Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes (10 page)

Kuo and Paulo spoke to their strongmen in the army, and these sent out squads to enforce faster garbage burning, street clearing and sweeping, the rinsing of sewers and the digging of gutters for that, the shooting of recalcitrant citizenry and those too leprous or otherwise too awful-looking to be beheld. All hands in the nation turned to this formidable task which had to be done in nine days. Laggards would be shot by firing squad. Within hours, the air of Goka and of the other three large towns of the country was full of rifle fire, shouts, smoke and the rasp of metal as car bodies were dragged by manpower from the streets.

Bomo gave his personal attention to the Hotel Bomo and to Government House, whither he had decided the Committee should be taken in that order after arrival at Bomo Airport. There would be a banquet in the largest salon of Government House’s ground floor, so the big kitchens in the back of the building had to be readied for this. Government House had been constructed in the style of the Parthenon as to its façade, because of a remark in a speech a white man had made on departing from Nabuti, that there would be a “future house of government noble as the Parthenon.” Bomo had charged a French architect with this, and the architect had been exasperated, Bomo remembered, because Bomo had wanted a six-story edifice, including the two-story-high pillars and the even higher pediment in which Bomo wanted a balcony also. The balcony in the pediment existed, and from it Bomo had made many speeches in the past, but now Government House was out of use except as an unofficial recreation center. This had begun with the sentries playing cards, finally snooker, then had come jukeboxes and drink dispensers, more and more cots for sleeping, and a well-patronized brothel. A couple of rooms on the first floor still held the papers and files with which the country had begun its independence but, as no one paid taxes even under pressure and receipts were impossible to get for incoming machinery and shipments of anything, employees had long ago drifted off and disappeared, after drinking the vast cellars out of whisky and wine. Most windows in Government House were broken, the electrical system was “out” or “down,” and the elevators did not work even when the electricity was on. Bomo called for his best electricians.

“I want these lights on and the air-conditioning on in twenty-four hours!” he yelled at the six frightened men on the steps of Government House.

Women were already sweeping and mopping and washing the walls inside, while soldiers prodded out idlers and squealing prostitutes at bayonet point.

Lulu-Fey, one of Bomo’s wives and current favorite, was practicing her belly dance, which she had learned on a trip to Tunisia with Bomo. It was not a native dance of Nabuti, but Bomo had told her that Western men enjoyed watching it, and that she should dance as a surprise for their honored guests after the banquet, and Lulu-Fey was happy to oblige. She had already been helpful in planning the menu which was to center around roast pig and piglet.

The telephone technicians after two days managed to reconnect the line between Government House and the Small Palace, and the first call Bomo got was from the UN Committee, saying that they had been trying to get through for weeks, and was their proposed date agreeable? Bomo assured them that it was.

Tom-toms beat day and night to inspire and keep the populace at work, and these plus the usual transistor pop music that blared day and night meant that people could not sleep unless they collapsed from exhaustion.

More good news on the evening of Day Two was that the electricity in Government House was back on and that two out of the four elevators were working. Two would suffice for the Committee to go up and have a view from the roof terrace, as each elevator held twelve people. At Bomo Airport beer cans by the thousand had been swept away, tin and cardboard shacks razed, and the Control Building swept out, its windows either washed or remaining broken glass knocked out completely. The electricity in the Control Building did not work, and no plane had landed since the Committee’s last visit years ago, except Bomo’s private prop-driven plane which at the moment was out of order due to a missing part. His mechanics did not know what part it needed, so Bomo had ordered from America another prop plane which had not yet arrived.

Then during the night of Day Two one of the elevators got stuck with at least twenty men in it. The cleanup men and some soldiers had been celebrating the return of electricity with the ever abundant six-packs of beer, too many men had got into one elevator to take a ride, and the elevator had stopped between the third and fourth floors. Crowds of men and boys laughed and shouted advice all night:

“Keep pressing the buttons! Ha-ha!”

“Kick the door!”

“All of you push against one side!”

