by Ben Okri
‘Do you think when your hair grows you will be strong?’
‘Am I not strong now?’
‘But you look lonely.’
‘I’m not really.’
‘You’re sad?’
‘Sometimes.’ Then: ‘I may get stronger. If I’m lucky.’
‘I hope you’re lucky.’
‘Thank you. I hope I use it well.’
‘I think you will.’
‘You’re a nice boy. I hope your father gets well.’
‘I hope so too.’
‘How long will you stay?’
‘Not long.’
‘I will miss you.’
‘You’ll be okay.’
‘When you’ve finished eating I want to show you something.’
Omovo looked at Ayo. Then he nodded.
When he had eaten they both set out. Ayo led the way down the dust tracks. He took Omovo to a ruin of a house. Omovo had passed it before and had often seen the old chief standing in front of it looking sad. It was an old single-storey building, unpainted, uncared-for, unlived in: a sad house, decrepit with shame, unremarkable, in a state of collapse, sinking into the soft soil.
‘That’s where the chains of slaves are kept. I’ve got the keys. Do you want to see them?’
Omovo looked at the house again, noticed how it seemed to be leaning over, noticed the unpainted door, the slightly rusted padlock. Then he looked at Ayo’s young face, eager, unknowing. Madness turned in his brain. He shook his head, turned, and wandered off by himself, and left Ayo standing there, staring at the keys in his hands, wondering what he’d said that was wrong.
I
Omovo was returning from the house of shame when a madman jumped on him from the bushes. Omovo screamed. The shock had almost made him faint. The madman laughed and went a short way up the path, blocking Omovo’s passage. Omovo regained his serenity. The madman was naked from the waist down. He had cuts all over his legs and feet. His organ was thick-veined, his pubic hair dusty and matted with wild flowers and grass. He wore the blackened remnants of a shirt. His eyes were passive and unfocussed. His beard was rough and covered with detritus. Suddenly he began to shriek, to repeat strange words, as if he were warding off demons. He threw himself to the ground, lay still, then rose with the demonic rectitude of a sleepwalker. Then he started scratching himself, dancing curiously. He scratched at his ears, till they bled. He scratched as if he were trying to pull out some minuscule antagonist. Then he began to scream, as if he couldn’t hear himself. Words poured from him. The birds around flew from the trees.
When the madman had jumped on Omovo his first impulse was to flee into the bushes, screaming. After he had shaken off the madman and noticed how unviolent he was, Omovo calmed that impulse. The man’s madness seemed to him to take the form of words, incoherent words. His mouth frothed while he kept uttering an unending stream of words. The madman regarded him with blank eyes, eyes without intent, without the slightest recognition of a fellow human form. As Omovo neared the man, to go past him, home, he was surprised that he felt protected by a vague and tangential affinity. The madman looked at him with fractured eyes that seemed to suck in Omovo’s spirit. Drawing tightly about him his cloak of electric awareness, Omovo passed the madman. Calmly.
That night the chief died. Omovo knew. He had been woken up by the talking drums, whooping noises, bells, and cultic dances. Then later there came the unmistakable wailing from the town. The wailing sounded all around him, as if it had communicated to all the precise nature of the grief from which it had sprung.
At dawn Ayo knocked on his door. He brought food. Omovo asked him to come in, but he wouldn’t. He sat on the threshold. He looked different. His hair had been shaved off. Sobriety weighed on his face. He had the disorientated expression of one who has been woken from a deep and beautiful sleep. He didn’t seem to know what had woken him up.
‘Ayo!’ Omovo said.
The boy was silent.
‘Ayo, come in.’
Dazed, the boy got up and began to stagger away. Omovo called him again. But the boy, activated – it seemed – by his name, started to run. His arms flailed in the air.
Omovo did not see Ayo for the rest of the day. The death of the chief hung over the town like an ominous cloud. He had heard the women in the market warning their children not to play out at night, that the old chief was dead. He had heard them say that for the next seven nights fearful figures would take to the streets looking for children and strangers.
