The Famished Road

  ‘Come here now, you vicious child!’

  I still didn’t move. Dad got very angry because he couldn’t get his big hands on me.

  ‘Come here now, or you won’t eat!’

  I didn’t care about food or sleep or anything. He suddenly made a sprint for me and I ran towards Madame Koto’s place and he caught me just before I got there. He grabbed me by the back of my shorts and lifted me up and whipped me and dragged me home. He was so frightening in his fury that I screamed as if he were a spirit that was abducting me to some unknown destination. When he dragged me into the room he tossed me on the bed and thrashed me till sweat poured down his chest. When he was satisfied that he had whipped the wanderlust out of me he threw down the pulped cane and went to have a bath.

  I came out all over in heavy welts. I groaned on the bed, swearing a terrible spirit-child’s vengeance. Mum sat beside me. When Dad returned from the bathroom he was still angry.

  ‘You are a problem to me,’ he said. ‘A problem child. When I think of all the things I could have done – if it wasn’t for you.’

  He started towards me again, but Mum interposed firmly and said:

  ‘Haven’t you flogged him enough?’

  ‘No. I want to thrash him so thoroughly that next time he will think of us before he gets lost again.’

  ‘He’s had enough. His feet are bleeding.’

  ‘So what? If I were a severe father I would put pepper on his wounds to teach him an everlasting lesson.’

  Dad sounded more furious than ever; but Mum stood firm, determined that no more beating should be visited on me. Grumbling, complaining about his lot, about how I held him back, how much of a better child he had been to his parents, Dad put on his drab khaki work-clothes. Mum tried to get me to eat. I didn’t want to eat while Dad was around. I had been crying in a steady monotone.

  ‘If you don’t shut up now,’ he thundered, reaching for a boot, ‘I will thrash you with this!’

  ‘Yes, and kill him,’ Mum said.

  I went on with my steady monotonous weeping. Further punishment couldn’t make me feel worse than I already did. He dressed in a bad temper. When he was finished he picked up the cane and came over to me and said:

  ‘If you move from this room today or tomorrow you might as well stay lost, because when I finish with you …’

  He deliberately didn’t complete his sentence, for greater effect. Then he brought the cane down lightly on my head, and stormed out of the room. I was relieved to see him go.

  Mum was silent. She waited a while before she said:

  ‘Do you see the trouble you’ve caused, eh?’

  I thought she was going to berate me as well. I braced myself for her onslaught. But she got up and went out and I fell asleep. She woke me up. She had brought in a basin of warm herbal water. She made me soak my feet. Then with a candle-heated needle she expertly plucked out the road-worms that had eaten into the soles of my feet. But before that she made them wriggle with hot palm-oil. Then she disinfected my cuts. She pressed herbal juices on my welts. With strips of cloth she tore from one of her wrappers, she bandaged mashed leaves against the soles of my feet. The leaves stung me for a long time. She went and got rid of the needle and the water in the basin. I climbed into bed. She made me get out again to eat. I ate ravenously and she watched me with tears gathering in her eyes. When I had eaten I climbed back into bed. She gathered her provisions and as my eyes shut, she said:

  ‘Stay in and lock the door. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t open the door unless it’s me or your father, you hear?’

  I barely nodded. With her tray on her head, she went out into the compound, out into the world; I locked the door and fell asleep in the unhappiness of the room.

  Dad had no need to worry about me going out. I slept through the whole day. In several entangled dreams I fought with the three-legged chair that was trying to abduct me. And when I woke it was only because Mum had returned. I woke up feeling as if an alien spirit had crept into my body during my sleep. I tried to conquer the abnormal queasiness and heaviness of body, but my head seemed larger, full of spaces, and my feet began to swell. It was only that night, when I saw Mum split up into two identical people, when Dad’s fiendish smile broke into multiples of severity, when my eyeballs became hot, and my body shook, and great blasting waves of heat poured through my nerves, that I realised I had come down with a fever.

  ‘The boy has got malaria,’ Mum said.

  ‘If it’s only malaria, we’re lucky,’ Dad growled.

  ‘Leave him alone.’

  ‘Why should I? Did I send him to go and walk about all day and all night? Did you send him? All we told him to do was stay at Madame Koto’s bar. We didn’t tell him to go and walk about and catch some road-fever.’

  ‘Leave him alone. Can’t you see that he is shaking?’

