by Ben Okri
‘Sure. And by the way, what’s happening to the others?’
Omovo smiled. ‘Dele is off to the USA in a few days’ time. He’s very excited about it. And Okoro has found himself a new girlfriend.’
‘Well, I must catch up in the week.’
‘Yeah.’
‘See you.’
‘I’ll walk you to the gate.’
‘I enjoyed our chat.’
‘So did I.’
Keme stood at the door looking out. And then, moving his head as if the light outside hurt his eyes, he said in a voice devoid of bitterness: ‘It’s crazy, isn’t it?’
‘What?’
‘That we print stories about a man that eats metal. About rats that eat up canoes in Egypt, about women who give birth to quadruplets, but we won’t print the story of a girl who had been murdered in a park, on the edge of the Atlantic.’
‘It is strange,’ Omovo agreed.
Omovo saw Keme to the gate and then walked him all the way to his motorbike, which was parked three streets away because of the bad roads. They were silent all the way. Keme got on his bike, started it, waved, and with an introspective expression on his face, as if he were already at his destination, he rode away.
Omovo, walking home through the muted and gay air of a ghetto Sunday, felt himself slightly hallucinating as a result of the things Keme had said. He felt strange. As he neared home he experienced the half-hidden notion that his art was somehow not adequate to describe African reality.
When he got home he sat on the bed and pondered their conversation. Soon he felt his head spinning in a cross-wind of too many things he had to think through. He opened the windows. The air that blew in was fresh at first and then it brought in all the smells of the compound. Light streamed in. He decided to paint in order to escape the traffic jam of his thoughts.
He brought out his easel and oils. He mixed the colours, his mind became progressively engrossed in the act, the ritual of preparation for work. He breathed more gently. His mind cleared. Then he got out the canvas that he had abandoned earlier. He looked at the confused, ugly colours and half-formed images he had daubed there. He looked at the canvas for a long time. Then, curiously, he began to discern the potentialities in the half-formed shapes. He read himself into them. With his natural aversion for shapes that were not anything related to blood and feeling, with his respect for the narrative aspect of painting, his mood guided him to attempt something he would not ordinarily do because he felt it too difficult and demanding. He started to paint a Lagos traffic jam. The moment he realised what he was doing he was happy, he felt light, and he ceased to think altogether. The vision and his mood carried him on their unique stream and he soon wasn’t even aware that he was painting. And in the moments when his concentration broke and he became aware that he was indeed painting he began to do something strange, something he had never done before. He began to name the images he was bringing into being, began to chant them, as if he were praying, as if the naming of them in some way guided his hand.
‘Metal. Hot road. Copper sun. Sweating drivers. Busy hawkers. Policemen accepting bribes. Lights on painted metal. Yellow and black taxis. Glittering windscreens. Weather-beaten faces. Struggling faces. A million colours of sun and city. The faces of my people. Hallucinatory sunlight on the green lagoon. Gasoline fumes. Beggars. Soldiers everywhere. Traffic jams everywhere. Noise. Chaos. Everything jammed. Motion. Confusion. Houses jammed. Streets jammed. A child eating mango. Clear above, jammed below. No birds in the air.’
And so he spoke and worked as if he were transcribing images from a cloud.
After a while he felt drained and aching. He took it as a sign to stop. He knew he had finished. He looked at his watch, which he never wore. He had been painting, without being aware of it, for two hours. He felt good. Then he felt depressed. He felt numb. He listened to the compound’s listless afternoon noises. He sat down on the bed and covered his eyes with the palms of his hands. His eyes ached. He stayed like that for a while, watching the colours dancing in his inward eye. After some time he got up, left the room, and went to the front of the compound. He devoured the street, the world, with his eyes. He stared gently at the hawkers, the children, the old men, the molten sunlight on the dusty houses and stalls. He stared at lizards and geckoes scuttling up the walls. He stared at the chickens strutting peacefully across the street, the goats munching discarded yam peelings. Then he stared at the forest in the distance, relaxing his eyes.
