by Ben Okri
Maybe she was too young to notice what she saw. She only noticed much later, in another land, in the burning heat of the difficult years, when, in looking back, she saw what she should have seen, what was obvious to see, but which she hadn't.
She was too young to notice how fortunate she was, how blessed, how lucky, how loved, how watched over, and how brief was her hour of such glory, such blessedness, such living beauty in the land of art.
She was too young to notice things. She saw only dreams, hopes, ideals, vague notions and moods. She lived in a vapour of time. She didn't see evils there, or looming. She didn't see the contests. She didn't much notice the Mamba. She loved her parents more than she noticed them. She loved her land, its skies, its hills, the women, the mass of faces, the smells, her father's workshop, the shrine, the forest, the farms, and the dazzling river where she played, washed and dreamed, more than she noticed them. Only later did they become so real, when she had lost them all, irredeemably. Only later did she learn to see that which she had loved in the blur of her being.
She was too young, for example, to notice that when the new pupil smiled the sun lingered in his smile long after he had left the presence of the person he was greeting. She was too young to notice how quickly the smile left the faces of most people who had just vacated your presence. She was too young to notice many things about him ...
But he saw her more clearly than anything in the world ... and studied her deep hidden nature every moment of his being ... as if she were his secret soul ... and often when he pondered her and entered her dreams he saw her in strange images, and peculiar notions ... often a lamb-like nature had been left alone and years later in its place was a lioness ... how to see the true person that would later be, later emerge, in the tender graceful and peculiar youth that now was ... how to remember the lamb that was the lioness ... riddles of the shadow ...
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
The Mamba was infuriated at the change in the rules for the maiden's hand. Convinced that he had won, convinced that there was a conspiracy or whispering campaign or evil voice against him, the Mamba's paranoia became worse than ever before. But it was an unfocused paranoia, without an object.
Then, one night, he saw the maiden's silhouette, under a powerful spell of moonlight. His head went slightly crazy with the beauty and the mystery of her. All the powers that he had acquired from the deep did not protect him against the shimmering effect of her innocent profile charged by the enchantment of the moon. In fact, all his powers worked against him, for they too, like the tides, fell under the immeasurable sway of a force invisible which wholly captivated his heart and reduced him to a broken colossus. Odd hallucinations passed before his eyes. Odd voices sounded in his head, whispering of spirits and insanities:
'Beware of the moon
When above it looms
And shines on the hairM
Of the girl who is fair.
Madness and hell
Ring their bell
From the silk
Of the moon
In her hair.
Beware.'
And the Mamba, in his hiding place among the trees, gazed and was lost to the voices and the hallucinations. Then, suddenly, he saw the form of a slender man, or was it squat, and round, or was it tall and strong, it kept changing, he wasn't sure. The Mamba instantly felt a laceration of heart, a great unnameable awe, and fear and suspicion and dryness of mouth all at once. And he knew that this changing form of a man was his real enemy and rival, though he had never seen this being or person before ... or maybe he had, in another form, in another way ...
This person stood under the eaves of the maiden's father's workshop. The moonlight did not fall on him. Behind his head was the shape of a lamp. He was in deep shadow but the Mamba could make out something of his presence; for the Mamba sensed he was seeing the reality of a vision he once had, the vision of one who would spell the destruction of the tribe, their ways, their art ...
The person gazed too at the maiden, as if he were the moon.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
And then it wasn't long before the Mamba noticed the new pupil. He was the first to publicly notice him. And when the Mamba drew attention to the new pupil, he began to lose his protective invisibility.
The Mamba disliked him on sight; and, without provocation, began a campaign against him, to get him evicted from the village as a spy. At first no one paid the Mamba any attention; but he became obsessed, and his obsession, fed by the bitterness of having won the contests but not the maiden's hand, gave him a powerful clarity of voice and a strange prophetic authority. Not for the first time, the Mamba was losing his mind; but this time it appeared he had never been in greater control of himself. Having won the fights, with the skill, the brutality and the mastery he had displayed, coupled with the dark mystery he had gathered to himself during his disappearance, the Mamba was now being seen as a figure of great public power and leadership. People felt inclined to follow his lead; they felt, for the first time, that here was a leader they had never had, who would take them to a new destiny. Sometimes a sense of doom makes a people susceptible to that which in normal times would horrify them. Maybe that is why, in history, a people sometimes chose the very leader who would lead them over the precipice that they feared, and wanted to avoid, in the first place; they chose the one who would deliver them to the doom which they dreaded.
And so, inexplicably, the Mamba became the voice of the tribe. And the tribe, inexplicably, ceased to heed the warnings of the oracle, or the guidance of the masters who had, for centuries, brought them to various stations of their promised land.