  ‘So what? Am I shaking him? He probably went and walked on all the bad things they wash on the roads. All those witches and wizards, native doctors, sorcerers, who wash off bad things from their customers and pour them on the road, who wash diseases and bad destinies on the streets. He probably walked on them and they entered him. Look at his eyes.’

  ‘They have grown big!’

  ‘He looks like a ghost, a mask.’

  ‘Leave him.’

  ‘If he wasn’t ill, I would thrash him again.’

  Then to me, he said:

  ‘Do you think of us, eh? How we sweat to feed you, to pay the rent, to buy clothes, eh? All day, like a mule, I carry loads. My head is breaking, my brain is shrinking, all just so that I can feed you, eh?’

  Dad went on like that through the night. I trembled and my head was shot with heat and hallucinations. Dad’s head became very big, his eyes bulbous, his mouth wide. Mum looked lean, bony, and long. They became giant shadows in my fever. They towered above me on the bed and when they spoke about me it seemed they were talking about a ghost, or about someone who wasn’t there. For I wasn’t there in the room. I was deep in the country of road-fevers.

  All the sounds of the compound were magnified through the night. I couldn’t eat, I kept throwing up, and all I could keep down was water. Mum kept vigil over me with a candle, Dad with a cigarette. Shadows wandered around the room. I felt I was retreating from the world of things and people. Late at night Mum made some peppersoup. It was hot and spiced with bitter herbs. It made me feel a little better. Then she poured me a half-tumbler of ogogoro which had turned yellow with marinating roots.

  ‘Dongoyaro,’ Mum said, insisting that I drink it all down in one gulp.

  ‘If you don’t, I flog you,’ Dad threatened.

  I drank it all down in one and was shaken to the foundations of my stomach with its infernal bitterness. Bile rushed to my mouth; it was so bitter that I shook in disgust. Mum gave me a cube of sugar, which didn’t sweeten my mouth one bit. And all through my sleep, all the way to the next morning, my mouth was still bitter.

  ‘The bitterness drives away the malaria,’ Mum said, tucking me into bed.

  ‘Bitterness is what the boy needs,’ Dad said, his voice heavy.

  He was still angry with me for keeping them up all night, for making them suffer so much worry; and now he could not forgive me because I was ill and had cheated him of a target for his annoyance. Protected from his rage by my fever, I slept that night wracked with bad dreams and road-spirits.

  Saturday morning, three days later, I was still ill. My mouth and eyes were dry and I kept hearing birds twittering in my ears. Mum was clattering among the basins and cleaning up the room. Dad wasn’t in; Mum said he had gone to work at the garage. Towards noon Jeremiah came round with photographs of the party. Mum told him he’d have to come back. He grumbled about how expensive it was taking pictures of poor people, but he left without creating a scene.

  It became very hot in the room. The air coming in from the window brought flies and gnats, but it didn’t cool anything. I sweated profusely on the bed till I was lying in a pool of dampness.
My body hurt all over and the soles of my feet itched and a headache expanded my brain. I watched Mum cleaning the room in a haze of dust and dryness. She looked the picture of forebearance. She said:

  ‘You must listen to your father and be careful how you walk on the road.’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘The road swallows people and sometimes at night you can hear them calling for help, begging to be freed from inside its stomach.’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  She cleaned out the cupboard and prepared my food. I ate little. She made me get out of bed and bathe. With the daylight hurting my eyes, with the noises of the compound jangling my nerves, and the stares of the other tenants increasing my sense of multiplication, I went to the backyard. Mum had prepared warm herbal water.

  ‘Bathe of it properly,’ she said, ‘or I will do it for you.’

  It was cold when I took off my clothes. But the water was hot and the soap smelt good. I was led back to the room feeling new. Mum rubbed me over with herbal oil.

  ‘Time for your dongoyaro,’ she said.

  I could have fainted at the anticipation of its bitterness.

  ‘If you don’t drink it all down I won’t allow you go out today.’

  I drank it all down. Later I marvelled that my urine was the deep yellow colour of its bitterness.

  The afternoon brought the bustling noises of the compound people scrubbing their roomfronts. I heard them chattering, either going out on Saturday outings or being visited by friends or relations. Mum got me to dress up in my fine clothes which I wore only at Christmas. She parted my hair and touched my face with powder, which I sweated off. And then Madame Koto came to see us.

  She looked very dignified in her white magic beads and her elaborate wrappers and her massive blouse. She was dressed as if she were going to see wealthy relations.

