The Famished Road (7 page)

The drinks were distributed to the crowd. There were large quantities of ogogoro and palm-wine for the men, stout for the women, soft drinks for the children. While the drinks were being poured and handed over expectant faces sweating with thirst, one of the men struck up a song, and a woman said:

‘The only time men start to sing is when food is ready.’

The women burst out laughing and the man’s song was drowned in mockery. The women began a lovely song of their own, in village choir voices; but Dad, ever mischievous, picked up the empty bottle and tapped away at it with a spoon and spoiled the rhythm of the women. Then everyone fell to singing their different songs and for a moment there was no discord amongst the many voices.

The feast became a little rowdy. The room was too small to hold the vast number of people squashed into every available space and even the walls creaked in protest.

Clothes fell down from nails and lines. Dad’s boots passed from hand to hand, precipitating many jokes, and were eventually thrown out of the window. The room was so hot that everyone sweated furiously. The heat made everyone look older. The children cried, intensifying the edginess and hunger. But the drink loosened tongues, and a hundred arguments and conversations steamed the air. The women asked Mum how she had found me. Mum told them things she hadn’t told me, but she kept quiet about the herbalist. The gathering began vying with loud voices, offering variations of similar stories they had heard about. A woman told of a wizard who had hidden a child in a green bottle. Another woman, who had been taking a noticeable interest in Dad, told of how her sister was found floating on a stream, her head crowned in sacrificial beads.

‘That’s a lie!’ Mum said suddenly, to everyone’s astonishment. ‘You never told us you had a sister . .

Dad interrupted, picking up his bottle and spoon, creating a modest din. He got up and sang and danced. The men sang along with him the popular high-life tune which mocked the eternal rivalries among women. Dad got carried away with his own song and tried to organise everyone into dancing. There was no space in which to move and Dad, fairly drunk by now, became abusive to anyone who wasn’t responsive. At first it was a general sort of abuse. But when he got specific with one of the men, disruption set in. The man stormed out and a delegation had to be sent to beg him back. He came back, but before he resumed his floor space, he made sure of his vengeance.

‘Is it this wretched room you’re so proud of?’ he said loudly to Dad. ‘Big man, small brains!’

Dad smiled sheepishly. Then Mum rounded on him, asking him to be more polite to his guests, and she got so worked up in her inexplicable rage that she too stormed out, leaving the crowd somewhat confused. No one was sent out after her. Embarrassed by the silence, Dad invited everyone to pour themselves more drinks and he proposed a toast to his wife. But the drinks had run out, and Dad had no money left, and we all sat staring at our empty bottles. In the brief silence Mum returned, bringing relatives we hadn’t seen for a long time, and the gathering cheered her return; and Dad, inspired by the cheering, hurried out of the room (ignoringMum’s protestations that we should celebrate within our means), went to the shop across the street, and came back with cartons of beer.

The feast got rowdier. The men kept calling for more drinks. The old man, quite drunk, began a stream of contradictory proverbs. A man with a thick beard complained about how the smell of the food was making him lean. Amidst all the voices, the anticipations which had topped themselves, the long patient waitingwhich in the end satisfies its own hunger, the food was served. Plates of rice and bushmeat passed before gluttonous faces but, because the crowd was so big, and the numbers vastly outstripped Mum’s calculations, everyone had much less food than suggested by the size of the boar. People had talked themselves into such a hunger that the food barely went round. Like the miracle of multiplying fishes in reverse, the food diminished before it got to the guests. The rice was swiftly consumed, the boar disappeared into the capacious stomachs of the ravenous gathering, the stew dried out in the pots, and people stared at their plates in drunken puzzlement. The bearded man grumbled that the meat he had eaten was so small that it had made him hungrier.

Discontentment spread; the smell of the food, sumptuous and throat-tickling, lingered in the air, reminding us of the betrayed promise of an abundant feast. Amid the discontentment, Dad tried hard to please everyone. He made jokes, told riddles, fell into impersonations. He danced, and made music with his bottle. Meanwhile people ate, spat their bones on the floor, spilt their drinks, and wiped their hands on our curtains. Dad plied the gathering with drinks, borrowing heavily, sweating in bizarre exultation. The bearded man, substituting drunkenness for hunger, drank so much that when he attempted to dramatise his first encounter with a white woman he staggered and fell on his chair, breaking its back. Another man ran outside, threw up in the passage, and came back looking like a lizard. Dad, who was more than pleasantly drunk, held forth about the violence he would have unleashed if he had gone to the police officer’s place to get me. Mum found the perfect moment for revenge.