CHAPTER SIXTY–NINE
The Mamba spoke out with a new voice of the destruction of the tribe by the stranger from beyond. He spoke of the stranger among them who was invading their lives, insinuating himself into their secret ways. He made a powerful and terrifying speech at the gates of the village, where he conjured visions of the end of their history, of hordes descending on them on white steeds. He sang passionately a song called 'Destruction is coming' and another one called 'Beware of the stranger', and he had the women in tears and hysterics, and the men quaking with fear and foreboding. Then, later that same day, under the unpredictable spell of his obsession and to the complete astonishment of the tribe, the Mamba challenged the new pupil to the ultimate contest, to win the hand of the maiden. The tribe was amazed at this act because they had never heard of or noticed the new pupil before. Nor did they know that he was considered a suitor.
That same evening the Mamba turned up at the maiden's house and did something strange. He brought out from his bag a gigantic skull of beautiful ebony that he had carved; and, with a faintly sinister and quite charming smile on his face, he banged the skull down on the table, and said:
'This is my shadow. My transformation is my story. Your love is my dream.'
Then he strode out.
After a long silence, the maiden's mother said:
'Trouble has come to our house.'
After another silence, the maiden's father said:
'Only the deep can speak to the deep.'
CHAPTER–SEVENTY
The new pupil did not know what to do. He had been challenged. He was no longer invisible. He did not believe in fighting. And yet there was no way out of this moment ...
Slender, frail, sensitive, he took himself to the forest and asked the animals and the birds to teach him how to fight, how to prevail, how to win without winning.
And the crane taught him to balance on one leg. The lizard taught him elusiveness and the scuttle and how to abandon your tail if this would save your life. The spider taught him the art of ugliness and the web. The ant taught him the art of tenacity and the cunning of being small. The lion taught him majesty of presence and how to intimidate through stillness. The mosquito taught him the art of irritation and oblique motion. The bee taught him the art of madness and the sting and the possibility of impossible flight. The bat taught him the art o
f fighting without sight, of comfort in the dark, and the art of being upside-down. The mole taught him to go deep into the spirit of things. The goat taught him to use his head. The elephant taught him that weight is a hindrance as well as a force, and the art of memory. The art of awkwardness and the mystery of dwelling on two levels were the gift of the snake, as well as the art of the unthinkable. The art of love and the art of fighting through beauty of spirit was the blessing of the flowers. The frog taught him the unpredictable leap. The termite taught him the art of devouring within a structure. The eagle taught him the art of suddenness and surprise. The vulture taught him the art of stealth. The chicken taught him how to confuse by flapping his arms. The rabbit taught him its short-arm punch. The cat taught him sinuousness, elasticity, and how to fall; the python, how to coil and grasp; the lioness, ferocity; the antelope, speed; the trees, economy of movement, longevity in stillness. The silence taught him serenity. The tortoise taught him how to use time, patience, paradox and cunning. The praying mantis taught him that even a good fight is a form of prayer. The fly taught him how to frustrate, pester and disorientate. The tse-tse fly taught him the art of inducing sleep in the middle of a campaign. The heron, the new pupil's favourite creature, taught him the incommensurable art of fighting without appearing to do so, and winning when you are losing, and the art of transcending winning and losing, and sublime invincibility through always being in a higher state. The seeds of trees taught him the art of being reborn even when dying. The dew taught him the art of heaven meeting the earth. Sunlight taught him that all things come from a miraculous source. And the laughter faintly echoing in the air reminded him of his mysterious noble origin.
CHAPTER SEVENTY–ONE
With all these qualities what could have been the outcome? When the day of the fight came, it was all foregone. The fight was won and lost in advance, over before it began. It had happened, it was quick, and it was a mystery that was never unravelled. The fight was an unqualified work of art that so dazzled and amazed the tribe that it instantly entered their mythology and never left.
For it is still talked about in numerous stories all over the world till this day, and tomorrow, how the new pupil vanquished the Mamba. All that the people saw was not the fight, but its shadow, its aftermath. For they missed the event, which happened before their own eyes; it was so full of mysteries.
The Mamba appeared in all his physical and mythic glory, his muscles like bronze, glistening. The new pupil, slender and frail, appeared. He was still. He was smiling. It was almost a smile of forgiveness. The women's hearts went out to the frail one, who seemed so alone, an orphan.
The Mamba pounced, and caught a shadow. The Mamba grasped and wrestled with that which had no form. The Mamba lashed out, and struck the face of the wind in his fury. The Mamba chased after that which flapped. The Mamba heard buzzing in his ears. The Mamba heard a roar unnatural from a reed. The Mamba couldn't find the antelope which sped beneath his hulking shape. The Mamba was perplexed by the stillness of that which wasn't there when he charged it; and then he found it was behind him. The Mamba heard whispers of falling leaves. The Mamba saw a light flash in his brain. The Mamba charged the thousand forms of the same things all over the arena, out into the crowd. The Mamba cried out for the new pupil to stay still. Then the Mamba whispered for the servant to move, to fight. Then the Mamba saw the glory of the sun shining above the head of a young crowned prince. Then the Mamba, bleeding from so many self-inflicted wounds, heard a great wonderful sound of laughter in the clouds. Then the Mamba sank to his knees, and fell in prostration. Then, with a howl of horror and a cry of joy, the Mamba fell over on his back, and didn't move again for three days.
