The Famished Road (70 page)

For in the evenings, as Mum prepared food, the fevers of the rally and its whispers of a long curfew were gathering. Then one evening, under the spell of incense and prayers and mosquito-coil smoke, under the holes of our roof, with the multiplied bugs on the floor, and with the room invaded by the green moths that understood the transformative properties of fire, offering themselves as willing sacrificial victims, Dad woke suddenly, he awoke powerfully, he rose from the bed as from death. His wounds had healed, his spirit had sharpened, his despair was deeper, he was a bigger man with a bigger madness. He got up and sat on his chair. And while the candles fluttered and burned brighter for the air that his sleep no longer deprived them of, Dad with his new deep sad voice began to speak to us. He spoke as if he hadn’t been away.

He spoke as if he hadn’t made great journeys in spirit. And he spoke with the great enthusiastic innocence of a recuperatingman.

‘My wife and my son, listen to me. In my sleep I saw many wonderful things. Our ancestors taught me many philosophies. My father, Priest of Roads, appeared to me and said I should keep my door open. My heart must be open. My life must be open.

Our road must be open. A road that is open is never hungry. Strange times are coming.’

‘What about thieves?’ I asked.

‘Shut up, Azaro. We are protected, you hear. We are fortified against invaders and wicked people. Nothing evil will enter our lives.’

He paused, creaked his bones, and continued.

‘A single thought of ours could change the universe. We human beings are small things. Life is a great thing. As I am talking now they are holding elections in heaven and under the sea. We have entered a new age. We must be prepared. There are strange bombs in the world. Great powers in space are fighting to control our destiny.

Machines and poisons and selfish dreams will eat us up. I entered a space ship and found myself on another planet. People who look like human beings are not human beings. Strange people are amongst us. We must be careful. Our lives are changing.

Our gods are silent. Our ancestors are silent. A great something is going to come from the sky and change the face of the earth. We must take an interest in politics. We must become spies on behalf of justice. Human beings are dreaming of wiping out their fellow human beings from this earth. Rats and frogs understand their destiny. Why not man, eh? My wife, my son, where are we going? There is no rest for the soul. God is hungry for us to grow. When you look around and you see empty spaces, beware.

In those spaces are cities, invisible civilisations, future histories, everything is HERE.

We must look at the world with new eyes. We must look at ourselves differently. We are freer than we think. We haven’t begun to live yet. The man whose light has come on in his head, in his dormant sun, can never be kept down or defeated. We can redream this world and make the dream real. Human beings are gods hidden from themselves. My son, our hunger can change the world, make it better, sweeter. People who use only their eyes do not SEE. People who use only their ears do not HEAR. It is more difficult to love than to die. It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love. The heart is bigger than a mountain. One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits. The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls.

There are dolphins, plants that dream, magic birds inside us. The sky is inside us. The earth is in us. The trees of the forest, the animals of the bushes, tortoises, birds, and flowers know our future. The world that we see and the world that is there are two different things. Wars are not fought on battlegrounds but in a space smaller than the head of a needle. We need a new language to talk to one another. Inside a cat there are many histories, many books. When you look into the eyes of dogs strange fishes swim in your mind. All roads lead to death, but some roads lead to things which can never be finished. Wonderful things. There are human beings who are small but if you can SEE you will notice that their spirits are ten thousand feet wide. In my dream I met a child sitting on a cloud and his spirit covered half the earth. Angels and demons are amongst us; they take many forms. They can enter us and dwell there for one second or half a lifetime. Sometimes both of them dwell in us together. Before everything was born there was first the spirit. It is the spirit which invites things in, good things, or bad. Invite only good things, my son. Listen to the spirit of things. To your own spirit. Follow it. Master it. So long as we are alive, so long as we feel, so long as we love, everything in us is an energy we can use. There is a stillness which makes you travel faster. There is a silence which makes you fly. If your heart is a friend of Time nothing can destroy you. Death has taught me the religion of living—I am converted—I am blinded—I am beginning to see—I am drunk on sleep—My words are the words of a stranger—Wear a smile on your faces—Pour me some wine and buy me some cigarettes, my son, for your father has returned to his true home.’

There was a long silence as we swam around in the strange currents of Dad’s words. After a longwhile Mum gave me some money and I rushed out to buy him the ogogoro and cigarettes. The beggars followed me half-way back on my return journey. There were spaces full of green moths in the air. The lights over our lives had changed. A deeper tint of indigo had coloured the clouds. I passed through a floating island of sepia midges. When I got to our room a lizard with a lavender tail scurried in after me. I was about to chase it out when Dad said:

‘All creatures must be treated with respect from now on. If you want the lizard out command it to go and it will go. We must use our powers wisely. We must not become tyrants, you hear?’

I nodded. Then Dad got up from his chair and in a high-pitched, almost comical, voice, he said:

‘Mr. Lizard, where are you? Out! Leave this room and go somewhere else. Now!’

We watched the floor. There was no movement. Mum sighed. Dad didn’t repeat his order. He sat back down on the chair. We sat in silence. Then, after a while, the lizard came out from under the cupboard, nodded three times, and fled from the room. There was a very long silence. Dad did not acknowledge the event. He reached out his hands and I gave him the cigarettes and the bottle of ogogoro, transparent with its bubbling acrid dreams. Dad drank in peace. He smoked quietly. We watched him in silent wonderment, as if an alien had entered his body.

‘Many people reside in us,’ Dad said, as if he were reading our thoughts, ‘many past lives, many future lives. If you listen carefully the air is full of laughter. Human beings are a great mystery.’

A long time passed in. the silence that followed. Then Mum got up and laid out for Dad what food there was. He ate ravenously and when he finished he turned the plates over and looked at their undersides as if he were searching for more food.

‘There’s not much money in the house,’ Mum said. ‘You haven’t been working.’

Dad drank what seemed like a gallon of water. Then he wore his only pair of socks, which were full of holes; he wore his smelling boots, and began to pace up and down, his fearful energies swirling about him, disturbing the invisible residents of the room.

Mum turned the mattress over, dressed the bed, cleared the table, and spread out my mat.

‘My husband,’ she said, ‘we have been worried about you. For three nights we have wrestled to bring your spirit back. We have been hungry and full of fear. Get some more sleep now. In the morning resume work. Resume your struggles. Be what you are. We are happy that you are well again.’

Dad came over and embraced Mum tenderly for the first time in months. Then he lit a mosquito coil, left the door slightly ajar, took off his boots and socks, and lay down on the protesting bed. In the darkness I heard Mum say:

‘You have become heavier, my husband.’

Dad didn’t say anything. His spirit was gentle through the night. The air in the room was calm. There were no turbulences. His presence protected our nightspace.

There were no forms invading our air, pressing down on our roof, walking through the objects. The air was clear and wide. In my sleep I found open spaces where I floated without fear. The sky was serene. A good breeze blew over our road, cleaning away the strange excesses in the air. It was so silent and peaceful that after some time I was a bit worried. I was not used to such a gift of quietude. The deeper it was, the deeper was my fear. I kept expecting eerie songs to break into my mind. I kept expecting to see spirit-lovers entwined in blades of sunlight. Nothing happened. The sweetness dissolved my fears. I was not afraid of Time.

And then it was another morning. The room was empty. Mum and Dad were gone.

And the good breeze hadn’t lasted for ever.

A dream can be the highest point of a life.

LONDON