NINE

IT WAS AROUND this time that the political season started up anew. Suddenly one morning we heard amplified voices again. The voices urged us to join the Party of the Rich. The voices told us that they were going to stage the greatest political rally in the world and that the most famous musicians in Africa would be performing on the day and that there would be gifts for children, prizes for women, andjobsformen.Laterintheday wesawthevansdrivingpastslowly,makingtheir extravagant announcements. They had more thugs and bodyguards with them. Big party flags draped the vans and men distributed leaflets. When they first appeared I thought there would be trouble in the area. I thought houses would burn and party vans be destroyed and thugs roasted. I thought people would remember how the very same party had poisoned them with bad milk and had unleashed their rage upon our nights. But people had forgotten, and those that hadn’t merely shrugged and said that it was all such a long time ago, that things were too complicated for such memories, and besides the party had new leaders.

Dad missed the dramatic return of politics to our lives. He kept going off to train somewhere in secret. When he got back the street would be littered with pamphlets, which no one read. He took very little interest in what was growing in the world about us. When we told him about the vans, he blinked.

‘What vans?’ ‘The politicians’ vans.’ ‘Oh, politicians,’ hewould say, his eyes returningto their vacant contemplation. When Mumasked himwherehehad been, thesamethingwould happen. ‘Been?’ ‘Yes, where have you been?’ ‘Oh, training.’ ‘Where?’ ‘Where what?’ ‘Where have you been training?’ ‘Oh, somewhere.’ ‘Tell me.’ ‘What?’ ‘Where?’ ‘Why?’ ‘Haveyou been trainingwith another woman?’ ‘Woman?’ ‘Yes, woman.’ ‘What woman?’ Mum would give up. It became quite exasperating asking Dad questions. He ate as much as ever, and stayed silent most of the time. His being took on a new intensity. Mumtried to start oneor two quarrels, but Dad, deepeningin impenetrability, refused to be drawn into any arguments. It was a while before we realised that a new power was enveloping him. He was becoming a different man. His eyes were harder, like flint or precious stones that can make their mark on metal. He was more withdrawn, as if belonging to a different constellation. His face had become more abstract and mask-like and, curiously, gentler.

One day he said to me:

‘I am beginning to see things for the first time. This world is not what it seems. Therearemysterious forces everywhere. Wearelivingin aworld of riddles.’

I listened intently. He stopped. Then he looked at me, as if pleading with me to believe what he was about to say.

‘I was training yesterday when this old man carrying something invisible on his head came to me. He asked me for money. I gave him all I had. He gave it back to me and said that I was lucky.’

‘Why?’

‘He said if I hadn’t given him any money I would have died in my next fight.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘At first I didn’t believe him. He knew I didn’t. Then he pointed to the sky. There were two birds in the air, fighting one another, making strange noises. Then many other birds flew towards them in the sky. One of the birds fell. Slowly. I ran and caught it before it touched the ground. The bird melted suddenly in my hands, like ice into water. But in this case it melted into blood. I tried to clean the blood off, but it wouldn’t clean. The old man came up to me and spat in my hand. The blood disappeared. The old man pointed again. I looked but I saw nothing. When I looked round the old man had gone. I saw him in the distance and I ran after him and no matter how hard I ran I couldn’t shorten the distance between us. I gave up. I didn’t train any more that night. Don’t tell your mother what I just told you, you understand?’

I nodded. After that he withdrew into his cavernous silence. I too became silent. His story had infected me. Mum found us both unbearable and began to pick quarrels and blame me for things I hadn’t done. But I didn’t say anything. Me and Dad stayed silent the whole night.

TEN

I BECAME VERY curious about Dad’s secret place of training. The next day I waited for him to jog there, so I could follow him. I waited, but he stayed in, sleeping. He was tired. I woke him up and reminded him of his training, but he turned over and went on sleeping. I went outside, stayed close to our compound, and kept watching for him while I played. The air was full of noises. The politicians’ vans rode up anddown,blaringtheirpartymusic,makingtheirinterminableannouncementsand promises. It became quite confusing to hear both parties virtually promise the same things. The Party of the Rich talked of prosperity for all, good roads, electricity, and free education. They called the opposition thieves, tribalists, and bandits. At their rally, they said, everyone would be fed, all questions would be answered.

That evening the van of the Party for the Poor also paraded our street. They too blared music and made identical claims. They distributed leaflets and made their promises in four languages. When the two vans, each packed with armed bodyguards, passed one another, they competed with the amount of noise they could generate. They insulted one another in their contest of loudspeakers; and the heated blare of their music clashing created such a jangle in the air that the road crowded with spectators who expected a tremendous combustion. The two vans clashed twice that evening. We kept expecting some sort of war to break out, but both parties seemed restrained by the healthy respect they had developed for one another. The truth was that the time hadn’t yet arrived.

Madame Koto’s car was seen in the service of the Party of the Rich. She wasn’t in the vehicle. Which was probably why the driver took to showing off. When the driver saw us in themiddleoftheroadhewouldcomespeedingatusasifheintendedtorun us over. We would all flee. Only Ade would remain where he was, unafraid, almost daring the driver to kill him. And always the driver stopped very close to Ade, a big grin on his face. Thedriver developed this tasteforfrighteninguswiththecar.When we saw that he didn’t run Ade over, the rest of us didn’t move either when he threatened us. Terror always seized me though, when the car screeched to a halt and I could smell the engine oil smouldering and could see the driver smiling. Ade, always defiant, never smiled back. He would stop what he was doing, and go home. He was a lonely kid.

When the driver took to showing off with the car, blasting the horn, shouting insults at goats and chickens and passers-by, the people began to dislike Madame Koto very intensely. But it wasn’t her fault that her driver gave lifts to girls and splashed mud on hard-working folk and, whenever he saw the chance, drove at us in his macabre idea of a joke.

Three days after Dad’s encounter at his secret training ground, there was an unusual gathering of people along the road. There were more vans than normal. They made so much noise with their music and loudspeakers that children cried and the rest of us were deafened. We no longer heard what they said. They obliterated their own messages with their noises. That day some men came to make enquiries about Dad. They hung around, waiting for him to return. One of the vans, packed full of party stalwarts, had stopped across the road and had set up a permanent blare of discordant music and meaningless exhortations. They spoke in many languages, in such vigorous voices, that the loudspeaker made complete nonsense of their utterances. Everyone was on edge that day. The hot spells of the seasonal break were quite infernal, the air was humid, and the noise grated on our teeth. There was a feeling that something unpleasant was goingto happen.