A Man of the People Page 4

  But we also had many friends. There were all those people who brought my father gifts of yams, pots of palm-wine or bottles of European drink, goats, sheep, chicken. Or those who brought their children to live with us as house-boys or their brides-to-be for training in modern housekeeping. In spite of the enormous size of our family there was always meat in the house. At one time, I remember, my father used to slaughter a goat every Saturday, which was more than most families did in two years, and this sign of wealth naturally exposed us to their jealousy and malevolence.

  But it was not until many years later that I caught one fleeting, terrifying glimpse of just how hated an Interpreter could be. I was in secondary school then and it was our half-term holiday. As my home village was too far away and I didn’t want to spend the holiday in school I decided to go with one of my friends to his home which was four or five miles away. His parents were very happy to see us and his mother at once went to boil some yams for us.

  After we had eaten, the father who had gone out to buy himself some snuff came hurrying back. To my surprise he asked his son what he said my name was again.

  “Odili Samalu.”

  “Of what town?”

  There was anxiety, an uneasy tension in his voice. I was afraid.

  “Urua, sir,” I said.

  “I see,” he said coldly. “Who is your father?”

  “Hezekiah Samalu,” I said and then added quickly, “a retired District Interpreter.” It was better, I thought, to come out with it all at once and end the prolonged interrogation.

  “Then you cannot stay in my house,” he said with that evenness of tone which our people expect a man of substance to use in moments of great crisis when lesser men and women would make loud, empty noises.

  “Why, Papa, what has he done?” asked my friend in alarm.

  “I have said it. . . . I don’t blame you, my son, or you either, because no one has told you. But know it from today that no son of Hezekiah Samalu’s shelters under my roof.” He looked outside. “There is still light and time for you to get back to the school.”

  I don’t think I shall ever know just in what way my father had wronged that man. A few weeks later, during the next holidays I tried to find out, but all my father did was to rave at me for wandering like a homeless tramp when I should be working at the books he sent me to school to learn.

  I was only fifteen then and many more years were to pass before I knew how to stand my ground before him. What I should have told him then was that he had not sent me anywhere. I was in that school only because I was able to win a scholarship. It was the same when I went to the University.

  The trouble with my father was his endless desire for wives and children. Or perhaps I should say children and wives. Right now he has five wives—the youngest a mere girl whom he married last year. And he is at least sixty-eight, possibly seventy. He gets a small pension which would be adequate for him if he had a small family instead of his present thirty-five children. Of course he doesn’t even make any pretence of providing for his family nowadays. He leaves every wife to her own devices. It is not too bad for the older ones like Mama whose grown-up children help to support them; but the younger ones have to find their children’s school fees from farming and petty trading.

  All the old man does is buy himself a jar of palm-wine every morning and a bottle of schnapps now and again. Recently he had plunged into the politics of our village and was the local chairman of the P.O.P.

  My father and I had our most serious quarrel about eighteen months ago when I told him to his face that he was crazy to be planning to marry his fifth wife. In my anger I said he was storing up trouble for others. This was, of course, a most reprehensible remark to make. The meaning was that I didn’t expect him to have much longer to live, which was indelicate and wicked. Had Mama not intervened he probably would have pronounced a curse on me. As it was, he satisfied himself by merely vowing never to touch a penny of mine since he must not store up trouble for me. Mama persuaded me to sue for peace by going down on my knees to ask forgiveness and making a peace offering of a bottle of schnapps, two bottles of White Horse and a bottle of Martell.

  We were now technically at peace and I was going to tell him about my plans for the post-graduate course. But I knew in advance what he would say. He would tell me that I already had more than enough education, that all the important people in the country today—ministers, businessmen, Members of Parliament, etc., did not have half my education. He would then tell me for the hundredth time to leave “this foolish teaching”, and look for a decent job in the government and buy myself a car.

  • • •

  As it turned out I arrived in the capital, Bori, exactly one month after Chief Nanga’s unexpected invitation. Although I had written a letter to say when I would be arriving and had followed it up with a telegram, I still had a lingering fear as I announced the address rather importantly and settled back in the taxi that morning. I was thinking that a man of Chief Nanga’s easy charm and country-wide popularity must throw out that kind of invitation several times each day without giving it much thought. Wasn’t I being unreasonable in trying to hold him down to it? Anyhow I had taken the precaution of writing to an old friend, a newly qualified lawyer struggling to set up in private practice. I would watch Nanga’s reaction very closely and if necessary move out smartly again on the following day as though that had always been my intention.

  When we got to the Minister’s residence my fear increased as his one-eyed stalwart stopped the car at the gate and began to look me over.

  “Who you want?” he scowled.

  “Chief Nanga.”

  “He give you appointment?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “Make you park for outside. I go go haskam if he want see you. Wetin be your name?”

  Fortunately the Minister, who was apparently relaxing with his family in the lounge came to the door, and on seeing us rushed outside and threw his arm round me. Then his wife and three of his children trooped out and joined in the excited welcoming.

  “Come right inside,” said the Minister. “We have been waiting for you all morning. The house is yours.”

