by Ben Okri
‘What’s wrong with you?’ he asked, flashing an irritated glare at me.
‘They are coming.’
‘Who?’
The man parted the plastic curtain strips and crossed the threshold.
‘Any palm-wine?’ he asked.
‘Sit down. The madame is coming,’ said the carpenter.
The man sat. The girl was beside him. I hadn’t noticed her come in.
‘This place is dark,’ said the man. ‘Bring a lantern.’
‘Take them a lantern,’ ordered the carpenter.
I took the lantern from another table and put it on theirs. The girl blew it out. The place went dark. Fireflies punctuated the gloom.
‘What’s wrong with your head?’ asked the man.
‘It’s that foolish girl,’ I cried. ‘She did it.’
‘What girl?’
‘The one next to you.’
The carpenter, raising his voice, said:
‘I will knock your head with this hammer! Can’t you see I am doing something? Go and bring matches!’
I fumbled my way out of the bar. Madame Koto was lifting the cauldron off the grate. She had tablecloths protecting her hands.
‘That girl is here again with a man. He wants palm-wine and matches.’
She gave me a box of matches and said she would be bringing in the palm-wine. I went inside and lit the lantern and the girl blew it out again. Her eyes shone in the dark. They glittered like the green eyes of a cat.
‘You are wicked,’ I said to her.
‘Me?’ said the man. ‘I come here to drink and a small goat like you abuses me? Who is your father?’
‘Not you,’ I said. ‘It’s that girl. Your child. She’s wicked.’
I lit the match again and the man knocked me on the head. I dropped the match. It burnt on the table. The man hit me again and the girl smiled, her eyes sad, her mouth curiously tight. The match burnt out. I backed away into the dark.
‘Come and light this thing!’ the man said.
I heard the carpenter stumbling his way over wood and metal tools. He brought the smell of glue with him as he came towards us. He kicked a bench in the darkness and cursed.
‘When I catch you,’ he said, without being able to see me, ‘I will crack your head!’
I ran outside and stayed near the path that had become a street. The carpenter appeared, saw me, bent down, took off his slippers, and sprinted after me. I fled towards the forest. He gave up and went back, cursing me. I stayed out till I saw the man leaving with the little girl. They went down the street in the direction of our compound.
The carpenter had finished his day’s work. He sat at a bench, near the earthenware pot, and drank palm-wine. There were lanterns on every table.
‘You are lucky you’re not my son,’ he said, sullenly.
I stayed at the door, watching him.
‘You have just driven away the only customer that has come here today. Madame Koto is angry with you. The man refused to drink in the dark and left, you wicked child.’
I watched him.
‘Either you come in or stay out. But don’t look at me as if you are a lizard.’
I stayed out. There were stars in the sky. The moon was fading. Some of the stars moved as I watched them and I was so engrossed I didn’t hear the carpenter creep up to me. He caught my neck and dragged me into the bar. Madame Koto came in with two bowls of peppersoup.
‘Leave that wicked boy alone!’ she told the carpenter. Then to me she said: ‘I was going to give you plenty of meat but you will only get half because you drove away my customer.’
‘Let me flog him,’ the carpenter offered.
‘Go and flog your own children,’ Madame Koto replied.
The carpenter let me go. I made an ugly face at him. He went on drinking. Madame Koto gave us our respective bowls of peppersoup. I retired to a corner and sat on the floor with my back to the wall and drank the soup from a position where I could keep an eye on the carpenter. But the spoon Madame Koto had given me was too big for my mouth and I went out to get a smaller one. When I got back I found that most of my meat had gone. The carpenter was licking his fingers with great childlike relish.
‘Who stole my meat?’ I asked.
‘The little girl,’ replied the carpenter, with mischief and wickedness glinting in his eyes.
‘What girl?’
‘The girl.’
I stared at him a long time, trying to decide what to do. Then I went out and complained about the theft and Madame Koto gave me some more meat. I ate without taking my eyes off the carpenter. He kept winking at me. When I finished I went and washed my bowl and spoon. And when I came back in I saw a man sitting at a table near the door. He turned his head towards me. At that moment I recognised him.
‘Dad!’ I cried, and ran over.
He put his arm round my shoulder. I embraced him. Then I ran out to tell Madame Koto that my father was around. She brought in some palm-wine and peppersoup.
‘This son of yours’, she said, putting them down, ‘drove away my only customer.’
‘He’s a bad boy,’ Dad replied, with something like fondness.
He was about to pay for the drink, but Madame Koto said:
‘Keep your money. This is to welcome you.’
‘I see you are improving the place.’
‘I’m doing my best.’
‘Plenty of customers, eh?’
‘They will come.’
Madame Koto fetched herself some peppersoup and wine and sat near the counter. Everyone drank and ate in silence. Then the carpenter, swaying on the bench, waving away flies, turned to Dad and said:
‘So which party do you support?’
We all looked up at him. Dad made his reply.
‘The Party of the Poor.’
