Without any pocket money, or any slice of bread, I lingered. I did not feel like going to school. I was late already and knew I would be publicly punished, whipped in front of everyone, and made to kneel out in the sun. I went to the housefront instead. The compound women came out with chairs and plaited their hair and gossiped. It was from them that I first heard the rumours about Madame Koto. The women talked quite crisply aboutourassociationwithher.They talkedandkepteyeingmemaliciously. They said of Madame Koto that she had buried three husbands and seven children and that she was a witch who ate her babies when they were still in her womb. They said she was the real reason why the children in the area didn’t grow, why they were always ill, why the men never got promotions, and why the women in the area suffered miscarriages. They said she was a bewitcher of husbands and a seducer of youngboysandapoisonerofchildren.They saidshehadacharmedbeardandthat she plucked one hair out every day and dropped it into the palm-wine she sold and into the peppersoup she made so that the men would spend all their money in her bar and not care about their starving families. They said she made men go insane at night and that she belonged to a secret society that flies about in the air when the moon is out. I got tired of hearingwhat they had to say and I decided that beingpunished at school was infinitely better.

FOUR

WHENIGOTtoMadameKoto’sbarearly thateveningtheplacewasshut. Iknockedbut nooneopened.Iwaitedforawhile.Amanwithonelegandapairof crutches made from flowering branches came up to me.

‘Is it shut? Has she closed down?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Shame,’ he replied.

He had sand on his hair. His face was twisted as though he had witnessed great evil. The stump of his amputated leg was covered with a filthy cloth. He looked up at the signboard, spat, and hobbled away. I went to the backyard. There was a fire blazing. Madame Koto’s cauldron of peppersoup bubbled away. Its steam looked like tormented genies. Further on, hidden by the bushes, was Madame Koto’s massive form.At first Ithought shewasdoingsomethingquiteprivate,soIlookedaway.But when I looked again she had straightened and was inspecting the white beads which she dug into the ground at night and unearthed in the day. She emerged from the bushes with a cutlass in one hand, the white beads in the other.

‘What areyou staringat?’ sheasked gruffly, hidingthebeads.

‘Nothing.’

She hurried away to her room.

When I saw her next she was wearing the white beads round her neck. She came to the fire and threw some ingredients into the cauldron. The soup made a curious hiss, almost of protestation. It bubbled turbulently within the cauldron. Then it foamed and spilledover,nearly puttingoutthefire.MadameKotosaidtothesoup:

‘Be quiet!’

The fire blazed. And to my astonishment the soup became calm, as if it had never been boiling.

‘The bar is shut,’ I said. ‘Yes.’

‘What happened?’

She didn’t say anything. The soup was turbulent again. It swelled into green foam, its bubbles a little monstrous and glutinous, and when they burst a powerful fragrance came over the air.

‘What did you put in the soup?’

‘Demons,’ she said, glancing at me.

‘To attract customers?’

She glanced at me again, her eyes bright with curiosity.

‘What gave you that idea?’

‘No one.’

‘So why did you ask?’‘I just asked.’‘Don’t ask too many questions, you hear?’ I nodded.‘Are you hungry?’ I was, but I said:‘No.’She smiled in a manner that didn’t make her less fearsome and said:‘Look after the soup. I’m coming.’But she went. She shuffled towards her room and as soon as she had gone the cauldron hissed and the soup overflowed. ‘Be quiet,’ I said. The soup gathered into a tremendous wave of foam and rushed over the sides.

BeforeIcoulddoanythingitcompletely putoutthefire,pouredoverthewood,and became little green rivulets on the sand. ‘Madame Koto! The fire has gone out!’ I called. Shecameover,lookedatthefire,sawthesoup streakingthesandlikebatikdyeing, and said: ‘What did you do to it?’ ‘Nothing.’ She bent over and got the fire going again, blowing at the embers. I stared at the soft folds of flesh on her neck. She stood up. ‘Don’t touch it,’ she said, and was about to return to her room when we heard commotion from the barfront. Two men, one fat, with a bandaged neck, the other stout, leaning on a blue walking stick, were banging away at the bar door. ‘Madame, aren’t you open? We want some palm-wine and your famous peppersoup.’ ‘Not yet open,’ she said. ‘Come back later.’ They looked disappointed and they grumbled about how some people were not serious about business. But they left. ‘Troublemakers,’ she said, and went off to have her usual bath before the evening customers began to arrive.

I watched over the soup. I got very hot from the heat of the fire and the infernal sun. I got bored with the soup. It boiled away quite unremarkably. It no longer bubbled and seemed to have given up its demons. Occasionally an impatient customer turned up and rattled the door and I had to go and tell them that the bar hadn’t opened yet. They all seemed parched and their tongues hung out as they regarded me. After a while, when I felt sure the soup could take care of itself, I wandered down the paths to ease my own restlessness.

Steadily, over days and months, the paths had been widening. Bushes were being burnt, tall grasses cleared, tree stumps uprooted. The area was changing. Places that were thick with bush and low trees were now becoming open spaces of soft river-sand. In the distance I could hear the sounds of dredging, of engines, of road builders, forest clearers, and workmen chanting as they strained their muscles. Each day the area seemed different. Houses appeared where parts of the forest had been. Places where children used to play and hide were now full of sandpiles and rutted with house foundations. There were signboards on trees. The world was changing and I went on wanderingas if everythingwould always bethesame.

It took longer to get far into the forest. It seemed that the trees, feeling that they were losing the argument with human beings, had simply walked deeper into the forest. The deeper in I went, the more I noticed the difference. The grounds were covered in white sand. Piles of brick and cement were everywhere. Further on, by the paths, there were patches of dried excrement. The smell compounded the dryness of the air. I stood under a withering bamboo tree and a cat appeared in front of me. It looked up, and went into the forest. I followed it till we got to a clearing covered in leaves and rubber seeds. It was very cool and it smelt like the body of a great mother. Insects sizzled and birds piped all around. An antelope ran past with her little ones. I lay down and slept. I hadn’t been sleeping long when I heard my name ringing through the trees. I remembered Madame Koto and ran back to the bar. When I got to the backyard the fire was smouldering, the cauldron had been removed from the grate and was on the floor. Madame Koto came out of her room and I said:

‘I thought you were bathing.’

‘Bathing? How can I? Where have you been?’

‘Playing.’

‘Where?’

‘Alongthepaths. I thought you were..’

‘…bathing. Come!’

I followed her. She opened the back door of the bar. The light flooded in. Lizards scattered from the tables. A slick gecko inched up the wall. The bar was a mess. It was almost unrecognisable. There was vomit on the floor; benches were scattered and upturned; tables were in unusual positions; fish and chicken bones were all over the floor; spilt palm-wine stank, covered in flies; and columns of ants had formed along the walls. The place looked wrecked. It had the air of a ransacked and deserted marketplace.