Ben Okri - The Famished Road

‘What do you want?’

‘Madame Koto.’

‘Who sent you?’

‘My father.’

‘Who is that?’

‘Black Tyger.’

Shegavemealongstare. Shewent in. For awhilenothinghappened. Thevoices became louder. A fight started. Chairs tumbled over. Glasses broke. Women’s voices intervened. Thefight died down with subsidingabuses. Someoneput arecord on the phonographandadeep octavevoice,liftedby brassinstruments,sangoutintothe evening. The wind blew. Trees bowed. A procession of beggars came down the road. They were not beggars I recognised. They stopped in front of Madame Koto’s bar. Then they came towards me. There were about seven of them. Two of them had malformed legs and dragged themselves on the ground like hybrid serpents, with the cushioningaid of elbow pads. Therest of themhad twisted arms, elongated necks. One of them had only one arm, another had two fingers, and another, to my horror, seemed to have three eyes. I tried to run, but I was curiously rooted. Salaaming, bringing with them all the smells of the gutters, street-corners, dustbins, rotting flesh, and damp nights, they pressed on me. Their leader was a man of indescribable age, with a face of wrenched metal, deep eyes, and a crumpled mouth. He came to me, beggingfor generosity, in alanguagewhich seemed to belongto another universe. He crowded me, and the others did as well, till I couldn’t breathe for their smells. The youngest of the beggars laughed and it seemed that a mashed insect fell out of his mouth. I shouted. The oldest beggar grabbed me, with his two fingers, and his grip was like that of an infernal machine. Pressing his face close to mine, so that I was suspended in a moment of fainting, he said:

‘Follow us.’

I kicked out and pushed the beggars away and ran into the bar. The floor was crowded with dancers. The room was full of smoke. I knocked over a bench, and collided with adancingcouple. A woman shrieked. Themusicstopped. And everyone, frozen in their particular motion, as if I had brought an alien enchantment, stared at me.

‘What’s wrongwith you?’ oneof theprostitutes asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘Get out of here!’ one of the men shouted.

I recognised him as just another thug. He had big shoulders and a thick neck.

‘Get out!’

‘No!’

‘Are you mad?’

‘No.’

One of the women slapped my head and I jumped on her and a hand grabbed my neck from behind and lifted me away.

‘If you don’t go I will throw you out,’ a mighty voice said.

‘I will go.’

He put me down. I waited. Then I pointed at the door. They all looked. The strips of curtain were parted. And the old beggar, salaaming, his face weirder in the red lights, came in. Behind him was the train of beggars. They brought with them all the foul, unwanted smells of the world. I went to a corner of the bar, and sat down on a bench. There was a long silence. The old beggar, looking round at everyone with fearless eyes, cametowards me, bringinghis entouragewith him.

‘I want that boy,’ hesaid loudly, pointingat mewith acrooked finger.

As he moved into the bar the darkness came with him. The darkness was a wind that blew from their crowding of the doorway. When one of the prostitutes saw the collective deformities of the beggars, she let out an anguished cry. Suddenly, with no one activating it, the music started. The bravest of the thugs yelled. The beggars brought a ferocious unbending force into the bar. They imbued everything with their smells. One of the younger beggars, who had no legs and moved on low crutches of uneven lengths, climbed up on the table where most of the clientele were gathered. For the first time I noticed that the thugs and warriors of grass-roots politics were afraid. Theprostitutes retreated, holdingtheir noses.

‘They sentmetobringthatboy,’theoldonesaid,movingsteadily towardsme.

‘Who sent you?’ I asked.

All the faces in the bar turned to me. One of the beggars laughed. Another one picked up a calabash of palm-wine and drank it all. As if on cue the rest of them suddenly noticed the drinks and the plates of peppersoup on the tables and, discarding their crutches, fell on all the available food. The ones without legs propelled themselves up on powerful hands. The ones without hands leapt up and, with the expert grip of their teeth, seized the peppersoup bowls and drank. Soup ran down the sides of their mouths and on to their filthy clothes. The old beggar, standing still, his eyes burning on me, remained apart from the mêlée, his battered frame twitching, a strange smile on his lips. He stood still, and so did everyone else. The music stopped. Plates had been turned over; the beggars drank soup and ate the meat and bones from the table tops. The thugs and other clientele were transfixed. A beggar boy began to choke. Another one laughed. The old one rushed at me. When I fled amongst the prostitutes gathered at the door, it seemed I released the spell hanging over the place. Suddenly the thugs lashed out at the beggars, kicked them, threw plates at them. The beggars ate and drank as though untouched. When the wine had been emptied from the cups, the soup all consumed, the bones cracked, the marrow sucked out of them, the beggars – amazing in the virtuosity of their incomplete limbs – jumped on the thugs. The prostitutes fled outside. The thugs also panicked and ran. The old one sat down beside me. I did not move. He surveyed the chaos of bones beingthrown, tables overturned, glasses breaking, and then he said:

‘How many eyes do you have?’

‘Three,’ I replied. He stared at me.

‘How many ears?’

‘One.’

‘Why?’

‘I hear things.’ I continued. ‘Voices. Words. Trees. Flowers.’

He laughed.

‘They sentmetobringyou.’

‘Who?’

‘Your friends.’

‘Who are you?’

He looked around and waved his hand over the bar. The darkness cleared. He hit me on the head and I heard the cry of a cat. A dog’s eyes stared into mine. Water poured over me. I did not flinch. An eagle flew in from the door and landed on the old one’s head. He touched the eagle with his good hand and a black light shot into my eyes. When I opened them I saw that I was in a field. Around me snaked a green river. I looked up and saw a blue mountain. Voices called my name from the river. A cat jumped right through me. I moved. The beggar laughed. I turned, looked at him, and screamed. He had four heads. One of them was the head of a great turtle. I tried to move but he held me. Spirits, shrouded in sunflower flames, rose from the ground about me. The field shook. The river hurled its waters on the coral shores, the water turned into spray, and in the spray I saw my spirit companions, all of them holding bluemirrors over theirheads.My friend,Ade,wasamongthem.Ididnotgetachance to recognise the others because in a flash, in which all the lights converged in the mirrors, the spray dissolved. A loud voice disturbed the mountain. I fell, and woke to find myself lying on a bench. I sat up. It was dark. Fishes swam in the black lights of the bar. I stayed still. When I surveyed the place I noticed that there was another person in the bar. Someone brought a lantern through the door. The yellow light obliterated their form. I waited. The form put the lantern in front of me and said:

‘You were lucky today.’‘How?’‘I failed, but after me comes the spirit with five heads.’

‘Why?’ ‘To take you back.’ ‘Why did you fail?’ The lantern flickered. The other person in the bar, a massive figure, stirred. She liftedup herswollenface.Shehadthesaddesteyes.They werebigandlonely. ‘Madame Koto!’ ‘Don’t call my name!’ ‘Why not?’ She was silent. Her eyes changed. They became a little menacing. ‘There are spirits in the bar.’ I looked for the form behind the lantern. The form was gone. I noticed something moving behind the lamp. I looked. Writhing, its head green, its eyes scaly, was a large lizard. I moved slowly, felt for an object on the floor, touched a stone, and struck the lizard on the head. The lamp went out. A blue wind whistled in the bar and crashed at the door. I edged my way to the backyard. Madame Koto caught me in the dark and said, in the voice of an old bull: