A Man of the People Page 7

  “I hope they will be ready when we get there. . . .”

  “Yes. I told Elsie you had to be at this other place at six.”

  “Tell me something, Odili. How serious are you about this girl Elsie?”

  “You mean about marriage. . . . Good Lord, no! She is just a good-time girl.”

  “Kabu—Kabu?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Yes, sort of,” I said.

  Although what I said about marriage was true enough yet it was grossly unfair at that stage in my relationship with Elsie to call her simply a good-time girl. I suppose what happened was that Chief Nanga and I having already swopped many tales of conquest I felt somehow compelled to speak in derogatory terms about women in general. In fact I had already told the story of my first meeting with Elsie without however identifying her. Naturally Chief Nanga had five stories to every one of mine. The best I thought was about the young married woman who never took her brassière off. It was not until after many encounters that Chief Nanga managed to extract from her that her husband (apparently a very jealous man) had put some juju on her breasts to scare her into faithfulness; his idea being presumably that she would not dare to expose that part of her to another man much less other parts.

  “What a fool!” I said. “And he was trying to be so clever.”

  “E fool pass garri,” said Chief Nanga. “Which person tell am na bobby them de take do the thing? Nonsense.”

  “But that woman na waa,” I said. “Who put that kind sense for im head?”

  “Woman?” rhapsodized Chief Nanga. “Any person wey tell you say woman no get sense just de talk pure jargon. When woman no want do something e go lef am, but make you no fool yourself say e left the thing because e no get sense for do am.”

  How true, I thought.

  It had been a bit of a surprise to me when Chief Nanga had announced he was coming with me to the hospital. I couldn’t very well advise him coldly to stay behind and read through his speech. But I had a strong suspicion he had forgotten all about it and I felt it was only fair that I should remind him. I considered various approaches and then decided on the one that seemed to me to conceal most satisfactorily the small element of self-interest.

  “I wish I could help in any way with checking your speech,” I said. “But I just cannot read in a moving car.”

  “Oh! that speech,” he said wearily. “I shall finish it in ten minutes; it is not important. If I had known I should have asked my Parliamentary Secretary to go and represent me. Anyhow it’s not bad. Talking is now in my blood—from teaching into politics—all na so so talk talk.”

  Actually I had no serious reason for wanting to go alone. It was true I had formed a pretty clear mental picture of how it was all going to happen, as it were, under my command; but it didn’t really matter and certainly wouldn’t hurt anyone if it happened differently. For instance, it would have been rather nice sitting between the two girls at the back. Now I would probably sit with the chauffeur. Or better, Elsie and I could sit in front—there was enough space really—and leave the back to the Minister to get acquainted with the other girl.

  As it happened all my worry was wasted. The other girl—I don’t know what I’ve done with that girl’s name—couldn’t come with us on account of a sudden illness. I was very disappointed and a little angry even though Elsie had sworn it was a genuine illness. Fortunately Chief Nanga didn’t seem to mind at all, which was hardly surprising for a man who had so many women ready to make themselves available.

  I remember him announcing twice or thrice on our way back, with Elsie sitting between us, that he had an important Cabinet meeting which would probably last all night tomorrow, and that he must try and get some sleep tonight. At first I thought he was just showing off to the girl and then I decided it was his wicked way of saying that the coast was completely clear for us. So in my gratitude I began to tell Elsie how little time he spared for himself and his family.

  “If somebody wan make you minister,” said Chief Nanga, coming to my support, “make you no gree. No be good life.”

  “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,” said Elsie.

  “Na true, my sister,” said the Chief.

  “I think I tell you say Chief Nanga de go open book exhibition for six today,” I said.

  “Book exhibition?” asked Elsie. “How they de make that one again?”

  “My sister, make you de ask them for me-o. I be think say na me one never hear that kind thing before. But they say me na Minister of Culture and as such I suppose to be there. I no fit say no. Wetin be Minister? No be public football? So instead for me to sidon rest for house like other people I de go knack grammar for this hot afternoon. You done see this kind trouble before?”

  We all laughed, including the driver whose face I could see in the mirror. We joked and laughed all the way back. In Chief Nanga’s company it was impossible not to be merry.

  We were met outside the exhibition hall by the President of the Writers’ Society, a fellow I used to know fairly well at the University. In those days before he became a writer he had seemed reasonably normal to me. But apparently since he published his novel The Song of the Black Bird—he had become quite different. I read an interview he gave to a popular magazine in which it came out that he had become so non-conformist that he now designed his own clothes. Judging by his appearance I should say he also tailored them. He had on a white and blue squarish gown, with a round neck and no buttons, over brown, striped, baggy trousers made from the kind of light linen material we sometimes called Obey the Wind. He also had a long, untidy beard.

  I had expected that in a country where writers were so few they would all be known personally to the Minister of Culture. But it was clear Chief Nanga hadn’t even heard the man’s name before.

  “He is the author of The Song of the Black Bird,” I said.

  “I see,” replied Chief Nanga, whose attention was clearly elsewhere at that moment.

  “So your society includes musicians as well?” he asked in one fleeting return of interest. But by the time Jalio said “no”, his attention had again strayed from us.

  “Hello, Jalio,” I said, stretching my hand to shake his almost in commiseration. He replied hello and took my hand but obviously he did not remember my name and didn’t seem to care particularly. I was very much hurt by this and immediately formed a poor opinion of him and his silly airs.

  “You didn’t tell me, Mr—er . . .” began the Minister abruptly.

  “Jalio, sir.”

  “Thank you, Mr Jalio. Why didn’t you tell me that you are expecting ambassadors at this function?” His eyes were still ranging over the parked cars, some of them carrying diplomatic number plates and two flying flags.

  “I am sorry, sir,” said Mr Jalio, “but . . .”

  “And you come to chairman such an occasion like this?” He accompanied the last two words with an upward movement of a scornful left finger, taking in the whole of Mr Jalio’s person. “What part of the country are you?” he asked.

  I didn’t know what to feel. If Jalio hadn’t carried those pretentious airs my sympathies would certainly have stayed with him but now I must confess I was a little pleased to see him deflated.

  “Is that what you call national dress in your place?” pursued Chief Nanga mercilessly.

  “I dress to please myself, sir,” said the writer becoming suddenly defiant.

  “Let me tell you,” said Chief Nanga in a softened but firm tone. “If you want me to attend any of your functions you must wear a proper dress. Either you wear a suit . . . or if you don’t like it you can wear our national costume. That is correct protocol.”

  It was getting quite embarrassing for me especially when Chief Nanga mentioned a suit and turned to nod approvingly in my direction; for much as I disliked Jalio’s pretentiously bizarre habit, still I did not care to be set up as a mo
del of correct dressing.

  Then suddenly adopting a paternal and conciliatory tone Chief Nanga reminded us young people that we were the future leaders of our great country.

  “I don’t care if you respect me or not,” he said, “but our people have a saying that if you respect today’s king others will respect you when your turn comes. . . . We better go in.”

  In spite of this inauspicious beginning Mr Jalio went ahead and said many flattering things about Chief Nanga, albeit with a clouded face. He said it was a fitting and appropriate tribute to his concern for African Culture—a concern which was known all over the world—that a university in faraway America was soon to honour him with a doctorate degree.

  Chief Nanga stood up magnificently and drew up the sleeves of his robes back to his shoulders with two deft movements of his arms. He did not plunge right away into his prepared script but first made a few remarks of his own. He turned sideways to thank the President of the Writers’ Society, looking him over for half a second so that I was afraid he might revert to the subject of dress. Fortunately he did not; he smiled indulgently and a little wickedly and said he was honoured to be invited by Mr Jalio to open the exhibition.

  “As you know Mr Jalio is the President of this Society which has already done much to project the African Personality. I believe Mr Jalio himself has composed a brilliant song called . . . erm . . . What is it called again?” he asked Mr Jalio.

