A Man of the People (7 page)

standing at the door with arms folded across her bust when I came in at the gate. She immediately rushed indoors and disappeared. When I brought out my suitcase Chief Nanga, who had not said another word since I insulted him, came forward and tried to put a hand on my shoulder in one last effort at reconciliation. 'Don't touch me!' I eased my shoulders away like one avoiding a leper's touch. He immediately recoiled; his smile hardened on his face and I was happy. 'Don't be childish, Odili,' he said paternally. 'After all she is not your wife. What is all this nonsense? She told me there is nothing between you and she, and you told me the same thing... But anyway I am sorry if you are offended; the mistake is mine. I tender unreserved apology. If you like I can bring you six girls this evening. You go do the thing sotay you go beg say you no want again. Ha, ha, ha, ha!' 'What a country!' I said. 'You call yourself Minister of Culture. God help us.' And I spat; not a full spit but a token, albeit unmistakable, one. 'Look here, Odili,' he turned on me then like an incensed leopard, 'I will not stomach any nonsense from any small boy for the sake of a common woman, you hear? If you insult me again I will show you pepper. You young people of today are very ungrateful. Imagine! Anyway don't insult me again-o....' 'You can't do fuck-all,' I said. 'You are just a bush...' I cut myself short and walked out, lumbering my suitcase past Dogo the one-eyed stalwart who had presumably heard our voices and come out from the Boys' Quarters in his sleeping loin-cloth to investigate. 'Na this boy de halla so for master im face?' I heard him ask. 'Don't mind the stupid idiot,' said Chief Nanga. 'E no fit insult master like that here and comot free. Hey! My frien'!' he shouted, coming after me. 'Are you there?' His voice was full of menace. I was then half-way to the outside gate. I turned boldly round but on second thoughts said nothing, turned again and continued. 'Leave am, Dogo. Make e carry im bad luck de go. Na my own mistake for bring am here. Ungrateful ingrate!' I was now at the gate but his voice was loud and I heard every word. I took a taxi to my friend Maxwell's address. Maxwell Kulamo, a lawyer, had been my classmate at the Grammar School. We called him Kulmax or Cool Max in those days; and his best friends still did. He was the Poet Laureate of our school and I still remember the famous closing couplet of the poem he wrote when our school beat our rivals in the Inter-collegiate Soccer Competition: Hurrah! to our unconquerable full backs. (The writer of these lines is Cool Max.) He was already fully dressed for Court (striped trousers and black coat) and was eating breakfast when I arrived. The few words I spoke to Nanga and the fairly long taxi ride had combined to make it possible for me to wear a passable face. 'Good gracious!' Max shouted, shaking my hand violently. 'Diligent! Na your eye be this?' Diligent was a version of Odili I had borne at school. 'Cool Max!' I greeted him in return. 'The writer of these lines!' We laughed and laughed and the tears I had not shed last night came to my eyes. Max suspected nothing and even thought I was just coming from home. I told him rather shamefacedly that I had been in town for the past few days but hadn't found it possible to contact him. He took this to be a reference to his having no telephone in the house, a fact which in turn could be a reflection on his practice. 'I have been on the waiting list for a telephone for two months,' he said defensively. 'You see, I have not given anyone a bribe, and I don't know any big gun... So you have been staying with that corrupt, empty-headed, illiterate capitalist. Sorry-o.' 'Na matter of can't help,' I said. 'He na my old teacher, you know.' I was dipping my bread in the cup of hot cocoa drink Max's boy had made for me. Chief Nanga and Elsie already seemed so distant that I could have talked about them like casual acquaintances. But I was not going to delay Max by talking now. And in any case I had no wish to make him think that I only remembered him when I could no longer enjoy the flesh-pots of Chief Nanga's home. Within minutes I was already feeling so relaxed and at ease here that I wondered what piece of ill-fate took me to Chief Nanga in the first place.

