Dangerous Love (16 page)

‘Did he tell you we went to his place?'

‘Yeah. The party was swell. That was where I met July. So what do you think of her, eh?'

‘Lower the music.'

‘What?'

‘Lower the music'

Okoro lowered the volume.

‘I thought girls in higher education scared you.'

‘Yeah, they do. They are too proud. But she's all right. You never can tell with these girls, man.'

‘Sure.'

‘Don't sound so bitter.'

‘Me?'

‘Yeah. Just because you had a girlfriend who left you as soon as she got an admission to the university.'

‘What's that got to do with it?'

‘Frankly speaking, a girl like that never loved you in the first place.'

‘Sure.'

Okoro stared at him. The music reached the point where he usually got carried away. He increased the volume, and made sinuous movements, his eyes rolling in disco-hall ecstasy. Okoro sang along with the lyrics which spoke of yearning and love. When the song ended Okoro shut the window and stood near the table. With a positively lecherous gleam in his eyes, he said:

‘I met my girl at a party. Before I met her I was lonely, man. I saw her sitting with two other girls. She looked special, man. I don't know what came over me but I went over and said: “Would you mind dancing with me?” I was wearing my new jacket, not this one, another one. It cost a bomb. I also had on new shoes. Anyway, she looked at me with cool eyes and said “No”. You won't believe it, man, but for a moment I stood there dumbfounded. I didn't know how I was going to walk back across the room. I thought she had said “No”, that she wouldn't dance with me.'

‘She did say “No”'.

‘Sure. But then she stood up and looked at me as if I was supposed to do something. Then I realised that she had said “Yes”. Man, the English language confuses you sometimes. Anyway, we danced. She's a good dancer. You should feel her body, man. I don't want you to feel it, if you know what I mean.'

‘Sure.'

‘So anyway, I wrapped my arms around her. We danced close up. I asked about her. It took three records to get her talking. I put on my best accent and told her about myself, lying where necessary, you know.'

Okoro winked. Omovo smiled.

‘Then I took her away from her friends. They didn't look too pleased about it, but who cares. A man only gets one chance. And before the party ended I was doing things to her that I couldn't have dreamt of. I was so happy, man. I can't tell you how happy I was. I felt powerful. I felt that I could move the world, and do all the things I hope to do. I felt lucky.'

Omovo began to feel uneasy, restless. He wasn't terribly interested in all the details that Okoro sounded he was going to launch into. Omovo picked up some of the booklets on government and put them back down again.

‘Omovo, you know how hard it is. We all want love, man. It makes me feel lonely walking down the street and seeing everybody else holding a woman.'

Omovo said nothing. He sensed desperation in his friend's voice. They stayed silent. Okoro looked a little embarrassed.

‘How are your studies?' Omovo asked, and then wished he hadn't.

Okoro looked away. He increased the volume of the music till the room fairly shook. Then staggering a little, as if he were exhausted, as if he had woken from a dream, he went to the bed, and sat. He stared ahead of him with a sad and vacant stillness. Then he stretched out on the bed, his shoes still on, and shut his eyes. The wrinkles deepened on his forehead.

