The Freedom Artist

by Ben Okri

  To his surprise artists were not hard to find. They seemed to be everywhere, once he started looking. Striking posters for exhibitions were up in all the shop windows. Retrospectives were advertised in all the newspapers. There were interviews with artists in Sunday magazines. They were everywhere. The difficulty was which one to choose. One seemed as radical as the other, and all were doing outlandish things. There seemed no limit to what art could be. One artist declared everything to be a work of art, including the shirt on her back. Another claimed that just a look of his turned anything into a work of art.

  After thinking about it for some time, Karnak decided he would just go into the first exhibition he saw advertised. He went in and found a big crowd of people, drinking and talking all at once. It was not clear who anyone was talking to. Some just seemed to be talking to the air.

  They were a well-dressed crowd, but they looked harassed and strained. Karnak was struck by their curious energy. He also took in the many framed and not framed pictures on the walls, the curious objects in niches, on plinths, or projecting out of the walls. Some peculiar object swung from the ceiling. It looked like a stone pendulum.

  No one in the crowd was looking at any of the pictures or objects. But Karnak went round and looked. The pictures were very straightforward images of life in the city. There were people in bars, at the theatre, at a comedy show. There was a child in a dry field, a tropical sunset, a landscape in France. There were canal scenes in Venice, rooftops in Lagos. All were painted in bright bold colours. Karnak went from one picture to another, feeling no need to linger. Each picture gave all of its information at once.

  As he was moving away from a Syrian landscape, he heard a voice over his shoulder:

  ‘Do you always look so quickly?’

  He turned and saw a man in his early thirties, with a confident look on his fresh face, and doubt in his hollow eyes.

  ‘I don’t look at pictures much.’

  ‘Oh. Why not?’

  ‘I’m not trained.’

  ‘Do you think you need training to look at art?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose it’s a specialisation.’

  ‘Specialisation?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s art.’

  ‘Really?’ Karnak said, looking nervously at the paintings.

  ‘You don’t think so?’

  ‘I don’t know what art is.’

  ‘You’re looking at it,’ the man with doubt in his eyes said. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘What are you doing here? Who invited you?’

  ‘I wanted to speak to the artist…’

  ‘Are you from a newspaper?’

  ‘Newspaper?’

  Karnak had hardly comprehended the turn the conversation was taking when he felt a fist on his face. It was more like a slap, but it surprised him. Before he could react there were many voices in his ears and large faces looming up at him and mouths speaking or shouting. He could not make out anything they said. He found himself at the door, and a shove sent him flying into the street. He staggered back, but regained his balance. The door slammed behind him.

  The artist of that show, he decided, could not throw light on anything for him.

  33

  He walked round and round in a daze. So much perplexed him. He tried to think but all he wanted to think about eluded him, so he went on walking till he found himself near a park. Across the road he saw another gallery and went over. It was another exhibition with another party in progress. He could see the crowd through the windows. They seemed more mature. He went in and, deciding to be more practical, set about finding the artist.

  Again no one was looking at the pictures on the walls. The objects scattered about the place, flotsam from the sea after a storm, were also entirely ignored. The place was packed so tight that just smiling increased the sense of constriction. Everyone was talking. The roar of voices made Karnak feel slightly deaf. So many faces close up made him dizzy. He weaved in mild delirium through the crush of bodies and churn of voices.

  It was impossible to tell who the artist might be among the elegant guests. He tried asking, but the noise drowned him out. Someone thrust a drink into his hand. Finding that he could not speak, he decided he might as well look at the pictures.

  These were different. He couldn’t make out anything in them whatsoever, just shapes and a mass of colours. The canvasses were huge, their frames heavy, some of bronze, some of wood. Even when he looked closer at the paintings he could not make out what the shapes were, nor could he determine the colours. This must be what they called art.

  He was musing in this way when a grey-haired man spoke to him.

  ‘You are the only one here looking at the paintings. I noticed it at once.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘You look as if you understand them.’

  ‘I understand nothing.’

  ‘Is that a philosophy?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘These days,’ said the grey-haired man, ‘everything is a philosophy, just as everything is art.’

  ‘Is everything art?’

  ‘So they say.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘So we are told.’

  ‘What are we told?’

  ‘That there are no distinctions between one person and another, that one is as much a philosopher as the next man, as much an artist as the next. That’s what we are told. There’s more, but I’m too drunk to remember.’

  ‘Is it true?’

  ‘How would I know? I’m an old man, I repeat what I’m told. You’re young, of the new school. What do you think?’

  ‘Think?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thinking is dangerous.’

  ‘Do you think so – ha ha, forgive the pun. But do you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you like danger?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘What are you doing here then?’

  ‘Is it dangerous here?’

