Dangerous Love by Ben Okri

Author:Ben Okri [Okri, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784081867
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2014-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

Book 3

1

He woke up with the feeling that his face had become like a mask. The mirror did not wholly undeceive him. His bony head with its growing bristles, and the wrinkle on his forehead, which he had not noticed before, made him feel like an old-eyed, lean-jawed stranger.

He took his towel and soap and made for the bathroom. A slight mist covered the compound. The cold air made him shiver. The compound had the muted busyness of an early Monday morning. A cock crowed somewhere in the distance and a child imitated its sound. The men prepared for work, combing their hair and chewing their chewing sticks at their room-fronts. Children were dressing for school. Women swept the corridor, warmed stews in the kitchen, and fetched water from the well.

In the bathroom, fooling around for many minutes, tentatively getting his body used to the iciness of the water, he began to take his shower. He was covered with soap, and was singing, when he heard her say from the adjacent bathroom compartment:

‘Is that you, Omovo?’

‘Yes.’

‘I could tell by your towel on the door.’

Omovo stopped singing. He also stopped the shower. He suddenly had an overpowering sense of his nakedness. He found it odd that, separated by the mucus-infested wall, he was still disturbed by her proximity.

In a voice that was both sweet and strange, she said: ‘I’m sorry about yesterday.’

‘It wasn’t your fault. I should have known better. What happened afterwards?’

‘He threatened to cut my face with a razor.’

‘Why?’

‘So men wouldn’t bother me and so he can have some peace. And then he whipped me.’

‘I’m sorry. I should have been more careful.’

‘Don’t be sorry.’

They were silent. After a while she asked: ‘Did he destroy all the drawings?’

‘Yes. But it doesn’t matter.’

‘Why not?’

‘What I drew will stay with me forever.’

‘But he destroyed all of them?’

‘Yes, but I can paint you now without them.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘I do love you so much,’ she said simply.

In the midst of the scum and mucus of the bathroom, and in spite of what she had suffered, he felt himself getting warm. He said nothing. Her voice was different when she said: ‘My dreams are getting very wicked. I might do something bad. I feel sorrow hanging over me. 1 don’t want to bring you any unhappiness.’

His head cleared.

‘I must see you soon,’ she added.

Heavy footsteps approached the bathroom. She stopped talking and began to fetch water from the tap. He resumed his shower and washed the soap from his body. The man who had been approaching banged on the bathroom door, almost bursting it free from the nail which kept it shut.

‘Who is there?’ asked the assistant deputy bachelor.

Omovo, grumbling, showed a soap-laden hand over the door.

‘Be quick, man. I’m late for work.’

Then the assistant deputy bachelor went to the toilet. Omovo listened as he urinated for an unusually long time. Then he began singing in a hoarse voice. When he had gone, Ifeyiwa turned off the water faucet and said, almost desperately:

‘Omovo, I must see you when you return from work in the evening.

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