  Fortunately this was mistaken for witticism and was greeted with loud laughter. It was from her vivacious laugh then that I noticed Jean sitting in the row in front of Elsie and me. Her husband, John, was sitting by her; I hadn’t realized he was back. I whispered into Elsie’s ear that that was the woman who gave the party I spoke about.

  “Is she the famous Elsie?” she whispered back.

  “No, her friend.”

  “So no be only one, even,” she said, smiling, “Odi the great.” She often shortened my name to Odi.

  I didn’t listen much to Chief Nanga’s speech. When Elsie and I were not whispering into each other’s ears I was thinking about the night or even about such irrelevant things as the dress of some of the people in the room. There was one man I noticed particularly. His robes were made from some expensive-looking, European woollen material—which was not so very strange these days. But what surprised me was that the tailor had retained the cloth’s thin, yellow border on which the manufacturer advertised in endless and clear black type: 100% WOOL: MADE IN ENGLAND. In fact the tailor had used this advertisement to ornamental advantage on both sleeves. I was struck once again by our people’s endless resourcefulness especially when it came to taste in clothes. I noticed that whenever the man hitched up his sleeves which he did every two or three minutes he did it very carefully so that the quality of his material would not be lost in the many rich folds of the dress. He also wore a gold chain round his neck.

  7

  Chief Nanga was a born politician; he could get away with almost anything he said or did. And as long as men are swayed by their hearts and stomachs and not their heads the Chief Nangas of this world will continue to get away with anything. He had that rare gift of making people feel—even while he was saying harsh things to them—that there was not a drop of ill will in his entire frame. I remember the day he was telling his ministerial colleague over the telephone in my presence that he distrusted our young university people and that he would rather work with a European. I knew I was hearing terrible things but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to take the man seriously. He had been so open and kind to me and not in the least distrustful. The greatest criticism a man like him seemed capable of evoking in our country was an indulgent: “Make you no min’ am.”

  This is of course a formidable weapon which is always guaranteed to save its wielder from the normal consequences of misconduct as well as from the humiliation and embarrassment of ignorance. For how else could you account for the fact that a Minister of Culture announced in public that he had never heard of his country’s most famous novel and received applause—as indeed he received again later when he prophesied that before long our great country would produce great writers like Shakespeare, Dickens, Jane Austen, Bernard Shaw and—raising his eyes off the script—Michael West and Dudley Stamp.

  At the end of the function Mr Jalio and the Editor of the Daily Matchet came forward to congratulate him and to ask for copies of the speech. Chief Nanga produced two clean copies from his file, bent down at the table and amended the relevant portions in his own fair hand by the addition of those two names to the list of famous English writers.

  I knew the Editor already from a visit he had paid the Minister a few days earlier. A greasy-looking man, he had at first seemed uneasy about my presence in the room and I had kept a sharp look out for the slightest hint from Chief Nanga to get up and leave them. But no hint was given. On the contrary I felt he positively wanted me to stay. So I stayed. Our visitor took a very long time to come to the point, whatever it was. All I could gather was that he had access to something which he was holding back in Chief Nanga’s interest. But it was clear that the Minister did not attach very great importance to whatever it was; in fact he appeared to be sick and tired of the man but dared not say so. Meanwhile the journalist told us one story after another, a disgusting white foam appearing at the corners of his mouth. He drank two bottles of beer, smoked many cigarettes and then got a “dash” of five pounds from the Minister after an account of his trouble with his landlord over arrears of rent. Apparently it was not a straightforward case of debt but, since the landlord and the journalist came from different tribes, the element of tribalism could not be ruled out.

  “You see what it means to be a minister,” said Chief Nanga as soon as his visitor left. His voice sounded strangely tired and I felt suddenly sorry for him. This was the nearest I had seen him come to despondency. “If I don’t give him something now, tomorrow he will go and write rubbish about me. They say it is the freedom of the Press. But to me it is nothing short of the freedom to crucify innocent men and assassinate their character. I don’t know why our government is so afraid to deal with them. I don’t say they should not criticize—after all no one is perfect except God—but they should criticize constructively. . . .” So that other afternoon when the journalist came forward to get a copy of the speech and shouted: “First rate, sir; I shall put it in the front page instead of a story I have promised the Minister of Construction,” I just wondered if he ever suspected where he and his stories would be if Chief Nanga had his way.

