by Ben Okri
There were times, in the farms, as he worked with the men, carrying sheaves of corn, or cutting the long grass with a machete, or hauling mounds of yam from their bundles to the village, there were times when time itself turned round and everything cleared and he found that the farms had gone and that he had fled from that distant land of slavery and had escaped on a great ship and had found his way, after many years, back to the continent, on a remote shore, and had begun his search for the homeland that he had been stolen from and which he hadn't seen for forty years. He was an old man, wise in many sufferings, which illumination had taught him to endure, and he searched for his homeland, travelling from one country to another, through countries without names, seeking for his kingdom that had been so vast and which also never had a name. He travelled through many countries with villages so similar to his, and saw palaces that could have been his, but nowhere could he find the kingdom he had left behind. And as an old man, who knew slavery, who knew freedom, and who had never ceased being a prince, and who in spirit had never left his homeland, he sought, in that brief time left, while he dreamt in the farm, for his homeland, and found it everywhere and never found it at all. It was as if it had been broken into fragments and scattered all over the vast continent. The years passed in dust and dreams, and he never stopped seeking his kingdom. And then one day, by a narrow stream, he heard in the wind the laughter of the king, and he fell down and fell towards the beautiful brightness of the sun. And when he stood up he found himself in the farm, surrounded by the women of the village, who were concerned for him, and who loved him with all their hearts, as if he were all of their sons. And they bore him in their arms, and carried him with songs, to the edge of the farm, ignoring his protestation that he was well, that he had only fallen into a strange spell of dreaming. And after they had made him drink some water, which tasted strangely sweet, with its taste of earth and stone, and after they had prayed over him, and shared their food with him, they carried him to the palace, singing and cheering, as if he were a hero returning from the noble wars ...
There were times when the prince stood in the square, in the middle of the village, and wondered about the kingdom, and the people, and what the strange hands of destiny were weaving for those that walked the land with long shadows.
CHAPTER FORTY–ONE
Meanwhile, the maiden grew inflamed with a love that seemed to have no source and no object, a love that gripped her like the growth of a fever. She was possessed by a love that had no meaning, no purpose, and she went around with the feeling that she was slowly being driven mad by a love that had come upon her with invisible wings. She was under a peculiar spell.
This madness became more evident to her parents. But they said nothing. They watched her mooning about the place, pining away gently like a fading rose. They watched her eyes grow hollow in their sockets. They watched her staring at the moon and singing childish love songs. They watched her wreathe her hair with flowers and beheld her skipping down the village paths, singing out aloud:
'Who am I in love with
Who has poisoned my soul
Let me know, let me know.
Who has conquered my heart
Who has killed me with love
Let me know, let me know.
Who am I a slave to
Who is now my destiny
Let me know, let me know.
I am quite mad with love
I have lost my soul to love
Does it show, does it show?'
Then the maiden would play with the little girls and boys, suddenly laughing, suddenly bursting into song, suddenly weeping. She would trail behind her whispering companions and would not dwell long by the river. She had lost her taste for the river and the sky and the forest. She didn't even think of art or look at the new artworks that appeared in the square. For her there was nothing to see there. Often she walked round her father's workshop as if seeking the spot of hidden treasure. Often she would repeat the verses given her by the priestesses of the shrine. The more she pondered them the more obscure they grew.
Once she was sitting under a tree listening to her friends in the remote place where she felt more at home when a bird with yellow plumage landed in her lap and seemed to speak to her. She could have sworn she distinctly heard it say:
'The more you look
The less you see.
Let it be, let it be.'
But she could not let it be and she seized the bird and took it to her father. Her father was pondering how high a thing can be before human beings begin to see it; he was pondering how invisible a thing must be before human beings can see it; he was pondering how light a thing must be before human beings cannot destroy it – when his daughter intruded on his thoughts with a bird that she claimed had spoken to her.
'What did it say?'
She told her father.
'Then pay attention to it. First, let the bird go. Then, go back to your tree and see what happens.'
The maiden set the bird free and went and sat under the tree again and fell asleep with her back against the tree trunk. And when she awoke her head was clear. She felt a wonderful clarity within her, as though she had just had her first good night's sleep in a long time. She had a shining feeling within her, like the day after it has rained, and a storm has broken. She still felt the madness of her love, but it was a quiet, tranquil, beautiful madness, like the surface of the river on a clear moonless night.
