The Famished Road

by Ben Okri

  At first he played without seriousness, joking all the while. He played a game in this spirit and won. He played another and lost. He joked less the more he lost. His voice grew more aggressive and he hit my head with his sharp elbows without noticing. The two men became so obsessed with their game that they began to accuse one another of cheating. Their fists waved threateningly over the draughtboard. Their voices became heated. The onlookers, who had placed bets on the players, were even more passionate than those who were playing. Dad, losing steadily, abused his opponent virulently; his opponent replied with incredible vehemence. I got worried. Dad placed an absurd bet on himself and his opponent doubled it. Things suddenly got very tense in the bar and Dad drank heavily, sweating. He ordered two more gourds of wine. It got so tense that when the onlookers said anything they were pounced upon. It took long anxious moments to quell the furious exchanges. Dad increased the bet and his head started bleeding again. His opponent, a huge man with a small head, kept staring at Dad with such contempt that I wanted to bite his fingers. He turned to me with his small drunken eyes and said:

  ‘Your father doesn’t know how to play.’

  ‘Shut up,’ I snapped.

  There was a startled silence.

  ‘What did you say?’ he asked incredulously.

  ‘Nothing.’

  Dad said:

  ‘Leave my son alone. Play the game. Use your brains, not your mouth.’

  His opponent, consumed with indignation, said:

  ‘You mean to tell me that you allow that small boy – whose mother’s liquid hasn’t yet dried on his head – to abuse me!’

  ‘Play, my friend,’ Dad said coolly.

  ‘We don’t bring up children like that where I come from,’ the man said, glowering at me.

  ‘My friend, play your game.’

  The man got so angry at Dad’s indifference that his concentration was entirely thrown off balance. He kept fuming at me, swearing in many languages. Dad beat him steadily, drinking less the closer victory seemed. And then with a devastating flourish he won the set of games, and swept his opponent’s hard-earned money into his pocket. His opponent, in an extreme fit of bad-temper, drank down the entire contents of his gourd of palm-wine, rained insults on us, complained bitterly about the contemporary bad breeding of children, and staggered out into the encroaching darkness.

  It turned out that he had left without paying for his drinks and his peppersoup. The madame of the establishment ran after him and we heard them squabbling. Dad finished off his gourd with perfect serenity. He was very pleased with himself and his face shone with profound satisfaction. When I had finished the wine in my tiny glass, he paid the madame’s assistant, and we left.

  Outside a crowd had gathered. The bad-tempered loser refused to pay the madame for the simple reason that I had told him to shut up.

  ‘I won’t pay till you tell that boy to apologise to me,’ he shouted.

  ‘That is not my business,’ she bellowed back. ‘All I want is my money!’

  ‘The boy insulted me in your bar,’ he replied.

  The woman stopped listening. When we went past the crowd we saw that she was dragging him about, yanking him around by the pants. He kept trying to free himself from her masterful grip on his trousers, a grip which encompassed his private parts. He tried to prise her fingers apart and when that failed he took to hitting her hands, screaming insults at everyone. Then, suddenly, to our astonishment, the woman lifted him up by the pants and threw him to the ground. The crowd yelled. The man flailed, got up, shouted and huffed. Then he pounced on her, lashing at her face. Dad started towards him, but his rescue attempt was cut short. The madame grabbed the bad loser’s crotch and he screamed so loud that the crowd fell silent. Then, with a practised grunt, she lifted him on her shoulders, turned him round once, showing his mightiness to the sky, and dumped him savagely on the hard earth. He stayed unconscious for a while, his mouth open. She then proceeded to turn him upside-down, emptying out all the money in his pockets. She took what was owed her, stripped him of his trousers, went into the bar, came back out with a filthy gourd, and drenched him with stale palm-wine.

  He recovered instantly. When he saw the fullness of his public disgrace, he screamed in disbelief, and fled towards the forest, his underpants dripping with the shame of stale wine. We never saw him again. The crowd was so amazed at the woman’s performance that everyone stared at her with their mouths wide open. The woman went back into her bar and cleared the tables as if nothing had happened. Then, as we looked on, she broke the draughtboard in half and threw it outside. When she looked up and saw the crowd staring at her in mesmerised silence she strode towards us. In a loud voice, hands on hips, she said:

  ‘Do you want to drink or do you want to look?’