When he went back to his room he sat down and, after his eyes had readjusted to the level of light in his room, looked at his painting. It wasn’t as good as what he had seen in his mind. But it was better than anything he had done in a long time. He was a little annoyed by the poor reproduction of imagined reality. He always disliked the feeling of knowing that what was good in his painting nearly always came from his inability to do what he intended, to catch what he saw.
In his painting the city became a demented maze, clogged and vibrant with bright colours, but seen through an effluvial mist. He caught the truckpushers, the carriers of heavy loads, the hawkers, the traffic policemen in their orange uniform tops. He caught the hundreds of feeder roads, the paths, the streets, wild lines that lead only into confusion. He caught the streets of cars jammed and crooked. He even managed to convey the dramatic gestures of Lagosians in their frozen, angled positions. The agonies and comedies of the city. Framing the haste and frenzy was the lagoon. It was the same green as his painting of the scumpool. All roads lead into the maze of the city. The chaos and frustration of the city. But the only ways out lead to the forests of the interior and to the seas.
He looked at his work and, with despair and joy in his soul, he thought: Art is a poor approximation, but the best we have. He began to clear up his brushes, his easel, and his paints. He put the painting away and went to wash himself. When he got back the exhaustion of finishing the painting opened him up to a kind of suffocation of sadness and weariness. All the emotions he had been avoiding, the shame and sorrow he felt on Ifeyiwa’s behalf, his fear, his love, the burden of being free while she was trapped, all these feelings burst in on him and left him fairly quivering on the bed.
He got out his brother’s letter and poem and read them. He stared out of the window at the wall which marked the boundary of his compound. Broken glass had been cemented along the top of the wall to prevent thieves from climbing in at night. He felt a little as if he was imprisoned. He looked at the clouds above the wall and rooftops. He brought out his notebook and wrote:
I wanted to do a beautiful painting of her. To remember her forever. Instead I’ve gone and probably made her life more unbearable. Why do people think that because I’m drawing her something shameful exists between us? And why is it that I can’t seem to do the right thing when I know quite well what the wrong thing is? I feel I am being drawn into a dark zone. I almost seem to be helping myself along. It’s hard.
He stopped. He looked out at the wall and continued:
Keme came by today. Kept saying bloody. Kept pacing like a trapped, intelligent animal. The girl’s body has vanished and all we could do was speculate. There we were: individuals helpless in the face of awful events. Who manipulates our reality? And how long are we just going to accept things? Dele is going to the States soon. He has made his girlfriend get rid of his baby. No. He tricked her. He wants no complications on the eve of his journey to his dream. He is getting out of this inferno and he is afraid. Strange.
Okoro has found himself a new girlfriend. Doesn’t talk about the war anymore. Always talked about the war. The starvation. Soldiers eating half-cooked frogs. He doesn’t talk about the war. I just realised.
I should do a painting of my friends – children of war – children of waste – the war generation – lost in the cities – lost in offices – lost in traffic jams – trapped in the mazes of daily life – the maze of our history –
I am afraid for my brothers, but at least they have shown me that there
isn’t just one way but many ways into the world – each forges or finds his own – yes –
The maze mocks the fairytale with nightmare – Lord, may this life always surprise me – fill every crack with light – when we are falling, Lord, make us the spider that can build its own web as net – may good things always flow into us – and when we most need it, Lord, show us a silver way – a secret way –
When he finished writing he felt better. He got dressed and went for a walk. His father wasn’t around. The sitting room was empty. The compound people kept looking at him strangely. At the house front he could see Ifeyiwa through their open window. He went to Dr Okocha’s place. The old artist wasn’t in. Then he went and watched cars speeding up and down the express road.
13
Omovo had returned from his walk and was in his room, feeling quite peaceful, when he heard sharp voices from the sitting room. At first he thought Ifeyiwa’s husband had come to make trouble. But as he listened carefully, he recognised, to his dismay, the voices of his dreaded relations. They seemed to be reacting to something Blackie had said.
‘We don’t recognise you! We don’t know you! And we didn’t come to see you!’ Uncle Maki shouted.
‘Then get out of here!’
‘Why? Who are you – nothing but a second wife?’
‘So what? I am the woman of this house.’
