by Ross Thomas
After Jenaro had hung up on his last phone call, he had turned to Shartelle and said: “They’re jumpy. They’re jumpy and nervous and the damned thing doesn’t really get off the ground until tomorrow. Not officially.”
“We could certainly use something tangible—such as the buttons,” Diokadu had said.
Shartelle had nodded. “They’re on the way.”
“They don’t seem to be too enthusiastic, either,” Jenaro had said gloomily. “A real apathetic bunch of nothings.”
“Dekko and Chief Akomolo will stir them up,” Shartelle said.
I looked at him as we rode the high-crowned road to Obahma. “I got an idea.”
“Good.”
“The two defectors, as we keep calling them, made a bit of a splash in all of the papers, even the papers supporting Akomolo. Right?”
“Right.”
“We don’t need them any more—not as living testimonials to our need for the skywriting and the blimp. Right?”
“Go on.”
“They recant.”
Shartelle pushed himself up to almost a sitting position and grinned at me. “See the error of their ways. Come back to the fold. The return of the prodigal sons. Why, Petey, that’s just fine. When they going to do it?”
I thought for a moment. “Two weeks from now. Let them stay on the other side long enough to earn their money and to pick up any information they can. Then we can milk it for all it’s worth. I can write them both hallelujah speeches. Then we’ll send them out on the campaign trail.”
“Goddamn! The repentant sinners. Why we could set up a whole series of revival meetings, Pete. We could get folks coming down the sawdust trail, if not to the arms of Jesus, at least unto the fold of Akomolo’s party. Boy, you are learning! You’ve got all the makings of developing a fine, devious mind.”
“I studied with the master,” I said. “He was a true inspiration.”
“Revival meetings,” Shartelle murmured and slumped back down into his familiar position. “With real sinners who’ve seen the glory light. My, that’s fine!”
The helicopters had been late arriving that Sunday evening, and Chief Dekko and Chief Akomolo were forced to wait at the airport in the waiting room, which was even hotter than the direct sun. Finally, the machines had arrived, one with a sputtering engine, and they settled down on the airport. After introducing themselves, the pilots had assured us that they could fix the engine quickly, and then had spent three hours doing it. Chief Akomolo had fumed. Dekko had grown quiet. Chief Akomolo had said to Shartelle: “This is not a very auspicious beginning, Mr. Shartelle.”
“It’s down right rotten, Chief. But I don’t think we need just stand around here and fret. If we got some time, we should use it.”
“As usual, you are right, Mr. Shartelle,” Dekko had said in his deep baritone. So while the pilots had tinkered with the plane for three hours, the plotters had plotted. Dekko had displayed a keen grasp of the basic fundamentals of campaigning. He was scheduled to give a minimum of ten speeches a day and he kept telling me over and over how much he liked his speech. Chief Akomolo kept referring to his oration not as a speech, but as “this document of truth” which I thought was a little effusive, but not too much. It was a good speech.
Finally, one of the pilots had come over. He was the American, a forty-four-year-old skybum who still wore a World War II Army Air Corps visored cap with a thousand-hour crush. His name was Bill Wyatt and his first question had been: “Who rides with Wyatt?” It had been some kind of a joke. Chief Akomolo, his translator, another personal aide, and one of Jenaro’s savvy boys had followed the pilot out to the plane after shaking hands with us. We wouldn’t see the Chief again for three weeks, but he would call in every night.
Then the South African had come over. He was a tall, thin polite man with a carefully cultivated mustache and black hair that he wore full on the sides and thin on the top because he couldn’t help it. Dekko and an entourage similar to Chief Akomolo’s had followed the South African, whose name was Veale, over to the other helicopter. Veale hadn’t made any jokes; I had preferred him to the American. Before Dekko hoisted himself into the helicopter he had turned and waved to us. We had waved back. Chief Akomolo, gathering up the folds of his robes to mount the helicopter’s ladder, had also turned and waved. His gold-rimmed glasses glinted in the late afternoon sunshine. We had waved in reply and Jenaro had looked at his Rolex Oyster wristwatch. “They’ll just about make it,” he had said.
