The Age of Magic

by Ben Okri

  He would listen with eyes closed to the most remote of sounds: the fall of a feather, the distant dance of a bumble bee, waves on the riverbank, the wind in faraway trees, the murmur of the open sky, even the diaphanous light of the sun.

  Listening to such subtleties, he could no longer distinguish between earth and sky, water and wind. All merged into a listening that opened out into the infinite vastness of being.

  23

  In his hotel room he listened himself into an expansive world, like a universe glimpsed at sunset, in an aeroplane high above the clouds.

  He listened to the spaces. He heard the mountain as a cascade of dark eternal melodies. He heard a magic being riding the surface of the lake. She was the woman of his dreams, and she faded into the wind.

  He was happy in his listening till he heard them making love a few rooms away. His mood darkened. Then he heard it again, the sinister whispering that had haunted him ever since the journey to Arcadia began.

  Endlessly repeated, like a child’s taunt in the playground of Hades:

  Find the treasure… Find the treasure… Find the treasure…

  Book 6

  Elysian Stones

  Section 1

  1

  Sunlight streamed through the stained-glass window of their awakening. They rose like dolphins from the blue depths of sleep.

  New eyes opened on the hotel room, taking in the shining wooden floor, the white ceiling, and the Giorgione print on the lilac wall.

  Their consciousness had been cleansed in sleep. Everything was made new. They felt a thrill and a freshness in every fibre. It was as if, until that morning, they had never lived before.

  Sunlight made all the colours brilliant. They were struck dumb by the wonderful light of the lake and the white summits of the mountain.

  2

  How does one awaken to the quintessence of such a day?

  How does one live it right, drink in its magic without the little flaws in one’s temperament spoiling the promised beauties of being?

  They felt happiness pouring in through the windows, pouring its golden rays into their core. It was the kind of day that makes the body, like Faust, utter the vertiginous cry:

  Make this moment my eternity.

  3

  Rising up into such a dawn, Lao and Mistletoe felt like Adam and Eve in an alternative Genesis. They did not eat of the apple. They had not been cast out to wander, as Adam and Eve had, for millennia in what Jacob Böhme called the fury and wrath of nature.

  They woke with a sense of grace and good fortune. History was the nightmare, and joy the true reality. They went about on tiptoes, barely speaking, so as not to breathe evil on such a blessed day. They went through their morning rituals, gathering flowers in their hearts.

  It was Lao’s day off and the rest of the crew had gone filming. Lao and Mistletoe had the day’s discoveries all to themselves.

  Dawn was the garden redeemed by sleep.

  4

  They watched a steamboat sail past their hotel, blasting its horn. They went down to the lake, whose water now was gold and blue.

  The air was crisp and clean. It made them breathe consciously. They drew the ionised air of lake and mountain deep into their bellies. Then they exhaled, emptying their lungs.

  Breathing deeply cleared their minds and prepared them for the unusual. They were like children on the first day of their holiday who have woken early and gone to the garden to play.

  They breathed to the rhythm of their walking, cleaning out the years of neglect. One’s breathing is shallow in cities, thought Lao. Shallow breath, shallow life: as you breathe, so you live. He felt taller for the intake of mountain air.

  The quality of the light by the lake seemed to transfigure Mistletoe. It became her element. She walked on light, gazing at the mountains without seeing them.

  They took their shoes off and walked barefoot on the smooth grass. They walked by the side of the lake and let the dew and the light work on them.

  5

  there are things whose beauty grows the more attention you give them, Mistletoe was thinking. They admired the whimsical houses of the town. Lao noticed a church; it was small and beautiful. Something about the dawn made it seem like a sign.

  They crossed the road, went over to the church and were disappointed to find its door locked. It occurred to them that they were meant to receive their message from a less obvious door. They went round to the back, and came upon the dead.

  The graves were neatly laid out. There were gravestones and steles of great beauty and variety. There were marble and granite gravestones, inscribed with names and dates of birth and death, along with a biblical quotation or a note of lamentation. The gravestones had Greek, looped, or Maltese crosses, exquisitely masoned. The paths between were bordered with roses, lilies, fuchsias, and carnations. There were even orchids. The sense of order was astonishing.

  Death had been made into a thing of splendour. There were glazed pictures of the dead on every grave. The images in living colours were spooky in their realism. There were fresh flowers in a vase in front of each stone. The dead were being kept alive every day in thought, the ancient as well as the newly dead.

  Some gravestones spoke of the deaths of babies, of children, young men at war, old men at sea, young ladies snatched away too soon. One woman died for love; another died for peace. Most died of time. On some gravestones there were marble busts of the departed. Most of the graves had lamps that burned perpetually.

  It was the most enchanting cemetery they had ever seen, a communal work of memory. Its labyrinthine paths led to innumerable forms of grieving. It was grieving as an art.

  6

  Lao and Mistletoe wandered through this strange cemetery where the dead seemed luckier than the living. It made death seem a happy place.

