Dangerous Love

by Ben Okri

  Takpo laughed out loud. ‘So what would you like to drink?’

  ‘Ogogoro would be okay.’

  Takpo fetched some, and two glasses, and they drank in silence for a while.

  ‘My friend,’ Tuwo began, a little uncertain. ‘I came to warn you about your wife...’

  Takpo sat up straight. His eyes became alert. ‘It’s that boy, isn’t it?’

  Tuwo didn’t say anything.

  ‘I heard two women saying that he is having something with Ifeyiwa and that they are always talking in the backyard.’ Takpo paused. ‘I like the boy. He is quiet. Do you think...?’

  Tuwo shrugged. Takpo fell back in his chair and shut his eyes.

  ‘I asked Ifeyiwa about it. She said they just talk about books, that’s all. But she didn’t look at me as she said it. She has been strange from the day I married her. But now...’ Takpo looked old and tired. Blue shadows appeared under his eyes. ‘The boy has started painting again.’

  ‘Yes. I saw him.’

  ‘The other day I wanted to ask him to paint me and Ifeyiwa. But when I saw his bald head again I couldn’t ask him. He is a nice boy, a strange boy. But he would not dare to touch my wife.’

  Tuwo smiled a little pityingly and said: ‘In the morning, before we began cleaning the compound, I saw them talking. You need to have seen them. The whole compound watched them, you know. You need to see the way her eyes shone on him. She didn’t even hear me when I greeted her.’

  Takpo fidgeted. He emptied his glass of ogogoro. Then he poured himself some more. ‘I have to see them with my own two eyes first before I will do anything.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Maybe he has not heard what I did to dat foolish photographer.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  He gave Tuwo a strange and terrible look. ‘I sent two hefty men to beat him up one night. They beat sense into him and he ran away from the compound.’

  ‘You are a hard man-o.’

  ‘Didn’t you know? Well, now you know. But I have to see them with my two eyes first.’

  A moment afterwards Ifeyiwa came into the room. She looked beautiful in her violet blouse and her single wrapper which stopped just under her knees. Her eyes were still inflamed from all that smoke in the kitchen. There was a bruised innocence on the simple charm of her face. She greeted Tuwo traditionally and asked her husband if he had finished eating. He said nothing. She began clearing the table. With her hand she swept the bones on the table into the soup bowl. Then she wiped the table with a rag. She put the two plates and the tumbler on a tray. Then she said to her husband: ‘Would you like some more water?’

  He still said nothing. Then she became aware of the silence in the room. She sensed that her entry had interrupted something. She sensed that they must have been talking about her. She drew herself together, intact, against the awkwardness she felt. In a calm voice she asked again if he wanted more water. There was a longer silence. Takpo’s eyes were narrowed and distant.

  Tuwo leaned forward. ‘Look, Takpo,’ he said. ‘Answer your wife.’

  Takpo stared at him, then at Ifeyiwa. His voice quivered with barely contained anger when he said, ‘Pick up the tray and go. Go! Can’t you see that we were talking? You dese foolish girls of nowadays, hah! You see two men talking and you ask me nonsense question about water. Get out before I begin to beat you!’

  Takpo got carried away, then he shouted, stood up and pushed Ifeyiwa. She went crashing at the door. Tuwo rushed to help her.

  ‘Takpo, did you have to do that?’

  Ifeyiwa got up and picked up the fallen objects. The two plates had broken into bits. Bones had scattered everywhere. The tumbler alone survived the fall. She picked up the broken plate shards and the bones and put them on the tray. She got the broom and dustpan next to the cupboard and swept the jagged plate pieces. She did all this methodically, patiently. Her face was blank and her eyes were as hard as crystals. When she finished she left the room as she had come in: detached, intact, and calm. She walked out, the tray in her hands, with a sinister air of dignity.

