Waiting for his luggage in the hot, humid terminal, Mahatma studied the crowd forming in an adjacent room. Through the glass, he saw many people staring at him. Children too. Why were all those children at the airport? Shoeless, shirtless, they certainly weren’t there to travel. He saw them clapping; he could hear them singing some strange and happy song; he could also hear the drum of tam-tams. Finally, he spotted Yoyo, waving wildly. Mahatma waved back. Yoyo pounded the window.
Mahatma touched Sandra. “Look. There’s Yoyo!” She jumped up and waved in a funny motion that only North Americans make, moving the hand like a windshield wiper. The children’s chanting grew louder. Mahatma grabbed Sandra, who leaned against him excitedly. “Those kids! They’re here to welcome us!”
“No way,” said Edward Slade, who had already entered into his notebook that beggars had jammed the airport.
They were swept past customs. In the next room, two men rushed up to greet the mayor and Sandra. Yoyo pumped Mahatma’s hand. “Mon ami, welcome to Cameroon, which is my country and yours!” Yoyo greeted the other Canadians with equal warmth. Slade said he needed to get to a phone immediately. “A telephone?” Yoyo repeated. “A little later, my friend.”
“I have a deadline and—”
“Soon, Edward, very soon,” Yoyo promised. He skipped ahead to welcome the mayor.
A man on a platform silenced the crowd. Yoyo led the mayor, Sandra and Mahatma onto the platform with three Cameroonian officials. Hundreds of people surrounded the platform. Barefoot children. Men dressed in large African boubous, women wrapped in multicoloured pagnes and bearing platters of fruit and drinks on their heads. Mahatma counted one hundred heads in a section that he judged to be one-tenth of the entire crowd. He scribbled: “one thousand people greet Novak at airport.” Someone introduced the mayor to the crowd. “Un très très grand canadien, Son Excellence le Maire de Winnipeg!” The crowd exploded with applause and tam-tam drumming. The man motioned again for silence, which followed immediately. “Et son assistante, Mademoiselle Sandra Paquette!” Again the crowd exploded. “Et le célèbre journaliste canadien, Monsieur Mahatma Grafton!” Again the crowd went nuts.
Edward Slade knew little French, but he understood that this guy had just called Grafton “a celebrated Canadian journalist.”
Hundreds of children broke out in a song. They sang at the top of their voices, wonderfully pitched, laughing, loving little voices, singing something whose message of friendship any foreigner could divine:
Bokele, bokele bo,
bokele, bokele bo, Canada!
bokele, bokele bo.
Bokele, bokele bo,
bokele, bokele bo, Cameroon!
bokele, bokele bo.
The African officials on stage began singing. The mayor joined in. So did Sandra. Mahatma saw a clutch of radiant children waving at him and, despite the piercing stare from Slade, Mahatma sang. He sang along with his thousand hosts. It was a delightfully happy melody. This contrast, more than any other, would stay with Mahatma during his week-long stay in Yaoundé. In Canada, airport crowds fought for taxis and luggage carts. In Cameroon, they sang.
They sang another song. And a third. A man on stage welcomed the Canadians in the name of His Excellency the Mayor Boubacar Fotso, the city of Yaoundé and the entire country of Cameroon. The man then conferred with his colleagues, the crowd grew talkative and boisterous, the Canadians on stage fidgeted and waited, and nobody seemed to know what would happen next. Suddenly the emcee broke out of a huddle with his colleagues and called out in French for the other Canadians to come up on stage. Yoyo translated. Susan and Bob mounted the platform, but Edward Slade refused.
An official in a long blue boubou approached him. “You don’t wish to join your colleagues on stage?”
“They’re not my colleagues. They’re my competition.”
The African scratched his head. “You don’t like Cameroon?”
“It’s not that. I’m here as a reporter. That’s all.”
A second official conferred with the first.
“He doesn’t wish to go onstage?”
“No. He says he’s a reporter and that he doesn’t like Cameroon.”
The second man clucked with his tongue and led the first one away.
Slade watched them go. It wasn’t his fault if they couldn’t understand English. Look at them! Slade whipped out his notepad. Two men walking hand-in-hand. Not even ashamed! Slade saw other men doing the same. He wrote, “Homosexuals uninhibited in Yaoundé airport!” He underlined this observation. He had a great idea! He could write about sexual diseases in Yaoundé. AIDS in Africa.
Leaving the stage, the Canadians were mobbed by children. Susan scooped a little boy up in her arms. “Isn’t he a darling!”
Something tugged at Mahatma’s leg. Engaged in conversation with an official, he ignored it. The tug made itself felt again. “Papa!” cried a little voice. Mahatma looked down. A shirtless, shoeless boy with a bald head and ebony disks for irises again closed his fist around Mahatma’s pant leg and called up, “Papa!”
Before Mahatma and the other Canadian journalists were led from the airport, four Cameroonians—including two local reporters—stunned Mahatma by asking him about “the famous” Jake Corbett.
John Novak and Sandra Paquette snacked with His Excellency, a corpulent, middle-aged man with a booming laugh and quick eyes. Afterwards, the mayors retired to another room, leaving Sandra to wait in His Excellency’s office. Sandra yawned. She tried reading, but her eyes hurt. She wondered what the reporters were doing. Sleeping, probably! Sandra put her book down and fell asleep on a couch. She was awakened by His Excellency’s baritone chuckle.
“She’s a lazy one, a real sleepyhead,” His Excellency joked to Novak.
Sandra stared at her boss. Novak said, “We’re both quite tired.”
“Absolutely,” said His Excellency. “My driver will take you to the Hotel Kennedy. He’ll pick you up in time for the press conference.”
The Hotel Kennedy, however, had only reserved one room for the mayor of Winnipeg. It had not been informed about his assistant and had no room for her. Nor did any other hotels in town. Sandra was put up with the reporters in the university dormitory.
Murmurings, excited squeals and hissing sounds slowly drew Mahatma out of his nap. At first, he didn’t know where he was. Then he did. The hissing resumed. Every few seconds, it came like a brief rush of water. Between each rush came the murmurings and squeals. It was a delightful chain of sounds: water, laughter, then water again. Mahatma climbed out of bed, swept aside the curtains and leaned out his window. He saw a valley of brilliant green and a red clay road connecting earthen, box-like homes.
Directly below his second-storey window, boys conferred under a mammoth tree. It was pregnant with mangoes. Every few seconds, a boy would hurl a stone up into the foliage, aiming for the peduncle linking a fruit to a branch. Mahatma stood at the window for fifteen minutes, mesmerized by the boys, their excited gestures and their strange language, which he couldn’t understand, except for numbers of felled mangoes, which were called out in French. Deux. Trois. Quatre. Cinq mangues!
Somebody knocked at his door. Yoyo had brought food for Mahatma and his fellow journalists. He brought baguettes and spicy chunks of goat meat bundled in paper, and short, thick bananas twice as thick and tasty as those sold in Canada—and four bottles of Sprite. The Canadians devoured the food and pumped Yoyo with questions. Edward Slade asked, “Where are the phones?” Susan asked, “Who is that cute guy across the hall?”
Mahatma asked, “What do we do next?”
“Bananas make me constipated,” Bob mumbled.
“Would you all shut up and let Yoyo talk?” Slade said.
Yoyo said he would take them later to the bank. Then they could file their stories from the telecommunications building. Then, time permitting, they could sight-see. Then attend a press conference. Then attend a banquet and dance at the mayor’s residence.
“Coul
dn’t we just file our stories and come back here to sleep?” Bob whined.
Yoyo was amazed. “But you can sleep in Canada, my friend! Surely you didn’t come all this way to sleep?”
Slade asked, “Where’s the mayor? Where’s Sandra?”
“The mayor is sleeping at his hotel. Sandra has a room in this building…she came in while you were sleeping.”
Mahatma flung open his windows to let in the sunlight and the sound of stones skimming through mango trees. Then he activated his portable computer and wrote two articles. The first described Cameroon’s recent political history. Mahatma mentioned that former president Amadou Ahidjo had steered the country into independence in 1960 and led it for twenty-two years, handing over the reins subsequently to the current leader, Paul Biya. And that Biya, who had quashed an attempted coup in April of this year, now sought visits from foreign dignitaries to reaffirm the government’s credibility. Mahatma tied this into John Novak’s visit, mentioning the welcome at the airport.
Mahatma wrote a second story about enthusiasm in Cameroon for Jake Corbett.
In Canada, he has been jailed, refused service in restaurants and publicly ridiculed.
But in Cameroon, Winnipeg welfare activist Jake Corbett has a hero’s following.
Articles about the 46-year-old anti-poverty crusader have frequently appeared on the front page of the biggest newspaper in Cameroon—to which Corbett has never travelled. And local journalists are anxious to discuss “the Corbett case” with visiting Canadians.
Having finished his work, Mahatma chatted with Jean-Paul Gribi, the building janitor, until it was time to go to the bank and the telecommunications building. Speaking to Yoyo as he left the dormitory area, Mahatma expressed surprise that Gribi had such a wide range of interests. In a ten-minute exchange, Gribi had wanted to discuss Castro’s revolution in Cuba, problems facing Canadian wheat farmers and Sino-Soviet relations.
Yoyo asked, “Does he have a transistor radio?”
“Yes! He was holding one while we talked.”
“Then he has been listening to Radio Yaoundé. It has explored all those themes lately.”
Yoyo hailed a taxi and the reporters crowded in. Mahatma, who sat up front with Yoyo, looked out at the women grilling fish and corn cobs over roadside fires. They passed a woman in a pagne of red cotton swinging an axe into a log held by her bare foot. They passed a man repairing sandals under a sign proclaiming him a shoe doctor. The driver, who avoided potholes with great care, grew excited when Mahatma told him they were Canadians.
“So you know the great Canadian, Jacques Corbeil?”
Yoyo tapped his friend on the shoulder. “He means Jake Corbett.”
“Yes, of course,” Mahatma responded in French, “I know him well.”
“Tell us what you know of him,” Yoyo told the driver.
For the rest of the trip to the mayor’s office, the cab driver recited facts about Jacques Corbeil.
They got out at the bank. Yoyo helped them change their money. Then he took them to the phone building, where they filed stories to Winnipeg. Later, they went to meet his Excellency the Mayor. The reporters were greeted there by the mayor’s deputy executive assistant. This gentleman—a tall, thin fellow wearing a jacket and tie and leather sandals—introduced himself as Pierre somebody. He quickly began, in French, on the rules of protocol. Edward Slade cut him off. “Can’t you do this in English?”
The executive assistant spoke no English. Mahatma translated for him, laying down the rules: His Excellency would entertain questions about friendship between Winnipeg and Yaoundé; he would answer questions about how the two cities intended to deepen ties in the future; and he would accept statistical and historical questions about his country. He would not tolerate questions about his political ideology. And one other thing. The journalists were to write down all their questions now. The mayor would review them, answering as he saw fit.
Bob began writing hurriedly. So did Susan. And Mahatma followed suit. He hoped to get on the agenda and then slip in some extra questions once the mayor loosened up.
Slade growled, “This is bullshit.”
The two mayors entered the room holding hands. His Excellency Boubacar Fotso wore a magnificent African boubou. “Honourable and Esteemed Canadian Journalists,” he began, reading in English from a prepared script. It lasted ten minutes and contained no facts or promises.
Now it was John Novak’s turn. He said he hoped to renew ties with a visit to Winnipeg by Yaoundé’s mayor next spring or summer. He outlined a proposed student exchange program. Slade cut him off.
“Mayor Fotso, will communism solve poverty in Africa?”
The mayor of Yaoundé conferred with his assistant, who spoke to Sandra, who translated for Slade. “You are requested,” she said, “to accord His Excellency due respect.”
“I’m a journalist! I don’t have to kowtow to anybody.”
The mayor of Yaoundé passed another message to Sandra, who said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Slade, but you are asked to leave the premises immediately and not return.”
Slade blanched and walked out silently.
A taxi left him at the Yaoundé police headquarters. He wandered inside, met a uniformed man in the first office and explained what he wanted. The officer said, “Have a seat. My name is Ibrahim Somo. I am the assistant superintendent of police. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Slade fired away, “What sort of crime do you get around here?” He scribbled the answer at a furious pace. Thirty-seven voodoo murders had eluded homicide detectives for years. Also, a lucrative white-slave-trade market involved the kidnapping of foreign diplomats and tourists and, in particular, journalists. The victims were routinely enslaved for five years and then beheaded. And there was more barbarity…
Slade filled half a notebook. What a scoop! What a story! But the assistant superintendent could only spare fifteen minutes.
Slade phoned in his story and decided to follow it up with several more articles under the theme Bloodbath in the Tropics. In one story he could examine the penal system, in another, African techniques of murder detection, and so on.
Don Betts studied the words forming on the computer screen as Mahatma Grafton dictated his stories by telephone to a reporter in The Herald newsroom. So a thousand people sing at the airport! And who wanted to read background on Cameroon? Betts watched Grafton’s second story come onto the screen. Jake Corbett, famous in Africa? Betts waited until Grafton had completed his dictation, then flattened the tape recording suction cup against the earphone of the receiver and picked up the telephone.
“Hi, Hat, Betts here!…Great stuff…First rate…So tell me, what’s going on over there? What kind of place are you staying in?…A run-down university residence? Really! And the mayor’s in a three-star hotel? And the city, what’s it like? God, I wish I could see it!…Pretty, magnificent trees, potholed roads? Potholed roads, huh? You see a lot of poverty in the streets?…Women cooking fish right on the roadside? Really!…Selling to passers-by! Anybody buying?…No kidding!”
Betts didn’t tell Mahatma he was rewriting his copy. He didn’t say he killed the story about Corbett’s fame in Cameroon. He stayed pleasant on the phone. But he exploded the next morning when he saw Slade’s Bloodbath in the Tropics scoop. He left a message at the Yaoundé mayor’s office for Grafton to match Slade’s story immediately.
The previous night, the Canadian contingent—minus Edward Slade—had been invited to a feast at the home of the Yaoundé mayor. Children crowded outside a locked gate to the three-storey residence, staring at the white guests and the perfumed Africans. One lighter-skinned boy latched onto Bob’s leg. “Papa, Papa!” he called out. Bob looked down at the kid hanging onto him. Shaven head. Shirtless. Shoeless. Whites of the eyes catching light from the door. “Papa, donnez-moi dix francs.”
“He wants ten francs,” Mahatma said.
“Ten francs?” Bob said. “What is that, about three cents?” He found a coin in his pocket and h
anded it down.
“D’ou êtes-vous?” one older boy, around twelve, asked the group. “Canada.”
“We know all about Canada,” the boy said. He and his friends went into a huddle, their animated voices ringing out in French and Bamileke. Then they burst apart and began clapping in unison and shouting out a roll call, led by the first boy: “Le Président, Pierre Trudeau. Son Excellence le maire, Monsieur Novaque. Et le grand héro canadien, Jacques Corbeil!!!”
His Excellency’s chauffeur ran to the scene, kicking the children.
“Hey, take it easy,” Susan shouted at the driver.
He ignored her. “Allez vous-en, foutez-nous la paix!” The youngsters scattered.
Inside, the Canadians were escorted up to a balcony overlooking a valley. Mahatma, the mayor and Sandra were placed at a table with the mayor of Yaoundé and the elder of his two wives. A visiting mayor from the city of Bafoussam joined them later at the table, shaking hands with Mahatma and asking if Sandra were his wife.
Mahatma, embarrassed, said no.
“Alors vous êtes des amants comme ça?” the Bafoussam mayor asked.
Sandra cleared her throat.
The mayor of Yaoundé corrected his colleague. “This is Sandra Paquette. She is Monsieur Novak’s assistant.”
They were given a feast of the likes that Mahatma had never seen. They started with braised fish fillets in an explosive chili sauce. The mayor of Bafoussam jokingly dubbed the spices “des piments de crocodile.” In an aside to Mahatma, he nodded suggestively downward and said that eating lots of them would give him strength “en-bas, vous comprenez, là où vous êtes un homme.” The mackerel was followed by plantains fried in palm oil and served up as hot chips, which were sweeter than bananas. After the plantains came chicken breasts served in peanut sauce, rice wrapped in vine leaves, cassava sticks, lettuce smothered by tomatoes and avocado. Finally, they had coffee, madeleines and liqueurs. The feast lasted three hours. Conversation flowed between each course; indeed, each mouthful. The Cameroonians expressed great interest in Mahatma.