  It must have been about eight o’clock—it was certainly dark—when we left the exhibition to drive back home. As soon as the car moved I dovetailed my fingers into Elsie’s on her lap and threw the other arm across her shoulders in a bold, proprietary gesture.

  “That was a beautiful speech and you didn’t have much time to go over it,” I said, just to get some talk going while privately I throbbed with expectation. An image that had never until then entered my mind appeared to me now. I saw Elsie—or rather didn’t see her—as she merged so completely with the darkness of my room, unlike Jean who had remained half undissolved like some apparition as she put her things on in the dark.

  “When an old woman hears the dance she knows her old age deserts her,” replied Chief Nanga in our language. I laughed more loudly than the proverb deserved and then translated it for Elsie who spoke a different language. We used the laughter to get a little closer so that the arm I had over her shoulder slipped under her arm to her breast, and I pressed her against my side.

  When we got back, Chief Nanga and I had whisky while Elsie went upstairs to change.

  Incidentally, when on our first return from the hospital Chief Nanga had told his steward to take Elsie’s bags to his absent wife’s room I had been greatly alarmed. But then I had quickly reassured myself that he was merely displaying great tact and delicacy, and I felt grateful just as I had done when he had told us of the
all-night Cabinet meeting.

  There was only a short flight of stairs between my room on the ground floor and where Elsie was being installed. When all was silent I would go up quietly, tap on her door, find her waiting and take her downstairs to my room, and we could pretend that our host was none the wiser.

  We had an excellent dinner of rice, ripe plantains and fried fish. Elsie, looking ripe and ready in a shimmering yellow dress, took us back to the President of the Writers’ Association and his funny garb. I found myself putting up a feeble kind of defence.

  “Writers and artists sometimes behave that way,” I said.

  “I think he will heed my advice,” said Chief Nanga. “He is a well-comported young man.”

  This surprised me a great deal. I suppose it was Jalio’s flattering words in introducing the Minister that did it; or more likely Chief Nanga had not missed the almost deferential manner in which one of the ambassadors had approached Jalio with a copy of his book for an autograph. I remember looking at Chief Nanga then and seeing astonishment and unbelief on his face, but I did not think it was enough to persuade him to call Jalio “a well-comported young man” so soon after their clash.

  The words “well-comported” struck me almost as forcibly as the sentiment they conveyed. I couldn’t say whether it was right or wrong, and in any case you felt once again that such distinctions didn’t apply here. Chief Nanga was one of those fortunate ones who had just enough English (and not one single word more) to have his say strongly, without inhibition, and colourfully. I remember his telling me of a “fatal accident” he once had driving from Anata to Bori. Since he was alive I had assumed that someone else had been killed. But as the story unfolded I realized that “fatal” meant no more than “very serious”.

  I retired soon after dinner so that the others might take the cue. And Elsie did. The second time I peeped out she was no longer there in the sitting-room. But Chief Nanga sat on stolidly looking at the file of the speech he had already given. Every two minutes or so I came to the door and peeped out and there he was. Could he be asleep? No, his eyes seemed to be moving across the page. I was getting quite angry. Why didn’t he take the blessed file to his study? But perhaps what hurt me most was the fact that I could not muster up sufficient bravado to step into the sitting-room and up the stairs. Perhaps he even expected me to do so. Let me say that I do not normally lack resolution in this kind of situation; but Chief Nanga had, as it were, cramped my style from the very first by introducing an element of delicacy into the affair, thus making it not so much a question of my own resolution as of my willingness to parade Elsie before a third person as a common slut. So there was nothing for it but wait in anger. I sat on my bed, got up again and paced my room barefoot and in pajamas.