‘Tell this man and his son to go.’‘I want no trouble.’‘Well you have to choose between them and us. If you don’t tell him to go we will take our custom somewhere else.’ ‘I don’t want trouble. If you want to hold your meeting, hold it. They will go.

Everythingcan bedonepeacefully.’

‘We want to hold our meeting now.’

Madame Koto looked at them and then at us.

‘Because you people have money you think you can prevent a poor man from drinking, eh?’ Dad said, spluttering.

‘Yes, we can.’

‘Okay, come and do it. Let me see you.’

‘Areyou challengingus?’

‘Yes.’

Three of the men stood up at once. They were huge. Each of them was a colossus.

They came round and towered over our table. I held Dad’s arm.

‘You want to fight in here and scatter the madame’s bar?’ Dad asked coolly.

Hewasactually sweatingandhisvoicequiveredslightly.

‘Come outside then,’ one of the colossi said.

‘First I have to finish my palm-wine. I don’t fight till I am drunk.’

‘You are a drunkard!’ Dad drank slowly, deliberately. His arm trembled and I could feel the bench vibrating beneath me. The men hung over us, waiting patiently. Madame Koto did not speak, did not move. The other men went on drinking at their table. Dad poured out the last drop of palm-wine into the yellow plastic cup.

‘Dregs,’ he said. ‘You are dregs! Now I am ready.’

He stood up and cracked his knuckles. The men were unimpressed. They went outside.

‘Go home!’ Dad commanded me. ‘I will deal with these goats alone.’

His eyes were bold and bloodshot. He went to the door and stood between the curtain strips. He spat outside.

‘Come on!’

I stood up. Dad went out without a backward glance. I followed. I couldn’t see the three men. As soon as we were outside the door was shut quickly and bolted. Dad looked for the men and couldn’t find them. I helped him look. The bushes moved in the wind. An owl hooted deep in the forest. I went to the backyard and found the back door also bolted.

‘They are cowards,’ Dad said.

We heard them inside the bar, laughing and shouting. Their revelry increased and, because they spoke in alien tongues, I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Dad stood around, undecided. Then they fell silent in the bar. They talked in whispers.

‘Let’s go home,’ Dad said, leadingtheway.

I trailed behind him, my ankle hurting again. He strode down the street. I hobbled. He didn’t look back once.

TWELVE

WHEN WEGOT homeMumwas stilldiscoveringmoredead rats. The roomstank of their deaths. Mumhad swept theminto acorner and was ransackingthe place. Some of them had died baring their teeth.

‘That photographer’s poison has killed more than fifty-two rats,’ Mum said as we came in, ‘and I can smell more.’

Dad sat in his three-legged chair and with unusual solemnity lit a cigarette. His hands were still trembling.

‘I nearly fought some giants,’ he said.

‘We should move away from this area,’ Mum replied somewhat absent-mindedly.

‘I would have killed them.’

‘Let’s go. An evilthingwillhappen to us if wedon’t moveaway.’

‘Nothingevilwillhappen to us. I won’t let themdriveus away.’

‘Howarewegoingtopay thenewrent?’

‘We will manage.’

‘I smell an evil thing.’

‘It’s the rats.’

‘I dreamt I saw you by the roadside.’

‘Doingwhat?’

‘Lyingdown. You didn’t move. Therewas blood on your head. I talked to you, my husband, and you wouldn’t answer. I tried to carry you, but you were heavy as a lorry. I went to get help and when I came back you had vanished.’

Dadwassilent.Icouldhearhimtryingtofindaway intothedream.Thenhe noticed me.

‘Go to sleep, Azaro. You shouldn’t listen when grown-ups are talking.’

I got the mat, cleared the centre table out of the way, spread the mat, and lay down. Dad smoked with greater intensity. Mum said:

‘We will have to cut down the food if we are going to afford the rent.’

‘Don’t cut down the food.’

‘Wewillhavetosleep onempty stomachs.Startingfromtonight.’