‘What house?’
‘This house. So you go away. If you want to see Omovo go and wait for him at the front of the compound.’
‘Wicked woman. This is how you treat your husband’s in-laws. Witch!’
‘Who are you calling a witch? Your mother is a witch. All of you chop shit. God punish you.’
‘God is punishing you already with that empty house.’
At that point Omovo, just about to step out and calm matters down, heard the indignant tones of his father’s voice, raised high as if he were hammering on a table as he spoke.
‘How dare you come to my house and harass my wife? Who do you think you are, wretched clerk! Get out of here before I send my boys to beat you up. Get out! Get out!’
There was a worrying silence. Then the relation’s voice, a register lower, said: ‘I want to see Omovo!’
‘Get out! You can’t see Omovo or anyone else. Just leave before I change my mind.’
Omovo stepped out into the sitting room and watched the whole event through the window, waiting for the best moment to intervene without making matters worse.
The compound men had started to gather round the exchange. It was part of the compound’s tradition that neighbours came to one another’s aid when it involved outsiders. Omovo watched the women staring at the ‘event’, missing nothing. Sensation was in the air.
‘Oga-o, Captain of the compound, what’s wrong?’ asked one of the men.
The assistant deputy bachelor joined the gathering. He had a bottle of beer in one hand. Behind him was Tuwo. The younger bachelors, the men new to the compound, came to give their support. They all streamed out of Tuwo’s room. They sounded quite drunk and rather keen on the idea of public revelry and argument.
‘Captain, is this man looking for your wife’s trouble?’ came Tuwo.
‘Don’t mind these wretched relations of Omovo’s mother. They don’t have respect. Insulting my wife! Abusing my house! On Sunday – when a man wants a bit of peace!’
The uncle turned to the compound men and tried to explain. For the first time he came within Omovo’s view. He wore an old brown tight-fitting coat that must have been bought secondhand years ago. His hair was dusty and had a fastidious parting. And under the terrible heat he had the folded red umbrella which he used like a walking stick. He turned to the drunken compound men. They listened to him with the perversity of those who intend to misunderstand whatever they are about to hear. Almost pleadingly, but retaining his stubborn dignity, Omovo’s uncle said:
‘I am Omovo’s mother’s cousin...’
‘A very distant relation,’ Tuwo said.
‘I haven’t seen Omovo for some time,’ continued Omovo’s uncle, ‘and as I was in the area...’
‘You thought you would come and make trouble,’ Tuwo interrupted, finishing off Uncle Maki’s statement to the great amusement of the gathered crowd.
‘No!’ protested Omovo’s relation. He tried to get back to his explanation but was forestalled by Omovo’s father.
‘Get out of this compound, you thief.’
‘I am not a thief. Did I steal from you?’ Uncle Maki said, gesticulating with the red umbrella. He looked rather pathetic, with all his blustering and with his kola-nut-stained teeth, and with all the struggling against the confinement of his small coat. Omovo, feeling bad that a relation was about to be made a fool of by the compound men, was going out to try and calm events when his father launched into an unexpected stream of recriminations. Turning to the compound men, he said:
‘Look at him, coming here now and talking nonsense. When my first wife, his relation, was ill did he come and visit her in hospital?’
‘No!’ the compound men answered.
Omovo’s dad turned to Uncle Maki.
‘When things were hard for us was it not you people who laughed at us behind our backs? Did you come to her funeral? Have you come to console us since, eh? So what are you doing here now, eh? When we needed your help you didn’t come. We have done fine without you. We don’t need you and your rat eyes judging everyone, looking to see how other people are living so you can go and gossip to the whole world. We don’t need your pretence. Why do you come and visit Omovo now? What do you want from him, eh? Is it because you saw his name in the newspaper, eh? I feed him. He lives under my roof. I got him a job. It’s now that you turn up to try and win him over! Get out! Now!’
Uncle Maki, moving his lips wordlessly, waving the red umbrella around, looked absolutely stunned at the torrent of insinuations.
Omovo’s father finished by saying: ‘And to make matters worse you come here, wake me up, and abuse my wife in front of the people of the compound!’