CHAPTER FORTY–TWO
The new servant returned from his visit home and resumed his life as a statue. No one noticed his departure except the spirits and the spiders. And on his return they began to weave webs of enigma about him again, layering the work they had previously done. Deeper into the mood of his new life went the new servant. He plunged deeper into the silent mysteries of the tribe. And in his deeper delving he found himself exploring the roots of legends, the source of myths, the dark secrets of creativity. And then, one day, or one night, he found himself falling into the abyss that was one of the strangest secrets of the tribe, a secret it kept even from itself. He fell into the abyss, and was falling a long time, in great horror, when he became dimly aware that the abyss, without form, and dark beyond measure, was the route through which the gods appeared in the minds of men. He cried out in the abyss and no one heard him. He fell without end for days and nights without end and it was a fall into the abyss that took him beyond nightmare, beyond chaos, beyond madness, beyond death, even.
The fall took him to the placeless place where the gods pullulated, where all things were mixed into one, where the universe seemed to converge in vastness and mingling, where all beings in all the universe merged and emerged, flowed into and out of one another as in one great unimaginable spirit that was neither darkness nor light, a place where all dreams came from and went to, where all deaths died into and where all life emerged from, a place raw and wild and sublime and bright beyond bearing, a place of fire and darkness, of great quivering columns, all seven of them, that seemed to be longer and deeper than it is possible to imagine. And still he went on falling. He fell through the dark secrets of the universe, through all the versions of lives and dreams and deaths of all beings, in all the universes, whether of humans, animals or plants, or creatures from realms unthinkable. And still he went on falling, without hope of ever stopping his fall, of ever emerging from the abyss, of ever getting to the end of his fall. And he might have gone on falling for ever in this space that was no longer a space, a hole that was no longer a hole but a gap that led into the infinite endlessness, and he might have gone on in this black dark bright infinity of a fall, till he was no longer anywhere, and till his body, woven now so thoroughly in profound mysteries, would have turned finally into a statue of flesh, preserved by spirits, if he had not been saved by a master's hand on his head raising him from this dying that was not a normal death.
CHAPTER FORTY–THREE
And so it was that on a certain day, now lost in time, with the maiden looking on, her
father laid his hand on the statue that was the prince, and said:
'This is my new pupil. Get up! Arise!'
And the prince arose in the dark, as if from an immortal dream; and he bowed gracefully to the master and his strange daughter. And he remained in an attitude of bowing, till the master touched him on the shoulder. At that moment there was a flash of light from that touch which no one but the spirits saw. And the maiden drew breath sharply; her amazement knew no bounds. For the first time she had witnessed with her own eyes, wide awake, what she had only heard rumours about. She had seen her father bring a statue to life. The rumours were true. Her father had spirits that worked for him, that did his carving, his shaping, his moulding, for him. Her father's statues were brought to life by the power of his hands and they served him and did his will. Her father was an artist-wizard, and a creator of monsters. She had always revered her father; now she was in utter awe of him. She no longer thought of him as being entirely human, but something more, which she dared not specify in her mind ...
And, in addition to this, the maiden feared the new servant. She feared him because she knew that he was not real, was not truly of flesh and blood, and had no heart, but was a thing made in the dark workshop of her powerful father, and brought to life by the touch of his mysterious hand. On another day, after his arising, the prince was instructed by the maiden's father to walk once round the workshop, in a perfect circle, in an obscure symbolic ritual. As the prince performed this rite, in slowness and with dignity, he accidentally brushed against the maiden's dress, the effect of which made her jump.
'Don't touch me,' she said, in a confusion of feelings as she felt the warmth of his body as he passed her.
'He feels almost human,' she said, in wonder. 'Is he?'
But she received no answer.
She avoided this new pupil and soon stopped noticing him again because he aroused in her disquieting notions. He made her feel a mild and incomprehensible aversion. He became invisible to her a second time over. And so she was truly herself in his presence because she did not notice him in the brief period after his raising, when he remained silent and still. She was what she was, simply and purely, as he sat there in the workshop, among the gathering images and statues that would one day perplex the minds of men and women.
CHAPTER FORTY–FOUR
The new pupil, raised from his sublime immobility, soon began to participate in the life of the community. He ran errands and fetched wood for carving. He took part in the dawn installation of the master's lesser works in front of the shrine. He passed on secret codewords from the master to other masters without knowing he was doing so. He performed many esoteric duties which seemed to him to be perfectly normal tasks. He became an active participant in the life of the tribe of artists.
