The Famished Road (39 page)

‘Madame Koto!’ I cried.

She burst out laughing. The man she was dancing with swept her away into the music of celebration, into the tight-jammed bodies.

Then the bar took on a sinister light. I saw its other sides, felt its secret moods. The men and women seemed like better versions of the spirits who used to come here, and who had tried to steal me away. They had a greater mastery of the secrets of human disguise. I heard their metallic voices and the laughter of their perfumes, and underneath all the dancing and the energy was the invasion of a rancid smell. The wind blew in and the smell got worse as if it were blowing from a marsh where animals had died.

Then I noticed the women. They had convincing veined hands, their complexions were different on different parts of their bodies, their eyes were hungry, and most of them were lean. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, but their mouths, curled as if in constant repugnance, spoke to me of an infernal unhappiness which I couldn’t understand. And, like some of the men, when they laughed their tongues were freckled, or like parchment. Some of their skins glistened as if with scales. I tried to escape from the bar, but couldn’t find a way out of the crowding. I drank more wine.

Bodies, banging against one another, grew more heated. I could see a man’s hand under a table searching between a woman’s legs.

Someone hit me on the head as I was staring at the hand. I turned and saw the midget woman. She was short, with thick thighs, a heavy body, big breasts, and the beautiful and sad face of a twelve-year-old whose mother has just died. She held my hand and led me deeper into the bar, behind the counter, where the instrument sang. She made me sit down with her on a mat of chicken feathers. The midget woman had an unbelievably young face, all made up, and her eyes were the shape of lovely almonds.

Then, holding my arm, she spoke to me in a wonderful voice. She made a passionate speech to me saying that she would take me with her and that she would love me for ever. Her eyes became sad. She said that she was certain that I no longer remembered her. My eyeballs began to burn. The music stopped. She was silent, and she lowered her face till the music started again. Then she began pulling my arm, pestering me with words I couldn’t understand. I tried to get up, but she held me down. I tried to break into a sudden run, but she grabbed the back of my shorts with muscular arms and pulled me back and dragged me close to her. A heady smell, like charmed perfume and a secret sweating, came from her and dulled my brain. And then, with her face close to mine, her lips full like a woman’s, her face small like a girl’s, she drew even closer to me and whispered somethingwhich I didn’t hear. She awaited my reply. I stared at her with incomprehension. Then she repeated what she had said.

‘Will you marry me?’

I blinked.

‘No,’ I replied.

She smiled. Her lips widened, as if they were made of elastic material. Then she threw her head back and startled me with the sudden force of her ironic laughter. Her tongue too was freckled. Instead of teeth she had coral beads. I screamed. She began to weep. I bolted, crashing against the counter, producing an ugly sound from the instrument. I scurried around, saw the door, dashed for it, banged into the red form of Madame Koto, and just about made it outside.

Under the open sky, I stopped to catch my breath. My heart beat fast. My legswere quivering. I was still breathing heavily when I caught a glimpse of Madame Koto coming after me. I ran on; she pursued me in her red gown. She was barefoot and she ran so hard that her hair fell off. Underneath I saw her real hair, patchy in places, and dishevelled. It scared me. She made a determined effort and caught me just before I got to the street. She dragged me back to the bar, laughing and berating me affectionately.

‘You keep running away from me,’ she said.

She had two fresh cuts on her face. They were new scarifications. They were black as if ash had recently been used to stop the bleeding. Her face was different because of the marks.

‘You let my wig fall off my head,’ she muttered, as she stooped and picked it up.

When we got to the door she pushed me in, blocked the way, and wore her wig. She looked instantly younger.

‘This is a party,’ she said. ‘Go and enjoy yourself. Go and pour drinks for people.’

Then she shut the backyard door behind her. It was rowdier inside. It seemed more people had joined the celebrations. I didn’t know which way to turn, for I was crowded on all sides. The noise was louder. I wanted to avoid the midget woman. I looked around for her. She was no longer behind the counter. I pushed my way to all corners of the bar, but I couldn’t find her anywhere. I wanted to spot her before she spotted me, so that I could run. I went and stayed near the counter, and planned my escape.

