Starbook

by Ben Okri

  Sometimes the artists would plant their works outside the house of a chief, or beside the most visited well, or hidden in the forest to be stumbled upon by hunters or travellers or children playing. Sometimes the artists would place the works at the centre of the path leading out of the village, or have them dangling from a tree, or would arrange for a group of children to bear them up and down the square while chanting the line of a song.

  The artists were always anonymous. No one ever knew who had created what work of art. This way the dreamer was free to reveal their deepest fears, hopes, visions. The works were debated on often; and, in relation to their power, mystery, beauty or relevance, they were treated as unstated laws to be interpreted, and then acted on.

  Some works of art were not found for many years, and were discovered in their hiding places years, even decades, after they had originally been left there; but whenever they were found was the moment when one of their possible meanings was most necessary for the land. Many works have still not been found, and the things they warn of, or draw attention to, still lie sleeping, unseen. Sometimes the works are discovered at the exact time when what they draw attention to is just about to cause havoc to the people; the work thus helps them see what they wouldn't have seen. The finding of works was of great significance to the tribe, as much as the making of them, or their interpretation.

  It was such a unique tribe that the maiden came from. Her father was a man of mystery. He appeared to do nothing. No one knew what he did in the community, and yet he prospered enormously. Some say he was a great sorcerer, and could create gold just by thinking it into being, or by living long enough with a stone under his pillow. Some say he traded with spirits. Some claim he was a secret favourite guide to an unknown king. He was often away from home for long periods. No one knew where he went. And yet he knew everything that was going on in the tribe, and in the land. He was a man who spoke little, seldom laughed, and had piercing eyes like those of a hooded eagle. He was believed to be one of the greatest artists in the tribe, and a key guardian of its ancient mysteries.

  The maiden's mother was also a strange figure in the tribe. Long and often she would stare at her daughter, and say:

  'She is not from here. She will not stay long. When she has found what she is looking for she will return. We must delay her discovery.'

  Delay her discovery: that was the theme of her life.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Before she heard the questions by the river on that fateful day, the maiden had been shy, awkward, plain, and hardworking. No one remarked her much. She was not beautiful. None of the men had singled her out for love or marriage. She had not inflamed any loins. She was a bit of a burden on her mother, a bit of a worry. She spoke little, and fled when anyone stared at her. She couldn't bear too long the company of others, and seemed lost and lonely. She was always wandering off by herself into the forest, or sitting in isolated places by the river, staring into nothingness, yearning for the happiness that only death or a great love can bring. Hidden in her desolate spot, she was always singing sad songs to herself, absent-mindedly, in a low voice.

  Sometimes, alone, a wonderful mood would come over her and she would chuckle and giggle, and run skittering along the shore, performing cartwheels and odd somersaults, playing at being a crab, or a bird. She would talk to the wind, to spirits, to imaginary and immortal friends, confiding her deep unknown yearnings to the air, overcome with an unaccountable joy that made her want to jump out of her skin. In times like that she made up songs and made up the music to go with them. Or she would rush back home to her father's workshop and begin a wood-carving, in secret.

  In one such mood, under the inspiration of a dark and powerful happiness, a happiness so profound that if it didn't find something to do it would have driven her mad or made her take her life, under the spell of this tragic happiness, she began the creation of a new wood-carving. This carving she turned into a mould. And from the days and weeks she had spent working in complete secrecy with her father, learning the art of bronze casting, and gold working, she made of this mould a bronze cast of a face so pure, so mysterious, so serene that she herself was surprised at the beauty that had sprung from her own hands. To her mind it was the bust of a queen. Radiant, tranquil, with a fine patterned regal head-dress and sensuous in-turned contemplative eyes, it was a face she had never seen before, not with her eyes or in her dreams, but it was the face of her dangerous youthful happiness. When the bronze casting was completed, using her absent father's authority with the men of the foundry, she hid it among her things, till she could find a use for it.

  Every morning, at dawn, she brought it out and looked at it and mooned over it. At night, before she fell asleep, she cradled it and delighted in its mystery. At that time she appeared even stranger to her mother, to whom she was a great burden.

  'What am I going to do with you?' her mother would say. 'No man will marry you. You have no beauty. You do not talk. You are strange, as if you come from the land of spirits. You are not lucky. You don't have the art of women, the art of sweetening life. You are too unfriendly. Your eyes see too much; they are too big and frightening. You will grow old and lonely and unloved, the way you are. What shall I do with you?'

  'Nothing, mama,' the maiden would say.

  Then she would go out, to do some work about the house, or to the well to fetch water, or to the river to wash clothes, or to the forest to wander amid its mysterious hum, or to the square to gaze on the sculpture that had been made public the previous night, which the whole village was talking about.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The maiden, without knowing it, and for one so young, was already wise in the ways of bronze, gold and art. As an only child she spent much time watching her father in his secret workshop, as he beat and shaped magic symbols in gold, or in bronze. She watched him at his spells, as he worked the forge of his enchantments, worked like a mysterious sorcerer on wood and iron, with fire, flint and molten things. He worked with spells and incantations, as if he were always busy with the very greatest secrets of life. She watched in silence as her father worked, in his secret workshop, with sparks in the air, with plants and oils. She watched as he made stones and iron rods invisible, just by staring at them. She watched as he made a rose appear on a white table, just by concentrating on that space. Sometimes, when he heard people coming towards their workshop, he would make them hurry out through a secret passage, out into the forest, and spy on those who were trespassing on his dreams. She would watch, in amazement, as gradually the workshop disappeared, became invisible, and a pure white mist, along with a rose fragrance, would envelop the surrounding spaces.

  Once, when the horsemen of the king had come to take him away, over some false accusation or other, the maiden gazed on in astonishment as she saw her father vanish from their midst and turn into pure white air. Only a bird was left standing in his place. The soldiers seized the bird; but her father's amused laughter was heard echoing in the forest as they rode away with the captive of their superstition.

  The maiden was wise in the ways of art and gold because she grew up in her father's silence. And in the enchantments of his workshop. He explained nothing to her. But when he wanted her to learn something he would cough, look at her in a particular way, and perform the operation slowly. She learnt in silence, and by his trance-making example. She learnt from the mood he created around him. All the great mysteries and manifestations are simple, she learnt, if you know the laws involved. He embodied the laws. Everything he did was steeped in the way. And yet he was so light, so simple, so unassuming that he could be taken for anything you chose. When asked what he was doing, and if he happened to be drinking, in company, in silence, with his companions, he would smile, and might say:

  'I'm listening at the oracle.'

  It was a favourite phrase of his; and it became a favourite expression of the tribe. They were known as people who listened at the oracle. Whenever others asked a member of the tribe what they were up
to they invariably gave that reply, whether they were doing something trivial or not. Many of his expressions had thus entered the language of the tribe. It couldn't be helped. He spoke to deflect: instead he infected. He was mostly silent, and so drew attention to his speech. Everything he said resonated in the land and altered the thought-patterns of the age. Some suspected him of being the perpetrator of most of the works displayed to the tribe, that provoked the greatest reactions, or had the most profound effects. Some claimed they could detect the tone of his spirit in the spirit of certain works. Secretly, he was considered the master-artist and magus of the tribe. The fact that he was the only one who never commented on artworks found in caves or forests, that he never took part in any discussions provoked by the finds, made him more complicit. Surrounded by such mystery, luminous in health, gifted with an awkward ability to seem normal, shining with unstated integrity, respected by the mighty, feared by the great, regarded with awed silence and suspicion, it was not surprising that this man should find attributed to him most of the astounding and monstrous deeds of the tribe, and in the land. And yet there was something untouchable about him. No one could stare long into his eyes. His face, mild and gentle, seemed to resist being looked at; people felt unaccountably blinded by his presence. The maiden grew up in the air of his legend. This alone saved her from complete isolation in the world.

  When her father was not there, her world returned to its emptiness, its strangeness. Often she sensed trees, birds, flowers, and forms in the air trying to tell her something. She felt acutely the need to learn the hidden languages of things, to read the secret languages of flowers. She felt that the world had messages for her which she wasn't getting. This made her unusually attentive to the eyes of goats and cats, the speech in the eyes of antelopes, the hinted dialogues of tortoises, the suggestive arrival of birds. She heard hidden meanings in what people said, and sensed the presence of angels in unlikely places. Often she had a sense, while staring into space, daydreaming between duties, that she returned to her real home on a distant star and lived a full life among forgotten loved ones. This perplexed her. Sometimes at night, when she slept, she was the father of a tribe, its wise patriarch, with innumerable children, and they could all fly, and they built things with their minds, and they loved across time and space, and they were masters of stars and galaxies, and they were bigger than giants, larger than the earth, and their heads grazed the outposts of heaven, and their dreams took them to the place of angels, in whose presence they were small. And when the maiden awoke it was with a shock, as she realised that she could not fly, that her body had weight, and that her thoughts were so unfree. She felt like a slave, a prisoner in her body, in her condition. She felt like an exile, like one banished from a home she never knew. And she wept often at dawn at the humiliation of being human, without knowing why; as if she suspected that she ought to be an angel, a being at ease among the stars.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  And so she was silent. Silent even when the whole tribe was troubled by the new revelation in the square: the great wooden sculpture of three men and a woman bound together by chains at the ankles, in positions of intolerable lamentation and humiliation, and yet rendered with stoic dignity, as if gods had been made the slaves of fools.

  The maiden had gone to the square to see the sculpture. Everyone was puzzled by it. No one had any idea what it meant. So profound was its effect that this sculpture seemed to come alive, seemed to appear in the midst of those who talked about it. Words seemed to make it materialise. Slowly, quickly, suddenly, the sculpture was everywhere, in the tribe's mind, in their dreams, in their work, in their play. The sculpture accompanied and haunted their every activity, like a spirit desperately trying to draw attention to its reality, or like a dream or nightmare that can't be shaken off. Or like an impending illness that fills one with unease precisely because the illness itself never arrives and never leaves, just hovers. Or like the hint of death in the midst of silent happiness.

