The freedom artist, p.9
The Freedom Artist, page 9
Suspicious and pale, they took the free food and free drinks. With red-rimmed dull eyes, they listened to the stand-up comics and celebrity singers. The gaiety of the carnival, its vigorous music, its energetic performers, filled the air with a strange hollow noise.
By evening the nature of the carnival staged by the Hierarchy had begun to change.
9
There were other things being distributed at the carnival besides the free food and drinks. Leaflets were dropping from the air. Along with the food in their hands the people found leaflets with the image of sleepwalkers. Beneath the image was the single word:
UPWAKE!
Amidst the blare of atonal music, amidst the noise of percussive distraction, a single word intoned on a piercing microphone was heard. It cut through the dissonance.
UPWAKE!
Amidst the dancing girls and the company of jugglers, among the floats with effigies of heroes, a giant banner would be unfurled. It would have a single word, in large red letters:
UPWAKE!
The police were summoned when the leaflets began to be found and they arrested many performers. People found near the leaflets were carted away. Floats with unfurling banners of the dangerous word were brutally shut down. Chaos entered the carnival.
10
Karnak wandered in a daze through the feverish dream. He thought he had strayed into the land of the dead. Then he thought that the world had gone mad.
He wandered down crowded streets full of fear. At any moment something sinister might erupt from the earth. He feared sudden acts of madness. He expected the air to burst open and reveal demons. He was increasingly nervous.
He felt alien among the rough music and the floats with their costumed dancers. He went to hear a stand-up comic and found nothing he said amusing. A famous young band performing their latest officially sanctioned music made him feel flat. The belly dancers and the jugglers gave him the absurd sense that at any minute the whole edifice would collapse and ordinary life would be left standing in its place. A sheaf of leaflets descended on him. Where had they come from?
One leaflet struck his face. He peeled it off and beheld the image of a man fast asleep, wearing a suit, crossing the street. Above the image, was the single word:
UPWAKE!
Karnak threw the leaflet away in horror and fled from the vicinity. He ran till he came to a small park. He stopped at a tree and tried to regain his breath. Carved into the trunk was a single word.
UPWAKE!
Not knowing what else to do, Karnak sank to his knees, and began to weep.
11
Who knows what turned that carnival of state into a carnival of weeping? The people walked listlessly alongside the floats. They watched the tumbling acrobats with hollow eyes. They listened to the Indian musicians and gazed upon the Chinese dragons with dulled faces. The performers were animated but found the air resistant.
Whole streets were brought to a standstill. The police were busy everywhere, trying to rid the carnival of the pamphlet-spreaders. In unexpected places, flowered the word:
UPWAKE!
From the tops of trees leaflets came cascading down. From vents in the ground a loudhailer would punctuate the air with the word:
UPWAKE!
There would be a harmless explosion in the square and one of the military statues would be draped with a flapping white banner. In red and blue letters there was one word:
UPWAKE!
A policeman climbed the statue to take down the banner, but became entangled in it. From his neck the word fluttered in the breeze. When they brought him down he seemed inexplicably traumatised. He was seen weeping as he was led away.
It wasn’t long before people heard weeping from the interior of one of the Chinese dragons. The Indian dancers in the square began crying. The acrobats had tears streaming down their painted faces. A famous singer, in the full flood of his crooning, suddenly fell to sobbing. Then the contagion spread.
Floats of dancers became floats of wailers. The Brazilian Samba dancers were seen howling. The African masquerades wept as they danced. The carnival had changed.
The police looked on helplessly, not knowing who to arrest. The crowds of people, with dull eyes and pale faces, looked on without emotion. Then as if at a pre-arranged sign the crowds began to disperse. Apart from the broken performers, the streets and squares became empty.
12
The boy in the stone sarcophagus felt the darkness was alive. He felt it sliding on his skin, seeping into his bones. He felt it nibbling at his flesh, crawling on his face. Breathing was difficult in the heavy darkness.
In his thoughts he tried to return to the lake. The more he tried the more he felt his entombment. He breathed in the darkness. Parts of his body were going numb. The numbness spread. He felt himself turning to stone.
A second wave of panic hit him. He fought against the embrace of stone, and felt the hopelessness of the struggle. Then he heard a voice in the darkness of his mind.
‘Go in.’
He became still. There was no more in to go. He wanted to get out. He didn’t want to go in. He was in. If he went any more in he would perish.
There were voices in the dark. Were they the voices of demons? Did he have demons in the coffin with him?
‘How can I escape? How can I be free?’
He asked himself the question again and again.
‘How can I be free?’
He thought about the question.
‘Who is the I? Who am I?’
He asked the new question over and over.
‘Who am I?’
He asked himself other questions. He was full of questions now.
