The Famished Road

by Ben Okri

  ‘No light?’ Madame Koto asked.

  She came over to me and shone the lantern in my eyes.

  ‘So you’re up, eh?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Feel better, eh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why did you touch the bucket of snails?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Liar! Do you know how long it took me to find them. And many of them are still hiding. Why do you cause me so much trouble, eh? Did they send you into this world to punish me?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And you have been searching every corner of my room.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  She stared at me for a while. The women hadn’t moved. Their faces remained angled towards the door. Then one of them looked at me.

  ‘When did you come in?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You better start going,’ Madame Koto said.

  I stayed still. She went behind the counter. One of the women got up, went out, and came back in with three lanterns. She put them on different tables.

  ‘When are they bringing your electricity?’

  ‘Don’t ask me questions,’ Madame Koto said.

  She came round the counter, went out, and I heard her haggling with the tapper. They reached an agreement. The tapper made a raucous joke. I heard him wheeling his bicycle away, leaving a rusted cranking sound in his wake. Madame Koto came into the bar with three kegs. Flies followed her. Wine spilt on the floor. The women didn’t move. When she dropped the kegs near me she planted her fists on her hips and roundly berated the women for their lassitude. They jumped up and made themselves busy, arranging benches, washing cups and plates. Madame Koto went out again. As soon as she was gone the women resumed their places and their motionless expectancy. Then the wind blew a man to the front door. He stood outside, visible behind the strips of curtain. He came in and looked round and two of the women rushed to him and led him to a seat. It was Dad. The women sat opposite him. I went over and he touched me on the head, and said nothing. His face was gaunt, his bristles were growing wild, and there was a vacant stare in his eyes. I knew something was going to happen.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ I said.

  ‘Why? I’ve only just arrived. It’s been a devil’s day. Fetch me some palm-wine. Where is Madame Koto?’

  ‘Gone out.’

  One of the women brought him palm-wine and waited for him to pay. He waved her off.

  ‘I don’t know you,’ she said. ‘So pay now if you don’t want any trouble.’

  Dad stared at her as if he might hit her.

  ‘He’s my father,’ I said.

  ‘So what?’

  Dad, very reluctantly, paid. I sat beside him.

  ‘One day,’ he said, ‘trouble is going to blow up in this area.’

  One of the women sucked her teeth. Another one spat.

  ‘Spit all you like,’ Dad said. ‘Your trouble still remains.’

  The women left him. He hung his head and drank slowly. The women began to talk about the forthcoming rally. They built such a picture of this political rally that it sounded like a fantastic bazaar to be held at the end of the world. They talked of cows that were going to be slaughtered, goats that would be roasted on spits, great musicians that would perform, cars of all kinds that would be seen, and they invoked visions of money thrown out to the people from bags, of thousands of people converging from all over the world to be fed, to be shown the miracles of power, and the promises of a new future.

  ‘Rubbish!’ Dad said, sucking his teeth.

  The women were at first silenced. Then, in a gravelly voice, one of them said:

  ‘It’s people like you who eat rubbish!’

  Dad finished off his palm-wine in one long slurp and then he belched. He stared intently at one of the women and the woman glared back at him. The wind blew the curtain strips into a frenzy. We all looked at the door as if expecting an unusual personage to step in from the rain. Dad went on staring right through the woman, through the walls, and the vacant concentration in his eyes frightened me. The lamp nearest the door fluttered and went out. Then Dad gave a chilling laugh that began the faintest tremor of a fever in me. He went on laughing, with an unmoving face like a mask in the darkness, and his laughter seemed to affect the wind. Something shook the rooftop. I heard the curious wailing of cats from the forest. The wind roamed the bar like a disembodied spirit looking for somewhere to sit. When Dad stopped laughing the room seemed darker and the wind had stilled. We were all edgy in the long spaces of an undefined expectancy.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ I said, a shiver passing through me.

  ‘Shut up,’ Dad said, eyes still vacant.

  One of the women stood up and sat down again. Another one got up and, rolling her buttocks, went and stood at the door. In the faint light I could see a scar at the back of her neck. She stood there for a long while, trembling. The rain started again, slowly drizzling. Dad poured himself more palm-wine. Another lamp went out. The eyes of the women were bright in the darkness. The wind started; I heard it howl as it gathered mass amongst the trees. A terrible spirit stirred in its movement. Gusts of air rattled the zinc roof, I heard the trees protesting, the wind blew on the croaking of frogs. The woman at the door turned and, shaking every inch of movable flesh on her body, came towards us and went round a table and sat heavily. She sighed.

  ‘No customers tonight,’ she said.

  There was a moment’s silence. I looked at the door. The curtain strips parted, as if giving way to a great form, and a three-headed spirit came into the bar. Each of its heads was a different shape. One was red with blue eyes, the other was yellow with red eyes, and the third was blue with yellow eyes. The spirit had about ten eyes in all. It came into the bar, stayed at the door, each head looking in different directions, smoke issuing from the yellow eyes. Then it moved slowly and awkwardly into the room. I watched it in fascination, feeling a terrible fever rising to my brain. The spirit came and stood in front of me. Then, from across the table it elongated all three heads towards me and stared at me with its ten eyes. The fever got to my brain and an awful noise like an incessant drill started at the top of my skull. The spirit stared at me for a long time. I could not move. The colours of its eyes began to hurt me, began to burn out my sight. Then a voice in my skull said:

  ‘Shut your eyes.’