‘Nonsense!’ Dad said, tryingto controlhis temper. ‘Serveour food. Now!’

I shut my eyes. The mention of food made me very hungry. Mum was silent. ThenI heard her among the plates. I heard the plates on the table and smelt the good cooking, thestewandthefriedplantain.Iopenedmy eyes.Therewasabigbowlofebaanda bowl of watery soup, with a modest quantity of meat. We ate silently, avoidingone another’s eyes. After eating Dad lit another cigarette. Mum went out to wash the plates and bring in the clothes that had dried on the lines. I lay down. Mum returned and we stayed up in silence, not looking at one another, for a long time. Then Mum sighed and stretched out on the bed and faced the wall. Soon she was asleep. The candle burned low. Dad sat unmoving, his eyes hard. The candle went out.

‘Tell me a story, Dad,’ I said.

He stayed quiet and I thought he had vanished. Then he too sighed. He moved. The chair creaked. Outside, a dog barked. An owl hooted. A bird cawed like a hyena. The wind stirred and faintly rattled the broken window.

‘Once upon a time,’ Dad began suddenly, ‘there was a giant whom they called the King of the Road. His legs were longer than the tallest tree and his head was mightier than great rocks. He could see an ant. When he drank, a stream would empty. When he pissed, a bad well would appear. He used to be one of the terrible monsters of the Forest and there were many like him, competing for strange things to eat. When the Forest started to get smaller because of Man, when the giant couldn’t find enough animals to eat, he changed from the forest to the roads that men travel.’

Dad paused. Then he continued.

‘The King of the Road had a huge stomach and nothing he ate satisfied him. So he was always hungry. Anyone who wanted to travel on the road had to leave him a sacrifice or he would not allow them to pass. Sometimes he-would even eat them up. He had the power to be in a hundred places at the same time. He never slept because of his hunger. When anyone set out in the morning he was always there, waiting for his sacrifice. Anyone who forgot the monster’s existence sooner or later got eaten up.

‘For a long time people gave him sacrifices and he allowed them to travel on the roads. The people did not grumble because they found him there when they came into the world. No one knew if he had a wife or not. No one even knew whether he was a man or a woman. He had no children. People believed that he had lived for thousands of years and that nothing could kill him and that he could never die. And so human beings, because they were afraid of him, fed him for a long time. And because of him, and partly because of other things, a famine started in the world. There was no water. The streams dried up. The wells became poisonous. The crops wouldn’t grow. Animals became lean. And people began to die of hunger. And because they were dying of hunger they stopped giving sacrifices to the King of the Road. He became angry and attacked people’s houses and caused a lot of people to perish while travellingand heatethelivingas wellas thecorpses of thosewho had died of hunger.

‘It got to a point where all the people in the world couldn’t bear it any more and they gathered together to decide what they should do to the King of the Road. Some peoplesaidthey shouldfindaway tokillhim.Butotherssaidthatthey shouldfirstgo and reason with him. Those who wanted to reason won the vote. So they sent out a delegation of people.

‘They set out early one morning. They had a great mound of sacrifices which they carried in several bags and carts, bush animals, corn, yams, cassava, rice, kola-nuts, enough food in fact to feed a whole village. It was a great sacrifice. They travelled for alongtime.They kept expectingtheKingoftheRoadtoappear,buthedidn’t.They waited for many more days. And when he didn’t appear they thought that he had somehow vanished or died and they began to celebrate and after their celebration they hurried back to the gathering with the great sacrifice. When they had forgotten about him, on theirway back,whilethey weretellingstories,theKingoftheRoadappeared tothem.Hewasvery lean.Hecouldbarely talk.Hewasdyingofhunger.Hecaught them and asked if they had any sacrifice for him. His voice was weak and he was thirsty because he had not drunk enough water for a long time. The people showed him what they had brought. He ate it all in one mouthful. He asked for more. He groaned and rolled and complained that what they had brought was so small it had made his hunger worse. The people said that was all they had. So the King of the Road ate the delegation.’