  When she shut the door behind her Tuwo let out a deep breath. He got up and sat down again. He started to speak, but he stopped. Then he looked round the room and at Takpo, as if he was seeing everything for the first time. He understood what had always been wrong about the atmosphere of the room. The unreality of the marriage became clear to him. In the past Takpo had endlessly boasted to him about his beautiful wife, about how obedient and respectful she was, and about how much love there was between them. He boasted that he was paying for her education and that when she qualified as a secretary he would leave the running of the shop to her and open another business. He even said that they watched Indian films together and danced at parties on the weekends. Tuwo knew then that it was all a lie, and this confused him.

  ‘You didn’t have to do that,’ he said. ‘She is still young. She will learn. If I knew you would treat her like that I would have kept my mouth shut.’

  Takpo stared stonily at the door. After a long uneasy silence he said: ‘No wonder your wife used to beat you up. Dis is how to train a woman to become a husband-fearing wife. You are too soft with women. Dat’s why your wife could fit to misbehave and quarrel with you and do what she like.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Tuwo fidgeted. Then he got up. ‘My townsman,’ he said. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For telling me all these things.’

  ‘Don’t thank me.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I know how to treat women.’

  Tuwo went to the door. Takpo gave him that strange and terrible stare. Then he said: ‘I thank you anyway. But I still have to see them with my own two eyes – first.’

  His voice was unemotional. His eyes became blank. Tuwo opened the door and gently shut it behind him. Takpo remained in his chair, in the drab room, brooding.

  6

  Omovo did not sleep for very long. When he woke up he was sweating. He got up and dried himself with a towel. When he went to the sitting room he startled his father who sat alone on a cushion chair reading a letter. There was an envelope and some photographs on the centre table. The handwriting on the envelope looked like Okur’s, but Omovo wasn’t sure. When his father saw Omovo he acted strangely. He quickly gathered the letter, the envelope and the photographs and hurried into his room. He looked older and more defeated than Omovo had ever seen him.

  Omovo waited in the sitting room with the hope that his father would come out again. Then after a while he heard his father talking to himself. It was as if he was explaining something to an imaginary creditor. Omovo gave up waiting and went outside.

  The sky was bright. The sun was like a flattened, fiery orange. Everything around was clearly defined. The road was dusty. He could see far into the distance. He could see the houses, the sheds, the children playing, the men dancing in front of record stores and the blue outlines of the forest. He even fancied that he could see how the heat haze slightly distorted the shapes of objects.

  As he went along he tried to avoid kicking empty milk tins, stepping into patches of mud, or stumbling over pariah dogs with flies buzzing around their sore ears. He was also wary of treading on knurls of dehydrated faeces that lurked on the road. It depressed him that he had to keep a careful eye on the ground to avoid the unclean aspects of his society. ‘The problem is with me,’ he thought. ‘I see these things too much. I wonder if it is good.’

  He had been walking along, thinking, when he felt a shadow over him.

  ‘Hello, Omovo. How are you?’

  For a moment he was startled. It was Dr Okocha, the old painter. He wore a paint-stained blue shirt and khaki trousers. There were stains on his face and hair. He looked tired. Omovo smiled.

  ‘Were you surprised to see me?’

  Omovo nodded, thinking: ‘Another problem with me. I live too much inside my head. Maybe it is bad.’ Then al
oud, he said: ‘Yes, you surprised me.’

  ‘So how are you?’

  ‘Fine, I suppose.’

  ‘I haven’t seen you since the exhibition.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you know that two of my paintings were bought?’

  ‘Yes. I’m pleased for you.’

  ‘Thank you. I was quite drunk that night and later I heard that they seized your painting.’

  ‘I’ve almost forgotten it.’

  ‘I don’t believe you, but I am sorry. No one has the right to seize an artist’s work.’

  Omovo was silent.

  ‘I didn’t even have a good chance to look at it. What reason did they give?’

  Omovo shrugged. ‘They said I was mocking our country’s progress.’

  ‘And so they mock our freedom.’

  ‘I wasn’t mocking anything.’