‘If I know who I am, I will know how to be free. Who am I?’
He heard the same answer in the dark. It grew fainter and fainter, till it was less than a whisper. He heard it more clearly for being so faint.
‘Go in.’
Like one who has nothing to lose, who can gamble everything on a single throw, he turned his thoughts inward, and went in.
13
Many days passed and the carnival faded from memory. Karnak still wandered the streets searching for clues. His quest became stronger. Then one day as he walked the streets he noticed something he hadn’t seen before.
He had looked at people and had seen paleness of skin and dullness of eyes. Sarcasm had become permanent and cynicism had left its dryness on their features. Gloom, misery, fear, and resentment were stamped on their faces. He had seen death on the brows of children. He had seen crowds marked for death and whole families marked for disappearance. He had seen pretty girls marked for madness. There was not a single face that was not doomed in some way. He had come to accept the fact that so many were marked with despair.
He had seen them walking on bridges. Faces without faces. Seen them walk the misty streets with their faces turned backwards. Seen them with bowler hats with blood on their faces. He had seen them in three piece suits with blood in their mouths, as if they had been supping on live animals. Seen them in ball gowns with blood on their lips. He had seen them in the banks, counting money with blood on the notes, in fashion houses with blood on their hands. He had seen people with their faces cracked like masks, had seen them praying in the churches with blood dripping from the chalice, blood seeping from the bibles. He had seen priests with blood on their cassocks. Figures in mosques with blood oozing from the book of the Prophet. He had seen children with blood in their eyes. He had seen two people kissing, drawing blood from their mouths as if devouring one another.
He had seen them in pubs drinking and smoking with blood on the cigarettes. He had seen them playing football and kicking the fallen instead of the ball. He had passed people walking along the river who were shouting at themselves. Watched the audience in a theatre suddenly bawling as one. He had seen actors commit suicide on stage, during their performances. Seen a funeral cortège in which a coffin had burst open and the dead one had let out a final shout before settling back into oblivion. He had heard someone singing at night instead of screaming and a sudden bullet-burst extinguishing the song.
He had seen these things and had come to accept that death and bad dreams stalked the land.
But one day he saw something he had never seen before, and it frightened him. He saw on someone’s face the glimmer of a smile.
14
Mirababa went in. He went into the darkness of himself. He went deep down as far as he could go. He found nothing. Only the same darkness. He was disappointed. As he had nowhere else to go, he stayed in the disappointment. The darkness changed. He noticed its texture and softness, a whirling, changing quality. It was not darkness at all, but some kind of cloud-like substance. He was so fascinated he did not notice the substance change.
Suddenly he saw about him, not too clearly, but clearly enough, a field or a park. He saw people dancing and people watching them dance. He was among them but they didn’t see him. Then he found himself by the lake. It was dark and there was no moon. He sat there for a long time.
Then he found himself somewhere else. He wasn’t sure where. Towers rose high up in the air. People streamed down the streets. Their eyes faced downwards and they walked as if they were not alive. Someone in the street screamed out loud. Troubled by the scream, the boy found himself back in the cloud-like darkness of the stone sarcophagus.
15
Karnak had seen the glimmer of a smile on the face of a woman in the crowd. He saw it and then it was gone. It was some time before he realised what he had seen.
The smile frightened him at first. It seemed monstrous. Why had it frightened him? He wasn’t sure.
But then he had turned around and gone looking for the face with the secret smile. He hurried back down the street, past shops and galleries. He went past the post office and the giant towers of state. He ran on ahead, past the crowds. Then he came back, walking against the flow, searching faces, seeking that elusive smile. He didn’t find it.
Karnak tried many roads, back streets, crowded places, pubs, and train stations, but still could not find it. Then he tried to find anyone with a trace of the smile. They might know something that could help him.
Many days passed. He never saw anyone with the glimmer of a smile.
He wondered if he had dreamed it.
16
Karnak was sitting on a park bench one day with nothing on his mind when the little boy who had spoken to him before appeared in front of him.
‘You’re still sad. I like that.’
‘What?’
‘That you’re still sad.’
‘What’re you doing here anyway?’
‘I’m playing with my friends.’
‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’
‘Playing is school.’
‘You should be at school.’
‘I don’t like school.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t like the stories they tell us.’
‘Why not?’
‘My father says the stories are all lies. I like the old ones.’
‘Which old ones?’
‘The ones they used to tell a long time ago.’
‘What stories are those?’
‘My father told me not to tell anyone.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know,’ the little boy said. ‘People are funny, I suppose.’
‘What stories do they tell you now that you don’t like?’
‘Silly stories.’
‘Like what?’
‘Do you want me to tell you one?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Okay. Are you ready?’
‘Yes.’
