ODO MALUMBA'S WORLD FAMOUS TRAVELLING HAPHAZARD BAZAAR
...it is not really world famous and is only known in Zenega and parts of Tashinga and Gao, but Odo says it is world famous because Odo is a notorious and gifted liar. Furthermore, it is not just a bazaar, but a disseminator of news. Or that is to say, not a disseminator of news but a performance on the subject of disseminating news. And therefore, Odo hangs another sign under the first, and it says,
AND PROVISIONER OF NEWS OF THE TIMES
He steals silently into the village at an hour past midnight and by the time the sun is up and the villagers are come to the Gathering Field to sample the many and curious delights of the Travelling Fair, Odo Malumba has set up his stall, and hung out his various signs. If you do not get there early you will find an eager queue waiting to be served by Odo Malumba who works the tent.
At any time there seem to be two Odo Malumbas at work - one in the tent and one around and about, marshalling the fair-goers with his bicycle horn and dubious promises of the value, rare and in all ways pleasing products that are to be had at the bazaar. "The cheapest and the strongest in all Zenega!" he cries, though he will not be drawn on what exactly is so strong or cheap. To find that out, you have to queue. "Fresh in from the low countries just this week!" he says. He is wearing a brown workman's smock, with pin that says: Odo Malumba's Haphazard Bazaar; and a name badge that says: Hello, my name is Leverette. He wears a brown bowler hat that marks him out as a working man in the Old English style. Odo in the tent is similarly attired but he wears a Fez common with the working men of North Altafrique. All the Odo Malumbas and Leverettes I ever recall seeing were rotund fellows with happy faces, dark eyes and curly black beards. They were blunt speakers in the manner of the Belgique, though they had no discernible accents.
Odo Malumba's market stall was an adaptation of a Punch & Judy rig, a small one-man tent with a little shelf at the base of the main aperture. Hanging by a rusty nail to this shelf was another sign, which read:
JUST LOOKING? THEN GO TO A MUSEUM.
Odo Malumba would be waiting there for you to purchase something from his bazaar. He would ask you if you had read the 'articles and contractuals of vending' which were painted on another sign free standing next to the tent, and if you hadn't, he would recite them for you:
ARTICLES AND
CONTRACTUALS
OF VENDING.
GOODS ARE NOT
TO BE PERUSED
BUT PURCHASED
UNSEEN AND
WITHOUT ANY
GUARANTEE OR
WARRANTY OF
THE VENDOR,
WHO DECIDES
THE PRICE AND
THE GOODS TO
BE SUPPLIED.
NO RETURNS.
NO REFUNDS.
NO COMPLAINING.
BY FURNISHING
SHILLINGS ETC.
THE VENDEE
AGREES TO SAID
ARTICLES WITH~
OUT PREJUDICE.
BY ORDER, THE
PROPRIETOR.
CONTRACTUALS
OF VENDING.
GOODS ARE NOT
TO BE PERUSED
BUT PURCHASED
UNSEEN AND
WITHOUT ANY
GUARANTEE OR
WARRANTY OF
THE VENDOR,
WHO DECIDES
THE PRICE AND
THE GOODS TO
BE SUPPLIED.
NO RETURNS.
NO REFUNDS.
NO COMPLAINING.
BY FURNISHING
SHILLINGS ETC.
THE VENDEE
AGREES TO SAID
ARTICLES WITH~
OUT PREJUDICE.
BY ORDER, THE
PROPRIETOR.
(It is a tall, thin sign as high as a man's breast and painted most fancy). Once you have got to the front of the queue Odo Malumba, who has his hands crossed on the little shelf, will look down at you (for he must be on a platform inside the tall tent) and ask you not what you want, but how much you are prepared to pay. Be it a blood farthing, a shilling, five guineas or just sixpence he will have something to that value which he deems suitable for your needs. I have heard them say in the kantine that he takes great offence if you go beneath his bottom limit, though he does not advertise what that may be. Should such an insult be given, they say he reaches up and draws curtains across his window, until you are gone. They also say that if you watch carefully hands draw the curtains before he moves his hands from the shelf, and many suspect he has several sets of wax hands in different poses which he lays out on the shelf while keeping his real arms available for closing the tiny stage curtains, although children and the dim believe he has eight arms, and comes not from Zenega or the low countries, but from the East Indies.
When you have agreed a price, a small slot opens below the shelf and a tray comes out, on which you put your money, and when this is gone into the depths of the tent, Odo Malumba disappears down into that small structure, and there is the sound of rummaging through boxes of things, and of other things not so easily explained, like wind in the trees and the sounds of sirens or passing jets, and clicks and chimes and bongs, the sounds of winding mechanisms and springs and hammers, of animals in the distance, recordings from televisions, and people talking indistinctly. Finally, another slot opens. Though it has glass in front of it so you cannot reach through, but can only look as a pair of hands takes a little aluminium tin, and with hammer and iron stamps a number into the bottom of the tin. Then the slot closes again, and Odo Malumba appears back at the top, with your little numbered tin. On the top is a label,
ODO MALUMBA'S LEG PUZZLE
... in tiny writing. No-one quite knows what it means, but regardless of what you get given, every tin has this label on it. Odo hands you the tin and points at the sign, as if to remind you - no returns, no refunds, no complaining.
When Odo and Leverette are done with the Bazaar, they close the shop, and put up the sign:
AND NOW FOR THE NEWS OF THE TIMES
PRESENTED BY ODO MALUMBA
THE MAN WITH THE NEWS FOR YOU
PRESENTED BY ODO MALUMBA
THE MAN WITH THE NEWS FOR YOU
The booth remains closed however, as Leverette goes about the village encouraging people to join him for the news of the times. The rig will open again only after Leverette has rounded up enough of an audience, who come then of an evening to hear Odo orate a version of the daily news in his own inimitable style.
When Odo Malumba came to my village, I gave him one blood shilling, and in my tin, numbered 2323, was a thing most wondrous sat on a green baize lining. I will always remember, to the end of my days, the thrill in that moment. I gasped. I looked up to say something but that other Odo Malumba who was called Leverette and who walks out and about came up to me then and took me gently by the arm, shepherding me away. "Mustn't hold up the custom," he says.
