Anthills of the Savannah

by Chinua Achebe

  “Why should he resent us? Why indeed? He has all the success. From school to Sandhurst; the first African Second Lieutenant in the Army; ADC to the Governor-General; Royal Equerry during the Queen’s visit; Officer Commanding at Independence; Colonel at the time of the coup; General and His Excellency, the Head of State, after. Why indeed should he resent any mortal? Now that you ask I confess I don’t know. He wasn’t like that right away. In fact he kept very close to us in the first six months or so. And then… But let’s talk about better things on the golden anniversary of our first date.”

  She shot up from my chest where she was lying and gave my face a quick scrutiny. “I hope you are not being sarcastic,” she said. I affect great solemnity, pull her back and kiss her mildly. She offered up her lips again; we were both trembling.

  “Hadn’t I better be going?”

  “Why? I thought you were staying.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want you to.”

  “Is that a good reason?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have a better one.”

  “For going or staying?”

  “For going.”

  “What is it?”

  “Because I don’t want to…” We laughed and I tried to kiss her but she covered my mouth with the palm of her hand… “Wait! I haven’t finished yet…” And she sang the rest: “but twelve o’clock done knack and my mama go vex with me.” Then she re-arranged her countenance from the angelic model demanded by her song and offered to stay… on one condition, she said.

  “What is it? Don’t tell me, I know.”

  “What is it?”

  “That I don’t make love to you.”

  She shook her head. “Maybe I should add that now that you mention it. Have another guess.”

  “That we first talk about ourselves.”

  “Who wants to hear any more about you? You will end up talking about other people, anyway.”

  “I give up.”

  “Promise me that you will go in now and switch off that air-conditioner in your bedroom.” I burst into uncontrollable laughter. BB, feigning great seriousness, informed me that she nearly froze to death just walking through to the bathroom a short while ago. Incredible girl, BB; her demands were never such as to break a man’s back!

  Not for her the lover as tiger that some women crave, a bloody spoor strewn with shredded garments. The day I first made love to her, months after we began to go together, I wrote down in my diary: Her passion begins like the mild ripples of some tropical river approaching the turbulence of a waterfall in slow, peaceful, immense orbits. Pompous? No. Immense.

  “You were telling me about the white girl and your big friend,” she said abruptly, switching on the bed lamp I had just turned off and holding back my hand reaching again for the rope-switch. Before I could answer she said: “Why did you call her a miracle worker?” I had said I would go at BB’s pace but I’d be damned if I would spend the rest of the night talking about Sam and Gwen who had already come up for mention at lunch with Ikem and his new girl, Joy. So I went straight to the point.

  “In the morning after a very exhausting night this girl, Gwen, wakes him up and wants to begin again. I remember how Sam put it: My brother, there was absolutely nothing left in the pipeline. So Gwen swings herself around and picks up his limp wetin-call with her mouth. And from nowhere and like magic life surges back into it. Sam had never seen that kind of thing before.”

  BB didn’t respond immediately except to get a little closer to me. Then she asked: “You mean people actually do that?”

  “All the time.”

  “Disgusting,” she said.

  “Well, I don’t know.”

  “You sound as if you wouldn’t mind yourself. Or perhaps you have done it already.”

  “No, I haven’t. It’s the girl who does it.”

  “All right Mr. Smart. Has any girl done it for you?”

  “Let’s not make it personal.”

  “OK. I won’t pry any more. But I think it is disgusting, don’t you? And they didn’t even shower first, did they?”

  “I wasn’t there, you know; but I don’t suppose they did. She woke him up as I understand it and went straight to work.”

  “With all that stuff on it!”

  “Dry and caked, yes.”

  “Disgusting. I won’t do that. Not for anybody.”

  “Don’t worry, love. I won’t ever ask you.”

  “What if it happens inside her mouth?”

  “What? I see. But isn’t that the whole point?”

  “Na Beatrice you de ask? Na me de tell de tori, no be you?”