  ‘I know. But what can we do? If you tell the truth you are in trouble. But if you see the truth and you keep quiet your spirit begins to die. The position of the artist is a terrible one.’

  Omovo said nothing.

  ‘Have you tried getting it back?’

  ‘No. I’ve lost interest in it. Besides, where would I start?’

  Dr Okocha stared hard at Omovo. Then he said: ‘Well, I hope they give it back to you. If this sort of thing gets worse we are all in trouble.’

  ‘We are in trouble anyway.’

  There was a short silence. Omovo tried to change the subject. ‘So how’s the work?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Not the signwriting. Your real work.’

  The old painter looked even more tired than before. He grimaced. His eyes became dull. He looked as if he were staring some sort of defeat in the face.

  ‘I haven’t done a single painting since you came to the shed.’

  He stopped, looked around and continued. ‘The signwriting, work for bread and butter, is stealing all my time.’ It was the old painter’s turn to change the subject. ‘So where are you going?’

  ‘To see Okoro, and then maybe to see Keme.’

  ‘Your journalist friend?’

  ‘Yes. We were at the exhibition together.’

  ‘I saw him.’

  ‘But something happened afterwards.’

  ‘After they seized your work?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hope nothing bad?’

  ‘Yes, bad,’ Omovo said, but he didn’t continue.

  ‘Are you still painting? Have you done anything new?’

  ‘I am trying. It is difficult. After the exhibition Keme and I saw something terrible. I dreamt about it twice. It keeps haunting me. It wouldn’t let me go. And I’ve been trying to paint it, to leave some sort of record that I witnessed it.’

  ‘Have you begun it?’

  ‘Yes. But I tore up what I had done.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m not sure. The subject is very difficult. And it takes me a long time to understand what I have seen. And there are some things I am afraid of painting.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe I am still afraid of the original experience.’

  Dr Okocha thought about it, and then asked: ‘Like what, for instance?’

  Omovo looked at him. ‘Like something I saw during the civil war.’

  The old painter’s eyes became intense. His wrinkles deepened into hieroglyphs of private torment. Omovo hesitated. He did not often talk about these things. But the intensity of the old painter’s eyes made it necessary for him to continue.

  ‘There was a curfew then, and I had gone walking through the streets of Ughelli. They had warned us not to go far from home. But something in the air, something in the mood of the town, made me restless. Planes were flying past overhead, circling the town. I heard guns firing far away. I heard people screaming. I had this desire to see things. I had this wanderlust. I was a child and war did not make sense to me. I thought that war was only a game that children played. On the main road, near the police station, I saw the corpse of a dead man.’

  ‘An Igbo man.’

  ‘Yes, an Igbo man. Anyway I stood there and stared at the dead man. His body had begun to swell. His stomach was a mess of flesh and green blood. He stank. The flies were thick all over him. I didn’t move. I went on staring at him.’

  Omovo paused. There were deep shadows on the old painter’s face. Omovo cursed himself.

  ‘Then a vulture swooped past my face. The flies rose and scattered. Then I saw the dead man’s eyes. One of them was hooded and big. The other was normal. Then I became aware that the dead man was staring at me, fixing me. It seemed as if he were watching me. I was transfixed. It was only when someone knocked me on the head that I became aware of myself. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I looked up and saw the man who had knocked me. His eyes were crossed and his face was terrible. “Get away,” he said. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you looking at a dead body?” I began crying. Then I became aware of the confusion all around. People were running, as if out of a fire. Women screamed with their children on their backs. The men were running all over the place. The world was like a nightmare. “Whose son are you?” the man asked. Then for the first time I realised that he was a soldier. I pointed at the dead man’s eyes. “Why are they open?” I think I said. But before he could say anything a crowd ran between us. I felt myself kicked everywhere by the mighty feet of adults. Someone tripped and fell over the dead body. I found myself at the other end of the road, in a corner. I got up and wandered through the confusion of the town. Then my father saw me, rushed to me, lifted me high and ran home with me.’

  Omovo paused again. The old painter’s face was drawn.

  ‘I dreamt about the dead man’s eyes for two weeks. Because of them I couldn’t sleep. When the lights went out I saw the eyes on the walls, on the ceiling, watching me, fixing me. Then I began to see them everywhere. Suddenly while playing I would begin to scream. I was ten years old but I think those eyes began to make me go mad. It got so worrying that Dad had to take me to a herbalist in the village to cure me of seeing the eyes. I stopped seeing them, but the herbalist didn’t really cure me because I have never forgotten them. I can’t remember exactly how they look, and I will never paint them, but those eyes will never leave me.’

  When Omovo finished, he felt empty and exhausted. He felt that he had spoken too much, that he had talked himself into a kind of unreality. He heard the wind howl gently. He imagined that he could hear the sunlight as it poured on the ground. The old painter’s face clouded over. Eventually, in a hollow voice, he said:

  ‘I feel the same way. I have not told my experiences in the war to anybody, except my wife. And I haven’t painted anything about it either. I remember so much that I can’t really remember anything. That is one of the problems of the artist.’

  Then Dr Okocha fell silent. After a while he said: ‘The original experience must be the guide. But what you make of it, what you bring back from it, the vision, call it what you will, is the most important thing. What you forget returns in a hundred other shapes. It becomes the true material of invention. To learn how to remember creatively is to learn how to feel. But to paint that dream of yours will mean a long descent into yourself. It will also mean learning how to think differently. I am happy for you, for you are young and you are on a threshold.’

  He fell silent again. While they had been talking some boys in the area had started up a game of football on the street. The old painter watched them, his eyes far away. Omovo watched them as well. The boys began shouting. A goal could have been scored but the goalkeeper’s foot knocked the ball over into the scum of green water. They fetched it out with a stick, resumed their game, and unluckily one of the boys kicked the ball and it went and hit an old man on the head. He had been riding through the game on his equally ancient bicycle. The boys rolled over laughing. The old man got off his bicycle and chased the boys. They scattered in many directions. He couldn’t catch any of them so he chased
the ball instead.

  ‘The young boys of nowadays don’t respect old people,’ he muttered as he seized the ball, which had rolled near Dr Okocha and Omovo. The old man thumped the ball, but it jumped out of his hands. He caught it, and removing the pin holding his trouser fly together, pierced a hole in the ball. He flashed a wizened smile at Dr Okocha, who nodded, and then he got on his bicycle and rode away, chuckling to himself. The boys abused him. The game ended. Dr Okocha and Omovo walked on.

  ‘Yes, I’m happy for you,’ the old painter continued. ‘This is one painting that will change you. Craft is important. The greater the idea, the greater the craft you need. But in finding the right colours, the right shapes, to capture that dream you will begin to discover unsuspected dimensions within you.’

  They passed the scumpool with its green water. Omovo stared at its surface. He stared at the rubbish that had been poured into the stagnant pool. He noticed a mattress in it on which had been grown bright red mushrooms. He shivered. Then he began to see why Ifeyiwa had been silent when he showed her his painting of the scumscape.

  ‘We don’t look at ugly things enough,’ he said.

  ‘Ugliness is the face we always turn away from,’ the old painter said. ‘When things are bad people don’t want to face the truth. I don’t know why the old painters always made Truth a beautiful woman. Truth is an ugly old woman. But her ugliness exists only in the eyes. I would choose the face of the Medusa as a good image of the Truth. She is actually a profoundly beautiful woman and we can only face her with the help of a mirror. That mirror is art.’

  ‘In ugliness,’ Omovo said, ‘we see ourselves as we never want to.’

  ‘And so ugliness festers while the people cry for images of beauty, for illusions.’

  ‘But how can we be happy if there is so much ugliness around and if we paint the ugly truth?’

  ‘How can we be happy if we lie to ourselves?’

  ‘We can’t.’

  ‘Things have got to improve. But first we have to see ourselves clearly, as we are.’

  ‘But you don’t really paint ugliness,’ Omovo said.