  I shut them and could still see. The heads of the spirit swayed and then were retracted. Then the spirit, walking through the table as if it didn’t exist, went and sat between the women. Two of its heads, in opposite directions, stared at the women’s faces. The one in the middle, the yellow head with red eyes, stayed fixed on me. One of the women coughed. Another one sneezed. A third stood up and sat down again. Dad burped.

  ‘Something stinks in here,’ said the woman who had just sneezed.

  ‘I feel sick,’ said another.

  ‘I want to vomit.’

  ‘I can’t move.’

  ‘And no customers.’

  ‘No customers, no money.’

  ‘No electricity.’

  ‘Stupid rain.’

  ‘Bad wind.’

  ‘And Madame Koto has vanished.’

  ‘Where has she gone?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  They fell silent. The wind was still, as if the land had finally given birth. One of the women brought out some snuff and sniffed it violently. And then, for a long moment, she gripped the table, her head swaying, her mouth poised and wide open. The spirit’s blue head was in front of her. Then, suddenly, she gave the most devastating sneeze, which fairly rocked the spirit’s head. The head drew back, startled. The other heads widened their eyes and the one on the farthest side began to sway and toss about. Its eyes became very big. And then it burst forth with a mighty sneeze which practically threw me against
the wall.

  ‘What is wrong with you?’ Dad said.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘A woman sneezes and it blows you away? Are you not a man?’

  Then I began sneezing. Dad hit me on the head. Another of the women took up the sneezing. Dad joined in. Soon we were all infected with uncontrollable sneezing. We sneezed for such a long time and with such intensity, that it seemed we would lose our heads altogether. The woman who began it sprayed her mucus everywhere and sneezed out the last lamp. Dad dislodged snot into his cup of palm-wine and then knocked the cup over. We were all contorted in paroxysms, when the wind, roaming the bar, took our sneezing away, and in its place left five rowdy men who laughed at us. We didn’t realise we had stopped sneezing till one of them said:

  ‘Is this how you welcome customers?’

  Then the women, wiping their noses, struggling amongst themselves, falling over one another, rushed to the men and led them to a table.

  ‘More wine!’ Dad said.

  No one paid any attention. The spirit’s central head turned to Dad as if he had suddenly materialised.

  ‘And more light!’ he added.

  One of the women got up and lit the lamps. The spirit was reduced in visibility.

  ‘Just because you have customers doesn’t mean you shouldn’t serve me,’ Dad said in a bad-tempered voice.

  ‘Shut up,’ said one of the men.

  Dad gave the man his vacant, intent stare. The men stared back at him. Dad looked away, sank back into himself, and became silent. The woman lighting the lamps came over.

  ‘You want another bottle of palm-wine?’

  Dad didn’t speak, nor did he look up. He seemed to have wholly retreated into himself. The woman repeated the question. Dad still didn’t say anything. He hung his head.

  ‘Leave that useless man alone,’ said one of the men.

  ‘If he doesn’t want to answer you, let him swallow his saliva,’ said another.

  Dad looked up and looked down again. A man sneezed. The spirit moved one of its heads and looked at him. The woman placed a fist on her hip. Then she went to the backyard, came back with a bottle of palm-wine, and slammed it on the table. Dad poured himself some wine. The woman went and sat with one of the free men. They began talking amongst themselves. The spirit got up and sat next to the man who had sneezed. Dad finished the cup of wine in one swallow and then, with his face set, his eyes charged, he looked up. He surveyed the men. Then he stared at the man who had sneezed. At first I thought he was staring at the spirit. The man he stared at did not notice.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ the woman with the man asked.

  ‘None of your business.’

  The man looked up and caught Dad’s ferocious stare.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said. ‘The rain has stopped.’

  There was silence. Then Dad stuck out his hand and pointed a wavering finger, like a man making an astonishing accusation. I looked to see who he was pointing at. The central head of the spirit looked surprised and its eyes flashed different colours.

  ‘You coward!’ Dad shouted, standing up, pointing quite unmistakably at the man who had sneezed, and who had an ominous scar near his left eye.

  ‘Who are you calling a coward?’ the man asked, rising.

  ‘You! It was you and your friends who attacked me the other night. You are a coward!’

  ‘You are mad!’ the man cried. ‘You are a thief! Your father was a coward!’

  ‘If you are so brave,’ Dad said in a thundering voice, ‘why don’t you fight me yourself, alone, now!’