Omovo thought about the chief. He had often seen him, flywhisk in hand, wandering through the compounds, meandering through the clamour of his many wives. He had often seen the chief arguing with the elders of the town, or sitting on a cane chair, chewing on a kola-nut, drinking ogogoro, with one of his children fanning him, while his eyes remained fixed on the horizon, where the sea-spray touched the sky.
And one day he had seen the chief standing in front of the house of shame like an unwilling pilgrim, a hostage of history. He stood, head bowed by an invisible, indescribable weight. Perhaps his ancestors had helped sell slaves. The vision of the chief standing in front of the decrepit house never left Omovo. The chief had been a walking way of life. He was also a walking inheritor of death and chains and bad history.
That same day Omovo packed his things. He paid the rent to the chief’s youngest wife who had shown him the room the first day he arrived. He left a note, his address and some money for Ayo. As he made his way to the garage he saw the town differently. He saw it as a small town, reddened with dust, a town of huts, zinc abodes, isolated single-storey buildings. An ancient town in ruins. A town haunted by the slave cries from its shore, marginalised, as if its history had ravaged its spirit.
Thinking about the inescapable vengeance of time, Omovo caught a bus. Those moments would pass forever. The journey home was uneventful. He slept throughout.
2
When he arrived at his compound people greeted him mournfully. There was a dismal mood in the air. Everyone stared at him as if he were a stranger, a ghost. The front door was locked. The curtains were half-drawn. He looked in through the window on which films of dust had accumulated. Apart from a lizard scuttling over an uneaten meal on the dining table, nothing stirred inside the room.
With the furtive movements of a purveyor of bad news, the assistant deputy bachelor came to him and said: ‘Omovo, where have you been?’
‘Away.’
‘Haven’t you heard?’
‘Heard what?’
‘Have you eaten?’
‘Yes.’ He hadn’t.
‘Don’t you have the key?’
‘I have the key.’
‘Then open the door. Let’s go inside. There’s no point talking in public.’
‘What’s all this about?’
‘Open the door. Something terrible has happened.’
The chief assistant deputy bachelor didn’t tell the whole story. What had happened was that because Omovo’s father – ‘captain of the compound’ – and two other men weren’t around, the regular cleaning on Saturday had been postponed. To compensate for this and to placate the women, Tuwo had proposed an evening of drinking and celebration. The event became an impromptu party. All the members of the compound had contributed food, brought chairs and stools, soft drinks, Guinness, and ogogoro, and all had crowded into Tuwo’s place. He had the most impressive rooms in the compound. He had an old stereo in a glass cabinet. He had various trophies for dubious sporting victories from his school days. He had exotic calendars and enlarged photographs of himself in a place that, snow-covered, was evidently England. Certificates of merit, top hats, chinoiserie decorated the walls.
Tuwo dressed in his finest French suit. The trousers, tight around the thighs, emphasised his virility. As the compound people poured to his room he came into his element, welcoming everyone with his most flowery phrases delivered in falsetto accents. Tuwo laid on drinks. Omovo’s father visited briefly, and was given a drunken and tum
ultuous welcome. He drank a little, spreading silences around him with the gravity of his presence, and then, as befitting great men on small occasions, left for some other unspecified engagement. When he was gone, leaving Blackie behind with instructions about what he’d like to eat when he returned, which might be late, the party resumed its earthy rowdiness. The drinks flowed. The men brought their favourite records. The women hurriedly made themselves up and dressed in fine clothes. Tuwo told amusing stories of his adventures in England, his amorous escapades with white women. Very much the centre of attention, he held court charmingly, sent for more drinks, played records, and performed imitations of white people and their mannerisms. He had the compound people in fits. The women teased him about taking a wife and not being a danger to all the women of the ghetto. The men mocked him. Everyone got drunk. Even the assistant deputy bachelor, much against his reputation, brought a woman and started noisy rumours of an impending marriage, rumours which delighted everyone except the woman herself, a shy village girl, new to the city, who disapproved of such behaviour.
The party grew rowdier. Glasses were broken. Salty jokes stung the air. Dancing started. The men danced with their wives, danced with one another, shaking the floor with their heavy stamping, steaming the place with their heat and sweat. The men danced with one another’s wives. More drinks were bought. One of the men began an argument about who were the best dancers in the compound. The assistant deputy bachelor, much to everyone’s surprise, declared that he was a finer dancer than anyone he had seen that night. The other men all spoke well for themselves. The women suggested a competition in which they would be the judges.