‘Why didn’t you go, eh?’ she said cuttingly, ‘Because you were too drunk!’

There was another embarrassed silence. Dad, slightly cross-eyed with drunkenness, looked round at everyone. Then he displayed his arm in the sling. And then, for no apparent reason, almost as if he were snatching riddles out of the air, he said:

‘When I die, no one will see my body.’

The silence became profound. Mum burst into tears and rushed out of the room.

Two women went after her. Dad, entering a grim mood, drank intensely, and then suddenly began to sing beautifully. For the first time I heard deep notes of sadness in his powerful voice. Still singing he bent over, lifted me up, and held me to him. His eyes were a little bloodshot. He gave me his glass to drink from and after two gulps I became quite drunk myself. Dad put me down on the chair, went outside, and returned with Mum in his arms. Mum’s eyes were wet. Dad held her and they danced together and the gathering, touched by the reconciliation, sang for them.

While the room quivered with jagged drumming on the table, syncopated rhythms of voices, the bottle-music, and general revelry, the photographer from across the road turned up, wearing a white hat. His name was Jeremiah. He had a wiry beard, and everyone seemed to know him. He became the instant butt of jokes. Some mocked his bad timing at missing the tastiest boar that ever ran amok in the forests. Others urged him to take off his white hat and get drunk as swiftly as possible. And the women wanted to know why he hadn’t brought his camera. He went back out and soon returned with his camera and everyone abandoned the dancing and organised themselves for a group photograph. The men fought for the most visible positions.

The old man, claiming right of seniority, posed in front of everyone. The women went out to brighten themselves and came back to disrupt the photographer’s arrangement.

Mum picked me up and posed with Dad next to the old man. The photographer gave many instructions as he set up his camera. He went back and forth, making us contort our heads. He made Dad twist his legs, made Mum hold her neck at an awkward angle, and made me fix a quite insane smile on my face. After much fussing, the photographer proceeded to embark on his own set of dramatic poses. He crouched, stood on tiptoes, knelt, climbed on a chair, and even seemed to imitate an eagle in flight. He drank generously from a bottle of beer. Swaying, leaning backwards, his eyes shining, he made us say:

‘Sheeze.’

While we played around with the word, fishing humour out of its strangeness, he took the first picture. When the camera flashed, followed by an odd explosion, ghosts emerged from the light and melted, stunned, at his feet. I screamed. The crowd laughed. The photographer took five pictures in all and the ghosts kept falling at his feet, dazed by the flash. When he went to his studio to drop off his camera, the ghosts followed him. When he came back they weren’t with him. He joined the boisterous merriment and got wonderfully drunk.

Not long afterwards the landlord turned up. The crowd cheered him. Mum had to rustle up some food. Dad had to buy more drinks on credit. I was fussed over and thrown up in the air till my ribs ached and I was prayed for all over again. The photographer had to go back and get his camera.

After much prancing and mystery-making, as if he were a magician, the photographer lifted up his camera. He was surrounded by little ghosts and spirits.

They had climbed on one another to take a closer look at the instrument. They were so fascinated by the camera that they climbed on him and hung on his arms and stood on his head. He was very drunk and he cheerfully took three pictures of the landlord with his flywhisk. When he had finished he couldn’t be bothered to go all the way back to his studio so he hung the camera on a nail. The spirits and the children gathered round it, pointing and talking in amazed voices.