Omovo watched him, saddened by the expression of pain on his face. The war had scarred Okoro forever, and in ways that were not always visible. When Omovo first met him, he had just finished secondary school and he used to talk excessively about the war. He was driven then. Okoro had fought in the war, first as a boy cub attached to an officer. He used to sneak into villages near the fighting and steal food. He was a lookout who would climb up trees and watch out for invading soldiers and communicate what he saw by a system of signs. He survived three bombings, without the help of bunkers. He saw his village destroyed by air raids. He carried the wounded across minefields. He went on regular reconnaissances at night, deep in the forests, scouting the whereabouts of troops. On one such reconnaissance he saw three of his friends killed by booby traps. He was given a crash course in soldiery and conscripted into the main army. He wasn't yet seventeen. He used to talk about the war and how it interrupted his schooling, and about the horrible things he had witnessed, like a woman who had been shot through the breast, or the baby that sat screaming in the midst of an air raid, or a soldier that was fifteen years old and who ran through the forests with a leg that had been pulped by bullets. He talked about the long nights in the swamp, with no blankets, while it poured down with rain, and while villages burnt about him, while the bombs fell, and lightning became indistinguishable from relentless shelling, and thunder inseparable from the bombs. He talked about friends who had deserted and who were caught by their comrades and shot point-blank. He talked about how lucky he had been to escape injury and death, about how his father had died on the battlefield and was buried in a mass grave. When the war ended he resumed his education. And when Omovo first met him he burnt with vitality and fire, with despair and hope. He burnt with the feral determination to reconstruct something from his life, to make up for the lost years. Omovo saw him as a hero, as one who bore the ineradicable memory of violence, as one who had come of age in the midst of ambushes and shelling, as one who had seen death, seeing the dying with the eyes of youth. But the years came and went. Okoro got various jobs and gradually his fire died away. Working in offices for so long and so aimlessly, living a life of mindless routines and grey regularity, had sapped his feral drive. He stopped talking about the war and began to sink into moods of unrelieved bitterness. But he had a happy spirit and when he felt bad he would plunge into parties and discos, he would chat up women, he would laugh loudly, while the wrinkles tightened on his face. Omovo knew that his friend lived with more terrors than he could ever understand.

The record stopped playing. The room was silent. Omovo thought about how his own childhood had alternated so sharply between laughter and loneliness. Growing up had been irredeemably spoiled by the difficult discovery that people have to struggle grossly for what amounts to a miserable compromise. It seemed to him a wonder that his people could bear their hard lives without going insane.

Okoro moved on the bed. His eyes were wide open and his face had hardened. ‘You can't beat the establishment,' he said. ‘Play me some music'

Omovo turned the record to the other side and lowered the volume.

‘You ask about my studies? My studies are there. One gets fed up of reading for examinations,' Okoro said.

‘Make this your last one.'

‘Sure.'

They fell silent. Okoro sat up on the bed and held his head between his palms.

‘My mother wrote. She is not well. She has been ill for a long time. I keep sending money home. It's a terrible life. Everything is struggle. There is no rest. I feel like an old man. I feel tired.'

Omovo said nothing for a while. Then by way of changing the subject he said: ‘Have you seen Keme?'

‘Yeah. I don't know what has come over him.'

‘Why do you say that?'

‘I went to his place yesterday. He was angry. The police had detained him for a day. He didn't tell me why because of his anger. He said something about his editor refusing to publish his story. He is threatening to resign. Do you know why he is so furious?'

‘We went to the park some days ago and found the body of a dead girl.'

‘What?'

‘We saw a dead girl's body. It was mutilated. They had shaved her hair.'

‘Really.'

‘Yeah. We went to Dele's place and phoned the police. Maybe something has developed. I knew Keme would follow up the story.'

They were silent again. Okoro stood up and walked around the cramped space of the room. He kept waving his hands without saying anything. He seemed agitated. He sat down again. Then suddenly his face contorted and he laughed. Then, quieting down, he said:

‘But why is he so worried about a dead body? I mean, I saw many of them stinking along the streets during the war. I mean…'

‘But we are not at war.'

‘Who said so? Our society is a battlefield. Poverty, corruption and hunger are the bullets. Bad governments are the bombs. And we still have soldiers ruling us.'

‘Okay. Okay. I don't want to argue.'

They were silent again.

‘Okay. So it affected you. But you are too sensitive for our society. If you worry too much about these things you will go mad. Or you will commit suicide. You have to learn to forget, to shut them out, and to concentrate on yourself.'

‘I don't agree, but I don't want to argue.'

‘So what can you do about it? Can you bring the girl back to life? Can you catch the people who killed her? Is there one day in which you don't see a dead body in the street? And what can you do about a drunken soldier who shoots someone just like that? What can you do about armed robbery?'

‘I don't want to argue.'

‘Why not? Tell me: what can you do? You either keep quiet or you do something.' Okoro laughed. ‘Or are you going to paint her dead body? What will that do, eh?'

