‘They brought fleas and left them to eat us. That is their gift. You are crazy, my husband.’

I had never heard Mum sound so harsh. She went and sat on the bed. Dad’s wound bled freely. His eyes were intense, his jaws kept working. Then he said:

‘They were once a great people. Hunger drove them from their kingdom and now the road is their only palace. I will build them a school. I will teach them to work. I will teach them music. We will all be happy.’

Mum went out, fetched some water, and disinfected the room. The disinfectant, sprinkled thickly everywhere, stung my nostrils. Mum changed the bedclothes. Dad sat there, his eyes dreamy, a rough growth of beard on his face, blood drippingdown the side of his face and thickening on the shoulder of his torn shirt. Then Mum came and dressed the cut and put a plaster on Dad’s face. She went and lay down on the bed. Dad mumbled drunkenly for a long time. He talked about building roads for the ghetto, about housing projects that would lift up the spirit of the people, about the need for world inspiration, about sailors without ships, priests without shrines, kings without homes, boxers without opponents, food without stomachs to eat it, gods without anyone to believe in them, dreams without dreamers, ideas without anyone to make use of them, peoples without direction. He made no sense to us. The candle burned low. He got up and, still muttering, came and stretched out on the floor beside me. He had the smell of a great animal, a lean elephant, the smell of too much energy, too much hope, too much contradiction. His eyes kept rolling. He muttered incoherently and soon he was grinding his teeth. When he was deeply asleep the candle burned high, it flared, as if Dad’s sleep somehow allowed it more oxygen. Mum got off the bed, asked me to move, and then she did something strange. She sat astride Dad and began to hit him. She punched his face, hit his chest, beat a manic rhythmon his stomach, kickingand hittinghimwithallhermight,screaminginalow frighteningmonotoneallthetime, hittinghimunceasingly, tillher hands gave.

‘I think I’ve broken my bones on his jaw,’ she said.

Dad didn’t stir. Mum glared at him as he slept with his mouth open. ‘Why is it that when I am happy rats die all over the floor,’ she said. I was silent.

‘Go and sleep on the bed,’ she commanded me.

Then she blew out the candle and lay quietly beside Dad in the airy darkness of the room. Soon I heard her sleeping. The world turned round. The night filled the room andswept overus,fillingourspacewithlightspirits,theoldformsofanimals;extinct birds stood near Dad’s boots, a beautiful beast with proud eyes and whose hide quivered with gold-dust stood over the sleeping forms of Mum and Dad. A tree defined itself over the bed where I lay. It was an ancient tree, its trunk was blue, the spirit sap flowed in many brilliant colours up its branches, densities of light shone from its leaves. I lay horizontal in its trunk. The darkness moved; future forms, extinct tribes, walked through our landscape. They travelled new roads. They travelled for three hundred years and arrived in our night-space. I did not have to dream. It was the first time I realised that an invisible space had entered my mind and dissolved part of the interior structure of my being. The wind of several lives blew into my eyes. The lives stretched far back andwhenIsawthegreatkingofthespirit-worldstaringatme through the open doors of my eyes I knew that many things were calling me. It is probably because we have so many things in us that community is so important. The night was a messenger. In the morning I woke early and saw one of its messages on the floor. Mum and Dad, entwined, were still asleep. There were long tear-tracks on Mum’s face. I slept again and when I woke the sun was warm, Dad’s boots had gone, and Mum had left an orange for me on the table.

THREE

THE BEGGARS WHO had gotten drunk on Madame Koto’s wine had unleashed the fury of their hunger at night while the world was changing. They had broken stalls, torn down Madame Koto’s signboard, shattered windows, and had finally lodged themselves in an unfinished house on the edge of the forest. The inhabitants of the street had risen up against them. Madame Koto had sent her party thugs to drive them away. I saw limbless beggars, the one-armed, one-eyed, legless, all along the road, scattered, in disarray, bruised, and beaten. They clustered under the trees overlooking Madame Koto’s bar, armed with pathetic-lookingsticks. They were a sorry army. I didn’t go into the bar. I saw her sitting outside, on a high stool, surrounded by her prostitutes and the thugs. The beggars abused me as I went past.

When I got home the door was locked. Ade was playing on the broken political vehicle. He looked lean and was happy to see me. He told me about how the van of therich people’sparty hadcomealongandbeguntobundlethebeggarsaway.Butthe beggars kept coming back. There had been much fighting. Many had been wounded. Ade spoke hoarsely, his voice was weak. The sun was intense that afternoon. The chickens lay silent in street corners. The dogs were listless. We played around the van and when we heard screams from Madame Koto’s bar we hurried over and saw that the thugs were beating up the beggars again.

In the afternoon a tall man in an immaculate white suit came looking for Dad. He was very tall and he had sunken eyes and his head was small. He stood under the fierce sun, resting on his walking stick of a shadow. He complained of fleas. He went and bought abottleofogogoroandstoodat ourhousefront,drinkingpatiently.Hedidn’t speak to anyone. His face was relatively long, and he blinked away the sweat that poured into his eyes. After a while he stood very still and when we went over to him we found he had fallen asleep standing up. We touched him, and he woke up with a start, and he went up the street, towards the main road, and disappeared.

In the evening Dad appeared with the beggars who had come to our room the other night. With the abundant energies of a man entering a new destiny, Dad led them up and down the road. He tried to organise them to clear up the rubbish, to sweep the road, to paint the stalls, to plant flowers near the gutters. Bristling with great enthusiasm, wearing his torn shirt, the plaster flapping on the side of his face, Dad went from house to house asking people to vote for him. He outlined his plans for a school, he suggested to people that they contribute to the beggars’ upkeep, and everywhere he went people cursed him for bringing more trouble into their lives. The beggars cleared the rubbish from one end of the road and dumped it at the other. They crushed the flowers they tried to plant. And because Dad could not afford the price of paint sufficient to give colour to the monotonous brown of stalls and the sun-bleached reds and blues and yellows of the houses, the beggars stood around most of the time with useless paint-brushes in their hands. The beautiful beggar girl followed Dad everywhere he went. When he went to another set of beggars they fell into mischief as soon as he turned his back. They turned stalls over and didn’t straighten them. They tramped around in the swamp. Near the wooden bridge they found a mattress that was overgrown with fungus and mushrooms. They beat the bugs and numerous infestations from the mattress. We watched strange forms take off into the air. The beggars intended to make the mattress a bed that they could all share. The photographer appeared, brief as a flash, and took pictures of them. He fled in such a hurry it was as if his enemies might emerge at any moment from the long shadows of evening. I didn’t even get a chance to speak to him. He had become mysterious and irritating.Dadwentup anddowntheroadshoutingaboutthepoverty ofourwill.And while he went up and down the place shouting, the second wave of our transformation was takingplace.