With a man sitting next to her she learned to drive along our street. With a determined, half-crazed look on her face, her shoulders hunched as if her weight somehow helped the car to move forward, she zigzagged down our street. She couldn’t keep the car straight. When she was seen coming a voice would cry out, saying:
‘Hide your children! Hide yourselves! The mad tortoise is coming!’
Then we would see her vehicle, swaying from side to side, scattering goats and fowls, and causing innocent bystanders to flee into the most unlikely places. Her persistence never paid off. Even when she could manage to get the car to travel straight, she was so fraught, working up such a fury wrenching the gears around that the engine would make fearsome coughing noises.
‘The tortoise is hungry,’ people would say.
Then we heard that she had difficulties with the car because of her bad foot. Whenever she applied the brake she did it so abruptly that the man teaching her had his head banged against the dashboard. And because she couldn’t drive it, she left the car for her driver to take on errands.
It didn’t really matter that it was a small car, or that she couldn’t drive it properly. What mattered was that yet again she had been a pioneer, doing something no one else had done. People became convinced that if she wanted she could fly over the ghetto on the back of a calabash.
When the day arrived for Madame Koto to wash her new car, many people came to celebrate the ritual with her. Our landlord was present. People brought their bicycles and scooters. Many came on foot. There were old men whom we had never seen before. And there were a lot of powerful strange women with eyes that registered no emotion. We saw chiefs, thugs, and there were even herbalists, witchdoctors and their acolytes. They gathered in the bar and drank. They talked loudly. Eventually everyone was summoned for the washing. They formed a circle round the vehicle. The great herbalist amongst them was a stern man with a face so battered and eyes so daunting that even mirrors would recoil and crack at his glance. He uttered profound incantations and prayed for the car.
‘This car’, he said, after much mystification, ‘will drive even to the moon and come back safely.’
The people nodded.
‘This car will bring you prosperity, plenty of money. Nothing will touch it. Any other car that runs into it will be destroyed, but nothing will happen to your car. This is what we call superior magic. Even if you fall asleep while driving this car you will be safe. Anyone that steals it will immediately have an accident and die. Anyone that wishes evil on the car will die!’
The people assented. Madame Koto, her walking stick in one hand, nodded vigorously. At this point, everyone was more or less drunk.
‘If people want to be jealous of you, let them be jealous. Jealousy is free. People can eat it and grow fat on it if they want. But anyone who thinks evil of you, may this car run them over in their sleep. This car will hunt out your enemies, pursue their bad spirits, grind them into the road. Your car will drive over fire and be safe. It will drive into the ocean and be safe. It has its friends in the spirit world. Its friends there, a car just like this one, will hunt down your enemies. They will not be safe from you. A bomb will fall on this car and it will be safe. I have opened the road for this car. It will travel all roads. It will arrive safely at all destinations. This is what I say.’
The people cheered. Some laughed. The herbalist sprinkled his complex potions and his corrosive liquids on the car. He emptied half a bottle of precious ogogoro on the bonnet. And after the ritual washing was complete, after the old people present, the powerful ones, the chiefs, and the cultists, had made their libations, the gathering got down to the momentous business of getting drunk. They drank solidly. They argued to drink better and they drank to argue better. More people joined them. The prostitutes served palm-wine, peppersoup, fried bushmeat and grilled rabbits. The blind old man turned up and threw himself into the serious drinking and got involved in a heated discussion with a chief. The gathering got rowdy. It was to be expected, it was even desired. But suddenly an uproar broke out. No one knew how it started. Birds wheeled overhead and alighted on the roof of the car. The sky darkened. The great herbalist, looking uglier than ever before because of his drunkenness, began to utter the most controversial statements. Then he said something which brought on complete silence.
‘This car will be a coffin!’ he suddenly announced. ‘I have just seen it.’
The people stared at him in utter bewilderment. A strange wind seemed to blow over his head. His eyes became crossed. His twisted mouth gave his utterance the weight of destiny.
‘Unless you perform the proper sacrifice this car will be a coffin! I have to speak the truth when I see it or I will die,’ the herbalist carried on.
The mood of the gathering changed instantly. The old men and women hobbled home with unusual alacrity, disturbed by the mention of the dreaded word. The chiefs and high-level party members got into their cars. The young men and women retired into the bar. Only the prostitutes, our landlord, the blind old man, who carried on his argument with the air as if nothing had happened, and Madame Koto remained.
‘But if you give me one of these women,’ the herbalist said, lunging at one of the prostitutes, and missing, ‘then I will drive the coffin away from the car.’
He stood, swaying, his eyes bleary and focused on the forest. The birds took off from the car top. The wind fairly howled and whistled along the electric cables. Then the herbalist gathered his potions and staggered past the car and up the street, towards us. When he neared me and Ade as we sat perched on a branch the herbalist, foaming, drunk, his eyes distorted, said to us:
‘Very soon one of you will die!’
Then he went on towards the forest.
We jumped down and followed him. He stopped to urinate against a tree. His urine was yellowish. When he finished he staggered on, gesticulating, waving his arms, shouting:
‘All these trees will die,’ he said, bitterly, ‘because nobody loves them any more!’
