The Famished Road (29 page)

The landlord looked round, saw the semi-broken window, and began, explosively, to rage. He was thoroughly incoherent and he only made sense when he calmed down a little and demanded that the window be repaired before his next visit. He moved dramatically up and down the room, reserving, as usual, his loudest voice and his most dramatic gestures for when he was nearest the door. The compound people had gathered outside and some of them were looking in. Waving his hands, whipping the voluminous folds of his agbada this way and that, he turned and said:

‘Is your husband not in?’

‘No.’

‘What about my rent?’

‘When he comes back he will give it to you.’

‘He didn’t leave it?’

‘No.’

Striding as if he were on stage, waving his hands angrily, the landlord said:

‘Why do I have to come and pester you for my rent, eh? When you wanted the room you came and begged me. Now I have to come and beg you for my rent, eh?’

‘Things are hard,’ Mum said.

‘Things are hard for everybody. All the other tenants have paid. Why are you so different, eh?’

‘When my husband returns ..’

‘He starts trouble.’

‘It’s not so.’

‘Your husband is a troublemaker.’

‘Not at all.’

‘He thinks he is strong.’

For the first time Mum acknowledged the presence of the three muscular men standing with their backs against the wall. She looked at them and they stared back at her without moving.

‘My husband is strong, but he is not a troublemaker,’ she said finally.

One of the three men laughed.

‘Shut up!’ the landlord barked.

The man’s laughter dwindled into a hollow cackle. The landlord sat on Dad’s chair and it wobbled precariously. He sat there, scrutinising us, as if deciding what to do next. Then he brought out a lobe of kola-nut from his pocket and began chewing. We were all silent. The candles twitched; shadows lengthened and shortened in the room.

The three men looked gloomy and ghoulish, and the upward illumination, catching their faces, made their cheeks and eyes hollow.

‘So when is your husband returning?’

‘I don’t know.’

The landlord munched his kola-nut.

‘Well,’ he said, after a reasoned pause, ‘the other matter I have come about is simple. I do not like the way my own tenants have behaved towards my party. You people beat me up the other day. What have I done to you, eh?’

At this point he got up and resumed his melodramatic pacing. His hands flailed and his voice got louder at the door as if he were addressing an invisible audience.

‘I have told this to all my tenants. Anybody who wants to live in my house, under this roof that I built with my own hands, should vote for my party. Did you hear me?’

Mum did not nod. She stared grimly at the twitching candle.

‘It doesn’t matter if you answer or not. I have said what I have to say. If you have ears, listen. If you want to be my tenant, when the election comes you will go and vote for my party man.’

He paused.

‘It’s simple. All you have to do is press ink next to his name. A simple matter. My party will bring good roads and electricity and water supply. And remember this: we have people at the polling station who will be watching you. We will know who you vote for. Whether you vote for our man or not we will win anyway. But if you don’t vote for him there will be trouble. You might as well begin to look for another place now and see if you can find another landlord as good as me. Tell this to your husband.

I don’t have time to come back. And send me my rent latest tomorrow morning.

That’s all.’

He was now standing behind Dad’s chair. He had finished his speech. His back was to us and he seemed to be waiting for a response. There was only silence. And the spitting candle. The three men looked like statues. They looked like dead men. I could barely see the whites of their eyes.

‘God knows,’ the landlord continued, ‘that I want the best for my tenants. But the tenant that doesn’t want a good thing should go. There’s power and there’s power:

anyone who looks for my trouble will get enough trouble for life. I am a peaceful man but the person who spoils my peace will find that I am a LION. I am an ELEPHANT.

My THUNDER will strike them. And on top of that I will send my boys to beat them up!’

He was now at the window. He put the kola-nut back into his pocket. He brought out a white handkerchief and wiped his face. Then he turned to face Mum directly.

We were all concentrating on him. Except Mum. She went on staring into the candleflame as if she saw in it a new kind of destiny.