CHAPTER EIGHT

It was only after Max had left for Court at around nine that I finally felt the full weight of the previous night's humiliation settling down on me. The heat and anger had now largely evaporated leaving the cold fact that another man had wrenched my girl-friend from my hand and led her to bed under my very eyes, and I had done nothing about it---could do nothing. And why? Because the man was a minister bloated by the flatulence of ill-gotten wealth, living in a big mansion built with public money, riding in a Cadillac and watched over by a one-eyed, hired thug. And as though that were not enough he had had the obscene effrontery to say he thought I was too tired! A man of fifty or more with a son in a secondary school and a wife whose dress gets caught between the buttocks thought I was too tired! And here was I doing nothing about it except speculating whether Elsie would go back to her hospital that day or spend another night with Chief Nanga. By late afternoon I even had the crazy, preposterous idea of wanting to go to a public telephone to put through an anonymous call. Of course I killed the disgraceful thought right away. But I suppose it was possible (judging by the way things finally worked themselves out) that these weak and trivial thoughts might have been a sort of smoke screen behind which, unknown to me, weighty decisions were taking shape. It was perhaps like the theory of writing examinations that one of my lecturers used to propound to us. He said the right technique was to read all the questions once through, select those you wanted to answer and then start with the easiest; his theory being that while you were answering the easy number your subconscious would set to work arranging the others for you. I tried it out for my degree examination and although the result was not exactly startling I suppose it could have been worse. But on the present question of Chief Nanga my subconscious (or something very much like it) seemed to have gone voluntarily into operation. I was just flapping about like a trapped bird when suddenly I saw the opening. I saw that Elsie did not matter in the least. What mattered was that a man had treated me as no man had a right to treat another---not even if he was master and the other slave; and my manhood required that I make him pay for his insult in full measure. In flesh and blood terms I realized that I must go back, seek out Nanga's intended parlour-wife and give her the works, good and proper. All this flashed through my mind in one brief moment of blinding insight---just like that, without warning! I was singing happily when Max came home in the late afternoon. He tried to be furious with his house-boy for not giving me my share of the lunch when it was ready, but I went straight to the boy's defence and said he had offered to serve me but that I insisted on waiting, which was quite untrue. As we ate I told Max about Elsie and Chief Nanga, amending the story in several minor particulars and generally making light of it all, not only because I was anxious to play down my humiliation but even more because I no longer cared for anything except the revenge. 'If you put juju on a woman it will catch that old rotter,' said Max after I had told the story. 'I know someone who did,' I said light-heartedly, 'but the old rotter wasn't caught.' I then told him the story of the woman who didn't take off her bra, thinking it would amuse him. I was wrong. 'That's all they care for,' he said with a solemn face. 'Women, cars, landed property. But what else can you expect when intelligent people leave politics to illiterates like Chief Nanga?' The appearance of comparative peace which Max's house presented to me that morning proved quite deceptive. Or perhaps some of Chief Nanga's 'queen bee' characteristics had rubbed off on me and transformed me into an independent little nucleus of activity which I trailed with me into this new place. That first night I not only heard of a new political party about to be born but got myself enrolled as a foundation member. Max and some of his friends having watched with deepening disillusion the use to which our hard-won freedom was being put by corrupt, mediocre politicians had decided to come together and launch the Common People's Convention. There were eight young people in his room that evening. All but one were citizens of our country, mostly professional types. The only lady there was a very beautiful lawyer who, I learnt afterwards, was engaged to Max whom she had first met at the London School of Economics. There was a trade-unionist, a doctor, another lawyer, a teacher and a newspaper columnist. Max introduced me without any previous consultation as a 'trustworthy comrade who had only the other day had his girl-friend snatched from him by a minister who shall remain nameless'. Naturally I did not care for that kind of image or reputation. So I promptly intervened to point out that the woman in question was not strictly speaking my girl-friend but a casual acquaintance whom both Chief Nanga and I knew. 