And then flinging his arms about he turned and faced us and said, pointing a charm-ridden finger at me:
‘You, spirit-child, if you don’t take your friend away from here now – I will turn both of you into snakes.’
We turned and fled. As we ran we heard him wailing in the forest, his voice echoing amongst the trees, rebounding from the absorbent earth. We heard his drunken lamentation, as he cried:
‘Too many roads! Things are CHANGING TOO FAST! No new WILL. COWARDICE everywhere! SELFISHNESS is EATING UP the WORLD. THEY ARE DESTROYING AFRICA! They are DESTROYING the WORLD and the HOME and the SHRINES and the GODS! THEY are DESTROYING LOVE TOO.’
We heard his insane laughter, lacerating the air. He continued with his cries, in a different voice.
‘WHO CAN DREAM A GOOD ROAD AND THEN LIVE TO TRAVEL ON IT? Who can GIVE BIRTH TO HIMSELF and then BE HIS OWN FATHER AND MOTHER? Who can LIVE IN THE FUTURE and LIVE IN THE PRESENT and not GO MAD? Who can LIVE AMONG SPIRITS AND among MEN WITHOUT DYING? WHO can EAT AND SLEEP WITH HIS OWN DESTINY AND still KNOW THE HAPPINESS OF A BEAUTIFUL THING?’
The same laughter rang out.
‘THOSE ARE RIDDLES FOR THE TREES!’ we heard him shout, from a long way off.
Then we didn’t hear his voice again.
When we got to the barfront Madame Koto sat outside, on a cane chair. Her women surrounded her. We watched them for a while. They sat without moving. They sat in complete silence. They were all staring at the car.
7
DAD’S PUBLIC PERFORMANCES had to take on spectacular dimensions. During the period in which Madame Koto got electricity, and bought her car, people lost interest in his training. They were more interested in the car. In the evenings people went to Madame Koto’s bar and hung around the vehicle, touching it, marvelling. One night I even dreamt that she drove the car to the moon and couldn’t come back. When her servant drove up and down our street, bringing supplies of palm-wine and food, people stopped what they were doing to re
new their wonder at the machine. Children always ran behind the vehicle, cheering.
Madame Koto graduated from palm-wine to beer. There was more money in beer and breweries had begun to be established in the city. Sometimes, after the evening’s supplies of beer had been delivered, she would invite the children of the area for a ride in the car. It increased her pleasure in her own possession and she considered the free ride as an act of charity. Ade refused to have anything to do with the car. His father had warned him that it was the work of the devil. She gave me a ride once, and I never forgot it. She sat at the back. I sat at the front. I couldn’t see the road. It seemed to me that we were driving on the wind. She stopped to give people lifts. When I was the only one left she told the driver to increase the speed. The driver relished it and drove at such nightmare speed that I was certain we were flying to the moon. When I begged the driver to slow down, because I felt nauseous, Madame Koto said:
‘Faster! Faster!’
And the driver drove like a madman, pressing on somewhat vengefully at frightening speed. I didn’t understand the source of the vengeance. Madame Koto’s face was radiant, her eyes widened, and her massive frame became luminous from the sheer pleasure and the power of acceleration as much as from my own horror. But then the speed and my fear made me throw up. I threw up on the driver and Madame Koto ordered the car to be stopped and gave the driver the sign to bundle me out. The driver did just that. After he had cleaned my vomit off him, using sand and rags, he gave me savage looks. The looks didn’t do anything to me so he sidled over, pretended to touch my head in a gesture of forgiveness, but gave me such a cracking with his bony knuckles that I was too dazed to notice them drive off. I walked the long distance home and I never accepted a ride in the car again.
When I got home late that evening, Dad was training as if he had gone insane. No one watched him except a boy, two chickens, a goat, and the blind old man. That night, furious at the fickleness of the world’s tastes, angry that people were now bored with his antics, Dad began to rave and storm about the road, issuing challenges to the entire planet. He boasted that he could fight three people at once. No one took up his challenge. Then he insisted that he could beat five men. It was only when he increased the number to ten that people stepped forward from the darkness.
I was exhausted that night. I sat on the cement platform and watched as seven men moved in on Dad. They were load-carriers and part-time bodyguards. I had often seen them among the crowds that studied Dad as he trained. Dad unceremoniously knocked one of them flat out with an upper cut to the jaw. After the man fell he didn’t move. The six other men crowded round him. Dad jumped about, charging himself with recitations of his fighting names, his secret names, the names he had given his spirit. Two of the men rushed in. One of them caught Dad on the head with a roundhouse punch, poorly executed. Dad laughed derisively and executed the very same punch. The man fell brutally. Dad pursued a third man, changed direction, and smashed a fourth man in the solar plexus, then put him out of the fight with a rather cruel-looking left cross. Three men lay on the ground, motionless. The other four fled as with one mind. Dad didn’t follow them. The blind old man clapped for Dad and the boy called out his fighting name. When they came and led the blind old man away we heard the strains of his accordion in the darkness as he went. We were surprised that it sounded rather pleasant.
