“Don’t say I am interrupting you, sir,” said Chief Nanga. “I don’t want Odili to misunderstand me.” He turned squarely to me. “I am not afraid of you. Every goat and every fowl in this country knows that you will fail woefully. You will lose your deposit and disgrace yourself. I am only giving you this money because I feel that after all my years of service to my people I deserve to be elected unopposed so that my detractors in Bori will know that I have my people solidly behind me.
“That is the only reason I am giving you this money. Otherwise I should leave you alone to learn your bitter lesson so that when you hear of election again you will run. . . . I know those irresponsible boys have given you money. If you have any sense keep the money and train your father’s children with it or do something useful. . . .”
I stayed miraculously unruffled. Actually I was thinking about Edna all along. But I noticed also how my father had raised his nose in the air in proud rejection of the offer I hadn’t made—nor intended to make—to train his children.
“We know where that money is coming from,” continued Nanga. “Don’t think we don’t know. We will deal with them after the election. They think they can come here and give money to irresponsible people to overthrow a duly constituted government. We will show them. As for you my brother you can eat what has entered your hand. . . . Your good friend Maxwell Kulamo has more sense than you. He has already taken his money and agreed to step down for Chief Koko.”
“Impossible!”
“Look at him. He doesn’t even know what is happening; our great politician! You stay in the bush here wasting your time and your friends are busy putting their money in the bank in Bori. Anyway you are not a small boy. I have done my best and, God so good, your father is my living witness. Take your money and take your scholarship to go and learn more book; the country needs experts like you. And leave the dirty game of politics to us who know how to play it . . .”
“Do you want an answer? It is NO in capital letters! You think everyone can be bought with a few dirty pounds. You’re making a sad mistake. I will fight you along the road and in the bush, even if you buy the entire C.P.C. I can see you are trying to cover your fear. I see the fear in your eyes. If you know you are not afraid why do you send thugs to molest me; why do your hired cowards carry placards with my name. I am sorry, Mr Man, you can take your filthy money away and clear out of here . . . Bush man!”
“Odili!”
It was I who had to clear out there and then. As I passed by the Cadillac I noticed four or five thugs in it, one of whom looked familiar although I did not get close enough to see them well.
I knew it was a lie about Max agreeing to step down but I began to wonder why he hadn’t arrived yet to mount our campaign in my constituency.
12
“A mad man may sometimes speak a true word,” said my father, “but, you watch him, he will soon add something to it that will tell you his mind is still spoilt. My son, you have again shown your true self. When you came home with a car I thought to myself: good, some sense is entering his belly at last . . . But I should have known. So you really want to fight Chief Nanga! My son, why don’t you fall where your pieces could be gathered? If the money he was offering was too small why did you not say so? Why did you not ask for three or four hundred? But then your name would not be Odili if you did that. No, you have to insult the man who came to you as a friend and—let me ask you something: Do you think he will return tomorrow to beg you again with two-fifty pounds? No, my son. You have lost the sky and you have lost the ground. . . .”
“Why do you worry yourself and get lean over a loss that is mine and not yours at all? You are in P.O.P. and I am in C.P.C. . . .”
“You have to listen to my irritating voice until the day comes when you stop answering Odili Samalu or else until you look for me and don’t see me any more.”
This softened me a lot. I am always sentimental when it comes to people not being seen when they are looked for. I said nothing immediately but when I did it was in a more conciliatory tone.
“So your party gives ministers authority to take bribes, eh?”
“What?” he said, waking up. I hadn’t been looking at him and so didn’t notice when he had dropped off.
“Chief Nanga said that the ten per cent he receives on contracts is for your party. Is that true?”
“If Alligator comes out of the water one morning and tells you that Crocodile is sick can you doubt his story?”
“I see.” This time I watched him drop off almost immediately and smiled in spite of myself.
The next day Max and our campaign team arrived from Bori. There were a dozen other people with him, only two of whom I knew already—Eunice his fiancée and the trade-unionist, Joe. They had a car, a minibus and two brand-new Land-Rovers with loudspeakers fitted on the roof. Seeing them so confident and so well-equipped was for me the most morale-boosting event of the past so many weeks. I envied Max his beautiful, dedicated girl; some people are simply lucky. I wished I could bring Edna there to see them.
“You didn’t tell me you were coming today,” I said to Max; “not that it matters.”
“Didn’t you get my telegram?”
“No.”
“I sent you a telegram on Monday.”
“Monday of this week? Oh well, today is only Thursday; it should get here on Saturday . . .”
“D.V.,” said Max.
Everyone laughed as I led them to my father’s outbuilding. He had on seeing them quickly put on his browning singlet and was now shaking hands with everyone with as much enthusiasm as if he had been our patron. My young brothers and sisters were all over the place, some making faces at their image on the shining car bodies. The cars must have been washed at the ferry, I thought. It was typical of Max to want to come in clean and spotless. Two or three of my father’s wives came to the door of the inner compound and called out greetings to the visitors. Then Mama, the senior wife, came out hurriedly clutching a telegram.
