When I woke up, Mum was sweating and quivering on the bed. Dad had bought malaria medicines and bitter roots which were marinated in yellow alcohol. Mum’s teeth chattered, her eyes were at odd angles, and Dad sat beside her, his bad arm folded, the blood dried on his bandaged head. He applied warm compresses to her face and forehead. I got up and greeted Mum, but she could barely speak. She held me tightly to her hot body and I began to tremble myself. She held me so tightly that my teeth chattered as well and soon I felt myself beinginvaded by her fever. My eyeballs became hot. Dad, noticing what was happening to me, snatched me from Mum’s frightened embrace, and made me drink of the bitter dongoyaro, as a precaution. Then he ordered me to go and bathe. I cleaned my teeth and bathed and when I got back, Dad had prepared some food. We sat and ate together from the same bowl, while Mum heaved in her illness on the bed.
We had finished eating, and Dad was preparing to go out, when the creditors came one after the other, as if they had planned it. They knocked on the door, came in, said something vaguely nice about me, expressed their profuse sympathies for Mum, praying that she should recover soon. They asked if Dad’s wounds had improved, didn’t wait for a reply, and then they left. Minutes later, with the air of people who had forgotten something of less than vital importance, they came back again, one after the other, and reminded Dad of how much he owed them, how they didn’t usually lend money or give credits, and how this was a special case, and how hard things were attheshop,andsoon.They endedby expressingtheirsympathiesagaintoMum,and left.
Their sly and hypocritical manner got Dad very enraged. He paced the room, boiling in fury. Then, suddenly, unable to contain himself any longer, he stormed out of the room. I followed him. He went to the backyard and we saw all the creditors huddled together, talking in low business tones as though they were about to form a limitedliability company.Dadwentamongstthem,scatteringthemeeting.Theytried to run to their different rooms but Dad called them back, each by his particular name, and he insulted them for fifteen incandescent minutes. They bore his insults in silence. When he had finished with them, turning with his unique dismissive flourish and storming back to our room, everyone was aware that we had just made ourselves three new enemies in the compound. As Dad left, the creditors regrouped and talked more intensely than before. They were like demented conspirators.
When I got back to the room, Dad had dressed up in his black French suit. He offered libations to his ancestors, and prayed for Mum’s recovery. Then he wore his only pair of boots, which gave the room a poignant smell of leather, old socks, and footsweat. As he went out of the door Mum woke up from her sleep, screaming. She wouldn’t stop and Dad held her and gave her more dongoyaro and she twisted around on the bed and then, just as suddenly, she became still, with tears running down her faceand collectingin her ears.Dadstayedwithherawhileandwatchedhertossingin her sleep. When her sleep had become a little more regular, Dad told me not to leave her side, and to take care of her, that he had to go and find some money, and would be back soon. He went out with his head hung low, as if for the first time acknowledging the blows from above.
I sat on Dad’s chair and watched over Mum. I watched her sleeping face till my eyes began to throb. Then suddenly Mum got up, her upper body stiff, her eyes unfocused, and she began to speak in an unfamiliar language. She stood up and went around the room, clearing things, straightening the table, folding the clothes, brushing Dad’s shoes, fidgeting amongst the pots and basins, speaking in this unnatural language all the while.
‘Mother!’ I cried.
She neither heard nor saw me. She picked up blackened pots and pans with dented bottomsandwent out oftheroom.Ifollowedher,tuggingather,tillonelayerofher wrapper came off in my hands. She went to the kitchen. Still muttering in a newfound tongue, her eyes blank, she started a fire in the grate and began to cook an imaginary pot of stew. She did everything mechanically, her body actingwithout her mind, as if she were in a dream. When the firewood blazed she placed an empty pot on the grate and sat on a stool and stared at the pot till it started to give off an acrid smell of burning metal.
‘Mum!’ I cried again.
She turned towards me, looked right through me, got up, went out of the kitchen, and collapsed beside the well. I screamed and women rushed to us and carried her to ourroom.Shelay onthebed,breathingheavily,andthewomenstoodaround,casting deep shadows, hands to their breasts, heads low, standing in silence, as if in the presence of a corpse.
I sat on Dad’s chair and watched over her. Women left and returned with confusing medications in green jars and dark bottles, and they administered conflicting treatments, and made her drink strange potions, drugs, oils, and distillates. Mum slept, breathing hoarsely, and the women left. I watched over her till my stomach ached and my eyelids became heavy. Then I woke up with a start. Mum’s breathing had changed. I listened. I watched. Then I noticed that her breathing had become almost inaudible. The room changed, voices sang in my head, a lizard clambered on to the bed and ran over Mum’s arm, and then everything seemed to stop. For a moment it seemed my own breathing had ceased altogether. I drew a breath and a spider fell from the ceiling. I drew another and I fell off the chair. I got up and sat again and then it became clear that it was Mum who had stopped breathing. Flies played around her mouth. She didn’t stir. Then as I watched, as I listened, a sharp pain went through my ears, colours and masks appeared in my eyes, and then as I held my breath I saw a blue mist rising from Mum’s form. I heard a child crying. The lizard scuttled past my feet. I woke Mum up and still she didn’t stir. I called her and she didn’t move. The blue mist grew thicker over her like steam from a boiling cauldron of water, and it collected and became more defined, and I grew really scared when the mist changed colours rapidly, becoming green, then yellow, turning red, bursting into a golden glow, and back to blue again. When I was sure I wasn’t imagining the mist, when it turned reddish silver, radiant in the darkness of the room, I couldn’t bear it any longer. When she didn’t move, didn’t breathe, I ran all the way to Madame Koto’s bar to tell her that my mother was dying.
The bar was shut. At the backyard Madame Koto, wearing blue wrappers and a red blouse and a filthy head-tie, was struggling with a huge chicken.
‘Madame Koto!’ I called.
She glared at me, striking me dumb, and the chicken flew out of her hands. She pursued it into the bushes, grabbed it firmly, gave me a sour look, and said:
‘Your father owes me money.’
Then she forgot about my presence altogether. The chicken fought in her hands and she grabbed its thickly feathered neck. Twisting her mouth, she held the chicken’s body down with her foot, and sliced its throat with jagged motions of her long knife. The chicken’s blood burst out from the gash, staining the air, splattering my face, deepeningthered of her blouse.Thebloodpouredintoaholeshehaddugintheearth and the chicken fought, its comb rising and falling, its mouth opening and shuttingin its final spasms, and when it died its eyes were open. They stared at me. Then Madame Koto washed the knife, sweat dribbling down her face and breasts. She regarded mewith bigeyes as if sheweregoingto swallow me. I was crying.
‘Because of a chicken?’ she said, sucking her teeth.
She reached for a kettle of boiling water. I held on to her blouse, pulling her, my mouth wet, unable to speak. She pushed me away and I fell backwards on the ground andIstayedthere,kickingtheair,andeventually Isaid: