Infinite Riches by Ben Okri

Author:Ben Okri
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2010-09-29T17:30:00+00:00

THREE

A beauty bordering on terror

THE MAGNETIC FIELD of the angel as it flew over our city enveloped the old woman in the forest with a humility deeper than wisdom. The suffocating animals had recovered in the wake of the heatwave; she felt their presence amidst the trees around her hut. She had seen the herbaceous plants recover their intensity of green; birds were piping among the dense branches.

The forest breathed a new fragrance. For the first time in many years she awoke into a day of tender sunlight without despair or bitterness in her heart. I could see her bafflement at the music which came from the settlements on the other side of the forest. The music and the singing roused in her memories of feast days in her village when elders spoke of the holy man who had seen an angel at night and who knew the precise date and hour he would die. She remembered them talking about how the holy man had called everyone together to make preparations for the special day. In the midst of her solitude the old woman found her hut now crowded with ancient presences; she saw holy men in shrouds bearing gifts for an invisible king. She went outside and looked up at the sky for signs of a visitation. A cat brushed past her foot. And then, in a startled moment, she saw a white and yellow form floating in the air above her hut. It was a form with mighty wings, dazzling like the brightness of pure moonlight. In a moment the form was gone.

Then she heard voices in the trees. Hobbling to the edge of the forest, she saw women with white dresses fleeing down the paths. For a moment, her eyes seemed to fail her. She watched as the intensity of the women created a marvellous turbulence in the wind. The leaves stirred. Then the women released a beautiful cry in unison and their bodies rose from the ground and they ran on the air of tender sunlight. Their transformation was accompanied by an explosion of yellow dust which struck the old woman blind. She hobbled back to her hut, her hands feeling the air. But her heart was serene. A beautiful terror glowed in her spirit.

When she got home she lay on her bed. Her mind was full of visions of angels whose wings had been a little stained by human blood, the blood of the innocent dying. Her mind was rich with the vision of angelic presences in human forms, of angels baffled by the intensity of human suffering.

She lay on her bed till her sight returned. I watched her through the eyes of the cat as she hobbled out and began her most extraordinary weaving. She wove scenes of frightening beauty, beauty bordering on terror. Painstakingly, and with a dexterity unusual for her age, she wove her most lovely section about the good people who survive terrible times through innocence and patience and through transformations. She wove idyllic landscapes and hillsides with yellow and blue flowers.

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