Ade’s father, his two wives, and Ade himself, were the first to turn up for Dad’s modest celebrations. We opened a few folding chairs for them and poured them drinks. Dad talked to Ade’s father about politics. Mum talked to the wives about opening shops and trading in the market. I talked with Ade about Dad wantingto be Head of State.

Then the blind old man turned up with his accordion and his helper. After them came Madame Koto, her stomach massive, her face sad. And after her were the herbalist and her silent, distrustful acolytes. Behind them came the compound people, with their children. We ran out of chairs. The room was already crowded. People carried on turning up. We didn’t recognise many of them. Traders, lorry-drivers, clerks, stall-owners, hawkers, bicycle-repairers, the carpenter and his colleagues. The party spilled out of the room and into the passage. By this time the room was excruciatingly stuffy and hot. Flies buzzed over the drinks and settled on our sweating brows. Someone tried to open the window, applied too much force, and practically destroyed it. The carpenter promised to fix it for free. The blind old man supplied music from his vile accordion.

Meanwhile, outside, the problem of those who turned up, uninvited, to the party grewworse.They clamouredandraisedaterribledinalongthepassage.WhenIfeltI was going to suffocate inside, from the sweat and the old man’s music, I struggled to get out. I was shocked at the size of the crowd. Dad’s modest party had been overrun by trampswhosehairwasthebreedinggroundofliceandsproutingrubbish,andwho stank; by the wretched and the hungry and the homeless, all of whom had such defiant and intense eyes that I felt they would pounce on anyone who dared ask them to leave; by the deformed, whose legs looked like the letter K, whose mouths always seemed to be dribbling, whose rickety feet were turned somewhat backwards; by weary ghetto-dwellers, people I had seen sitting outside mechanics’ workshops dreaming about sea-journeys, people I had seen in the streets or at the markets, faces worn, eyes yellowish.Therewerehandsomeyoungmenwhobroughttheirgirlfriends, women of unknown histories, old men and women who looked like all the old people I had ever seen. There were people in black habits, with wizened faces, eyes bright like royal jaguars, chests and arms covered with spells and amulets. There were also people long rumoured to be witches and wizards. I could recognise them instantly by their anti-smells and by the way they didn’t want anyone to touch them. They always stayed on their own. I stared at one of the wizards intently. He stared back at me. Then he began coming towards me. When I turned to run, I heard a dog barking. When I looked again thewizard had goneand adogstoodinhisplace.Itwasawhite dogwith green eyes.

‘Kill that dog!’ I shouted.

The dog had an almost human expression of bewilderment on its face. Someone threw astoneatit.Iaimedakickatitsmouth.Thedogfled,howling.MomentslaterI saw the wizard coming down the street. One of his eyes was swollen. He avoided me for the rest of the evening.

Apart from the witches and the wizards, who brought an almost sweet smell of evil to the crowd, there were thugs from both of the main parties as well as some from the lesser organisations. They had come to see what Dad looked like and to pay their respects to the man who had tamed the legendary Green Leopard. The thugs struggled to get to our room, but the crowd was too dense along the passage. So they lolled around the compound-front, flexing their muscles, expanding their chests, and chatting up the women.

Evening fell and more people poured in from all over the place. Boxers turned up in their training shorts, with their boxing gloves on, with towels round their necks. Men with guns and rounds of ammunition also turned up. They were soldiers and policemen, some of them. They strolled proudly into the gathering and chatted with the prostitutes. They, too, had heard of Dad’s feat. They were all ex-ghetto men, who woretheir wretched pastsproudly.They keptaskingforDad,buthewasnowhereto befound.Hewasn’t intheroom,alongthepassage,inthetoilet,oratthecompoundfront.

Then as we were looking for Dad we saw a procession of beggars coming down the road. They wereledby ahypnotically beautifulyounggirl.Therewereaboutsevenor eight of them. Some of the beggars had legs that were limp and pliable as rubber. Some had twisted necks. Others had both feet behind their heads. One of them had one eye much higher up on his face than the other. Another seemed to have three eyes, but on closer inspection it turned out to be a wound like a socket with an eye missing. One was almost completely blind and could see only through pupils so scrambled up and confusing that they seemed like mashed egg yolk. It was when the girl got closer that we saw she was blind in one eye. All the beggars trailed alongthe ground, in filthy clothes, each with sticks and pads of cloth beneath the joints of limbs that scraped on the rough earth. Dust rose with their advance. Then to our puzzlement the beggars, looking up with the bright faces of arrivants, turned into our compound-front. The girl arranged them into a semi-circle. Then I saw that the procession of beggars were a family. The most deformed was the father. He seemed to have all their deformities. As the line went towards the youngest each member seemed to have a peculiar variation of a particular deformity. It ended with the clarity of the little girl’s blind eye. I couldn’t stop looking at the girl. She was extremely beautiful, like a flower whose flaw is its luminous perfection. She was also curiously familiar, like the distant music heard on those afternoons when all the world is resolved into a pure dream, a music without a location, the music of one’s mood and spirit, distilled by a secret affinity. I went over to the beggars and asked who they were.

‘We are from a distant place,’ said the girl, ‘and we heard that a famous boxer was throwing a party for people who are hungry. We have always been hungry and it took us a whole day of travelling to get here.’

I immediately renewed my search for Dad. I found him in the room, surrounded by boxers, all of whom wanted to try their new techniques on him. Dad was in a frantic state. Theroomwasovercrowded.Peoplewerescreaminginterroratthespacesbeing crushed about them. The clothes-line had been pulled down and our clothes lay scattered on the floor and trampled on by mud-covered shoes. The window had been splinteredopenby oneoftheboxerswhowaspractisingasouthpawpunch.Thebed was in complete disarray with children jumping about on it. Our cupboard had been invadedby strangerswhowerehelpingthemselvestoourfood.Therewasnowhereto move in the room. In a corner one of the boxers relentlessly punched the wall with his bare fists. Mum sat where all the clothes had fallen. She had a frightened expression on her face. I couldn’t reach either Mum or Dad. As I fought through it I became conscious that the crowd was actively preventing my entry. I was completely encompassed by witches and wizards. One of them smiled at me and revealed her dazzling white teeth. A tall witch looked down at me. She was very pretty indeed and had an almost royal bearing. Then she got out a pair of glasses and put them on. Her eyes looked monstrous. She laughed. She put her hand on my shoulder. It brushed against my face. Her hand was so cold in that heated place that I came close to fainting with shock. The witches and wizards closed in on me. I felt myself suffocating. Their smells were so sweet, so without sweat, it made me ill. The one with the swollen eye brought out a black sack. I screamed. When I stopped screaming they weren’t around me any more. I found myself surrounded instead by thugs. One of them slapped my head.

‘What’s wrongwith you?’ hesaid.

I made a new effort to get to Dad. I called to him. At the other side of the room I could hear him telling everyone to leave, that the party would be held at the housefront. No one listened. He spoke louder and said he wouldn’t serve any drinks or food if people didn’t leave the room. Gradually they pushed their way out. They were rowdy inthepassage,mutteringtheirdisappointments.OnlyMadameKoto,someof the prostitutes, Ade and his family, and the blind old man remained.