The men danced tightly with the women. Everyone sweated profusely. The women twisted and thrust their hips at the men. Madame Koto reappeared. She wore a different attire, a striped black and white skirt, a yellow blouse. She seemed to have a faint glimmer of gold on her hair. It was a mystery. She fanned herself with a newspaper. Some of the men had taken off their shirts, revealing muscular bodies with long scars. One of the women began yelling. No one paid her any attention. The men were quite drunk. They swayed, instead of dancing, with bloodshot eyes.

One of the women was practically cross-eyed with drunkenness. A man grabbed her round the waist and squeezed her buttocks. She wriggled excitedly. The man proceeded to grind his hips against hers as if he didn’t want the slightest space between them. The woman’s breasts were wet against her blouse.

Outside, the wind blew hard. The music inside spoke of release from suffering. A ghost appeared amongst the celebrants. The wind blew, the strips of curtain were fanned apart, and a yellow bird flew into the heated space of the bar. Suddenly there was commotion everywhere. The bird flew into the ceiling, rebounded against the wall, fell back dazed, and landed on the woman’s hair. The woman screamed. The bird tried to fly away but its claws were caught. Screaming in mortal terror, the woman touched her hair, felt the quivering bird, didn’t understand what it was, threw her head forward and shrieked as though a demon had entered her brain. Her terror spread through the bar and people scattered all over the place. They had seen the bird struggling in her hair, and had taken it for a bad sign. Then the woman stopped shrieking. Her eyes were wide open.

‘Help me!’ she cried.

No one helped her. Madame Koto stood near the door, her hands at her breasts, an exclamatory expression on her face. The woman shook her head, letting out a highpitched scream which must have scared the poor bird more than anything else, for it beat its wings so vigorously that its feathers came flying off. In a last desperate resort, the woman took off her wig, thrashed it in the air, and sent the bird sailing through the bar. It hit a wall, flew, and dropped in the middle of the dance floor, twitching. There was a moment’s pause. People started to rush forward when the bird recovered, took off into the ceiling, bounced down, flew about the tight space, crashed against the counter, and fell first on the trumpet-like loudspeaker of the instrument, and then on the turning disc. The music ground to a feathered halt.

‘It’s landed on the gramophone!’ someone cried.

The bird was still. I knew that this was my moment to escape. Madame Koto rushed to the gramophone, snatched up the bird, held it tight, and hurried out of the bar through the backyard door. The ghost followed her. The celebrants let out a new cry, a quivering cheer, as though the sign after all had been favourable.

I went out after Madame Koto. She was not in the backyard. I went to her room and pressed my ears against her door. From within I discerned a fever of chanting, a bell ringing, the beating of a gong, a soft voice soaring. The bird had become part of her mythology. I left off listening and made my way past the bar. The music had stopped, the voices were silenced. After a while Madame Koto re-emerged. She spoke briefly.

The men departed, in a crowd, talking in hushed tones, as of a wondrous event. They had the gramophone with them. They kept looking backwards. The women stayed behind.

FOR A WHILE I wandered up and down the street, not sure of where to go.

The smell of burning rats was still pungent in the air, so I followed the edge of the forest and explored the paths that had completed their transformation into streets.

After a long period of wandering I burst into a world I had no idea existed before. The forest there had been conquered. There were stumps of trees, bleeding sap, all around.

Workers in yellow helmets milled up and down the place. There were wooden poles jutting from the earth and wires were stretched in the air and trailed in cables on the ground. Children were gathered, watching an unfolding drama. I asked them what was happening and they said the men were connecting electricity. They pointed to the pylons in the wide open spaces. They pointed to the tents. I didn’t know what they were talking about so I watched in amazement.

