The Famished Road Read online

  ‘I’m lost.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I don’t know where I am.’

  ‘You are in the under-road.’

  ‘Where is that?’

  ‘The stomach of the road.’

  ‘Does the road have a stomach?’

  ‘Does the sea have a mouth?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘That’s your business.’

  ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘I don’t know where your home is,’ the turtle said, ‘so I can’t help you.’

  Then it lumbered away. I lay down on the white earth of that land and cried myself to sleep. When I woke up I found myself in a pit from which sand was excavated for the building of the road. I climbed out and fled through the forest.

  Hugging what was left of my bread, I went down the streets. At a junction I asked a food-seller for water. She gave me some in a blue cup. I ate of the bread and drank slowly of the water. There was a man standing near me. I noticed him because of his smell. He wore a dirty, tattered shirt. His hair was reddish. Flies were noisy around his ears. His private parts showed through his underpants. His legs were covered in sores. The flies around his face made him look as if he had four eyes. I stared at him out of curiosity. He made a violent motion, scattering the flies, and I noticed that his two eyes rolled around as if in an extraordinary effort to see themselves. I became aware of him staring at me too and I finished the water, wrapped up the bread, and hurried off. I didn’t look back, but I became certain that he was following me. I could hear the peculiar dialogue of the flies around his ears. I could smell his insanity.

  When I walked faster he quickened his steps, ranting. I went through a compound, came out at the housefront, and found him there, waiting. He pursued me, raving in grotesque languages. I tore across the road, through the market, and hid behind a lorry. He dogged my shadow. I felt him as a terrible presence from whom I couldn’t escape. In desperation I shot across another road. The hooting of a monster hulk of a lorry scared me and I dropped the loaf of bread and dashed over, my heart wildly fluttering in my chest. When I was safely across I looked back and saw the man in the middle of the road. He had snatched up my loaf of bread and was eating it, polythene wrapping and all. Cars screeched all around him. I carried on running for fear that he might suddenly remember he had been pursuing me.

  After a while I got to a familiar street. I had broken the spell of the man’s obsession with my shadow. In the heated air of my bewilderment, I tried to understand what was familiar about the area. There were sweet voices of children in the air. I smelt rose blossoms from the garbage. The gutter gave off an aroma of incense. The houses were covered with dust. And yet in the night spaces white birds flew over trees. I kept expecting to recognise something. And when the spaces in the street began to expand, as if sunlight were being released from the objects, transfiguring the area into an expanse of sacred fields, I realised with a shock that it was the strangeness which was so familiar. And then, with my breath quickening, and with moonlight breaking out on the street, I recognised the voices of the children that sang in an intense blue chorus all around me. They were the twilight voices of my spirit companions, luring me to the world of dreams, away from this world where no one cared about me, enticing me to a world where I would never be lost.

  The moonlight of their voices became too multiple and too sweet for me to bear. I felt myself breaking out into another space. Everywhere I looked the spirits invaded me with their manifestations. The smell of flowers overpowered me. The songs wounded me with their relentless beauty. Seared by the agony of their melodies, I stumbled across a road and I suddenly saw them all, spirits in full bloom on a field of rainbows, bathing in the ecstasy of an everlasting love. Something sharp tore through my brain. I collapsed on the flowering tarmac, with lorries thundering around me.

  5

  I WAS TAKEN to a police station. Afterwards I was carried to a hospital where my wounds were treated. When I was discharged a police officer volunteered to look after me till my parents had been found. He was a hulk of a man with a big forehead and hairy nostrils. He drove me to his home in a white car. His wife was lean and tall. She reminded me of the island women and had a complexion like the evening. She made me bathe and dressed me in her son’s clothes. We ate a wonderful dish of stew flavoured with shrimps and meat. The rice had a faint aroma of cinnamon. The fried plantain smelt of wild herbs. The fried chicken tasted of delicious spells.