  The crowd, awoken from the spell, broke up into numerous voices. Some went into the bar, to drink of her myth. Others went back to their different areas, taking with them the embellished stories of the most sensational drama they had witnessed for a long time. The woman served her new clientele with superb nonchalance. That evening was the beginning of her fame. Everyone talked about her in low voices. Her legend, which would sprout a thousand hallucinations, had been born in our midst – born of stories and rumours which, in time, would become some of the most extravagant realities of our lives.

  10

  WHEN WE PARTED from the crowd that was busily generating her myth, Dad led us through the bushpaths and into the forest. I walked in a drunken haze beside him. We passed a tree whose lower branches were covered with yellow dresses. A black cat followed us from a distance. It was dark in the forest till we got to a clearing. In the middle of the clearing a solitary wooden pole had been stuck into the earth. The pole had burst into flower. Little buds had grown out along its length and some of the buds had opened into the beginnings of branches. Dad said:

  ‘This is what you must be like. Grow wherever life puts you down.’

  I stared at the flowering pole. Then, touching my head affectionately, Dad told me to stay there and wait for him. He went off and I listened to his footsteps recede into the forest.

  A yellow wind stirred the leaves. Branches cracked. An animal cried out. The black cat, eyes aglow, ran past me in the direction Dad had gone. It looked back at me once. I waited. Noises accumulated in the forest. An owl flew over my head and watched me from a branch. I heard footsteps approaching and I could have sworn that they belonged to a heavy man, but when I looked I saw an antelope. It came up to me, stopped near the pole, and stared at me. Then it came closer and licked my feet. When a branch cracked amongst the trees, the antelope started and ran off. I waited, motionless. It began to drizzle. Water flowed down the invisible paths of the forest and collected at my feet. Again, I heard converging footsteps all around me. Then I saw something move. The air swelled. A woman stepped out of a tree and limped towards me. Her head hung loosely on her neck. She stared at me from her shapeless face and she walked with her body leaning in one direction. She was deformed in a way I couldn’t define. She had on a white robe. Her eyes were dark and small. When she got quite close to me she stopped and started laughing. I didn’t move. The wind startled the branches. The water at my feet made me shiver. The woman, laughing rather dementedly, walked round me. Her face was twisted and her eyes shone in the darkening lights. When she was in front of me again, she slowly stretched her hands out towards my neck. At the same moment, the owl, uttering its nocturnal cry, flew from the branch and swooped past, circling us twice. It made another cry and soared upwards. A crack sounded, like a tree splitting, and I saw the owl falling, as though it had been shot in the mid-air of a dream. It landed on the earth and struggled, wings flapping feebly. Then it turned into a little pool of yellow water and evaporated into the air.

  The woman stopped laughing. Instead of reaching for my neck with her rough hands, she grabbed the flowering pole and began pulling it out of the earth, a satanic expression on her face. She wrenched the pole, and she had
to keep pulling because it had developed strong roots. When she had successfully wrenched out the pole along with its deep roots, she turned and dragged it behind her.

  As I watched her limping away I noticed, among the roots, a glistening black snake covered with earth. The snake wound its way up the pole, towards the woman’s hands, as she dragged it with her deeper into the forest. After a while I didn’t see her any more. Then I heard a sharp cry. Then silence. I did not move. It had begun to grow very dark. A millipede climbed up my leg and I did not disturb it. I saw the black cat again. It came towards me, slunk past, and ran off in the direction we had originally come from. Not long afterwards I saw Dad emerging from the forest with a great sack on his shoulder. He looked exhausted, as if he had been wrestling with demons. When he got to where I was standing he said:

  ‘Did you move?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’

  I reached down and flicked the millipede off my leg.

  ‘Did you see anything happen?’

  ‘A woman came out of a tree. An owl fell down and turned to air. Water gathered at my feet.’

  ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Let’s go home.’

  We set off. I didn’t see the black cat anywhere. I asked Dad:

  ‘Why did the woman tear the pole out of the earth?’

  ‘What pole?’

  ‘The one that was there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘There.’

  ‘There wasn’t a pole there,’ he said.

  I didn’t speak for a while. Then I said:

  ‘A snake came out of its roots and bit her.’

  ‘That’s good. Life is full of riddles that only the dead can answer,’ was Dad’s reply.

  We went home in silence. We went down numerous paths. A dog limped in front and then it stopped to stare at us. Blood dripped from the sack on Dad’s shoulder. Blood had widened and dried on the bandage on his forehead.

  ‘What did you catch?’ I asked.

  ‘A wild boar.’

  ‘Why are you bleeding?’

  ‘The trap caught the boar and it didn’t die. It was still struggling when I got there. I had to kill it with my hands. It kicked my head.’