  I hung back to pay the taxi-driver. “No, no, no!” cried my host. “Go right inside. I will settle with the driver. He na my very good friend, no be so, driver?”

  “Yes, sir, master,” said the driver, who had hitherto seemed a most unfriendly man to me. Now he broke into a broad smile showing smoke- and kola-stained teeth.

  For a mother of seven, the eldest of whom was sixteen or seventeen, Mrs Nanga was and still is very well kept. Her face, unlike her husband’s had become blurred in my memory. But on seeing her now it all came back again. She was bigger now of course—almost matronly. Her face was one of the friendliest I had ever seen.

  She showed me to the Guest’s Suite and practically ordered me to have a bath while she got some food ready.

  “It won’t take long,” she said, “the soup is already made.”

  A small thing, but it struck me even as early as this: Mr Nanga always spoke English or pidgin; his children, whom I discovered went to expensive private schools run by European ladies spoke impeccable English, but Mrs Nanga stuck to our language—with the odd English word thrown in now and again.

  My host did not waste time. At about five o’clock that afternoon he told me to get ready and go with him to see the Hon. Simon Koko, Minister for Overseas Training. Earlier that day one of those unseasonal December rains which invariably brought on the cold harmattan had fallen. It had been quite heavy and windy and the streets were now littered with dry leaves, and sometimes half-blocked by broken-off tree branches; and one had to mind fallen telegraph and high-voltage electric wires.

  Chief Koko, a fat jovial man wearing an enormous home-knitted red-and-yellow sweater was about to have coffee. He asked if we would join him or have some alcohol.


  “I no follow you black white-men for drink tea and coffee in the hot afternoon,” said Chief Nanga. “Whisky and soda for me and for Mr Samalu.”

  Chief Koko explained that nothing warmed the belly like hot coffee and proceeded to take a loud and long sip followed by a satisfied Ahh! Then he practically dropped the cup and saucer on the drinks-table by his chair and jumped up as though a scorpion had stung him.

  “They have killed me,” he wailed, wringing his hands, breathing hard and loud and rolling his eyes. Chief Nanga and I sprang up in alarm and asked together what had happened. But our host kept crying that they had killed him and they could now go and celebrate.

  “What is it, S.I.?” asked Chief Nanga, putting an arm around the other’s neck.

  “They have poisoned my coffee,” he said, and broke down completely. Meanwhile the steward, hearing his master’s cry, had rushed in.

  “Who poisoned my coffee?” he asked.

  “Not me-o!”

  “Call the cook!” thundered the Minister. “Call him here. I will kill him before I die. Go and bring him.”

  The steward dashed out again and soon returned to say the cook had gone out. The Minister slumped into his chair and began to groan and hold his stomach. Then his bodyguard whom we had seen dressed like a cowboy hurried in from the front gate, and hearing what had happened dashed out at full speed to try and catch the cook.

  “Let’s go and call a doctor,” I said.

  “That’s right,” said Chief Nanga with relief and, leaving his friend, rushed towards the telephone. I hadn’t thought about the telephone.

  “What is the use of a doctor?” moaned our poisoned host. “Do they know about African poison? They have killed me. What have I done to them? Did I owe them anything? Oh! Oh! Oh! What have I done?”

  Meanwhile Chief Nanga had been trying to phone a doctor and was not apparently getting anywhere. He was now shouting threats of immediate sacking at some invisible enemy.

  “This is Chief the Honourable Nanga speaking,” he was saying. “I will see that you are dealt with. Idiot. That is the trouble with this country. Don’t worry, you will see. Bloody fool. . . .”

  At this point the cowboy bodyguard came in dragging the cook by his shirt collar. The Minister sprang at him with an agility which completely belied his size and condition.

  “Wait, Master,” pleaded the cook.

  “Wait your head!” screamed his employer, going for him. “Why you put poison for my coffee?” His huge body was quivering like jelly.

  “Me? Put poison for master? Nevertheless!” said the cook, side-stepping to avoid a heavy blow from the Minister. Then with surprising presence of mind he saved himself. (Obviously the cowboy had already told him of his crime.) He made for the cup of coffee quickly, grabbed it and drank every drop. There was immediate silence. We exchanged surprised glances.

  “Why I go kill my master?” he asked of a now considerably sobered audience. “Abi my head no correct? And even if to say I de craze why I no go go jump for inside lagoon instead to kill my master?” His words carried conviction. He proceeded to explain the mystery of the coffee. The Minister’s usual Nescafé had run out at breakfast and he had not had time to get a new tin. So he had brewed some of his own locally processed coffee which he maintained he had bought from OHMS.

  There was an ironic twist to this incident which neither of the ministers seemed to notice. OHMS—Our Home Made Stuff—was the popular name of the gigantic campaign which the Government had mounted all over the country to promote the consumption of locally made products. Newspapers, radio and television urged every patriot to support this great national effort which, they said, held the key to economic emancipation without which our hard-won political freedom was a mirage. Cars equipped with loudspeakers poured out new jingles up and down the land as they sold their products in town and country. In the language of the ordinary people these cars, and not the wares they advertised, became known as OHMS. It was apparently from one of them the cook had bought the coffee that had nearly cost him his life.

