by Ben Okri
A pensive wind blew them back to the hotel. In their room time lengthened itself as day faded.
The clouds were wooing the mountain peaks. Mistletoe resumed her drawing. Lao began to write.
Lake of transformation
Living water burning with light
And living still it shines at night.
6
While Mistletoe drew, she noticed a yellow boat on the lake. The light was perfect all around and brought out the richness of the yellow. Colour, at that moment, seemed to her a magical revelation of the garment of form.
She went on drawing. She made the mountain into a cake. She ate of the cake, and declared it good with a smile.
7
Lao wrote another poem.
The Quylph
Came from
Aleph.
8
Beautiful days are all too short – pure music between the hammer beats of life.
The day darkened. It was time for dinner. They were all in a pensive mood, aware that their journey must continue and that many ideas they had about themselves must be surrendered. No one felt much like talking. They ate mostly in silence, and trooped up to bed.
Around midnight, unable to sleep, Lao and Mistletoe went downstairs to the lake’s edge. The lake was dark and mysterious. They took their clothes off and stood naked. Then they slipped into the water. Lao could not swim, so he kept to the shallows. But under Mistletoe’s coaxing he let himself submerge. The water was cold and dark and alive. With any luck, thought Lao as he rose to the surface, like fishes we will be hooked out and eaten by the universe, as holy food.
In that state, he was astounded to note that the earth was blue.
Little Venice
London
September 2013
Acknowledgements
I wish to express my gratitude to the following people. To the Marsh Agency for all the charming years working together. To all the staff at Head of Zeus for all the excellent work. To that genius of publishing, Anthony Cheetham. And to my editor, the inimitable Maggie McKernan.
We hope you enjoyed this book.
Head of Zeus are proud to be reissuing a collection of Ben Okri’s best works:
Dangerous Love
In Arcadia
Astonishing the Gods
A Way of Being Free
Ben talks about the collection here.
For an exclusive preview of the bestselling Dangerous Love, read on or click here.
~
Ben Okri
More books by Ben Okri
An invitation from the publisher
Ben Okri on the Reissues
It is for me a conjunction no less than magical that these five books are coming out together. The four reissues were first published in the nineties and in the early years of this century. They were all published within a few years, in one house, under the aegis of Anthony Cheetham, and are being re-published now, in a cluster, in another house, under Anthony’s aegis. There is a kind of synchronous harmony to this, a kind of perfect circularity that is both satisfying and auspicious.
As a body of work, the four books link with each another in an unusual way. Each explores, from a different angle, the themes that are central to my writing. They are about the nature of reality, storytelling, enchantment, history, art and love. In each of these books I attempt something different. Astonishing The Gods is a short novel, written in a mode of enchantment, a kind of fable about visibility and invisibility, about ideals and ideas, and about the poetry of being. It was a major departure in my writing at the time it was written and remains one of my favourites. A Way of Being Free is a favourite with many of my readers, a book of semi-poetic essays on art, politics, storytelling, and creativity. I had been writing these private and public meditations since the eighties. They have been widely referenced and still remain much quoted online.
In 1996, The Landscapes Within, a novel written when I was in my twenties, was transfigured into Dangerous Love. This is a story about love and art, but also about the aftermath of the Nigerian Civil War – corruption, a lost generation, and a search for an artistic language with which to express the true nature of reality. It is a kind of twin to The Famished Road and many readers think it more accessible.
And then in 2002 came In Arcadia, a novel unlike any I had written till then, exploring the anomie of our times, travel, the quest for a salve for the anxious spirit of our age. It is also about television and the shadow of power.
Four different books radiating from an unmistakeable core. Readers who only think of me as the author of The Famished Road have a pleasant surprise coming. The four books look at poverty and the quest for happiness. They look at beauty and ugliness. They deal with the world of the real and the world of the fabulous. They look at Africa and they look at Europe.
What unites them all is an abiding sense of the mystery of life and the magical nature of storytelling. My writings are enchantments, even when they deal with difficult realities; because for me it is not the realities that define us, but the consciousness with which we experience and face them.
The Age of Magic is the novel leading the procession into the world. For more than twelve years these four books have dwelt tenderly in the underworld. That their reincarnation is heralded by the birth of a new novel is entirely fitting. The Age of Magic is my first novel in seven years. That these five books are published by Head of Zeus is cause for celebration, cause for contemplating, with a sense of wonder, the nature of fate, and what charming bounties it promises.
Ben Okri
July 2014
Preview
Read on for a preview of
An epic of daily life, Dangerous Love is a story of doomed love, of star-crossed lovers, separated not by their families, but by the very circumstances of their lives.
Omovo, a Nigerian office-worker and artist who lives at home with his father and his father’s second wife. In the world of the compound in which he lives, Omovo has many friends and some enemies, but most important of all there is Ifeyiwa, a beautiful young married woman whom he loves with an almost hopeless passion - not because she doesn’t return his love, but because they can never be together.
Shouldn’t these ancient sufferings of ours finally start to bear fruit?
