Darkness had grown over the forest. The noises of insects and birds had diminished. The wind, scented with leaves, had become cooler. Gradually the trees, the clearing, the open spaces, became obscure. Ordinary things became riddles. In the obscurity of things I saw what was different about the clearing. Something was standing there. A tree had grown there. It had grown in the spot where I had buried Madame Koto’s fetish. It was an odd tree and in the dark it seemed like an animal asleep on its feet. It was shaped exactly like a bull without horns. It was a stout muscular tree, without leaves. It seemed comfortable to sit on, to play on, and I wanted to see the darkening world from the height of its back. I tried to climb on, but couldn’t take the mask with me; so I wore the mask and tied it round my head with climbers. With the mask on my face, with the darkness all around, and spirits everywhere in the darkness, I got on the back of the tree. All the moon-white birds seemed to be in the branches of my hair.

From the back of the tree I saw a completely different world to what I had been seeing. I saw adifferentreality.ForamomentIexpectedtoseebirdstwitteringinmy eyes, spirits dancing around me, luminous and dazzling. But when I looked out the spirits vanished, the white birds had somehow flown away, the village was not there. Instead I heard the earth trembling at the fearsome approach of a demonic being. A white wind circled my head. I was confused by the new world. The earth shuddered. The tree moved beneath me. And when I looked out through the mask, I saw before me in that new spirit world a creature ugly and magnificent like a prehistoric dragon, with the body of an elephant, and the face of a warthog. It towered before me. It was more graceful and less heavy than an elephant, but its tread was more resounding. Its face was incredibly ugly. A devourer of humans, of lost souls, of spirits, of all things wonderful, this creature opened its dreadful mouth and roared. Beneath me the tree began to change. Suddenly it seemed the tree was no longer a thing of wood. It became a thing of quivering flesh. The wood rippled slowly into flesh, transforming beneath me.

The monstrous creature drew closer and its foul breath knocked my consciousness around. I couldn’t bear to look at it any more and I desperately wanted to take the mask off so I wouldn’t have to see anything. I tore off the vegetable string, but the mask stayed on, stuck to my face. I tried to tear it off again, but it was like stripping the skin off my own face. And then the transformation of the wood into flesh became complete and I was suddenly blasted by the earth-shaking bellow of a wild animal beneath me. I was overpowered with the odour of its animal virility. Tossing and shivering, shaking its head, and bellowing again as if the sound in some way made its transformation more permanent, I realised that I had made a terrible mistake, and that I was ridingon theback of awild animal, awoken fromafetishisticsleep.

The monstrous creature swiped at me. In that confused moment, without caring, I rippedthemaskoffmy face,obliteratingitsexistencefrommy eyes.My facefelt somewhat raw. I no longer saw the prehistoric monster, but the beast beneath me obviously did. It turned this way and that, wrenching each foot from the earth as if it wereuprootingitself, and when allits feet werefreeit was stillfor amoment, drawingadeep breath.Itsbody expanded,bristling.Itriedtogetdown.Thebeast backed off, givingavicious snort as if it had burst open achannelthrough centuries of bad dreams. Then it began with an awkward canter, picked up speed and jumped about theplace, tossingits head, attackingtheinvisiblemonster. Its hooves crushed the mask into pieces. It charged towards a thick cluster of bushes at such speed that I was thrown off and it was lucky I landed on grass and vegetation or I would certainly havebrokenmy neck.Iheardthewildbeastreturning,snorting,poundingtheearth.I jumped to my feet, as if from a feverish torrent of nightmares. Completely forgetting my hurtingankles,Iranoutoftheforest,andfledlikeachildbeingwhippedto Madame Koto’s bar.

I DIDN’T GO in right away, but wandered in the forecourt of the bar watchingthenight spread its power over thesky. I stayed outsidefor awhile, planting my secrets in the silence of my beginnings. Night was falling and, all over, the shadows were short and blurred. Lamps came on in the houses. I could make them out through the leaves and bushes. A gust of wind, like the sighing of a great animal, blew over from the forest. The wind brought the night closer. It also seemed to sweep the last lights of the day to the farthest reaches of the earth. One section of the sky was grey and deep blue, the other was sad and red. The pain returned to my ankle. I sat outsidealongtime, waitingfortheworldtoquietenaroundme.My spirittookalong time to settle. I breathed in the wind from the moon.

The bar was silent. Then I heard someone chuckling. And then the person began to talk. I listened. It becameclear that theperson was alone, talkingtothemself. The painleftmy ankleforamomentandIwent,limping,intothebar.Partingthecurtains, Istoodindarkness.Thebarwasempty.Therewasasinglelamp shiningbehindthe counter. I made out the form of a head bent over, of a person rapt in a secret ritual. I went over noiselessly, limping, thepain returningand recedingin waves. The clientele had gone and the silence of the bar was unnatural at that hour. I tiptoed to the counter and saw MadameKoto countingmoney. Shewas so engrossed inthe countingthatshedidn’tnoticemy entry.Herfaceshoneandsweatrandownfromher hairline, down her cheeks and ears, down her neck, into her great yellow blouse. She would count a bundle of notes and then laugh. It was a strange kind of laughter. It sounded like vengeance. I didn’t want to speak suddenly and frighten her and yet I foundherconcentrationfascinatingandcouldnottakemy eyesoffher.Shecounted her money over and over again as if she had just woken from the nightmare of poverty.Shecountedherfingers,thesumswereclearly givingherproblems.Thenthe wind blew hard outside, fluttering the curtain, and flickering the illumination of her lamp. She looked up, saw me, her eyes widening. Suddenly, she screamed. She jumpedandthrewherhandsup andhermoney wentflyingeverywhere,thecoins clattering on the floor. I said:

‘It’s me, Azaro.’

Shestopped and for alongmoment peered at me. Then her facedarkened and she sped round the counter and grabbed me by the neck and slapped me on the head.

‘Why did you stand there like a thief?’

‘I am not a thief.’

‘So why did you stand there?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Why didyoustandthereeyeingmy money?’

‘I wasn’t eyeingyour money.’

‘Where have you been?’

‘In the bush.’

‘Doingwhat?’

‘Playing.’

‘With whom?’

‘Myself.’

‘With thieves?’

‘I don’t know any thieves.’

She let me go. She hurried round the counter and picked up all her money and tied it in a bundle at one end of her wrapper.

‘The next time you do that I will have a cutlass.’ I said nothing. She found her theme.

‘Thingsaregoingtostarttochange,youhear?Youthinkthisbarwillstay likethis for ever?You think I amgoingto bedoingeverythingalone?No! Soon I amgoingto getsomeyounggirlstoserveforme.Iamgoingtogetoneortwomentocarry heavy things and run messages. You are too much trouble. You don’t respect the customers. You create trouble for me. What do you do here anyway, eh? You just come in here and sleep and drink all my peppersoup for nothing. You are useless, you hear?’

I stayed silent, but I got up and went and sat at a bench near the front door. It was the farthest I could go from her while still being in the bar. I sat in the darkness, she stayed in the light. And because the lamp was on a stool below the counter her face, bright in patches, looked big and ugly. For the first time I began to dislike her. From where she stood her eyes seemed oddly deranged, somewhat crossed. It was only a trick of the light, but that didn’t stop it from feeding my growing distrust of her. She had changed completely from the person I used to know. Her big frame which had seemed to me full of warmth now seemed to me full of wickedness. I didn’t know why she had changed.