  I walked behind him in silence, listening to the forest noises and to the sound of his breathing. The journey home seemed longer than the journey out. When we came to the palm-wine bar the madame was nailing up her signboard. I couldn’t read its legend in the dark. She regarded us as we passed. Dad saluted her. She didn’t reply.

  When we got to our new home the children ran out to meet us. The men came to help Dad with the sack, but he didn’t want any help. The women talked excitedly. Our door was open. Folding chairs had been arranged all around the tiny space. The centre table was loaded with drinks. There was a bowl of kola-nuts and kaoline on the floor. There was the potent aroma of fresh stew in the air. The room was empty. Dad went to the backyard and we found Mum in the kitchen. She was fanning the wood fire, tears running down her face, a mighty pot on the grate. When she saw us she came out and held Dad tight and picked me up. Dad put the sack down on the kitchen floor. He looked at me for a moment, and said:

  ‘I have kept my promise.’

  Then he went out of the kitchen, to the room, came back with towel and soap, fetched water from the well, and had a long bath. I stayed with Mum in the kitchen, coughing when she coughed. The water boiled in the pot. Women of the compound came and helped her with getting the boar out of the sack. They poured boiling water on its skin, loosening its hair. They shaved it. Five men helped them butcher the fierce-looking animal. They decapitated it, cut it to pieces and gutted out its monstrous intestines. Then the women began the cooking of the wild animal that Dad had caught in the forest.

  When the meat was cooking, on another fire a great pan was sizzling with oil. The whole compound smelt of aromatic stew, peppers, onions, wild earthy herbs, and frying bushmeat. When everyone could be seen salivating in anticipation, Mum made me go and bathe. I wore a new set of clothes. Visitors and compound-dwellers came one by one to our room. They took their seats. Mum combed my hair and gave me a parting. Dad also had a parting. Mum bathed. In the bathroom she dressed up in her fine clothes. She did her hair and made up her face in the passage.

  Soon our little room was crowded with all kinds of people. Many of them were from our compound, one or two were from our previous habitation, a few of them were total strangers, and a lot of them were children. It was hot in the room and everyone sweated. All the chairs were filled and all the floor space taken. A woman struck up a song. A man struck up a more vigorous song. The children looked on. Mum came in with a plate of alligator pepper seeds, a saucer of cigarettes, and breadfruit. And then we heard a flourish outside.

  It was Dad. He was at the doorway with an empty bottle in one hand, a spoon in the other. He was beating a tune out of glass. He wore a black French suit and had a fresh change of bandages. An eagle’s feather stuck out from the back of his head. He looked happy and a little drunk. He came in, beating his metallic tune on glass, dancing and singing to the music of his own invention. The crowd laughed, cheering in appreciation. Everyone began to chatter. Voices rose in volume. Jokes passed across the sweating faces. I felt a stranger amidst the celebration of my homecoming.

  Then to our delight a woman appeared at the door, sounding a heraldic song. Mum came in with three women, carrying a great steaming pot of stew. Behind her were three more women, bearing basins of jollof rice, yams, beans, eba, and fried plantains. Children brought in paper plates and plastic cutlery. The aroma of the marvellous cooking overpowered the room. Everyone straightened. Faces were bright with aroused appetites. There wasn’t a single throat that didn’t betray the best hopes for a feast of abundant cooking in which all anticipation would be fully rewarded.

  11

  THE FOOD WAS brought in and covered in a corner. Everyone talked to disguise the flood of their salivation. The oldest man in the compound stood up and called for silence. The jokes, chatter, invented nicknames, and robust arguments peppered the air, increasing the heat of the room. The call for silence was repeated. It too became a cause of much jesting. Dad had to raise his voice and threaten the crowd with his good arm before the noise became controllable.

  The old man made a libation at both posts of the door and prayed for us and thanked the ancestors that I had been found and asked that I never be lost again. When he finished his prayer he launched into a long rambling speech in which he welcomed us to the compound as new tenants, in which he aimed a few well turned barbs at real and imaginary enemies, and in which he released a torrent of proverbs and saws and anecdotes that fell like stones to the depths of our hunger. The longer his speech went on, the more depressed the faces became. His proverbs made us more famished, edgy and irritable. When the old man had satisfied his hunger for speech-making, Dad replied to his good wishes. He expressed gratitude for our general safety and good health, and prayed for all those present. The old man broke the kola-nut. He gave a lobe to Dad, who chewed off a bit and passed it on, prayer-laden, to Mum and then to me.

  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 li
nes. 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!’