“Yes, sir.”
“What is that you are reading?” He held out The Sorrows of Satan, one finger of his left hand still thrust into it to mark the page. I sat down.
“Is Edna in?”
“No, sir.”
“What . . . ? Who did I see as I came up?”
He mumbled something confusedly.
“Go and call her!”
He stood where he was, looking on the floor.
“I said go and call her!” I shouted, rising to my feet. He made no move.
“All right,” I said. “Edna!” I bawled out loud enough for the entire village to hear. She immediately came hurrying back.
What the hell is all this, or words to that effect, were on the tip of my tongue; but I wasn’t allowed to say them. Edna wore a tightened-bow countenance you couldn’t have thought possible on that face, and her tongue when she spoke (which was immediately) stung into me like the tail of a scorpion. I recoiled, tongue-tied.
“Some men have no shame. Can’t you go and look for your own woman instead of sneaking around here? My father has told you to stop coming here, or have you come to pick up some gossip for your friend Mrs Nanga? A big fellow like you should be ashamed of gossiping like a woman. Errand boy, go and tell her I will marry Chief Nanga. Let her come and jump on my back if she can. As for you, why don’t you go back to your prostitute-woman in Bori instead of wasting your time here? I have been respecting you for the sake of Chief Nanga, but if you make the mistake of coming here again I will tell you that my name is Edna Odo”—She turned to go, stopped again, called me “Mr Gossiper” in English and rushed away. . . .
“You better go before Dogo comes back. He says he will castrate you.” This was from the boy, and it came after I had been standing rooted to the ground for I don’t know how long. Dogo? Dogo? Who was he? I thought sluggishly like a slowed up action film. . . . Oh yes, Dogo the one-eyed bull. So he was guarding her. Well, well, good luck to them!
The first shock, the tightening in the throat passed very quickly, certainly by the time I had reversed my car and headed off. In retrospect my behaviour and reaction seemed to have broken all the rules in the book. I should have driven away in a daze, but I didn’t. On the contrary my mind was as clear as daylight. The injustice of Edna’s incoherent accusations most of which I couldn’t even remotely relate to myself or anything I knew did not make me angry. Neither did the terrible thought that Chief Nanga had won the second round. What I felt was sadness—a sadness deep and cool like a well, into which my hopes had fallen; my twin hopes of a beautiful life with Edna and of a new era of cleanliness in the politics of our country.
A thought sneaked into my mind and told me it was futile now to try and go through with my political plans which in all honesty I should admit had always been a little nebulous—until Edna came along. She had been like a dust particle in the high atmosphere around which the water vapour of my thinking formed its globule of rain.
But I knew I would not heed that counsel, wherever it came from. The knowledge that Chief Nanga had won the first two rounds and, on the present showing, would win the third and last far from suggesting thoughts of surrender to my mind served to harden my resolution. What I had to accomplish became more than another squabble for political office; it rose suddenly to the heights of symbolic action, a shining, monumental gesture untainted by hopes of success or reward.
Chief Nanga moved swiftly and, as you would expect, ruthlessly. I was listening on my new portable transistor radio to the twelve o’clock news on the following Sunday morning. Those days I did not miss a single news bulletin. If I was likely not to be home at twelve, four, six or ten, I took my radio with me. It was a fine Japanese affair, no bigger than a camera, with an ear-piece which meant you could insulate yourself from the noisiest of surroundings. If I was driving somewhere I would park on the roadside until the news was over.
There were two reasons why I listened so avidly. In the first place news-thirst becomes a craving for every political activist, a kind of occupational disease. Secondly I wanted to keep a close watch on the antics of our national radio system which incidentally had not so far said a single word about the existence of our new party even though we had kept them fully informed of our activities. My Boniface and the others soon developed the same news-thirst, only they never did seem able to listen with their ears alone; they must pass their very loud comment at the same time, which was very distracting to me especially as their understanding of the news was sketchy and often fantastically distorted. So I began to cut them off by using the ear gadget.
“A-a, weting happen to the news?” asked puzzled Boniface the first time I played this trick.
“Radio done spoil,” I said. “I just de hear am small for my ear now.”
“We must go repairam,” he said. “E no good make man de for darkness.”
Two days later I had relented. I told them I had repaired the radio myself which impressed them a lot. The fact was I had begun to feel mean about cutting my faithful companions from their source of light. But also I had been missing Boniface’s “Tief-man”, “Foolis-man” and similar invective aimed at Chief Nanga and his ministerial colleagues whenever their names came up in the news—which was about every five seconds at normal peaceful times and much more frequently in these critical days.
But to return to the Sunday morning. I was listening in the outbuilding with the cynical amusement to which our radio station had now made me accustomed. I no longer had hopes of our latest story ever being used. I had thought that, with the telegram I had sent them on Friday, they would have been forced into giving us a brief mention. After all it was the first public appearance of a new party, the C.P.C., and the tacit support given my candidature by my village ought not to go unrecorded. True enough, my village was only one out of several in the constituency and their action might not affect the final verdict but what they had done was news by any definition of that word known to the civilized world.
But once more I listened in vain. Instead they announced Chief Nanga’s inaugural campaign which had not even taken place! It was to happen on Monday week in Anata. Perhaps I should go and see it.
I was dully thinking about this when my father’s name coming out of the radio stung me into full life. It was announced that Mr Hezekiah Samalu, chairman of P.O.P. in Urua, had been “ignominiously removed from his office for subversive, anti-party activities, according to an announcement received this morning from the P.O.P. Bureau of Investigation and Publicity”.
I rushed into the main house and broke the news to my father who was then eating pounded yams and pepper soup at his small round table. He swallowed the ball of food in his hand and licked the soup from his fingers. I thought he was then going to say something. But he only shrugged his shoulders, drew out hi
s lower lip in a gesture which said eloquently “Their own palaver, not mine”, and continued eating.
The next day, however, the palaver came closer home. The local council Tax Assessment Officer brought him a reassessed figure based not only on his known pension of eighty-four pounds a year but on an alleged income of five hundred pounds derived from “business”.
“What business?” everyone asked. But there was no time to explain. In the evening three local council policemen looking like “wee-wee” or marijuana smokers came to arrest him and in fact proceeded to manhandle him. I had to find twenty-four pounds fairly smartly; fortunately I had just enough C.P.C. money in the house to cover it. I threatened to take the matter up and the rascals laughed in my face. “Na only up you go take am?” asked their leader. “If I be you I go take am down too, when I done finish take am up. Turn you back make I see the nyarsh you go take fight Nanga.”
“Foolis-man,” said one of the others as they left.