Dangerous Love (3 page)

Omovo smiled again, his eyes vague. They shook hands. The old painter threw the sleeves of his agbada over his shoulders and then wiped the sweat off his face.

‘See you in the week.'

Omovo went out of the shed. The sounds, the sights, and the smells of the ghetto crowded back to him. Things were clear all round.

And then lightning flashed in the sky. An uncertain rain drizzled. The sky was in a bad mood. He walked faster. He felt his head spinning gently, the sensation like a rush of blood to the brain. He felt good and he felt strange. Night fell like soot from the clouds. Kerosene lamps appeared on the stalls. Their flames were blown thin by the wind.

When he got home, the rain had stopped. Children played hop and skip games in boxed areas on the sand at the compound front. Two of the compound women plaited the hair of two others near the chemist's shop. Some people had come to buy water from the grey aluminium tank.

Then he saw her. And when he saw her, weakness and longing flooded him in waves. Blood flushed his ears and his face felt hot. She stood at the entrance of the compound. When she saw him she bent over and whispered something to a little boy with a long face. Her hair was plaited in thin knitted bundles. She looked melancholy and pretty and contained. When she stared at him a wonderful and dangerous emotion happened inside him. Her face underwent a sad-happy darkening. He did not slow down. He desperately wanted to do something, to reach out to her in some way. But he did not stop.

He had barely reached the low cement wall in front of their apartment when her husband emerged from Tuwo's room. He was short and menacing. His name was Takpo. Omovo felt something else waken in him: an unsuspected pang of loneliness. Sensing the imminence of an assault, Omovo shrank into himself.

Takpo slowed down, glared at him, smiled, and then said in a loud voice: ‘Ah, painter boy, how are you, eh?'

Omovo couldn't find his voice and experienced a moment of inner panic. He felt naked. He felt as if all his stifled desires could be read on his face and were visible on his head.

‘Ah, painter boy, why you cut your head, now? You were handsome before-o. Now you are a...'

Someone laughed roughly from the room behind him. Someone else shouted: ‘Moro-moro.'

Omovo turned into the enclosed space in front of their apartment. The laughter rippled and then passed away. He thought: ‘I mustn't let them do this to me. I must be strong.'

Ifeyiwa's husband passed from sight. The boy he had seen her whispering to came towards him and went right into the room. Omovo went after him. The boy hid behind the door.

‘She said I should give this to you.'

It was a note. Omovo tapped the boy on the head, brought out a coin, and gave it to him: ‘Thank you, eh.' The boy nodded and ran out of the room into the unsuspecting compound.

The note was from Ifeyiwa. It read:

I miss you. I haven't seen you for a week. What's happening? Hope you are all right. I saw the drawing that you were doing. Have you finished it now? Omovo, can we meet tomorrow, Sunday, at the Badagry road? I want to see you very badly. Tomorrow at this time or earlier. I will be waiting. Love, Ifi.

Omovo did not read the letter a second time. He crumpled it, got a box of matches, and burnt it. He watched as the paper was consumed, as if in pain, by the moving areas of flame. He felt within him joyous disquiet. The room seemed too small. His frenzies filled everywhere. Outside the compound bustled with moving figures. It was noisy. His head throbbed. Darkness had fallen and all the corridor lights were on. The pale bulbs swung balefully. Mosquitoes came and assailed his relative peace and bit him all over.

And then from the sitting room behind him there came a sustained peal of feminine laughter. The curtain swished and out came his father. He was with Blackie. A fine perfume swam over him and suffused the air with a delicate and mocking presence. His father was well dressed. He had on a clean white shirt over a resplendent wrapper. And he wore a fancy felt hat which Omovo had not seen before. There was a feather in its grey band. He waved a fan of peacock feathers.

Blackie was also prettily dressed. She had on the same kind of expensive wrapper, a white blouse, a high, colourful head-dress, bright bangles and earrings, and an imitation gold necklace. They made a lovely pair.

Omovo shrank into a corner. But he had no need to. His father spontaneously began to dance at the mouth of the door. He danced with an engrossed smile on his face. He didn't notice Omovo.

