‘My son,’ she said.

‘They are going to do something to me,’ I said.

She stared at me impassively.

‘My mother will not like it,’ I added.

Shebegan weeping. Shewouldn’t stop. Shetoo had lost ason duringtherioting.

‘Let’s escape,’ I suggested.

She stopped weeping. She got up slowly. We crept out of the shrinehouse, towards the canoe. We were rowing across the water when a strangled cry rose from the shrinehouse and gathered volume all over the island. The wind whipped the cries round the raffia hair of the goddess. Waves lashed the canoe. We rowed with great desperation over the turbulent waters. We were half-way across when the women abandoned their ritual and came after us.

Her face bruised, her eyes droopy in the moonlight, the wounded woman rowed like a hero. But the effort was too much for her and as our canoe was driven ashore, she collapsed altogether. I tried to revive her with salt water, but she only groaned in profound resignation.

‘My son, my son,’ was all she said.

There was nothing I could do. The canoes furiously approached the shore. I muttered a prayer for her and ran and didn’t stop till I had completely escaped from that cult of silent women.

FOUR

THAT NIGHT I slept under a lorry. In the morning I wandered up and down the streets of the city. Houses were big, vehicles thundered everywhere, and people stared at me. I became aware of my hunger when I came to a marketplace and saw the bean cakes, ripe fruits and dried fishes, and smelt the fried plantain. I went from stall to stall, staring at the traders. Many of them drove me away. But at a provision stall a man with a severe face regarded me and said:

‘Are you hungry?’

I nodded. He gave me a loaf of bread. He had only four fingers, with a thumb missing. I thanked him and roamed the market till I found a barrel on which I sat down and ate.

I watched crowds of people pour into the marketplace. I watched the chaotic movements and the wild exchanges and the load-carriers staggering under sacks. It seemed as if the whole world was there. I saw people of all shapes and sizes, mountainous women with faces of iroko, midgets with faces of stone, reedy women with twins strapped to their backs, thick-set men with bulgingshoulder muscles. After a while I felt a sort of vertigo just looking at anything that moved. Stray dogs, chickens flapping in cages, goats with listless eyes, hurt me to look at them. I shut my eyes and when I opened them again I saw people who walked backwards, a dwarf who got about on two fingers, men upside-down with baskets of fish on their feet, women who had breasts on their backs, babies strapped to their chests, and beautiful children with three arms. I saw a girl amongst them who had eyes at the side of her face, bangles of blue copper round her neck, and who was more lovely than forest flowers. I was so afraid that I got down from the barrel and started to move away when the girl pointed and cried:

‘That boy can see us!’

They turned in my direction. I looked away immediately and hurried away from the swellingmarketplace, towards thestreet.

They followed me. One of the men had red wings on his feet and a girl had fish-gills around her neck. I could hear their nasal whisperings. They stayed close to me to find out if I really could see them. And when I refused to see them, when I concentrated on the piles of red peppers wrinkled by the sun, they crowded me and blocked my way. I went right through them as if they weren’t there. I stared hard at the crabs clawing the edges of flower-patterned basins. After a while they left me alone. That was the first time I realised it wasn’t just humans who came to the marketplaces of the world. Spirits and other beings come there too. They buy and sell, browse and investigate. They wander amongst the fruits of the earth and sea.

I wound my way to another part of the market. I didn’t stare at the people who floated above the ground or those with the burden of bulbous heads and blond hair, but I became curious about where they had come from. I took to following those that were departing from the market and were heading home because they had done all their buying or selling, or had gotten tired of observing the interesting man-made artefacts of the world. I followed them across streets, narrow paths, and isolated tracks. All the time I pretended not to see them.

When they got to a wide clearing in the forest they said their bizarre farewells and went their different ways. Many of them were quite fearful to look at. Many were quite cute. A good number of them were somewhat ugly, but after a while even their ugliness became normal. I chose to follow a baby spirit with the face of a squirrel, who dragged a great sack. Its companions conversed amongst themselves, laughingin throatless undertones as they went along. One had yellow webbed feet, another the tailofatiny crocodile,andthemostinterestinghadtheeyesofadolphin.

The clearing was the beginning of an expressway. Building companies had levelled the trees. In places the earth was red. We passed a tree that had been felled. Red liquid dripped from its stump as if the tree had been a murdered giant whose blood wouldn’t stop flowing.Thebaby spiritswenttotheedgeoftheclearingwheretherewasa gash in the earth. As I stared into the gash I heard a sharp noise, as of somethingsundering,andIshutmy eyesinhorror,andwhenIopenedthemIfound myself somewhere else. The spirits had disappeared. I began shouting. My voice reverberated in the murky air. After a while I noticed a giant turtle beside me. It lifted up a lazy head, stared at me as if I had disturbed its sleep, and said:

‘I’m lost.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I don’t know where I am.’ ‘You are in the under-road.’ “Where is that?’

‘The stomach of the road.’

‘Does the road have a stomach?’

‘Does the sea have a mouth?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘That’s your business.’

‘I want to go home.’

‘I don’t know where your home is,’ the turtle said, ‘so I can’t help you.’

Then it lumbered away. I lay down on the white earth of that land and cried myself to sleep. When I woke up I found myself in a pit from which sand was excavated for the building of the road. I climbed out and fled through the forest.

Hugging what was left of my bread, I went down the streets. At a junction I asked a food-seller for water. She gave me some in a blue cup. I ate of the bread and drank slowly of the water. There was a man standing near me. I noticed him because of his smell. He wore a dirty, tattered shirt. His hair was reddish. Flies were noisy around his ears. His private parts showed through his underpants. His legs were covered in sores. The flies around his face made him look as if he had four eyes. I stared at him out of curiosity. Hemadeaviolent motion, scatteringtheflies, and I noticed that his two eyes rolled around as if in an extraordinary effort to see themselves. I became awareofhimstaringatmetooandIfinishedthewater,wrappedup thebread,and hurried off. I didn’t look back, but I became certain that he was following me. I could hear the peculiar dialogue of the flies around his ears. I could smell his insanity.

When I walked faster he quickened his steps, ranting. I went through a compound, came out at the housefront, and found him there, waiting. He pursued me, raving in grotesque languages. I tore across the road, through the market, and hid behind a lorry. He dogged my shadow. I felt him as a terrible presence from whom I couldn’t escape.IndesperationIshot acrossanotherroad.Thehootingofamonsterhulkofa lorry scared me and I dropped the loaf of bread and dashed over, my heart wildly fluttering in my chest. When I was safely across I looked back and saw the man in the middle of the road. He had snatched up my loaf of bread and was eatingit, polythene wrapping and all. Cars screeched all around him. I carried on running for fear that he mightsuddenly rememberhehadbeenpursuingme.