  The living room where we ate was very spacious and comfortable. The carpets were thick, and there were framed diplomas on the blue walls. Above a painting of Jesus with his large visible heart, arms outstretched, was the legend:

  CHRIST IS THE UNSEEN GUEST IN EVERY HOUSE

  There were pictures of the police officer, his wife, and a handsome boy who had sad eyes. The boy looked at me while I ate. After a while I began to see with the boy’s eyes and the house resolved about me and I knew that he was dead and I lost my appetite and didn’t eat any more.

  After dinner the woman showed me to my room. I was frightened to have a whole room to myself. When she shut the door behind her, I realised that it was her son’s room. His toys, his school texts, and even his shoes had been neatly preserved. Photographs of him at play hung on the walls. That night I couldn’t sleep. There were inhuman footsteps all over the house. In the backyard a cat wailed. And later, in the dark, someone whose complexion was of the night came into the room and kept touching the photographs and rattling the toys. I couldn’t see who it was, but when they left I heard the soft tinkling of bells. It was only when dawn broke that I got any sleep.

  I stayed in the policeman’s house for several days. His wife’s eyes were always large with unfinished weeping. I gathered from their nocturnal whisperings that their son had died in a road accident. She treated me well most of the time. She made me lovely bean cakes and vegetable dishes. After a bath she would comb my hair and oil my face. She sang to me while she swept the sitting room or washed the clothes. I sometimes helped her with the cleaning. We dusted the centre table and the glass cabinet with its crystal elephants and tortoises and ceramic plates. We also polished the big mask on the wall. She always dressed me in her son’s finest clothes. I only became scared of her when she started calling me by his name.

  The noises in the house got worse the following night. I heard someone wandering around as if they were imprisoned. The glass cabinet shifted. The faint bells tinkled. Birds broke into song near my window. In the morning the police officer gave me some pocket money. His wife spoke gently to me, served me food, and watched me eat. In the afternoon the house was silent. The woman wasn’t in. All the doors were locked. I slept on a sofa in the living room and woke up with the feeling that I wasn’t alone in the house. I was hungry. I felt dizzy. As I wandered about the house looking for an open door, a curious presence entered into me. I couldn’t shake it out. It roamed around inside me and said things to me which I couldn’t understand. It wasn’t long before I felt myself entirely occupied by an unhappy spirit.

  I did everything I could to drive the spirit out of me. I kicked and thrashed and screamed. I ran against the walls. After a while I saw myself on the floor, bleeding from the mouth. Something rose out of me and began talking to the room. The woman was standing over me. The spirit that had come out of me was talking to her, but she couldn’t hear.

  The woman carried me to my room. When I woke up in the evening I felt very ill. I had no idea who I was and even my thoughts seemed to belong to someone else. The disconsolate spirit had left empty places inside me. I slept through the evening, the night, and got up the next afternoon. I hadn’t eaten for two days. I had no appetite. With no desire to do anything, I drifted on the white waves of exhaustion.

  That night, while I lay on the bed, the door opened. The police officer, his wife, and a herbalist came into the room. I pretended to be asleep. The herbalist had a luminous machete. They talked about me in whispers. After a while
they left. Beside my bed there was a bowl of rice and chicken, which I devoured. After I had eaten, and felt a little better, I began to plot my escape.

  I listened to all the sounds of the house. There were voices everywhere. I heard the air whispering, the walls talking, the chair complaining, the floor pacing, the insects gossiping. Darkness filled the room. Figures moved about in the darkness. I saw yellow beings stirring, white forms floating, blue shadows flying about the ceiling. But when I heard people talking everything around me became silent and still. I waited. Then I stole out towards the sitting room to listen.

  6

  THERE WAS SILENCE. A hurricane lantern burned low on the dining table, its bluish light creating shadows everywhere. Lower down, seven figures were seated round the centre table. A moth circled them. The eighth figure stood without moving. Soon I made him out to be the police officer. He was in charge of the proceedings.

  The longer I looked, the clearer the murky atmosphere became. There were eight glasses on the centre table, dazzling where the bluish light touched them. I made out a half calabash, tilting with its liquid contents. Next to the calabash was a white saucer with lobes of kola-nut and fingers of kaoline. And next to the saucer was the image of a little feathered goddess.

