The Age of Magic by Ben Okri Read Free Book Online Page B

man’s fall.’
    Lao paused. His voice got quieter and yet each word spoken was clear as the sound of a bell across the lake.
    ‘There is something higher and more powerful than will. It is more fundamental as a civilising force. It contains will, but is greater. And it is indestructible.’
    At that moment the waitress, helped by kitchen staff, brought in their various dishes. The aroma of sautéed potatoes, fried chicken, lightly grilled sirloin steak, filled the air. There was a general silence as each person received their food; silence, except for the moving of cutlery and glasses to make space for the salads, the fries, the oblong plates of wienerschnitzel , and the round plates on which lay steamed trout and sea-bass, their skins intact, their eyes glazed. When the waitress retreated, having filled their glasses with wine, they turned to Lao. But it was Propr who gave voice to the general expectation.
    ‘Well, what is it? It’s not a cheap answer like love, is it?’
    ‘What’s wrong with love?’ said Husk.
    ‘Nothing,’ replied Propr. ‘Only I’m fed up with it being the answer to everything. If that’s the answer I think I’ll explode.’
    ‘Me too,’ said Sam. ‘What is this mysterious quality that is greater than will then? It’s not freedom, is it?’
    ‘I like freedom,’ piped in Riley unexpectedly.
    ‘I bet you do,’ Sam said. ‘Everyone wants to be free; and the freer they are the more unfree they become.’
    ‘That can’t be true,’ said Jute.
    ‘The freest person I ever saw,’ said Sam, ‘was a madman in the streets of Accra. He could do anything he wanted. He pissed on oranges in the marketplace. He insulted everybody. He said anything he liked. But I didn’t envy him one bit. Freedom is harder to handle than power, more existential than love. Too much freedom is spoiling us. It’s the most overrated…’
    ‘We’re not talking about freedom, we’re talking about will,’ said Jute, bluntly. ‘Let’s eat, shall we…?’
    They began eating, and while they ate and drank they all looked at Lao, waiting for him to announce the quality that was greater than will.
    They all waited, except Mistletoe. She went on drawing, stopping long enough, now and then, to fork up a piece of sea-bass. She knew Lao’s perversity, and had come to understand the reasoning behind it. They had talked about it often in the long conversations they had in bed in the mornings. In those conversations all aspects of life were their inspiration. They had talked about how, in the heat of a discussion, when people are pressing you to answer a question, it is often better not to do so. In the middle of a passionate debate people tend not to hear what is being said, and they have an inclination to disagree. Lao felt it was better if people could hear what was being said indirectly, for the deepest hearing happens long after the listening, and listening often awakens resistance.
    ‘It’s easier to be clever than to listen,’ Lao said on one of those mornings.
    ‘It took me more than a decade to hear something my father told me,’ Mistletoe replied.
    ‘It can take a lifetime.’
    ‘We really hear long after we have heard. We hear best in recollection.’
    ‘The best hearing is when the original words are resurrected in another experience, echoing through time…’ Mistletoe went on quietly drawing, thinking about this with a smile.
    ‘You still haven’t answered,’ Sam said to Lao at last. ‘Come on. What is the quality that’s greater than will?’
    ‘Yes, you’ve had long enough to think of something. I’ve nearly finished my steak,’ said Propr.
    They were clearly frustrated by Lao’s silence. Mistletoe, smiling still, knew that Lao was allowing the mood to thicken, increasing everyone’s annoyance, the better to turn the mystery. People are surprisingly impervious, Lao often contended, and strategies of cunning simplicity are required to make them hear.
    While they waited, he sat