SIX
AND THEN, TO crown our amazement, the news reached us that Madame Koto had bought herself a car. We couldn’t believe it. No one along our street and practically nooneintheareaownedsuchathingasacar.Peopleownedbicyclesand were proud of them. One or two men owned scooters and were accorded the respect reserved only for elders and chieftains. But it most certainly was news for a woman in the area to own a car. We clung to our disbelief till we saw the bright blue little car, with the affectionate face of an enlarged metallic tortoise. It was parked in front of her bar. We still clung to our disbelief even when we saw her hopeless attempts at driving it, which resulted in running over an old woman’s stall. She promptly had the stall rebuilt and gave the woman more money than she had possessed in the first place. We watched her learning to drive the car. She was much too massive for such a small vehicle and at the steering wheel she looked as if the car was her shell and she merely the third eye of the tortoise. The fact that the car was too small for her was the only consolation that people had. But we were still amazed.
With a man sitting next to her she learned to drive along our street. With a determined, half-crazed look on her face, her shoulders hunched as if her weight somehow helped the car to move forward, she zigzagged down our street. She couldn’t keep the car straight. When she was seen coming a voice would cry out, saying:
‘Hide your children! Hide yourselves! The mad tortoise is coming!’ Then we would see her vehicle, swaying from side to side, scattering goats and fowls, and causing innocent bystanders to flee into the most unlikely places. Her persistence never paid off. Even when she could manage to get the car to travel straight, she was so fraught, working up such a fury wrenching the gears around that the engine would make fearsome coughing noises.
‘The tortoise is hungry,’ people would say.
Then we heard that she had difficulties with the car because of her bad foot. Whenever she applied the brake she did it so abruptly that the man teachingher had his head banged against the dashboard. And because she couldn’t drive it, she left the car for her driver to take on errands.
It didn’t really matter that it was a small car, or that she couldn’t drive it properly. What mattered was that yet again she had been a pioneer, doing something no one else had done. People became convinced that if she wanted she could fly over the ghetto on the back of a calabash.
When the day arrived for Madame Koto to wash her new car, many people came to celebrate the ritual with her. Our landlord was present. People brought their bicycles and scooters. Many came on foot. There were old men whom we had never seen before. And there were a lot of powerful strange women with eyes that registered no emotion. We saw chiefs, thugs, and there were even herbalists, witch-doctors and their acolytes. They gathered in the bar and drank. They talked loudly. Eventually everyone was summoned for the washing. They formed a circle round the vehicle. The great herbalist amongst them was a stern man with a face so battered and eyes so daunting that even mirrors would recoil and crack at his glance. He uttered profound incantations and prayed for the car.
‘This car’, he said, after much mystification, ‘will drive even to the moon and come back safely.’
The people nodded.
‘This car will bring you prosperity, plenty of money. Nothing will touch it. Any othercarthat runsintoitwillbedestroyed,butnothingwillhappentoyourcar.This is what we call superior magic. Even if you fall asleep while drivingthis car you will be safe. Anyone that steals it will immediately have an accident and die. Anyone that wishes evil on the car will die!’
The people assented. Madame Koto, her walking stick in one hand, nodded vigorously. At this point, everyone was more or less drunk.
‘If people want to be jealous of you, let them be jealous. Jealousy is free. People can eat it and grow fat on it if they want. But anyone who thinks evil of you, may this car run them over in their sleep. This car will hunt out your enemies, pursue their bad spirits, grind them into the road. Your car will drive over fire and be safe. It will drive into the ocean and be safe. It has its friends in the spirit world. Its friends there, a car just like this one, will hunt down your enemies. They will not be safe from you. A bomb will fall on this car and it will be safe. I have opened the road for this car. It will travel all roads. It will arrive safely at all destinations. This is what I say.’
The people cheered. Some laughed. The herbalist sprinkled his complex potions and his corrosive liquids on the car. He emptied half a bottle of precious ogogoro on the bonnet. And after the ritual washing was complete, after the old people present, the powerful ones, the chiefs, and the cultists, had made their libations, the gathering got down to the momentous business of getting drunk. They drank solidly. They argued to drink better and they drank to argue better. More people joined them. The prostitutes served palm-wine, peppersoup, fried bushmeat and grilled rabbits. The blind old man turned up and threw himself into the serious drinking and got involved in aheated discussion with achief. Thegatheringgotrowdy.Itwastobeexpected,it was even desired. But suddenly an uproar broke out. No one knew how it started. Birds wheeled overhead and alighted on the roof of the car. The sky darkened. The great herbalist, looking uglier than ever before because of his drunkenness, began to utter the most controversial statements. Then he said something which brought on complete silence.
‘This car will be a coffin!’ he suddenly announced. ‘I have just seen it.’
The people stared at him in utter bewilderment. A strange wind seemed to blow over his head. His eyes became crossed. His twisted mouth gave his utterance the weight of destiny.
‘Unless you perform the proper sacrifice this car will be a coffin! I have to speak the truth when I see it or I will die,’ the herbalist carried on.
The mood of the gathering changed instantly. The old men and women hobbled home with unusual alacrity, disturbed by the mention of the dreaded word. The chiefs and high-level party members got into their cars. The young men and women retired into the bar. Only the prostitutes, our landlord, the blind old man, who carried on his argument with theair as if nothinghad happened, and MadameKoto remained.
‘But if you give me one of these women,’ the herbalist said, lunging at one of the prostitutes, and missing, ‘then I will drive the coffin away from the car.’
He stood, swaying, his eyes bleary and focused on the forest. The birds took off from the car top. The wind fairly howled and whistled along the electric cables. Then the herbalist gathered his potions and staggered past the car and up the street, towards us. When he neared me arid Ade as we sat perched on a branch the herbalist, foaming, drunk, his eyes distorted, said to us:
‘Very soon one of you will die!’
Then he went on towards the forest.
We jumped down and followed him. He stopped to urinate against a tree. His urine was yellowish. When he finished he staggered on, gesticulating, waving his arms, shouting:
‘All these trees will die,’ he said, bitterly, ‘because nobody loves them any more!’
Andthenflinginghisarmsabout heturnedandfacedusandsaid,pointingacharmridden finger at me:
‘You, spirit-child, if you don’t take your friend away from here now – I will turn both of you into snakes.’
We turned and fled. As we ran we heard him wailing in the forest, his voice echoing amongst the trees, rebounding from the absorbent earth. We heard his drunken lamentation, as he cried:
‘Too many roads! Things are CHANGING TOO FAST! No new WILL. COWARDICE everywhere! SELFISHNESS is EATING UP the WORLD. THEY ARE DESTROYING AFRICA! They are DESTROYING the WORLD and the HOME and the SHRINES and the GODS! THEY are DESTROYING LOVE TOO.’