We drank till it was evening. When I got to my third tumbler of wine I noticed that the wall-gecko was still staring at us. It had a red stripe on its head. It never nodded and its eyes were like tiny beads of sapphire. When anyone else looked at the wall-gecko, it ran on.

‘What areyou lookingat?’ Dad asked.

‘Nothing,’ I said.

When it got dark Dad sent me to the compound to see if Mum was still asleep. I was reluctant to go. He gave me a good piece of bushmeat and filled my little tumbler with wine and I drank it all down and he said:

‘Be the true son of your father.’

I smiled drunkenly and went out of the bar. The bushpaths were quiet. Then I heard a cock crowing and the lively insects and the night birds clearing their voices for their chorus of nightsongs. I swayed and the world turned and everything became silent again. I passed atreewith ablueclothdanglingfromabranchandIwasabouttotake the cloth when a dog barked at me. I wasn’t scared. I felt, for some reason, that I knew the dog from somewhere. When the dog saw that I wasn’t afraid it backed away and trotted off into the forest and I followed its stiffened tail. Then I remembered Mum and continued with my journey to the compound. It was a perfectly straightforward path from Madame Koto’s bar to our house but the dog had confused me and all the paths had fractured. I followed one path and it led me into the forest. I followed it back and I arrived at a place I had never seen in my life before. All the houses were gigantic, the trees were small, the sky low, the air golden.

I tried to get out of this place, but I didn’t know how. I took the path back to the forest but it led me deeper into that land. I stopped and it was quiet and I didn’t even hear the flies buzzing or the insects thrilling or birds twittering. The heat was different. Then I noticed that nothing in that strange place cast a shadow. The light of the red sun went right through everything. There was no wind. The air was still and cool. When I began walking again I didn’t hear my own footsteps. After a while I wasn’t afraid. In a way everything became familiar to me and I went on along the fractured paths. I walked for a long time. Then I saw a man coming towards me. He had white stripes on his face. His eyes were green. But when I looked at him properly something about him changed and I saw that his legs were unnaturally hairy and that his face was upside down on his neck. The features of his face were all scrambled up. His eyes were on his cheeks, his mouth was on his forehead, his chin was full of hair and his head was bald except for his beard, and I couldn’t make out his ears. I had to bend my head and twist my thinking to make sense of his features. I couldn’t understand how I had perceived him as normal the first time I saw him. He went past me without saying a word. The eyes at the back of his head watched me cautiously.

I took another path to avoid him, but further down I saw him approaching. I went on trying to get away from him. It seemed we were caught in an invisible labyrinth. Each time I encountered him he seemed more intent on me. When I came to a grove of blue trees, I hid behind one of them. Inside the tree I heard loud and passionate voices as if from an important meeting. I took a path and to my shock I saw myself approaching. I stopped and the other person who was me said:

‘What areyou doinghere?’

‘Me?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about you?’

‘What about me?’

‘Whatareyoudoinghere?’‘Why doyouask?’

‘Because I want to know.’ ‘I am on a message.’

‘What message?’

‘To you.’ ‘To me?’ ‘Yes.’‘What is the message?’‘I was sent to tellyou to go home.’ ‘That’s what I amtryingto do.’‘Are you sure?’‘Yes, of course. Anyway, who sent you?’‘Who do you think?’‘I don’t know.’ ‘Our king.’‘What king?’‘The great king.’ ‘Where is he?’‘What sort of question is that?’There was a pause. I looked hard at the riddle who stood before me. He stared hard at me too. ‘You look like me,’ I said. ‘It’s you who looks like me,’ he replied. Then as a suspicion of who he was began to dawn on me, he said: ‘Take that path there and you will be all right.’ I looked where he was pointing and I saw the dog I had followed earlier. When I looked back at the other person who was me, he had gone. I followed the dog. We went down the path for some time. There were blue strips of cloth on the trees. The path narrowed, becametiny,andIfeltIwaswalkingonawall.Ihadbeenkeepingmy eyes on the path, making sure I didn’t deviate from it, and I didn’t notice when we broke out of the forest. When I looked up I saw Madame Koto, resplendent in yellow, dressed as if for a party.

‘Where have you been?’‘I don’t know,’ I said.She shook her head in mild exasperation and carried on to her destination. When she left I couldn’t find thedoganywhere, and I went on home. It had grown very dark. I got to our compound, hurried to our room, and found no one in. Mum wasn’t on the bed. The room was neat. The corners smelt of disinfectant. I left the room and wandered down the passages. No one seemed to be around. Then in the last room I heard all the concentrated noises of the compound, crowded into a single place. Therewas alotofshouting.Dad’svoicekeptrisingabovethedin.When I looked into the room through a crack in the door, I saw the whole compound there, gathered in a boisterous meeting. There were no drinks on the table. On one side of the room there were the creditors and their relations. The two that Dad had beaten up were shouting at the back. One of them had a machete, the other a club. Between them and the centre table were the men and women of the compound. On the other side of the room were Mum and Dad and lots of children and the photographer, who was busy taking pictures. The landlord was the arbitrator. Every time the flash went the landlord stiffened into a pose. Dad was quiet and Mum looked well. One of the creditors said:

‘Ifyou’resostrongwhy notbecomeaboxer!’

‘I will,’ Dad replied.

The other creditor said:

‘Why don’t you join the army, use your muscles, and get killed. It’s only here that you are strong.’

The landlord held up his hand to command silence. The flash went. He stiffened. The creditors shouted about their money and their wounds. They sounded like children. Dad smiled. The landlord, amid flashes, gave his verdict. He fined Dad ten pounds, a hefty fine indeed. The creditors were jubilant. The landlord said Dad should pay his debts and the fine in one week or move out of the compound. Then, with the jubilant voices claiming the air, he went on to additionally fine Dad a bottle of ogogoro for the purposes of communal reconciliation. Dad said he had no money and that he would have to buy it on credit. The women of the compound laughed. The camera flashed. The landlord, in a moment of unusual magnanimity, offered to buy the ogogoro of reconciliation. The compound people cheered his wisdom. I sneaked away from the door, went to the housefront, and played with the other children on the sand.

Not long afterwards I heard the compound voices emerge into the passage. I went to the backyard, washed my face and feet, and went to the room. Mum was bustling around as if she hadn’t been ill. Her face was a little flushed and her eyes were bright. Recovery had charged her spirit and regenerated her face. Dad sat on a chair, smoking. He looked happy. Food was spread out on the table. The wound on Dad’s head had healed, his bad hand no longer dangled.

‘Where have you been?’ he asked.

Mum rushed to me and held me to her and I breathed in her body smells. It felt as if I had been away for days, as if I had wandered off into a phase of forgetfulness.

‘My son!’ Mum cried, her eyes unusually brilliant.

Dad put out his cigarette and said:

‘You missed the compound meeting. They fined me. I got tired of waitingfor you, so I came home. Your mother is well now. The gods have answered our prayers.’