The Famished Road

by Ben Okri

  ‘Shut the door and come in,’ she said.

  I went and sat on the bed. The intensity of her prayer overwhelmed the room. I listened to her calling for strength, pleading for Dad to get a good job, for us to find prosperity and contentment. She prayed that we should not die before our time, that we should live long enough for the good harvest, and that our suffering should turn into wisdom.

  When she finished she stood up and came and sat beside me on the bed. She was silent. The space around her was full of energies. She asked about Madame Koto and I told her that people thought she was going mad. Mum laughed, till I told her what had happened. There was a long silence. Then I realised that she hadn’t been listening to me. Her eyes were distant.

  ‘Did you see the door?’ she asked suddenly, breaking out of her contemplation.

  ‘Our door?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Go and look again.’

  I went out and looked but couldn’t see anything because of the darkness. The compound people, like figures in a red dream, milled about in the backyard, moved about the passage. I came back in.

  ‘Did you see?’

  ‘No.’

  I took the candle, cupped my palm over a side of its flame, and went out again. Our door had been crudely hacked with machetes. They had almost splintered the wood. Gashes were long rather than deep on the door. A foul-smelling substance, glistening red under the candle-light, had been smeared across the wood in a set of menacing signs. Our door had been marked. I went back in.

  ‘Who did it?’

  ‘It was the landlord.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Dad challenged his party.’

  Mum was silent for a moment. I put the candle back on the table.

  ‘Be careful of the compound people,’ she warned. ‘One day they are our friends and the next day they are our enemies.’

  ‘Yes, mother.’

  ‘I was cooking food. I came to the room. When I went back to the kitchen someone had poured water on the fire.’

  We were silent.

  ‘I am now afraid to walk the compound at night. Who knows if they are poisoning our food, eh?’

  I became afraid. I held on to Mum. She patted my head gently. For a moment I could see our door being broken down at night, while we slept. I saw the great monstrous Egungun, belching white smoke from seven ears, bursting into our room and devouring us all with his bloodied mouth.

  ‘Let’s run away,’ I said.

  Mum laughed. Then she became serious. And for the first time I saw how the world had sharpened her features. Her cheekbones jutted out, her nose was pointed, her chin was sharp, and the two corners of her forehead stood out like the rock-shaped result of permanent bruising. Her eyes were narrowed as if they were endlessly trying to exclude most of what they saw.

  ‘Our destiny will protect us. Don’t fear anything, my son. The worst they can do is kill us.’ She paused.

  Her face took on the bizarre immobility of a mask. Her eyes didn’t move and they seemed to stare past the window in an uncanny vacant concentration.

  ‘I am tired of this life anyway,’ she said, eventually. ‘I want to die.’

  Suddenly I had a vision of her death. It came and went so fast and it left me perplexed. I remembered her face when she nearly died just after my homecoming. I remembered that it was because of her bruised face that I had chosen to live, to stay, in the confines of this world, and to break my pacts with my spirit companions. One of the many promises I made before birth was that I would make her happy. I had chosen to stay, now she wanted to die. I burst out crying. I threw myself on the floor and thrashed and wept. The demon of grief seized me completely. Mum tried to hold me, and console me, and find out why I had so suddenly begun crying. She didn’t know how inconsolable I was at that moment, because she didn’t know the cause of my grief. She didn’t know that the only thing that could make me stop was a promise from her that she would never die.

  ‘What’s wrong with you? Is it because of the door? Or the compound people? Or the landlord? Don’t be afraid. We are too strong for them.’

  Her words came too late. I could not separate myself from unhappiness. I became my grief. I wept in advance for all the things that would happen, the unimaginable things beyond the horizon of all the narratives of our lives. Misery filled me like water fills a deep well after a heavy downpour. I started to choke. My spirit companions drank of my grief and filled me with sweet songs to make my wretchedness more sublime. My heart stopped beating. I froze, became rigid, didn’t breathe, my mouth open, eyes wide. Darkness rushed over me, a powerful wind from the forest. The darkness extinguished my consciousness.

  But deep inside that darkness a counterwave, a rebellion of joy, stirred. It was a peaceful wave, breaking on the shores of my spirit. I heard soft voices singing and a very brilliant light came closer and closer to the centre of my forehead. And then suddenly, out of the centre of my forehead, an eye opened, and I saw this light to be the brightest, most beautiful thing in the world. It was terribly hot, but it did not burn. It was fearfully radiant, but it did not blind. As the light came closer, I became more afraid. Then my fear turned. The light went into the new eye and into my brain and roved around my spirit and moved in my veins and circulated in my blood and lodged itself in my heart. And my heart burned with a searing agony, as if it were being burnt to ashes within me. As I began to scream the pain reached its climax and a cool feeling of divine dew spread through me, making the reverse journey of the brilliant light, cooling its flaming passages, till it got back to the centre of my forehead, where it lingered, the feeling of a kiss for ever imprinted, a mystery and a riddle that not even the dead can answer.