  “Well that’s the whole point, I am told. To give it to her right in the mouth.”

  “You’re joking!”

  “I swear.”

  “Chris, are you sure you haven’t done it?”

  “No. It’s the girl who does it.”

  “Oh shut up; you know what I mean. And don’t you start anything because I won’t wash it in my mouth.”

  “We’ll shower first.”

  “You are joking. Oh Chris! Please.”

  6

  Beatrice

  WHEN I PICKED UP the telephone and a completely unfamiliar voice said, “Can I speak to Miss Beatrice Okoh,” my heart fluttered violently in panic fear. I don’t know why but the thing that came into my mind right away was: Oh God, there’s been an accident involving Chris, and someone is calling from the Casualty Ward of the Teaching Hospital. Why my mind should have gone to an accident I’ve no idea but the feeling was so strong that it blocked other lines of thought. So when the caller said, “Hold on for His Excellency,” my answer was a confused and near-hysterical: “His what? Who are you?” It was only when the confident, resonant drawl asked if he was such an unwelcome caller that I realized what I had heard before and stammered an incoherent string of apologies. Even so, while he spoke, my thoughts kept leap-frogging over themselves and it was not until quite some time after he rang off that I had regained enough composure to begin to sort out the details of what he had said. He was inviting me to a small private dinner. On Saturday. Something important and personal he wanted to talk to me about. A car would be sent to pick me up from my flat at six-thirty. Dress absolutely informal, or even casual. See you then. And he rang off. Just like that!

  In the early days of his coming to power I had gone fairly often to the Palace with Chris and sometimes Chris and Ikem. But then things had changed quite dramatically after about one year and now apart from viewing him virtually every night on television news I had not actually set eyes on him nor had any kind of direct contact for well over a year. So the telephone call and the invitation were baffling to me and totally unexpected.

  Of course Chris had kept me posted on the steady deterioration in their relationship. Would the important and personal discussion be about that? Was I going to find myself listening to awkward recrimination between two friends who’d known each other since I was in nappies… Well, not exactly but almost. That might account for the very early time of six-thirty. It was only then it occurred to me that I was simply assuming that I would be going to the Palace as in the old days with Chris but that nothing of the sort had been said in the invitation. So I rushed to the telephone and called Chris’s house without luck and then his office where he was at work as usual long after everybody else had gone home, eaten their lunch and even had their siesta, and told him the news. No, he hadn’t been asked but he would rather not talk on the telephone. He would pass by my place on his way home shortly. That was on a Thursday evening.

  My doorbell rang at exactly six-twenty-five. I was at the dressing-table and soon could hear Agatha, as prompt on the Sabbath as on any other day to open the front door to callers, in lively conversation with a male voice. When she had had whoever it was as long to herself as she thought necessary she came to the door of the bedroom to inform me that one soja-man from President house de for door; he say na President sendam make he come bring madam.<
br />
  “Tellam make he siddon,” I said, “I de nearly ready.”

  Soon the two voices were floating in to me again as I put on the finishing touches. When I got to the living-room a couple of minutes later Agatha was just disappearing through the kitchen door. The soldier who was still on his feet saluted as I entered and I began at once to apologize for my maid’s manners in not offering him a seat.

  “No be like dat madam,” he said gallantly. “Your girl polite well well. She tell me make I siddon, she even ask wetin I wan drink. So no be her fault at all madam. Na me one refuse for siddon. You know this soja work na stand-stand work e be.”

  “OK. You are taking me to the Palace? I am ready.”

  “Ah madam. No be Palace we de go. Na for Palace dem tell you?”

  “What? Na where we de go?”

  “You mean to say dem no tell you? Wonderful! Na for President Guest House for Abichi Lake na there dem say make I take you. And dat must correct because why? the President been de there since yesterday. He no dey for Palace at all.”