  The sculpture accused, haunted, frightened, soothed, troubled, perplexed, annoyed, paralysed, trapped and engulfed them. It was like a curse, an anathema. It was stronger in the mind than in reality. To see it at first is to perceive it, to encompass it merely with the eyes. But afterwards its horror and its mystery grows, like a dreadful infection deep in the body where the hands cannot reach. It grows so in the mind, horrible and mighty, and the monstrous sublimity of it is such that those who have seen it do not know what to do with their heads afterwards. They can't cleanse their minds of the image, they can't open their brains and physically remove the offending vision. They can't wash their heads out. And so they go around obsessed, sleepless, raggy, furious, bad-tempered, displeased, displaced. The world changes for them. They feel the need to die, or do something awful, or make a long journey, or undertake a great spiritual pilgrimage, or, better still, find the cause of the sculpture, why it came into being, understand what it is saying, and do something about it.

  But unable to do this the elders began to whisper the unthinkable. They felt the sculpture, in its mysterious power, was becoming so powerful and obsessive and soul-sapping to the tribe that maybe it should be hidden away as a dangerous object, or destroyed, before it destroyed the psychic fabric and spiritual cohesion of the tribe.

  Never before had a sculpture or a work had such a profound effect on the people.

  The sages suspected that the highest sorcery went into its creation.

  The interpreters were bewildered at the too many meanings that the work suggested, and the more they discussed it the more meanings and hints and warnings it threw out. Things got so bad that three interpreters fought over their interpretations of the work, and one of them was killed. It was the first time ever that a man had died because of the impossibility of understanding a work of art of the tribe.

  Not long afterwards a woman who screamed at dawn that she understood what the work meant – and that it was a great warning of a most vile anathema that would befall the land – not long afterwards, screaming that it was better to die than to suffer what was to come, the woman committed suicide near the shrine where the work stood in all its ferocious yet sublime power.

  Soon everyone for miles around heard about this mysterious work that wreaked havoc on the mind. They came in their multitudes to see it. High-pitched wailings were heard at noon from young girls who fainted in its presence. A man, howling, went mad with grief when he beheld it. A sage tied himself to the sculpture, making himself the fifth figure in the living continuity of the intolerable image. The sage refused to eat till the work was understood, till he understood the work, which meant to understand himself, he said. He died on the fourteenth day, still bound to the infamous and sinister work. The sage had declared that he must not be buried till someone had pierced its mystery. His body rotted alongside the image for a month, spreading disease and illness among the people, till the elders decreed that at least he be buried near the work, near the shrine, or that his body be covered with earth, or burned, to stop further public contamination.

  Thus the sculpture which the tribe couldn't seem to do anything about continued its strange destructive work. People came and gathered and stared at it, and camped in front of it, and refused to leave. The sculpture seemed to speak of a great world calamity, a tragedy of vast proportions, so vast, in fact, that it threatened the world. It seemed the world would never be the same again because of the tragedy and intolerable sorrow and noble suffering that the work breathed out in its broken proportions and the agonised shapes that broke the heart and yet still spoke of divine resolution beyond human understanding.

  Then, one evening, when a white bird with a yellow flower in its mouth alighted on the crest of the sculpture, all the gathered people began, suddenly, to weep. It happened spontaneously, with an imperceptible change in the atmosphere. It seemed some mysterious light from the sculpture, caused by the presence of the bird, precipitated a mass change in feeling. The weeping went on for hours; it went on all night.
The women wept, and the children cried, and the men broke down into loud weeping too, and couldn't be stopped, because of some deep unaccountable sorrow awoken in them by the work. Under the moonlight, with the white bird on the head of one of the figures, it was as though a god were making the work speak to the soul of the people.

  This weeping shook the tribe. Someone tried covering up the work with a white cloth, so it couldn't be seen, and yet its power multiplied in rumour, in the minds of those who had seen it. And the sages screamed that it was better to see the work than to be haunted to madness by its magnified power in the mind; for seeing it, they said, somehow soothed the madness it threatened to bring forth.

  But one night a group of elders, paying no heed to what the sages said, had the work stolen away. And in its place its absence shone, and caused greater rumours, made more crowds gather, for the space where it used to be became more powerful than ever. The space appeared to retain, in a pure white form, the very image that they sought to remove. In short, the work shone more in its invisible space. People could see the sculpture there in the empty space, even when they had never seen the work before. It was more powerful, majestic, tragic, sublime and heart-breaking in its invisible form than ever it was before. And this power caused that space to become more magnetic than any shrine of the tribe; and multitudes gathered to witness the marvel of the sculpture that wasn't there that they could see shining there in the dark as if it were a living spirit.