There must have been a profound spell cast on him because, whatever he did, he was never noticed, never truly seen. And more especially he was never seen by the maiden. He would trip and fall in her presence, he would spill water from a bucket, he would speak to the air in front of her, but she simply would not lift her eyes unto him. Even when she was the object of errands, even when the maiden must have seen him with her father near the shrine, taking measurements for a new work, she still did not notice him. He felt like an object in the world that the light did not fall upon ...
CHAPTER FORTY–FIVE
Then one day the new pupil met the mother of the maiden and without a word gave her a bunch of flowers he had picked under the moonlight. The mother of the maiden noticed his tender beauty, his frail and slender body, and the peculiar lively radiance of his eyes for the first time, and fell into admiration of him. That night the mother and father of the maiden talked about him.
'He is not normal,' she said.
'No.'
'His birth is unusual.'
'Yes.'
'Is he a secret suitor?'
'Maybe.'
'Or has he come to steal the secret of your art?'
'He has no interest in creating art. He wants to become an art. But I don't know what art he wants.'
'What other art is there?'
'There are many other arts greater than the art of making art out of wood or stone.'
'Like what?'
'Like the art of making life out of death.'
'You think your servant so exalted in mind?'
'Why not? He turned into a sculpture. He learnt to be a noble statue. He demands nothing, and gives everything. He does not listen, but hears. He does not appear to do anything, but he does everything. Either his birth is noble, or it should be. Or his past beyond his memory is noble. He is like a master who cherishes lowliness.'
'You maybe read too much into his insignificance?' his wife asked, smiling.
'He allows his insignificance to be so much. Insignificant people don't have that tranquillity. They may have contentment, they may have innocence, they may have simplicity, but not that tranquillity. Tranquillity in a man is an achievement, a discovery, almost a by-product of a great insight or illumination.'
'All this in one so young?'
'Some are young in body, old in soul. You know that, my dear.'
'I do.'
'Still we keep a stern eye on him.'
'We shall.'
CHAPTER FORTY–SIX
Even the masters of the tribe, in their irregular nocturnal meetings, commented on the new pupil, obliquely. After one of those long silences, during which, in the dark, many forms appear, one of the masters suddenly said:
'A stranger can wake up a sleeping land.'
Another voice said:
'A stranger can raise men's minds towards the stars.'
'Still, he has passed the tests he didn't know he was taking.'
'And we might have to induct him into the darkness of the hidden tradition.'
'Without him knowing, of course.'
'In case we are showing disrespect to a god, or to a king.'
CHAPTER FORTY–SEVEN
Then on a night that seemed like any other the new pupil was given instructions to work in the secret forge deep in the forest. He was taught the hidden arts of making. The father of the maiden initiated him, without his being aware of it, into the mysteries of fire and the esoteric art of turning ordinary metal into gold. It was an art known only to a few, brought from their old kingdom and nurtured as a secret tradition. Some say this art conceals the art of achieving immortality.
The new pupil also worked on the outer substance of things; he shaped, carved, polished, moulded, and did patina work on the sculptures, under the strict supervision of the master. All that he learnt in silence, obliquely, he was forbidden to reveal. He was made to swear a blood oath on this in the depths of the forest, in the initiation that he didn't know was one, conducted by figures in complete darkness and whose voices were muffled by ancient masks.
There must have been a profound spell cast on him during the night of the initiation for, whatever he did, he still was never noticed, never truly seen.
CHAPTER FORTY–EIGHT
Around that time the clamour of the suitors got worse. They had lingered in the village, they had created their works of art, had seen them found wanting, they had made several pilgrimages to spiritual centres, and shown their piety, dignity and seriousness. They had shown their restraint. They had behaved well. They had made journeys back to their different homes to conduct important affairs of state or business. And they had returned with gifts, both for the tribe of artists and the maiden's family. They had made themselves a part of the village life. Some of them had become so much part of the artistic life of the tribe that they forgot why they were there and took other women as wives and dedicated themselves to new vocations in art which they had accidentally discovered. But many of the suitors, having wasted much time and expended much of their resources, were becoming impatient and intractable. They eventually ganged up together, finding common cause in the elusiveness of the maiden. And, presenting a united front, they stormed the maiden's father'
s house and demanded that the maiden make up her mind as to whom she would marry. They were angry and, being men of great importance in their different realms as ambassadors, chiefs, aristocrats, sons of noble families, famous warriors, they felt that they were being insulted, being played with, taken too lightly. And so they laid down an ultimatum that the maiden must make a decision within a fixed period of time, or they would spread her name in infamy all over the world and no one would ever want to touch her or consider her in marriage again.