The men inside yelled that there wasn’t enough air, and screamed for the elevator shaft to be shot open. There were sounds of anger and fighting within the elevator.

Boys banged the up and down buttons on all the floors until the buttons were smashed into the shaft panel or fell off it.

By dawn, the voices of the imprisoned men were hoarse. They were sweating to death, they said. Three of them, they said, were dead, and five others had fainted.

Bomo was awakened as soon as anybody dared to awaken him. What was to be done? Bomo dressed and walked to Government House scowling but looking very much in command. The mob in front and in the downstairs hall made way for him. On the ground floor, the elevator shaft with its closed door reminded him of some of the closed bank vaults he had seen in bank advertisements in Western magazines. He certainly did not want any damage done to the front of that elevator shaft before the Committee arrived. Bomo mounted the stairs in his sandals, khaki trousers and shirt and a gold-braided cap for this emergency situation. At the height of the moans within the shaft, he paused and regarded the gold-colored metal that surrounded the trapped elevator. How could anyone break that open, short of firing a cannon at it? Two hundred or more of his people on the stairway up and down stared at him expectantly, blankly, or sleepily. Wasting not a second in apparent hesitation, Bomo descended and the crowd parted to let him through.

“Electricians!” Bomo shouted.

Only one was pushed forth, a middle-aged man looking very scared. “We think a safety device has stopped the elevator, because it was overcrowded, Your Excellency.”

Bomo lifted his cap and wiped a flood of sweat from his forehead.

“Is the electricity on? Is the air-conditioning working?”

“Yes, Your Excellency, but there is almost no ventilation in the elevator. The power is also weak.”

“Then close the goddam windows if the air-conditioning is on!” Bomo yelled. “Goddammit, it’s hotter than outside!—You’ve got the goddam
heat
on!”

It was true. In trying all the switches to get the elevator down, the cool air had been switched off and the heating on. When Bomo walked out on to Government House’s front steps, the air was indeed cooler but also smoky. A chance wind blew a dark grey cloud of smoke straight across the façade of Government House and staggered Bomo, who turned and plunged into the building again with his hands over his face. Here he gave further orders as soon as he could breathe.

“Officers! Soldiers! Hurry up that garbage burning!
All
the burning! Burning got to finish by tomorrow night and the fires out!”

“Yes, Your Excellency!” said the nearest officer, and saluted before rallying his colleagues and plunging out of the door.

The electrician, a small man, was back at Bomo’s elbow. “Your Excellency, if we cannot lower the elevator by electrical power may we break in the outer structure in order to—”

“
No!
” Bomo yelled over the din of the yelping people in the foyer, more than half of whom were laughing. “That elevator front is not to be broken!”

Bomo plunged down the steps again, yelling for a wet towel, wet with clean water. A couple of boys dashed through the haze to do his bidding. The street beyond was empty of cars that crept and cars that stood, and now only a few bicycles rolled along, and hand-drawn little wagons laden with trash, goods, buckets and jugs. From one of these, two wet cloths were obtained and brought back to Bomo who at once put one over his sweating head and face. The towel was someone’s shirt, but no matter. People yelled and reeled, dodging the great wafts of smoke that cut the visibility to two meters at times. And the stench was awful, suggesting burnt meat, excrement and singed chicken feathers.

The next problem of the day was fire-fighting in a dozen or more places in the city. This meant water brigades, runners with buckets. Soldiers routed out all the idlers for this, and especially in demand were fleet-footed children. When Bomo got home to the Small Palace at nearly 2 p.m., exhausted, Lulu-Fey was practicing her belly dance in the big living-room, and she complained about the smoke. Bomo told her that it couldn’t be helped until they got all the cleaning up done.

The afternoon brought a cacophony of screams and rifle fire. Soldiers had been ordered to demolish the black markets which had openly displayed their Sony goods, porno items, tins of caviar and
foie gras,
and Jack Daniel’s and Chivas Regal bottles, and the soldiers had met with armed resistance. Minor battles had started up, army machineguns had been brought into play, bottles confiscated and drunk.

And the evening brought further difficulties: more than half of the presumed twenty men in the trapped elevator had died or been killed in fistfights by the others. Their women were now clustered around the elevator shaft, attempting to break it open with hatchets. Bomo ordered the women removed or shot, both if necessary. Only a feeble moan or two came now from the elevator.

Bomo cursed the electricians. “Let ’em die!” he yelled, not sure if anyone heard him.

They did die. By the end of the fifth day, no sound came from the elevator, but a smell did, a horrible smell of putrefaction, of something dead, not an unusual smell to Nabutians, but unusual coming from within the finest building of the land, Government House. Bomo asked for incense to be burnt, which unfortunately contributed a little to the infernal smoke which penetrated the building despite the fact that the windows were all supposed to be closed, and the air-conditioning running.

Not until the last minute, the evening of the day before the UN African Aid Committee was due to arrive in the morning at 11, did Bomo think of the limousines they would need at the airport. He gave his chauffeurs—twelve liveried men—hell for not having checked out the big Mercedes-Benzes days before now, but all the chauffeurs claimed to have been on their feet fighting fires. The Mercedes looked fine, but they would not run, not one of them, and Bomo had twenty. One needed a wheel and a carburetor, another a windshield, another a steering wheel, another the key even to open its doors, while other unstartable cars were a mystery. Bomo ordered his mechanics and chauffeurs to work all night, if necessary, and to get three limousines in working order.

They failed. It was Lulu-Fey’s brilliant idea to have the citizenry pull the limousines by long gay cords. It would look more respectful, she remarked, and Bomo saw her point.

The UN Committee’s small jet landed on schedule, but hit a couple of potholes in the runway, which knocked a wheel off and damaged one wing tip, so the Committee and its five aides disembarked in a state of slight shock.

Bomo’s military band played the Nabutian national anthem. Children strewed flowers. Smoke still ringed the city, and some of the Committee members whipped out handkerchiefs to cover their noses and mouths after a few steps on land. Bomo advanced to meet them in his hottest uniform with the tunic collar and Sam Browne belt plus medals.

Douglas Hazelwood, head of the Committee, announced himself, smiled, and shook Bomo’s hand warmly. So did all the others.

“Smoky!” someone remarked cheerfully.

Bomo had no reply, but kept his dignity as he led the way to five limousines in front of which barefoot children stood with long colorful cords and ropes in hand like horses champing at the bit. The smoke was a lot worse than at this time yesterday, because late last night, Bomo had made the mistake of ordering the fires put out with water, and many hadn’t gone out entirely but were still smoldering. The usually blazing sun was only a hazy yellow patch in the grey sky, like the sun before a typhoon. Its heat came through but not its light, and the hour might have been dusk.

With the band marching behind, the limousines moved slowly toward the capital. The destination was the Hotel Bomo of Nabuti, where thirty-five rooms on the ground floor had been prepared. Bomo had expected some wives and servants with the Committee. At any rate cold water ran in the hotel, even if there was no air-conditioning. This hotel was five storys high, with elevators that did not work, but for the Committee’s visit there was no need of elevators. Here the Committee unpacked, had a wash, and climbed back into the limousines, which had been waiting in the sun and smoke, to go to the Small Palace for an apéritif.

Lulu-Fey was dressed in a floor-length wrap-around cotton piece with gold bangles at wrists and ankles, feet bare. She made a charming hostess, Bomo thought with pride, even though she knew not a word of English. The gentlemen drank pink gins, Scotch and water, tomato juice, anything they wanted, while servants at all the windows and open doors swung decorative fans to keep out the smoke or at least stir it. Some of the Committee coughed, but all appeared merry and asked Bomo not too difficult questions about agriculture, copper, exports and health. They were to look at the copper mines later today, and since the mines were abandoned now Bomo had prepared a tale of worker unrest and strikes for wage increases so unreasonable that he had not yielded. Then, declining the limousines, they went off on foot toward Government House, because one of the Committee recalled from the last visit that it was within walking distance, though at the moment they couldn’t see Government House for the smoke.