Rainer Maria Rilke
EXTRACT FROM A NOTEBOOK
I was walking through a dark forest when it happened. The trees turned into mist. And when I looked back I saw the dead girl. She walked steadily towards me. She didn’t have a nose or a mouth. Only a bright pair of eyes. She followed me everywhere I went. I saw a light at the end of the forest and I made for it. I didn’t get there.
Book 1
1
Omovo was emerging from a long dry season. When he looked at his face in the mirror, and saw that his hair needed cutting, he didn’t know that he was emerging from a long dry season. The barber’s shed was next door and when he went there an apprentice told him that the master had gone home to Abeokuta for a few days. Omovo asked whether he could still have his hair cut and the apprentice replied enthusiastically:
‘What kind of question is dat? I have cut about five heads today. I cut them well.’
Omovo dozed off during the haircut. When he woke up he found himself looking like a newly recruited policeman. He told the apprentice to cut his hair shorter. And as his hair got progressively shorter he thought he looked progressively worse. Exasperated, he told the apprentice to shave off the whole damn thing. When the barber had finished, his head looked bony and angular in the large mirror. At first he was disconcerted. Then gradually the freshness of the experience grew on him. After paying the apprentice he gathered up the dark masses of his hair that were scattered on the floor, tied them in a cellophane wrapping, and went home amid taunts of ‘Afaricorodo, shine-shine head’ from the children around.
The next morning he went for one of his walks through the ghetto of Alaba. He had only gone a few hundred yards from home when an unexpected fine
shower of rain started to fall. The flesh of his head tingled. He resolved not to run for cover and went on walking. He passed a building that had been burnt down in a fire the night before. Not far from the building some men were cutting down branches of a withered tree to use for firewood. Near the tree poorly dressed children were hitting a goat with sticks. He stopped and stared at the children and at the same time felt a shiver, which started from his head, run through his being. Something froze and then flashed within him. Something shimmered in the sky. He suddenly shouted: ‘Leave the goat alone!’
The children stopped. They stared at his bony angular head. The goat they had been hitting trotted towards the tree. The men looked at one another: one of them threw down a branch with dead leaves and the other one shouted: ‘What’s wrong?’
Omovo felt awkward. He couldn’t explain. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered.
Then he rushed home, brought out his drawing sheets, and began to sketch furiously. He worked and re-worked the lines, curves and shadings a hundred times. And then he hit upon the idea of using charcoal. He felt he was capturing something more strange and real than the actual event, and he was joyful.
When he finished the drawing, he put down the charcoal and went down the corridor into the backyard. As he walked past the twin strips of bungalows that made up the compound, the airless trapped heat, the stuffy smells and the bustling noises crowded his senses. The cement floor was grey, dirty and full of potholes. Above, the sky could be seen through the corrugated eaves.
In the backyard the compound men were having an argument about something in the newspapers. Their nostrils flared angrily, arms were flung about, voices clashed. When Omovo went past, one of the men detached himself from the argument and called to him.
‘Hey, painter boy...’
Omovo replied irritably. ‘I beg, don’t call me “painter boy”.’
‘Okay, Omovo...’
‘Yes?’
‘I see you have begun to draw again.’
Omovo’s face brightened. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes.’
The man nodded and stared at his shining head. Omovo went into the communal bathroom. The stench was overpowering. While he urinated he gazed at the scum that had collected around the drain. As soon as he had flushed he hurried out.
On his way back he again passed the men who were arguing. The argument had become more intense, as if it had been whipped up by something other than the heat. He knew what they were arguing about. It had been in all the headlines. He didn’t want to get directly involved. He had to keep his emotions intact.
A few people had gathered in front of the balcony where he had been working. They stared at the drawing and whispered among themselves. Omovo paused. As he stood there, uncertain, one of the compound men walked past, stopped, came back, and tapped him on the shoulder. It was Tuwo. He was very black, robust, on the squat side, and good-looking in a fortyish way. He spoke with an affected English accent. It was something he had worked on for God knows how long. It gave him distinction and, added to the other things he was infamous for, confirmed his notoriety.
‘It is good to see you arting again. Honestly. That’s a strange piece, honestly. Reminds me of the war.’ He paused. ‘Good work,’ he continued and then added, ‘but be careful about the girls. Especially the married ones.’
He smiled and his hairy nostrils flared. As Omovo watched Tuwo’s nostrils, a flicker in one of the windows caught his eye. He guessed it was his father’s wife. Tuwo shifted his gaze to the parted curtains and his face imperceptibly brightened. Without seeming aware of it, he stuck a hand deep into his pocket, and scratched discreetly. Then he went outside to the front of the compound to chat with some of the young girls who had come to buy water. As he went, the curtains dropped and the folds resumed their old stillness.
