by Ben Okri
She froze.
‘If I kill you here, now, what can you do, what can anyone do, can anyone help you, can that boy help you now, eh?’
There was a short silence. Then he laughed. His demonic laughter became a wail. He bared his teeth, clenched his fist, and began to wrestle wildly with the air, madly, as if he had adversaries everywhere in the darkness, as if he were fighting a legion of spirits. She realised how utterly drunk he was, how possessed. Then suddenly, as he wrestled with the demons, he began to cry out, his thighs quivering uncontrollably.
‘Cramp! Cramp!’ he said in a low voice.
This had often happened to him while he made love to an ever-resistant Ifeyiwa. It had gripped him now and his legs shook, he gnashed his teeth, pounded his fists on his shaking thighs, and called on Ifeyiwa to help him wrestle with the real devils in his body. The knife fell from his hand. He bent over, then he dropped on the ground and she went and began to massage his thighs, rubbing them gently, drumming on them, while he wailed and jerked and contorted his face.
When the cramp in his thighs eased he got up and began to pace up and down tentatively. The wind went wild. The branch of a tree cracked somewhere in the distance. And then the rain began to fall. At first it pattered on them like bean seeds. The drops became larger. Then it pelted down on them, lashing the trees, whipping up mud on the path. The rain fell on them without mercy, calmed the tremors of his thighs, and they ran to the motorcycle. He rode with terrible difficulty, wobbling along the expressway. The rain smashed down on them, the wind blew them one way and another, and the journey was so rough that they nearly got blown off into the gutter. But the downpour was a passion that soon shrieked itself out. By the time they got back home the rain had stopped but they were thoroughly soaked.
They said nothing to each other on the way. It was near midnight when they arrived. The lights had been seized. Ifeyiwa felt that the night had changed her in some way. She felt as if a door which she never knew existed had opened within her. She felt curiously light and freed of something.
When she got off the motorcycle, filled with a hard-edged sense of joy, the first thing she did was to light a kerosene lamp. Then she rushed to the backyard to check on the dog. The backyard was soggy. The chaos of plates, buckets and potties had been knocked about and the rain had beaten the mud onto them. She checked the kitchen front and everywhere else she could think of. But the dog wasn’t there. It had disappeared.
2
Omovo, returning from his aimless wandering, didn’t rouse himself when the wind rose. He didn’t quicken his pace when it began to rain. He welcomed the downpour. It cooled his agitated spirit. It washed away his excess of feeling. He felt the rain as an undeserved benediction. But when it suddenly stopped he was disappointed.
The lights had been seized by the time he got to the patch of bushes. And when he saw a man standing where the bushes ended he knew the man had been waiting for him. He knew without being afraid or curious. He was tired. He knew Ifeyiwa’s husband would do something and he was almost glad that his waiting would soon come to an end.
He looked backwards and saw another man. They both closed in on him. They both wore masks, the terrifying masks of funeral spirits. It didn’t occur to him to cry out. He knew on a night like that no one would come to his aid. The ghetto-dwellers would cover their ears with their pillows, grateful that the night had found a sacrifice that wasn’t them or their children.
The men drew closer.
‘What do you want?’
They pressed towards him, implacably.
‘What do you want from me?’
He moved forward carelessly. One of the men hit him. He made no effort to defend himself. The punch caught him on the chest. His hat flew off. He groaned. Then he began to cough violently. The pain galvanised him. He kicked the man behind him. The man was so stocky that the kick didn’t move him. It unbalanced Omovo instead. He tried a karate chop, but something went wrong. His spirit was wrong. A solid punch landed on his shaven head. Another one sank into his stomach. He felt sick. Something twisted inside him. His vision went strange, as if his eyes had been switched round. He sank to his knees. He felt his head wrenched sideways with barbaric force. He hit the ground like a slippery log. Lights probed his skull. Fists hammered down on his body. He curled himself into a ball. They went on kicking him. He felt the flesh of his face burst open. He passed out into a dark realm. He floated back to consciousness, like a shade over a red sea, and in the silence he heard a man say:
‘Don’t ever see her again, you hear?’
Another voice said: ‘Next time run far from another man’s wife.’
And another: ‘If you want a wife go and marry your own.’
The first man: ‘Fool!’
The second: ‘Bastard like you. Thief! Adulterer!’
Feebly he still tried to fight. He struggled to stand up. He staggered first to one, then to the other. He offered them his face. He seemed to want to be beaten senseless. He urged them on. Egged them. Goaded them with words. The men seemed to fear his sudden, self-destructive madness. One of them pushed him. He fell. They laughed derisively.
He tried to get up, but couldn’t. He kept passing in and out of a red darkness. Then many colours shot through his head. Every colour was a different pain. The night was quiet except for the crickets.
He clawed the wet earth. The earth released his grip. The darkness closed in. He fought it. He managed to crouch. Then he threw up. He felt for the bushes, grabbed hold of a shrub, and hauled himself upwards. The shrub uprooted and he fell again. He stayed down. The wetness of the earth seeped through him. Mosquitoes descended on him. The wind stirred in the land and acquired its various fragrances.
3
Holding the crumpled, mud-stained hat in his hand, and shivering along the way, he made it to his compound. When he got to their house he found he had lost his key. There was no reply when he knocked on the door. Strains of music came from one of the rooms in the compound. He knocked again. Then he looked through the window. There was a candle on the centre table. It had burnt so low that it would soon begin to char the table. He wondered where everyone was.
His head felt large with pain. The cut on his forehead felt like a red hot hole. His lips were swollen, one eye felt unusually big, his jaws twitched, and his teeth felt shaky. Blood slid down his throat.
He held his head in his arms and shut his eyes. The big eye wouldn’t close. He felt wet and cold and dirty. He didn’t really care. He felt surprisingly calm, contained. Beneath the calm he smouldered with an undefined anger.
A door opened stealthily in the darkness. He heard whispers. He raised his head. Lights danced in his eyes. Then footsteps came towards him. A child howled. The footsteps suddenly stopped, and turned and hurried to the backyard. He listened to the sounds of the running shower. After a while he heard the footsteps again. The darkness danced before him and then became a voice.
‘What happened to your face, eh?’
Pain shot through his head. He felt blood trailing down from one nostril. He wiped it off. Her hands went involuntarily to her breasts. He smelt the breath of her body. It was a musky, earthy breath, passionate, and diluted by fresh water. His forehead burnt. He indicated the door.
‘Why your face swell up like that?’
She had brought out the door key from her brassiere. She fumbled with the keyhole.
‘No reason.’
‘No? Dis stupid key sef...’
She fumbled with the keyhole and the darkness fumbled with his eyes. A nerve drummed away in his head as if it were going to burst. She kept struggling with the keyhole. She peered at the key, and then tried again.
‘The door doesn’t want to open,’ she said. ‘Omovo, try the key.’
Without moving, Omovo said: ‘It’s not our key.’
‘What! How do you know?’
Her face became a mask. Her eyes widened. Her mouth twitched. Her fingers began to tremble. Then her face became gent
le and sad. She threw the key on the floor and picked it up again. ‘I must have got the wrong key,’ she said.
‘How come?’
‘I must have take another person’s key. I’ve been watching television.’
Her footsteps crept away. He laid his hands on the low wall, and laid his head on his hands. He did not want to think. He was tired. Thinking brought on more pain. He felt sorry for everything. Then he felt overcome with nausea. He hurried down the corridor. He heard Blackie talking in low tones in a darkened room. He got to the toilet in time and threw up. The nausea hovered and passed. He felt empty. He went to the bathroom, washed his face, and on second thoughts he had a cold shower. He ran back to the room shivering, with water dripping from him. The door was open. He took up his hat and went into the sitting room. There were three candles alight on the dining table. The old candle had burnt the centre table. The smell of fried onions and tomatoes came from the stove.
