Dangerous Love (15 page)

Omovo paused again. The old painter's face was drawn.

‘I dreamt about the dead man's eyes for two weeks. Because of them I couldn't sleep. When the lights went out I saw the eyes on the walls, on the ceiling, watching me, fixing me. Then I began to see them everywhere. Suddenly while playing I would begin to scream. I was ten years old but I think those eyes began to make me go mad. It got so worrying that Dad had to take me to a herbalist in the village to cure me of seeing the eyes. I stopped seeing them, but the herbalist didn't really cure me because I have never forgotten them. I can't remember exactly how they look, and I will never paint them, but those eyes will never leave me.'

When Omovo finished, he felt empty and exhausted. He felt that he had spoken too much, that he had talked himself into a kind of unreality. He heard the wind howl gently. He imagined that he could hear the sunlight as it poured on the ground. The old painter's face clouded over. Eventually, in a hollow voice, he said:

‘I feel the same way. I have not told my experiences in the war to anybody, except my wife. And I haven't painted anything about it either. I remember so much that I can't really remember anything. That is one of the problems of the artist.'

Then Dr Okocha fell silent. After a while he said: ‘The original experience must be the guide. But what you make of it, what you bring back from it, the vision, call it what you will, is the most important thing. What you forget returns in a hundred other shapes. It becomes the true material of invention. To learn how to remember creatively is to learn how to feel. But to paint that dream of yours will mean a long descent into yourself. It will also mean learning how to think differently. I am happy for you, for you are young and you are on a threshold.'

He fell silent again. While they had been talking some boys in the area had started up a game of football on the street. The old painter watched them, his eyes far away. Omovo watched them as well. The boys began shouting. A goal could have been scored but the goalkeeper's foot knocked the ball over into the scum of green water. They fetched it out with a stick, resumed their game, and unluckily one of the boys kicked the ball and it went and hit an old man on the head. He had been riding through the game on his equally ancient bicycle. The boys rolled over laughing. The old man got off his bicycle and chased the boys. They scattered in many directions. He couldn't catch any of them so he chased the ball instead.

‘The young boys of nowadays don't respect old people,' he muttered as he seized the ball, which had rolled near Dr Okocha and Omovo. The old man thumped the ball, but it jumped out of his hands. He caught it, and removing the pin holding his trouser fly together, pierced a hole in the ball. He flashed a wizened smile at Dr Okocha, who nodded, and then he got on his bicycle and rode away, chuckling to himself. The boys abused him. The game ended. Dr Okocha and Omovo walked on.

‘Yes, I'm happy for you,' the old painter continued. ‘This is one painting that will change you. Craft is important. The greater the idea, the greater the craft you need. But in finding the right colours, the right shapes, to capture that dream you will begin to discover unsuspected dimensions within you.'

They passed the scumpool with its green water. Omovo stared at its surface. He stared at the rubbish that had been poured into the stagnant pool. He noticed a mattress in it on which had been grown bright red mushrooms. He shivered. Then he began to see why Ifeyiwa had been silent when he showed her his painting of the scumscape.

‘We don't look at ugly things enough,' he said.

‘Ugliness is the face we always turn away from,' the old painter said. ‘When things are bad people don't want to face the truth. I don't know why the old painters always made Truth a beautiful woman. Truth is an ugly old woman. But her ugliness exists only in the eyes. I would choose the face of the Medusa as a good image of the Truth. She is actually a profoundly beautiful woman and we can only face her with the help of a mirror. That mirror is art.'

‘In ugliness,' Omovo said, ‘we see ourselves as we never want to.'

‘And so ugliness festers while the people cry for images of beauty, for illusions.'

‘But how can we be happy if there is so much ugliness around and if we paint the ugly truth?'

‘How can we be happy if we lie to ourselves?'

‘We can't.'

‘Things have got to improve. But first we have to see ourselves clearly, as we are.'

‘But you don't really paint ugliness,' Omovo said.