“It came this morning while you were out; I just remembered it,” she said to me. “I told Edmund to remind me as soon as you returned, but the foolish boy . . .”
Everyone laughed again and my father catching the hilarity terminated the rebuke he had begun to deliver to “those who can’t read but love to handle other people’s letters . . .”
“We must withdraw our earlier statements,” said Max, “and give three hearty cheers to the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs.
“Hip, hip-hip——”
“Hurrah!”
“HIP, HIP, HIP——”
“Hurrah!”
“For they are jolly good fellows
For they are jolly good fellows
For they are jolly good fellows
And so say all of us.
And so say all of us, hurrah!
And so say all of us, hurrah!
For they are jolly good fellows
For they are jolly good fellows
For they are jolly good fellows
And so say all of us.”
The singing and the laughter and the sight of so many cars brought in neighbours and passers-by until we had a small crowd.
“Why don’t we launch our campaign here and now?” asked Max with glazed intoxicated-looking eyes.
“Why not indeed?” said Eunice.
“Not here,” I said firmly. “My father is local chairman of P.O.P. and we shouldn’t embarrass him . . . In any case people don’t launch campaigns just like that on the spur of the moment.”
“What is the boy talking?” asked my father. “What has my being in P.O.P. got to do with it? I believe that the hawk should perch and the eagle perch, whichever says to the other don’t, may its own wing break.”
My comrades applauded him and sang “For he is a jolly good fellow” again. This time the loudspeakers had been switched on and t
he entire neighbourhood rang with song. By the time four or five highlife records had been played as well, the compound became too small for our audience. Every chair and kitchen-stool in the house was brought out and arranged in a half-moon for the elders and village dignitaries. A microphone was set up on the steps of the outbuilding facing the crowd. What impressed them right away was how you could talk into that ball and get the voice thundering in a completely different place. “Say what you will,” I heard someone remark, “the white man is a spirit.”
Max’s unprepared speech—or perhaps it was prepared in its broad outlines—was on the whole impressive. But I do not think that it persuaded many people. Actually it wasn’t a speech in the strict sense but a dialogue between him and the audience, or a vociferous fraction of the audience. There was one man who proved particularly troublesome. He had been a police corporal who had served two years in jail for corruptly receiving ten shillings from a lorry driver. That was the official version anyway. The man’s own story was that he had been framed because he had stood up against his white boss in pre-Independence days. I believe there was a third version which put the blame on enemies from another tribe. Whatever the true story, on his release, “Couple”, as the villagers still called him, had come back to his people and become a local councillor and politician. He was at the moment very much involved in supplying stones for our village pipe-borne water scheme and was widely accused (in whispers) of selling one heap of stones in the morning, carrying it away at night and selling it again the next day; and repeating the cycle as long as he liked. He was of course in league with the Local Council Treasurer.
Max began by accusing the outgoing Government of all kinds of swindling and corruption. As he gave instance after instance of how some of our leaders who were ash-mouthed paupers five years ago had become near-millionaires under our very eyes, many in the audience laughed. But it was the laughter of resignation to misfortune. No one among them swore vengeance; no one shook with rage or showed any sign of fight. They understood what was being said, they had seen it with their own eyes. But what did anyone expect them to do?
The ex-policeman put it very well. “We know they are eating,” he said, “but we are eating too. They are bringing us water and they promise to bring us electricity. We did not have those things before; that is why I say we are eating too.”
“Defend them, Couple,” cried someone in the audience to him. “Are you not one of them when it comes to eating aged guinea-fowls?”
This brought a good deal of laughter but again it was a slack, resigned laughter. No one seemed ready to follow up the reprimand or join issue with Couple for defending his fellow racketeers.
Up to this point Max had spoken slowly and deliberately, with very little heat. But now, as he accused the present regime of trying to establish itself as a privileged class sitting on the back of the rest of us, his hands and his voice began to shake.
“Whether it is P.O.P. or P.A.P. they are the same,” he cried.
“The same ten and ten pence,” agreed someone in English.
“They want to share out the wealth of the country between them. That is why you must reject both; that is why we have now formed the C.P.C. as a party of the ordinary people like yourselves. . . . Once upon a time a hunter killed some big-game at night. He searched for it in vain and at last he decided to go home and await daylight. At the first light of morning he returned to the forest full of expectation. And what do you think he found? He saw two vultures fighting over what still remained of the carcass. In great anger he loaded his gun and shot the two dirty uneatable birds. You may say that he was foolish to waste his bullet on them but I say no. He was angry and he wanted to wipe out the dirty thieves fighting over another man’s inheritance. That hunter is yourselves. Yes, you and you and you. And the two vultures—P.O.P. and P.A.P. . . .” There was loud applause. Jolly good, I thought.
“There were three vultures,” said the ex-policeman after the applause had subsided. “The third and youngest was called C.P.C.”
“Why don’t you leave the young man alone to tell us his story?” asked one elderly woman smoking a short clay pipe. But many people obviously thought the ex-policeman very witty and I saw one or two shaking his hand.
