by Ben Okri
Omovo turned a corner. His eyes passed over a mechanic’s workshop. Fanciful designs of clothes had been painted on the walls of the tailor’s shed. He passed shops and kiosks and his eyes grew tired. When he got to Dr Okocha’s workshed he was confronted by a life-size painting propped up against an electric pole. Something happened to the tiredness of his eyes. It was a painting of a well-known Nigerian wrestler. The painting was in black and white. The ability of the artist was apparent in the immense physical presence and the defiance that were conveyed.
The artist’s workshed stood on a corner of the street. The large wooden door was open. Omovo went into the shed, wondering if the old painter was around. He hadn’t seen Dr Okocha for some time. The shed was stuffy, oppressive and untidy. The place smelt of turpentine, kerosene, oil paints and freshly cut wood. An earthy mustiness hung densely in the air. Unfinished carvings and hand-made boards were scattered all over the unkempt bed. Signboards of different shapes and sizes leant on the walls, and some were on the floor. There were a lot of paintings on the table. Beneath the table there were stacks of old books and a collection of dust-covered correspondence courses on art. They looked as if they had not been read for a long time – like things bought cheaply in a frantic self-education campaign.
Omovo became aware of the low roof with its long dark rafters. There was a large bulb swinging in the centre of the room which gave off a curious dry heat. The dull light barely illuminated the thick shield of cobwebs high up amongst the rafters. When Omovo turned round, with the intention of leaving, the light changed in the shed. A man stood in the doorway.
‘Yes? What do you want, eh?’ the voice was deep and the Igbo accent was thick.
‘Dr Okocha, I saw your painting outside.’
‘Ah, Omovo. It’s you. It’s been a long time. Where did you go, or have you been avoiding me?’
‘No. It was the rainy season. All the roads were flooded. I take the other side to the office now.’
‘Sit down. Find somewhere to sit. Throw some carvings to one corner, yes, good. So how are you, eh?’
‘I’m fine.’
Dr Okocha, as he was called, was thickset, like a wrestler. His face was strong and sweaty, and his forehead was massive. His small nose repeated the curves of his rather large, friendly lips. He had piercing eyes and thick bushy eyebrows. His hair was thinning. A brown agbada covered his thickset frame and made him seem shorter than he really was.
‘You know, I did not recognise you at first.’
‘Yes. My head.’
‘Hope nothing happened. Nothing bad?’
‘No,’ Omovo said, without conviction.
There was a fine strand of silence. Dr Okocha made a movement with his feet.
‘Ah yes, let me give you some palm wine, eh?’
‘No, don’t worry. I won’t drink anything.’
‘Not even a Coke?’
‘No. But thank you.’
The cobwebs high on the rafters reappeared each time the bulb did a complete swing. The musty smell deepened the general clutter. Shadows leapt about the walls. Two flies did a waltz across the room and a lizard scurried from under the table and ran behind the signboards.
‘How is work going?’
‘Fine, my friend, fine. Did you see the painting outside?’
‘Yes. It’s good. It’s just like him standing there. Has he seen it yet?’
‘Yes. I took it to him and he said he will buy it for fifty Naira. It took me one month to finish. You like it, eh?’
‘Yes. It’s very good.’
Dr Okocha became radiant. His finely wrinkled face took on a paternal shine. His eyes narrowed with pleasure. Rolling back the sleeve of his agbada, he pointed at some paintings.
‘I am working on those two for the exhibition coming up.’
He got up and then, without finishing the motion, he sat down again. His excitement bubbled. Omovo nodded and stared at them. He hadn’t seen them when he came in. For some reason he didn’t like them. They seemed forced, lacked passion, were like bad photographs, and had obviously been done without models. But they were sincere.
One was a painting of an old man. He had a vacant expression in his eyes. His chest was bared and bony, and his cracked face was an image of grey-brown desolation. In his thin arms, he cradled something indefinably alive.
‘The old man is holding a baby, Omovo. They are both babies.’
