by Ben Okri
‘It’s time to leave,’ the spirit said.
Mum wept over me, pleading with me in simple words of love, and I was a little moved. It rained so heavily that the houses of the valley got flooded. A river, roaring and delighted with the prospect of fresh destruction, descended on the land, smashed the houses, felled the trees, which instantly regrew, and destroyed sections of the enchanting road. The spirit grabbed me and led me over the wreckage. The acropolis had become a place of ruins. Time had accelerated over the land. Heliotropes and hibiscus, wall-flowers and cana-lilies grew wild in the once flourishing sites of the enactment of their Mysteries. Their city stank of dead lands. The people were in deep mourning, not for the children and families that had been killed in the flood, but for the destruction of parts of their road. Their wailing sounded everywhere. The sun was now a pure white. The sky was black. The stars were drunk with the brilliance of their own indescribable colours. The road of two thousand years had been laid waste and the people bewailed their fate and some of them committed suicide at the loss of a way and their bodies were burnt at the root of evil trees. The warriors began to search for us everywhere, believing that only our deaths could in some way restore the potency of their ancient dream, the power of their way. As the spirit led us through secret tunnels of water, up into the land, a group of warriors attacked us. They stoned us, shot arrows at us, and fired guns at us. We fled. I was wounded in the stomach. The wound bled into my hunger. I shouted at them, saying:
‘Why are you attacking us? It’s not our fault …’
‘Shut up!’ the spirit said.
I ignored him.
‘… Your road will never be finished anyway!’ I cried.
I had barely completed the statement, which was drowned out by all the noise and wailing around, when a most ominous roll of thunder gathered.
‘You are a fool!’ the spirit said.
‘Why?’
The thunder broke over our heads and lightning cleaved the land and in front of us a monstrous chasm burst open on that strange earth. On the other side of the chasm our own road continued. The chasm was the lowest point of our journey.
‘Because,’ said the spirit, ‘you have annoyed their god.’
‘How?’
‘Their god didn’t want them to understand what the prophet said.’
‘Then why did their god allow the prophet to say it?’
‘Because it is true.’
‘You mean their god doesn’t want them to know the truth?’
‘Yes and no. They will know what they need to know when they need to know it. Only gods know the truth. Only all of the gods united into one God can know all of the truth. The people will have to become gods, and they are not ready, and will not be ready for thousands and thousands of years. Besides, it is bad to have too many gods in the universe. And so the people know as much as they need. When they need more, seek more, they will find more. Do you think it is good to know all the truth when you are just beginning to build a great road?’
‘No.’
The spirit was silent.
‘I don’t think they heard me anyway. There was a lot of noise around.’
‘Don’t worry about that. The people are deaf to the truth. It is their god you have angered. Our journey will become a bit more perilous, that’s all.’
It was my turn to be silent. All around houses collapsed of their own enigmatic will. The road howled. The land contorted in the agony of a bad dream. The people were bewildered. Wondrous flowers burst out of the barren places, sprouted out of the wreckage. The blood of the dead bloomed into silver-coloured trees. Red geraniums, like spontaneous flames, leapt into being on the golden edges of the valley. Roses flowered in the air. The acropolis smelled of death and beauty, the aroma of beauty conquering decay. The weeping inhabitants didn’t notice the transformation taking place under the alcoholic potency of the air.
‘How are we going to cross this chasm?’
‘It was your fault.’
‘I am sorry.’
‘We are going to have to cross it. Your companions are desperately waiting for your arrival.’
‘How are we going to cross it though?’
The spirit said nothing. Thunder growled in the distance. The lights changed over everything and the golden hue deepened till it became a kind of radiant darkness.
‘I am going to have to tie you to my back, because I still cannot trust you.’
‘Why can’t you trust me?’
‘I’m still not sure you want to return to your companions.’
Before I could protest the spirit caught me, pinned me to the ground with its weight of a mountain, and tied me up with silver cords. At the same moment Mum came into the room, lowered her face to mine, and embraced me tight. The spirit tied me to its back.