‘There’s water on the fire for ya face.’
‘Don’t want any.’
‘Why not?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What happened to you?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Food will soon be ready. Pounded yam and stockfish stew.’
It was a rare offer.
‘Don’t want any.’
‘What do you want to eat? I’ll make anything you want. Just mention it.’
‘Thanks. I am not hungry.’
‘You vex with me?’
‘No.’
‘You no like me. Na because of me your brothers leave, not so?’
‘Not so.’
‘You tink say I happy for dis house?’
‘Don’t know.’
There was a moment’s silence. The three candles burnt erratically, their flames twisting. Shadows leapt about on the walls.
‘I know say I don wrong you. But wetin pass, don pass. I like you. Don’t vex with me, you hear? It’s not my fault the way tings be for dis house. If I know I no for marry enter the house.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
There was another silence. One of the candles twitched, spat, crackled and seemed to be dying. It soon loomed back to its full illumination, burning brighter than before.
‘Your face is not too swollen. It’s still handsome. But you dey bleed for forehead. Mek I go check the water.’
She went. He opened his room door and dropped the hat in a corner on the floor. Then he sat on the bed, trying not to think.
‘The water don ready,’ she called.
He waited for a while before he went out. He had just finished cleaning his wounds and pressing his bruises with a piece of cloth soaked in hot water and disinfectant, when the front door burst open. His father staggered into the sitting room. His eyes were liquid, large and red. His shirt stank of beer and sweat. He had a two-day growth of beard which gave him a driven expression. He looked as if a secret taint were rising to his face, as if a bewildered stranger inhabited his body. He looked so thoroughly drunk and undignified, so utterly out of character, that for a moment Omovo took him for a familiar tramp that had mistakenly found his way to their house.
‘Dad!’ Omovo cried.
His father swayed, tottered, then steadied himself. He glared at Omovo with heavy eyes. His gaze was unfocussed. His mouth flopped open. A thin line of spittle ran down to his chin.
‘My son!’ he said, eventually, as he struggled with his drunkenness, attempting to focus. ‘Am I... am I... not a chief, eh?’
‘You are, Dad.’
‘A... a... big thief... chief, I mean, eh?’
‘Yes, Dad.’
‘No... one... no one believes me...’
‘Don’t mind them, Dad.’
His father kept blinking. Each blink seemed to make him further unable to focus. Omovo wasn’t sure what to do. All three of them stood in their different positions as if they had frozen in a dance that was turning sinister. Omovo desperately wanted to do something, to make a meaningful gesture in spite of the pain of his own wounds, but the distance that had grown between him and his father over the years made it difficult for him. As he stood there he was aware that something was being torn down and made naked forever, and what lurked behind their different masks unnerved him in its terror.
Omovo thought about his father. His business was obviously in serious trouble. Had been for some time. Otherwise they wouldn’t still be living in the ghetto. His father, however, had always given the impression that he would forge through any difficulties. Sometimes – and this was one of those times – Omovo saw beneath the veneer so much that it hurt. But his father went on putting a front to the world that suggested his life was a fine strategy, that he was so solid he didn’t need to display his power. His reputation increased amongst the compound people by negatives.
Omovo remembered, for example, when the family was intact and when he used to come home on holiday from school. He remembered his anxieties, remembered how he used to ask his mother who had come to collect him whether there was now a television or a radio in the house, whether his father had a car, or whether they had moved to a good house. The questions saddened his mother and she often lied, and after they had arrived and he had survived his disappointment he always forgot that she had lied.