The other painting was larger. It was a group of sharply depicted young men. They looked fierce, determined, and ruthless in their denim shorts. The fierceness was more in the cast of their faces. Their eyes were quite blank.
Dr Okocha softly sang an Igbo song. He watched Omovo.
‘They are good. They are good. I like them.’
‘You know, you are the first person to see them. It’s a good sign.’
The shadows suddenly moved on the walls. The waltzing flies had chased one another to a corner of the room and buzzed beneath the cobwebs. The bulb went on swinging.
‘Did you pass the tailor’s shed when you were coming?’
‘Yes.’
‘I did the designs on the wall.’
‘Ah. Good. So do you have many signwriting jobs now?’
‘Yes, they are pouring in. I’ve got more than I can handle at the moment.’
Another silence.
‘Did you hear about the exhibition?’ the old painter asked.
‘I remember reading something about a private showing but for some reason I didn’t take it seriously.’
‘Ah, they are having a big exhibition at the Ebony galleries in the first week of October. Many people are coming: critics, rich people, students and even a big man from the army. I don’t know if all the tickets have been given out and without the tickets you can’t exhibit your work. But it’s a good thing I saw you now because I am going to town during the coming week and I could find out about tickets for you. So how is your work coming on?’
Omovo smiled. ‘Fine. I have just finished a drawing. I called it “Related Losses” – I don’t know why I called it that. I was happy.’ He paused and then went on: ‘I have been going round and round that pool of green scum near our house.’
‘Why?’
Omovo turned to the old painter. ‘I don’t know. To look at it, I suppose. I look at it a lot.’
There was silence. The flies had stopped buzzing. The cobwebs have become sinister, and the shadows jumped about the walls. The musty smell, rising from the earth, pervaded the shed. Omovo looked up and saw, on the awning near the door, a dangling white sack. It was a juju. Omovo had not seen it there before. Suddenly he wanted to leave. The shadows had become real.
‘Dr Okocha, thanks for the information about the private showing. I’ve got to be going now. I hope you don’t mind?’
‘No. I understand. The call of duty, yes?’
Omovo smiled and nodded.
‘Anyway, try and see me in the week. Or I might just come and see you. With any luck I could get you a ticket.’
‘Thank you. I didn’t know when I was coming that I would run into this.’
‘It’s okay. Just get on with the work. And I hope your hair grows fast. You look strange.’
Omovo smiled again, his eyes vague. They shook hands. The old painter threw the sleeves of his agbada over his shoulders and then wiped the sweat off his face.
‘See you in the week.’
Omovo went out of the shed. The sounds, the sights, and the smells of the ghetto crowded back to him. Things were clear all round.
And then lightning flashed in the sky. An uncertain rain drizzled. The sky was in a bad mood. He walked faster. He felt his head spinning gently, the sensation like a rush of blood to the brain. He felt good and he felt strange. Night fell like soot from the clouds. Kerosene lamps appeared on the stalls. Their flames were blown thin by the wind.
When he got home, the rain had stopped. Children played hop and skip games in boxed areas on the sand at the compound front. Two of the c
ompound women plaited the hair of two others near the chemist’s shop. Some people had come to buy water from the grey aluminium tank.
Then he saw her. And when he saw her, weakness and longing flooded him in waves. Blood flushed his ears and his face felt hot. She stood at the entrance of the compound. When she saw him she bent over and whispered something to a little boy with a long face. Her hair was plaited in thin knitted bundles. She looked melancholy and pretty and contained. When she stared at him a wonderful and dangerous emotion happened inside him. Her face underwent a sad-happy darkening. He did not slow down. He desperately wanted to do something, to reach out to her in some way. But he did not stop.
He had barely reached the low cement wall in front of their apartment when her husband emerged from Tuwo’s room. He was short and menacing. His name was Takpo. Omovo felt something else waken in him: an unsuspected pang of loneliness. Sensing the imminence of an assault, Omovo shrank into himself.
