The Famished Road

‘Do you like my father?’

She said nothing for a while. Then, as I was about to move, she said: ‘Maybe it’s you that I like.’

I didn’t understand. I went into the room. Dad was dressing up in his black French suit. He had three plasters on his face. He had daubed the dreadful Arabian perfume on him. He put on his old boots, combed his hair, and parted it. I told him about the man in white.

‘A white man?’ Dad asked in an excited voice.

‘No,’ I said.

‘What did he want? Does he want to vote for me?’

‘No.’

Dad stamped the boots on the floor. When he was satisfied with their occupation by his feet, he said:

‘All kinds of people are interested in me. From today I keep my door open.’

‘What about thieves?’

‘What thieves? What can they steal, eh?’

‘Mum’s money.’

‘Does she have money?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Good. Weneedvotes.I’mgoingtoMadameKoto’sparty.Dressup.Goandwash your face. You are going to be my subaltern.’

‘What about the girl?’

‘What girl?’

‘Helen, the beggar.’

‘She will be my bodyguard. All beggars are my bodyguards. I will build them a university.’

‘When?’

‘After you wash your face.’

I went and had a hurried wash. When I got back Dad was gone. The beggar girl was at the housefront. I led her beggars to Madame Koto’s party.

FIVE

OUTSIDE THE TENT Dad was struggling to get in. ‘I am a politician!’ he said.

‘We don’t want politicians like you,’ said one of the bouncers.

‘Why not?’

‘Go away. If you are a politician you won’t gatecrash.’

‘Did I crash your gate?’ Dad replied indignantly. ‘I don’t have a car.’

‘Just go away.’

Dad began to shout insults. He made such a fuss that the bouncer sent for the thugs. They came and bundled Dad out and dumped him near the forest. He came storming back, his jacket covered in mud, dried leaves in his hair, his plaster flapping. He went to the bouncer and knocked him out with a single roundhouse punch.

‘Ifit’sonly gatecrashersyourespect,thenIamcomingin,’Dadsaid.

The thugs fell on him. He threw one of them on the bo

‘What do you want?’ he asked me.

‘To come in.’

‘You can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘You ugly child. Show me your friends and I will eat them.’

I pushed past his wheelchair and went into the celebrations. There were actually fewer people at the event than it appeared from the outside. Or maybe they were all somewhere else, at the event behind the event. The noise from the musical equipment was very loud. I saw giants and midgets. I saw a white man with silver eyelashes dancing with a woman whose abundant breasts brought flames to his face. The long tables tumbled with fruit and fried meat, rice and platters of sweet-smelling stews, vegetables and plastic cutlery. Everywhere I looked the lights affected me. Crowded spaces suddenly became empty. And in the emptiness I saw the ghost forms of white men in helmets supervising the excavation of precious stones from the rich earth. The excavation was done with spectral machines. I saw the ghost figures of young men and women, heads bowed, necks and ankles chained together, making their silent procession through the celebrations. They kept moving but stayed in the same place. Over them the celebrants danced to the music of a new era that promised Independence. The men of politics, the chiefs, with their wrappers, their agbadas, their fans, the women with lace and red shoes, the paid helpers, the praise-singers, all danced vigorously, sweating, smiling. Madame Koto wandered in agony through the celebrants, her bad foot weighing her down, her head slumped to one side like a disconsolate Masquerade, her face shining with good living. It was strange to see her grown much more beautiful as she got more swollen. An expression of profound disdain hung involuntarily on her lips. An orchestrator of fantastic events, she walked right through the forms of the enchained procession and began sneezing so hard that she twisted her neck. Her women came and led her into the i

Dad went around talking politics. He looked miserable in his black French suit. Everyone he talked to looked at him quizzically and took a handkerchief to their noses. The women refused to dance with him. Dad paused at a corner, nibbling a piece of goats’ meat, looking confused. I wandered amongst the large parrots in cages, saw featherless chickens twitching on plates, and encountered a duiker tied to a post. It kept staring at me. Its eyes were big and changed colour and it had a white bib of beard reaching down to its haunches and it had a powerful smell and it stood still while everyone danced under the heat of the tent. I saw men dancing with political erections. Sweat and sexual potency filled the air. Dancing women generated heat-waves with the gyrations of their bottoms. At one end of the party a chained monkey kept snatchingoffthewigsofprostitutes.Apoliticianwascontemplatingawoman’s quivering buttocks when the monkey snatched the piece of fried antelope from his hands. The monkey hid. The politician looked round. He fetched himself another pieceoffriedmeat andresumedhiscontemplation.Thesamethinghappened.Heleft with the woman soon afterwards. Then I noticed hands crawling under the tables. The music became louder. Someone gave me something to drink. It was very strong and I drank it all and had some more. The earth quivered under the assault of music and dancing. The multicoloured bulbs swayed. Beneath the tables hands with three fingers, legs with two wide-spaced toes, wandered around without touching the ground. Buckets of food floated through theair with no onecarryingthem.Thefood vanished beneath the tables. When the music stopped a midget came to the platform and sang the praises of the eternal Party of the Rich. Then he proceeded to swallow cowrie beads and bring them out of his ears. The blind old man played on his harmonica, green liquid dripping from his eyes. The people clapped and cheered and drank to the health of the party, to its long future domination of the nation, and to Madame Koto. The music was resumed. The blind old man staggered all over the place, very drunk, guided by a woman in a blue wrapper and matchingblouse. When he banged against people he would pull up stiffly and say:

‘Ah, a party!’

When he staggered into women he would laugh and stick out his bony hands, searching for their breasts. The women paid him much attention. He was led to his chair. He danced there like an overturned centipede. The women kept bringing him drinks. He drank heavily, looking through his yellow spectacles at the celebrations, occasionally saying:

‘Ah, Ladies of the Night!’

The parrots squawked noisily in their cages. The duiker eyed me. I stared back into its eyes of deep colours. I stared into its hypnotic eyes and felt myself beingdrawn into its consciousness, I felt myself filling with unease and anxiety. When that moment passed,nauseaandbilerisinginmythroat,Ifoundmyselfinayellowforest, bounding through the emerald spangles of cobwebs. Stars fell from the night sky, plunged into the forest earth, and formed deep pits. I galloped in dreams of abundant energies through the great jungles, bristling with the freedom of the wind and four feet and the soaring spirit that disintegrates the frames of all night-ru