‘Come here, you abiku child, you stubborn spirit-child. You think you are powerful, eh? I am more powerful than you,’ the old man said, in a resonant, young man’s voice.

‘Leavemy sonalone,’Mumsaidbeforelettingoutadeafeninghigh-pitchedshriek.

The old man stopped in his tracks.

‘We will pay for the window,’ Dad said, in a voice of conciliation. The two heads of the old man became one. Then, as if released from a spell, the woman said:

‘Of course you will pay.’

The other man came forward and held the old man. The woman gave him back his cane. The old man slumped curiously, his shoulders dropped, his back hunched, his head cocked. He became passive and frail. His bones rattled. He stumbled and muttered. A macabre agedness came over him, as if his uncanny exertions had dried up his life. Without another word all three of them left the room.

Holdingourbreaths,wewatchedthemleave.Whenthey hadgoneMumgotup and locked the door. Then she turned on me.

‘Why did you break their window, eh? Do you want to kill us? Don’t you see how poor we are, eh? Have you no pity on your father? Do you know how much glass costs, eh?’

‘I didn’t break it.’

‘Who did?’

‘The spirits.’

‘What spirits?’

‘How can spirits break a window?’ Dad wondered.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Youusethesespiritsasanexcuseevery timeyoudosomethingbad,eh?’

‘No.’

‘You’re lying.’ ‘I’m not,’ I screamed. I began to cry. ‘You’re lying.’

‘I’m not. It was the spirits. They stoned me and so I stoned them back.’

‘Why did they stone you?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘So you went and broke the window because the spirits stoned you, eh?’

I was silent.

‘Do you see what a dangerous son you are? You will kill us, you know. You will kill us with your troubles. Look at what you’ve done. You let that blind old man come intoourroom.Doyouknowwhatpowershehas?Didyouseetheway hebehaved?If he had caught you, only God knows what would have happened.’

Mum got so worked up in her fear that she came over and grabbed my ears. She held them tight between her fingers and thumbs. She twisted them till I thought she was going to wrench my ears from my head. I howled. My cry seemed to enrage her further, for she pulled and twisted my ears harder and pinched them and then she swiped me across the head. She hit me so hard I went flying across the room. I collapsed against the wall and slid down to the floor. I sat still, eyeing Mum with a vengeful solemnity.

‘Don’t look at your mother like that!’ Dad said.

I lowered my eyes and cried silently, tears dripping on to my thighs. I stayed like that even when Mum put out the candle. I stayed sitting against the wall when they went to sleep. I didn’t move from my position even when they snored and turned on thebed.Itdidnotmatterwhetherthey sawmy protestornot.Iwasdeterminedtostay like that to the end of time.

And then it was morning. I found myself stretched out on the mat, a cloth covering me. Tear-tracks were stiff on my face. I woke up happy. It was only after Mum gave me some bread and set out hawking that I remembered I was supposed to be angry with everyone.

TWO

IT WAS IN the evening, after Dad came back with the carpenter and a pane of glass, that I got the full force of his anger. I was in the room when he returned from work. He came in, put down the glass, changed his clothes, and went out. He didn’t say a word. I followed him at a distance. He went with the carpenter to the old man’s house. It was the same carpenter who had built Madame Koto’s counter.

The blind old man sat outside on the verandah, with a cat in his lap, and a pipe in his mouth. He wore the same hat I had seen him in. Dad said nothing to him. He showed the carpenter the window. With a hammer the carpenter broke the jagged edges of the glass left standing in the window frame. The noise startled the cat, which jumped away from the old man’s lap. When the glass fell into the room it brought protestations from the woman. She complained and insisted that the carpenter sweep the room. The carpenter said he wouldn’t, and dropped his tools. The other man came out. Other people from the compound came out as well. The man began to push the carpenter around. Dad stepped in. The man pushed Dad around as well. I could see Dad struggling to contain his anger. The shouting and arguing attracted a crowd. Soon even MadameKoto cametoseewhatwashappeningandwhenshesawDadshetried to calm everything down but only succeeded in drawing a spate of abuse from him. Sheslunk away, cursingDad and men in general.

The argument about sweeping the room raged for a while. Then the old man shouted that they should allow the carpenter to continue with his work.

‘Do you people want mosquitoes to kill me in my old age!’ he said. The quarrels were instantly resolved. The woman allowed the carpenter to continue on the condition that he made the glass fall outside. The carpenter, however, only resumed work after Dad had appeased his anger with bottles of beer and some kola-nuts. The old man nodded as the carpenter put the glass back into the wooden frame. Then, as if to complete the pleasure he derived from listening to the carpenter work, the old man called for his accordion. While the carpenter fixed the glass and dextrously hammered away at the little nails to keep the pane in place, the blind old man played the ugliest music I have ever heard. The music made the carpenter miss a nail and hammer his thumb. The music made me slightly nauseous. Dad obviously hated it. He kept frowning at the blind old man, who played happily, his pipe in his mouth. Dad retreated to the far end of the housefront. The carpenter, anxious to flee from the noxious sound of the music, worked swiftly. Theold man soon gottiredoftheaccordion.Notlongafterwardsthe carpenter finished, the pane sat in the window. The woman complained that the glass wobbled in its frame, but the carpenter ignored her and packed his tools. Dad swept the glass into a dustpan and threw the rubbish to the back of the van. As he and the carpenter left, the old man said:

‘The next time that son of yours troubles me I will teach him a lesson he will never forget.’

Dad said nothing. He went home with the carpenter, and bought him another beer. The carpenter drank happily. They talked about Madame Koto. They didn’t talk about politics. I watched them from the door.

‘Come in, or go and play!’ Dad said.

I went in.

Thecarpenter,slightly drunk,offeredtofixDad’schair.

‘No, I like it like this,’ Dad said philosophically. ‘It reminds me that whatever we sit on will one day make us fall.’

The carpenter laughed, finished his beer, haggled about his payment, received his money inagrumblingspirit,andleft.

It was when Mum returned exhausted from hawking, her face a mask of dust and shadows, that Dad suddenly pounced on me. He whipped out his belt from his trousers, locked the door, tore the shirt off my back, and flogged me mercilessly. He lashed me as I ran, wincing, round the room. He thrashed me with the full energies and muscles of his great furious body. His flogging filled me with lightningflashes of pain. Every part of me burned with rawness. He had a savage expression on his face. The belt cracked like a horsewhip. I jumped and danced in fiendish contortions. He belted my feet, my neck, my back, my legs, my hands. He chastised me the way a master boxer beats an inferior sparring partner, with rage and methodical application. As he did so, he said:

‘You are a stubborn child, I am a stubborn father. If you want to return to the world of spirits, return! But if you want to stay, then be a good son!’

I gave up running round the room and collapsed in a heap near the door. I no longer felt the pain. Not once did I cry out. He wanted evidence that his punishment was being felt. I didn’t give him that satisfaction. His anger increased. And so after a long time, when I was no longer sure whether he was still punishing me or whether I was merely dreaming the pain, he stopped, gave up, held his arm, and sat on his chair. I lay on the floor. Mum came and lifted me to the bed.