‘No!’ cried the third woman.

‘Yes,’ said Dad. ‘A seven-headed spirit armed with seven golden swords came to me and said because I killed his comrades he wants my son’s life in return.’

Thewomen screamed. Mumrushed over and held me, smotheringme.

‘I said NO!’

The women wailed in low monotone. Mum held me tighter. I feared she might break my neck without knowing it.

‘Then the seven-headed spirit attacked me. I fought him for nine nights. I only managed to cut off one of his heads. The spirit was much too powerful for me and there was nothing I could do but run. I ran into the forest. The spirit caught me and tiedmeup withsilverropesandbegantodragmetotheLandoftheFightingGhosts. They are ghosts who spend all their time fighting. The spirit dragged me and I never stoppedresisting,buttheonly thingthatsavedmewas…’

Dadpaused. Thewomen madesad noises, heads craned forward.

‘…was my own father, Priest of the Shrine of Roads. He said the spirit couldn’t pass any road that he has blocked. The spirit fought him. They battled it out for a long time. I didn’t know my father was so powerful. He cut off two of the heads of the spirit. They both became tired. They agreed to make a truce. My father said if the spirit let me go, he would take my place. I didn’t understand what he meant.’

Mum began to wail.

‘Shut up, woman!’ Dad said.

Mum fell silent. I heard her swallow down her tears.

‘And then both of them vanished. I freed myself from the ropes. All of my energy had drained from me. An eagle perched on my head and then it turned into a woman. And then four women, three of them dressed in black, just like you,’ Dad said, pointingat thethreewomen, ‘cameand led mefromtheforest. And then I wokeup.’

We all stared at him in silence.

‘Pour me something strong to drink!’ he demanded.

Mum poured him some ogogoro. Dad finished it in a gulp. The herbalist made Dad drink some more of her herbal draught. Then she got him to bathe in specially treated water. When Dad got back she had prepared another potion for him. He drank it in one and surprised us all by the tenderness of his ravings. He sat on his chair and began to talk about how sweet the black rocks of the moon tasted, and how he drank of the golden elixir of the sun, and of the innumerable geniuses of the future that black peoplewould produce, and of how hesaw Mumdancingnaked in theforest, her hair suspended by the brilliant cobwebs that the gods had spun, and how he saw me walkingbackwards into ayellow river, and of abeautifulyoungwoman hesaw who called him deep into the place where dead bodies grew red flowers from their mouths. And then just as suddenly as he began, he fell silent. His mouth stayed open. His eyes were shut.

‘Thismanhasgotastronghead,’theherbalistsaid.‘My medicineusually puts people to sleep before I count to three. Help me carry him to the bed.’

We carried him. Dad snored. After a while the three women got up. Mum talked to them about money. A small argument ensued. Mum loosened the end of her wrapper, counted out some money, and paid the herbalist and the third woman. Madame Koto said to

Mum:

‘We must continue that conversation of ours.’

‘My husband says no,’ Mum said.

‘Ask him again.’

The three women left. It was the first time in three nights that we got any sleep.

THIRTEEN

WHEN DAD WOKE up the next morning he bustled with energy as if nothing had happened to him. His face was still swollen, his eyes almost invisible, his mouth puffed out, but he swore that he felt twenty years younger. He talked of grand schemes. He talked of buying enough corrugated zinc to roof the whole ghetto. He talked of buying enough cement to build houses for all the large families who lived in oneroom. Hespokeof tarringalltheroads andclearingaway alltherubbishthathad accumulated in theconsciousness ofourpeople.Hedreamtofopeningmassivestores that would sell food cheaply to all the poor people. He got us worried when he began to dream of becoming a professional musician. And we started to think that Green Leopard had dislodged something in his brain when he talked of becoming a politician and bringing freedom and prosperity to the world and free education to the poor. And it was when he began to talk loudly about becoming the Head of State, seizing power from the white people that ruled us, and of all the good things he would do for thesufferingpeopleof theworld, that westopped payingtoo much attentionto him.

Then onemorninghewentfromroomtoroom,knockingondoors,wakingpeopleup, and asking them if they would vote for him. Most of them slammed their doors in his face. It was unfortunate that, to humour him, one or two people said that they would. It gave him greater encouragement. He went from compound to compound. He spoke to stall-owners and provision-sellers. He queried the ground-nut hawkers and the urban shepherds and the amulet traders. He had long arguments with palm-wine tappers. He was seen in bars, at night, talking to drunkards, outlininghis policies for government. A new idealism had eaten into his brain with the freshness of his recuperation. He made enquiries about the cost of zinc. He wondered aloud about how long and how wide the ghetto was. He made extensive, illiterate calculations about how much it would cost to build a house, to build schools, about the population of the poor, and how much money he would need to win an election.

He astonished us with the crankiness of his thinking. He conjured an image of a country in which he was invisible ruler and in which everyone would have the highest education, in which everyone must learn music and mathematics and at least five world languages, and in which every citizen must be completely aware of what is going on in the world, be versed in tribal, national, continental, and international events, history, poetry, and science; in which wizards, witches, herbalists and priests of secret religions would be professors at universities; in which bus drivers, cart-pullers, and market women would be lecturers, while still retaining their normal jobs; in which children would be teachers and adults pupils; in which delegations from all the poor people would have regular meetings with the Head of State; and in which there would be elections when there were more than five spontaneous riots in any given year.

Dad began to spend a lot of the money he had won in buying books. He couldn’t read but he bought them. I had to read them to him. He bought books on philosophy, politics, anatomy, science, astrology, Chinese medicine. He bought the Greek and Roman classics. He became fascinated by the Bible. Books on the cabbala intrigued him. He fell in love with the stories of the Arabian Nights. He listened with eyes shut to the strange words of classical Spanish love poetry and retellings of the lives of Shaka the Zulu and Sundiata the Great. He insisted that I read something to him all the time. He forced me to have a double education. In the evenings he would sit on his chair, feet on the table, cigarette in his mouth, eyes misty, paper and pencil beside him, and he would make me read out loud. Occasionally he would interrupt me for an explanation. Most of what I read made no sense to me. So he bought a large dictionary which must have cost him at least ten mighty punches from the fists of the Green Leopard. Dad’s bloated eye twitched when he opened it out on our table, releasing into the air of our room the aroma of words and freshwood. Like a battered but optimistic salesman, he said:

‘This book explains books.’

His passion began to drive us slightly mad. The room became cluttered with books of all sizes, ugly books with pictureless covers and tiny letters as if intended only for the ants to read, large books that broke your back to carry them, books with such sloped lettering that they strained the neck, books which smelt like cobwebs and barks of medicinal trees and old sawdust after rain. Mum complained and sometimes made piles of the books and balanced her basins and cookingpots on them. Dad got furious at her disrespect and they argued bitterly. Then Dad began to contemplate the notion ofcompulsory military serviceforwomen.Then,lookingatme,heincludedchildren. He saw himself both as invisible Head of State and as fitness master. In the mornings he took to drilling us. Whenever we annoyed him in any way he would wake us up very early and take us through exercise routines. Mum obliged at first, even when she was cooking. That was the first time I saw Mum burn an entire pot of soup. We went hungry that day. Mum became exempt from all drilling. Maybe that was when the future notion of joining the army first entered Dad’s head.