There were tents and lorries all over the area. In one of the tents swung an illuminated bulb. One of the boys stole into the tent with the sole purpose of blowing out the light. Before he could succeed a worker came in, saw him, and chased him out. We waited for the man to do something wonderful with the illumination of the bulb. But instead of doing anything he shut the entrance of the tent. We waited for something unusual to happen. We held our breaths. The tent entrance flapped open.

And while we were looking, we saw the man come out again. His colour had changed.

We could not believe our eyes. He was now a curious cream colour with blotches of pink. We stared at him in complete astonishment. His hair was like straw, like bright tassels of corn. He walked unsteadily. He wore dark sunglasses, but his eyes were visible beneath them. He wore wide-bottom shorts, a wide-brimmed hat, and a billowing white shirt. And then to crown our astonishment the man whom we thought had changed colour emerged from the tent. We suspected a devilish multiplication had taken place. We ran away, screaming. And came back. We stared at the white man, expecting him to fly, or to jump, or to somersault. Instead he gave bad-tempered orders in an unfamiliar language. When he spoke the workers jumped and obeyed as if his orders came from the wind. And when he sat down on a folding chair one of the workers brought an umbrella and held it over him. A lizard stopped in front of him, nodding. It stared at him for a long time. In a quick movement, he stamped on the lizard’s head and ordered one of the workers to throw its corpse away. We watched him, expecting him to lose his colour, or to dissolve in that blistering air. Another lizard came and nodded in front of him and scuttled round him twice. He stared at us.

We stared at him. When he ordered the workers to drive us away, and when they pursued us with sticks and whipped us on the back, I conceived a terrible dislike for that white man. We watched him from a distance. The shade from the umbrella thinned and the sun, burning relentlessly, was unkind to him. I disliked him so much that I spoke to the wind and not long afterwards the air stirred, took on force, made the distant treetops bow, raised dust, and blew away the umbrella from the worker’s hand.

The flies pestered him, circling his nose. Red ants formed an army round his chair.

Soon he was stamping and scratching his foot. We laughed and he suspected us of some prank and he gave money to some of the workers and pointed at us and they came in our direction, abandoning the cables for a moment, and we scattered and ran, for we were convinced that if we were caught and taken back to the white man he would eat us up. I fled home through the forest and for the rest of that day remained in the safety of our familiar street.

WHEN MUM CAME back from hawking that evening I told her about the white man. A light of interest flickered in her eyes. But it died when she said:

‘The thugs came again today. Election time is near.’

What I had seen was greater than my empathy at that moment.

‘How can a man become two? How can a black man turn white?’ Mum asked, with weary interest.

‘By magic.’

‘What magic?’

Then I told her about the illuminated bulb and the cables and electricity, about how the white man had killed a lizard and how he wanted to catch us and take us away.

‘What were you doing there?’ she asked.

I didn’t say anything. She looked lean and worried. She complained of a headache.

She lay on the bed and I noticed that she had a wound that was bleeding just above her ankle. Her blood was unnaturally dark. The wound was beginning to fester. I told her about it, but she didn’t stir. The flies tried to settle on it and I drove them away.

She opened her eyes and, in a rough voice, said:

‘Go and play!’

I lingered at the door. The flies settled on her wound. I watched her foot twitch. She lifted up her head and was about to shout somethingwhen I hurried out of the room.

In the street, people were fighting. They fought round the van. The sun turned red.

The people who were fighting moved away in opposite directions, shouting threats.

The evening darkened. Birds circled in the air. Dust and smoke, like a thin veil, hung in the sky. The wind roamed our street, blowing the rubbish along, and sweeping away the smell of incinerated rats and burnt rubber. Slowly, the stars began to appear.

We waited all night for Dad to return. It seemed our lives kept turning on the same axis of anguish. When Mum had slept enough she dressed her wound with the ash of bitterwood. She showed no signs of pain. She made food, cleaned the room, and counted her money in a tin-can. She calculated her profits without any light in the room. When she finished she began to repair our clothes, sewing on buttons, patching holes in Dad’s trousers. She stayed silent and worked with abnormal concentration, her forehead wrinkled, like someone using one action to focus on the pain of waiting.