‘Once upon a time there was a little girl who did what she was told. She always did what she was told. She always believed what she was told. She grew up and married a handsome man and had beautiful children and lived happily ever after.’
‘Is that it?’
‘Yes. It’s silly, isn’t it?’
‘I think so.’
‘But it is, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Do you want another one?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Yes or no?’
‘Yes. One more.’
‘Once upon a time there was a boy. He worked very hard at school and did all his homework. He liked playing in the great garden that the leaders had given us. This boy did what he was told. He was very obedient and never talked back. He studied hard and did everything he was told and grew up and married the most beautiful girl who also worked hard and did what she was told. They had lots of children and they travelled round the world and everyone liked them. They had lots of money and they lived happily ever after.’
‘Is that it?’
‘Yes. Isn’t it silly?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘It is.’
‘Maybe it is.’
‘It is. My father says so.’
‘Who is your father?’
‘I’m not supposed to answer that question.’
‘Why not?’
The little boy gave Karnak a quizzical look, as though something was not quite right about his face.
‘I like it that you’re still sad. There’s hope for you, my father would say. I’ve got to be going now.’
Then the boy was gone. He rejoined his mates at their game under the big oak tree. Karnak looked at them for a while. When a wave of melancholy swept over him, he resumed his wandering and his quest.
17
Karnak’s wandering took him far into the city streets. He thought about the little boy’s stories and the more he thought about them the sadder he grew. He was about to cross a road when he heard someone calling for help. He couldn’t see where the voice was coming from.
‘Please help. It’s stuck.’
A man standing at the back of a van was waving him over.
‘I need to get this wheelchair down. It’s stuck,’ the man said in a dry voice.
Karnak sprang forward. Together they wriggled the wheelchair out of the groove in which it was caught. Then they rolled it down into the street. In the wheelchair was an old lady. She was dressed in a gaudy fashion, in pink trousers and a red shirt, and was heavily made-up. She seemed either fast asleep or dead. The man who had asked for his help had one good eye and one bad one. He was tall and a little stooped.
‘Help me get her into the hospital,’ he said.
‘The hospital?’
‘There. Right in front of you. Don’t you have eyes?’
Karnak looked up and saw a gleaming white building with stately columns, marble stairs and frosted windows. It was the hospital. He had never noticed it before.
‘Don’t just stare. Help me!’
In a bit of a daze, Karnak began pushing the wheelchair towards the big double doors. Inside, the lobby was vast and semi-circular and sunlit, but it had a pervasive mood of gloom. Everything looked new. They went up in the lift to the third floor.
‘Just help me get her into that ward over there and you’ll have done your good deed for the day,’ said the one-eyed man gruffly.
Karnak rolled the chair into the ward. What he saw astonished him.
18
In the stone sarcophagus, Mirababa felt his limbs grow numb. He was a little less afraid of the darkness now. He tried not to move. He tried to keep his breathing even. He listened, but heard nothing. Imprisoned in stone, unable to move, refusing to panic, having nowhere else to go, he turned around into himself and plunged into the thick darkness within.
Then he heard voices. One of the voices said he was going to die. Another said he was dead already. A third said he had been abandoned by the bards, sacrificed by the race. Voices laughed at his foolishness for believing he was involved in anything noble. Others laughed at all the stories he had heard and believed, all the myths he had been taught. One voice said his grandfather was a fraud. Another voice said there were no questions, no answers, no original prison, no in or out. There was just death.
‘Everything is only death. Death is all there is. The rest is illusion. And life is the biggest illusion of all.’
The boy listened patiently, fascinated. He wondered what the voices were. He wondered where they came from.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘We are you.’
‘You can’t be me. I am me.’
‘We are parts of you.’
‘You can’t be parts of me.’
‘Why not?’
‘How can you be parts of me and be saying such horrible things to me?’
‘We are the horrible parts of you.’
‘I don’t have horrible parts.’
‘Yes, you do. Everyone does.’
‘You can’t be part of me because I’m not an enemy to myself.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I’m not.’
‘If we are not part of you, who do you think we are then?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘We are you.’
‘You’re not. And if you are, either help me or shut up.’
The voices fell silent. Their silence surprised him. Then he found himself in a vast open space. It was big and round and had no definite substance. The space seemed infinite, but it wasn’t. It was bounded by something. But he didn’t know what it was. He rested in that space and listened.
19
Karnak saw a strange wild celebration in the hospital ward, a bacchanalia all around him. Patients just back from operations or waiting to be operated on exploded in raucous merriment. With tubes coming out of their noses and chests, they were spouting rough vulgar jokes, coughing and laughing and clowning around. Some of them were demonstrating funny walks. Some were showing off their private parts, bending over, exposing their rear ends. Many were talking feverishly in tongues.