  Then they noticed some women in black in tears around a grave. They gazed in silence at a photograph on an unfinished gravestone.

  It was time to leave. They didn’t want to be tourists at other people’s grief. Both of their parents were still alive, and they didn’t know what grief was yet. They were in a happy dream, and didn’t know it.

  Watching the women’s tears they felt, from a distance, the chill shadow of loss. They felt like children in the forecourt of death.

  Dark thoughts had entered the radiant day.

  7

  They left the cemetery, crossed the road again, and walked on in silence. The cemetery had altered them.

  For the first time, Mistletoe really saw the mountains. When she did, so did Lao. As if they had been given surprise gifts, they exclaimed at the same time.

  With death-cleansed eyes, Mistletoe saw the blue mountain range, the jagged high rocks, and the smoky peaks. The rock-faces were of ice and stone, defined by a sky of uncanny blue. Thick white light poured out from the dense clouds around the mountaintop.

  She saw how the mountain shaded into smoky blue distances, like matter dissolving into spirit, or spirit condensing into matter. Emotions choked her and suddenly she had an attack of homesickness, but it was for a home mysterious to her, connected to the remote mountain peaks fading into those invisible distances. She steadied herself on Lao’s shoulder for a moment.

  8

  ‘This town is merging with its dead,’ said Lao suddenly, after they had resumed walking.

  Then he was silent. His words stirred many thoughts in her. She knew enough to let the silence enrich the words. Working with silence was an art they were constantly refining.

  ‘I get the feeling it yields its mysteries when you encounter the spirit of its dead,’ Lao said after a while.

  It was Mistletoe’s turn to be silent. Walking on the dew in the grass, they breathed as much through the soles of their feet as through their noses.

  Lao gazed into the distance where rock was indistinguishable from air.

  ‘On the mountains towns like this are disappearing into legend,’ he said.

  ‘It treats its dead so beauti
fully, like newborn children,’ said Mistletoe.

  ‘The silence here mirrors the silence there, among peaks of snow.’

  They walked on. After a long moment Mistletoe drew in her breath.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We have just passed into the mirror of the town. There’s a touch of silver in my eyes,’ said Mistletoe.

  They both laughed. They felt unaccountably inspired.

  ‘Like incense, flowers with their beauty bear our thoughts faster to other realms,’ said Lao.

  ‘The dead hear what we are thinking about them as clearly as we hear the wind streaming down the mountains,’ said Mistletoe.

  ‘Somewhere in us the absent is most present.’

  ‘It takes as much effort to keep the dead alive in us as to keep the living present to us.’

  They were approaching a pier. Beyond it was the sparkling lake and the cloud-crowned mountain.

  9

  ‘What can you do with all this beauty? The frosted peaks, the silver lake, the light, this dawn?’ Lao asked. ‘It fills my heart, I want to do something with it, and I don’t know what.’

  ‘I know,’ Mistletoe said. ‘It’s a kind of despair. Beauty makes me despair sometimes.’

  ‘Beauty often makes me think of death.’

  ‘Can you be so happy that you want to die?’

  ‘Is there a link?’

  ‘Some people say death is the greatest happiness, that it’s not the dead we really mourn, but ourselves who are still here.’

  They gazed at the lake.

  ‘It’s the best kept secret.’

  ‘If we knew how beautiful death was, we wouldn’t fear it.’

  ‘We would have more courage.’

  ‘To live our lives.’

  They both fell silent, but went on walking, their breathing slower and deeper. Then Mistletoe broke the silence.

  ‘I think death must hold the key to life.’

  ‘Or maybe life holds the secret of death.’

  ‘Perhaps they need each other – like light and darkness.’

  ‘But which is light, and which is darkness?’

  ‘Life is darkness.’

  ‘So death is light.’

  ‘Yes, we’re living in darkness.’

  ‘And we’ll die in the light.’

  ‘We have to find light in darkness…’

  ‘And begin again.’

  ‘Rising and falling.’

  ‘Till we get to the mountaintop.’

  ‘But we need some lunch before that.’

  ‘And wine.’

  ‘And a siesta.’

  ‘And some reading.’

  ‘And some kissing.’

  They laughed and wandered on up the jetty. They mingled for a few moments among the tourists who were waiting to board the steamboat that would take them to the villages further down the lake.

  They walked on through the streets, staring at the cottages, the gabled houses, the fairy-tale chalets.

  They hadn’t gone long when, on looking back, they noticed that the church was further away than they thought it would be, as if it had moved.

  They went on a little longer, and then they thought they should make their way home to the hotel in time for lunch. But when they turned back everything seemed different. They were lost.

  10

  The air had become murky though there were no clouds in the sky. They heard raucous noises up ahead, people talking loudly and all at once. An orchestra sounded jarring notes close by. There were vintage cars parked along the road. Lao and Mistletoe were bewildered.