The men who were drunk began a furious argument. Some of the women took their children to bed. The men were in the full flow of their loud voices when the curtain parted, a hush descended, and the madame from the bar stepped in. The landlord, on seeing her, made a frightened sound. Everyone stared at her in drunken silence. The spirits left the camera and surrounded the woman. They stayed at a distance. The woman smiled and waved a benevolent greeting to all of us. Dad got up, welcomed her warmly, found her a seat, and proceeded to tell everyone about the fantastic beginnings of her myth. Everyone knew the story already and they stared at her as at an august, if unpredictable, guest. Mum rustled up some food for her. Dad sent off for more drinks on credit, but it wasn’t necessary for she had brought five gourds of palm-wine to help celebrate my homecoming. When the ogogoro Dad sent for arrived she took the bottle, stood up abruptly, sending waves of silence everywhere by the sheer force of her legend and her bulk. She held my hand and said:

‘Is this the boy we are celebrating?’

‘Yes,’ the crowd said.

‘Is this the boy who was lost and found?’

‘Yes!’

Then she turned. With her big eyes gazing at me steadily, she said:

‘The road will never swallow you. The river of your destiny will always overcome evil. May you understand your fate. Suffering will never destroy you, but will make you stronger. Success will never confuse you or scatter your spirit, but will make you fly higher into the good sunlight. Your life will always surprise you.’

Her prayer was so wonderful that everyone was silent afterwards. They stared at her in amazement. Then Dad, recovering from the shock of the words, said:

‘AMEN!’

The gathering repeated it. The woman, still standing, made a libation, a short communal prayer, then she drank half the bottle of ogogoro in a single, sustained gulp, her great breasts quivering in the hot room. When she had finished she sat down, her fleshy face coming out in sweat. The spirits encompassed her, talking about her in astonished voices.

She didn’t stay very long. And when, too soon for everyone’s liking (for they wanted to decode her mystery), she got up and said she had to return to her bar, we all tried to persuade her to stay. But she was beyond persuading. Dad thanked her for coming. Mum thanked her for the prayers and the wine. As she went to the door, swaying like a great ship, she stopped, looked hard at me, and said:

‘You have a strange son. I like him.’ Then to me she added:

‘Come and visit me one of these days, eh?’

‘I will,’ I said.

When she left the room the spirits went with her. That night we found out her name.

She was known as Madame Koto.

AFTER ALL THE revelry, the feast ended with men asleep on their chairs, children sprawled on the floor, bottles everywhere and bones on the window-sill. The photographer snored with his nose close to Dad’s rescued boots, and the landlord drooled with flies around his ears. I was sitting against a wall, weaving in and out of sleep, surrounded by the confusion of human bodies, when I heard those sweet voices singing again. My spirit companions, their voices seductive beyond endurance, sang to me, asking me to honour my pact, to not be deceived by the forgetful celebrations of men, and to return to the land where feasting knows no end. They urged me on with their angelic voices and I found myself floating over the bodies of drunken men, and out into the night. I walked on the wings of beautiful songs, down the street, without the faintest notion of where the voices were leading me. I floated down the bushpaths and came to a well that was covered with a broad plank. On the plank, there was a big stone. I tried to move the stone, but couldn’t. I floated round and round our area. My feet ached. I stopped and saw my toes bleeding. I did not panic. I felt no pain. Soon I was at the edge of the great forest whose darkness is a god. I was about to enter the darkness when I saw the black cat, its eyes glowing like luminous stones.

Then footsteps converged on me. I turned, and ran into the massive figure of Madame Koto.

She caught me, lifted me up to her heavy breasts, and took me back home in silence. Mum had been looking for me everywhere. When she saw us she rushed over, carried me across the men asleep in their chairs, the children dozing against the walls, and laid me on the bed. Madame Koto lit a stick of incense, shut the window, and went outside with Mum.

I heard Madame Koto telling her how she had found me. I listened to the men snoring.

I heard Mum thanking Madame Koto. My spirit companions were weeping. I slept and woke up when I heard a noise at the door. Someone came in with a lamp. I saw the lamp, and its illumination, but I didn’t see who was bearing it across the room.

There was darkness behind the lamp. Darkness put the lamp on the table. The curtain fluttered. I lay still and waited. Nothing happened for a while. When I woke up, the lamp was gone. In its place there was a candle on a saucer. I saw Dad moving from one sleeping figure to another, waking them up, urging them to go home. The men were so drunk that they didn’t want to move. The children had to be carried out in their sleeping positions. When Dad came round to the photographer and touched him on the shoulder the poor man jumped up and said: