Dangerous Love (43 page)

His illumination became a tumble of words spinning in him, erupting in thoughts and speech, in being and words, in visions and emotions deeper than the urge that made him paint. Bursting in this state he saw time enfission into every moment, into endless possibilities of life. Time was the sea – a million lights revolved on every crest – past met present, present met future. Quivering with excessive love, he had the vision of a terrifying and unfinishable portrait of humanity.

He felt the purity of helplessness, the subversion of hope – he saw caves of unmeasured corruption, felt the burden of desperate prayers uttered, unheard – the prayers of slaves – the betrayal of ancestors – the treachery of leaders – the lies and the corruption of the old generation – their destruction of future dreams – they raped our past, we rape our future – we never learn our lessons – history screams and ghettoes erupt with death and maddened youths – they scrambled for our continent and now we scramble for the oil-burst of Independence – traitors and disunity everywhere – those who are deaf to history are condemned to be enslaved by it – enslaved by ourselves, our attitudes, our tribal madness, each for himself – the smiles of the rich grow more predatory while children weep their lives away burning in infernos of hunger and disease – our history hasn't hurt us enough or the betrayals would stop, the streets would erupt, till we are overcome with the inescapable necessity of total self-transformation – we burn for vision – clear, positive vision – for vision allied with action – for want of vision my people perish – for want of action they perish – in dreams – in dreams begin responsibility – for we have become a people of dream-eaters, worshipping at the shrines of corruption – we can't escape our history – we will dwindle, become smaller, the continent will shrink, be taken over, swallowed, pulped, drained, by predators, unless we transform – in vision begins – in vision begins responsibility – and even as we die, and shrink, and are taken over, reduced, seen as animals, as invisible, even as the streets spill over with the poor, even as we dance our lives away, and celebrate the powerful, worship like servants at their vulturous shrines, we can utter psychic decisions and set forces into motion that could change our lives forever – in vision begins action – in action begins our destiny – for the things that you do change you – and the changes affect the things you do – to him that hath shall be given – seek and ye shall find – to him that hath not shall be taken from, even that which they haveth – you either become, or you die –

Omovo's moment of illumination tumbled on within him.

I came here to escape and I find our past waiting for me on these shores – now we are the trampling ground of foreign powers – we don't affect the world – we bear suffering too much – our resilience is our weakness – for want of sugar the whites colonised half the world – we have suffered slavery, the loss of our art, we suffer droughts, we inflict wounds on ourselves, and yet we do not conquer our weaknesses – our blood fuelled their industrial mills – all for the bitter taste in their mouths, the taste of bitter coffee – the bitterness in us should long have festered and turned to acid and turned round into the sweetness of transformation – transform, or die – in dreams begin responsibility –

– the moment breaking down into prayers unheard – cries unheeded – warnings unaccepted – visions unseen – the moment dissolving into steps upon broken bridges, directions untaken, signs unread, prophets silenced – artists destroyed – the moment is self losing its centre, finding new ones – rashes of insanity – wandering in wilderness of lost possibilities – and I am here on these shores, in this strange town, weighed down by soul-clogs of useless knowledge, other people's opinions, the creative dangers of thinking in an imposed language – betrayed by language – erased from history – deceived – as children, we read how the whites discovered us – didn't we exist till they discovered us? – weighed down by manipulated history, rigged history books, rigged maps of the continent – weighed down by lies – and then believing those lies – swallowing them – force-feeding ourselves with them – gorging ourselves – my generation is one of losses
–
inheriting madness, empty coffers, colossal debts, the vanities of the old generation, their blindness and greed – inheriting chaos – confusion – garbage – fumes everywhere – violence – coups upon coups – but chaos is the beginning of creation – God created chaos before he created order – a greater order – chaos is rich in possibilities – in vision begins responsibilities –

And as Omovo's being swirled a word kept repeating itself to him:

transfiguration – transfigure the deception multiplied by education – all education is bad until you educate yourself – from scratch – start from the beginning, from the simplest things – assume nothing – question everything – begin again the journey from the legends of creation – look again at everything – keep looking – be vigilant – understand things slowly – digest thoroughly – act swiftly – re-dream the world – restructure self – all the building blocks are there in the chaos – USE EVERYTHING – USE EVERYTHING WISELY – EVERYTHING HAS SIGNIFICANCE –

And as lights in the sky, from the sun, grew more intense, the points of illumination within him grew dimmer. As he tumbled deeper into the wells of knowledge and understanding he didn't know he had access to, his moment of vision became more incomplete. But his contemplation rose beyond words. Rose into higher dimensions within, opened doors, and broke down walls, and expanded the spaces within him, into new states of being. Points of light forever vanish. Visions are always incomplete. Between the chaos and the clarity, the ever-moving motionless being, between the interstices and the clamour of the moment, a secret self was forming, a new man emerging. He had been given an unnamed sufflation and like most of us he didn't know how to experience it fully.

The wonder was soon gone. His head felt empty, as if all his energies had been expended in a hurricane he himself had generated. The moment had passed. The wind blew hard and he felt lighter than ever, as if he had lost weight with the moment. Veins throbbed on his forehead. He felt devastated, wrecked, he had a terrible headache. He felt cold and vulnerable, afraid of what had happened inside him. The dawn had turned. He felt weak and the late morning sun seemed to weaken him further. He sank to the ground and lay there, staring at the sky.

People going to the farms, on their ways to work, market women, petty traders, praise-singers, carpenters and blacksmiths, people of all trades, passed him as he lay there on the ground. He saw the looks in their eyes. He heard them say things about him. He heard them mutter about him being a stranger, strange and mad. They hurried past. After some time he got up. He felt sad that he had thought and soliloquised away the beauty that had come into him with the dawn.

He wandered down to the beach. He came upon a little girl who was singing to the egrets, playing on the shore, building shapes out of sand and stones. She seemed happy and unaware of it. Omovo knew intuitively that she was Ayo's younger sister. When she saw him coming she smiled at him and then ran away, her laughter on the wind. He turned and went to his room, walking against the wind, the salt of sea bringing tears to his eyes.

In the afternoon Ayo brought his food and said: ‘My father is ill. He has been ill for about six years. He still goes to the farm. Now he's in bed and cannot move his legs. He looks very strange.'

Omovo consoled him, saying: ‘He is a good chief and a strong man.'

Later Ayo remarked: ‘You look lonely sometimes.'

‘It's a lonely business.'

Ayo was silent. Omovo said: ‘We're all alone. We all carry aloneness inside us whatever we do.'

‘Do we?'

‘I think so. Sometimes we're aware of it and sometimes we're not.'

Another silence.

‘What happened to you?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘What happened to your head?'

‘My hair, you mean.'

‘Yes.'

‘Nothing.'

‘Why did you shave it?'

‘I didn't. A barber did.'

‘It's growing a bit.'

‘Is it?'

‘Yes.'

‘I don't notice. But that's good.'

‘Do you know the story of Samson and his hair?'

‘Yes. It's a good story.'

‘Do you think when your hair grows you will be strong?'

‘Am I not strong now?'

‘But you look lonely.'

‘I'm not really.'

‘You're sad?'

‘Sometimes.' Then: ‘I may get stronger. If I'm lucky.'

‘I hope you're lucky.'

‘Thank you. I hope I use it well.'

‘I think you will.'

‘You're a nice boy. I hope your father gets well.'

‘I hope so too.'

‘How long will you stay?'

‘Not long.'

‘I will miss you.'

‘You'll be okay.'

‘When you've finished eating I want to show you something.'

Omovo looked at Ayo. Then he nodded.

When he had eaten they both set out. Ayo led the way down the dust tracks. He took Omovo to a ruin of a house. Omovo had passed it before and had often seen the old chief standing in front of it looking sad. It was an old single-storey building, unpainted, uncared-for, unlived in: a sad house, decrepit with shame, unremarkable, in a state of collapse, sinking into the soft soil.

‘That's where the chains of slaves are kept. I've got the keys. Do you want to see them?'

Omovo looked at the house again, noticed how it seemed to be leaning over, noticed the unpainted door, the slightly rusted padlock. Then he looked at Ayo's young face, eager, unknowing. Madness turned in his brain. He shook his head, turned, and wandered off by himself, and left Ayo standing there, staring at the keys in his hands, wondering what he'd said that was wrong.

I

Omovo was returning from the house of shame when a madman jumped on him from the bushes. Omovo screamed. The shock had almost made him faint. The madman laughed and went a short way up the path, blocking Omovo's passage. Omovo regained his serenity. The madman was naked from the waist down. He had cuts all over his legs and feet. His organ was thick-veined, his pubic hair dusty and matted with wild flowers and grass. He wore the blackened remnants of a shirt. His eyes were passive and unfocussed. His beard was rough and covered with detritus. Suddenly he began to shriek, to repeat strange words, as if he were warding off demons. He threw himself to the ground, lay still, then rose with the demonic rectitude of a sleepwalker. Then he started scratching himself, dancing curiously. He scratched at his ears, till they bled. He scratched as if he were trying to pull out some minuscule antagonist. Then he began to scream, as if he couldn't hear himself. Words poured from him. The birds around flew from the trees.

When the madman had jumped on Omovo his first impulse was to flee into the bushes, screaming. After he had shaken off the madman and noticed how unviolent he was, Omovo calmed that impulse. The man's madness seemed to him to take the form of words, incoherent words. His mouth frothed while he kept uttering an unending stream of words. The madman regarded him with blank eyes, eyes without intent, without the slightest recognition of a fellow human form. As Omovo neared the man, to go past him, home, he was surprised that he felt protected by a vague and tangential affinity. The madman looked at him with fractured eyes that seemed to suck in Omovo's spirit. Drawing tightly about him his cloak of electric awareness, Omovo passed the madman. Calmly.

That night the chief died. Omovo knew. He had been woken up by the talking drums, whooping noises, bells, and cultic dances. Then later there came the unmistakable wailing from the town. The wailing sounded all around him, as if it had communicated to all the precise nature of the grief from which it had sprung.

At dawn Ayo knocked on his door. He brought food. Omovo asked him to come in, but he wouldn't. He sat on the threshold. He looked different. His hair had been shaved off. Sobriety weighed on his face. He had the disorientated expression of one who has been woken from a deep and beautiful sleep. He didn't seem to know what had woken him up.

‘Ayo!' Omovo said.

The boy was silent.

‘Ayo, come in.'

Dazed, the boy got up and began to stagger away. Omovo called him again. But the boy, activated – it seemed – by his name, started to run. His arms flailed in the air.

Omovo did not see Ayo for the rest of the day. The death of the chief hung over the town like an ominous cloud. He had heard the women in the market warning their children not to play out at night, that the old chief was dead. He had heard them say that for the next seven nights fearful figures would take to the streets looking for children and strangers.

Omovo thought about the chief. He had often seen him, flywhisk in hand, wandering through the compounds, meandering through the clamour of his many wives. He had often seen the chief arguing with the elders of the town, or sitting on a cane chair, chewing on a kola-nut, drinking ogogoro, with one of his children fanning him, while his eyes remained fixed on the horizon, where the sea-spray touched the sky.

And one day he had seen the chief standing in front of the house of shame like an unwilling pilgrim, a hostage of history. He stood, head bowed by an invisible, indescribable weight. Perhaps his ancestors had helped sell slaves. The vision of the chief standing in front of the decrepit house never left Omovo. The chief had been a walking way of life. He was also a walking inheritor of death and chains and bad history.

That same day Omovo packed his things. He paid the rent to the chief's youngest wife who had shown him the room the first day he arrived. He left a note, his address and some money for Ayo. As he made his way to the garage he saw the town differently. He saw it as a small town, reddened with dust, a town of huts, zinc abodes, isolated single-storey buildings. An ancient town in ruins. A town haunted by the slave cries from its shore, marginalised, as if its history had ravaged its spirit.