  ‘Do you feel in danger?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s disappointing.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If I had my youth again I would only do dangerous things.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Not the obvious things like taking drugs, driving too fast, climbing Everest. I mean, the really dangerous things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Thinking for myself.’

  ‘Don’t you do that already?’

  ‘Nobody does. No one has done it for over a hundred years. We’ve all forgotten how to think. It’s all done for us. Fashion is chosen for us. Art is chosen for us. When there were books, they were decided for us. We’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a mind of our own. Most people don’t even know what a mind is.’

  ‘Are you the artist?’

  ‘Good heavens, no. Why do you say that?’

  ‘You sound like one.’

  ‘Are you mad? Artists are the most unthinking people, the state’s best kept secrets. They are machines for giving us shocks that can be sold. No one reads the mood of what is needed to create a harmless scandal better than the artists of our times. In the old days we had coliseums, today we have artists. They’re the new merchant class, rich as Croesus, every one of them. They dream of nothing else. No, my young friend, the artist is the new banker. I am certainly not an artist, and I consider it an insult that you think me one.’

  ‘If you’re not the artist, who are you?’

  ‘I –’ said the grey-haired gentleman, drawing himself up to his fullest height, ‘I am the last man in the world who knows…’

  At that moment a young woman in fur and a low-cut dress appeared and led the grey-haired man away.

  ‘I had to rescue you,’ he heard her say sweetly, ‘from that fan…’

  Karnak stood a while. No one else spoke to him. Without touching his drink, he left the exhibition and wandered the lonely roads.

  34

  He had been wal
king aimlessly for some time when a large car drew up smoothly alongside him. Karnak walked faster, fearing that he was being followed, that the authorities were onto him. But the car kept pace with him. He was about to break into a run, when a tinted window was lowered and a voice called out. He staggered backwards in panic. Then he saw a face calmly looking up at him.

  With a mild imperious movement of the palm, the grey-haired man summoned him over. The windows slid back up, reflecting the louring sky. The back door opened and, after a pause, Karnak got in.

  In the back seat, with the grey-haired man, sat the beautiful woman he had seen earlier. She had her palm on the gentleman’s upper thigh and she regarded Karnak with an ironic smile. It was a smile that crooked a little upwards to the right of her face. Her eyes were cold and green and bright.

  ‘Sit down, dear boy, we were unceremoniously separated,’ he said. ‘I was enjoying our conversation. You wanted to meet the artist. Fancy taking me for the artist.’ He gave the woman an appalled look. ‘We are on our way to see one of the most famous artists of our day. Perhaps I should say of our minute.’

  Karnak looked lost.

  ‘He chose to have his exhibition on the same day as a hundred other artists knowing that everyone would go to his. We are going to pay court to Maecenas himself. You know who I mean, don’t you? No? It doesn’t matter. Sit back, and let’s talk about all the things I would do if I had your youth again.’

  Karnak sat very still and straight, conscious of the eyes of the woman on him. The car sped on through streets he did not recognise. He was trying to work out where he was when, to his surprise, the woman began speaking. She had a voice quite out of harmony with her beauty, a see-saw, sing-song voice.

  ‘It is hard to be truly dangerous when you’re young,’ she said, looking at the older man. ‘One hardly knows what one is doing. I think your age is the best time to be dangerous.’

  ‘You make me sound ancient.’

  ‘Not ancient, just the right age to be dangerous.’

  ‘I’m intrigued.’

  ‘I should like to be deadly at your age.’

  ‘What a charming thought. But at my age, I have everything to lose. At yours you have nothing to lose but illusions.’

  ‘Illusions are the most precious things,’ the woman said.

  ‘Do you think so? I think the opposite. I think having no illusions is the most perfect state of mind.’

  ‘I like illusions. I like men who still have their illusions intact.’ She looked fixedly at Karnak, then she wriggled, and turned back to the grey-haired gentleman.

  ‘What dangerous things would you do if you had your youth again?’

  ‘First of all, I would learn to think clearly and take nothing for granted. Secondly, I would be in love all the time. If I couldn’t find someone to love, I would love the future. I would love the trees, I would love difficulties, I would love the edges of things. Thirdly…’

  And so the Rolls-Royce rolled on down the road, speeding towards adventure. The young lover, bashful under the sceptical gaze of beauty, kept silent, and something about the older man’s voice mesmerised him. He didn’t notice when the man stopped talking. The older man and the woman were staring at him.

  ‘You didn’t answer our question.’

  He looked blank.

  ‘What are you doing now that is dangerous?’ the woman said.

  ‘Me?’

  He felt himself coming out in a sweat.

  ‘Being in this car with you.’

