“Do you know this gentlemen?”
They all shook their heads.
“How you go know? Stupid ignoramuses. Who contravened him on Friday night at… Mr. Osodi, where did it happen?”
“Outside Harmoney Hotel on Northwest Street.”
This announcement was followed by the briefest pause of surprise or even shock which was mercifully overtaken by the constable’s owning up.
“Na me, sir.”
“Na you! You no know who this man be? But how you go know? When you no de read newspaper. You pass standard six self?”
“Yes sir.”
“Na lie! Unless na free primary you pass. This man is Mr. Osodi, the Editor of the National Gazette. Everybody in the country knows him except you. So you carry your stupid nonsense and go and contravene a man of such calibre. Tomorrow now if he takes up his pen to lambast the Police you all go begin complain like monkey wey im mother die… Go and bring his particulars here one time, stupid yam-head.”
The poor fellow scampered out of the room.
“Now all of you listen well. You see this man here, make una look im face well well. If any of you go out tomorrow and begin to fool around his car I go give the person proper gbali-gbali. You understand?”
“Yes sir.”
“Nonsense police. You think na so we do am come reach superintendent. Tomorrow make you go contravene His Excellency for road and if they ask you you say you no know am before. Scallywags. Fall out!”
BECAUSE OF HIS VISIT to the Police Traffic Department at the other end of town Ikem had had to conduct his daily Editorial Conference two hours late. In making his apologies he naturally recounted his recent brushes with the police the details of which added considerable entertainment to the proceedings of a routine conference. The only person who did not seem to find any of it in the least amusing was Ikem’s second-in-command, an earnest but previously obsequious fellow who in the last several months had struck Ikem as becoming suddenly a lot more aloof and inclined to disagree openly with whatever he said.
Back in his room Ikem’s officious stenographer gave him two messages, one from John Kent, the Mad Medico, who asked Ikem to call him back and the other from Elewa who said she would call again.
MM picked up the phone at the first ring and went straight into his business. He was wondering whether Ikem would be free to drop by for a quick drink this afternoon to meet a friend of his, a poet and editor from England. Ikem accepted most enthusiastically.
“Sure! I haven’t seen you in a long time. What have you been doing with yourself? And as for meeting a live poet and editor I just can’t believe the luck. Can I bring my girlfriend?”
“But of course. Which one by the way? Never mind bring whoever you like… Fivish. See you then. Cheerio.”
It was amazing, Ikem thought, how brief and businesslike MM could be at work. No sign of his madness once he climbed into that chair as the Hospital Administrator. Except the one near-fatal relapse—the Strange Case of the Graffiti, as Ikem called it in a famous editorial.
10
Impetuous Son
Africa tell me Africa
Is this you this back that is bent
This back that breaks under the weight of humiliation
This back trembling with red scars
And saying yes to the whip under the midday sun
But a grave voice answers me
Impetuous son, that tree young and strong
That tree there
In splendid loneliness amidst white and faded flowers
That is Africa your Africa
That grows again patiently obstinately
And its fruit gradually acquire
The bitter taste of liberty
DAVID DIOP, “Africa”
THEY WERE JUST ABOUT LEAVING his flat for MM’s place when the doorbell rang and two strange men smiling from ear to ear faced him at the landing. Ikem stood his ground at the doorway the apprehension that would certainly have been in order relieved only by those vast smiles.
“Can I help you?”
“We just come salute you.”
“Me? Who are you? I don’t seem to remember.”
“We be taxi-drivers.”
“I see.”
Elewa had now joined him at the door. The visitors were still smiling bravely in spite of the cold welcome. As soon as Elewa came into view one of the visitors said:
“Ah, madam, you de here.”
“Ah, no be you carry me go home from here that night?”
“Na me, madam. You remember me. Very good. I no think say you fit remember.”
“So wetin you come do here again? Abi, you just discover I no pay you complete? Or perhaps na counterfeit I give you.”
“No madam. We just come salute this oga.”
At this point the normal courtesies which the prevalence of armed robberies had virtually banished from Bassa could no longer be denied, Ikem and Elewa moved back into the room and the visitors followed them in.
“Ah, madam I no know say I go find you here, self.”
“Why you no go find me here? This man na your sister husband?”
“No madam I no mean am like that.”
“Don’t worry, Na joke I de joke. Make una sidon. We de go out before but you fit sidon small.”
By this time Ikem had realized who one of the visitors was—the taxi driver who had taken Elewa home late one evening about a week ago. But why he should be back now with another man and smiling profusely like an Air Kangan passenger who has achieved a boarding pass, was still a mystery. Elewa put it a little differently.
“When I see you smiling like person wey win raffle I say: who be this again? Then my brain just make krim and I remember… Who your friend be?”
“My friend de drive taxi like myself and he be member for Central Committee of Taxi Driver Union.”
“Welcome.”
“Thank you madam. Thank you oga.”
“Even na this my friend tell me that day say na oga be Editor of Gazette. Wonderful! And me I no know that.”
“How you go know? You de read paper?”
“Ah, Madam I de try read small. The thing we this oga de write na waa. We like am plenty.”
“Tell me one thing you done read.”
“Ah. How I go begin count. The thing oga write too plenty. But na for we small people he de write every time. I no sabi book but I sabi say na for we this oga de fight, not for himself. He na big man. Nobody fit do fuckall to him. So he fit stay for him house, chop him oyibo chop, drink him cold beer, put him air conditioner and forget we. But he no do like that. So we come salute am.”
“Thank you very much,” said Ikem deeply touched. “Can I offer you a drink of something?”
“Don’t worry sir,” they said. They knew he was going out and must not delay him too much. It was then the real story of the visit came out. This man was not only the driver who drove Elewa home from here that evening over a week ago. He was by the strangest of coincidences the driver Ikem got into a bizarre contest with for a tiny space of road in a dreadful traffic jam. And now he had come, and brought a friend along, to make an apology!
“Oh my God. You don’t owe me any apology. None whatsoever. I should apologize to you, my friend.”
Ikem walked up to him to shake his hand but he offered not one but both his hands as a mark of respect. The trade unionist did the same.
Ikem felt awkward, but also in a strange way, somehow elated. It was uncomfortable to be reminded that with his education and all that he could so easily get embroiled in a completely ridiculous fight with a taxi-driver. The elation came perhaps from this rare human contact across station and class with these two who had every cause to feel hatred but came instead with friendship, acting out spontaneously and without self-righteousness what their betters preach so often but so seldom practise.
Apparently it was the trade unionist who was in the car behind the car behind Ikem in the traffic and it was he who recognized Ikem as he turned
into the Presidential Palace and promptly told the other; and the two decided on a visit of apology immediately. But it had taken them all this time to track down Ikem’s address, only to discover that one of them had been there so recently. Na God him work, was the way he summed up the string of coincidences.
The trade unionist who had so far played only a supporting role to his friend now spoke up:
“I want answer that question which Madam ask my friend: to call one thing we done read for Gazette. Me self I fit call hundred things but time no dey. So I go talk about the one every taxi-driver know well well. Before before, the place where we get Central Taxi Park for Slaughterhouse Road de smell pass nyarsh. Na there every cattle them want kill come pass him last shit, since time dem born my grandfather. Na him this oga take him pen write, write, write sotay City Council wey de sleep come wake up and bring bulldozer and throway every rubbish and clean the place well well. So that if you park your taxi there you no fit get bellyache like before, or cover your nose with cloth. Even the place so clean now that if the akara wey you de chop fall down for road you fit pick am up and throw for mouth. Na this oga we sidon quiet so na him do am. Na him make I follow my friend come salute am. Madam, I beg you, make you de look am well. Na important personality for this country.”
“Make you no worry for that,” said his friend, “Madam de look am well well. That day I come pick madam from here I think say them make small quarrel…”
“Shut your mouth. Who tell you say we de make small quarrel?”
“Madam, I no need for somebody to tell me when man and woman make small quarrel. When you see the woman eye begin de flash like ambulance you go know. But that day when I de vex because oga shine torch for my eye the same madam wey de grumble come tell me not to worry because the oga can talk sharp but na very kind man. No be so you tell me as we drive for night?” Elewa nodded.
“But why you no tell me at the same time say na Editor of Gazette?”
“Why I go tell you? And if I tell you wetin you go do with am? Illiteracy de read paper for your country?”
“Wonderful! You no see say because you no tell me, I come make another big mistake. If I for know na such big oga de for my front for that go-slow how I go come make such wahala for am? I de craze? But the thing wey confuse me properly well be that kind old car wey he come de drive. I never see such! Number one, the car too old; number two, you come again de drive am yourself. Wonderful! So how I fit know na such big man de for my front? I just think this I-go-drive-myself na some jagajaga person wey no fit bring out money to pay driver, and come block road for everybody. To God, na so I think.”
“Never mind,” said Ikem. “That wahala for road no be such bad thing as he come make us friends now for house.”
“That na true, oga. Wonderful!”
As he drove to Mad Medico’s place that afternoon Ikem turned over and over in his mind one particular aspect of the visit of the taxi-driver and his friend—how it seemed so important to him to explain his failure to recognize an admired “personality” like Ikem; and how adroitly he had shifted the guilt for this failure round to the very same object of admiration for driving a battered old Datsun instead of a Mercedes and for driving with his own hands instead of sitting in the owner’s corner and being driven. So in the midst of all their fulsome and perfectly sincere praise of Ikem those two also managed to sneak in a couple of body-blows.
Ikem could understand well enough the roots of the paradox in which a man’s personal choice to live simply without such trimmings as chauffeurs could stamp him not as a modest and exemplary citizen but as a mean-minded miser denying a livelihood to one unemployed driver out of hundreds and thousands roaming the streets—a paradox so perverse in its implications as to justify the call for the total dismantling of the grotesque world in which it grows—and flourishes.