The men danced. The assistant deputy bachelor utterly delighted everyone with his transformation from a serious money-hoarding shopkeeper to a sprightly, vigorous dancer. He leapt about the place, quite drunk, inflamed by the presence of a woman in his life. He danced with traditional zeal, a little rusty perhaps, but quite captivating. Everyone poured praises on him. Even his shy woman was proud of him. The other men danced, some better than others, all of them drunkenly, with more stomping than rhythm. Then it came to Tuwo’s turn. Very much the women’s man, Tuwo launched into an ambitious series of movements. His repertoire was impressive. He danced to traditional records, to modern music, to golden oldies. With his virile pelvic thrusts, his trembling thigh movements, his mock Charlestons which raised much laughter and approval, with his bravura, his eloquent running commentary on events, his brio and hospitality, and in spite of the fact that he split his trousers while improvising old steps, it was quite clear he was much the best dancer in the compound. When the women made their declaration everyone shouted, some of the men protested, others insinuated favouritism, the assistant deputy bachelor left in anger, but returned soon afterwards, and general dancing was resumed, drinks consumed, till the early hours of the morning. Even the children, weaving between the bacchanalia of adults, managed to steal bottles of beer and ogogoro and experience the first euphoria of drunkenness. It was the most lavish party yet staged in the compound. Everyone seemed happy.
The dignified exit of Omovo’s father merely concealed the fact that he had set off on a desperate round of visits to relations he had long ignored. He had gone to raise money to aid his ailing company. It was a last resort. His relations quoted obscure proverbs which amounted to the statement that they couldn’t help him. They told him of their problems, their desperation. Their problems were more serious than his. One relation had two children ill in hospital, one needing an urgent operation. Another owed three months’ rent and was being evicted. A third had just had a baby and had spent all his money on necessities. And so on. Omovo’s father saw all these as excuses to humiliate him further. He came back home, furious, frustrated. He stopped off at three beer parlours and got progressively more drunk as he neared the compound.
It was late and Omovo’s father came home to a compound in the last stages of its celebrations. Drunken quarrelling voices sounded from the rooms. A few men, supporting one another, staggered out past the wrought-iron gate singing loudly. His door room was wide open. His food had been laid out on the dining table. The food was uncovered, it had gone cold, and a fly had died in the soup. Strange children ran in and out of the sitting room. He learnt that a few drinks at Tuwo’s place had developed into a sensational party. He called for Blackie. She wasn’t around. Everyone, it seemed, had seen her a moment before. They told him of how Tuwo had won the dancing contest. He drove the children out of the living room. Caught in their first intoxication, they abused him, laughed at him. He went and fetched his famous heavy-buckled belt. The children ran. He waited. Then he went to the bathroom to urinate.
He heard low voices in the bathroom. When he knocked and inquired about how many people were in there, the voices stopped. He knocked again. There was silence. Then Tuwo said he was having a wash. Omovo’s father went to the toilet, found it occupied, was about to go back to the room when he smelt his wife’s perfume. Without thinking, he banged on the bathroom door. Two voices cursed. He pushed his way in, tearing the door from the flimsy nail that shut it inside, and saw Tuwo clasping protectively the complete nudity of a woman. Man and woman were stuck together and when Omovo’s father cried out in horror, the woman broke into a panic. She began to shriek, unable to free herself, unable to escape, trapped in the tight space. It took a long moment for him to recognise the ripe, alien nakedness of Blackie. It took him a long moment to adjust to the dull light glistening on their sweaty bodies. They stood ankle-deep in scum water. Blackie had her back to the wall, which was covered in a liverish coating of slime. Stunned by the overpowering smell of their arousal, his drunkenness cleared by the stench of the stagnant water, Omovo’s father stepped backwards. He let out a mad yell. Then he rushed back into the bathroom and lashed at his wife, tore at Tuwo’s neck, kicked them, hit them, and slipped, falling into the slimy water. The naked couple fled out of the bathroom, trampling over him, and out into the compound.
