‘Go away,’ she shouted in a cracked voice, ‘bring me a white cockerel, a bottle of gin, feathers of a dove, and three pieces of chalk. Then I will help you.’

When Mum returned with the items the woman, attired in a severe black smock, consulted her cowries. She made offerings to her goddess who sat in a corner of the room, brooding in the dark with shining sunglasses. Then she told Mum to leave. She wantedtosleep onherdivination.Mumcamebackthenextmorningandwithoutany preamble the herbalist told her that the fee would be very expensive because the case was very difficult.

‘Your son is trapped in a house of ghosts,’ she said.

Mum was so terrified that she left instantly, gathered all the money she had saved from her trading, took some off Dad, and borrowed the rest. The herbalist went on to tell her that I was being held by a man and a woman who either wanted to keep me as their own child or sacrifice me for money, and that I was surrounded with such powerful spells that if Mum didn’t act quickly I would be lost to her for ever. Mum paid the fee and sat in the dark, listening as the strange-eyed herbalist embarked on the most extravagant conjurations she had ever witnessed. The herbalist wrestled with thepowers of thehouse, tryingto break thespells surroundingme.Afterfivehours, during which Mum sat rigid with fear, the woman emerged from her secret chambers and said:

‘I have broken all the spells except one. That one is too powerful for me. Only lightningcan break that spell.’

Mum sat confused. The herbalist gave her instructions. Mum went home, her heart heavy.

That night she was lamenting her condition, blaming herself for having lost the only child she had, a child who had chosen to live, when a distant relation paid a visit. She had heard of Mum’s troubles and had come to offer consolation. She brought a few gifts and congratulated Mum on finding me. Dad took it as a good omen. Mum was puzzled. Then it emerged that the relation had seen a picture of me in the newspaper on the day after my accident. That was how Mum traced me to the police station and eventually to the officer’s house.

Mum went back to the herbalist, who now gave the final set of instructions. Mum was to go tothehouse,tobehumble,tothanktheofficerandhiswifeforkeepingme, to take them presents, and to throw the white cockerel into the room so they could transfer their sacrifice from me to the bird. And then she was to run away from the place as fast as her legs could carry her. But before she could do any of this lightning had to first strike the house. Mum had waited in the rain, outside the house, for three hours. She had stood patiently, with thunder growling above her, watching as lightning flashed in different places, over many houses and trees. And she stayed like that, not moving an inch, till lightning struck directly over the house of ghosts where I was held captive.

NINE

AFTER I HAD bathed, after I had eaten, they made me sit in Dad’s chair and asked me to tell them my story. I began telling them when the lights changed in the room and mighty hands lifted me up and put me on the bed. I saw Dad smiling beneath his bloodied bandage. Mum shifted the chair and centre table, spread out a mat and slept on the floor. Dad sat on his wooden chair, smoked peacefully, and lit a mosquito coil. I listened to him talking to the silent room, asking riddles that only the dead can answer.

I slept all night and all day. When I woke up it was evening. The room was empty. A kerosine lamp burned steadily on the centre table. When I first opened my eyes on the new world of home everything was different. Large shadows everywhere made the spaces smaller. The floor was rough. Long columns of ants crawled alongside the walls. There were ant-mounds near the cupboard. An earthworm stretched itself past Dad’s shoes. Wall-geckos and lizards scurried up and down the walls. At the far corner of the room a washing line was slack with the weight of too many clothes. Mum’s objects of trade were all over the place. Her sacks were piled around the cupboard. Blackened pots and crockery and basins were scrambled everywhere. It was as if Mum and Dad had moved in, dumped their possessions wherever there was space, and had never found time to arrange anything. The more I took in the cracks in the walls, the holes in the zinc ceiling, the cobwebs, the smells of earth and garri, the cigarette and mosquito coil smoke, the more it seemed we hadn’t moved at all. Everythingfeltthesame.Theonly differencewasthatIwasn’tusedtothesameness.

The light in the room was dull in the evening. Mosquitoes and fireflies had come in. A dyingfly buzzeditslastsongupontheceiling,amongthenetofcobwebs.Thelamplight kept fluttering, its black smoke drifted up to the ceiling. The smell of burning wick and kerosine smoke reassured me. I was home. And being at home was very different from being in the comfortable house of the police officer. No spirits plagued me. There were no ghosts in the dark spaces. The poor also belong to one country. Our surroundings were poor. We didn’t have a bathroom worth speaking of and the toilet was crude. But in that room, in our new home, I was happy because I could smell the warm presences and the tender energies of my parents everywhere.

Hanging on crooked nails on the walls, there were framed, browning photographs of my parents. In one of the pictures Mum sat sideways on a chair. She had a lot of powder on her face, and she had the coy smile of a village maiden. Dad stood next to her. He had on a baggy pair of trousers, a white shirt, and an askew tie. His coat was much too small for him. He had a powerful, tigerish expression on his face. His strong eyes and his solid jaw dared the camera. He looked the way some boxers do before they become famous. There was another photograph in which I sat between them, small between two guardians. There were smiles of shy sweetness on our faces. As I stared at the photograph in that little room where the lamp produced more black smoke than illumination, I wondered where the sweetness had gone.

I went out searching for Mum and Dad. They weren’t in the backyard. In the kitchen women sat in front of a blazing wood fire, sweat dripping from their faces, their fleshy arms and partly bared breasts glistening. I watched them as they fried bean cakes, chicken, and fish, and as they prepared delicious-smelling stews. When they saw me they raised their voices in bright greetings, and I fled. At the housefront Dad was narrating his prison experiences to a rowdy gathering of men. Mum was across the road, haggling with an old woman. Dad got to a point in his narration where he thought it necessary to illustrate a particular action. He leapt up from his chair, bristling with good humour, and began marching up and down, stampinghis boots on the earth, swinging his one good arm, dangling his head, shouting war charges in seven languages. It was meant to be an impersonation of the insane soldier who had fought the British wars in Burma. His mind had been unhinged by the blast of detonators, nights spent with corpses and by the superstitious incredulity of having killed so many white men. He had become a man who knew only two things – how to march and how to charge. He marched all day long in prison and he charged all night long in his sleep. The men laughed at Dad’s impersonation and Dad laughed so explosively that the bloody patch widened on the bandage round his forehead. No one noticed. I made a sound; Dad turned and saw me. And when he saw me he abruptly stopped laughing. After alongmomenthestartedmovingtowardsmeandIranacross thestreet, towards Mum. Half-way acrossIsawabicyclistpedallingfuriously atme. Mum screamed, I fell; the bicyclist wobbled, missed my head, and cursed as he sped away. Mum rushed over, picked me up, took me back to the housefront, and gave me to Dad to look after.