Dr. Diokadu had seemed nervous. “I must confess I am not very confident about them going off like this by themselves.”
“Why, Doc, these are the candidates,” Shartelle had said. “Those boys have got to be able to go off by themselves. We can plot and plan for them, we can write their speeches and arrange their transportation and make sure they’re going to have a crowd, but we can’t get up there and make that speech for them. They just got to do that by themselves.”
“They’ll be okay,” Jenaro had said as he turned to head for his XK-E roadster which we were now following to the Palace of the Ile.
“Think he’ll like the buttons?” Shartelle asked.
“Well, they’re big enough.”
A special contingent of one thousand campaign buttons with the “I GO AKO” slogan on them had arrived that morning from New York air mail first class. I recall that the Pitney-Bowes sticker had read $47.55. We had dumped five hundred of them into an empty biscuit tin, driven down to the Widow Claude’s liquor emporium, and got her to wrap it up like a Christmas present. We had also talked her out of a case of brandy for the Ile, at the discount rate.
“I cannot support you on transactions like this, Clint,” she had said.
“Why, honey, you know I’m going to take care of you.”
“Adventurer.”
He had kissed her fondly, patted her intimately, and she had beamed at him. They had both seemed a little far gone to me. I only spent part of the day mooning around. We had bought the brandy on the advice of Jenaro: “When you go calling on the native brass around here, you always bring something—no matter how poor you are. Usually, it’s just a kola nut, but with you guys it’s got to be something special. The buttons are special and the brandy reflects your high regard for his taste. God knows what he’ll give you in return—maybe a couple of thirteen-year-old girls. Or boys. By tradition it’s something three or four times more valuable than the gift he receives. So he gives away a lot of beer.”
Obahma wasn’t much. It was a collection of buildings and huts roofed with corrugated iron turned rust-red by rain. The highway meandered through it, jogging left and right for no apparent reason other than that a few buildings seemed to have been built in the middle of the road at one time. Sideroads, unpaved, led down twisting streets to nowhere. Radio Albertia screamed from the five-inch speakers that hung from the open-front stores. The people, dressed more casually than in Ubondo and Barkandu, loped along about their business. Some sat in the sun and stared. Others curled up in shady spots and slept. Jenaro slowed down for the traffic and some people cheered and waved at him as the XK-E rumbled through the town. He waved back and tossed a package of cigarettes to a collection of streetcorner idlers. They scrambled in the dirt for them.
The Palace of the Ile of Obahma was on the edge of town and it wasn’t much, either, although a high-red mud wall ran for almost two city blocks around it. Jenaro told us later that the wall was at least five hundred years old. It had been there when the Portuguese had first arrived. The Jaguar drove up to the wall’s wooden gate which was guarded by some Albertians who wore a vague sort of uniform. The gate was open. They smiled and waved at Jenaro as he drove through. A collection of goats, chickens and people wandered around in the large courtyard. The building, which the wall shielded, was built in a maze. It was one-storied, and the outward edge that we could see had a veranda running along it. The veranda was covered by the familiar tin roof, supported by poles carved with intricate figures of men and women
standing on each other’s heads. Some of the carved poles had been replaced by plain wooden ones; some were missing and had not been replaced at all. Jenaro parked his car and we parked alongside. He called over a youngster who wore nothing but a gray oversized undershirt. He barked something at him in the dialect. The youngster picked up a stick and jumped into the Jaguar, looking around for someone to hit. Jenaro gave him a shilling. He came over to our car as we got out.
“If I’m lucky, the wheels will still be on when I come out. You notice the missing posts?”
“Yes.”
