After a while I got to a familiar street. I had broken the spell of the man’s obsession with my shadow. In the heated air of my bewilderment, I tried to understand what was familiar about the area. There were sweet voices of children in the air. I smelt rose blossoms from the garbage. The gutter gave off an aroma of incense. The houses were covered with dust. And yet in the night spaces white birds flew over trees. I kept expecting to recognise something. And when the spaces in the street began to expand, as if sunlight were being released from the objects, transfiguring the area into an expanse of sacred fields, I realised with a shock that it was the strangeness which was so familiar. And then, with my breath quickening, and with moonlight breaking out on the street, I recognised the voices of the children that sang in an intense blue chorus all around me. They were the twilight voices of my spirit companions, luring me to the world of dreams, away from this world where no one cared about me, enticing me to a world where I would never be lost.

The moonlight of their voices became too multiple and too sweet for me to bear. I felt myself breaking out into another space. Everywhere I looked the spirits invaded me with their manifestations. The smell of flowers overpowered me. The songs wounded me with their relentless beauty. Seared by the agony of their melodies, I stumbled across a road and I suddenly saw them all, spirits in full bloom on a field of rainbows, bathing in the ecstasy of an everlasting love. Something sharp tore through my brain.Icollapsedonthefloweringtarmac,withlorriesthunderingaroundme.

FIVE

I WAS TAKEN to a police station. Afterwards I was carried to a hospital where my wounds were treated. When I was discharged a police officer volunteered to look after me till my parents had been found. He was a hulk of a man with a big forehead and hairy nostrils. He drove me to his home in a white car. His wife was lean and tall. She reminded me of the island women and had a complexion like the evening. She made me bathe and dressed me in her son’s clothes. We ate a wonderful dish of stew flavoured with shrimps and meat. The rice had a faint aroma of cinnamon. The fried plantain smelt of wild herbs. The fried chicken tasted of delicious spells.

Thelivingroomwhereweatewasvery spaciousandcomfortable.Thecarpetswere thick, and there were framed diplomas on the blue walls. Above a painting of Jesus with his large visible heart, arms outstretched, was the legend:

CHRIST IS THE UNSEEN GUEST IN EVERY HOUSE

There were pictures of the police officer, his wife, and a handsome boy who had sad eyes. The boy looked at me while I ate. After a while I began to see with the boy’s eyes and the house resolved about me and I knew that he was dead and I lost my appetite and didn’t eat any more.

After dinner the woman showed me to my room. I was frightened to have a whole room to myself. When she shut the door behind her, I realised that it was her son’s room. His toys, his school texts, and even his shoes had been neatly preserved. Photographs of himatplay hungonthewalls.ThatnightIcouldn’tsleep.Therewere inhuman footsteps all over the house. In the backyard a cat wailed. And later, in the dark, someone whose complexion was of the night came into the room and kept touching the photographs and rattling the toys. I couldn’t see who it was, but when they left I heard the soft tinkling of bells. It was only when dawn broke that I got any sleep.

I stayed in the policeman’s house for several days. His wife’s eyes were always large with unfinished weeping. I gathered from their nocturnal whisperings that their son had died in a road accident. She treated me well most of the time. She made me lovely bean cakes and vegetable dishes. After a bath she would comb my hair and oil my face. She sang to me while she swept the sitting room or washed the clothes. I sometimes helped her with the cleaning. We dusted the centre table and the glass cabinet with its crystal elephants and tortoises and ceramic plates. We also polished the big mask on the wall. She always dressed me in her son’s finest clothes. I only became scared of her when she started calling me by his name.

The noises in the house got worse the following night. I heard someone wandering around as if they were imprisoned. The glass cabinet shifted. The faint bells tinkled. Birds broke into song near my window. In the morning the police officer gave me some pocket money. His wife spoke gently to me, served me food, and watched me eat. In the afternoon the house was silent. The woman wasn’t in. All the doors were locked.Islept onasofainthelivingroomandwokeupwiththefeelingthatIwasn’t alone in the house. I was hungry. I felt dizzy. As I wandered about the house looking for an open door, a curious presence entered into me. I couldn’t shake it out. It roamed around inside me and said things to me which I couldn’t understand. It wasn’t longbeforeIfeltmyselfentirely occupiedby anunhappy spirit.

I did everything I could to drive the spirit out of me. I kicked and thrashed and screamed. I ran against the walls. After a while I saw myself on the floor, bleeding from the mouth. Something rose out of me and began talking to the room. The woman wasstandingoverme.Thespirit that hadcomeout ofmewastalkingtoher,butshe couldn’t hear.

The woman carried me to my room. When I woke up in the evening I felt very ill. I had no idea who I was and even my thoughts seemed to belong to someone else. The disconsolate spirit had left empty places inside me. I slept through the evening, the night, and got up the next afternoon. I hadn’t eaten for two days. I had no appetite. With no desire to do anything, I drifted on the white waves of exhaustion.

That night, while I lay on the bed, the door opened. The police officer, his wife, and a herbalist came into the room. I pretended to be asleep. The herbalist had a luminous machete. They talked about me in whispers. After a while they left. Beside my bed there was a bowl of rice and chicken, which I devoured. After I had eaten, and felt a little better, I began to plot my escape.

I listened to all the sounds of the house. There were voices everywhere. I heard the air whispering, the walls talking, the chair complaining, the floor pacing, the insects gossiping. Darkness filled the room. Figures moved about in the darkness. I saw yellow beings stirring, white forms floating, blue shadows flying about the ceiling. But when I heard people talking everything around me became silent and still. I waited. Then I stole out towards the sitting room to listen.

SIX

THERE WAS SILENCE. A hurricane lantern burned low on the dining table, its bluish light creating shadows everywhere. Lower down, seven figures were seated round the centre table. A moth circled them. The eighth figure stood without moving. Soon I made him out to be the police officer. He was in charge of the proceedings.

The longer I looked, the clearer the murky atmosphere became. There were eight glasses on the centre table, dazzling where the bluish light touched them. I made out a half calabash, tilting with its liquid contents. Next to the calabash was a white saucer with lobes of kola-nut and fingers of kaoline. And next to the saucer was the image of a little feathered goddess.

With a deep chanting that altered the air in the room, the police officer made the figures rise. The faint lights showed them up to be policemen in uniforms. They took up the chanting in low tones. Then they stretched out their hands and linked them across the table. When the men sat back down, the officer remained standing.

The flies buzzed. The officer waved the fetish in the air. It had emerald snakelike eyes which glitteredinthemutedlights.Theofficersaidsomethingandthefirstofthe seven figures got up. He became a man with small eyes and a thin moustache. He sweated nervously along the nose. Trembling slightly, he held the image. Then in a tone of sudden vehemence, he swore an oath of allegiance. The moth circled his head. He swore that under the terrible gaze of the goddess, and under the threat of death, he was honest about the money he had collected, and which he was now presenting.