  The grey-haired man smiled mysteriously. No one spoke after that until the car drew to a halt and the chauffeur opened the doors. Ornate metal gates swung open and they climbed marble steps up to a garden with three fountains made of gold. Beyond the garden was a mansion of unspeakable magnificence. Uniformed servants opened doors that led to golden interiors where golden lions sat in monumental tranquillity. They were led through many halls with gold-leaf ceilings and vast tapestries on the walls and doors brought from antique kingdoms. The place was a museum of ancient artefacts and modern acquisitions. Then at last, after wandering round the labyrinths of the imponderable grounds, they arrived at the central hall.

  Seated on a golden throne was a stocky man with an air of distilled ennui. He gave the impression of one who has seen everything and seen through everyone. Karnak surmised he was in his mid-forties. He had a haughty bearing and a permanent fixture on his face was a faintly contemptuous smile.

  ‘Here is the artist of our time,’ said the grey-haired man, as they drew closer. ‘The rest are mere aspirants.’

  Around them in the vast hall was an unimaginable collection of molluscs, ropes, fishes in bowls, heads of animals, eyeballs in a frame, a canvas that combined a shoe with a landscape, broken violins, a colour-spraying apparatus, a miniature windmill, a blown-up picture of the most famous comedian in the land, the collected works of the recently deified national philosopher, torn-up canvasses, a recent dinner framed in polystyrene hanging from the ceiling, a half-stuffed dog in a shrunken pool, chandeliers, gold spoons, a table longer than a tennis court, and probably the most expensive car in the world, parked in a corner of the hall.

  The artist barely stirred at the grey-haired man’s greeting. It was as though nothing in the world could touch him, impregnable as he was in the fortress of his fame.

  35

  The moon was still in the middle of the lake. Mirababa moved in and out of sleep. After a while he could not distinguish sleep from waking. He knew he had to keep awake but he didn’t know what he was keeping awake for.

  He had to keep vigil.

  There were times when the moon wavered in the centre of the lake, or when it grew fainter, or when it blazed in whiteness. There were times when it did not appear to be there. The forest all around breathed out a potent darkness. There were times when the boy thought he saw demons emerging from the depths of the forest.

  A single thought kept hammering away in his head. KEEP AWAKE KEEP AWAKE KEEP AWAKE. He was finding it difficult.

  There was a moment he imagined that a girl rose out of the lake and came and sat next to him. She was silent for a long while. When he turned to look at her he noticed that she was not wet. Her skin glowed as if she had swallowed the moon. She had a strange smile on her face, as if she expected him to notice something obvious but didn’t. When he looked back at the lake he was surprised to find it wasn’t there.

  ‘What’s happened to the lake?’ asked Mirababa.

  ‘What lake?’

  ‘There was a lake here. Now it’s gone.’

  ‘Never has there been a lake here.’

  Mirababa looked again. He saw there wasn’t even a moon, not above, not below.

  ‘And what happened to the moon?’

  ‘What moon?’

  ‘There was a bright moon in the middle of the lake.’

  ‘There hasn’t been a moon tonight. It’s been dark all night.’

  The boy was silent. It occurred to him that the girl knew something he didn’t.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘That’s the first question you should have asked me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the first question is the most important question.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it determines all the questions you ask after that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because questions have their own logic.’

  ‘What was wrong with my first question?’

  ‘You asked about something that was not there.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘If you are more interested in something that is not there rather than in something that is there, then you are not interested in what is there. Then sooner or later it will not be there any more.’

  ‘But the lake was there.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I’ve been looking at it all night. I even jumped int
o it.’

  ‘Then why is it not there now?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘If you don’t know why it’s not there, then how do you know it was there?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you know anything?’

  The strange smile had returned to the girl’s face.

  ‘No, I don’t think I do,’ he said, after a pause.

  ‘Not anything?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What do you know right now?’

  ‘Right now?’

  ‘This very moment.’

  ‘I think I know I am talking to you.’

  ‘Do you know it or not?’

  Mirababa paused again and considered. Was he talking to her or not? While he was thinking about it he was silent. He wasn’t talking any more.

  ‘No, I don’t think I’m talking to you,’ he said, and realised he was talking to her.

  ‘Yes, I’m talking to you,’ he corrected.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘How do I know?’

  ‘Do you have to repeat the question?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I say it to myself.’

  ‘Didn’t you hear it in the first place?’

  ‘I hear it better when I say it to myself.’

  ‘So how do you know you’re talking to me?’

  ‘I can hear your voice. I can hear my voice. I’m here. You’re here.’

  ‘Am I here?’

  The boy looked at her again. He became aware of her strangeness.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, in a softened voice. ‘My first question was the wrong question.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because of that wrong first question, I haven’t been able to ask you the question I really wanted to ask.’

  ‘What question is that?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘You’ve asked that already.’

  ‘I asked it at the wrong time. It was part of other questions.’