Towards the end of his speech Max made one point which frankly I thought unworthy of him or of C.P.C. but I suppose I am too finicky. “We all know,” he said, “what one dog said to another. He said: ‘If I fall for you this time and you fall for me next time then I know it is play not fight.’ Last time you elected a Member of Parliament from Anata. Now it is your turn here in Urua. A goat does not eat into a hen’s stomach no matter how friendly the two may be. Ours is ours but mine is mine. I present as my party’s candidate your own son, Odili Samalu . . .” He walked over to me and held my hand up and the crowd cheered and cheered.
An elderly man who I believe was also a local councillor now stood up. He had sat on the edge of his seat directly opposite the microphone, his two hands like a climber’s grasping his iron staff. His attitude and posture had shown total absorption in what was being said:
“I want to thank the young man for his beautiful words,” he said. “Every one of them has entered my ear. I always say that what is important nowadays is no longer age or title but knowledge. The young man clearly has it and I salute him. There is one word he said which entered my ear more than everything else—not only entered but built a house there. I don’t know whether you others heard it in the same way as I did. That word was that our own son should go and bring our share.” There was great applause from the crowd. “That word entered my ear. The village of Anata has already eaten, now they must make way for us to reach the plate. No man in Urua will give his paper to a stranger when his own son needs it; if the very herb we go to seek in the forest now grows at our very back yard are we not saved the journey? We are ignorant people and we are like children. But I want to tell our son one thing: He already knows where to go and what to say when he gets there; he should tell them that we are waiting here like a babe cutting its first tooth: anyone who wants to look at our new tooth should know that his bag should be heavy. Have I spoken well?”
“Yes,” answered the crowd as they began to disperse.
Later I called Max aside and told him excitedly and in a few words about Chief Nanga’s visit.
“You should have taken the money from him,” he replied.
“What?” I was thunderstruck.
“Chief Koko offered me one thousand pounds,” he continued placidly. “I consulted the other boys and we decided to accept. It paid for that minibus . . .”
“I don’t understand you, Max. Are you telling me that you have taken money and stepped down for P.O.P.?”
“I am telling you nothing of the sort. The paper I signed has no legal force whatever and we needed the money . . .”
“It had moral force,” I said, downcast. “I am sorry, Max, but I think you have committed a big blunder. I thought we wanted our fight to be clean . . . You had better look out; they will be even more vicious from now on and people will say they have cause.” I was really worried. If our people understand nothing else they know that a man who takes money from another in return for service must render that service or remain vulnerable to that man’s just revenge. Neither God nor juju would save him.
“Oh, forget that. Do you know, Odili, that British Amalgamated has paid out four hundred thousand pounds to P.O.P. to fight this election? Yes, and we also know that the Americans have been even more generous, although we don’t have the figures as yet. Now you tell me how you propose to fight such a dirty war without soiling your hands a little. Just you tell me. Anyway we must be moving on to Abaga now. I’ll be here again in a couple of days to iron out everything and let you know our detailed plans from now on. Meanwhile, old boy, if the offer comes again take it. It’s as much your money as his . . .”
“Never!”
“Anyway, the question is purely academic now . . . Your old man is a wonderful fellow. I like him.”
• • •
Seeing Max and Eunice once again, sharing every excitement, had made my mouth water, to put it crudely. As Max made his speech I had found myself watching Eunice’s beautiful profile. She sat at the edge of her chair, wringing her clasped hands like a nervous schoolgirl. Her lips seemed to be forming the same words that he was uttering. Perhaps it was this delicious picture of feminine loyalty that led me early next day to abandon my carefully worked out strategy and go in search of Edna. I meant to tell her point-blank that I was in love with her, and let the whole world know about it as well. If she said no to me because I had not stolen public money and didn’t have a Cadillac, well and good, I should go and bear it like a man. But I was determined not to carry on this surreptitious corner-corner love business one day longer. It would be wonderful, I thought, if I could present her to Max on his next visit here. He would be envious, I knew. Edna might not be a lawyer or sophisticated in the nail-varnish, eyebrow-shadow line like Eunice, but any man who passed Edna on the road and didn’t look back must have a stiff neck. And as far as I was concerned she had just the right amount of education. I had nothing against professional women—in fact I liked them in their way—but if emancipation meant people like that other lady lawyer who came to sleep with illiterate Chief Nanga for twenty-five pounds a time (as he confided to me next morning), then they could keep it.
During the fifteen-mile journey to Anata which took the greater part of forty minutes because of the corrugated laterite surface, I worked out what I was going to say. What was important was not so much what I said but that I should say it decisively and not like a mumbling schoolboy. If the answer wasn’t yes it would be no; as they say, there are only two things you could do with yam—if you don’t boil it, you roast it. Or perhaps I should preface my declaration with an account of what had been happening to me since we met last. Yes, she would certainly like to hear how her famous suitor came to me in the dark like Nicodemus and offered me two-fifty pounds. She would like that and if her greedy father was around it would make his mouth water into the bargain, and raise my standing in his eyes.
A Man of the People Page 13