  ‘Azaro, what happened to you?’

  ‘I was lost.’

  ‘You just disappeared.’

  ‘We should tie up his feet,’ Mum said. ‘He walks too much.’

  Madame Koto laughed and brought out a bowl steaming with goat-meat peppersoup.

  ‘Are there demons in it?’ I asked.

  She gave me a severe stare, smiled at Mum, and said:

  ‘It’s full of meat and fish.’

  It tasted better than the soup she served her customers. I drank it all down and ate all the meat and fish and my stomach bulged.

  ‘You didn’t finish the one I made you,’ Mum said.

  ‘I did.’

  Madame Koto packed the bowl back into her bag.

  ‘Get strong quick, and come and sit in the bar, eh,’ she said, heading for the door.

  Mum escorted her out. I could hear them talking. They left the roomfront and I couldn’t hear them any more.

  Mum was gone for a long time. The soles of my feet began to itch. Then as I lay there, moving in and out of sleep, in and out of dreams, loud new voices crackled from the street. The voices were so magnified that I wondered what sort of human beings produced them. I couldn’t hear what they said. I felt I was imagining them, that they were another manifestation of the spirits. The compound children ran up and down the passage, talking excitedly. I heard the men and women talking in animated tones as if some fantastic new spectacle had appeared in our street, a bazaar, a public masquerade, a troupe of magicians, with contortionists and fire-eaters. The crackling voices drew closer and sounded from the rooftops of all the houses. The compound appeared empty, everyone had gone out to see what was going on, and I could hear a baby crying in its temporary abandonment.

  Overcome with curiosity, I got out of bed. The crack of an iron ruler shot through my head and ended between my eyes. The room swayed. The crackling voice outside spoke from an elevated stationary position. Darkness formed round my eyes and then cleared. I made for the door. The passage was empty. All the compound people were gathered at the housefront. All the housefronts of the street were crowded with people. And everyone was staring at the spectacle of an open-backed van with a megaphone. A man in resplendent white agbada was talking with great gestures. It was the first time I had heard such amplification of voice.

  The inhabitants of the street crowded round the van, hunger on their faces. Their children were in tattered clothes, had big stomachs, and were barefoot.

  ‘What is it?’ someone asked.

  ‘Politicians.’

  ‘They want votes.’

  ‘They want our money.’

  ‘They have come to tax us.’

  ‘I saw them when I went hawking. They keep giving reasons why we should vote for them.’

  ‘They only remember us when they want our votes.’

  The man in the van spoke for himself.

  ‘VOTE FOR US. WE ARE THE PARTY OF THE RICH, FRIENDS OF THE POOR …’

  ‘The poor have no friends,’ someone in the crowd said.

  ‘Only rats.’

  ‘IF YOU VOTE FOR US …’

  ‘… we are finished,’ someone added.

  ‘… WE WILL FEED YOUR CHILDREN …’

  ‘… lies.’

  ‘… AND WE WILL BRING YOU GOOD ROADS …’

  ‘… which the rain will turn into gutters!’

  ‘… AND WE WILL BRING ELECTRICITY …’

  ‘… so you can see better how to rob us!’

  ‘… AND WE WILL BUILD SCHOOLS …’

  ‘… to teach illiteracy!’

  ‘… AND HOSPITALS. WE WILL MAKE YOU RICH LIKE US. THERE IS PLENTY FOR EVERYBODY. PLENTY OF FOOD. PLENTY OF POWER. VOTE FOR UNITY AND POWER!’

  By this time the mocking voices were silent.

  ‘AND TO PROVE TO YOU THAT WE ARE NOT EMPTY WORDS BRING YOUR CHILDREN TO US. WE ARE GIVING AWAY FREE MILK! YES, FREE MILK FROM US, COURTESY OF OUR GREAT PARTY!’

