Ben Okri - The Famished Road

‘Stay in and lock the door. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t open the door unless it’s me or your father, you hear?’

I barely nodded. With her tray on her head, she went out into the compound, out into the world; I locked the door and fell asleep in the unhappiness of the room.

Dad had no need to worry about me going out. I slept through the whole day. In several entangled dreams I fought with the three-legged chair that was trying to abduct me. And when I woke it was only because Mum had returned. I woke up feeling as if an alien spirit had crept into my body duringmy sleep. I tried to conquer the abnormal queasiness and heaviness of body, but my head seemed larger, full of spaces, and my feet began to swell. It was only that night, when I saw Mum split up into two identical people, when Dad’s fiendish smile broke into multiples of severity, when my eyeballs became hot, and my body shook, and great blastingwaves of heat poured through my nerves, that I realised I had come down with a fever.

‘The boy has got malaria,’ Mum said.

‘If it’s only malaria, we’re lucky,’ Dad growled.

‘Leave him alone.’

‘Why should I? Did I send him to go and walk about all day and all night? Did you send him? All we told him to do was stay at Madame Koto’s bar. We didn’t tell him to go and walk about and catch some road-fever.’

‘Leave him alone. Can’t you see that he is shaking?’

‘So what? Am I shaking him? He probably went and walked on all the bad things they wash on the roads. All those witches and wizards, native doctors, sorcerers, who wash off bad things from their customers and pour them on the road, who wash diseases and bad destinies on the streets. He probably walked on them and they entered him. Look at his eyes.’

‘They have grown big!’

‘He looks like a ghost, a mask.’

‘Leave him.’

‘If he wasn’t ill, I would thrash him again.’

Then to me, he said:

‘Do you think of us, eh? How we sweat to feed you, to pay the rent, to buy clothes, eh? All day, like a mule, I carry loads. My head is breaking, my brain is shrinking, all just so that I can feed you, eh?’

Dad went on like that through the night. I trembled and my head was shot with heat and hallucinations. Dad’s head became very big, his eyes bulbous, his mouth wide. Mum looked lean, bony, and long. They became giant shadows in my fever. They towered above me on the bed and when they spoke about me it seemed they were talking about a ghost, or about someone who wasn’t there. For I wasn’t there in the room. I was deep in the country of road-fevers.

All the sounds of the compound were magnified through the night. I couldn’t eat, I kept throwing up, and all I could keep down was water. Mum kept vigil over me with a candle, Dad with a cigarette. Shadows wandered around the room. I felt I was retreating from the world of things and people. Late at night Mum made some peppersoup. It was hot and spiced with bitter herbs. It made me feel a little better.

Then she poured me a half-tumbler of ogogoro, which had turned yellow with marinatingroots.

‘Dongoyaro,’ Mumsaid, insistingthat I drink it alldown in onegulp.

‘If you don’t, I flogyou,’ Dad threatened.

I drank it all down in one and was shaken to the foundations of my stomach with its infernal bitterness. Bile rushed to my mouth; it was so bitter that I shook in disgust. Mum gave me a cube of sugar, which didn’t sweeten my mouth one bit. And all through my sleep, all the way to the next morning, my mouth was still bitter.

‘Thebitternessdrivesaway themalaria,’Mumsaid,tuckingmeintobed.

‘Bitterness is what the boy needs,’ Dad said, his voice heavy.

Hewasstillangry withmeforkeepingthemupallnight,formakingthemsufferso much worry; and now he could not forgive me because I was ill and had cheated him of a target for his annoyance. Protected from his rage by my fever, I slept that night wracked with bad dreams and road-spirits.

Saturday morning, three days later, I was still ill. My mouth and eyes were dry and I kept hearing birds twittering in my ears. Mum was clattering among the basins and cleaning up the room. Dad wasn’t in; Mum said he had gone to work at the garage. Towards noon Jeremiah came round with photographs of the party. Mum told him he’d have to come back. He grumbled about how expensive it was taking pictures of poor people, but heleft without creatingascene.

It became very hot in the room. The air coming in from the window brought flies aid gnats,but it didn’t coolanything.IsweatedprofuselyonthebedtillIwaslyingona pool of dampness. My body hurt all over and the soles of my feet itched and a headacheexpandedmy brain.IwatchedMumcleaningtheroominahazeofdustand dryness. She looked the picture of forebearance. She said:

‘You must listen to your father and be careful how you walk on the road.’

‘Yes, Mum.’

‘The road swallows people and sometimes at night you can hear them calling for help, beggingto befreed frominsideits stomach.’

‘Yes, Mum.’

She cleaned out the cupboard and prepared my food. I ate little. She made me get out of bed and bathe. With the daylight hurting my eyes, with the noises of the compoundjanglingmy nerves,andthestaresoftheothertenantsincreasingmysense of multiplication, I went to the backyard. Mum had prepared warm herbal water.

‘Bathe of it properly,’ she said, ‘or I will do it for you.’It was cold when I took off my clothes. But the water was hot and the soap smelt good. I was led back to theroomfeelingnew. Mumrubbed meover with herbaloil. ‘Time for your dongoyaro,’ she said. I could have fainted at the anticipation of its bitterness. ‘If you don’t drink it all down I won’t allow you go out today.’ I drank it all down. Later I marvelled that my urine was the deep yellow colour of its bitterness. Theafternoonbrought thebustlingnoisesofthecompoundpeoplescrubbingtheir roomfronts. I heard them chattering, either going out on Saturday outings or being visited by friends or relations. Mum got me to dress up in my fine clothes which I wore only at Christmas. She parted my hair and touched my face with powder, which I sweated off. And then Madame Koto came to see us. She looked very dignified in her white magic beads and her elaborate wrappers and her massive blouse. She was dressed as if she were going to see wealthy relations. ‘Azaro, what happened to you?’ ‘I was lost.’ ‘You just disappeared.’ ‘We should tie up his feet,’ Mum said. ‘He walks too much.’ Madame Koto laughed and brought out a bowl steaming with goat-meat peppersoup.

‘Are there demons in it?’ I asked. She gave me a severe stare, smiled at Mum, and said: ‘It’s full of meat and fish.’ It tasted better than the soup she served her customers. I drank it all down and ate all the meat and fish and my stomach bulged. ‘You didn’t finish the one I made you,’ Mum said. ‘I did.’ Madame Koto packed the bowl back into her bag. ‘Get strong quick, and come and sit in the bar, eh,’ she said, heading for the door.

Mum escorted her out. I could hear them talking. They left the roomfront and I couldn’t hear them any more.

Mum was gone for a long time. The soles of my feet began to itch. Then as I lay there, moving in and out of sleep, in and out of dreams, loud new voices crackled from the street. The voices were so magnified that I wondered what sort of human beings produced them. I couldn’t hear what they said. I felt I was imaginingthem, that they were another manifestation of the spirits. The compound children ran up and down the passage, talking excitedly. I heard the men and women talking in animated tones as if some fantastic new spectacle had appeared in our street, a bazaar, a public masquerade, a troupe of magicians, with contortionists and fire-eaters. The crackling voices drew closer and sounded from the rooftops of all the houses. The compound appeared empty, everyone had gone out to see what was goingon, and I could hear a baby cryingin its temporary abandonment.