The prince hadn't struck him once. The masters declared this one of the greatest works of art they had seen in a generation.
The maiden fell completely, insanely, lucidly, sublimely, and shyly in love with this new revelation of man whom she had not noticed all this time, but who instantly healed her of all her sicknesses ...
And eventually, at last, she recognised the one for what he was: anonymous, in disguise, a part of all the delays, there and not there, in the competitions, indirectly, in secret, winning them all, humbly, without entering them and without knowing; that which she had been seeking for she had found, humble and lowly though it seemed; and to everyone's astonishment she declared him to be the one she loved and wanted to marry ...
CHAPTER SEVENTY–TWO
Her father's response to all this was completely mysterious. Around this time he unveiled what he had been working on in secret. He had created one final sculpture to heal the horrors the last one had unleashed. Then he sculpted no more. His tone of tragic sublimity vanished from the tribe and the land, echoing now and again in the lesser works of those who came much later. His last sculpture was a work of pure beauty, and it had the same effect as the last one, except in the opposite way. The masters said it was his spiritual offering to the mystic wedding of his daughter, to a wedding that took place among the stars. People came on pilgrimages to see the sculpture, even as the suitors and their entourage left the environs of the village. Their noisy, rowdy presence was replaced by pilgrims to a new revelation, as if the image unveiled were a new god or goddess incarnated in the land.
The sculpture was beautiful indeed, and its beauty was mysterious. It induced sleep, graciousness, good manners, profound and vivid dreams in which guides appeared to the dreamers. It also induced an odd vacancy in all those who saw it. Suddenly the young wanted to die in its presence; and the old, dying, wanted it to be the last thing they saw before they passed away ...
And what was it, this mysterious sculpture? It was more than it seemed. And its mystery was as much in how it created a shimmer of illumination around itself, against the sky, as it was the spirit-charged nature of the stone, as it was that of which it was an eternal sign, a question mark without a name, concentrating the magic of the heavens into the illusion of space. It was the figure of a being, a man or woman or god or goddess or dream; and the figure stood with both of its arms stretched out unnaturally wide, embracing the whole universe, in a mighty act of acceptance. Arms outstretched and legs spread out wide, doubly embracing all of life, the universe, all suffering, all joy, the beginning, the end, life, death, and beyond ...
CHAPTER SEVENTY–THREE
The king was wandering about the kingdom looking over the sleeping forms of his people, marvelling at the beautiful darkness rich with the minerals of the stars, and came upon a maiden in white kneeling in front of the village shrine. She turned a smiling and beautiful face to him, and genuflected without speaking. And he said:
'What are you doing here at this hour when the world sleeps?'
'I found myself here not knowing how.'
'Then you must have a reason.'
'This evening I took to wandering, walking and thinking and trying not to think, and I found myself here.'
She listened to the incommensurable music of the distant constellations. Did she expect a response from the mysterious personage? She had the wisdom to listen to the silence that seemed to come from him, a silence like that of a river at night when all is still and all the stars are out.
'Also I brought an offering,' she said.
She revealed a piece of sculpture she had placed before the shrinehouse. The sculpture was of a radiant king wearing a ten-pointed crown. In his right hand he held a staff with two serpents coiled round it, and at its summit was a globe. And in the other hand the seated king, in his majestic throne, held a book that was also a six-pointed star. The sculpture pleased the king immensely. And he laughed in great warmth, and the young lady, touched by the humour of this majestic being on so beautiful a night, found herself laughing too; and together they laughed happily under the clear stars of the sleeping world.
CHAPTER SEVENTY–FOUR
She woke earlier in the morning than she had ever woken before. She woke with a strange new clear joy in her head and a clear strong irrational
hunger between her legs and a deep hollow dark happy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She could not seem to breathe right and whenever she drew breath she felt her heart go light and her head swim and she had the queerest sensation that something in her was going to jump out of her body and leap out into the air, towards the sun. Her head was clear but she could not think clearly. She got out of bed and bathed and oiled herself and cleaned herself and anointed herself as if in a dream, as if she were going to be presented to a king. She did everything dreamily, for indeed she no longer knew if she were dreaming or not, or if she were alive or if she had become a spirit, for she no longer seemed to be in her body, but in a sort of bliss that was like a beautiful death. And when she felt clean enough, when she felt so happy and so beautiful that she lost all sense of herself, she left the house silently and went to her father's workshop.
