Читать книгу Taduno's Song - Odafe Atogun - Страница 11

SIX

His practice sessions got more intense as the days went by. Most times he practised alone while Aroli went about the business of earning a living as an estate agent, taking okada rides from one appointment to the next, sweating to sell and buy houses for people, or to find them affordable accommodation, often with very frustrating results.

The rest of Taduno’s neighbours began to take an interest in him once again. They wondered why he locked himself away for long hours, sometimes for a whole day. Driven by renewed curiosity about a man who had made a strange entry into their lives, they would gather on the street outside his door, and listen, entranced, to the beautiful music that floated from an open upper window. They wondered why his voice did not accompany the music of his guitar; so they waited, hoping to hear the sound of his voice, curious to know what it sounded like in song.

But all they heard was the faint music of his guitar. And they did not know that the reason why they did not hear him sing was because he was afraid to hear the sound of his own voice.

*

Sometimes, Judah came to watch him play his guitar. Their friendship was growing. The boy would just sit with his hands on his cheeks and wonder at the beauty of his music. He found it amazing that he understood the meaning of his wordless songs, and he could not understand by what magic the strings of his guitar responded to his touch with words so simple and colourful.

‘The song you just played is for Anti Lela,’ the boy told him one day.

‘You can tell?’ he responded with a smile.

‘Of course I can tell. I can tell you miss her so much.’

‘Yes, I miss her so much, and I’m doing everything possible to find her.’

‘I know you will find her soon,’ the boy said hopefully. ‘Your music will help you to find her.’

‘Yes, I will find her soon,’ he replied sadly. ‘You see, my voice is bad at the moment. I need to discover it to find Lela.’

The boy nodded in understanding.

And he played yet another song, about a boy and a man, two people who loved a woman so dearly it was difficult to tell who loved her most. He knew that the woman could hear his song from a distant place, and this knowledge lifted him with inspiration as he danced with practised steps in tune with his music.

*

After a week of endless rehearsals, playing the guitar without attempting to sing, he found his way, in the company of Aroli, into the heart of Mushin, to the studio where he started his music career. On the taxi ride to the studio, he was overcome by a flood of memories.

He recalled that morning in June, almost twenty years ago, when he first walked into the studio as an eighteen-year-old. He had learned of the studio days after he arrived in the city on a rickety bus from the village, with a big dream and a battered guitar which his father had given him as a birthday gift. Intrigued by the name ‘The Studio of Stars’, he made up his mind that it would be the studio that would make him famous.

And so, early one morning, a month or so after arriving in the city, he found his way to the studio. His heart was beating unevenly, and all he could think of was whether they would accept his kind of music. He arrived at the studio and walked into a brightly lit corridor, with his battered guitar dangling from his shoulder, and the first person he encountered was a short squat man with an Afro cut, dressed in a colourful buba top and jeans. He thought the man looked funny in his odd combination of native top and western trousers. And his nerves suddenly disappeared as he laughed quietly. He realised that the man was laughing too, quietly. But he did not know why the man was laughing. He did not know that the man was laughing at his battered guitar and cropped trousers, like Michael Jackson’s, and his dusty Old Testament sandals.

They faced each other in the brightly lit corridor – the squat middle-aged man and the skinny teenager with a big dream and a battered guitar.

‘What brings you here, boy?’ The man had a rich voice, and there was an amused look on his face.

Taduno sobered up instantly. ‘I came to make music,’ he stammered.

‘What kind of music do you sing?’ Something about the teenager had seized the attention of the man.

‘The kind of music that tells stories,’ Taduno replied naively.

‘All music tells a story,’ the man responded.

‘Well, my music tells a special kind of story.’ Taduno could feel his confidence returning.

‘Would you play me your music?’ the man asked, in a gentle voice.

Taduno hesitated.

‘My name is TK, I own this studio.’

‘Oh!’ Taduno exclaimed, unable to say anything more.

‘I would like to hear your music,’ TK continued, with an encouraging smile. He had been in music the whole of his life and something told him the young man standing before him was special. ‘Come with me. Please?’

Taduno disregarded TK’s invitation. He unslung his guitar from his shoulder, and right there in the corridor, under the brightly lit bulbs, he began to strum the guitar. The battered guitar produced a mesmerising tune. And then he began to sing about two funny men. One laughed because he thought the other was funny. And the other thought the first one was funny and laughed too. And the two of them laughed, not knowing that they were both funny men.

It was a short piece; it screamed of the originality of Taduno’s talent. When he finished, TK began to applaud with a big smile on his face. The first set of studio staff were just starting to arrive, and seeing TK clapping they joined in, certain that he had discovered a prodigious talent. Soon, the whole corridor became filled with applause. And the legend of Taduno was born.

Taduno and TK established a great friendship and together made music that resounded in every corner of the country.

‘We’re almost there,’ Aroli said. ‘We’re almost at the studio.’ And then, glancing at Taduno, and seeing that he was smiling, he asked, ‘Why are you smiling?’

The smile on Taduno’s face broadened. ‘Because we are almost there,’ he replied.

*

He could sense that the air in the studio was different as he and Aroli walked in. It was not the same place he had walked into that June morning, almost twenty years ago. It was as if something had died there that was once alive.