The Famished Road (14 page)

As I drifted in the corridors of sleep, I heard a great loud voice singing from the gateway of the compound. The voice was rough and drunken. Another voice cried:

‘Black Tyger!’

Dad kicked open the door and staggered into the room like a dreaded announcement. Mum jumped up and hurriedly lit a reserve candle. Her brightened face was tinged with uncertainty. Dad stood in the doorway like a drunken giant. His shoulders were hunched. He held a bottle of ogogoro in one hand. Both of his trouser legs were covered in mud up to the knees. He had on only one shoe. The room stank of drunkenness and mud. His neck creaked. Twisting his mouth, blinking as if reality were blinding him, he said, very loudly:

‘I am going to join the army!’

And then he collapsed into a heap on the floor. We rushed over to help him up. He revived quickly, saw us struggling over him, and shoved us away. I was sent flying to the corner where his shoes used to be. Mum tumbled on to the bed. He staggered up, weaved, snatched up his bottle of ogogoro, took a deep drink, and said:

‘How is my family?’

‘We are well,’ replied Mum.

‘Good. Now I have some money. We can pay off the bastard creditors. We can pay off everybody. And then I will shoot them.’

He made an exaggerated imitation of a machine-gun.

‘Aren’t you hungry?’ asked Mum.

‘I fell into mud,’ said Dad. ‘I was coming down the road, drinking, singing, and then the road said to me: “Watch yourself.” So I abused the road. Then it turned into a river, and I swam. It changed into fire and I sweated. It transformed into a tiger, and I killed it with one blow. And then it shrunk into a big rat and I shouted at it and it ran, like the creditors. And then it dissolved into mud, and I lost my shoe. If I had money I would be a great man.’

We stared at him in fear and confusion. He weaved a bit, stretched his back, and staggered towards his chair. He did not sit down but stood regarding the chair as if it were an enemy.

‘You’re looking at me, chair,’ he said. ‘You don’t want me to sit on you, eh, because I fell in mud, isn’t that correct?’

The chair said nothing.

‘I’m talking to you, chair. Are you better than my bed? I talk to you and you move.

What do you think you are, eh?’

The chair pondered the question for too long, so Dad kicked it—with his shoeless foot. He cried out, and looked at the chair again.

‘Sit on the bed,’ Mum said.

Dad looked at her venomously. Then he turned back to the chair.

‘Be Still!’ he said, with great authority.

The chair was still.

‘That’s better. Now I’m going to sit on you, whether I’m covered in mud or even in gold, you hear? And if you move, I will beat you up.’

He paused.

‘They don’t call me Black Tyger for nothing.’

Then he sat down heavily and the chair creaked so loudly that for a moment I thought it would disintegrate under his drunkenness. The chair wobbled and for some reason Dad wobbled with it and then he got up and grabbed it and flung it against the window. The chair clattered on the floor and the window flew open. Mosquitoes and midges invaded us and lizards scurried up the walls and rats scattered from underneath the cupboard and ran confused about the room. Dad went wild, grabbing at the chair, and lashing at the rats. He pursued them everywhere and banged his head against the cupboard. A rat fled towards the door and he chased it, dumping the chair, stamping, makingmachine-gun noises.

He stayed outside for a while and Mum picked up the chair and put it upright in its customary position. After a long while, Dad came back in with someone else’s wrapper round his waist. He had bathed, and water dripped from his hair and he looked like a deranged boxer. His trousers were over his shoulder. Dad came in quietly, his eyes bright, and he looked at us furtively as though we might be angry with him. He drank some water and attempted to shut the window, but it wouldn’t shut. He tried again. He raised a fist against it and sat slowly into the chair. He got up suddenly, ducking his head, throwing combination punches. Then he struggled into a pair of khaki trousers. His chest was bare and he was sweating already and his body glistened.

Dad looked very powerful. His shoulders were big and moulded like rock-shapes.

His neck was thick. I had never noticed that his jaws were so square and his forehead so large. His nose was bigger than I remembered and he had a bristly growth of beard.