Takpo slowed down, glared at him, smiled, and then said in a loud voice: ‘Ah, painter boy, how are you, eh?’
Omovo couldn’t find his voice and experienced a moment of inner panic. He felt naked. He felt as if all his stifled desires could be read on his face and were visible on his head.
‘Ah, painter boy, why you cut your head, now? You were handsome before-o. Now you are a...’
Someone laughed roughly from the room behind him. Someone else shouted: ‘Moro-moro.’
Omovo turned into the enclosed space in front of their apartment. The laughter rippled and then passed away. He thought: ‘I mustn’t let them do this to me. I must be strong.’
Ifeyiwa’s husband passed from sight. The boy he had seen her whispering to came towards him and went right into the room. Omovo went after him. The boy hid behind the door.
‘She said I should give this to you.’
It was a note. Omovo tapped the boy on the head, brought out a coin, and gave it to him: ‘Thank you, eh.’ The boy nodded and ran out of the room into the unsuspecting compound.
The note was from Ifeyiwa. It read:
I miss you. I haven’t seen you for a week. What’s happening? Hope you are all right. I saw the drawing that you were doing. Have you finished it now? Omovo, can we meet tomorrow, Sunday, at the Badagry road? I want to see you very badly. Tomorrow at this time or earlier. I will be waiting. Love, Ifi.
Omovo did not read the letter a second time. He crumpled it, got a box of matches, and burnt it. He watched as the paper was consumed, as if in pain, by the moving areas of flame. He felt within him joyous disquiet. The room seemed too small. His frenzies filled everywhere. Outside the compound bustled with moving figures. It was noisy. His head throbbed. Darkness had fallen and all the corridor lights were on. The pale bulbs swung balefully. Mosquitoes came and assailed his relative peace and bit him all over.
And then from the sitting room behind him there came a sustained peal of feminine laughter. The curtain swished and out came his father. He was with Blackie. A fine perfume swam over him and suffused the air with a delicate and mocking presence. His father was well dressed. He had on a clean white shirt over a resplendent wrapper. And he wore a fancy felt hat which Omovo had not seen before. There was a feather in its grey band. He waved a fan of peacock feathers.
Blackie was also prettily dressed. She had on the same kind of expensive wrapper, a white blouse, a high, colourful head-dress, bright bangles and earrings, and an imitation gold necklace. They made a lovely pair.
Omovo shrank into a corner. But he had no need to. His father spontaneously began to dance at the mouth of the door. He danced with an engrossed smile on his face. He didn’t notice Omovo.
When the brief show was over, he became businesslike. He took his wife by the hand, walked briskly down the corridor, and acknowledged greetings as he went out into the street. The compound people stared at them, some even cheered. Children trailed behind them excitedly. Then they were gone. To a party, to a meeting, or something. It was not often the man went out like that. He was something of a natural showman, but ever since Omovo’s mother died and his business began to fall to pieces and his two sons were turned out of the house, there had been no occasion for being a showman. This was a departure. He seemed to be celebrating life again with his new wife. But Omovo knew otherwise; he saw beneath the dignity, the fine clothes, and the feathered hat to the bright crack within and a threatening void.
Omovo, feeling abandoned, tried not to think of anything. His mind whirled lightly. The bulb swung gently. The wind whistled through the compound. Mosquitoes attacked in squads. And the children howled. Omovo felt very far away from the life about him. A keen, ill-defined revolt simmered and died away within him. The perfume still hung in the air. The compound throbbed with its characteristic jangling noises.
He did not put the lights on in his room when he went in. he tried hard to sleep. The room changed shape and the darkness pressed on his mind like an incubus. The old decrepit fan whirling on the table blew back the stale sweaty smells in the room. And the whirling fan blades became disconnected sounds and images of unrest in his mind. And then, as if from a great distance, he heard the disconnected sounds stop. The noises of the compound which filtered into the room suddenly died away. And he was glad because nothing, not even the darkness, could claim him. As he dropped farther and farther away into the bright void, he had the curious sensation that he was dying and that everything was dying with him.
