The Famished Road (55 page)

That evening the van of the Party for the Poor also paraded our street. They too blared music and made identical claims. They distributed leaflets and made their promises in four languages. When the two vans, each packed with armed bodyguards, passed one another, they competed with the amount of noise they could generate.

They insulted one another in their contest of loudspeakers; and the heated blare of their music clashing created such a jangle in the air that the road crowded with spectators who expected a tremendous combustion. The two vans clashed twice that evening. We kept expecting some sort of war to break out, but both parties seemed restrained by the healthy respect they had developed for one another. The truth was that the time hadn’t yet arrived.

Madame Koto’s car was seen in the service of the Party of the Rich. She wasn’t in the vehicle. Which was probably why the driver took to showing off. When the driver saw us in the middle of the road he would come speeding at us as if he intended to run us over. We would all flee. Only Ade would remain where he was, unafraid, almost daring the driver to kill him. And always the driver stopped very close to Ade, a big grin on his face. The driver developed this taste for frightening us with the car. When we saw that he didn’t run Ade over, the rest of us didn’t move either when he threatened us. Terror always seized me though, when the car screeched to a halt and I could smell the engine oil smouldering and could see the driver smiling. Ade, always defiant, never smiled back. He would stop what he was doing, and go home. He was a lonely kid.

When the driver took to showing off with the car, blasting the horn, shouting insults at goats and chickens and passers-by, the people began to dislike Madame Koto very intensely. But it wasn’t her fault that her driver gave lifts to girls and splashed mud on hard-working folk and, whenever he saw the chance, drove at us in his macabre idea of a joke.

Three days after Dad’s encounter at his secret training ground, there was an unusual gathering of people along the road. There were more vans than normal. They made so much noise with their music and loudspeakers that children cried and the rest of us were deafened. We no longer heard what they said. They obliterated their own messages with their noises. That day some men came to make enquiries about Dad.

They hung around, waiting for him to return. One of the vans, packed full of party stalwarts, had stopped across the road and had set up a permanent blare of discordant music and meaningless exhortations. They spoke in many languages, in such vigorous voices, that the loudspeaker made complete nonsense of their utterances. Everyone was on edge that day. The hot spells of the seasonal break were quite infernal, the air was humid, and the noise grated on our teeth. There was a feeling that something unpleasant was going to happen.

When Dad got back from work the men converged on him and asked him questions.

He didn’t answer them and he brushed them aside and went into the room. He was catatonic with overwork, his eyes dazed, and his silence was like the mood of an ancient grudge. I fetched him water, he bathed. We placed food before him, and he ate his usual huge quantities. And then he slept. He slept through till the evening. The men outside still waited. Then they left. The van stayed parked and occasionally one of the men would keep up a running commentary on who would win the forthcoming elections. They played their music very loudly. It was not the sort of music we liked.

It could only have been the awfulness of the music, its loudness, which angered Dad; for, an hour before his usual waking time, we saw him with a towel round his neck, storming towards the van, his chest bare.

When Dad got to the van the men who had been waiting for him reappeared. They surrounded him. Dad went to the driver’s door and shouted something. The music got louder. Dad shouted again. I saw him reach for the steering wheel. Suddenly the music underwent a vicious scratching transformation, and then went dead.

‘Trouble has arrived!’ someone said in the new silence.

For a long moment nothing happened. One of the men grabbed Dad round the neck and he lashed out. The man stood still, back against the van, eyes frozen. None of the others moved. Dad stormed back to the house. The man he had struck fell down slowly.

The party stalwarts, the bodyguards, and the thugs came pouring down from the back of the van. They were all mighty men, with muscles of solid teak. Their faces were fierce and some of them carried clubs. The last thug to come down was the mightiest of them all. He wore a tracksuit and as he emerged he took off his top. I had never seen anyone so cramped and crowded with muscles. His eyes blazed and he was rugged and handsome and his face twitched as if an implacable agony was lodged in his brain. The others cleared the way for him. He was obviously their leader. The others ran round him in a kind of obeisance and they pointed to our house. The chief thug gave our compound the contemptuous glance it probably deserved and slowly, with the great dignity of one for whom victory has always been certain, he strode towards our housefront. Crowds trailed behind him. Children cheered. The inhabitants of the street hissed and cursed. The music was resumed on the loudspeaker and someone sang proverbial variations on the theme of the trouble that people bring upon themselves.

By the time the chief thug reached our housefront the crowd had formed the perimeter of a ringside. The compound people had brought out their chairs and drinks and sat where they had a clear view of the centre. And then from behind the crowd a voice started to chant Dad’s name.

‘Black Tyger! Black Tyger!’

The chant was picked up and grew in momentum, till everyone was calling for Dad, stamping their feet rhythmically.

‘SHUT UP!’ the chief thug barked suddenly.

A hush fell over everyone.

‘Who is this Black Tyger? Is he not afraid of death? Why did he insult my men and spoil our music? Tell him to come out—NOW!’

The crowd resumed chanting.

‘SHUT UP!’ barked the chief thug again.

He strode around the human ringside, baring his chest, inflating his stature.

‘Do you know who I am?’

‘No!’ replied the crowd.

‘They call me . .’

‘Yeeeessssss?’ came the crowd.

‘THE GREEN LEOPARD!’

‘Is that so?’ sighed the crowd.

Then there was silence. His name alone was a myth of terror. He was a legendary personage, the most feared fighter and terroriser in many of the ghettos. He used to be an armed robber, was nearly a world champion boxer, and spent years sowing dread in a thousand streets, making the nights horrifying for women and men alike. His name was always spoken in low tones, for fear that he might materialise behind you, and up till that day no one had seen what he looked like; they had only heard the myth of his terror.

Dad didn’t show his face. The world began to think him a coward. The crowd grew restless. The legendary Green Leopard, who had, it was said, given up his days of armed robbery, stalked the human ringside proudly. They said he was now a proper party man, rehabilitated into the mould of bouncer, bodyguard, and canvasser of votes. He was actually the great bully of the ghetto, and he strode about the place, chest pushed out, arms bouncing at his side.

In the meantime they had wheeled out the blind old man. He fretted excitedly in his chair. He had brought his accordion. He wore a red hat and startled us with his green glasses.

‘Ah, so there is going to be a fight?’ he said in his graveyard voice, laughing, and fretting in his chair like a large cockroach.

‘Ah, a fight, eh? Good, Fisticuffs! Excellent. When I was a youngman . . .‘ and he pressed strains of music from his accordion.

The beer-sellers, the trinket merchants, the stall-owners, the hawkers of dried fish and roast ground-nuts circled amongst the crowd selling things. Drinks were bought in great numbers. Ade found me and we kept close together and waited. Madame Koto, with her swelling foot, and her black walking stick, pushed to the front of the spectators. We heard her servant blasting the car horn up and down the street. The blind old man had fallen into an argument with someone about who would win. They made a bet. Then the fever of betting caught everyone and the fat man who owned the betting-shop up the street went round collecting odds on Dad. Most people favoured Green Leopard. Dad had stayed inside too long and the feelings of the people had turned against him. Sami, the betting-shop owner, realised while collecting the bets that he needed a bucket for all the money. He bought a bucket. Then he sent for his brothers. Six of them came, with machetes and dane guns, and surrounded the bucket.

Then Sami went and spoke to the Green Leopard. He gave Sami a terrible stare and then said, very loudly:

‘If I don’t destroy that Black Chicken in two minutes I will give him one hundred pounds!’

The spectators went wild with cheering.

‘GREEN LEOPARD!’ they chanted.

And still Dad didn’t emerge. I got worried. I went into the compound to see what was happening.

THE ROOM WAS DARK. Mum sat on Dad’s chair mending his shirt. Dad lay on the bed, snoring. I woke him up and told him what was going on outside.

‘Don’t go,’ Mum said.

When Dad heard about the hundred pounds his face brightened.

‘So they are ready?’ he asked. I nodded vigorously.

‘And there are a lot of people?’

‘The whole area. Even Madame Koto is there.’

He smiled. Then, filtering through the walls of the compound, we heard them chant the chief thug’s name.