The landlord opened his mouth to speak when a gentle wind came into the room and turned into a dark figure, towering but bowed. And with the figure came a reminder of the nightsoil van. The figure was Dad and the landlord slowly shut his mouth.

The three men crowded away from Dad, away from the wall, and regrouped in stances of half-fight next to the cupboard. Suddenly the room seemed cramped and Dad made it worse by shutting the door. The upward illumination of the candle-light caught his face as well, and made him look like a man undergoing a terrible martyrdom. His cheekbones were highlighted, his eyes sunken, and his head was stark. He looked baffled. He stood in front of the door and stared at every one of us, turning to face each one of us directly. His neck seemed stiff. He somehow gave the feeling that he had lost the connection between what he saw and what he understood.

He gave the impression that he had been bashed on the head and that his centre had been dislocated. He looked confused, as if he had entered the wrong room and had no idea how to get out again.

‘Dad!’ I cried.

He looked at me without comprehension. It was only after a while that we became aware of the stench in the room.

Suddenly one of the three men made a noise, as of holding back bile. Then he rushed to the window and spat out. The landlord spat on the floor, stepped on it, and twisted his foot as though he were crushing out a cigarette. Another of the men went behind Dad and opened the door. Moths, midges, and flying ants came in, and mosquitoes whined in the silence. The moth circled the candle and I felt that time had moved backwards and was trapped there.

Dad went towards Mum and sat heavily on the bed. There was shame on his face.

Shame, humiliation, and defiance. The landlord, unable to come out with what he had been about to say, moved towards the door. His sense of drama had deserted him. He seemed to have sensed a new kind of menace in Dad. I sensed it too. He said:

‘Your wife will tell you what I had to say.’

He hurried out of the room without repeating his demand for the rent. His henchmen ran out behind him, casting their last looks at Dad.

We sat in the room suffused by the bewildering odour. It was as though an unpleasant vent had burst under our floor. We sat without moving, without speaking, till one of the moths got its wings burnt and extinguished the candle. In the darkness I felt for the matches on the table. Then I heard Mum say, with great unhappy tenderness:

‘My husband, what has happened to you?’

When I lit the candle Mum’s arms were around Dad’s neck. She held him tight, her face in his hair. Then, becoming aware of the light, she disentangled herself from him, and unloosened his shoes. Dad did not move. She pulled off his shoes and gave them to me, saying:

‘Your father has stepped on something. Go and wash the shoes inside the bathroom. Don’t do it by the well.’

I took the shoes and went out. The wind blew through the passage, lifting dust into my eyes. The wind was cool; it smelt of trees and the night, of bushes and aromatic herbs scenting the air. It also smelt of kerosine and candle-smoke, but it did not have the curious odour in our room. At the backyard I borrowed one of the tenants’ lamps, fetched some water, got some useless newspaper and bits of wood. I looked at Dad’s shoes and there was nothing unusual on them. They did not smell badly, except of sweat and hard-working feet. But I washed the shoes anyway and washed my hands and went back.

Dad was now sitting on his chair. Mum was asking him if everythingwas all right. I was certain he hadn’t said a word all the time I had been out. Mum looked distressed, as if his secret anguish was eating away at her. When I put the shoes down in the corner, Dad brought an envelope from his pocket and gave it to Mum. She opened it, brought out some pound notes, and looked at him in astonishment. He said:

‘It’s the rent.’

Mum was so overcome with emotion that she knelt at his feet and held his thighs and said over and over again:

‘Thank you, thank you, my brave husband.’

She said it with such proud sadness she made me feel that those who suffer are strangers to this world. Dad did not acknowledge her, nor did he show any sign of emotion, but his face was so strange I was sure he was feelingmuch more than he was able to express.

After a while Mum made Dad some food. He went and had a long bath. He came back with only his towel round his waist. He sent me to go and buy him a small bottle of Hausa perfume.