  The matter having been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction I began to feel vicariously embarrassed on behalf of Chief Koko. If anyone had asked my opinion I would have voted strongly in favour of our leaving right away. But no one did. Instead Chief Nanga had begun to tease the other.

  “But S.I.,” he said, “you too fear death. Small thing you begin holler ‘they done kill me, they done kill me!’ Like person wey scorpion done lego am for him prick.”

  I saw his face turning towards me no doubt to get me to join in his laughter. I quickly looked away and began to gaze out of the window.

  “Why I no go fear?” asked Chief Koko laughing foolishly. “If na you you no go piss for inside your trouser?”

  “Nonsense! Why I go fear? I kill person?”

  They carried on in this vein for quite a while. I sipped my whisky quietly, avoiding the eyes of both. But I was saying within myself that in spite of his present bravado Chief Nanga had been terribly scared himself, witness his ill-tempered, loud-mouthed panic at the telephone. And I don’t think his fear had been for Chief Koko’s safety either. I suspect he felt personally threatened. Our people have a saying that when one slave sees another cast into a shallow grave he should know that when the time comes he will go the same way.

  Naturally my scholarship did not get a chance to be mentioned on this occasion. We drove home in silence. Only once did Chief Nanga turn to me and say: “If anybody comes to you and wants to make you minister, run away. True.”

  That evening I ate my supper with Mrs Nanga and the children, the Minister having gone out to an embassy reception after which he would go to a party meeting somewhere.

  “Any woman who marries a minister,” said his wife later as we sat watching TV, “has married worse than a night-watchman.”

  We both laughed. There was no hint of complaint in her voice. She was clearly a homely, loyal wife prepared for the penalty of her husband’s greatness. You couldn’t subvert her.

  “It must be very enjoyable going to all these embassy parties and meeting all the big guns,” I said in pretended innocence.

  “What can you enjoy there?” she asked with great spirit. “Nine pence talk and three pence food. ‘Hallo, hawa you. Nice to see you again.’ All na lie lie.”

  I laughed heartily and then got up pretending to admire the many family photographs on the walls. I asked Mrs Nanga about this one and that as I gravitated slowly to the one on the radiogram which I had noticed as soon as I had stepped into the house earlier in the day. It was the same beautiful girl as in Chief Nanga’s entourage in Anata.

  “Is this your sister?” I asked.

  “Edna. No, she is our wife.”

  “Your wife? How?”

  She laughed. “We are getting a second wife to help me.”

  • • •

  The first thing critics tell you about our ministers’ official residences is that each has seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms, one for every day of the week. All I can say is that on that first night there was no room in my mind for criticism. I was simply hypnotized by the luxury of the great suite assigned to me. When I lay down in the double bed that seemed to ride on a cushion of air, and switched on that reading lamp and saw all the beautiful furniture anew from the lying down position and looked beyond the door to the gleaming bathroom and the towels as large as a lappa I had to confess that if I were at that moment made a minister I would be most anxious to remain one for ever. And maybe I should have thanked God that I wasn’t. We ignore man’s basic nature if we say, as some critics do, that because a man like Nanga had risen overnight from poverty and insignificance to his present opulence he could be persuaded without much trouble to give it up again and return to his original state.

  A man who has just come in from the rain and dried his body and put on dry clothes is more reluctant to g
o out again than another who has been indoors all the time. The trouble with our new nation—as I saw it then lying on that bed—was that none of us had been indoors long enough to be able to say “To hell with it”. We had all been in the rain together until yesterday. Then a handful of us—the smart and the lucky and hardly ever the best—had scrambled for the one shelter our former rulers left, and had taken it over and barricaded themselves in. And from within they sought to persuade the rest through numerous loudspeakers, that the first phase of the struggle had been won and that the next phase—the extension of our house—was even more important and called for new and original tactics; it required that all argument should cease and the whole people speak with one voice and that any more dissent and argument outside the door of the shelter would subvert and bring down the whole house.

  Needless to say I did not spend the entire night on these elevated thoughts. Most of the time my mind was on Elsie.

  4

  I usually don’t mind how late I stay up at night but I do mind getting up too early. I was still fast asleep that first morning in the capital when I heard the Minister’s voice. I opened my eyes and tried to smile and say good morning.

  “Lazy boy,” he said indulgently. “Don’t worry. I know you must be dog-tired after yesterday’s journey. See you later. I am off to the office now.” He looked as bright as a new shilling in his immaculate white robes. And he had only come home at two last night, or rather this morning! The crunching of his tires on the loose gravel drive had waked me up in the night and I had looked at my diamond-faced watch which I often forgot to take off even for my bath. I had just bought it and believed the claim that it was everything-proof. Now I know better. But to return to Chief Nanga. There was something incongruous in his going to the office. It sounds silly to say this of a Cabinet Minister but I could not easily associate him in my mind with a desk and files. He was obviously more suited to an out-of-door life meeting and charming people. But anyhow there he was going off to his Ministry punctually at eight.