The old painter smiled. ‘I used to. That's all I used to paint. I would draw the bad roads, paint the women in their filthy backyards. And I did it so much that my life became filled with misery. You reproduce your work in your life. And I am poor. My life became unbearable. So I started to paint bright things, happy subjects, the smile of a child on the edge of a sea, the proud hunger of the truck-pusher, the defiance of the motor tout. My life opened up a little. Now I try to do both, to have the ugliness as well as the dreams.'

‘I can't seem to do anything. Often I am overwhelmed by unhappiness.'

The old painter stopped and looked at him affectionately. Then he put a hand on Omovo's shoulder and said: ‘You are young. Everything you see and feel now will be your reservoir later. But you feel things too much. Art is a poor substitute for real life. I like you. But live! Live fully. Act whenever you feel the necessity. Don't live only in your head. You are in the world.'

Dr Okocha went on walking. Omovo stayed still. He experienced a rush of being. Then he touched his head and felt the fresh bristles and his sweating skin. He could not see beyond the distance of run-down houses and dust-covered bushes. People went past him as he stood. He didn't notice them. After a moment he hurried and caught up with the old painter, who said:

‘I will be out of town for two weeks on a commission. When I come back I will look you up and see how you are doing. We have a duty to make manifest the good dreams, the visions, that we are given. An Indian poet once wrote that “In dreams begin responsibilities.” I prefer the word “vision” to “dreams” in this context.'

He stopped again. And this time Omovo knew that he was in a hurry and had to go. Omovo, grateful for the older man's interest, could not find anything to say. The old painter smiled. His eyes brightened. In a dramatic flourish, waving his hand as if throwing confetti in the air, he said:

‘We cast our nets out into the darkness and draw in ourselves. Sometimes, if we are fortunate, we also bring back...'

‘Bright corals.'

‘Bright things.'

‘With light and wonder.'

‘I will see you when I return.'

Dr Okocha turned somewhat abruptly and began striding towards his workshed. Omovo watched him stride away. He felt a great wave of affection for the older man. As he began walking to Okoro's place, he pondered on the things the old painter had said. He became so lost in his thoughts that he walked right into a crowd of young men. They were arguing about money. They did not notice them in their midst. He left their midst and stood away from them, resting his back on the wall of a house. He watched them. The more he looked at them the more he noticed the individuals within the crowd. They were all different from one another. The only thing they had in common was their frantic hunger to make money. He listened to them as they talked about deals, contracts, loans. He imagined that they dreamt of deals. He had seen others like them, victims of poverty. When they returned from work late in the evening they talked incoherently to themselves, they made calculations with their fingers, blind to the world which someday they might rule. Premature wrinkles ravaged their faces. As Omovo carried on walking to his friend's place he felt, suddenly, that he didn't understand the world. In the face of its manifestation, its realities, he seemed to have only bewilderment and morbid fascination.

When he got to the wooden bridge, a short cut which spanned the marsh separating Alaba from Ajegunle, the woman in the toll shed wouldn't let him cross over because she had no change. He had to wait for a few people to pass. The woman had drooping lips and large eyes. She sat behind the counter, eating beans from a plate with her fingers, and eyeing Omovo disdainfully. When she got enough change Omovo paid his five kobo.

‘Go gently,' the woman said, as he began the crossing.

The bridge wobbled. There were no railings on either side. As Omovo crossed over, he felt vulnerable; he felt that a false step could send him falling into the marsh. Birds thrilled all around. Weeds grew luxuriantly from the marsh, which had long become a dumping ground for communal rubbish. The air was permeated with a damp, sulphurous stench. The marsh was surrounded by a haze of forest.

Omovo felt someone step on the other side of the bridge. It wobbled dangerously. He waited. The person who had stepped on the bridge was a woman in high-heeled shoes. She wore a bright yellow dress and she swayed her hips as she walked. Apart from Omovo there was no one else around to appreciate the sensuality of her movements. The bridge shook. Omovo said:

‘Take it easy. Don't make yanga on this bridge-o.'