'So it was Chief Nanga, yes?' said the European and everyone burst out laughing. 'Who else could it be?' said one of the others. The white man was apparently from one of the Eastern Bloc countries. He did not neglect to stress to me in an aside that he was there only as a friend of Max's. He told me a lot of things quietly while the others were discussing some obscure details about the launching. I was as much interested in what he said as the way he said it. His English had an exotic quality occasionally---as when he said that it was good to see intellectuals like Max, myself and the rest coming out of their 'tower of elephant tusk' into active politics. And he often punctuated whatever he was saying with 'yes', spoken with the accent of a question. I must say that I was immediately taken with the idea of the Common People's Convention. Apart from everything else it would add a second string to my bow when I came to deal with Nanga. But right now I was anxious not to appear to Max and his friends as the easily impressed type. I suppose I wanted to erase whatever impression was left of Max's unfortunate if unintentional presentation of me as a kind of pitiable jellyfish. So I made what I intended to be a little spirited sceptical speech. 'It is very kind of you gentlemen and lady---I say gentlemen and lady advisedly because this happens to be Africa---it is very kind of you to accept me so readily. I wish to assure you all that your confidence will be fully justified. But without trying to put a cat among your pigeons I must say that I find it somewhat odd that a party calling itself the Common People's Convention should be made up of only professional men and women....' I was interrupted by many voices at once. But the rest gave way to Max. 'That is not entirely accurate, Odili. What you see here is only the vanguard, the planning stage. Once we are ready we shall draw in the worker, the farmer, the blacksmith, the carpenter...' 'And the unemployed, of course,' said the young lady with that confidence of a beautiful woman who has brains as well, which I find a little intimidating. 'And I'd like to take our friend up on a purely historical point. The great revolutions of history were started by intellectuals, not the common people. Karl Marx was not a common man; he wasn't even a Russian.' The trade-unionist applauded the speech by clapping and shouting 'Hear, hear.' The rest made different kinds of appreciative noises. 'Well, well,' I thought and gave up altogether my next idea of asking how the thing was going to be financed. 'At the same time,' said Max, acting the perfect chairman, 'I can't say that I blame Odili for making that point. He's always been a stickler for thoroughness. Do you know the name we called him at school? Diligent.' Everyone laughed. 'I should add that he was called Cool Max,' I said. 'He always played it cool.' 'And still does,' said the lady with a wink at him. 'I beg your pardon,' protested Max playfully. 'Anyhow, lady and gentlemen, or rather, gentlemen and lady, to borrow our friend's fine example...' 'Max!' protested the girl in mock outrage. 'Well, I never!' 'I think to save all difficulty---yes? we should simply say comrades---yes?' suggested the European, laughing nervously which made me think he wasn't joking like the rest of us. 'Hear! hear!' said the trade-unionist. 'Yes,' said Max coolly, 'except that as I said several times before, I don't want anybody to say we are communists. We can't afford the label. It would simply finish us. Our opponents would point at us and say, "Look at those crazy people who want to have everything in common including their wives", and that would be the end of it. That's the plain fact.' 'I don't know about that,' said the trade-unionist. 'I think our trouble in this country is that we are too nervous. We say we are neutral but as soon as we hear communist we begin de shake and piss for trouser. Excuse me,' he said to the lady and dropped the pidgin as suddenly as he had slid into it. 'The other day somebody asked me why did I go to Russia last January. I told him it was because if you look only in one direction your neck will become stiff....' We all laughed loud, especially the European. 'I know, Joe...' began Max, but Joe did not yield easily. 'No, excuse me, Max,' he said, 'I am serious. We are either independent in this country or we are not.' 'We are not,' said Max, and everyone laughed again, including Joe this time, all the heat apparently siphoned off him. I was struck by Max's cool, sure touch. He was clearly in control of the situation. And he seemed to me to have just the right mixture of faith and down-to-earth practical common sense. 'We will not win the next election,' he told me on another occasion. In itself it was a fairly obvious statement; but how many mushroom political parties had we seen spring up, prophesy a landslide victory for themselves and then shrivel up again. 