Omovo’s father rushed after them, shouting dementedly. He pursued the naked couple down the corridor. Tuwo fled into his room and bolted the door. Blackie was seen running away up the street with only a flimsy blouse, which she had snatched from the clothes line, covering her. Omovo’s father stormed to his room, came back with a machete, and broke down Tuwo’s door with a few hefty kicks. He chased Tuwo round his room. The compound people rushed in, but were too late. Omovo’s father cornered Tuwo near his stereo equipment. Frothing at the mouth, wreaking his terrible rage on everything in the room, destroying the television set, the stereo, the table, he was a truly frightening sight. The compound people saw him lift up the machete. Tuwo tried to jump on him, missed, and fell. As he got up, Omovo’s father brought the machete down on Tuwo’s neck with an elemental force. There was a mighty wail, cleaved off before it reached its pitch. Then silence. Omovo’s father, vented of rage, bloodied machete in hand, eyes deranged, pushed through the crowd. Everyone cleared a way for him. He went to his room and locked himself in. The compound women began to scream. There was blood everywhere.
Not long afterwards Omovo’s father emerged. He wore his best suit, his feathered hat, he had a fly whisk in one blood-covered hand, a walking stick in the other. He was dressed as if he were going on an important mission, as if he was going to welcome a powerful dignitary. He announced that he was off to the police station to give himself up. He announced it calmly. Two of the compound men followed him to make sure he wouldn’t run away or escape. The chief assistant deputy bachelor was one of them.
Omovo listened in complete stillness. When the assistant bachelor had finished, Omovo remained silent. Apart from the hardening of his eyes, and the twitching of muscles on his face, he didn’t move. It was as if he had heard nothing. The assistant bachelor, like all insensitive purveyors of bad news, thinking that Omovo had taken it all so bravely, went on to make a terrible mistake. He added the information that Ifeyiwa was dead, he told of her bloated body, of how she had been buried in an unm
arked grave. He said Takpo had gone home to her village, learnt what happened, came back to the city, and wailed in the streets for days. Then he closed his shop, packed up, moved away from the area, and hadn’t been seen again.
Suddenly Omovo began to tremble. His teeth chattered. He sat down and stood up. His eyes widened. For the first time he saw that while he was being told all this the compound people had gathered in the doorway. They peered in through the window. Some of them had spilled into the sitting room. He shut his eyes, held his neck, twisted, staggered and fell. He heard the laughter of a child. He got up. Nausea flooded him. His eyes filled with tears. He sat down, the chair tilted, he jumped off, groping like a blind maniac. His eyes cleared, he saw the intrusive presence of the compound people, the men with hungry faces, the women with eternally inquisitive eyes, the children with protruding stomachs, and he yelled.
Shouting Ifeyiwa’s name, his mind seething with uncontrollable rage, he rushed to the kitchen, scattered the pots and pans, overturned the cupboard and emerged with the blood-engrained machete in his hands. Swinging wildly he launched at the assistant deputy bachelor, chased him round the sitting room, lashing out at the windows, at the over-large centre table, at the faded pictures on the walls. Then he screamed at the compound people jostling at the doorway:
‘Get out, you voyeurs! – you vultures! – you spies! – voyeurs of other people’s tragedies! – get out!’
They stared at him as if he were merely a deranged performer. Then he charged at them. He pursued them into the compound, running in all directions, creating an incredible commotion.
‘The boy has gone mad!’ voices said again and again.
‘Hold him!’
‘Tie him down!’
‘Seize the machete!’
‘No, you seize it.’
‘Hold him before he repeats his father’s crime.’
Omovo tore after them relentlessly, following them to the backyard, clashing the machete against the zinc door of the bathroom where some had taken refuge, then chasing the rest towards the housefront, hacking at the room doors of those who had locked themselves in. He shouted and yelled, storming to the housefront. When he clanged the machete against the wrought-iron gate, sparks flew and the machete spun out of his hand. The compound men swarmed over him and temporarily overpowered him. But in his rage his spirit was uncontainable. He fought himself free, spitting and lashing out, wrenching himself from the metallic grip of the men.