  The strange feelings I had been nursing since Thursday afternoon now threatened to explode in violent froths of anger as this latest ingredient of insult was dropped with such casualness into the brew. God! Who did this fellow think he was? First he orders me to dinner and rings off before I have had time to express my profound gratitude. Then he doesn’t think it is necessary to warn me that I have a forty-mile journey to make for the privilege! What in heaven’s name was going on in this country?

  My first act of rebellion which was to bring a wan smile to my face five minutes later for its sheer futility was to refuse my escort’s offer to sit in the owner’s corner of the black Mercedes standing in my driveway. As he rushed ahead of me and opened and held the door I simply said sorry, walked over to the other side and let myself in. The chauffeur turned sharply round on his seat perhaps to get a good look at today’s eccentric cargo. When I said good evening to him on top of all that, he seemed dazed to begin with and then his bafflement gave way to a wide happy grin which pleased me very much for it confirmed that I had successfully compounded my rebellion—first to spurn a seat of honour and then to greet a mere driver first. That was when I smiled at myself and my puny, empty revolts, the rebellion of a mouse in a cage.

  And I recalled Chris’s advice to me to stay cool no matter what. My complaint that the fellow had not even bothered to ask if I was free nor wait for me to accept had merely brought an indulgent smile to Chris’s face. “Look, BB,” he said. “In any country and any language in the world an invitation by the Head of State is a virtual command even when he does not pick up the phone personalty to issue it. So my dear girl you will go and you may do some good. Sam is not such a fool you know. He knows things are now pretty hopeless and may see in you a last hope to extricate himself. You may be able to help.”

  “How?”

  “My dear, I don’t know. But let’s keep all options open. It’s never too late.”

  Chris is damn too reasonable. That’s all I can say. All options? I knew of one at least I would not keep open.

  We got to Abichi village and then the lake at about seven-thirty. Although I had been to the Presidential Retreat twice before it was both in daytime. Going up to it now with the great shimmering expanse of the artificial lake waters stretching eastwards into the advancing darkness on your left and the brightly lit avenue taking you slowly skywards in gigantic circles round and up the hill, on top of which the Presidential Retreat perches like a lighthouse, was a movingly beautiful experience even to a mood as frayed and soured as mine that evening. The rumoured twenty million spent on its refurbishment by the present administration since the overthrow of the civilians who had built it at a cost of forty-five million may still be considered irresponsibly extravagant in our circumstances but… But what? Careful now, before you find yourself slowly and secretly leaning towards Chris’s reasonableness!

  As a matter of fact he and Ikem had had one of their fierce arguments in my presence over the vast sums spent on the refurbishment of the Retreat. Money, incidentally, which had not been passed through the normal Ministry of Finance procedures. On that occasion I had been totally on the side of Ikem.

  “Retreat from what? From whom?” I recall him demanding with characteristic heat. “From the people and their basic needs of water which is free from Guinea worm, of simple shelter and food. That’s what you are retreating from. You retreat up the hill and commune with your cronies and forget the very people who legitimize your authority.”

  “Don’t put it on me,” cried Chris. And then he side-stepped the issue completely to produce one of those beautiful historical vignettes his incredibly wide reading and fluency makes him so good at. “Nations,” he said, “were fostered as much by structures as by laws and revolutions. These structures where they exist now are the pride of their nations. But everyone forgets that they were not erected by democratically-elected Prime Ministers but very frequently by rather unattractive, bloodthirsty medieval tyrants. The cathedrals of Europe, the Taj Mahal of India, the pyramids of Egypt and the stone towers of Zimbabwe were all raised on the backs of serfs, starving peasants and slaves. Our present rulers in Africa are in every sense late-flowering medieval monarchs, even the Marxists among them. Do you remember Mazrui calling Nkrumah a Stalinist Czar? Perhaps our leaders have to be that way. Perhaps they may even need to be that way.”

  “Bloody reformist,” said Ikem, infuriated and impressed for though he may be a great writer yet when it comes to speaking off the cuff he is no match for Chris.