‘You’ve become so light anyway that you will be no problem in the flying.’
Mum talked to me in the deepest hours of the darkening golden hue. Her embrace tightened. The spirit stood poised over the chasm.
‘Are you ready?’
‘No,’ I said.
Mum pressed her warm face to mine and lifted me up. The spirit leapt into the chasm. The silver cord kept me steady. My feet dangled. My hands were free. A powerful wind rushed through my mind. My hunger enveloped me in its void. Something inside me expanded with terror. The spirit flew over, fighting the white wind, dipping into the chasm. There was a terrifying whiteness at the bottom of the abyss. I screamed. The whiteness was a force that seemed to pull us down. Suddenly, I couldn’t see. The wind felt like rocks hurled at us. The abyss was full of lurking terrors, monsters, prodigies, black illumination, white cries and incantatory noises that never ceased speaking with the wind’s frightening voice. With a supreme effort, the spirit lifted us higher, into a roseate sky. Mum held me aloft and carried me to the bed. She hovered with me in the air for a while, speaking good words to me in the voice of the sky. The spirit said:
‘Don’t be afraid.’
I wasn’t any more. Mum’s voice was in my soul. The spirit hovered over the green road and as we landed I heard a great noise behind us, a bolt of thunder, the clapping of mighty godlike hands. Mum laid me gently on the bed. The silver cords binding me to the spirit were loosened. They vanished. When I got up and looked back I saw that the chasm had gone and the valley of gold had disappeared.
‘They have reappeared somewhere else,’ the spirit said.
The spirit pushed on and I followed reluctantly. The road swept upwards. There were no trees around. I heard the susurration of rivers.
‘Up at the top of the road is where all the rivers of this world meet,’ the spirit informed me.
‘What happens there?’
Mum touched my face. Her fingers smelt of rosemary.
‘When we get there I will tell you.’
Mum left the room and I travelled lightly. I found it difficult going up the long road.
‘I’m hungry.’
‘Don’t eat anything,’ the spirit said. Taking my cue, he produced some food from the air, and ate happily. ‘If you eat anything you won’t arrive and you won’t be able to return. You’ll be stuck here in the dreaded interspaces.’
We travelled up the road for a long time. I grew weary, but the spirit wouldn’t let me rest. We came to a swamp full of crocodiles and snakes. The swamp kept bubbling. Yellow gases wafted up from the surface. And then the bird with Madame Koto’s face alighted on the bank. A snake slithered towards the bird. There was a sudden noise, and the bird took off. To my horror a yellow hand emerged from the swamp, shot up in the air, and caught the bird with a terrible precision. The hand withdrew swiftly into the swamp and the bird vanished under.
Further on I saw a lizard with the blind old man’s face. It was playing an accordion at the roadside. I chased it.
‘Come back!’ the spirit ordered.
I ignored the spirit and pursued the lizard, which scuttled into an aquamarine undergrowth. I tore after it into the undergro
wth. The lizard ran on. I stamped on its tail. The tail came off. The lizard stopped for a moment, mystified. Then I pounced on its head with a stone, but the lizard escaped me and dropped its tiny accordion, which I squashed completely with the stone, producing a little din of angry music. I was still searching furiously for the lizard, to smash it utterly, for I was sure it would have some sort of effect on the blind old man, when the spirit came and dragged me away.
We went on climbing the road. Soon its gentle green surface gave way to green rocks and stones. They were sharp underfoot and they hurt with each step. Then the stones and rocks became a fine spread of bright green glass which cut into me. I bled all the way up the endless road. Behind me the redness glittered on the green, and the blood evaporated, and its mist coloured the air.
‘You need to lose all your blood before you arrive,’ said the spirit.
When I thought I could no longer bear the pain underfoot and the hunger, when the roadsides became littered with dried corpses, skeletons of babies, skulls chattering rhymed verse, the road changed into a green stream. It was carpeted with thickly matted weeds. We walked on the carpet of stream-weeds.