8
WE WOKE UP to find the world staring at us with new respect. It had gone round the globe and even to the world of spirits that Dad had beaten seven men in a fight. Dad, who had become something of an impresario, didn’t train in public for three days. He explained the curious principle to me:
‘When people don’t believe you can do something and you do it, they begin to respect you. That is the time to disappear. The longer they respect you, the better. Then you keep your secret. Their interest grows. Time passes. They get tired of you. They get bored waiting for you. Then they don’t believe in you any more. That’s when you really begin to show them.’
I had no idea what he was talking about. Instead of training at the housefront, he now took to jogging down the street.
‘Black Tyger!’ the people would call.
He wouldn’t respond. He would jog into the distance, and wouldn’t be seen till nightfall. He would jog to the housefront, shadow-box for a few moments in public, and then disappear into our room. The interest in him grew. His name travelled. His legend sprouted into being. Whenever I got back from school there were always some men around making enquiries about Dad. They wanted to know where he trained, who his coach was, and what party he belonged to. In the evenings crowds gathered round our housefront. People who had heard of Dad’s prowess came from the far reaches of distant ghettos, from remote places. They hung around, staring at the house. The neighbours came out early, with their little centre tables and chairs and drinks. Street traders, hawkers, beer-sellers, traders in iced water and snuff, gathered round in anticipation. When Dad got back from work they chanted his name and urged him to train for all to see. He responded by demonstrating some punches, some footwork, and then he would vanish into our room. He didn’t oblige them. He refused to satisfy their fickle dictates. The crowd grew restless, then bored, then disenchanted, then they disbanded. Then the word began to go round that Dad hadn’t beaten seven people at all, that in fact he hadn’t ever fought anybody, and that he was now too scared to train in public.
When Dad heard about these rumours, he smiled mysteriously. He went on jogging off towards the forest, to a place no one knew.
9
IT WAS AROUND this time that the political season started up anew. Suddenly one morning we heard amplified voices again. The voices urged us to join the Party of the Rich. The voices told us that they were going to stage the greatest political rally in the world and that the most famous musicians in Africa would be performing on the day and that there would be gifts for children, prizes for women, and jobs for men. Later in the day we saw the vans driving past slowly, making their extravagant announcements. They had more thugs and bodyguards with them. Big party flags draped the vans and men distributed leaflets. When they first appeared I thought there would be trouble in the area. I thought houses would burn and party vans be destroyed and thugs roasted. I thought people would remember how the very same party had poisoned them with bad milk and had unleashed their rage upon our nights. But people had forgotten, and those that hadn’t merely shrugged and said that it was all such a long time ago, that things were too complicated for such memories, and besides the party had new leaders.
Dad missed the dramatic return of politics to our lives. He kept going off to train somewhere in secret. When he got back the street would be littered with pamphlets, which no one read. He took very little interest in what was growing in the world about us. When we told him about the vans, he blinked.
‘What vans?’
‘The politicians’ vans.’
‘Oh, politicians,’ he would say, his eyes returning to their vacant contemplation.
When Mum asked him where he had been, the same thing would happen.
‘Been?’
‘Yes, where have you been?’
‘Oh, training.’
‘Where?’
‘Where what?’
‘Where have you been training?’
‘Oh, somewhere.’
‘Tell me.’
‘What?’
‘Where?’
‘Why?’
‘Have you been training with another woman?’
‘Woman?’
‘Yes, woman.’
‘What woman?’
Mum would give up. It became quite exasperating asking Dad questions. He ate as much as ever, and stayed silent most of the time. His being took on a new intensity. Mum tried to start one or two quarrels, but Dad, deepening in impenetrability, refused to be drawn into any arguments. It was a while before we realised that a new power was enveloping him. He was becoming a different man. His eyes were harder, lik
e flint or precious stones that can make their mark on metal. He was more withdrawn, as if belonging to a different constellation. His face had become more abstract and mask-like and, curiously, gentler.
One day he said to me:
‘I am beginning to see things for the first time. This world is not what it seems. There are mysterious forces everywhere. We are living in a world of riddles.’
I listened intently. He stopped. Then he looked at me, as if pleading with me to believe what he was about to say.
‘I was training yesterday when this old man carrying something invisible on his head came to me. He asked me for money. I gave him all I had. He gave it back to me and said that I was lucky.’
‘Why?’
‘He said if I hadn’t given him any money I would have died in my next fight.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘At first I didn’t believe him. He knew I didn’t. Then he pointed to the sky. There were two birds in the air, fighting one another, making strange noises. Then many other birds flew towards them in the sky. One of the birds fell. Slowly. I ran and caught it before it touched the ground. The bird melted suddenly in my hands, like ice into water. But in this case it melted into blood. I tried to clean the blood off, but it wouldn’t clean. The old man came up to me and spat in my hand. The blood disappeared. The old man pointed again. I looked but I saw nothing. When I looked round the old man had gone. I saw him in the distance and I ran after him and no matter how hard I ran I couldn’t shorten the distance between us. I gave up. I didn’t train any more that night. Don’t tell your mother what I just told you, you understand?’