Ben Okri - The Famished Road

I saw women counting their money and tying it at the ends of their wrappers. Children, abandoned temporarily, cried on the floor, under the stalls. I walked round and round the market spaces, unable to go any deeper, unable to find my way out, unable to go on because my feet hurt, and unable to stop because of the perpetually moving crowds who pushed me on or shoved me aside or trampled me or shouted at meandIwasconfusedby everythingandIsatunderastallofsnailsandweptwithout any tears.

Then time changed. Darkness slowly swallowed the day. I came out from under the stall and struggled through the crowd till I arrived at another stall where an old man sold all kinds of roots and herbs. He was an old man with the youthful eyes of a dove and white hair on his head, a white moustache and an ash-coloured patch of straight beard. His stall was the quietest place in the whole market. He sat alone on a bench. He called no one to buy his wares and no one came. Behind him, dangling from multicoloured ropes and threads were yellow roots, blue roots, pink tubers, the skull of a monkey, the feathers of a parrot, the dried heads of hooded vultures and ibises, the fierce paws of a lion, the wings of an eagle, and a mirror that changed colour with the lights. His stall was quite clean; behind the ropes and threads and bizarre items was a tarpaulin tent, stained with mud. If he was a herbalist, he must have been a learned and highly selective one, for before I reached him a man in an immaculate white suit approached him, nodded, and they both went inside. They stayed in for a while.

I stared in wonder at the items on his table, the rusted stems of gum trees, red leaves dried in the sun which smelt of distant journeys, carved roots that resembled the crude shapes of human beings, strangely angled bones, the beryl-coloured seeds of rare medicinal plants, transparent seashells, dried flame-lilies, berries and aniseeds and the green pimples of peacocks, dazzling blobs like the eyes of cats that refuse to dry in the sun, crushed cane-brakes and broken rings from the depths of the sea, and a hundred other oddities, all scattered on a dirty blue cloth. I sat on the old man’s chair and waited. And while I waited I listened to the whooping noises behind me in the tent. Thenoisekeptchangingintothespectralsoundthatonly spiritscanmake.Then it changedtothenoiseofathickropebeingwhippedroundfast.Thenintothesound of mermaids sifting the white winds through their long hair on golden river banks. Then came a scream that was not a scream of terror; it stayed sharp; then it resolved itself into laughter. The man in the immaculate white suit came out sweating, with a little blue sack over his shoulder. The old man also came out. He wasn’t sweating. He regarded me.

‘I’m looking for my mother,’ I said.

‘Who is your mother?’

‘A trader in this market.’‘Do I know her?’‘I don’t know.’‘Why areyoulookingforher?’‘Because she is my mother.’

The old man sat down. I stood.‘Where did you lose her?’‘At home.’‘Are you a message?’‘I don’t know.’‘Did she send you on a message?’‘No.’‘Did spirits send you to me?’‘I don’t know.’‘Does she know you are here?’‘No.’‘Does she know where you are?’‘I don’t think so.’The old man stared at me with his strange eyes. He picked up a root and turned it over in his hands. Then he bit a little from it and chewed, thinking. He offered me the root. I took it but did not bite into it. He studied me. ‘So does anybody know you are here?’ ‘No.’ He smiled and his youthful eyes became clouded, their colour changed. For a moment he reminded me of a hooded bird. ‘So why did you come to me?’ ‘I don’t know.’

Hepickedup anotherroot.Itwasshapedlikeachildwithabighead.Hebitoffthe head of the child, spat it out, and bit at its arm, and chewed.

‘What is your name?’

‘Lazarus.’

‘What?’

‘Azaro.’

He looked at me again, as if I were some sort of sign.

‘Are you clever at school?’

‘I’m looking for my mother.’

‘Does your mother teach you things?’ ‘Yes.’

‘Like what?’‘How to fly to the moon on the back of a cricket.’ The old man’s expression didn’tchange.

‘Do you have brothers and sisters?’

‘Only in heaven.’ Hestudied me, touchinghisbeard.Helookedroundtheturbulentmarketplace.Hegot up, went into his tent, and came back with a cracked enamel plate of yam and beans. I was hungry. Forgetting Mum’s warning about strangers, I devoured the food. It was delicious. The old man watched me with a gleam in his eyes. He kept muttering low incantations under his breath. I thanked him for the food and he said:

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Full up.’

‘Good.’

He took the plate in and came out with a plastic cup of water. The water tasted like it came from a deep well. It was sweet and smelt faintly of rust and the strange roots on his table. I drank the water and felt thirstier than before.

‘How areyou feelingnow?’

I was about to speak when it occurred to me that the world had become dimmer. A faint spell of evening had settled on my eyes. I felt curiously light and inside me there were wide open spaces. I tried to move. But my spirit felt lighter than my body. My spirit moved, my body stayed still. And when I thought I had moved a considerable distance I found that I was actually at the beginning of the movement. Then I felt everythingturninground and round, slowly atfirst,likeacirclingwindthatwasitself the evening settling; and then things went faster and dimmer and the old man’s face grew abnormally large and then it grew so small I could hardly make out his eyes. And then from a great distance I heard him say:

‘Lie down, my son.’

Then, with the sound of feathers beating behind him, he left in a hurry, dissolving into a bright wind.

The sounds of the marketplace took on a new quality. A million footfalls magnified on the earth. Voices of every kind rose in massive waves and distilled into whispers. From afar, I heard the muezzin calling. I felt it was calling me, but I could not move. Bells and angelic choirs sounded close to my ears and then would melt away. I watched a fight start across from where I was sitting. The two women flew at one another and when they were dragged apart their wrappers drifted in the air like monstrous feathers. They pounced on one another again, in great rage and velocity, and bits of their wigs and kerchiefs and blouses floated around them in slow motion. I was fascinated by their fury. I was about to move closer when a voice, which seemed to come from nowhere, and which was not the voice of a spirit, said:

‘Where is the old man?’

‘Gone.’

‘Where?’

‘He ran away.’

‘From what?’

‘From me.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I am looking for my mother.’ Pause.

‘Where did he run to?’

‘Into the wind.’

‘What direction?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Who is your mother?’

‘My mother is in the market.’

‘How do you know that your mother is the market?’‘I didn’t say she was the market.’‘What did you say?’‘She’s a trader in the market.’‘Why areyoulookingforher?’‘I don’t know.’‘What is your name?’I answered the question, but obviously my answer hadn’t been heard, because the question was asked three times, each time fainter than the last. The wind blew my answers away and my head hit the hardness of silence and the world went dark. From the moon, which was suddenly above me, close to me, and which had the luminous faceof thegreat kingof thespirit world, I heard other voices, fullof darkness, which said:

‘Look at him.’‘He is looking for his mother.’‘Shehas bigeyes allover themarket.’‘People pay her to shut her eyes.’‘Her eyes never shut.’ ‘They see everything.’ ‘They see all our money.’ ‘They eat all our money.’‘Our power.’ ‘Our dreams.’ ‘Our sleep.’‘Our children.’‘They say her son flies to the moon.’‘That’swhy hehasbigeyes.’‘Look at him.’The voices continued, turning on themselves, as in a numinous ritual. The moon lowered over me. My face became the moon and I stared, one-eyed, into the darkness of themarketplace. And then, with themoon’s light insideme, fillingthewideopen spaces,Ifeltmyselfbeingliftedup by thedarkness,pushedonby invisiblehands. And the voices followed me, voices without bodies.