And that juju of hers, who made it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Don’t touch it.’

‘I won’t touch it. But what do they say about her?’

‘You’re a small boy. You won’t understand.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Go to sleep.’

‘Did she kill someone?’

‘Go to sleep.’

We fell silent and Mum put away her basin of provisions and her money. She hadn’t made much and the sourness of her face told me she was wondering whether walkingthestreets of theworld,day afterboilingday,crooningoutherprovisionstill her voice was hoarse, was worth the little she earned at the end of it all. She sighed and I knew that in spite of everything she would carry on hawking. Her sigh was full of despair, but at the bottom of her lungs, at the depth of her breath’s expulsion, there wasalsohope,waitinglikesleep attheendofeventhemosttorridday.

As I drifted in the corridors of sleep, I heard a great loud voice singing from the gateway of the compound. The voice was rough and drunken. Another voice cried:

‘Black Tyger!’

Dad kicked open the door and staggered into the room like a dreaded announcement. Mum jumped up and hurriedly lit a reserve candle. Her brightened face was tinged with uncertainty. Dad stood in the doorway like a drunken giant. His shoulders were hunched. He held a bottle of ogogoro in one hand. Both of his trouser legs were covered in mud up to the knees. He had on only one shoe. The room stank of drunkenness and mud. His neck creaked. Twisting his mouth, blinking as if reality wereblindinghim,hesaid,very loudly:

‘I amgoingto join thearmy!’

And then he collapsed into a heap on the floor. We rushed over to help him up. He revived quickly, saw us struggling over him, and shoved us away. I was sent flyingto the corner where his shoes used to be. Mum tumbled on to the bed. He staggered up, weaved, snatched up his bottle of ogogoro, took a deep drink, and said:

‘How is my family?’

‘We are well,’ replied Mum.

‘Good. Now I have some money. We can pay off the bastard creditors. We can pay off everybody. And then I will shoot them.’

He made an exaggerated imitation of a machine-gun.

‘Aren’t you hungry?’ asked Mum.

‘I fell into mud,’ said Dad. ‘I was coming down the road, drinking, singing, and then the road said to me: “Watch yourself.” So I abused the road. Then it turned into a river, and I swam. It changed into fire and I sweated. It transformed into a tiger, and I killed it with one blow. And then it shrunk into a big rat and I shouted at it and it ran, like the creditors. And then it dissolved into mud, and I lost my shoe. If I had money I would be a great man.’

We stared at him in fear and confusion. He weaved a bit, stretched his back, and staggered towards his chair. He did not sit down but stood regarding the chair as if it were an enemy.

‘You’re looking at me, chair,’ he said. ‘You don’t want me to sit on you, eh, because I fell in mud, isn’t that correct?’

The chair said nothing.

‘I’m talking to you, chair. Are you better than my bed? I talk to you and you move. What do you think you are, eh?’

The chair pondered the question for too long, so Dad kicked it – with his shoeless foot. He cried out, and looked at the chair again.

‘Sit on the bed,’ Mum said.

Dad looked at her venomously. Then he turned back to the chair.

‘Be Still!’ he said, with great authority.

The chair was still.

‘That’s better. Now I’mgoingtositonyou,whetherI’mcoveredinmudorevenin gold, you hear? And if you move, I will beat you up.’

He paused.

‘They don’t call me Black Tyger for nothing.’

Then he sat down heavily and the chair creaked so loudly that for a moment I thought it would disintegrate under his drunkenness. The chair wobbled and for some reason Dad wobbled with it and then he got up and grabbed it and flung it against the window. The chair clattered on the floor and the window flew open. Mosquitoes and midges invaded us and lizards scurried up the walls and rats scattered from underneath the cupboard and ran confused about the room. Dad went wild, grabbing at the chair, and lashing at the rats. He pursued them everywhere and banged his head against thecupboard.Arat fledtowardsthedoorandhechasedit,dumpingthechair, stamping, makingmachine-gun noises.

He stayed outside for a while and Mum picked up the chair and put it upright in its customary position. After a long while, Dad came back in with someone else’s wrapper round his waist. He had bathed, and water dripped from his hair and he looked like a deranged boxer. His trousers were over his shoulder. Dad came in quietly, his eyes bright, and he looked at us furtively as though we might be angry with him. He drank some water and attempted to shut the window, but it wouldn’t shut. He tried again. He raised a fist against it and sat slowly into the chair. He got up suddenly, ducking his head, throwing combination punches. Then he struggled into a pair of khaki trousers. His chest was bare and he was sweating already and his body glistened.

Dad looked very powerful. His shoulders were big and moulded like rock-shapes. His neck was thick. I had never noticed that his jaws were so square and his forehead so large. His nose was bigger than I remembered and he had a bristly growth of beard. His muscles rippled impressively. His transformation surprised me.

He was very restless and he kept moving, kept throwingleft and right hooks in the air. He was oblivious of us. We watched him intently. He looked rough and wild. Eventually he sat down again and shut his eyes. Then he jerked his head up, and looked around.

The candle-light made his face fierce. To the ceiling he said:

‘I carried loads today till I thought my neck and my back and my soul would break. Then I threw down the load and said:

“Never again!” But I earned nothing, and I have a family to feed, and I carried the load and said: “There must be another way of earning money,” and I thought, “I will join the army,” and then later I saw Aku, our relative, and I borrowed some money from him.’

He was silent again and he shut his eyes.

‘How is Aku?’ ‘Fine.’

‘And his wife?’ ‘Well.’

‘Did you see their children?’

‘No.’

Then Dad raised his feet, to rest them as usual on the centre table. His feet hung in the air.

‘What happenedtothetable?’heasked,openinghiseyes,hisfeetstillintheair.‘It was here when I came in.’

He dropped his feet and began to look for the centre table. He looked around the room, under the bed, behind the cupboard. He went outside and came back in again. We were silent.

‘Where is the table?’

Wesaid nothing. Heglared atmeandthenatMumasifwehadbeenplayingtricks on him.

‘Where is it? Did it walk away? Did you people hide it? Did you sell it to buy food? Was it stolen? What happened to it, eh?’

He got agitated. His muscles rippled restlessly on his chest, his jaws worked furiously. Our silence angered him even further and Mum was forced to tell him what had happened. Then Dad truly went wild. He growled like an enraged lion, drew himself up to his fullest titanic height, stormed out of the room, and began raging down the passage so loudly that it seemed as though thunder had descended amongst us.

He woke up the whole compound with his fury. He banged on the doors of the creditors and strode up and down the passage demanding back his property that the creditors had stolen from him. The children woke up and began crying. Lights came on in the rooms and one by one people appeared at their doors with startled expressions on their faces. Some of the men had machetes and one man had a dane gun. The women went around saying:

‘What has happened?’

Their husbands called them back harshly. Dad went on raging, accusing the creditors of robbinghimof his entireproperty. Oneof themcameout and said:

‘I didn’t take anything. I said I would wait for you to get back.’