While the room quivered with jagged drumming on the table, syncopated rhythms of voices, the bottle-music, and general revelry, the photographer from across the road turned up, wearing a white hat. His name was Jeremiah. He had a wiry beard, and everyone seemed to know him. He became the instant butt of jokes. Some mocked his bad timing at missing the tastiest boar that ever ran amok in the forests. Others urged him to take off his white hat and get drunk as swiftly as possible. And the women wanted to know why he hadn’t brought his camera. He went back out and soon returned with his camera and everyone abandoned the dancing and organised themselves for a group photograph. The men fought for the most visible positions. Theold man,claimingrightofseniority,posedinfrontofeveryone.Thewomenwent out to brighten themselves and came back to disrupt the photographer’s arrangement. Mum picked me up and posed with Dad next to the old man. The photographer gave many instructions as he set up his camera. He went back and forth, making us contort our heads. He made Dad twist his legs, made Mum hold her neck at an awkward angle, and made me fix a quite insane smile on my face. After much fussing, the photographer proceeded to embark on his own set of dramatic poses. He crouched, stood on tiptoes, knelt, climbed on a chair, and even seemed to imitate an eagle in flight. He drank generously from a bottle of beer. Swaying, leaning backwards, his eyes shining, he made us say:
‘Sheeze.’
While we played around with theword, fishinghumour out of its strangeness, hetook the first picture. When the camera flashed, followed by an odd explosion, ghosts emerged from the light and melted, stunned, at his feet. I screamed. The crowd laughed. The photographer took five pictures in all and the ghosts kept falling at his feet, dazed by the flash. When he went to his studio to drop off his camera, the ghosts followed him. When he came back they weren’t with him. He joined the boisterous merriment and got wonderfully drunk.
Not long afterwards the landlord turned up. The crowd cheered him. Mum had to rustle up some food. Dad had to buy more drinks on credit. I was fussed over and thrown up in the air till my ribs ached and I was prayed for all over again. The photographer had to go back and get his camera.
After much prancing and mystery-making, as if he were a magician, the photographer lifted up his camera. He was surrounded by little ghosts and spirits. They had climbed on one another to take a closer look at the instrument. They were so fascinated by the camera that they climbed on him and hung on his arms and stood on his head. He was very drunk and he cheerfully took three pictures of the landlord with his flywhisk. When he had finished he couldn’t be bothered to go all the way back to his studio so he hung the camera on a nail. The spirits and the children gathered round it, pointingand talkingin amazed voices.
The men who were drunk began a furious argument. Some of the women took their children to bed. The men were in the full flow of their loud voices when the curtain parted, a hush descended, and the madame from the bar stepped in. The landlord, on seeing her, made a frightened sound. Everyone stared at her in drunken silence. The spirits left the camera and surrounded the woman. They stayed at a distance. The woman smiled and waved a benevolent greeting to all of us. Dad got up, welcomed her warmly, found her a seat, and proceeded to tell everyone about the fantastic beginnings of her myth. Everyone knew the story already and they stared at her as at an august, if unpredictable, guest. Mum rustled up some food for her. Dad sent off for more drinks on credit, but it wasn’t necessary for she had brought five gourds of palm-wine to help celebrate my homecoming. When the ogogoro Dad sent for arrived she took the bottle, stood up abruptly, sending waves of silence everywhere by the sheer force of her legend and her bulk. She held my hand and said:
‘Is this the boy we are celebrating?’
‘Yes,’ the crowd said.
‘Is this the boy who was lost and found?’
‘Yes!’
Then sheturned. With her bigeyes gazingat mesteadily, shesaid:
‘The road will never swallow you. The river of your destiny will always overcome evil. May you understand your fate. Suffering will never destroy you, but will make you stronger. Success will never confuse you or scatter your spirit, but will make you fly higher into the good sunlight. Your life will always surprise you.’
Herprayerwassowonderfulthateveryonewassilentafterwards.They staredather in amazement. Then Dad, recovering from the shock of the words, said:
‘AMEN!’
The gathering repeated it. The woman, still standing, made a libation, a short communal prayer, then she drank half the bottle of ogogoro in a single, sustained gulp,hergreat breastsquiveringinthehotroom.Whenshehadfinishedshesatdown, herfleshy facecomingoutinsweat.Thespiritsencompassedher,talkingaboutherin astonished voices.
She didn’t stay very long. And when, too soon for everyone’s liking (for they wanted to decode her mystery), she got up and said she had to return to her bar, we all tried to persuade her to stay. But she was beyond persuading. Dad thanked her for coming. Mum thanked her for the prayers and the wine. As she went to the door, swayinglikeagreat ship, shestopped, looked hard at me, and said:
‘You have a strange son. I like him.’ Then to me she added:
‘Come and visit me one of these days, eh?’
‘I will,’ I said.
When she left the room the spirits went with her. That night we found out her name. She was known as Madame Koto.
TWELVE
AFTER ALL THE revelry, the feast ended with men asleep on their chairs, children sprawled on the floor, bottles everywhere and bones on the window-sill. The photographer snored with his nose close to Dad’s rescued boots, and the landlord drooled with flies around his ears. I was sitting against a wall, weaving in and out of sleep, surrounded by the confusion of human bodies, when I heard those sweet voices singing again. My spirit companions, their voices seductive beyond endurance, sang to me, asking me to honour my pact, to not be deceived by the forgetful celebrations of men, and to return to the land where feasting knows no end. They urged me on with their angelic voices and I found myself floating over the bodies of drunken men, and out into the night. I walked on the wings of beautiful songs, down the street, without the faintest notion of where the voices were leading me. I floated down the bushpaths and came to a well that was covered with a broad plank. On the plank, there was a big stone. I tried to move the stone, but couldn’t. I floated round and round our area. My feet ached. I stopped and saw my toes bleeding. I did not panic. I felt no pain. Soon I was at the edge of the great forest whose darkness is a god. I was about to enter thedarkness when I saw theblackcat,itseyesglowinglikeluminousstones. Then footsteps converged on me. I turned, and ran into the massive figure of Madame Koto.
She caught me, lifted me up to her heavy breasts, and took me back home in silence. Mumhad been lookingformeeverywhere.Whenshesawussherushedover, carried me across the men asleep in their chairs, the children dozing against the walls, and laid me on the bed. Madame Koto lit a stick of incense, shut the window, and went outside with Mum.
I heard MadameKototellingherhowshehadfoundme.Ilistenedtothemensnoring. I heard Mum thanking Madame Koto. My spirit companions were weeping. I slept and woke up when I heard a noise at the door. Someone came in with a lamp. I saw the lamp, and its illumination, but I didn’t see who was bearing it across the room. There was darkness behind the lamp. Darkness put the lamp on the table. The curtain fluttered. I lay still and waited. Nothing happened for a while. When I woke up, the lamp was gone. In its place there was a candle on a saucer. I saw Dad moving from one sleeping figure to another, waking them up, urging them to go home. The men were so drunk that they didn’t want to move. The children had to be carried out in their sleeping positions. When Dad came round to the photographer and touched him on the shoulder the poor man jumped up and said: