by Ben Okri
‘Eh-heh!’ cried his uncle when he saw Omovo. ‘This is the person I came to see! I didn’t come to visit that witch who drove my sister to her death and that man who asks me to leave the dirty parlour he calls his house…’
Omovo stamped his foot and shouted: ‘For God’s sake, Uncle, you are insulting my own father, you know!’
There was an ugly silence. His relations looked dourly at him, then looked away. His uncle tramped out of the compound front, stumbling over an empty Coke can. The crowd watched for a while and, seeing that the afternoon’s drama had ended, returned to their various chores and recreations.
Omovo stood still for a while, allowing his anger to settle. Then he followed his uncle. In the middle of the street his uncle, his uncle’s wife, and their three children were waiting. His uncle stood away from his irritated wife. He kept readjusting his coat, which was tight at the armpits, the material frayed and scuffed. He sweated profusely. His white shirt was covered in patches of wetness. His baggy trousers, his dusty black shoes with the sole of his right foot coming away, his frayed umbrella, his kola-nut-stained underlips, the parting in his hair and the pietistic bearing of his head made of him a picture of stiff-necked provinciality.
His wife and children also looked self-consciously attired, as if they had brought clothes out of the bottom of boxes, meant only for special occasions. His wife’s face was sweaty and serious. She wore a gash of cheap lipstick, with cheap beads round her neck. The powder had run on her face. She wore a green blouse, a multi-coloured wrapper, and carried a black handbag. The strap of her slippers had burst and she walked uncomfortably. The two children, clinging to their mother’s wrapper, looked miserable and hungry. They were barefoot.
Omovo greeted the wife and children. They greeted him back, somewhat sulkily. Omovo desperately wanted them to simply disappear. He hadn’t seen them in years and when he did they always managed to drive him to extremes of distraction. His uncle said in a tone of complaint:
‘We were just coming from our church meeting, we were passing your place and I said as it is Sunday we should just come and see how you are. Then I received that nonsense.’
Omovo said nothing – he merely gritted his teeth.
‘You are here in this hell, eh, and you don’t come and visit us. But when we come and visit you we receive all that nonsense.’
‘Dat’s enough, hah!’ his wife said. ‘Can’t you leave something alone sef?’
‘Why? The man called me a thief.’
His wife sucked her teeth. ‘You talk too much sef. Ah-ha! You go and visit and then begin to quarrel with your in-law’s wife, ah wetin!’
‘Look, Ester, shut your goat mouth, you hear!’
Omovo stopped listening to them. He fell back behind them and began to concentrate on things around him. He temporarily retreated into another state of being, soaking in phenomena, looking at the street with the eyes of a stranger. A Mini drove past and filled the air with dust and smoke. The sun burnt in the clear sky. The ground was so hot that Omovo could feel the heat through his sandals. He wondered how the children bore it. There were heat-mists in the air and the faces of passers-by looked hollow and dried up.
He wanted to be away from his relatives. They made the heat get on his nerves. Their presence intruded on the revelatory moment that seemed about to break on him. Frustrated, he kept fretting with his fingers. And as he looked at the street with the eyes of a stranger, trying to keep the frustration at bay, possibilities of observed details that could be turned into art kept presenting themselves to him. The yellow scumpool, dense with effluvium. The askew lines of sun-bleached stalls. The face of a child absorbed in its play. Birds dipping past him. Suddenly a swell of rapture, of golden joy, burst on him from within. And for a moment nothing seemed ordinary. His mind stilled a bird’s passage through space. It became a black flash of the extraordinary. He saw the white quills within its black ruffs and saw its feet tucked beneath its quivering tail. When he looked down he saw that he had just missed stepping onto a lump of excrement on the ground.
‘So, Omovo, how are you, eh?’ his uncle said, slowing down.
‘I’m fine.’
‘How fine?’
‘Fine. Okay. Well.’
‘Is it true you’ve got a job?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Where?’
‘At a chemical company.’
‘That’s nice. When?’
‘Six months now.’
‘Is that so? Good. Is that why we don’t see you any more, eh? Now that you are earning money you begin to avoid your relations, eh?’
‘That’s not true. I’ve been very busy.’
‘Too busy to come to church and worship God. Too busy to come to our town’s meeting and make your contributions. Too busy to visit us, eh?’
‘Things are hard.’
‘But you said things are fine.’
‘They are hard.’
‘But you’ve got a job, a roof over your head, you’re not married, have no children and things are hard?’
‘Yes.’
His uncle gave a short laugh. ‘Ester,’ he called, ‘are you hearing what Omovo is saying?’
‘Yes. Yes.’
He turned back to Omovo. ‘So what wrong have we done that you don’t want to come and see us, eh?’
‘Nothing.’
‘We are your people, you know.’
‘I know.’
‘Come and visit us from time to time.’
‘I will.’
‘Fine.’
They walked in silence. Then Omovo said: ‘How are the children?’
‘As you see them.’
‘And how are you?’
‘I can’t complain. Our life is in God’s hands.’
‘Is work well?’
‘I can’t grumble. What God gives we are grateful to receive.’
Another silence. His uncle brought out a filthy handkerchief, blew his nose so hard it sounded like a faulty musical instrument, then he stared at Omovo and drew closer to him. Omovo could smell the camphor balls on his coat and his hair oil.
‘Omovo,’ he said. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘And they are not doing anything bad to you in the house? Your father’s wife, I mean.’
‘I’m okay.’
‘And nothing bad has happened?’
‘I’m well.’
‘So why did you shave your head, eh? People only do that in mourning or when something bad has happened.’
‘Uncle, it was an accident.’
‘Accident?’
‘A mistake. The barber was a fool.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s not that you’ve been thinking too much about your poor mother?’
Omovo suppressed an irritated gesture. ‘Of course I think about my mother.’
‘Thank God.’
‘But that’s not why I shaved my head. It was a mistake.’
‘You said so. But you look old and tired. Lean. If your mother saw you now she wouldn’t stop crying. She suffered so much because of you, her children. So much. Bore so much. Fought so much. She was a brave woman. She wanted to make sure all of you led a good life. But if she saw how things…’
‘Uncle, please!’
‘Believe me, if she saw how things have become...’
‘Please!’
There was a short silence.
‘Do you hear from your brothers?’
Perversely, Omovo replied: ‘No.’
‘What sort of life is this, eh? But we mustn’t complain. Poor boy. Who can tell what this life will bring, eh? Things used to be so good for all of you. We thought your father would be a big businessman with plenty of money. A man who would help us all. You used to live in Yaba, then you moved to the best part of the city. Then when your mother died things began to go badly. What a life! Your brothers wer
e driven out into the world. No news from them all this time. Ah! You must be very lonely in that house. It’s clear your father doesn’t care about you. He’s only got eyes for his new wife. She has dragged him down. Why not come and stay with us instead of suffering where you are?’
‘Thank you, Uncle, for asking. You are kind. A true Christian. But I can’t accept your offer.’
‘I understand. We are poor. We live in one room in a worse part of Lagos than this.’
‘It’s not that.’
‘I know we are poor. Can’t give you a room of your own. You would have to sleep on the mat with the children. But it’s better than hell.’
‘Thank you, Uncle.’
‘If you change your mind...’
‘I will remember.’
His uncle shook his head pityingly. ‘Your mother was a good woman. A very kind woman. Died just like that. And meanwhile your father was busy with another woman. Honestly. Poor boy...’
His uncle carried on in the same vein, endlessly, as if he wanted the entire planet and the sandy road to bear witness to the depth of his sympathies. Omovo, forcing down the screaming in his mind, said in a gentle voice:
‘Uncle, you are wounding me.’
His uncle didn’t seem to hear him.
‘I know how you feel. I do. So you have not heard from your brothers. You were all so lucky as children. Sent to good schools. We thought you would become lawyers, doctors, engineers. Ah! Only God almighty knows where your brothers are now. America, England, Ghana? What are they doing? Who knows how much they are suffering in some strange country? They could even be dead, God forbid…’
Omovo bore his uncle’s words until they got to the wooden bridge. Fortunately for him the two children began to cry. They were hungry and they tugged at their mother’s wrapper saying that they wanted some oranges. Omovo bought them four oranges and gave them ten kobo each. They looked at their mother, who nodded, before they took the money. They fell upon the oranges as if they hadn’t eaten in days.
After Uncle had paid the fare for their crossing he went over to Omovo, took him aside, and said: ‘We are going to visit another of our relatives. You don’t have to see us any further. You have the goodness of your mother. If you have any problems come and see me. And be careful what you eat in that house. God bless you.’
Then he turned and, abruptly seizing one of the children by the hand, began to cross the bridge. For the first time Omovo noticed that he walked with an angled movement. He had some sort of deformity, had suffered some sort of wound, and Omovo had never known about it. He felt a little differently about his uncle when he realised that fact.
His uncle’s wife came to say goodbye and as she left she began to struggle with her handbag. Then with an expression of quiet sufferance she gave him a gift of a small measure of cloth, enough to make a shirt, and a loaf of bread.
‘We are poor,’ she said, ‘but your mother was a good woman.’
Then she picked up the youngest child, waved to Omovo, and followed her husband over the wobbling bridge of planks.
Omovo watched them go. In spite of being both relieved and moved he knew that it would be a long time before they were going to see him again. He was so disturbed by his uncle that he felt quite shaken for minutes after their departure. His bones ached with frustration, with anger. His fingers trembled and he kept gritting his teeth. To free himself, to loosen his feelings, he wandered round the ghetto without the faintest idea of where he was heading. He wandered through the subdued Sunday noises and the bustling warm life of Alaba. He walked for so long and was so deeply immersed in his thoughts that he ceased to be aware of the lights and the noises and the people. In his profound involvement with the things that he didn’t want to face, the wounds he didn’t want to look at, he missed most of the finest moments of the changing day. The sky held deep flashes of blue. The clouds took on shapes so splendid that they suggested other countries, suggested journeys to exotic places. The sky was spectacular with oriental red and orange as the sun set over another day. It took the minor drama of bumping into a girl, who pushed him and said: ‘Use your eyes, you idiot!’ before he realised with a shock that it was evening. And when he looked up and saw the sky he breathed in deeply. His being trembled like leaves sifting in the wind. When he breathed out he prayed for the day when he could suggest the beauty and the sadness of the cosmic drama in paint on canvas.
The joy lasted for only a moment, for soon he made out the stars of the slowly defining night. Then he realised that Sunday was almost over, that Monday was just around the corner, pitiless and implacable. He felt gloom settling over him with the darkening lights. With his eyes focussed on the road before him, alert to avoid stepping on excrement, and with a cold wind blowing, he made his way back home. And as he went, struck by the fact that the sand was no longer hot, surprised that he hadn’t noticed when the blazing sunlight turned and the heat-mists vanished, and musing on how he could have dwelled so long in his mind unaware that time was passing so quickly, as he went he experienced a moment’s revelation. And the revelation resolved itself into the thought that he needed to face himself before he could face the facts and the terrors of this world.
When he got home he came upon his father, who stood in the middle of the sitting room, giving vent to monologues about debts, the wicked world, selfish in-laws, uncooperative children. Omovo fled into his room and deposited the bread and cloth on the table. But even in the room he could hear his father droning on about betrayals, injustices, neglect. His father’s voice made him restless, frustrated him, communicated failure and despair into his flesh. Omovo could have borne it if his father hadn’t come and banged on his door and said, very loudly:
‘And tell your mother’s wicked relatives not to come to my house ever again. If they are going to cause trouble. Let the dead stay dead.’
His father paused. Omovo began to sigh, but his father continued: ‘What contribution have they made to anything, eh?’
Omovo needed to escape from his father’s tirade. He got out his sketchbook, three pencils, a felt-tipped pen, an eraser, and he fled from the room. As he rushed out his father said: ‘Are you off to draw another man’s wife again, eh?’
Omovo had got to the backyard before he realised that being seen with his sketchbook would simply increase the amount of existing speculation. He went to the compound front. He found one of the children of the compound crying because the others said he was too small to play with them. He did four drawings of the crying child. When he finished he felt he had done something worthwhile. He gave the drawings to the child, who took them off to show his mother. She soon came to thank Omovo, saying:
‘They are better than photographs. I will frame them.’
Some of the other children, who were jealous of the boon their outcast colleague had received, cried for Omovo to draw them as well. But he gave them a small amount of money and appeased them by promising to draw them some other time.
He stayed out for a while. The night deepened. The kerosene lights came on at various night stalls. Electric lights came on in the houses. He went into the sitting room. His father had retired for the night. He ate, read some pages of The Interpreters, and made a final attempt to organise his table in preparation for the rigours of another week. He was leafing through an old diary, overcome with nostalgia, when a piece of paper fell out. The handwriting on it was strange at first. It was only when he came to the second line that he realised it was one of Okur’s poems –the poem that had inspired the painting on the wall:
Little birds of the storm
Struggling in flight
Was your mother cruel
To have pushed you
From such a height?
When he read the poem he thought a little. He shook his head. He didn’t want to think. He put out the lights and lay down. He didn’t sleep immediately. He was aware of the darkness and the strange sensations closing upon his mind, bearing down on him, blue and alive. Then a sound outside jo
lted him. He fell back heavily into his body. Then he lightened and the darkness washed over him in irresistible waves and he dissolved into the void that was not really a void.
...and then he found himself in a maze and when he looked up he saw her in the distance, one half of her visible, the other half hidden by the corner. Her eyes were sad and she had a brave smile on her lips. He knew that smile so well. It was the way she smiled when bearing a secret pain. It was her masking of trauma.
He followed her through the maze and she kept eluding him, kept disappearing around corners just as he caught sight of her. And because he couldn’t reach her he spoke to her, saying:
‘O mother who suffered so much in such silence, why did you travel without teaching me how to reach you? Stop escaping from me, stop running from me. Come and comfort me, come and fondle my hair the way you used to when I was a child.’
She stopped and for the first time in his life he saw her with adult eyes. She was smaller than he remembered. Her face was full of wrinkles, her jaws hollow, an old woman with the sad eyes of a bewildered child, wide open and bright as crystals.
‘Don’t just stand there looking at me,’ he said approaching her gently.
He noticed that her feet were covered in a white mist. When the mist cleared he saw that the ground he walked on in the maze was covered in broken glass. Her feet were bleeding and raw. He saw the scar over the shin-bone on her left leg. It had been caused the day his father, beating her in the kitchen, had accidently pushed her. She had staggered, turned and fallen into the fire. He couldn’t remember why his father beat her in the first place. He was so young then, with his mother always carrying him, that he sometimes became part of her beatings.
‘Mother, I need you. I need your spirit and your warmth, for I am lonely. I am in danger of getting lost. Guide me through this maze.’