‘Everyonemuststay here!’thelandlordsaid,screaminginthedark.

He hurried away and returned an hour later with three policemen. They fell on us and flogged us with whips and cracked our skulls with batons. We fought them back. We beat them with sticks and ropes. We tore their colonial uniforms and sent them packing. They came back with reinforcements. Dad lured two of them down a side street and gave them a severe thrashing. More came at him. He was such a dervish of fury thatittooksixpolicementosubduehimandbundlehimofftothepolicestation.

The reinforcements meanwhile lashed out at everything in sight, unleashing mayhem in a drunken fever. When they had finished fifteen men, three children, four women, two goats and a dog lay wounded along the battleground of our area. That was how the riot started.

Deep in the night it started to rain and it poured down steadily while the ghetto-dwellers raged. The rain didn’t last long but it turned the tracks into mud. It watered our fury. Chanting ancient war-songs, brandishing pikes and machetes, gangs materialised in the darkness. They stamped through the mud. At the main road, they fell on cars and buses. They attacked police vehicles. They looted shops. Then everyone began looting, burning, and overturning things. Mum, carrying me, was driven on by the frantic crowd. Along the main road she put me down in order to tighten her wrapper, in full preparation for the worst, when a caterwauling mass of people came pounding towards us. They ran right between us. They separated me from my mother.

I wandered through the violent terrain, listening to the laughter of mischievous spirits. There was a crescent moon in the sky, darkness over the houses, broken bottles and splintered wood on the road. I wandered barefoot. Fires sprouted over rubbish heaps, men were dragged out of cars, thick smoke billowed from houses. Stumbling along, looking for Mum, I found myself in a dark street. There was a solitary candle burning on a stand near an abandoned house. I heard a deep chanting that made the street tremble. Shadows stormed past, giving off a stench of sweat and rage. Drums vibrated in the air. A cat cried out as if it had been thrown on to a fire. Then a gigantic Masquerade burst out of the road, with plumes of smoke billowing from its head. I gave a frightened cry and hid behind a stall. The Masquerade was terrifying and fiery, its funereal roar filled the street with an ancient silence. I watched it in horror. I watched it by its shadow of a great tree burning, as it danced in the empty street.

Then the darkness filled with its attendants. They were stout men with glistening faces. They held on to the luminous ropes attached to the towering figure. Dancing wildly, it dragged them towards the rioting. When it strode past, sundering the air, I crept out of my hiding place. Swirling with hallucinations, I started back towards the main road. Then suddenly several women, smelling of bitter herbs, appeared out of thedarkness.They boredownonme,andswoopedmeup intothebristlingnight.

THREE

THE WOMEN BOUNDED down the streets. One had a black sack, another wore glasses, a third wore boots. No one touched them or even seemed to notice them. They ran through the disturbance as if they were shadows or visitors from another realm. I didn’t utter a sound.

It wasonly whenthey stoppedatacrossroadandplacedshiningwhiteeggsonthe ground, that I noticed they all wore white smocks. Their faces were veiled. The veils had holes through which I could barely see their eyes. After they had made their offering at the crossroad they bounded on through the streets, past scenes of rioting, and into the forest. They ran through pitch darkness, through silence and mists, and into another reality in which the gigantic Masquerade was riding a white horse. The horse had jagged teeth and its eyes were diamond bright. There was a piercingcry in the air. When the Masquerade and the white horse vanished, I noticed that the forest swarmed with unearthly beings. It was like an overcrowded marketplace. Many of them had red lights in their eyes, wisps of saffron smoke came out of their ears, and gentle green fires burned on their heads. Some were tall, others were short; some were wide, others were thin. They moved slowly. They were so numerous that they interpenetrated one another. The women ran through these beings without any fear.

We passed gangs of men who were carrying home their loot. We passed a woman who sat at the foot of a tree, bleeding from the side of her head. The women took her with them. I listened to her groans of agony till we stopped at the edge of a river, where there was a canoe waiting. Before I could do anything the women bundled me in, clambered on, and rowed us across to an island that wasn’t far away. They rowed in complete serenity as I tried to resist. When I began to rock the canoe, they pressed me down with their rough feet and smothered me with their capacious smocks.

We arrived at the island and the woman with glasses lifted me out of the canoe, and led me to a hut. It was really a bathroom. She made me wash. When she had dried me with a coarse towel, she smeared me all over with oils. She led me to the shrinehouse and spread me out on a mat. I tried not to sleep that night and tried not to move either, for even in the darkness all the statues seemed to be alive. The images seemed to breathe, to be watching my every movement, to be listening to my thoughts.

In themorningIfoundmyselfinanempty room.Igotup andbeforeIcouldgettothe door, the women came in. They had powerful eyes. They were completely silent and they stared at me imploringly, as if it were in my power to save their lives.

With a gentleness that surprised me, they led me to a lovely house and laid out many choice dishes before me. They gathered round and watched as I ate. When I had finished they dressed me in a spotless robe of material so soft and white that I felt I had been wrapped in a cloud. They touched me tenderly and left the room. I went out of the house and wandered round the island in a white enchantment.

The wind blew spells over the sea. The soft white sand teemed with riddles. I went past the shrinehouse and gazed out over the waves. On my way back I came upon the goddess of the island. She was an image with a beautiful face and eyes of marble that glittered in the sun. All around her feet were metal gongs, kola nuts, kaoline, feathers of eagles and peacocks, bones of animals and bones too big to belongto animals. In a complete circle round her were white eggs on black saucers. Her mighty and wondrous pregnancy faced the sea.

At night the eyes of the goddess shone like moonstones. The sea-wind, streaming through her raffia hair, produced a haunting melody. At night I heard her piercing, ecstatic cries. I slipped out. Her magnificent pregnancy was so startling against the immense sea that she could have been giving birth to a god or to a new world.

I was asleep in the shrinehouse, among the sentient figures, when the noise of gongs woke me up. I looked out of the door and saw the women, all in white, doing an enchanted dance round their goddess. I was watching them, in thedark, when somethingmoved behind me. Silently, fromamongst the images,acatcametowardsme.Itsatatmy feet,gazingatmewithjewelledeyes.I stroked its fur. A voice said:

‘Are you a fool?’

I spun round. Apart from the watchful statues, I saw no one. I stroked the cat again. The voice said:

‘Why hasn’t the goddess given birth yet?’

‘I don’t know,’ I replied, without moving.

‘Because she hasn’t found a child to give birth to. If you’re not careful you will be born a second time tonight.’

When it occurred to me that sometimes I could understand the language of animals, I woke from my enchantment, into the full awareness of my danger. Then I heard low groans. In another corner of the room, hidden in the darkness, her foot twitching in dreams of flight, I discovered the woman who had been wounded during the riots. I shook her awake. She opened her dazed eyes at me.