  With a deep chanting that altered the air in the room, the police officer made the figures rise. The faint lights showed them up to be policemen in uniforms. They took up the chanting in low tones. Then they stretched out their hands and linked them across the table. When the men sat back down, the officer remained standing.

  The flies buzzed. The officer waved the fetish in the air. It had emerald snakelike eyes which glittered in the muted lights. The officer said something and the first of the seven figures got up. He became a man with small eyes and a thin moustache. He sweated nervously along the nose. Trembling slightly, he held the image. Then in a tone of sudden vehemence, he swore an oath of allegiance. The moth circled his head. He swore that under the terrible gaze of the goddess, and under the threat of death, he was honest about the money he had collected, and which he was now presenting.

  The seated figures broke into a frightening chant. When they stopped, the first man, sweating intensely in the hot room, broke off a bit of kaoline, chewed some, and marked his forehead with the rest. In a tremulous voice he said that if he had betrayed his oath in any way he should be run over by a lorry. He made a guttural sound. He consecrated his statement by drinking of the potion in the calabash. He brought out the money he had collected, and placed it on the table. Then he sat back into the semi-darkness, and became a figure again.

  The police officer counted the money with infinite patience. He grunted, stared at the first man, gave him his share, put some under the saucer, and kept the rest. The ritual was repeated with all the men. The moth circled them the whole time. The second man swore his oath, presented his money briskly, and sat. The third man was huge – broad, big-bellied, with a piercing voice, and dull eyes which roved over the room. The fourth was fat, good-humoured, and he made a joke or two, which was received in stern silence. He completed his oath by brandishing a red knife. With discernible reluctance, he presented his money. The fifth man was smallish and had a grating voice. His oath was an interminable improvisation on the theme of his honesty. Swearing to innumerable gods, uttering the names of secret shrines, he shouted that the deities should kill his only son if he was lying. The police officer flinched. The fifth man sat down.

  The sixth man was thin, tall, and dignified. He didn’t sweat. The moth didn’t circle him as he enacted his ritual, and the lamp brightened perceptibly when he ended his chant. When the next figure rose a noise sounded behind me, and I hid. Nothing happened. I went back to watching the scene, fascinated that the moth had alighted on the forehead of the seventh man. All through his oath, sweating furiously, he did nothing to get rid of it. He swore his allegiance in an intense mood. And while he was drinking of the potion, swearing his eternal honesty, a photograph of the police officer’s son crashed to the floor. The glass didn’t break in the frame. The hurricane lamp flickered, grew in illumination, and I watched the moth beating its wings against the hot glass. The other figures stared silently at the seventh man. In an unshaken voice, he went on with his oath, while placing his money on the table. Then suddenly, without completing his oath, he put on his cap, and left the house.

  The ceremony proceeded as if nothing odd had taken place. The men drank heavily, talked in whispers, improvised songs, and danced vigorously. When the meeting ended, they put on their caps, made their fraternal greetings, and stumbled out of the house in drunken merriment.

  I went back to my room. I waited for the last of them to leave. And then I waited for silence. When the silence came I crept out to the sitting room. The police officer was sprawled in an armchair, his shirt soaked through with sweat. There was a fleck of foam at the corner of his mouth. A fly alighted on his lower lip, wringing its spindly arms, drinking of his sleep.

  The room stank of sweat and khaki, blood and feathers, ash and fear. The moth had made of itself a burnt offering. Blood had stained the table. Bundles of notes showed from the shirt pocket of the police officer’s uniform. The feathered goddess was now on a nail above the door, directly opposite the picture of Christ and the legend.

  The police officer snored. I tiptoed past him, opened the front door quietly, and stepped out into the night. I began to move away when my legs brushed against something hairy. Managing to hold back my scream, I found myself staring into the luminous eyes of a white dog. The dog regarded me for a long time as though it were in two minds whether to raise an alarm. I made a friendly sign, went back into the house and, creeping past the sleeping form of the police officer, slid into my room.