Uncle Maki made a brave effort to speak, but the compound men had begun pushing him. Their eyes were red and their fingers itched for some action.
‘Go!’
‘Yes, leave!’
‘Leave before we roast you alive.’
‘Leave with your stupid umbrella,’ the men said.
Uncle Maki pushed them back. Then facing Omovo’s father, waving the umbrella menacingly, he said: ‘Let no one touch me. I am just coming from church and I don’t want trouble.’
‘Then stop waving that thing in my eyes. Or you want to blind me?’
Completely misunderstanding Omovo’s father’s mood, unaware of his depression, his financial pressures, his acute sense of betrayal, Uncle Maki said: ‘It’s my umbrella. I’ll do what I want with it.’
Omovo’s father’s voice changed. ‘Is that so?’ Then snapping his fingers commandingly, he said: ‘Blackie, go fetch my machete.’
Blackie went into the sitting room. Omovo ducked back in. He heard her fumbling around the cupboards. Then he heard her footsteps go past. When he looked again his father was holding the machete.
‘Useless relatives!’ he was saying. ‘Thieves and gossips. Pharisees! Troublemakers! Hypocrites!’
Omovo felt trapped. He couldn’t just watch helplessly and he couldn’t go out then because, with his father now riding his favourite grievances, his presence would only be inflammatory.
‘Don’t call me a hypocrite! And I am not a Sadducee!’
‘Pharisee, I said.’
‘Eh, I am not a Pharisee. I am a good Christian and I pray to my God every day.’
‘And then on Sunday, when God is resting,’ Tuwo added drunkenly in his most artificial accent, ‘you go and make trouble with your umbrella!’
The men burst out laughing. Uncle Maki raised the sharp point of the umbrella at the men in an aggressive gesture.
‘You want to fence, eh?’ Tuwo said.
‘Don’t mind him,’ someone else put in. ‘He wants to jump fence with his old umbrella.’
‘You want fence with machete, eh?’ Tuwo continued.
The assistant deputy bachelor, balancing his bottle of beer in one hand, knocked the umbrella from under his nose with the other. It hit the wall near Omovo’s father. There was a strange silence as Omovo’s father gave a cry of indignation, lifted the machete high, and held it frozen in the air. Everyone stayed still. Then, suddenly, Uncle Maki’s wife cried out. Omovo’s father, letting out air and shouting ‘hypocrite’ at the same moment, swung the machete at the umbrella. The crowd scattered. The men yelled. The women screamed. The umbrella was knocked clean out of Uncle Maki’s hand and it flew open as it touched the ground. The men burst out laughing again. The umbrella was a sorry object, in tatters, rickety, stained with rust, full of holes. Uncle Maki picked it up and kept trying to shut it, but it kept flying open. Eventually his wife came and seized it from him and snapped it shut in a single gesture. Then she began to push her husband out of the compound.
At first he didn’t want to leave. He talked. The men talked back. They began to squabble. One of the women said that it was Sunday and matters should be settled ‘amicably’. Blackie hissed and went into the sitting room and followed the proceedings from the window. The men crowded Uncle Maki, who made vague threats at Omovo’s dad. Another voice said something which was lost in the confusion. Uncle Maki made another vague comment about money owed him from the distant past by Omovo’s father. Silence followed as the fact was digested. Omovo’s father erupted again and lunged in Uncle Maki’s direction, but was restrained by Tuwo. Uncle Maki began to leave the compound, dragged by his wife who abused him for all the fuss he had started in the name of an innocent visit.
Meanwhile Tuwo finally managed to get the machete from Omovo’s dad. As soon as Uncle Maki left the compound, under a hail of biblical abuse from Omovo’s father, and blamed by his wife, the men started to chant the compound’s work songs, praising and teasing their ‘Captain’. Omovo’s father, having made his arresting public gesture, stormed to his bedroom. Omovo was obliged to hide again. When he reappeared, with the intention of going out now that things had settled, he saw that Tuwo had brought the machete in. He gave it to Blackie, and lingered. Her face was overcast. Omovo hurriedly passed them and went to meet his talkative relations.