But she carried on swaying. She brushed past him with such violent nonchalance that it was only the good fortune of having stepped aside which saved him from falling into the marsh. He went on. He was nearing the other side when he heard her heel scrape a dislodged plank. He heard her scream. Then he heard the dreaded splash. He ran over and managed to drag her out. Mud oozed from her brassiere. Her yellow dress was covered in green and black slime. She was extremely miserable and bad-tempered. She kept abusing Omovo, as if it had been his fault. One of her high-heeled shoes had completely vanished in the marsh. Omovo led her to the woman at the toll shed, who gave her some water with which to wash her feet. Then Omovo watched her leave. She didn't thank him. She was still bad-tempered and she walked gingerly down the street, holding up the bottom of her slime-covered dress.

His friend, Okoro, was seeing off his new girlfriend when Omovo arrived.

‘Hey! Hi man! Long time no see,' shouted Okoro in his incorrigible American accent.

Okoro was of medium height and good-looking. His prematurely wrinkled forehead shone with perspiration. He had high cheekbones, and shadows under his eyes, and the vaguest terrain of a moustache. He was wearing a blue jacket, with sweat widening under the armpits, a pair of white trousers and black high-heeled shoes. He was brimming with enthusiasm. His new girlfriend was pimpled and pretty. She had wise eyes. She was wearing a white blouse over a red skirt. Okoro, putting his arm around her promising hips, said: ‘Where are you coming from, man?'

‘Home.'

‘How have you been?'

‘Fine. How are you?'

‘Okay. Great.'

‘Good.'

‘I saw Keme.'

‘What happened?'

‘I'll tell you when I get back.'

‘Are you going to introduce me?'

‘Oh, don't you know her?'

‘No.'

‘Meet my girl, July, flavour of all months. July, meet Omovo, painter of all seasons.'

They shook hands.

‘She's at the College of Technology.'

They stood regarding one another for a moment. Then Okoro said: ‘Let me see her to the bus-stop, or do you want to come with us?'

‘I'll wait. Is your door open?'

‘Yeah. Everybody's out. I'll be back in a moment.'

Omovo watched them go. They had gone a short distance up the untarred street when Okoro, placing his arm possessively round her shoulders, turned round and winked. Omovo smiled, and went into Okoro's compound. His friend's room was small and stuffy. The windows had to be kept permanently shut because of the sewer smells that came in from the backyard. In spite of it being daylight all the curtains were shut, the room was quite dark, and the blue light was on. The blue lightbulb had been intended to give the room a romantic atmosphere. Omovo noticed the sex-smells and opened the window. Light and vague sewer smells came in. Omovo, with nothing to do, looked around his friend's room with a stranger's eyes. It was something he had been practising. It was connected to his belief that he had to learn to see more clearly, look more carefully, without strain, without prejudice. He had to learn how not to let his eyes be bewildered by manifestations, and thereby learn to treat appearances as signs and codes of the interior.

On the blue walls of his friend's room there was a poster of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, hand raised in a revolutionary gesture. Next to the poster was an Airways calendar with bright pictures of London, New York, Paris and Amsterdam. The calendar was two years out of date. A large bed occupied most of the living space. There was a small round table next to the bed. There were two chairs. On the floor were scattered pairs of shoes and slippers. At the foot of the bed was a clothes rack, weighed down with the latest fashions. Omovo sat at the only big table in the room, on which an impressive stereo stood. The rest of the space on the table was taken up with application forms, cassettes, keys, address books, brochures of American universities and correspondence course booklets. Okoro was studying for his Ordinary levels for the third time.

Omovo was exhausted by the scrutiny of his friend's room. Usually when he came to visit, the room would be rocking with loud music. The silence and the heat made him drowsy. He laid his head on the table and was beginning to doze when Okoro came back in and slapped him excitedly on the shoulder.

‘What do you think of the broad, eh?' he asked. But without waiting for a reply he put on a record. Then he turned up the volume.

‘Just what do you think, eh? Isn't she heavy, eh?' he said, shouting above the music.

Omovo made a vague gesture. Then he said: ‘I expected you last Friday.'

‘I went to a party with Dele.'