‘Who is that?’

‘The crowd. They are hailing the man.’

‘What man?’

‘Green Leopard.’

Dad got up. His alacrity betrayed the fact that he was clearly aware of his opponent’s reputation. He began to shadow-box. He stretched his muscles. He limbered up. He was soon sweating. The chanting outside grew louder. He went through his pockets, brought out some pound notes, and gave them to me to go and bet on his behalf.

‘Don’t lose it,’ he said. ‘It’s the last money in the house.’

Mum had a miserable and helpless look on her face, as if she were going to be sick for a long time.

‘So you are going to fight him?’ I asked.

‘Don’t,’ Mum said.

‘And beat him’, Dad said, ‘in ten minutes.’

‘That’s what the man said he would do to you,’ I informed him.

‘Wonderful,’ Dad replied, absent-mindedly.

I left the room. At the housefront the spectators had multiplied. There were faces everywhere. Hungry faces. And now they were hungry for spectacle.

It was a bright evening. The heat alone was enough to make everyone feverish. I went and placed Dad’s bet with Sami. The odds against Dad were high and Sami smiled as he took Dad’s money.

When Dad emerged from the compound I understood why the odds were so high against him. Dad looked puny compared to the Green Leopard. Dad’s appearance drew cries of derision. He came out and jumped around, snorting, shadow-boxing.

Green Leopard regarded him with an expression of purest scorn and, in a powerful voice, asked:

‘What is your weight?’

‘I have no weight,’ Dad replied.

The crowd broke into laughter.

‘The man has no weight,’ they said.

I felt sorry for Dad. I started to go over to pull him away from the ringwhen Ade held me back.

‘My father gave me this strong spell,’ he said, waving a dead frog in my face.

‘Throw it into the ring,’ he added, giving it to me.

I aimed at Green Leopard’s head, and threw the dead frog. And missed. It landed on the head of one of his followers, who turned, saw the mischief on our faces, and pursued us. We ran to the burnt van, circled it twice, ducked under a stall, and dashed to the forest. He went back to the spectators. We followed cautiously. When we got to the crowd, and wriggled our way to the front, the two men had begun warming up.

Music from the party van was strident over the loudspeaker. Green Leopard had limbered up and worked himself into a great sweat. He was a veritable Titan. He seemed to have been carved directly from the core of a granite mountain. His muscles glistened in the evening sun as if he had bathed in oil. Dad looked lean and tough, but nowhere near as mighty as I had imagined before I had anyone to compare him with. I feared for him and began to feel quite sick.

‘So you have no weight, eh?’ Green Leopard asked, dancing around heavily, aiming a few trial punches at Dad’s head from a short distance.

‘No,’ Dad said, hopping like a mudskipper, moving like a crab, a defensive animal, ‘but I will beat you and disgrace your philosophy.’

Green Leopard laughed contemptuously again and Dad struck him full in the face with a lightning jab. Green Leopard’s head rocked backwards. His laughter stiffened into a mask of pain. Blood appeared on his mouth. He was completely surprised by the speed of Dad’s jab. The crowd gasped. The loudspeaker fell silent. For a moment the wind howled over our hungry heads. The blind old man fidgeted excitedly on his chair and broke the silence with a few strains from his ancient instrument.

‘The first blow has been struck!’ he said.

Then the Green Leopard mounted a ferocious attack of punches on Dad, swinging wildly, using his elbows, throwing crosses and hooks, shouting. Women in the crowd screamed. Dad disappeared under the fury of punches and was sent reeling into the crowd. The people pushed aside for him and as he got up a few hands propelled him back into the fray. One of the people who had pushed him was our landlord.

‘The first attack!’ cried the blind old man.

I hated him intensely.

‘Have you got another frog?’ I asked Ade.

‘No. But I’ve got this.’

He brought out a catapult. I snatched it from him, found a little stone, loaded the catapult, and fired a shot at the blind old man’s face. I hit his red hat instead. Someone conked me. The old man squealed. The crowd gasped again. Dad had been sent flying with a barrage of crude, heavy-handed blows. The thugs helped him up and, smirking, shoved him back into the fight.