The weapon of the old woman with the feet of a lioness had become golden-red. One of the heads of the spirit had rolled on to the river of mirrors and its eyes stared at the eternity of reflections in a bad-tempered astonishment. The spirit, turning round and round, howling, spinning, confused, made for the dug-out canoe. He suddenly jumped in, pushed the canoe out on the mirror, and began to row on the lights. The old woman went towards him, striding on silver, weapon raised. Dad’s knife, full of reflections, was lifted above me, as if I were to be the sacrificial victim of my own birth. I screamed. The knife in Dad’s hand descended swiftly, slashed the air twice. The herbalist released a piercing cry. The old woman struck the spirit at the same moment, with a mighty swipe of her weapon. Dad slashed the chicken’s throat. The old woman severed the spirit’s last head. The spirit fought vainly in the canoe as the chicken twitched. Its blood dripped on my forehead. The herbalist fell silent. The spirit’s head, landing on silver, looked around, saw itself separated from its body, and let out its final scream of horror, cracking the surface of the river. The mirrors shattered. It became dark. Splinters and reflections caught in my eyes.

THREE

MUM WAS SITTING beside me, stroking my eyelids. Dad sat on his chair, his forehead creased, stubbles of beard on his chin. There was a full bottle of whisky on the table. There was the smell of superb cooking in the air. I opened my eyes wide and said:

‘Where is the road?’

Dad immediately rushed at me and kept my eyes open with his fingers. Mum poured a black liquid into my eyes. The liquid hurt when I shut my eyes. But when they were wide open they did not hurt. I stared wide-eyed at everything. The herbalist was gone. His shadow and the flight of his eagle feathers remained. Mum made me drink bitter herbs. Dad made razor incisions on my chest and shoulders and forehead andpressedstingingpotionsonthecuts.Icriedoutforfood.They paidnoattention.I triedreturningtomy journey butcouldn’tshutmy eyes.Mumfedmewater,andpap, and orange juice. Dad, lingering in the shadow of the herbalist, looked as if he hadn’t slept all his life. Mum was so gaunt, and bony, and beautiful in her sorrow, so radiant at seeing me alive, that I wept for them both. Dad burst into song. Mum stroked my temples. I hadn’t eaten for two weeks. The doctors had pronounced me dead. But I had never really left the world of the living.

FOUR

I WAS FED gradually; from pap, they moved me on to heavier food. Mum spent muchlovecreatingformethemostravishingdishes.Iwonderedwheretheygot the money for delicious soups of goat-meat and stockfish, the peppersoup full of new yams, the vegetable dishes, the stews with aromatic peppers and bright-red lobsters. I had become very lean and insubstantial, too weak to move. Walkingwas painful, my soles hurt, my eyes developed odd irritations. Each night the liquid they poured into my eyes made my sleep shallow. I slept the way rabbits do, with eyes open, to fool antagonists. Dad stayed up most nights, alternating with Mum, watching over me. Candles burned into the dawns.

The herbalist came again on another visit. He performed rituals and treated me with the deepest suspicion. He told Dad and Mum to be kinder to me, to not shout, not beat, not restrict me, to not quarrel amongst themselves, and he hinted at the prospect of performing the ceremonies that would cut off my access to the world of spirits. He said something about the importance of retrieving my spirit tokens which he believed I had hidden in secret places. He spoke to them at night, while they thought I was asleep. I immediately thought of him as an enemy. He collected his exorbitant fee and when he left he took his sentient shadows away.

And so for a long time they spoke to me gently, and treated me kindly, as if I were a newborn child. When I ate the choice dishes Mum prepared both sat opposite and watched me, smiling. Mum’s eyes became bright with joy and, curiously, with pride. Dad watched meas ifIwereastrangeandsurprisinganimal.They keptpleadingwith me to eat more than I wanted. They bought me soft drinks and Dad shared his whisky with me. If they had enormous difficulties earning money, if Dad had suffered untold humiliations, unspeakable torments borrowing the money or carrying loads, if Mum walked the entire city sellingher provisions, cryingout in dust-dried streets, her voice hoarse, they did not show it. Somehow my return had assumed great importance. I felt bad that I may have increased their suffering. I tried to please them, to run errands, wash plates, stay in, attend school. But they seemed more anxious to please me and they took offence if I tried to do anything. During that time Dad swept the room, fetched water from the well, came back from work always with a cheerful spirit, was delicate and kind to Mum, and would hug her often, and would sit on his chair, smoking and singing bright ancestral songs.

It seemed that our lives would know a new dawn, take on new colours of sweetness, and that in the warm spirit our miseries would be transformed into something miraculous and tangible like the birds of heaven. The world was new to me, everything was fresh. It was the earliest days of creation. I marvelled at cobwebs and cockroaches. I couldn’t stop staring at people’s faces and their eyes. The fact that human beings talked, laughed, wept, sweated, sang, without somevisiblethingwhich made all the animation possible, the fact that they were alive in their bodies, contained this thing called life in their flesh, seemed incredible to me. I watched babies with open-mouthed wonder. I couldn’t get over the fact that we can look out of our eyes, out ofourinnerworldsat people,butthatpeople,lookingatuscouldn’tseeintoour eyes, our thoughts, our inner worlds. How transparent one feels, but how opaque: it mystified me. Even the act of motion, human beings walking on two legs, balancing on them, surprised me. With eyes wide open from a new fear of sleep, I looked at the world, I tried to see all that was in it, I embraced all things into my life. I hugged the alarmingmystery of reality, and grew stronger.

Everything felt strange to me. Everything felt as if it were both floating away and being reborn for ever. Even our neighbours who had grudges against us came one evening to pay us a visit. They brought gifts of sweets, drinks, and lengths of new cloth. They brought their children to play with me. They drank and talked merrily with Mum and Dad, as if there had never been great animosities between us. Their faces were all vaguely familiar. I felt I had been away a longtime. Duringthat period names were a mystery to me and I pronounced their different nicknames or public names over and over again as if for the first time. I played, it seemed to me, in slow motion, with thechildren, touchingthemtenderly.

Our neighbours spoke warmly to me. As they spoke I watched their faces. My heart heaved for them all. Like a stranger, I saw the suffering on their faces, the years of misery and suspicion, their extreme sensitivity to slights, the vigour of their reactions, the energy of their appetites, their boundless enthusiasm and hope. Their faces, solid and thickly masked with time, seemed fragile to me. Everywhere terror looked out at them. Years of frustration had turned their eyes into instruments which looked out at the world with a peculiar, unforgiving, sharpness; often, even, with meanness. And yet,therethey were,withprivationbeforethem,hungerbehindthem,payingusavisit to welcome me back from being dead.