“The Ile’s bastard sons. It’s African art and they flog it to the odd tourist. One of them conned an American oil man out of three hundred pounds for one of the better posts. Now that the roof’s about to fall down in some places, the Ile has threatened to cut the hands off the next one who bootlegs a carving.”
William went around to the back of the car and got out the brandy and the buttons. He impressed a loiterer into carrying the buttons; he carried the brandy himself. A crowd had gathered and its members stood there waiting for something to happen. It reminded me of a small town where the big event of the day is when the 4:16 freight goes through. It doesn’t stop, but there’s always the chance that it might.
Jenaro pushed his way through the crowd, ignoring the cries of the urchins to “dash me, Mastah.” Bighearted Shartelle, however, got rid of all his change. It only cost me four and six. Jenaro led the way through the maze of open doors and windows and idle faces and hands and bodies. The crowd followed at a more or less respectful distance, still waiting for something to happen. Then the drums began and Jenaro stopped and looked around. He spotted another idler, beckoned him over, asked him a question, and listened carefully as the man answered at length. The drums kept drumming. Jenaro handed the man a shilling and turned to me. “I asked him about the drums. I don’t have the advantage of childhood musical training like Diokadu. The drums are saying: ‘They come from Ubondo, the Chief of the Word and his two White Friends. They come to pay their respects to the Ile of Obahma, mightiest of the rulers,’ and so forth and so on. It’s a commercial for the Ile, and a warning to leave our cars alone.”
Shartelle was taking it all in with an occasional “My!” and an “Ain’t that something, Petey?” Jenaro pressed on, as they say, and we arrived at a door where a tall young man sat behind a small desk. Jenaro greeted him in English: “Hello, Prince.”
“Hello, Jimmy.”
“Is the old man expecting us?”
“Go on in. He’s got a couple of supplicants in there now, but he should be through.”
“Prince Arondo—Mr. Shartelle and Mr. Upshaw.”
We shook hands with the Prince who was dressed in an open white shirt, a pair of cotton slacks, and sandals. He seemed almost cool. He looked us over and said he was glad to make our acquaintance. We went through the door, William and his button-box wallah following. The man set the button box down on the floor and fled. William put his down and prostrated himself quickly. Jenaro sighed, spread out a handkerchief, and knelt on it, touching his forehead to the floor once. Shartelle removed his hat and I smiled what must have been a silly grin.
The Ile was sitting in a highbacked chair behind what looked like a library table. The chair rested on a dais similar to the one in Chief Akomolo’s banquet room. The Ile nodded gravely at us and went on listening to the keening of two men who were flat on the floor in front of the table. The Ile wore the same straw hat that he had worn in Ubondo, but it looked as if it had a new plume floating out of it. Jenaro rose, picked up his handkerchief, and wiped off his forehead. “It’s some kind of a dispute over cattle. One of them stole a couple of cows.”
The Ile said a short sentence. His voice was quiet; it seemed almost bored. The two men rose quickly, and backed out of the room. They almost bumped into us. Jenaro used his foot to nudge William. Our driver hopped up and darted out of the door. The old man who had pounded the golden staff in Ubondo was sitting in a chair at one end of the library table, his head nodding. Several young boys, dressed in white robes, sat on a bench near a door behind the Ile. They were quiet, but they twisted and squirmed a little, like pages in the U.S. Senate on a slow August day.
The room was larger than I had thought originally. But the walk towards the Ile was not as long as the walk towards Sir Charles Blackwelder. Poufs made of red and white leather were scattered about the floor. A number of nondescript Albertians sat against the walls on either side, watching our entrance, and looking as if they hoped we would stumble and fall so they would have something to talk about.
The Ile motioned us to three chairs that were arranged in front of the table. He didn’t offer to shake hands. “Welcome, Chief Jenaro; I hope that you are in good health. I wish the same for Mr. Shartelle and Mr. Upshaw.”
“I trust that the Ile of Obahma enjoys the best of health, as do my friends,” Jenaro said formally.
