would come up and say, as if in a prepared speech, “Why haven't you been to see us? Ama Onekhe has been waiting for you. He still has more to teach us and I can't practise on my own.” So the next week or two, I would be down there every other evening.

Daely's position in the household and in the village remained a mystery. One evening when I called in unexpected, I found him finishing a meal alone in the front room, served by the pretty daughter, while the rest of the family ate by firelight on the floor of the kitchen. To be caught eating is embarrassing, and Daely shouted to Selina. She hurried in, exchanging a glance with him, and gathered up the plates. I made an excuse to leave, but Daely insisted I stay, and an hour later, Selina returned with two huge plates of rice and fish, one for each of us.

“But I've already eaten,” I protested.

“So have I. Never mind, that's the way it is here. Let's eat.”

Why had they kept to this awkward formality after he had lived with them for so many months? I had assumed that lodger and host had some sort of pact and that this was why Daely had taken on the role of spokesman. But Ama Darius told me that the fighter had approached him to find out what Daely wanted. Perhaps even I might know: had he ever mentioned anything to me? “Has he come to the Susua looking for a wife? That's what the old warrior thinks,” said Ama Darius. “If he has, he'd better be careful, because the one he likes is Selina and he can't have her until her elder sister has been married off.”