But even in such a world how does one begin to explain the downtrodden drivers’ wistful preference for a leader driving not like themselves in a battered and spluttering vehicle but differently, stylishly in a Mercedes and better still with another downtrodden person like themselves for a chauffeur? Perhaps a root-and-branch attack would cure that diseased tolerance too, a tolerance verging on admiration by the trudging-jigger-toed oppressed for the Mercedes-Benz-driving, private-jet-flying, luxury-yacht-cruising oppressor. An insistence by the oppressed that his oppression be performed in style! What half-way measures could hope to cure that? No, it had to be full measure, pressed down and flowing over! Except that in dictatorships of the proletariat where roots have already been dug up and branches hacked away, an atavistic tolerance seems to linger, quite unexpectedly, for the stylishness of dachas and special shops etc. etc., for the revolutionary elite. Therefore what is at issue in all this may not be systems after all but a basic human failing that may only be alleviated by a good spread of general political experience, slow of growth and obstinately patient like the young tree planted by David Diop on the edge of the primeval desert just before the year of wonders in which Africa broke out so spectacularly in a rash of independent nation states!
When finally Ikem’s thoughts broke out into words seeking Elewa’s view on the matter her response was sharply and decisively on the side of basic nature and the taxi-drivers:
“I no tell you that before say this kind car wey you get de make person shame. To day he no get battery, tomorrow him tyre burst. I done talk say if you no want bring money for buy better car why you no take one good Peugeot from office as others de do and take one driver make he de drive am for you. Your own work different than other people? No be the same government work? Me I no understand am-o.”
11
THE SENSE OF EXHILARATION which had descended on Ikem after the taxi-drivers’ visit stayed with him all afternoon and into the night, a night in which Elewa, touched by the flame of this novel excitement opened to him new reserves of tenderness exceptional even for her. Back now from driving her home he brewed himself a strong cup of black coffee to ward off physical languor from the precincts of his charged and alert mind and sat back to think. In such situations much of his thinking came in strong, even exaggerated, images.
He saw himself as an explorer who has just cleared a cluster of obstacles in an arduous expedition to earn as a result the conviction, more by intuition perhaps than logic, that although the final goal of his search still lies hidden beyond more adventures and dangers, the puzzles just unravelled point unambiguously to inevitable success.
The drivers’ visit was probably not the cause but only the occasion of this sense of thrill and expectancy—a culmination perhaps of several related events beginning with the happenings of last Friday. Or perhaps it merely triggered an awareness going far, far back in his subconscious mind waiting like a dormant seed in the dry season soil for the green-fingered magician, the first rain.
In any event he had always had the necessity in a vague but insistent way, had always felt a yearning without very clear definition, to connect his essence with earth and earth’s people. The problem for him had never been whether it should be done but how to do it with integrity.
At some point he had assumed, quite naively, that public affairs so-called might provide the handle he needed. But his participation in these affairs had yielded him nothing but disenchantment and a final realization of the incongruity of the very term “public” as applied to those affairs shrouded as they are in the mist of unreality and floating above and away from the lives and concerns of ninety-nine percent of the population. Public affairs! They are nothing but the closed transactions of soldiers-turned-politicians, with their cohorts in business and the bureaucracy. Ikem could not even guarantee now that his own limited participation had not been fatally flawed. His most poignant editorials such as his condemnation of the human blood sport called public execution; his general dissatisfaction with government policies; his quarrels and arguments with Chris; everything now began to take on the vaporous haze of a mirage.
Of course, he admitted bitterly, we
always take the precaution of invoking the people’s name in whatever we do. But do we not at the same time make sure of the people’s absence, knowing that if they were to appear in person their scarecrow presence confronting our pious invocations would render our words too obscene even for sensibilities as robust as ours?
The prime failure of this government began also to take on a clearer meaning for him. It can’t be the massive corruption though its scale and pervasiveness are truly intolerable; it isn’t the subservience to foreign manipulation, degrading as it is; it isn’t even this second-class, hand-me-down capitalism, ludicrous and doomed; nor is it the damnable shooting of striking railway-workers and demonstrating students and the destruction and banning thereafter of independent unions and cooperatives. It is the failure of our rulers to re-establish vital inner links with the poor and dispos- sessed of this country, with the bruised heart that throbs painfully at the core of the nation’s being.
Naive romantics would have us believe that this heart at the core is in perfect health. How could it be? Sapped by regimes of parasites, ignorant of so many basic things though it does know some others; crippled above all by this perverse kindliness towards oppression conducted with panache! How could it be in perfect health? Impossible! But despite its many flaws this can be said for it that it does possess an artless integrity, a stubborn sense of community which can enable Elewa to establish so spontaneously with the driver a teasing affectionateness beyond the powers of Ikem.
How then, he asked himself, how can he partake of this source of stability and social meaning? Not (again as the romantics would have him do) by pretending to be like the poor; by wearing specially and expensively aged and patched jeans in mockery of their tatters. Why should he add to the insults they already bear? How then?
What about renouncing my own experience, needs and knowledge? But could I? And should I? I could renounce needs perhaps, but experience and knowledge, how? There seems no way I can become like the poor except by faking. What I know, I know for good or ill. So for good or ill I shall remain myself; but with this deliberate readiness now to help, and be helped. Like those complex, multivalent atoms in biochemistry books I have arms that reach out in all directions—a helping hand, a hand signalling for help. With one I shall touch the earth and leave another free to wave to the skies.