The Ile’s voice was blurred with a heavy accent. He spoke slowly and his English sounded as if he translated it from the dialect first.
“So,” he said. “What have you brought me?”
“Insignificant trifles, Ile of Obahma,” Jenaro said. “We are ashamed to offer them, but they are contained in the two boxes by the door.” The Ile raised his hand and pointed at the boxes. The pages sprang up, rushed over, and carried them to the table. “Open them,” the Ile said.
They opened the box of brandy first, ripping off the fancy wrapping without comment. It was a wooden box and they had to find a hammer to prize up the nails. The brandy was packed in wooden excelsior. It had never looked more impressive. The Ile took out a bottle, put on his glasses to inspect the label, and said: “You are too kind.”
The second box was opened. He reached in, picked up a button and examined it. He smiled again. His robes were blue that day and he stuck the button on the front of his robe on the round neck band. The pages said “Ooooh” and “Ahhhh.” He gave a button to each of them and they ran to show the others what they had. The Ile said something to the old man with the golden staff. He awoke for a moment, thumped the staff on the floor, and shouted something to the hangers-on who ringed the walls. They came forward one by one, prostrated themselves, and accepted a button. One of them who could apparently read translated “I Go Ako” for the rest. They grinned, pinned the buttons on, and then went back to sit by the walls to wait for something else exciting to happen.
The Ile raised his hand again and a page was at his side. It reminded me of Good King Wenceslaus, the part that goes: “Hither page and stand by me….” He said something to the boy who nodded and darted through the door.
“Well, Mr. Shartelle,” he said. “Do you plan to make Albertia your home?”
“I have been thinking of it, Ile,” Old Possum lied. “It’s mighty attractive country.”
“Attractive as America?”
“Some parts of Albertia that I have seen are more attractive than certain parts of America.”
“But different?”
“Every place is different, I reckon.”
The Ile nodded, apparently satisfied. The page came back with three bottles of beer. The Ile handed him a beer opener that was welded to a three-foot long steel rod. He gestured at the opener. “Strange, is it not? I serve much beer. For a while I tried to keep openers for the bottles, but the people took them away for keepsakes. It became too expensive, so one of my sons suggested the steel rod. We have lost only two in the past year.”
The beer was cold and we drank it from the bottles. The Ile watched us, apparently pleased that we were thirsty.
“Mr. Upshaw, I have been told that your home is in England. Is that not strange for an American?”
“One sometimes works where one is paid best,” I said.
“And the English pay better than the Americans? I did not know that was true.”
“I work for an American.”
“And whom does he work for?”
“He is in business for himself.”
“In England?”
“Yes.”
“He could not earn a livelihood in America?”
“He apparently can earn a better one using his American skills in England.”
The Ile nodded and sighed. “I find it all very strange. I have more than sixty-five years and the farthest I have been from this place where I was born is Barkandu. That was four years ago. The Queen was there.” He paused. We remained silent.
“Are these Americans doing a good job of work, Chief Jenaro?” He was direct enough.
“An outstanding job, Ile of Obahma.”
“I have heard the drums these past few nights. They keep repeating the phrase that is on the medallion. People are beginning to talk about it. Did the Americans suggest the drums?”
“They did.”
“One might weary of the same message.”
“It will be changed at frequent intervals.”
“And Akomolo, is he well?”
“Very well.”
“And Dekko, is he well?” The old man seemed to put a little more interest into his question.
“He, too, enjoys excellent health.”
“That is good.” He paused and seemed to be reflecting. “You are the cunning one, Jim-Jim. In this election, who will win?”
“Our chances are improving daily, Ile of Obahma.” “There is a chance?”
“There is.”
“A good chance—or a fair chance?”
“A good chance.”
“Would you agree, Mr. Shartelle?”
“I would indeed, sir.”
The round face of the Ile went into repose. His lids almost closed over his eyes. His voice seemed low and distant. “You have heard of no trouble, Jim-Jim?”