Omovo stood before the drawing. He drew back step by step, slowly, to view it from a changing distance. Then he stumbled over a stool. When he regained his balance he squinted at the figures he had painstakingly worked on. It was a drawing of children playing around a tree. The tree was thick-bodied, permanent. Its branches had been unnaturally amputated close to the trunk. The children were naked, curved, and had protuberant stomachs. Their legs were wiry. The sky above the tree and rooftops was defined by clouds of charcoal shadings that resembled a bundle of dead bodies. The drawing was stark and basic. It had in it something quaveringly, inherently, cruel.
He thought to himself: ‘Yes. Yes. Strange.’
He reached up and touched his head, feeling again the surprising clamminess of his palm. He spoke quietly to the drawing: ‘I have never seen you before. But it is wonderful that you are here.’
And then he became aware of the argument his work had been generating.
‘Omovo, what’s that you draw?’ asked one of the compound boys.
‘It’s a tree,’ said another.
‘It’s not a tree.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘It’s like a big mushroom.’
‘It’s not like a big mushroom.’
When Omovo looked around at the many, sweaty, intent faces, a certain panic rose inside him. ‘Look,’ he said loudly. ‘Why don’t you people just go away and leave me alone!’
There was a hush, but no response. The faces still hung around. Then an unfamiliar voice in the crowd asked Omovo whether he wanted to sell the drawing. The boy said he knew some ‘Europeans’ who would pay as much as twenty Naira for some works if they were properly framed. Omovo studied the boy’s ravaged face. It was lean and prematurely wrinkled. The eyes glittered like freshly minted coins. He had seen those eyes around a lot, but these seemed just fresh on the path to independence.
‘Say sometin’ now,’ the boy said irritably. He was taller than Omovo, dark, slim and cocky. He had on faded jeans and a white crew-neck shirt with a Yamaha sign printed in red.
Omovo shook his head. ‘There’s nothing to say.’
There was a slight tension as the boy glared at Omovo with such bleary ferocity that a fight seemed imminent. But then he grinned absurdly, shrugged, and said: ‘I’m jus playing.’
The next moment he turned round, made his way through the crowd, and disappeared. Omovo picked up a pencil. He signed his name at the bottom of the drawing and then he wrote: ‘Related losses.’
He drew back. He felt wonderfully clear inside. He knew it would not last. He went into the apartment, taking the drawing with him. He barely noticed his father, who sat expectantly at the dining table.
His room oppressed him. There was a phantom presence on the bed and a shadow hung over the table as if it were writing a secret poem in a hurry. His two brothers. The shadow made a fluttering gesture and the phantom raised its head.
‘Hi brothers.’
He put on the light. There was a slight depression on the bed and an open notebook on the table. Everything was just as he had left it. His mind had been filling out the spaces. The room had once been too small for all three of them, and now that they had gone it was still occasionally overcrowded.
He carefully, almost reverently, placed the drawing board amid the clutter on the table. And then he made the board stand against the wall. He stood thinking to himself: ‘I can’t stay in this room now. There are too many things here.’
The dark spaces and half substances re-defined themselves when he put out the lights. He left the room. His father was now eating yam and stew at the table. Blackie, who sat opposite, watched him and made intimate comments and laughed at his replies. The sight of them in such apparent rapport deepened Omovo’s detachment. He walked through the sitting room as fast as he could.
He sat on the wall in front of their apartment and watched the men arguing. The sight fascinated him. The assistant chief bachelor of the compound said something about a massive bag of worms. Tuwo in his affected accent said something about corruption being the new morality. And one of the men Omovo could not see shouted: ‘They are pissing on our heads. We are like gutters.’
They
teased and chaffed one another and made theatrical gestures. They were comic and at the same time they were serious. Then they dispersed, bit by bit, till one of the men suggested that the rest all come to his room and get drunk. There was applause and they crowded into the man’s room, being comic and serious as they went.
As the men crowded away Omovo experienced a feeling of impermanence. In the backyard the children played and ran errands. The women plaited one another’s hair, or washed clothes near the well. At the compound front little girls made imitation soup in empty tomato cans, over mock fires. Two men went past balancing buckets of water on their heads. Omovo’s feeling of impermanence passed into an awareness that familiar things were becoming new images within him.
The joy which he had felt was now dissipated. He jumped down from the wall and went to the compound front and set out on another of his walks.
The walk would subtly change his life.
2
Dusk fell. It was evening, but the sun beat down on his shaven head. He could feel it simmer. He made for the Badagry Express road. Slum dwellings stretched out all around him. He was irritated by the airless heat. Sweat dribbled down his skin like little maggots and the smells around merged in his nostrils. From behind him there came the noise of a car horn. It was a battered Volkswagen and it bleated like a goat. He jumped aside, and crashed into a corpulent woman, and was sent staggering across the street. She was barely shaken. In an irritated voice she said: ‘Foolish egg-head boy! Can’t you look where you’re going?’
Omovo picked himself up. ‘Madam, you look like a lorry!’ he shouted back at her. She ignored him and shuffled past the shops that lined the sides of the road. Women with lean faces sat beside their stalls. They sold provisions blanched by the sun. Omovo avoided a puddle and fled when a motorcyclist rode past with both legs lifted and spattered mud about the street.