His muscles rippled impressively. His transformation surprised me.

He was very restless and he kept moving, kept throwing left and right hooks in the air. He was oblivious of us. We watched him intently. He looked rough and wild.

Eventually he sat down again and shut his eyes. Then he jerked his head up, and looked around.

The candle-light made his face fierce. To the ceiling he said:

‘I carried loads today till I thought my neck and my back and my soul would break.

Then I threw down the load and said:

“Never again!” But I earned nothing, and I have a family to feed, and I carried the load and said: “There must be another way of earning money,” and I thought, “I will join the army,” and then later I saw Aku, our relative, and I borrowed some money from him.’

He was silent again and he shut his eyes.

‘How is Aku?’ ‘Fine.’

‘And his wife?’ ‘Well.’

‘Did you see their children?’

‘No.’

Then Dad raised his feet, to rest them as usual on the centre table. His feet hung in the air.

‘What happened to the table?’ he asked, opening his eyes, his feet still in the air. ‘It was here when I came in.’

He dropped his feet and began to look for the centre table. He looked around the room, under the bed, behind the cupboard. He went outside and came back in again.

We were silent.

‘Where is the table?’

We said nothing. He glared at me and then at Mum as if we had been playing tricks on him.

‘Where is it? Did it walk away? Did you people hide it? Did you sell it to buy food?Was it stolen?What happened to it, eh?’

He got agitated. His muscles rippled restlessly on his chest, his jaws worked furiously. Our silence angered him even further and Mum was forced to tell him what had happened. Then Dad truly went wild. He growled like an enraged lion, drew himself up to his fullest titanic height, stormed out of the room, and began raging down the passage so loudly that it seemed as though thunder had descended amongst us.

He woke up the whole compound with his fury. He banged on the doors of the creditors and strode up and down the passage demanding back his property that the creditors had stolen from him. The children woke up and began crying. Lights came on in the rooms and one by one people appeared at their doors with startled expressions on their faces. Some of the men had machetes and one man had a dane gun. The women went around saying:

‘What has happened?’

Their husbands called them back harshly. Dad went on raging, accusing the creditors of robbing him of his entire property. One of them came out and said:

‘I didn’t take anything. I said I would wait for you to get back.’

‘Who stole my furniture, then?’

The creditor stuttered and said:

‘I didn’t take anything.’

Dad counted out some money, gave it to him, and went on mounting his towering campaign against the other two.

‘They are hiding now behind their wives’ wrappers and yet in broad daylight they THREATenED my WIFE and SON and STOLE ALL MY THINGS! They are RATS COWARDS THIEVES AND ROGUES. Let them come out and DENY it!’

When the compound people understood what was going on they went back to their rooms. The lights went out one by one. Only the two eldest tenants came out to try and settle matters. Dad didn’t listen to them and went on shouting. One or two men, hidden in the darkness of their rooms, said:

‘It’s Black Tyger. He’s drunk.’

‘Yes, I’m drunk,’ Dad said loudly. ‘But it doesn’t stop me cursing the armed robbers.’

He went on to demand that the creditors return his furniture to his room immediately or he would break down their doors and burn down the house.

‘He’s mad,’ someone said.

‘Yes, I’m mad! I am a mad Tyger and I will burn everything down if those armed robbers don’t return my things NOW!’

The two elders made another attempt at conciliation. Then they tried to hold him down. Dad tossed them off and went on raging like a dangerous animal.

Somewhere in the compound a husband and wife began quarrelling. After a while a door opened and one of the creditors came out timidly, carrying the centre table. With his head hung low, he crept to our room and Dad’s voice raged over him in utter scorn. The creditor dropped the centre table outside our door and was creeping back to his room when Dad blocked his way and said:

‘Is that where you found it, eh, you thief!’

‘I’m not a thief. You owe me money.’

‘Is that where you found it?’

The creditor turned back and picked up the table. I was about to open the door for him but Dad shouted:

‘Don’t open the door for that COWARD!’

So the creditor dropped the table, opened the door, went in with the table, and came out again.

