The Famished Road by Ben Okri

Author:Ben Okri
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781448138548
Publisher: Random House

12

WHEN WE GOT home Mum was still discovering more dead rats. The room stank of their deaths. Mum had swept them into a corner and was ransacking the place. Some of them had died baring their teeth.

‘That photographer’s poison has killed more than fifty-two rats,’ Mum said as we came in, ‘and I can smell more.’

Dad sat in his three-legged chair and with unusual solemnity lit a cigarette. His hands were still trembling.

‘I nearly fought some giants,’ he said.

‘We should move away from this area,’ Mum replied somewhat absent-mindedly.

‘I would have killed them.’

‘Let’s go. An evil thing will happen to us if we don’t move away.’

‘Nothing evil will happen to us. I won’t let them drive us away.’

‘How are we going to pay the new rent?’

‘We will manage.’

‘I smell an evil thing.’

‘It’s the rats.’

‘I dreamt I saw you by the roadside.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Lying down. You didn’t move. There was blood on your head. I talked to you, my husband, and you wouldn’t answer. I tried to carry you, but you were heavy as a lorry. I went to get help and when I came back you had vanished.’

Dad was silent. I could hear him trying to find a way into the dream. Then he noticed me.

‘Go to sleep, Azaro. You shouldn’t listen when grownups are talking.’

I got the mat, cleared the centre table out of the way, spread the mat, and lay down. Dad smoked with greater intensity. Mum said:

‘We will have to cut down the food if we are going to afford the rent.’

‘Don’t cut down the food.’

‘We will have to sleep on empty stomachs. Starting from tonight.’

‘Nonsense!’ Dad said, trying to control his temper. ‘Serve our food. Now!’

I shut my eyes. The mention of food made me very hungry. Mum was silent. Then I heard her among the plates. I heard the plates on the table and smelt the good cooking, the stew and the fried plantain. I opened my eyes. There was a big bowl of eba and a bowl of watery soup, with a modest quantity of meat. We ate silently, avoiding one another’s eyes. After eating Dad lit another cigarette. Mum went out to wash the plates and bring in the clothes that had dried on the lines. I lay down. Mum returned and we stayed up in silence, not looking at one another, for a long time. Then Mum sighed and stretched out on the bed and faced the wall. Soon she was asleep. The candle burned low. Dad sat unmoving, his eyes hard. The candle went out.

‘Tell me a story, Dad,’ I said.

He stayed quiet and I thought he had vanished. Then he too sighed. He moved. The chair creaked. Outside, a dog barked. An owl hooted. A bird cawed like a hyena. The wind stirred and faintly rattled the broken window.

‘Once upon a time,’ Dad began suddenly, ‘there was a giant whom they called the King of the Road. His legs were longer than the tallest tree and his head was mightier than great rocks.

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