‘They are as corrupt as everyone else,’ said the carpenter, banging his hand on the table.
‘Still, I support them. At least they don’t spit on us.’
‘They are all corrupt. In my home-town they killed a man because he wouldn’t support them. They too are trying to rig the elections. They have thugs who beat up people in the markets. They take bribes and they help only themselves.’
‘But still I support them,’ Dad said, stubbornly.
‘Why? What have they done for you?’
‘Nothing.’
‘So why?’
‘Because at least they think of the ordinary hard-working man.’
‘They think of them, that’s all they do.’
‘No talking politics in my bar,’ said Madame Koto firmly.
‘You are a wise woman. Politics spoils business,’ said Dad.
‘They are all corrupt. They are all thieves. With the Party of the Rich everyone knows they are thieves. They don’t pretend.’
‘NO POLITICS!’
‘But I won’t vote for them.’
‘They have …’
‘NO POLITICS!’
‘Money and …’
‘NO POLITICS!’
‘Power. They can help. If you support them they support you. They give you contracts. A poor man has to eat.’
Madame Koto got up and snatched away the carpenter’s bowl.
‘Didn’t you hear me? I said NO POLITICS!’
The carpenter fell silent. Madame Koto went out. The two men resumed drinking. Dad turned to me.
‘What did they teach you at school today?’
‘About Mungo Park and the British Empire.’
‘They are all corrupt,’ said the carpenter.
Dad stayed quiet. Moths and flies circled the air of the bar. The carpenter was getting visibly drunk and he kept slurring the same phrase. Dad poured some palm-wine for me and I drank. Dad’s eyes grew red. The carpenter went on slurring. Outside a bird piped an insistent melody. I got quite drunk and the carpenter fell silent, began another speech, stopped, and rested his head on the table. Soon he was snoring. Dad got drunk and began to sway gently himself.
‘V
ery good palm-wine,’ he said, loudly.
The carpenter jerked up, looked round, and went back to sleep. Dad began his own repetition.
‘Politics is bad for friendship,’ he said.
The carpenter didn’t move. When Dad finished his palm-wine he got up, swayed, staggered over to the carpenter, and slapped him on the shoulder. The carpenter started and turned his head in every direction like a bird. His eyes were heavy-lidded.
‘Friendship is bad for politics,’ he said.
‘They are all corrupt,’ the carpenter slurred, and laid his head on the table again.
Dad staggered to the backyard.
‘Madame Koto, we are going,’ he announced.
‘Good night.’
Dad muttered something. At the threshold he said:
‘Let’s go home.’
And we left the edge of reality, the fairyland that no one could see, and went home through the swaying night.
6
WHEN THE CARPENTER had finished the construction of the counter, the bar lost some of its fairyland quality. Madame Koto set up a chair, her plastic bowls for giving change, her basin of peppersoup, and some gourds of wine behind the counter. She was experimenting with efficiency. The carpenter was paid partly in money and partly in wine. He was already drunk when I arrived and Madame Koto was trying to get him to leave. He wouldn’t budge, he kept requesting more wine. He said it was important for him to drink after he had completed a job. Madame Koto protested that he had been drunk all through the job, that the counter was bent over in one direction and that it gave an overall impression of unsteadiness.
The carpenter was untouched by the criticism. Madame Koto carried on quibbling and the carpenter went on drinking. A blue fly drowned in his palm-wine and he drank on stolidly, muttering his replies to her, complaining about how poorly he had been paid. The counter took up a lot of space. The fresh wood smelt good in the bar. There were wood shavings and nails on the floor which the carpenter refused to sweep. Madame Koto refused to give him any more wine. He asked me to fetch him water.
‘I can get drunk on water too,’ he said.
‘Don’t give him any water,’ Madame Koto ordered.
She sat behind her newly built counter, her thick frame wedged between the wood and the wall, surveying everything with a proprietorial air. The carpenter dozed. She whipped the table with a broom. The carpenter got up, staggered to the backyard, and soon we heard him urinating and farting. Madame Koto rushed out, I followed, and we found him urinating on her firewood. She reached for a nearby broom, whipped him round the neck, and he ran, urinating and laughing. She pursued him all the way down the street. I went in and sat at my corner and not long afterwards she returned, sweating above her upper lip. She dropped her broom near the earthenware pot and said:
‘I am going to lie down. If anyone comes, call me.’
She shuffled out. I heard her struggling with the firewood and abusing the carpenter. Then I didn’t hear her any more. It was hot in the bar, but the smell of fresh-planed wood was sweet and soothing. Flies spiralled in the air. I noticed a Coca-Cola poster on the wall. It had the picture of a half-naked white woman with big breasts. Lizards ran into the bar, stopped in the middle of the floor, and saluted me, nodding. I nodded back and they sped on. I lay down on a bench and drifted off to sleep.
I woke up when a man in dirty clothes came running into the bar, holding one of his slippers in his hand. He rushed in and rushed out through the backyard door and came in again. He stood there, in a panic, looking in all directions. Then he brought out a handkerchief, wiped his face, and stared at me pleadingly.