I walked a longway up our street, towards the main road, before I came upon a cluster of Hausa night traders who sold Indian incense, beads, perfumes, and charms.

I bought a cheap bottle of perfume and ran back. Dad had changed clothes. He applied great quantities of the perfume to himself and thoroughly stank out the room with its crude ingredients. We washed our hands and ate in silence.

After we ate Mum went and soaked Dad’s clothes in disinfectant and hid the bucket deep in the backyard. Dad stayed up, sitting in his chair. He did not drink and did not smoke. He was very sober. He looked like he would never recover from the shock of a certain kind of self-knowledge. Mum sat up with him. They were silent for a long time. Then as I fell asleep I heard Mum ask, as though she were prepared to accept the possibility:

‘You didn’t kill someone, did you?’

I opened my eyes. Dad shook his head. They were both silent. Mum lit a mosquito coil. I shut my eyes again.

Later that night there was a knock on the door. It was the photographer. He sneaked in hurriedly. Dad opened his eyes and said:

‘Ah, photographer, it’s you.’

‘Yes, it’s me.’

‘Sleep well.’

‘And you, sir.’

The photographer lay down with me on the mat. He showed me a little round, transparent bottle. It had a yellow powder inside.

‘This,’ he said, ‘is the most powerful rat poison in the world. Tomorrow, if I return early, we will finish off those rats once and for all.’

He kept it among his things. I blew out the candle. We floated in the darkness and the dreadful perfume of the heated room.

FOR MANY DAYS Dad remained sullen. We got used to the perfume. He offered no explanation. And it was only when he was told of what the landlord had said that he recovered his spirit. He said even if they killed him he wouldn’t vote for the landlord’s party. He went around the compound saying this. Some of the neighbours nodded when he made his declaration. Mum warned him that the landlord had spies in the compound.

‘Let them spy,’ Dad said, ‘but I won’t vote for that useless party.’

‘I know, but don’t tell them.’

‘Why not? Am I a coward?’

‘No.’

‘Then I must say what I believe.’

‘But you heard what the landlord said.’

‘Let the landlord drop dead!’

‘Lower your voice.’

‘Why?’

‘Spies.’

‘Let the spies drop dead too!’

‘I am afraid for us.’

‘There is nothing to fear.’

‘But I am afraid.’

‘What right has the landlord to bully us, to tell us who to vote for, eh? Is he God?

Even God can’t tell us who to vote for. Don’t be afraid. We may be poor, but we are not slaves.’

‘Where are we going to find another room?’

‘Our destiny will provide.’

And so it continued. Sparked off by his own defiance, Dad began to speak of himself as the only one who would not vote for the landlord’s party. All over our area partysupporters became more violent. They went around in groups terrorising everyone.

We heard stories of people who were sacked from their jobs because they were on the wrong side of politics. Mum grew afraid of the market and didn’t go as regularly as she wanted. Money became short. Mum had to reduce our food.

We saw the photographer only late at night. On some nights I waited for him to knock but he didn’t. When I saw him he began to speak of leaving the area. He went on taking his unusual pictures and a few more appeared in the papers. Whenever he was seen people gathered around him. He had become something of a legend. For the period he stayed with us he tried to turn the corner where Dad kept his shoes into a dark-room, with no success, because Mum, paranoid of spiders’ webs, kept sweeping and cleaning and exposing light to all dark places.

One night some men came to our compound to ask about the photographer. They claimed to be journalists. They said they’d heard he was staying with tenants in the compound. The tenants denied it, but they began to keep watch. At night we saw strange men leaning against the burnt van, staring at our house. When I told the photographer about it he became scared and we did not see him for many days.

Madame Koto appeared at our room during that period. She appeared out of the air, startling me. Mum was in, but Dad hadn’t returned. I was so startled that before I could run she grabbed me and said:

‘You are a bad boy.’

‘Why?’

‘Running away from your elders.’

She gave me some money.

‘Why have you been running away from me, eh?What did I do to you?’

‘Nothing.’