Songs of Enchantment Read Free

of money, and dumped them all into an ancient box. Having almost reached the end of her forbearance, she took dad’s words extremely seriously.
    ‘Where are you going?’ I asked.
    She screamed at me, deafening me with the full volume of her life-long frustration. Dad stamped on the ground with his boots, downed a shot of ogogoro, and stormed out of the room. I followed him, but I kept a careful distance between us. The demon-girl was growing in him, becoming more luminous and ecstatic.

4
A B IZARRE C OURTSHIP
    O UTSIDE, GREEN MOTHS were thickening in the air. No one seemed to notice. Dad was striding furiously to Sami’s betting shop when he saw Helen. Her beauty was more hypnotic than ever. Her blind eye was darker, her good one more jewelled, and she was sitting on the bonnet of the burnt political vehicle, surrounded by the moths.
    As if magnetised by the force of her astonishing serenity, dad changed direction and ran over to her. He was about to speak when she turned her strange eyes to him and said:
    ‘It’s time for us to go.’
    ‘Why?’ dad asked.
    ‘When the time is right we will be back,’ she replied, turning away from him.
    Dad pleaded with her to stay. The more he pleaded, the less interested she seemed. After a while she jumped down from the bonnet. The other beggars appeared mysteriously with rotting corn-cobs and mouldy bread in their hands. They gathered round Helen, awaiting her command. The moths had concentrated about them as if their poverty and their wretchedness were a unique kind of light. Without uttering another word Helen led the beggars up the road. The moths went with them, their clattering wings sounded oddly metallic.
    Dad stood still for a long moment, watching the beggars leave. His face was disconsolate and it seemed his dreamswere deserting him. The beggars had gone a short distance when dad broke the trance of his abandonment and ran after them. The street watched us. The moths clicked in our faces. Thickly gathered around the beggars, they seemed a kind of shield. Was I the only one who saw the moths? Dad didn’t seem to, for he had launched into an impassioned plea directed at the beggar girl. Staring deep into her gem-like eye, he begged her to give him one last chance to fulfil his promise. He blamed his neglect on his recuperation, on me and mum; and swore that he was going to build a school for them as soon as he had collected his money from the betting shop man.
    ‘I will prove it to you,’ he kept saying.
    But the beggar girl, deaf to his entreaties, carried on walking. Glowing in a new delirium, dad began to praise her beauty and her elegance, her face of a yellow moon, her limbs of a blue gazelle, her eyes of a sad and sacred antelope. He completely amazed me with his declaration of fearless love. In a burning voice, robust and insane, he said:
    ‘I dream of you every day, my princess from a strange kingdom. Everyone else sees you as a beggar, but I know you belong to a golden throne. You are so beautiful that even these butterflies . . .’
    ‘Moths,’ I corrected.
    Dad glared at me, tapped me on the head, and proceeded with his bizarre, passionate courtship.
    ‘. . . that even these butterflies cling to you as if you are honey. You have the head of a spaceship, your eyes are like those of the wonderful maidens of Atlantis, you belong to the angelic kingdoms beneath the sea. You are a moon-woman come to brighten the earth. Your skin looks like flowers from another planet. You are the mistress of beauty, princess of grace, Queen of the road. Let the flowers of the earth see you and weep . . .’
    Dad went on and on, pouring out a stream of contradictory praises. The beggars ate their mould-encrusted bread and laughed at dad’s ridiculous words. Helen remainedindifferent. Unable to bear her indifference, his face twitching under the assault of the moths, dad finally blocked her path, just before we got to Madame Koto’s barfront. He astounded me by saying:
    ‘I