3
They both walked in silence. They had been silent ever since she came up to him where he stood beside the mechanic’s workshop, touched him lightly on the shoulder, and said: ‘Omovo, I’m here. Let’s go.’
The Badagry Road stretched like a mirage before them. It was well tarred. It was also full of treacherous potholes. Cars of various makes and in various stages of decay drove past noisily, and left sickening fumes in the air.
They were silent when they crossed the road. Cars whistled past close to them. Omovo brushed his hand against hers. She half turned towards him, her mouth opened as if to speak. But she decided against it and slipped her fingers into his. The two hands were linked for a moment and when he pretended to scratch an itch on his head, they disengaged lightly.
The sky was clear and clean; a spaceless blue dome. The air was fickle. One moment it was light-tipped, fresh, and the next it was full of smoke and gasoline fumes. Birds swooped past twittering, and he felt their presence keenly. Then they were black specks scattered in the canvas of the sky. He was suddenly touched with a sense of things that were irrevocably lost, of places that cannot be reached.
‘I had a dream, Omovo.’
Her voice came as a surprise. It was there, had gone, and wasn’t there anymore. Her face shadowed over. He held his breath, his heart beating a little faster, as he waited for her to speak.
‘Ifeyiwa, you were saying...?’
‘I’m not even sure whether I was dreaming,’ she said.
‘Well, say it then. I am listening.’
There was silence. And then even that was destroyed. Cars went past. A helicopter flew overhead and motorcyclists roared down the sun-drenched road. She began to speak.
‘I was in a hall. The hall changed into a coffin. The rats began to chew at me in the coffin. I fought my way out and found myself in a forest. The trees were ugly. As I tried to find my way out of the forest everything changed back into the hall. This time there was nothing except the sound of something scratching and chewing. I wasn’t afraid. When I woke up I found that the trap under the bed had caught a big rat.’
Omovo looked at her and, when she instinctively looked up at him, he turned his eyes away.
‘Then I began to clean up the whole house. I swept away the cobwebs, cleaned the corners, broke down the insects’ nests on our ceiling, and drove out all the wall geckoes and lizards. He came into the house and saw me cleaning and was angry that I did not go to the shop when he came home to eat. And he beat me again. Omovo, what does it all mean? Did I do wrong?’
Her voice rose and dropped as she spoke. When she had finished she brought her hands up to her face. The gesture reminded Omovo of how his mother used to raise her hands in defence when his father was beating her. The dream Ifeyiwa described assumed a thousand shapes in his mind, and the whole experience somehow became his. He shook his head.
‘I don’t know, Ifeyiwa.’
‘I’m not afraid of anything.’
‘Have you told him about it?’
‘Omovo, you know I can’t tell him anything.’
‘Yes. I know.’ He looked at her. ‘I got your note, Ifi. It was very nice.’
‘I had to buy the boy sweets before he agreed to take it to you.’
‘I gave him some money.’
Ifeyiwa smiled and swung her arms. Her mood had brightened and the shadows had lifted from her face. She was radiant in her plain white blouse. A glimmering, gold-painted chain dangled from her neck. It rested in the valley between her lightly moving breasts. He knew that she did not have on a brassiere. The thought started a stab of passion inside him.
‘You know, he came in yesterday and was saying how strange your drawing was.’
‘When he walked past me and suddenly said something about my head I thought he was going to pounce on me.’
There was a light descent of silence. Something happened in the sky. The air darkened. The sky had now acquired sprinklings of yellow, ash-grey, and a wistful fading blue. Everything around was faintly touched with that darkening quality of twilight. It happened imperceptibly.
‘Omovo?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve been wanting to ask you why you shaved your head.’
He reached up and touched his head. Flesh touched flesh. It felt bare as a calabash.
‘Oh, it was a barber that did it. An apprentice. I decided on impulse. Like that. I don’t know.’