When the brief show was over, he became businesslike. He took his wife by the hand, walked briskly down the corridor, and acknowledged greetings as he went out into the street. The compound people stared at them, some even cheered. Children trailed behind them excitedly. Then they were gone. To a party, to a meeting, or something. It was not often the man went out like that. He was something of a natural showman, but ever since Omovo's mother died and his business began to fall to pieces and his two sons were turned out of the house, there had been no occasion for being a showman. This was a departure. He seemed to be celebrating life again with his new wife. But Omovo knew otherwise; he saw beneath the dignity, the fine clothes, and the feathered hat to the bright crack within and a threatening void.

Omovo, feeling abandoned, tried not to think of anything. His mind whirled lightly. The bulb swung gently. The wind whistled through the compound. Mosquitoes attacked in squads. And the children howled. Omovo felt very far away from the life about him. A keen, ill-defined revolt simmered and died away within him. The perfume still hung in the air. The compound throbbed with its characteristic jangling noises.

He did not put the lights on in his room when he went in. He tried hard to sleep. The room changed shape and the darkness pressed on his mind like an incubus. The old decrepit fan whirling on the table blew back the stale sweaty smells in the room. And the whirling fan blades became disconnected sounds and images of unrest in his mind. And then, as if from a great distance, he heard the disconnected sounds stop. The noises of the compound which filtered into the room suddenly died away. And he was glad because nothing, not even the darkness, could claim him. As he dropped farther and farther away into the bright void, he had the curious sensation that he was dying and that everything was dying with him.

They both walked in silence. They had been silent ever since she came up to him where he stood beside the mechanic's workshop, touched him lightly on the shoulder, and said: ‘Omovo, I'm here. Let's go.'

The Badagry Road stretched like a mirage before them. It was well tarred. It was also full of treacherous potholes. Cars of various makes and in various stages of decay drove past noisily, and left sickening fumes in the air.

They were silent when they crossed the road. Cars whistled past close to them. Omovo brushed his hand against hers. She half turned towards him, her mouth opened as if to speak. But she decided against it and slipped her fingers into his. The two hands were linked for a moment and when he pretended to scratch an itch on his head, they disengaged lightly.

The sky was clear and clean; a spaceless blue dome. The air was fickle. One moment it was light-tipped, fresh, and the next it was full of smoke and gasoline fumes. Birds swooped past twittering, and he felt their presence keenly. Then they were black specks scattered in the canvas of the sky. He was suddenly touched with a sense of things that were irrevocably lost, of places that cannot be reached.

‘I had a dream, Omovo.'

Her voice came as a surprise. It was there, had gone, and wasn't there anymore. Her face shadowed over. He held his breath, his heart beating a little faster, as he waited for her to speak.

‘Ifeyiwa, you were saying...?'

‘I'm not even sure whether I was dreaming,' she said.

‘Well, say it then. I am listening.'

There was silence. And then even that was destroyed. Cars went past. A helicopter flew overhead and motorcyclists roared down the sun-drenched road. She began to speak.

‘I was in a hall. The hall changed into a coffin. The rats began to chew at me in the coffin. I fought my way out and found myself in a forest. The trees were ugly. As I tried to find my way out of the forest everything changed back into the hall. This time there was nothing except the sound of something scratching and chewing. I wasn't afraid. When I woke up I found that the trap under the bed had caught a big rat.'

Omovo looked at her and, when she instinctively looked up at him, he turned his eyes away.

‘Then I began to clean up the whole house. I swept away the cobwebs, cleaned the corners, broke down the insects' nests on our ceiling, and drove out all the wall geckoes and lizards. He came into the house and saw me cleaning and was angry that I did not go to the shop when he came home to eat. And he beat me again. Omovo, what does it all mean? Did I do wrong?'

Her voice rose and dropped as she spoke. When she had finished she brought her hands up to her face. The gesture reminded Omovo of how his mother used to raise her hands in defence when his father was beating her. The dream Ifeyiwa described assumed a thousand shapes in his mind, and the whole experience somehow became his. He shook his head.

‘I don't know, Ifeyiwa.'

‘I'm not afraid of anything.'

‘Have you told him about it?'

‘Omovo, you know I can't tell him anything.'

‘Yes. I know.' He looked at her. ‘I got your note, Ifi. It was very nice.'

‘I had to buy the boy sweets before he agreed to take it to you.'

‘I gave him some money.'

Ifeyiwa smiled and swung her arms. Her mood had brightened and the shadows had lifted from her face. She was radiant in her plain white blouse. A glimmering, gold-painted chain dangled from her neck. It rested in the valley between her lightly moving breasts. He knew that she did not have on a brassiere. The thought started a stab of passion inside him.

‘You know, he came in yesterday and was saying how strange your drawing was.'

‘When he walked past me and suddenly said something about my head I thought he was going to pounce on me.'

There was a light descent of silence. Something happened in the sky. The air darkened. The sky had now acquired sprinklings of yellow, ash-grey, and a wistful fading blue. Everything around was faintly touched with that darkening quality of twilight. It happened imperceptibly.

‘Omovo?'

‘Yes.'

‘I've been wanting to ask you why you shaved your head.'

He reached up and touched his head. Flesh touched flesh. It felt bare as a calabash.

‘Oh, it was a barber that did it. An apprentice. I decided on impulse. Like that. I don't know.'

‘It makes you look as if you were mourning someone.'

‘Aren't there many things to mourn?'

‘Do you think of your mother often?'

‘Yes. Always. One way or another. She's always there.'

‘Sorry I asked.'

‘There's nothing to be sorry about. It's good of you to have asked. It gets lonely when nobody asks you these things.'

‘Yes. It does.'

‘Do you think of your family too? I mean, often?'

‘No. I hate them for what they did to me. And I love them. I worry about my mother, though. It is hard.'

‘Yes. It is.'

‘You know, when I first saw you with your head like this I could not recognise you.'

‘I don't recognise myself.'

‘Why don't you paint a new self-portrait?'

‘That's a good idea. I might.'

‘What about the painting you said you would do of me washing clothes in the backyard?'

‘I will do it soon.'

‘Will it be as good as the Mona Lisa?'

‘Do you have anything to smile enigmatically about?'

‘Yes. You,' she said.

They passed the rusted junk of a car by the roadside. There was a patch of dust-covered bushes just after it. Palm trees stood tall in a depression. Next to the trees was an expansive clearing where a building was being erected. In the distance a tailback was forming. A sudden wind blew and Omovo's shirt lapels flapped. Ifeyiwa's blouse billowed. In a moment the wind was gone, and there followed a tiny stillness.

‘I will do the painting, I promise.'

‘Okay. You know, it's a long time since you did some real work.'

‘Yes.'

‘The rainy season is nearly over now. Things will get better for you.'

‘I'm happy about my drawing.'

‘I'm happy for you. You have your art. I don't have anything. Except, maybe, you.'

‘Tuwo warned me yesterday. I don't know why. He said I should be careful, especially of married girls.'

‘He's jealous.'

‘Does he know we see each other?'

‘I don't know. He went after my girlfriend, Julie, the one I went to evening class with. Then he wrote me a note that he wants to see me. He has been secretly after me for a long time. He's jealous, that's all.'

‘What's his problem anyway?'

‘He is my husband's friend. They sometimes drink together and talk of women and gossip about other things. Let's not talk about them.'

‘Yes.'

‘You know, I saw him... no, I shouldn't tell you.'

‘Why not? Tell me.'

‘Well... I saw him with your father's wife, Blackie. They were walking together one night at Amukoko.'

‘My father's wife used to know Tuwo. They lived in the same street before.'

‘Let's not talk about them.'

‘Yes.'

‘Omovo?'

‘Yes?'

There was a silence in which she stopped suddenly and held his hands. Her eyes were ardent in their liquid brightness. Omovo thought: ‘Can I find my way out of those eyes?'

‘I don't belong here,' she said. A certain anguish had come over her face. Omovo touched her cheeks.

‘Ever since I was taken from home I don't belong anywhere any more. I hate my husband and I hate this life my family forced me into.'