He remembered the angry visits of defrauded clients, the lawsuits, the lies to creditors that his father wasn’t in or that he had travelled. He remembered the creditors shouting out the crooked details of debts. He remembered the insults they screamed so the whole world could hear. He remembered his fears, his desire to protect and soothe his father, remembered the stony calm of his mother’s face in the midst of all the humiliation. He remembered also how callous all this made his father, how he took it out on the chairs, plates, and on his mother. He remembered one fierce creditor in particular: he had burst into the house, after so many frustrated visits, had shouted abuses; and, not content, had seized his father’s books, had even taken Omovo’s books on painting, and had left with the grand second-hand clock that his mother had bought to celebrate an anniversary of their difficult marriage. Omovo remembered how he had often cried down the streets at night, alone – and as he remembered all these things now he was overcome with deep sorrow.
‘Dad!’ he cried again, without purpose.
His father looked at him as if he were a stranger. Then he stared at Blackie. In a most pathetic voice, he said: ‘My wife, where have you been?’
It was his first moment of clarity since he had come in. The clarity didn’t last. He tottered again.
‘I’ve been watching television,’ she said.
The room was utterly silent.
‘Where?’
There was a long pause. ‘In the compound,’ she said.
‘I’ve... I’ve... been waiting... for... for you,’ he said. ‘Waiting... for you.’
Silence.
‘Been... been... so alone...’
More silence.
‘So... I went... went and... got drunk...’
‘I didn’t go for long. I came back and the house was empty. So I went back.’
His father stared at Omovo, then at her. He took a few steps and held on to the back of a chair. ‘I got... got... drunk,’ he said. ‘Mosquitoes... mosquitoes have... have... been... telling me things... things about... you...’
‘Lies!’ she said moving suddenly, half retreating to the kitchen.
Her face was in shadow. His voice was suddenly, momentarily, clear.
‘Is it because... because I don’t have... have television... in my house...?’
Silence. The candles spat. Shadows danced everywhere, figures in a grim shadow-play.
‘No.’
With undirected energy, his father said: ‘I... I... a big chief... will buy... buy... ten televisions... for you... tomorrow...’ Pause. ‘But... but... never... never... watch television... in other... people’s house... house... again!’
‘Yes.’
His father swayed. Incoherent words pour
ed from him. The candlelight touched his face, pitilessly showing up his disorientation. Blackie backed away into the kitchen and stayed out of sight. As Omovo watched his father weaving helplessly, clinging onto the chair, he felt a tragic mood creep into the pit of his stomach. He too needed steadying. The pains raved in his head. He felt as if everything in his life, everything connected to him, was spinning in a weird dance, spinning out of control, in slow motion.
‘My son!’ his father called feebly.
‘Yes.’ Omovo went round the chair.
‘Get me... pour me some... more drink...’
‘You’ve had enough, Dad.’
‘What!’
‘Try and get some sleep. You need rest. Let me call Blackie for you.’
‘Pour me drink! I... want... drink!’
‘No, Dad.’
‘You’re just... like your... mother...’
‘That’s not fair, Dad.’
‘Always... always trying... trying to control me...’
‘Not true, Dad.’
‘More drink!’
‘No!’
His father glared at him. Then he broke into demented laughter. ‘You want to... behave like... your brothers, eh...?’ his father said after he had stopped laughing. Then he said, making a wild gesture: ‘Go away! Run away!... Abandon ship!... useless... Go away... like them...’
‘Take it easy, Dad.’
‘No! Why should I?’
He made another gesture, tripped, and fell head-first. Omovo caught him in time and managed to straighten him. His father swore profusely, spraying his face with spit and beer.
‘Sons of that witch! Your mother... was a witch.... a witch!’
‘My mother was not a witch.’
‘A witch, I tell you... She made me fail... always trying to control me... improve me... took away my freedom... wouldn’t let me do what I wanted... interfered too much...’
‘Blackie is listening, Dad.’
‘So what? Women!... Your mother... so far... has succeeded... in bringing me down... she won’t leave me alone... leave me alone!…’
‘She’ dead, Dad. Dead!’