  Another silence. Then the women began to curse Dad, calling him a troublemaker. They tried to restrain the man, their hands clutching his shoulders, trying to get him to sit down. The man shrugged violently and brushed away their hands. Dad was still standing, trembling, his finger pointed, his jaws working. A woman screamed. Another one sneezed. My eyes were wide open. I couldn’t see the spirit for a while. The man came round the table. The women tried to restrain him. He threw them off. The wind started. The man strode to the centre of the bar and made a great show of taking off his voluminous garment. He was taking it off for a long time. It got stuck round his neck, entangled with the beads and amulets. Another woman screamed. Dad poured himself another glass of palm-wine, downed it, got up and went round our table. He helped the man to remove his voluminous garment. The wind started and seemed strong enough to blow the bar away. I felt the floor tremble. When the man had taken off his great garment he fumed and cursed and then started taking off his shirt. It took a while. Dad went out to urinate. When he got back the man was bare-chested, except for the amulets round his neck. Scar-marks, like weird brandings, ran down his chest and converged at his navel. His followers had by this time surrounded Dad. It was frightening to see how collected and calm Dad was. I began to cry.

  ‘We don’t know you,’ one of the women said, amid shrieks. ‘We don’t know you and you come here with your ugly son and spoil our business and cause trouble.’

  Her face was quite wild, her eyes twisted, her fingernails like red claws.

  Dad ignored her.

  ‘So what do you want to do?’ the man asked, fingering his amulet. ‘Do you know this thing I have here, eh? If you touch me you will fall down seven times and then …’

  Suddenly – it seemed like a flash of lightning was lost in the bar – Dad had hit him in the face. It happened very fast. The next moment the bar door was wide open and the man had disappeared. We heard him groaning outside in the dark. The lightning vanished back into Dad’s fist. Then the woman with the red fingernails pounced on him from behind. She howled like a deranged cat, scratched Dad’s neck, and tried to claw out his eyes. Dad knocked her away and she fell on a table. The man she was with rushed over and jumped on Dad and they rolled outside. I heard them struggling to get up. The woman who had been knocked over saw me, came over, and gave me a resounding slap. The spirit reappeared in the bar. I ran outside. The woman followed. I ran into one of the men. He pushed me away and I fell on Madame Koto’s signboard that was on the soggy ground. It was still drizzling. I could see that the two men were fighting Dad. One of them held him from behind, and the other hit him from the front. Dad jerked forward and downwards and tossed the man behind him over his shoulder. Then he flattened the one in front with a crackling punch to the nose. Both stretched out in a messy heap on the mud. Dad, satisfied, smiled at me. The woman jumped on him and pulled his hair and clung to him with her nails. Dad found it difficult to shake her off. And by the time he had managed to do so the other men inside had come out.

  ‘Let’s run,’ I said.

  The men surrounded Dad. The two that had fallen began to stir. I tried to beat them down with a stick, but it did no good. The men, five in all, tightened the circle round Dad. Shrieking in unnatural voices, the women urged them on, urged them to kill Dad, to rub his face in the mud, force him to eat dirt. One man attempted to punch Dad in the face, missed, and tripped. Another one lunged at Dad and brought him down. Soon the whole lot of them fell on the two bodies on the floor and formed a writhing heap. The fight became confused. Everyone seemed to be hitting everyone else. Then, out of the wriggling mud-covered mass of bodies, emerged the yellow head of the spirit. It looked fairly confused. Then the spirit disentangled itself altogether from the fray and wobbled towards me and stuck its yellow head close to my face, so that I couldn’t escape its flaming red eyes. The voice in my head, again, said:

  ‘Shut your eyes.’

  I did and could still see. The spirit blinked rapidly and the brightness of its eyes hurt me. The men had rolled off the heap. Dad lashed at them wildly, swinging granite punches. Then he ran to the backyard and returned soon afterwards with a terrifying piece of wood. I opened my eyes. The piece of wood had several long nails sticking through it. I shouted. The spirit, ten eyes widened, leant its central head closer to me, and said:

  ‘They told me to bring you with me.’

  ‘Who?’

  �
��Your friends.’

  ‘What friends?’

  ‘In the spirit world. Your companions.’

  Dad lashed out with the piece of wood.

  ‘You had a pact with them. Before you were born. Remember?’

  The men scattered as Dad wielded his ugly weapon.

  ‘Hold him!’ one of the men cried.

  ‘You hold him,’ said another.

  Dad pursued them. They fled. He pursued the woman. She ran, screaming, towards the forest.

  ‘They said I must bring you,’ the spirit said again.

  ‘I won’t come.’

  The other women in the bar were now outside. One of the men picked up a long branch. Dad tore after him with a murderous expression on his face. The man dropped the branch and ran.

  ‘Cowards!’ Dad shouted, triumphantly.

  He kept tearing after the men and they kept fleeing. Then he went into the bar. The women scattered as he approached. He re-emerged with a calabash of palm-wine belonging to his adversaries. He drank steadily while keeping an eye on the men.

  ‘So you won’t come?’ the spirit asked me.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about your promises?’

  ‘What promises?’

  ‘They will be angry.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ the spirit said.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Remember that I have only three heads. After I have failed, your companions will send the spirit with four heads.’

  One of the women jumped on Dad while he was gulping down the last of the palm-wine. Then they all jumped on him and they called the men to come and finish him off. Dad struggled. The calabash broke. A woman cried out. The men approached cautiously.

  ‘And after that they will send the spirit with five heads.’

  Dad shook off the women. They fell from him. One of them managed to snatch away his feared weapon of nails and ran off with it.