  They came to a white open-topped car with a bunch of violets visible on the front seat and a card with words scribbled on it which they didn’t have time to decipher because they suddenly noticed someone standing next to them. A tall well-dressed gentleman in a morning suit and a grey top hat with the air of a successful banker stood there. He had just sunk his teeth into a split pomegranate when they asked him the way back to the hotel. To their surprise he threw his head back and laughed. It was very disconcerting. They could see the red seeds in his open mouth. As he laughed they had a chance to look at the card.

  Greater authority

  Hath Christ

  Who rose from death

  Than Christ

  Before his death.

  11

  Lao and Mistletoe exchanged glances. Thinking that the man had not heard their question, they asked it again. He stopped laughing and regarded them with pity.

  ‘There’s no way you’ll get a hotel in this town, dear boy,’ he said, taking another bite from his half-eaten pomegranate. ‘It’s all full up. It’s been full up all season.’

  He must have noticed the strange look on their faces for, in a more genial tone, he said:

  ‘Everybody is here, you know. The rich, the famous, the fatuous, dear lady, are all here. Film stars, shipping magnates, great beauties, American tycoons, and the thousands that go where they go, are all here. There’s not a single room to be had, for God or money.’

  The look of consternation on their faces deepened. The man smiled ruefully.

  ‘As you can see, I’m leaving. I’ve had enough. I’m finished.’

  He pulled out a black handkerchief and wiped his face. He became solemn.

  ‘The town is ruined,’ he said sadly. ‘Ruined by the rich and famous. It’s over-run and over-exposed. That’s the price of fame, dear boy, the deadly price of fame.’

  Lao and Mistletoe looked at one another.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ the man said, looking at them with a thoughtful smile. ‘But it’s true. First the rich, then the rest. After that, hysteria.’ He fixed them each with a piercing stare. ‘Do you know what we have done?’

  Lao and Mistletoe shook their heads.

  ‘We have sucked the place dry,’ he said. ‘We have torn up its flowers, fornicated in its cemetery, and revelled in its churches. We have sucked its teats dry. We have spread debauchery everywhere. That’s what we do.’

  He gave them a mournful look.

  ‘Then we move on, find another town by a lake or the sea, somewhere unspoilt, and we do it all over again. We make a place famous, and then we ruin it. But I’m leaving, I’m finished.’

  The last bit of pomegranate disappeared into his mouth. He gave them an avuncular smile.

  ‘Good luck to you both. I hope you find somewhere to stay in the encroaching darkness. You look so innocent. Lambs to the slaughter. But beware the wine of fame, its intoxication, its madness.’

  Then he raised his hat to them, slid into the white car, and sped off, mirage into a mirage, without raising dust.

  12

  Not knowing what to make of the man’s utterances, they went on walking through the unfamiliar streets till they came to their hotel. They were puzzled to find a scene of drunken rowdiness in its forecourt. The building looked bright as if freshly painted. It had a bustling air and a large signboard over the entrance which wasn’t there before. Spilling out of the doorway, noisy in the garden, were men in morning suits and women in slinky silk dresses and demure hats. They were all talking at once and were drunk and jolly. A man with a waxed moustache and a fluted glass of champagne in one hand caught sight of Lao and Mistletoe and pointed at them and said something to his companions. They turned and stared as though they had never seen anything like them in the world.

  ‘We’d better go,’ Lao said. ‘I think we’re in the wrong time.’

  They turned and hurried back in the direction they had come, trying to control their panic.

  13

  They half walked, half ran, till they were in sight of the pier. They took off their sandals and walked on the cool grass. They saw the little church again and crossed the road to wander among the beautiful gravestones of marble, granite and alabaster. They walked on the straight paths and looked at the carnations and violets and at the busts and pictures of the dead. They paid attention to the dates on the gravestones.

  In the cemetery t
hey calmed down a bit. The lighted lamps and flowers and the Elysian beauty of the place instilled in them some tranquillity.

  They began touching the stones, and noticed a tingling in their fingertips. It was Mistletoe who saw the photograph first, the glazed picture of a man. The inscription read:

  Tom Woolnoth

  Investment Banker

  Died in a Car Accident

  Departed in a Hurry

  1888–1928

  When they saw the picture the air settled, their heads cleared, and the magic quality of the light returned.

  14

  The mountain shone like crystals and the lake shimmered.

  Freed of an oppressive weight in their heads, they looked at the pictures on the graves with new respect.

  Sending out a silent blessing to all the dead, they left the cemetery, crossed the road and walked barefoot on the grass, and breathed gently.

  They did not allude to their experience, choosing to pretend that nothing odd had happened, that they had merely passed through fragments of a dream floating in the air.

  They kept their eyes firmly fixed on the mountain, till they got to their hotel. They lunched on salad and grilled fish and a glass of Sancerre, and went upstairs to sleep off their perplexity.

  Section 2

  1

  In the late afternoon, they went exploring again. This time they ventured beyond the bridge. Mistletoe led the way, following an unerring instinct. They crossed a patch of wasteland and went under a flyover. Suddenly they heard music and went towards it, walking along a path and climbing a hill till they saw a wood.