‘A man can wander the whole planet and not move an inch,’ he said. ‘My son, I dreamt that I had set out to discover a new continent.’

‘What is it called?’

‘TheContinent of theHangingMan.’

‘What happened?’

‘When I landed with my boat I saw mountains, rivers, a desert. I wrote my name on arock. I went into thecontinent. I was alone. A strangethinghappened.’

‘What?’‘You’retoo youngto understand this.’‘Tell me.’‘As I went I started to dream the place into existence. I dreamt plains, forests, paths, great open spaces, spiked plants, and then I dreamt up the people. They are not like us. They are white. Bushmen. They advanced towards me. They wore strange clothes and had precious stones round their necks. To the eldest man, I said “What are you people doinghere?”

‘“What about you?” he asked.

“I have just discovered this place. It is supposed to be a new continent. You’re not supposed to be here.”

“We’ve been here since time immemorial,” he replied. ‘And then I dreamt them away. And then a shepherd came to me and said:

“This continent has no name.”

“It’s called theContinent of theHangingMan.”

“That’s another place,” he replied.

“So why doesn’t it have a name?”

“People do not often name their own continent. If you can’t give it a name you can’t stay here.”

‘The continent vanished. I found myself on a strange island. The people treated me roughly. They were also white. Unfriendly people. Unfriendly to me, at least. I lived amongthemformany years.Icouldn’tfindmy way out.Iwastrappedthereonthat small island. I found it difficult to live there. They were afraid of me because of my different colour. As for me, I began to lose weight. I had to shrink the continent in me to accommodate myself to the small island. Time passed.’

Dad took adragfromhis cigarette. His eyes werebright in thedarkness. ‘Then what happened?’ ‘I began to travel again. I travelled on a road till I got to a place where the road vanished into thin air. So I had to dream a road into existence. At the end of the road I saw a mirror. I looked into the mirror and nearly died of astonishment when I saw that I had turned white.’

‘How did it happen?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘So what happened?’ ‘Theneverythingchanged.Iwasinabigcity ontheisland.Iwasanews-vendor, sellingnewspapersoutsideatrainstation.Itwasatemporary job.Ihadbigger plans. It was very cold. There was ice everywhere.’

‘Ice?’

‘Yes. Ice fell from the sky. Ice turned my hair white. Everywhere ice.’

‘Then?’

‘Then one day you came to buy a newspaper from me. You were a young man. When you gave roe the money it burned my hand. I started to run away when you woke me up.’

We sat in silence. Dad creaked his bones for five minutes. Then he stretched. Then he banged the table and said:

‘Where is the wine, eh?’

The electric light came on in the bar, driving away the shadows, rendering the objects curiously flat. Madame Koto, two bottles of beer in one hand, a bowl of peppersoup in the other, hobbled over to our table.

‘Finish this and go,’ shesaid, bangingdown thebeer and soup.

‘The Great Madame Koto, aren’t you pleased to see me, eh?’

‘After you called me a witch?’

‘That was your palm-wine talking, not me.’

She hobbled away. Her foot had grown worse, and had been rebandaged. She went to the counter, sat behind it, and put on some music. Dad drank the soup hungrily. He gave me some meat. He opened the bottle of beer with his teeth.

‘No wine?’ he asked.

‘I gave all the wine to your friends.’

‘What friends?’

‘The beggars,’ I said.

‘They brokemy platesandglasses.Why didyouhavetobringthemhere,eh?’

‘I didn’t bring them.’

‘Why did you invite them to your party?’

‘I didn’t invite them.’Madame Koto stopped the music. Dad finished the first bottle of beer and startedon the second one.

‘Madame Koto, I want to talk politics with you.’

‘Why?’

‘Out of interest.’ ‘For what?’ ‘People.’

‘Who will you vote for?’ ‘Myself.’

‘I hear you want to start your own party, eh?’

Dadsaidnothing.Ilookedup atthepostersofthepoliticalparty thatMadameKoto supported. I studied the pictures and almanacs of their leaders. She said: ‘Don’t bringmetrouble. Takeyour beggars away. I don’t want to losemy customers.’

‘Beggars also vote.’

‘Let them vote for you, but take them away.’

The wind blew at the door. Then we heard a curious drumming on the roof. The bulb kept swaying. Someone came in. At first I could not see them.

‘Get out!’ Madame Koto shouted.

Then I saw three of the beggars at the door. Two of them were legless and moved on elbow pads. The third one had a bad eye. They came into the bar and gathered round Dad’s table. Dad finished off his beer.

‘If you get rid of them,’ Madame Koto said, ‘I will forget the damage, and you and your son can come here to drink anytime you want.’

The beggars played with the empty beer bottles. Dad snatched the bottles from them and stood up.

‘Let’s go,’ he said to me.

Wewent out andthethreebeggars,chattering,pawingDad’strousers,followedus. Along the street other beggars were asleep. The three beggars followed us till we got to our place. Dad turned to them and waved them away. They stopped. We went on. I looked back and saw the three beggars, crouched in the darkness, staring at us with odd eyes.

TWO

THEWIND AND thunder werehard thatnight.WefoundMumsittingon Dad’s chair, amosquitocoilonthetable,atatteredwigonthebed.Mumlookedtired. She didn’t say anything when we came in. She was rocking back and forth, while the wind blew over our roof and thunder rumbled above us. Things were changing, the room looked strange, and Mum sat there staring straight ahead as if down a long unfinished road. The candle had burned low, mosquitoes whined, a moth circled Mum as if her head were a flame, and her eyes became very bright.

‘What happened?’ Dad asked, sittingon thebed.

Mum was crying. She made no sound, her eyes were bright, she stared straight ahead as if into the wind, and she was crying. I went over to her and put my head on her lap and she didn’t move.

‘Go and buy ogogoro,’ Dad said to me gruffly.

He gave me money and I hurried across the road. Some of the beggars were gathered at the mouth of our compound. They were crouched in groups. I bought the ogogoro and on my way back I saw that they were now at our housefront. They lay down on mats, under theslopingzinceaves, eyeingmeas I went past.

When I got back to theroomMumwas sittingon thebed and Dad was on his three-legged chair. The smoke from the mosquito coil formed blue spirals round his head. A new candle had been lit. Dad stolidly smoked a cigarette. He snatched the ogogoro from me, poured himself a generous quantity, and drank. Mum watched him. I brought out my mat. I told Dad about the beggars.

‘Nextthingthey willtakeoverourroom,’Mumsaid.

‘I’m going to build a house for them,’ replied Dad. ‘I’m going to build them a school. Azaro will teach them how to read. You will teach them how to sell things. I will teach them how to box.’

‘Who will feed them, eh?’ asked Mum.

‘They will work for their food,’ said Dad.

Mum stretched out on the bed. She was silent for a while. Then she sat up and began to complain that her stall had been taken over at the market, that she had been hawking all day and had sold very little, that her feet were swollen, her face raw from the sun, and that the chair-hire man had come by and she had given him the little money she had.

‘You must pay me back,’ she said.

‘I will pay you double,’ Dad replied.

Mum went on about how she went hawking and was selling provisions along the main road when she saw a classmate of hers. They used to be in primary school together. Her classmate now had a car and a driver; she looked ten years younger than Mum, and she wore rich clothes. Mum sold her oranges and the woman didn’t recogniseher. Mumdidn’t sellanythingelsethat day;shecamestraight home.