  A pleasant-faced army major searched my handbag at the entrance and another officer took me up a wide and red-carpeted flight of stairs. At the landing a huge open door led into an enormous and opulent room where guests were already settled in. As soon as I had appeared at the door His Excellency had rushed out to meet me, planted a kiss on my forehead and led me by the hand into the room. The guests sat in scattered groups of twos and threes on chairs, settees and pouffes drinking and dipping into bowls of assorted finger-food laid out on stools and on the floor.

  “Who don’t we know?” asked the host and without waiting for an answer added: “Let’s start with the ladies.” Meanwhile the men had all struggled to their feet to stand guard, as it were.

  “Come and meet Miss Cranford of the American United Press. Lou is in Bassa to see if all the bad news they hear about us in America is true.” The dark-haired girl who would have fitted my stereotype of an Italian beauty if I hadn’t been told she was American was smiling and playing her hand like a pair of cymbals to get them free of salted peanuts in preparation for a hand-shake which when it came would have given her Americanness away for its over-eager firmness. Meanwhile His Excellency was literally reciting my CV. “Lou, this is one of the most brilliant daughters of this country, Beatrice Okoh. She is a Senior Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of Finance—the only person in the service, male or female, with a first-class honours in English. And not from a local university but from Queen Mary College, University of London. Our Beatrice beat the English to their game. We’re very proud of her.”

  “Wow,” said Lou. “That’s terrific. How did you do it Beatrice?”

  The rest was routine. There were I think eight men and seven women including myself.

  Of the men I knew only one reasonably well—Joe Ibe, the Commissioner for Works. When His Excellency got to him and said: “But of course you know Beatrice,” he had replied: “Me? I am sorry sir, I have never seen her before,” which must be about the most predictable and tired of Bassa witticisms and yet it always produced some laughter most of it on this occasion from the humorist himself who immediately added as if to bring everything down again to the literal level of those not bright enough for high humour: “Long time no see, Beatrice. How’s my friend Chris?” To which I replied with my own feeble effort at joke-making: “But I should ask you. You see him more often than I do. He is always at one or other of your meetings.”

&nb
sp; “That’s what he tells you?” And that really cracked everybody up.

  “Joe is right, you know,” said His Excellency with a wink. “If I were you I would do spot checks now and again.”

  As soon as the introductions were over the American journalist came rushing to me to say she hoped that besides getting acquainted this evening we would be able to sit down somewhere in the next seven days over a meal or something and talk about things in general. Especially the woman’s angle, you know. To which I replied rather sharply that I couldn’t see what a reporter who could stroll in any time and get it all direct from the horse’s mouth could want to hear from the likes of me. Involuntarily perhaps her eyes narrowed into a fighting squint for the briefest moment and then just as swiftly changed tactics back to friendliness.

  “I won’t leave the country now without talking to you,” she said. “Not after all the things I’ve just heard. It’s a promise!” And she moved off and left me in peace for the moment.

  I knew I had been unduly shrill in our brief exchange. But I seemed not to be fully in control of my responses. Something tougher than good breeding had edged it aside in a scuffle deep inside me and was imparting to my casual words the sharp urgency of incantation. I assumed to begin with that I was still over-reacting to the abnormal circumstances of my invitation to the party and remembered Chris’s advice to remain calm. To his shade I promised now to try harder.

  So these were the new power-brokers around His Excellency! I was seeing the controversial Director of SRC at close quarters for the first time and did not, as I might have expected, like him in the least. He is youngish and good-looking, and strong in a vaguely disagreeable way. Perhaps it was those enormous hands of his like a wrestler’s which struck you at once as being oversize even for a man as big as he. I think he feels awkward about them and is constantly shifting them around from beside to behind him and then inside his pockets which of course draws more attention to them. He speaks only when spoken to and then in an absurdly soft voice. And to finish him off finally as far as I was concerned he was so excessively obsequious to His Excellency during the dinner. Was he a guest like the rest of us or some kind of superior steward? He would leave a guest in midsentence and go after the serving crew because a glass somewhere was three-quarters empty.