We had an excellent dinner of rice, ripe plantains and fried fish. Elsie, looking ripe and ready in a shimmering yellow dress, took us back to the President of the Writers’ Association and his funny garb. I found myself putting up a feeble kind of defence.
“Writers and artists sometimes behave that way,” I said.
“I think he will heed my advice,” said Chief Nanga. “He is a well-comported young man.”
This surprised me a great deal. I suppose it was Jalio’s flattering words in introducing the Minister that did it; or more likely Chief Nanga had not missed the almost deferential manner in which one of the ambassadors had approached Jalio with a copy of his book for an autograph. I remember looking at Chief Nanga then and seeing astonishment and unbelief on his face, but I did not think it was enough to persuade him to call Jalio “a well-comported young man” so soon after their clash.
The words “well-comported” struck me almost as forcibly as the sentiment they conveyed. I couldn’t say whether it was right or wrong, and in any case you felt once again that such distinctions didn’t apply here. Chief Nanga was one of those fortunate ones who had just enough English (and not one single word more) to have his say strongly, without inhibition, and colourfully. I remember his telling me of a “fatal accident” he once had driving from Anata to Bori. Since he was alive I had assumed that someone else had been killed. But as the story unfolded I realized that “fatal” meant no more than “very serious”.
I retired soon after dinner so that the others might take the cue. And Elsie did. The second time I peeped out she was no longer there in the sitting-room. But Chief Nanga sat on stolidly looking at the file of the speech he had already given. Every two minutes or so I came to the door and peeped out and there he was. Could he be asleep? No, his eyes seemed to be moving across the page. I was getting quite angry. Why didn’t he take the blessed file to his study? But perhaps what hurt me most was the fact that I could not muster up sufficient bravado to step into the sitting-room and up the stairs. Perhaps he even expected me to do so. Let me say that I do not normally lack resolution in this kind of situation; but Chief Nanga had, as it were, cramped my style from the very first by introducing an element of delicacy into the affair, thus making it not so much a question of my own resolution as of my willingness to parade Elsie before a third person as a common slut. So there was nothing for it but wait in anger. I sat on my bed, got up again and paced my room barefoot and in pajamas.
It seemed a full hour before Chief Nanga finally switched the lights off and turned in. I gave him about five to ten minutes to settle down in his bed while I had time to steady myself from the strain of the last hour and the unsettling effect which imminent fulfilment always has on me. Then I began to tiptoe upstairs running my palm up the wooden railing for guidance. By the time I got to the landing my eyes were fairly at home in the darkness and it was easy finding Elsie’s door. My hand was already on the knob when I heard voices within. I was transfixed to the spot. Then I heard laughter and immediately turned round and went down the stairs again. I did not go into my room straight away but stood for long minutes in the sitting-room. What went on in my mind at that time lacked form and I cannot now set it down. But I remember finally deciding that I was jumping to conclusions, that Chief Nanga had in all probability simply opened the connecting door between the two rooms to say good-night and exchange a few pleasantries. I decided to give him a minute or two more, and then discarding this pussy-footed business go up boldly and knock on Elsie’s door. I went back to my room to wait, switched on the bedside lamp which was worked by a short silvery rope instead of a normal switch, looked at my watch which I had taken off and put on a bedside stool. It was already past half-past ten. This stung me into activity again. I hadn’t thought it was so late. I rushed into the sitting-room and made to bound up the stairs when I heard as from a great distance Elsie deliriously screaming my name.
I find it difficult in retrospect to understand my inaction at that moment. A sort of paralysis had spread over my limbs, while an intense pressure was building up inside my chest. But before it reached raging point I felt it siphoned off, leaving me empty inside and out. I trudged up the stairs in the incredible delusion that Elsie was calling on me to come and save her from her ravisher. But when I got to the door a strong revulsion and hatred swept over me and I turned sharply away and went down the stairs for the last time.
I sat on my bed and tried to think, with my head in my hands. But a huge sledgehammer was beating down on my brain as on an anvil and my thoughts were scattering sparks. I soon realized that what was needed was action; quick, sharp action. I rose to my feet and willed myself about gathering my things into the suitcase. I had no clear idea what I would do next, but for the moment that did not trouble me; the present loomed so large. I brought down my clothes one at a time from the wardrobe, folded them and packed them neatly; then I brought my things from the bathroom and put them away. These simple operations must have taken me a long time to complete. In all that time I did not think anything particularly. I just bit my lower lip until it was sore. Occasionally words like “Good Heavens” escaped me and came out aloud. When I had finished packing I slumped down in the chair and then got up again and went out into the sitting-room to see if the sounds were still coming. But all was now dark and quiet upstairs. “My word!” I remember saying; then I went to wait for Elsie. For I knew she would come down shedding tears of shame and I would kick her out and bang the door after her for ever. I waited and waited and then, strange as it may sound, dozed off. When I started awake I had that dull, heavy terror of knowing that something terrible had happened without immediately remembering what it was. Of course the uncertainty lasted only one second, or less. Recollection and panic followed soon enough and then the humiliating wound came alive again and began to burn more fresh than when first inflicted. My watch said a few minutes past four. And Elsie had not come. My eyes misted, a thing that had not happened to me in God knows how long. Anyway the tears hung back. I took off my pajamas, got into other clothes and left the room by the private door.
