Thentoourdelight awomanappearedatthedoor,soundingaheraldicsong.Mum came in with three women, carrying a great steaming pot of stew. Behind her were three more women, bearing basins of jollof rice, yams, beans, eba, and fried plantains. Children brought in paper plates and plastic cutlery. The aroma of the marvellous cooking overpowered the room. Everyone straightened. Faces were bright with aroused appetites. There wasn’t a single throat that didn’t betray the best hopes for a feastofabundantcookinginwhichallanticipationwouldbefully rewarded.
ELEVEN
THE FOOD WAS brought in and covered in a corner. Everyone talked to disguise the flood of their salivation. The oldest man in the compound stood up and called for silence. The jokes, chatter, invented nicknames, and robust arguments peppered the air, increasing the heat of the room. The call for silence was repeated. It too became a cause of much jesting. Dad had to raise his voice and threaten the crowd with his good arm before the noise became controllable.
The old man made a libation at both posts of the door and prayed for us and thanked the ancestors that I had been found and asked that I never be lost again. When he finished his prayer he launched into a long rambling speech in which he welcomed us to the compound as new tenants, in which he aimed a few well turned barbs at real and imaginary enemies, and in which he released a torrent of proverbs and saws and anecdotes that fell like stones to the depths of our hunger. The longer his speech went on, the more depressed the faces became. His proverbs made us more famished, edgy and irritable. When the old man had satisfied his hunger for speech-making, Dad replied to his good wishes. He expressed gratitude for our general safety and good health, and prayed for all those present. The old man broke the kola-nut. He gave a lobe to Dad, who chewed off a bit and passed it on, prayer-laden, to Mum and then to me.
The drinks were distributed to the crowd. There were large quantities of ogogoro and palm-wine for the men, stout for the women, soft drinks for the children. While the drinks were being poured and handed over expectant faces sweating with thirst, one of the men struck up a song, and a woman said:
‘Theonly timemenstarttosingiswhenfoodisready.’
The women burst out laughing and the man’s song was drowned in mockery. The women began a lovely song of their own, in village choir voices; but Dad, ever mischievous, picked up the empty bottle and tapped away at it with a spoon and spoiled the rhythm of the women. Then everyone fell to singingtheir different songs and for a moment there was no discord amongst the many voices.
The feast became a little rowdy. The room was too small to hold the vast number of people squashed into every available space and even the walls creaked in protest. Clothes fell down from nails and lines. Dad’s boots passed from hand to hand, precipitating many jokes, and were eventually thrown out of the window. The room was so hot that everyone sweated furiously. The heat made everyone look older. The children cried, intensifying the edginess and hunger. But the drink loosened tongues, and a hundred arguments and conversations steamed the air. The women asked Mum how she had found me. Mum told them things she hadn’t told me, but she kept quiet about the herbalist. The gathering began vying with loud voices, offeringvariations of similar stories they had heard about. A woman told of a wizard who had hidden a child in a green bottle. Another woman, who had been taking a noticeable interest in Dad, told of how her sister was found floating on a stream, her head crowned in sacrificial beads.
‘That’s a lie!’ Mum said suddenly, to everyone’s astonishment. ‘You never told us you had a sister..
Dadinterrupted,pickingup hisbottleandspoon,creatingamodestdin.Hegotup and sang and danced. The men sang along with him the popular high-life tune which mocked the eternal rivalries among women. Dad got carried away with his own song and tried to organise everyone into dancing. There was no space in which to move and Dad, fairly drunk by now, became abusive to anyone who wasn’t responsive. At first it was a general sort of abuse. But when he got specific with one of the men, disruption set in. The man stormed out and a delegation had to be sent to beg him back. He came back, but before he resumed his floor space, he made sure of his vengeance.
‘Is it this wretched room you’re so proud of?’ he said loudly to Dad. ‘Big man, small brains!’
Dad smiled sheepishly. Then Mum rounded on him, asking him to be more polite to his guests, and she got so worked up in her inexplicable rage that she too stormed out, leaving the crowd somewhat confused. No one was sent out after her. Embarrassed by the silence, Dad invited everyone to pour themselves more drinks and he proposed a toast to his wife. But the drinks had run out, and Dad had no money left, and we all sat staringat ourempty bottles.InthebriefsilenceMumreturned,bringingrelatives we hadn’t seen for a long time, and the gathering cheered her return; and Dad, inspired by the cheering, hurried out of the room (ignoringMum’s protestations that we should celebrate within our means), went to the shop across the street, and came back with cartons of beer.
The feast got rowdier. The men kept calling for more drinks. The old man, quite drunk, began a stream of contradictory proverbs. A man with a thick beard complained about how the smell of the food was making him lean. Amidst all the voices, theanticipationswhichhadtoppedthemselves,thelongpatientwaitingwhich in the end satisfies its own hunger, the food was served. Plates of rice and bushmeat passed before gluttonous faces but, because the crowd was so big, and the numbers vastly outstripped Mum’s calculations, everyone had much less food than suggested by the size of the boar. People had talked themselves into such a hunger that the food barely went round. Like the miracle of multiplying fishes in reverse, the food diminished before it got to the guests. The rice was swiftly consumed, the boar disappeared into the capacious stomachs of the ravenous gathering, the stew dried out in the pots, and people stared at their plates in drunken puzzlement. The bearded man grumbled that the meat he had eaten was so small that it had made him hungrier. Discontentment spread; the smell of the food, sumptuous and throat-tickling, lingered in the air, reminding us of the betrayed promise of an abundant feast. Amid the discontentment, Dad tried hard to please everyone. He made jokes, told riddles, fell into impersonations. He danced, and made music with his bottle. Meanwhile people ate, spat their bones on the floor, spilt their drinks, and wiped their hands on our curtains. Dad plied the gathering with drinks, borrowing heavily, sweating in bizarre exultation. The bearded man, substituting drunkenness for hunger, drank so much that when he attempted to dramatise his first encounter with a white woman he staggered and fell on his chair, breaking its back. Another man ran outside, threw up in the passage, and came back looking like a lizard. Dad, who was more than pleasantly drunk, held forth about the violence he would have unleashed if he had gone to the police officer’s place to get me. Mum found the perfect moment for revenge.
‘Why didn’t you go, eh?’ she said cuttingly, ‘Because you were too drunk!’
There was another embarrassed silence. Dad, slightly cross-eyed with drunkenness, looked round at everyone. Then he displayed his arm in the sling. And then, for no apparent reason, almost as if heweresnatchingriddles out of theair, hesaid:
‘When I die, no one will see my body.’
The silence became profound. Mum burst into tears and rushed out of the room. Two women went after her. Dad, entering a grim mood, drank intensely, and then suddenly began to sing beautifully. For the first time I heard deep notes of sadness in his powerful voice. Still singing he bent over, lifted me up, and held me to him. His eyes were a little bloodshot. He gave me his glass to drink from and after two gulps I became quite drunk myself. Dad put me down on the chair, went outside, and returned with Mum in his arms. Mum’s eyes were wet. Dad held her and they danced together and the gathering, touched by the reconciliation, sang for them.