  8

  MUM HELD THE candle in her hand. The wax dripped down on to her fragile skin. She did not flinch. She did not move. Her eyes were wide open. Her face was a rock in the dark shadows where the candle-light couldn’t reach.

  ‘One day I will tell you the story of how Death was conquered,’ she said, in the voice of a mysterious priestess.

  She stared at me for a long time. The candle-light created a golden aureole round the scattered fringes of her hair. The wax turned white on her fragile skin. She put down the candle and peeled off the wax. She stared beyond me. There was fear and love in her eyes. She moved her hand across the darkness and created a raft in the shadows. It was a blue darkness. Everything turned blue.

  I floated on the raft and found myself on the mat. The candle had burned low on the table. There were mosquitoes and midges in the room and the window was open. The wind blew in, fluttering the candle, and it brought the smells of the world cleansed by the freshness of the night air.

  Someone tapped gently on the door of my spirit. I opened the door and found the photographer outside. At first I didn’t recognise him. I hadn’t seen him for many days. He looked different. His face shone with health. His eyes were bright. His mood was buoyant as though he had discovered fields of hope somewhere in the night.

  ‘It’s me,’ he said, a little hesitantly, ‘the International Photographer.’

  He came in half crouching, half bouncing. His spirit swung between fear and buoyancy. He had new cases for his equipment. On his photographic encasement was written the legend, white against the black leather: TO BECOME A MAN. Was it a question unasked, a riddle unstated, or a declaration unfinished? I had no idea. I stared at the words, mesmerised.

  ‘Do you remember me?’ he whispered, as I locked the door.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Round the world and back.’

  ‘How is that?’

  ‘Wonders will never cease.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He didn’t answer my question. We listened to the sleeping world. Still whispering, he said:

  ‘I am going to move soon. I am going to get another job soon. Is there any food? I think those thugs have stopped looking for me. The landlord wants me to move away from his ho
use. I am hungry.’

  ‘There is no food.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Didn’t you see the door?’

  ‘What door?’

  ‘Our door.’

  ‘Of course I saw it.’

  ‘You didn’t.’

  ‘How did I get into the room?’

  ‘You didn’t see it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Some people tried to break it down. Then they put something strange on it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Who did it?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘Wickedness will never cease.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘So there is no food?’

  ‘They poured water on our fire when Mum was cooking.’

  Dad turned on the bed. He grunted in his sleep. The rats began to eat. Mum chewed her mouth and fell silent.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Mum thinks they might poison us.’

  ‘Ssssshhhhhh!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A spirit passing might hear you.’

  ‘What will it do?’

  ‘Depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Is there any garri?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He went to the cupboard and, quiet as a thief, dug out some garri from the basin with a bowl. He poured water in the bowl, got rid of the excess water in the passage, put salt and cubes of sugar in the garri, some more water to achieve his desired eccentric balance, and ate. The simple food satisfied him. When he finished he said:

  ‘Show me the door.’

  I took the candle outside, cupping the flame against the wind. He studied the gashes, touched the foul-smelling red stuff, smelt it, tasted it, and said:

  ‘Blood of a wild boar.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I used to be a hunter.’

  We went back in. He knelt in silence on the mat.

  ‘Maybe it’s because of me,’ he said after a long time.

  He paused.

  ‘I will go soon. I will disappear. I will go underground.’

  Another pause.

  ‘I don’t want to bring you trouble.’

  The wind blew in through the window and blew out the candle. We stayed in the dark. When he spoke again his voice had changed.

  ‘Do you know what I did today?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I took photographs of women at the market being attacked by thugs. The women fought them back. I took pictures of riots against our white rulers. I took pictures of a policeman taking bribes. The policeman saw me and pursued me. I escaped.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Magic.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I turned invisible.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I have a lot of powers.’

  ‘Then why are you hiding?’

  ‘Because if you have power you don’t use it all the time.’

  ‘What else can you do?’

  ‘I can fly.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘To the moon.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘On a flash.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Last night I flew to the moon and took pictures of its incredible face.’

  ‘Let me see them.’

  ‘Another time.’

  ‘Why not now?’

  ‘Because I have to sleep.’

  ‘What else can you do?’

  ‘I can change people’s faces.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘With my camera.’

  ‘Into what?’

  ‘I can make them ugly or beautiful.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I can do it.’

  ‘What else can you do?’

  ‘I can drink ten bottles of ogogoro without getting drunk.’

  The rats began to chew.

  ‘Can you understand what the rats are saying?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can you talk to them?’

  ‘No. But I can kill them.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they are never satisfied. They are like bad politicians and imperialists and rich people.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘They eat up property. They eat up everything in sight. And one day when they are very hungry they will eat us up.’

  I was silent.

  ‘When you wake up tomorrow all the rats will be gone. I will finish them off. I will use my powerful medicine and my secret charms. But they won’t work if you don’t sleep.’