I walked for hours, keeping to the well-lit streets. The dew settled on my head and helped to numb my feeling. Soon my nose began to run and as I hadn’t brought a handkerchief I blew it into the roadside drain by closing each nostril in turn with my first finger. As dawn came my head began to clear a little and I saw Bori stirring. I met a night-soil man carrying his bucket of ordure on top of a battered felt hat drawn down to hood his upper face while his nose and mouth were masked with a piece of black cloth like a gangster. I saw beggars sleeping under the eaves of luxurious department stores and a lunatic sitting wide awake by the basket of garbage he called his possession. The first red buses running empty passed me and I watched the street lights go off finally around six. I drank in all these details with the early morning air. It was strange perhaps that a man who had so much on his mind should find time to pay attention to these small, inconsequential things; it was like the man in the proverb who was carrying the carcass of an elephant on his head and searching with his toes for a grasshopper. But that was how it happened. It seems that no thought—no matter how great—had the power to exclude all others.
As I walked back to the house I tried in vain to find the kind of words I needed to speak to Chief Nanga. As for Elsie I should have known that she was a common harlot and the less said about her the better.
Chief Nanga was outside his gate apparently looking out for me when I came round the last bend. He happened just then to be looking in the opposite direction and did not see me at once. My first reaction on seeing him was to turn back. Fortunately I did not give in to that kind of panic; in any case he turned round just then, saw me and began to come towards me.
“Where have you been, Odili?” he asked. “We—I—have been looking for you; I nearly phoned nine-nine-nine.”
“Please don’t talk to me again,” I said.
“What . . . ! Wonders will never end! What is wrong, Odili?”
“I said don’t talk to me again,” I replied as coolly as possible.
“Wonders will never end! Is it about the girl? But you told me you are not serious with her; I asked you because I don’t like any misunderstanding. . . . And I thought you were tired and had gone to sleep . . .”
“Look here, Mr Nanga, respect yourself. Don’t provoke me any more unless you want our names to come out in the newspapers today.” Even to myself I sounded strange. Chief Nanga was really taken aback, especially when I called him mister.
“You have won today,” I continued, “but watch it, I will have the last laugh. I never forget.”
Elsie was standing at the door with arms folded across her bust when I came in at the gate. She immediately rushed indoors and disappeared.
When I brought out my suitcase Chief Nanga, who had not said another word since I insulted him, came forward and tried to put a hand on my shoulder in one last effort at reconciliation.
“Don’t touch me!” I eased my shoulders away like one avoiding a leper’s touch. He immediately recoiled; his smile hardened on his face and I was happy.
“Don’t be childish, Odili,” he said paternally. “After all she is not your wife. What is all this nonsense? She told me there is nothing between you and she, and you told me the same thing . . . But anyway I am sorry if you are offended; the mistake is mine. I tender unreserved apology. If you like I can bring you six girls this evening. You go do the thing sotay you go beg say you no want again. Ha, ha, ha, ha!”
“What a country!” I said. “You call yourself Minister of Culture. God help us.” And I spat; not a full spit but a token, albeit unmistakable, one.
“Look here, Odili,” he turned on me then like an incensed leopard, “I will not stomach any nonsense from any small boy for the sake of a common woman, you hear? If you insult me again I will show you pepper. You young people of today are very ungrateful. Imagine! Anyway don’t insult me again-o. . . .”
“You can’t do a damn-all,” I said. “You are just a bush . . .” I cut myself short and walked out, lumbering my suitcase past Dogo the one-eyed stalwart who had presumably heard our voices and come out from the Boys’ Quarters in his sleeping loin-cloth to investigate.
“Na this boy de halla so for master im face?” I heard him ask.
“Don’t mind the stupid idiot,” said Chief Nanga.
?
??E no fit insult master like that here and comot free. Hey! My frien’!” he shouted, coming after me. “Are you there?” His voice was full of menace.