‘Soon we will get to the great river,’ said the spirit. ‘Be grateful. When we cross the river there is no turning back. Your companions and the whole of the spirit world and the goddess of the spirit-rivers will have a wonderful banquet awaiting you, because you are their prodigal friend.’
We travelled on. I dragged behind, my stomach flaming, my soles wounded, and my blood no longer red but blue, like ink, inscribing my barely decipherable history on the matted weeds. The spirit marched on in front, occasionally looking back to make sure I was still following. Then the stream became a plateau of cotton-wool, or was it mist, or was it clouds? I heard wailing all around. The spirit, after a while, yelled:
‘Look! I see the river-bank!’
I did not share its exultation. We approached the river-bank. The river was an expanse so smooth, so unruffled, it seemed impossible that it was composed of water. It seemed like nothing, emptiness, air. Near the bank, on what should have been the water, there was a dug-out canoe. Next to the canoe was a figure, head covered in a black hood, whom I assumed to be the ferryman of the dead.
When we got near the bank I saw no birds. No breezes wafted over the river. There was no spray, no mist. Nothing stirred on its blinding expanse. There were no sounds of any sort, not even the gentlest ripple of water could be heard. As we neared the canoe the figure stood up. Over the expanse of unnatural water, still and frightening, an infinity of silver, the figure’s reflections were multiplied. It was only when I looked at the river properly that I realised it was a vast, undisturbed mirror. The canoe stood on a haze of light, without troubling the mirror’s surface. The lights of that world, coverging on its shimmering surface, made me utterly transparent, as if I had disappeared from reality, become a ghost. For a moment my eyes, suffused with light and silver, were blinded. Then Dad came back into the room with the moon in his eyes.
He hovered over me.
‘My son,’ he said, gently, ‘there is a wonderful wind blowing in my mind. I drank the moon tonight. The stars are playing on a flute. The air is sweet with the music of an invisible genius. Love is crying in my flesh, singing strange songs. The rain is full of flowers and their scent makes me tremble as if I am becoming a real man. I see great happiness in our future. I see joy. I see you walking out of the sun. I see gold in your eyes. Your flesh glitters with the dust of diamonds. I see your mother as the most beautiful woman in the world.’
And then he was silent.
I wanted him to carry on speaking. His words offered me water and food and new breathing. But he stayed silent and his quiet breath did not stir the slightest wind on the face of the great mirror.
And then, to my utter astonishment, Dad knelt by the bed. He rested his head on the pillow and the smell of alcohol floated on his quiet breathing. When he moved his head, turning the moon in his eyes away from me, as if he were ashamed of revealing something that would free him, the figure by the canoe turned towards us and lifted off its black hood. Standing there, crowned in black light, was a naked young woman, with an old woman’s face. Her eyes were harder, and glinted brighter, than diamonds.
‘Where is the ferryman?’ asked the spirit imperiously.
The spirit’s voice reverberated, becoming sharper each time, over the horizon of mirrors. The woman did not reply. She took a step towards us and for the first time I noticed that she had the feet of a lioness. Her eyes were those of a tiger. The spirit went forward, attempted to brush her aside, to reach the canoe. Lightning flashed from their contact. The light was so dazzling that for a while all I saw were two small moons revolving in a glass of clear alcohol.