‘What about my money?’ he asked in a low voice, as he passed Dad.

There was a brief silence. Then Dad threw his money on the floor.

‘There’s your money, coward.’

The creditor looked from the money on the floor to Dad who towered over him.

Then he bent down and picked up the money.

‘Money will kill you,’ Dad said. ‘You drank of my beer, ate of my food, and because of a small amount of money you behave like a rat?’

The creditor scurried off to his room and locked his door. The noise of him quarrellingwith his wife continued. After some time their lights went out.

Dad stood sheepishly in the middle of the passage, a little diminished for lack of confrontation. He was returning to our room when the other creditor came creeping out with the pair of boots.

‘You too!’ Dad cried, resuming his charged state. ‘So you stole my boots!’

The third creditor ran to our room, dropped the boots, and came out. Dad stood in front of him, feet solidly planted. There was silence. The cocks crowed. Then Dad threw his money on the floor, and the third creditor picked it up without any fuss and hurried back to his room and locked his door.

Dad stood, feet planted solidly on the floor, waiting for further provocation. He had started movingwhen a woman from the room of the third creditor said:

‘If you’re so powerful, why don’t you join the army!’

‘If I join the army,’ said Dad, whirling round, ‘your husband will be the first person I will shoot.’

I trembled.

No one else ventured to say anything. Dad waited for someone to speak. The wind swept harder through the passage. The mosquitoes fell on him. The silence deepened and the darkness became indistinguishable from the different rooms. A child started crying. Someone smacked it and it cried even louder. Other babies woke and cried and then one by one the crying ceased and the compound fell asleep. Dad came back in.

He sat on his chair. His boots stood in their proper place except that the third creditor had mischievously displayed his socks so that the holes were visible. The centre table was slightly out of place and I put it in its proper position. Dad rested his feet on the table. Then he lit a cigarette.

Mum had been sitting on the bed, her face stony, her eyes deep, her hands on her head as though she were witnessing the beginnings of a tragedy.

Dad’s feet stank and I noticed that his one shoe was falling apart.

‘No food?’ he asked, in a gentle voice.

Mum passed his food. Dad washed his hands, beckoned us to join him, and ate. I didn’t feel hungry any more and neither did Mum. Dad ate alone. He had a wonderful appetite and when he finished there were only cracked bones left on the plates. Then my hunger returned and I regretted not eatingwith him.

Mum cleared the plates. I cleared the table and spread out my mat. Dad lit another cigarette and a mosquito coil and sat still. He went on smoking and it was only when I was falling asleep that I noticed one of the chair’s feet was broken. Dad slept on the three-legged chair and I watched his jaw lower and his face relax. He was awoken by his sudden fall. I showed no sign of having noticed. He got up, grumbling. He blew out the candle and climbed into bed beside Mum.

The next morning no one spoke to us in the compound. Dad went off to work early and suffered nothing of the whisperings that followed us everywhere or the silence that greeted us when we went to the backyard. Mum bore it all very well. She said her greetings to people when she passed them and her face remained impassive when they didn’t reply. She bore it all as if she were used to that treatment all her life. It was harder on me though. The children stared at me with sour faces and made it clear they didn’t want my company. The compound people became united in their dislike of us.

We were eating some pap and bread in the room when Mum said:

‘From today I will start at the market. One woman allowed me to rent her stall. I will not go hawking very much any more.’

I was pleased at the news. Mum fondled my hair.

‘Now, go to school and afterwards stay at Madame Koto’s place till I come for you, eh?’

‘Yes, Mother.’

‘I will be locking the door and taking the key so that no one will be able to do anything strange to us when we are away.’

I nodded. But as we prepared to leave the room there was a knock on our door.

Mum opened it and found the landlord standing outside.

‘Tell your husband’, he said, without the slightest formality, ‘that if he repeats what he did last night I will throw him out. I don’t care if he is called Black Cricket. I myself am a lion. If necessary I will send my boys to beat him up. If he gives me any more trouble, if he borrows money from anybody in this compound again, if he threatens to burn down my house, he better go and find himself another landlord, you hear?’