'What we must do is get something going,' said Max, 'however small, and wait for the blow-up. It's bound to come. I don't know how or when but it's got to come. You simply cannot have this stagnation and corruption going on indefinitely.' 'How do you propose getting the money?' 'We will get some,' he smiled, 'enough to finance ordinary election expenses. We will leave mass bribing of the electors to P. O. P. and P. A. P. We will simply drop cats among their pigeons here and there, stand aside and watch. I am right now assembling all the documentary evidence I can find of corruption in high places. Brother, it will make you weep.' 'I am sure.' Because I had asked him jokingly as we were about to retire to bed if he still wrote poetry, Max had gone and fished out lines he wrote seven years ago to the music of a famous highlife. He wrote it during the intoxicating months of high hope soon after Independence. Now he sang it like a dirge. And, believe me, tears welled up at the back of my eyes; tears for the dead, infant hope. You may call me sentimental if you like. I have the poem, 'Dance-offering to the Earth-Mother', right here before me as I write and could quote the whole of it; but it could never convey in print the tragic feeling I had that evening as Max sang it tapping his foot to the highlife rhythm, and bringing back vividly the gaiety and high promise of seven years ago which now seemed more than seven lifetimes away! I will return home to her---many centuries have I wandered--- And I will make my offering at the feet of my lovely Mother: I will rebuild her house, the holy places they raped and plundered, And I will make it fine with black wood, bronzes and terra-cotta. I read this last verse over and over again. Poor black mother! Waiting so long for her infant son to come of age and comfort her and repay her for the years of shame and neglect. And the son she has pinned so much hope on turning out to be a Chief Nanga. 'Poor black mother!' I said out aloud. 'Yes, poor black mother,' said Max looking out of the window. After a long interval he turned round and asked if I remembered my Bible. 'Not really. Why?' 'Well, I can't get it out of my system. You know my father is an Anglican priest.... No, when you talked about poor black mother just now I remembered a passage that goes something like this: 'A voice was heard in Ramah Weeping and great lamentation Rachel weeping for her children And she would not be comforted, because they are not. 'It is a favourite of my father's who, by the way, still thinks we should never have asked the white man to go.' 'Perhaps he is right,' I said. 'Well, no. The trouble is that he hasn't got very much out of Independence, personally. There simply weren't any white posts in his profession that he could take over. There is only one bishop in the entire diocese and he is already an African.' 'You are unfair to the old man,' I said laughing. 'You should hear some of the things the old man says about me. I remember when I last went to see him with Eunice he said who knows I might get a son before him. Oh, we crack such expensive jokes.' 'You are an only son, aren't you?' 'Yes.' I felt so envious. 'You know, Odili,' he began suddenly after a longish pause, 'I don't believe in Providence and all that kind of stuff but your arrival just at this very moment is most fortunate. You see, we were planning to appoint able and dynamic organizing secretaries in each of the regions very soon. Now we've got you we don't have to worry our head about the south-east any more.' 'I'll do what I can, Max,' I said. Perhaps the most astonishing thing Max told me about the new party was that one of the junior ministers in the Government was behind it. 'What is he doing in the Government if he is so dissatisfied with it?' I asked naïvely. 'Why doesn't he resign?' 'Resign?' laughed Max. 'Where do you think you are---Britain or something? Don't be funny, Odili.' 'I am not being funny,' I said hotly, perhaps more hotly than was called for. I knew very well and needed no reminder that we were not in Britain or something, that when a man resigned in our country it was invariably with an eye on the main chance---as when a few years ago ten newly elected P. A. P. Members of Parliament had switched parties at the opening of the session and given the P. O. P. a comfortable majority overnight in return for ministerial appointments and---if one believed the rumours---a little cash prize each as well. All that was well known, but I would have thought it was better to start our new party clean, with a different kind of philosophy. 'I know how you feel,' said Max rather patronizingly. 'I felt like that at first. But we must face certain facts. You take a man like Nanga now on a salary of four thousand plus all the---you know. You know what his salary was as an elementary school teacher? Perhaps not more than eight pounds a month. Now do you expect a man like that to resign on a little