Okoro was getting more agitated. He made violent gestures. Omovo began to think of leaving. Okoro came over to him, touched him roughly on the shoulder, and was about to launch into a new set of questions when knocks sounded on the door. Okoro shouted: ‘Come in if you're good-looking.'

Dele came in, grinning. ‘Of course I'm good-looking, you fool,' he said.

Okoro laughed, and eased the tension in the room.

‘Hey, Dele, how are you?'

‘Great!'

‘Man, guess what?'

‘What?'

‘I've just got myself a new girl.'

‘That's great, man!'

‘Hi, Dele,' Omovo said.

‘Hey, Omovo, is that you?'

‘Of course.'

‘We never see you at all. How are you?'

‘I'm fine. Thanks about that night. I hope we didn't disturb your father.'

‘It was okay. You know, when I saw you that night I didn't recognise you at first. Your shaven hair makes you look like a stranger. You should get a hat.'

Omovo smiled. Okoro said: ‘Have my hat, man. It's an expensive hat.'

‘I'm all right.'

‘Have it, man. Protect your brains from the sun.'

Okoro got up and fetched the hat, which had been hanging on a nail behind the clothes rack. He dusted the hat and put it on Omovo's head.

‘Wow! You look like an artistic gangster.'

Okoro brought him a mirror. Omovo looked at himself. He looked even more of a stranger. ‘It's good for disguise,' he said.

‘Disguise your baldness, my friend,' Dele said. ‘Or the whole world will treat it like a drum.'

Okoro laughed. Omovo took off the hat and put it on the table. ‘I'll take it,' he said.

‘Great,' said Okoro. Then returning to Dele he said: ‘Let me tell you my news, man.'

Dele hovered by the door, smiling in anticipation. He was tall, handsome, and had an even complexion. He wore a pair of sunshades, which he kept on in the relative darkness of the room, and which made him look like a minor film star. His father was a wealthy and illiterate businessman. Dele was one of those people who aspire to a life of great ease and luxury. He despised the wretchedness around him. His single greatest ambition was to go and study in America. He believed that life would begin for him out there. But in his own country he felt that he was living in a state of suspended animation. He worked in one of his father's firms as an assistant manager.

‘Tell me your good news,' he said, sitting down on the bed.

Okoro talked excitedly, as if he was telling the story of how he ‘captured' July for the first time. His face was animated with pleasure. He went into some intimate details and Dele laughed, slapping his thighs. When Okoro finished, Dele launched into stories of his own recent exploits. While they talked, Omovo listened, smiling when they turned to him to include him in their stories. And while he listened he couldn't be sure what his friends enjoyed the most: the actual experiences or the telling of them. When the narratives had been exhausted, Okoro got up to play another record. Dele turned to Omovo and said:

‘Hey man, how is that business with the dead girl?'

‘I don't know. I haven't seen Keme since.'

‘What really happened that night anyway? Tell me from the beginning.'

Omovo told him briefly about the exhibition, the park and the body. When he finished they were both silent. Dele became serious.

‘So they seized your painting, eh?'

‘Yes.'

Okoro lowered the music. ‘But why?'

‘They said it insults our nation's progress.'

Dele laughed sarcastically. Okoro said: ‘I must admit it is strange. What can a painting do to anyone, eh? A painting can't hit you, can't shoot you, can't make you faint, can't drive you mad. And yet they seized your painting. Very strange.'

‘What really annoyed me,' said Omovo ‘was that the officer said I was a bad artist. He's probably right.'

Dele laughed again. ‘Why would he bother to seize it if it is so bad, eh? And besides, what do soldiers know about art? They seized your painting because they did not understand it.'

‘I disagree,' said Okoro. ‘They seized it because they understood it.'

‘Neither of you has seen the painting anyway,' said Omovo.

‘It doesn't matter,' replied Dele. ‘They seized it because it was probably truthful. People in power don't like the people's truth. I mean...' and here Dele connected with his favourite subject, ‘I mean, in America they wouldn't do a thing like that. Why are we so trivial? That's why I want to get out of this place. One should live as fully and as freely as possible. I bet that girl was a victim of a secret society, you know, one of those frightening secret societies. Our own people. We just destroy our young ones, like that... without thinking...'