  I stayed in bed and didn’t sleep. I tried to interpret all the noises of the house. I heard voices in the wall saying that a victim was awaiting its sacrifice. In the morning the police officer told his wife to keep the doors locked at all times. In the afternoon she went out. She stayed a long time. When she returned I heard her in the kitchen. After a while she brought a plate of beans and fried plantain and left it outside my door. I took it in but didn’t eat. My hunger got so great that I became dizzy. Throughout the afternoon and evening I suffered the tormenting mockery of my spirit companions. When I couldn’t bear my hunger any more I brought out the plate and was about to eat when a bad smell wafted up from the food. I found a newspaper, poured the food between its pages, hid the wrapping, and left the empty plate outside the door.

  That night, in the dark, with my eyes pressed tight, and with all the fury of my empty stomach, I summoned up the image of my mother. When I saw her very clearly, I spoke to her, begging her to come and save me. After I had spoken to her I fell asleep, certain that she had heard me.

  7

  I HEARD SOMETHING rattling the roof. It had started to rain. The wind beat against a window. I got out of bed, crazed with hunger. I sat on the floor, huddled in the dark, and when there was a knock I didn’t even move. The door opened and a giant figure said:

  ‘Come and eat with us.’

  Mesmerised by hunger, I followed the man to the dining table. I sat down morosely and stared at the flies singing over the food. The police officer’s wife filled my plate with generous quantities of pounded yam, choice selections of goat meat, and soup rich in vegetables. The food smelt wonderful and the steam from the bowl occupied the room with its tomato and oregano seasonings. My hunger made the world seem bluish. For the first time I understood the atmosphere of the house, I understood why the spirit had entered me. When I blinked I saw ghosts around the police officer and his wife. They were all over the room. The ghosts were tall and silent and some had weak beards. An incubus with white wings hovered near the window. I blinked again and saw a spirit with eight fingers and a single twinkling eye. Another, in a policeman’s uniform, had an amputated foot. He ate of the food with bloodstained hands a moment before the officer did. A ghost, existing as only a pair of milk-w
hite legs, balanced on the head of the woman. A homunculus which looked like a yellow plant danced on the food. I must have been staring at them in astonishment for the officer suddenly said:

  ‘What are you staring at?’

  I shook my head. Then I noticed that in a corner, across from where they ate with such innocent relish, sitting forlorn and abandoned, was the ghost of their son. He had lost both his arms, one side of his face was squashed, and both his eyes had burst. He had bluish wings. He was the saddest ghost in the house.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  They looked at one another, and then at me. I couldn’t bring myself to eat after seeing the ghosts play with the food with their bloodied hands. I sat and stared at the flies.

  When they had finished eating they got up from the table. The man went to the armchair and his wife brought him a large bottle of Guinness, which he drank with both feet on a stool. His wife joined him. I listened to the ticking of the grandfather clock in the silent house. The ghosts gathered round the man and wife and stared at them in silent amazement. The spirit with the twinkling eye drank the froth of the Guinness a moment before the officer did. The officer drank contentedly. When his wife got up to fetch a soft drink for herself, the ghost with milk-white legs went with her. When the officer went to the toilet the spirit in uniform accompanied him. And when they were sitting peacefully the ghosts stood in front of them so close that their faces almost touched. The ghosts were silent, and did nothing.

  The grandfather clock chimed. I realised that the ghosts and spirits were in the house because the officer had somehow been responsible for their deaths. I hurried to my room, shut the door and lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling. When the clock stopped chiming, an orange light suddenly shot through my brain and the darkness became faintly illuminated and I saw the disconsolate ghost of the boy in a corner of the room. After a while it got up and floated towards me and stared down with its burst eyes and lay just above me, its wings stirring the air. I felt oppressed. I couldn’t breathe and couldn’t move. It was impossible to sleep and when I managed to shut my eyes I had the horrible feeling that a heavy form was pressing down on me, compacting itself into my body. I couldn’t scream and I struggled in vain. The walls in the house began to whisper about the seventh man and of how he had been run over by a lorry while directing traffic.