Dad was saying:
‘I see us dancing on lovely beaches. The water-maiden sings for us. I see the days of our misery turn over and become bright. My son, my only son, your mother has never ceased being a young woman rich with hopes, and me a young man. We are poor. We have little to give you, but our love. You came out of our deepest joy. We prayed for you. We wanted you. And when you were born you had a mysterious smile on your face. The years passed and we watched the smile grow smaller, but its mystery remains. Don’t you feel for us? Every moment that my head is bursting with loads at the garage, my soul is brimming with good dreams for you. In this life you have seen how sweet even sorrow can be. Our life appears to be a sad music. So how can you come and then leave us? Do you know our misery? Do you know how you make even that bearable? They say you are an abiku child, that you care nothing for your parents, that you are cold, and that you have eyes only for that special spirit who is a beautiful young girl with golden bangles and copper anklets. But I do not believe them. You have wept for us and watered the tree of love. We have suffered for you. Suffering is our home. We did not make this strange bed that we have to sleep on. But this world is real. I have bled in it. So have you. Your mother has bled in it even more than we have. There are beautiful young girls here with soft tender voices and eyes that God made with moonlight. Must I sing to you all night, for seven days, and sacrifice two white hens, and two dizzying bottles of ogogoro, before you hear me? And even now your mother is wandering about in the night, crying to the wind and the road and the hidden angels, looking for a way to reach you. Does this life not move you? When you play in the streets and see the children die, and hear the mothers weep, and hear the old ones sing of each miraculous birth, is your heart untouched? We have sorrow here. But we also have celebration. We know the special joys. We have sorrow, but it is the sister of love, and the mother of music. I have seen you dance, my son. And if you will not listen to my song, I will not sing any more.’
Again he fell silent.
I tried to move, to indicate to him that I had been listening, that tears flowed in my soul, but he made a sudden movement which alarmed me. I heard a loud noise in advance. I looked for his eyes. I saw only the spirit crouching, swaying violently, a weapon in its hands, attacking the woman. They fought one another through all their reflections. The spirit struck the woman and a great din, steel on steel, crashed all around me. The spirit went on striking her till golden blood flowed from her wounds. She made no attempt to defend herself. The golden blood flowed down her and resolved itself into a dazzling protective shield. Then she drew a weapon from her body, and waved it in the air. Suddenly I saw both of them mirrored to eternity. They were everywhere and each reflection was real. And then, as if behind a glass window illuminated at night, I slowly made out Dad’s face. He watched me with calm eyes, while the spirit fought the woman. They fought on the river of glass, fought on the canoe, fought in the sky. And Dad spoke gently in my ears, as if I were a flower.
‘We are the miracles that God made to taste the bitter fruits of time. We are precious, and one day our suffering will turn into wonders of the earth. The sky is not our enemy. There are things that burn me now which turn golden when I am happy. Do you not see the
mystery of our pain? That we bear poverty, are able to sing and dream sweet things, and that we never curse the air when it is warm, or the fruit when it tastes so good, or the lights that bounce gently on the waters. We bless things even in our pain. We bless them in silence. That is why our music is sweet. It makes the air remember. There are secret miracles at work, my son, that only time will bring forth. I too have heard the dead singing. They tell me that this life is good. They tell me to live it gently, with fire, and always with hope, my son. There is wonder here and there is surprise in everything that you cannot see. The ocean is full of songs. The sky is not our enemy. Destiny is our friend.’
Kneeling by the bed, he sang wonderful tunes into my ears. He told me stories in songs about our ancestors who had left their original land and made a strange place their home; about grandfather who fought a great spirit of the forest for seven days and was made the Priest of the Shrine of Roads; about gods who divided the universe between the land of spirits, the land of humans, and the infinite regions of heavenly beings, and who gave in all realms a special homeland for the brave.
Then abruptly he stopped speaking. The lights changed. Time contorted. Weapons created great sparks over my face. Dad held a knife over me. I heard the cry of a white bird. The old woman, waving her weapon, golden in the brightness of mirrors, swung at the spirit, and severed one of its heads. The spirit let out a horrifying cry, utterly human. The woman slashed off its second head. Feathers fell in frenzy over me. The blood of the spirit spattered my face and momentarily blinded me. And when I looked again I saw Dad tower over me, a white hen in one hand, a knife of menacing sharpness in the other. Mum stood with her back to the window, surrounded by nine blue candles, and a configuration of cowries. Dad held the white hen firmly, wings and feet and head. Blood dripped down his arms. There was another figure in the room, whose shadow expanded the spaces, filled it with the aroma of wild village shrines, and the solemnity of rock-faced priests. He danced about the room with a mighty fan of eagle feathers that threatened to set the room into flight. His dancing, fervent and insane, with red amulets and cowries cackling round his neck, became the whirling torment of the twice-beheaded spirit.