  On and on they went, crackling abundant promises on the air, launching future visions of extravagant prosperity, till they broke down the walls of our scepticism. The compound people abandoned their doubts and poured over to the van. Feeling the road sway, with the magnified voice quivering in my ears, I went with them. I was surprised to see our landlord on the back of the van. His face glistened with the smile of the powerful and he had on a lace agbada. There were stacks of powdered milk on the back of the van and men with bristling muscles, bare-chested, ripped open the sacks and dished out the milk with yellow bowls to the women who had rushed over with containers. The landlord, like a magician in a triumphant moment, handed out bowls of milk to the great surging mass of people. All around me the throng had become rowdy; the crowd converged round the van, arms outstretched, and the rush for free milk broke into a frenetic cacophony. The crowd shook the van, voices clashed in the air, children cried out under the crush, hands clawed at the sacks, and the frenzy became so alarming that the man at the megaphone began shouting:

  ‘DON’T RUSH. WE HAVE ENOUGH FREE MILK FOR THE WHOLE COUNTRY …’

  His pleading only made things worse; people surged round with basins, had them filled, rushed to their homes, and returned with greater vigour. Soon the whole street, in a frightening tide of buckets and basins, of clanging pots, and rancorous voices, rocked the van. The landlord looked sick with fright. Sweat broke out on his face and he struggled to take off his agbada, but it got caught in the outstretched clawing hands of all the struggling hungry people. The more he tried to get it off, the more entangled it became in all the hands. It was as though his clothes too had become an extension of his party’s promises, a free gift to everyone. On the other side of the van I saw Madame Koto engaged in negotiations with the man at the megaphone, pointing vigorously in the direction of her bar. All around her the crowd hustled. The women’s kerchiefs were torn off, shirts were ripped apart, milk spilt everywhere and powdered the faces of the women and children. With their sweating, milk-powdered faces they looked like starving spirits. The crowd surged, voices swelling, and the driver started the van’s engine. The hunger of the crowd wreaked itself on the van; the handers-out of milk began
to shout; the driver got worried; the landlord’s agbada had been torn off him by the crowd. He battled to get it back, clinging on to its edges in desperation, pleading. But the crowd, with confused clawing motions, raking the milk sacks from under the feet of thugs, dragged the landlord’s agbada with them. He clung on stubbornly and they dragged him along with his garment, out of the van, till only his feet were left showing, kicking vainly at the air. One of the thugs stopped dishing out the milk and held on to the landlord’s feet, to keep him in, but lost the battle against the confused fury of motions, and the landlord disappeared into the great welter of bodies. His agbada was passed from hand to hand, above the crowd; and soon so many hands grasped at the lace garment that it tore into several pieces in the air and patches of its blue cloth flew this way and that like the feathers of a plucked parrot.

  When the landlord next emerged his hair was covered in mud and someone spilt milk on him and he looked like a travesty of an Egungun and when he tried to get back on the van his fellow party men wouldn’t let him because they didn’t recognise him. He shouted his indignation and the thugs, abandoning their activity, set on him, bundled him off, and threw him to the ground, a good distance from the van. The intrepid photographer appeared with his camera and took pictures of the miserable landlord and the surging crowd. The landlord got up in a great fury, shook his fists, swore at the party and, covered in mud and dried milk, his clothes in tatters, his pants all twisted, he stormed away down the street, a solitary figure of wretched defiance. The photographer went on taking pictures. The men on the van posed in between doling out milk, smiling in weird fixity at the camera, while the crowd jostled. I saw three tough-looking men suddenly snatch sacks of milk from the van; I saw them run off down the street, pursued by the party thugs. Children were squashed by the jostling. A man fainted. Women cried out. A girl was prodded in the eye. Someone else, elbowed in the mouth, spat blood into the air. The photographer flashed his camera at a woman with a swollen eye, a basin of milk on her head. I saw a man running out from the crowd’s vanguard, with deep scratches bleeding down his face. The windows of the van were smashed in the mêlée. Blood mixed with milk on the earth. I heard Mum screaming. I fought my way in the direction of her cry. I saw Madame Koto leaving the scene of confusion with utmost dignity, her beads gleaming in the sun. I searched for Mum in the crowding, in the heated sweat and hungry violence of the swelling multitude. Elbows crashed on my head and someone’s fist cracked my nose, drawing blood. I fought my way back out, stumbling over feet of solid bone and rough legs. The van suddenly started moving. It knocked over a man and dragged with it a hundred surging bodies. The crowd poured after the van as if in a holy crusade. The thugs on the back of the van, resorting to a diversionary tactic, tore open a hidden sack and began throwing pennies and silver pieces in the air. The coins landed on our heads, we caught them with our faces, were sometimes blinded by their force as we surged, and we scrambled for them, forgetting the milk, while the van drove away, crackling its announcements, its party promises, and the venue of the party’s next great public spectacle. The children ran after the van, while the rest of the crowd, caught in the spiral of its own fever, scrambled for coins.