  He got up and shut the window. We lay on the mat. I tried to sleep but the rats went on chewing and the mosquitoes went on tormenting us.

  ‘I can teach you how to fly to the moon,’ he said in the dark.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Just think about the moon and fall asleep.’

  I tried it. I fell asleep, but I did not fly to the moon, nor did I even dream about its mysterious face. And I didn’t wake up early enough to tell the photographer that what he taught me hadn’t worked.

  9

  MUM WAS SHRIEKING. Dad stood over her, a fiendish look on his face, dangling six large rats by the tail. One of them was still barely alive. It kicked feebly. Mum got out of bed.

  ‘Where did you find those rats?’

  I sat up. All around the mat, under the centre table, by the door, on top of the cupboard, near the bed, were the bristling corpses of rats. I screamed. The room was a Calvary of rats, a battleground of them. They had died in every conceivable position. There were rats near my pillow, clinging on to the mat with their bared yellow teeth. There were rats all over my cover cloth. Some had died beside me, died beneath the cloth, perished on the centre table, their long tails hanging over the edge. Some had clawed their way up the window curtain and had died at the foot of the wall, leaving long rips on the cloth. They had died in Dad’s boot, their tails mistakable for his shoe-lace. They had died with their yellow eyes open, gazing at us with a solemn vacant threat of vengeance. A few of them were still struggling, still alive, and Dad put them out of their misery, crushing their heads expertly with his boots. The rats, in dying, squirted yellow and blue liquids from their mouths. Big furry rats with long thin tails writhed among the bodies of their companions, kicking with their little paws. Dad picked one up to add to his pendular collection and it made a sudden motion of rip and snag, catching Dad on the cuff of his shirt, and tearing it, and Dad slung the creature against the wall, and it left its imprint there as it collapsed to the floor, clinging on to a piece of sacking with its jagged teeth, refusing to die. Dad stood ankle-deep in the corpses of rats. I was too scared to move.

  Dad came over to me, mischief on his face, and waved the six rats over me like an obscene pendulum. I ran to Mum.

  ‘They are only rats,’ she said, having obviously recovered from her own horror.

  ‘So many!’ Dad said.

  ‘I will count them,’ I said.

  ‘But what happened to them?’

  ‘They had bad dreams,’ Dad suggested.

  ‘What bad dreams?’

  ‘About the landlord’s party. When they heard his speech they decided to commit suicide.’

  ‘What is suicide?’ I asked.

  ‘What happened to the rats?’ Mum wondered.

  ‘The photographer killed them.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘With a special moon poison. It works.’

  ‘Works too well,’ Mum said, getting out of bed.

  She fetched the broom. When she moved the cupboard she gasped. The number of rats that had died there was frightening. It was impossible to imagine that we had been sharing our lives with so many rats. They had eaten the sacking, the wood of the table, had eaten their way through clothes, shoes, materials. There were crumbs of food and ratshit. Lying in a thousand different positions – tails entwined, pale bellies showing, teeth bared, snarling in their death-throes – was an unholy horde of rats.


  ‘Don’t touch anything!’ Mum said.

  She swept every corner. She swept beneath the bed, under the cupboard. She moved her hole-ridden sacks and basins behind the door, gasping in horror all the while. The sacks had been more or less devoured, and rats had died amongst her provisions. Mum swept them to the door and made a pile out of their corpses. I went searching for a carton. I found a big one used for the packing of chocolate drinks. The rats filled the carton. The creepy mass of them nearly made me throw up. Mum went and dumped the carton of rats on the growing rubbish heap at the back of the burnt van. Then she came back and drenched the room in disinfectant. She made us practically bathe in the stuff. Then she made us wash our hands in a concentrated solution. Then she made food, while Dad prepared for work.

  While we were eating there was a knock on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ Dad said.

  It was too early for visitors. We were struck by the sight of the man in ragged clothes who came in, looking around furtively, his eyes yellow, his complexion pale, his mouth bitter. He was from the landlord. He was the bearer of a message. We were informed that our rent had been increased. Apparently we were the only ones to suffer an increment in the compound. After he had delivered the message, which included an option to move out if we didn’t like the new rent, and after he had gone, Dad sat in front of the table of food like a man who had been kicked in the ribs. He betrayed no pain, but sat still, his eyes a little bewildered. When he moved it was to creak his neck and his knuckles. Then he moved restlessly, fidgeting, his face contorted.

  ‘I don’t feel like eating any more,’ he said after some time.

  But he picked up his spoon, continued with his food, and cleaned up everything on the plate. Then he sent me to buy some ogogoro. The woman who sold it wasn’t awake and Dad lost his temper when I came back without any. So I went and woke up the woman, banging on her door, and she got up and abused me while measuring out the amount Dad wanted. Dad drank half of it in one gulp. Mum cleared the table. Then she went to the backyard, singing a song from the village. In the room Dad sat and stared straight ahead.

  ‘You see what life does to you?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You see how wicked people can be?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s how they make you commit murder.’