‘Where can I hide?’
‘Why?’
‘People are after me.’
‘Why?’
‘Politics.’
‘Are you a politician?’
He looked confused.
‘Does this compound lead to the road at the back?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘If I give you money will you help?’
‘Why?’
‘Are you a dunce or something? Do you want them to kill me?’
‘No.’
He started to speak again, but we heard rough voices coming from the street. Crowd voices. They were coming towards the bar. The man rubbed his hands together, his slipper between his palms, he ran one way, then the other, said ‘Oh God, save me’ and held my hand. I pointed to the backyard door. As a sort of payment he gave me his handkerchief, and sped out. I couldn’t understand his handkerchief. It was very filthy and it didn’t look like any colour on this earth. I went and threw it away in the backyard.
When I got back the rough voices were just beyond the curtain strips. Some of the people went away towards the street, squabbling and shouting as they went. Then two men, bare-chested and muscle-bound, stepped into the bar. They strode towards me. I had seen them before. One of them had come with the landlord to our room. And the other was one of the thugs that had been involved in the mindless battle along our street. He had a bandage round his head. They both towered over me. The one with the bandage had a massive and ugly pair of nostrils which swelled and contracted as he breathed. The other had large lips and small eyes.
‘Where is the madame?’ the bandaged one asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I am a boy.’
They both stared at me with malevolent faces. Their sweat stank out the bar. They exuded an air of raw menace, their mighty chests rising and falling. Then suddenly they spread out and one of them looked under the benches and tables, while the other looked behind the counter and the doors. They came back and stood in front of me again. Then, as if they both shared one brain, they spread out a second time, one went out through the backyard door, and the other went out through the front door. They both came back in through opposite doors. They sat across from me.
‘Is there any palm-wine?’ the small-eyed one growled.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘The tapper hasn’t brought it yet.’
‘Any water?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘The well ran dry.’
They glowered at me. The bandaged one said:
‘Any peppersoup?’
‘No.’
‘How come?’
‘The madame hasn’t cooked it yet.’
The small-eyed one went to the earthenware pot, took off its lid, and peered in.
‘Isn’t that water?’
‘Yes, but a madman pissed in it.’
‘How come?’
‘I don’t know. The madame said he was mad.’
‘Why haven’t you thrown it away?’
‘I can’t carry it.’
He put the lid back on. He went back to his bench. Flies circled the men.
‘Are you fooling us?’
‘No.’
The bandaged man brought out a flick-knife from his trouser pocket. He began to cut away at the table, chipping off the wood.
‘Don’t do that,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
‘The madame will be angry.’
‘She won’t. She is our friend. Our party likes her.’
They stayed silent for a while. One of them swatted a fly, killing it, and he flicked it off his palm, and laughed.
‘I killed a fly,’ he said to his companion, who nodded, but stayed silent.
Then the bandaged one looked at me with a ferocious and menacing squint and said:
‘Did anyone come in here?’
‘No,’ I replied.
They stayed still for a while. Then, as if they had ears outside the bar, as if they had smelt something a long distance away, they both got up and ran out through the backyard door. Flies buzzed in the silence. I went to the backyard and looked around. They had gone.
Later, I heard voices. Two men were shouting, and a thinner voice was protesting its innocence. The voices got closer, louder, an
d then moved away, became distant. And then, from the backyard, the voices sounded again, swelled by multitudes. Many people, it seemed, were in argument and disagreement. The thin voice cried out, the noise of multitudes drowned it under. I hurried outside and saw that the two thugs had caught the man. They had dragged him through the passage and into the backyard. The thugs held the man’s arms and he let them hold on to him while he meekly protested his innocence. Some people in the crowd surrounding them kept asking what the man had done. Madame Koto came out of her room, saw the thugs and the unfortunate man, and hurried back in again.
The crowd and the thugs created a frightening din. The man’s voice became thinner, his protestations feebler, and his face was pathetically contorted as though he wanted the world to know that he had accepted his fate.
Then he began to plead. He pleaded with the men, begging them to leave him to go free, that he would never oppose them again, that he had been blind. Then he begged the crowd to help him. The crowd was becoming increasingly divisive about their response to his fate when the man suddenly bolted. He pushed his way through the crowd, shoving aside a mother and child, accidentally hitting a pregnant woman in the stomach with his elbow, and he ran into me with such frightened force that I fell hard on the ground and banged my head on a thick block of firewood.
‘Catch him! Catch him!’ the thugs shouted.
‘Hold him! Hold the traitor!’
‘Thief! Thief!’
They bounded after him and the small-eyed thug dived and caught the man’s feet in a flying tackle. The man went down and the two thugs set on him and kicked him and slapped him around and hit him in the stomach. He collapsed on his knees and the two men went on unleashing a barrage of blows and kicks on him. He folded himself into a ball and still they went on, inventing new forms of beating, new kinds of hand-chops, knuckle-cracks, jabs and elbow attacks, enjoying their invention.