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Friendship and Love in a Strange
Land:
A
Review of
Chike Momah’s
The Stream Never Dries Up
by
Terri Ochiagha
That Chike Momah should be celebrated as a relevant
Nigerian writer is indubitable. A member of the
Ibadan golden generation of authors, which includes
such literary heavyweights as his fellow Umuahians
Chinua Achebe, Christopher Okigbo, Chukwuemeka Ike
and Elechi Amadi, and others like Wole Soyinka, John
Munonye and Flora Nwapa, his peculiarity resides in
that quite unlike the rest of authors mentioned,
Momah began writing a few years before his
retirement from the United Nations in 1990. Since
then, he has written five novels, all of which
showcase the literary quality and unique African
sensibility that made the works of his
contemporaries famous.
The Stream Never Dries Up
is Momah’s fourth novel. The first person narrator
and protagonist, Nwafor Obiako, resident in the
United States, succumbs to family pressures to marry
a reputable girl from home. The girl chosen by his
family members is Chigozie, seemingly gentle,
unassuming and bereft of the scandals that had
surrounded her older sisters, both of whom remain
unmarried and live with their widowed father in his
ancestral compound. While Nwafor is accommodating to
this externally arranged marriage, he is not
oblivious of the possible negative outcomes of such
unions, based only on reputation and
family-goodwill, for after all, such marriages, far
from being romantic quests, are “something like a
lottery” (11) After the ‘legalisation’ of the
traditional marriage at a registry, Nwafor travels
back to the States, eagerly awaiting the arrival of
his wife. The first months after her arrival are
almost idyllic, save for the decision of Chigozie to
deter having a child for a while. However, the
appearance of Sylvester, a previously unknown and
distant cousin of Chigozie, sets off a roller
coaster that threatens to disintegrate the blooming
matrimonial life of the Nigerian couple.
While the initial chapters, which are devoted to the
narration of Nwafor’s protracted bachelorhood,
family background, and Igbo traditional marriage may
seem slow-paced to some, Nwafor’s reflexive stance
and the way Igbo proverbs and patterns of speech
blend effortlessly into his descriptions prevent it
from seeping into mere anthropological terrain.
While the author is conscious of potential Western
readers, his explanations, rather than seeming
redundant to the Igbo reader will elicit smiles of
recognition, and in some cases, melancholia. Things
get more exciting as Chigozie’s arrival at the
States approaches. With her incipient arrival,
Nwafor resolves firmly to succeed in his marriage
despite the odds. In spite of his firm rejection of
the Western concept of romantic love that his
African-American friend, Edwin, tries to gauge his
marriage with, he finds out that
The mere mention of Chigozie’s name almost always
seemed to bring a cheer to my heart. If that is
love, then I was indeed a stricken man. But stricken
or not, something in me- and I do not know if it had
anything to do with my close on thirty-nine years
–stoutly resisted being painted with that brush.
Love was something men much younger than myself were
apt to fall into. Not grown men like me! (34)
Ostensibly, the novel revolves around the adjustment
of Nwafor and Chigozie to each other and to the
realities of the Nigerian Diaspora, and the title of
the novel originates in Nwafor’s interpretation of
his father-in-law’s admonitions on the day of his
traditional wedding, that, “marriage, like a stream,
endures for ever. You can draw living water out of
it: but no matter how often you do so, and no matter
what obstacles try to block its way, it continues to
flow, and never dries up.” (48)
Nwafor is the most sympathetic character, and a
well-rounded one at that. His bounty and
selflessness is tempered with the virtue of
self-criticism and introspection. His friends, Erwin
Clark and Ben Ugonna are antithetical, albeit
complementary in their views, being African-American
and Igbo respectively. Both, however, are loyal
friends, and are instrumental in helping Nwafor face
the vicissitudes that Sylvester’s appearance exert
on the rapidly deteriorating marriage. As in the
rest of his novels, friendship is a pervading theme.
The appearance of Sylvester makes apparent the fact
that a person’s real personality cannot be
ascertained with a few meetings before marriage and
a year of marital bliss.
Marital troubles aside, the novel showcases such
dimensions of life in the Diaspora as the relevance
of such associations as the Igbo Union of New
Jersey, a society created because of “the social
imperatives of our coming together in a foreign land
that was fast changing from a land of mere sojourn
to a permanent place of abode.” (109) The Union,
which provides its members with psychological,
cultural and, in some cases, economic support, also
guides and guards the morality of the community. In
The Stream Never Dries Up, the Igbo Union day
becomes the scenario for two of its key events: the
drug-related assault on Sylvester and the final
reconciliation that marks the denouement of the
novel.
The Stream Never Dries Up
has a largely entertaining plot, and proffers some
reflections on such matters as colonialism, the
Nigerian Civil War, the usurpation of Nigeria’s
wealth by its corrupt leaders, the diverse
manifestations of racism in the United States and
last but not the least, drug-addiction and its
nefarious effects on the individual and the
community. However, these reflections are brief, and
the tone, overall, not one of intense political
commitment.
The strong points of the novel are the portrayal of
Nwafor’s self-conflicts and struggles to make his
arranged marriage work, the way that Momah craftily
threads a web of intrigue and suspense around
Sylvester, and the almost effortless blend of Igbo
proverbs and expressions into English. Of particular
interest is the convincing evocation of Nigerian
highlife music through Nwafor’s appraisal of his
wife’s participation in the Chocolate Sextet. While
gearing the novel towards a happy ending, the
author’s depiction of Chigozie warns the reader
about the possible implications of marrying someone
whose character has only be ascertained by external
assessment and reputation.
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