“You mean to say dem no tell you? Wonderful! Na for President Guest House for Abichi Lake na there dem say make I take you. And dat must correct because why? the President been de there since yesterday. He no dey for Palace at all.”
The strange feelings I had been nursing since Thursday afternoon now threatened to explode in violent froths of anger as this latest ingredient of insult was dropped with such casualness into the brew. God! Who did this fellow think he was? First he orders me to dinner and rings off before I have had time to express my profound gratitude. Then he doesn’t think it is necessary to warn me that I have a forty-mile journey to make for the privilege! What in heaven’s name was going on in this country?
My first act of rebellion which was to bring a wan smile to my face five minutes later for its sheer futility was to refuse my escort’s offer to sit in the owner’s corner of the black Mercedes standing in my driveway. As he rushed ahead of me and opened and held the door I simply said sorry, walked over to the other side and let myself in. The chauffeur turned sharply round on his seat perhaps to get a good look at today’s eccentric cargo. When I said good evening to him on top of all that, he seemed dazed to begin with and then his bafflement gave way to a wide happy grin which pleased me very much for it confirmed that I had successfully compounded my rebellion—first to spurn a seat of honour and then to greet a mere driver first. That was when I smiled at myself and my puny, empty revolts, the rebellion of a mouse in a cage.
And I recalled Chris’s advice to me to stay cool no matter what. My complaint that the fellow had not even bothered to ask if I was free nor wait for me to accept had merely brought an indulgent smile to Chris’s face. “Look, BB,” he said. “In any country and any language in the world an invitation by the Head of State is a virtual command even when he does not pick up the phone personalty to issue it. So my dear girl you will go and you may do some good. Sam is not such a fool you know. He knows things are now pretty hopeless and may see in you a last hope to extricate himself. You may be able to help.”
“How?”
“My dear, I don’t know. But let’s keep all options open. It’s never too late.”
Chris is damn too reasonable. That’s all I can say. All options? I knew of one at least I would not keep open.
We got to Abichi village and then the lake at about seven-thirty. Although I had been to the Presidential Retreat twice before it was both in daytime. Going up to it now with the great shimmering expanse of the artificial lake waters stretching eastwards into the advancing darkness on your left and the brightly lit avenue taking you slowly skywards in gigantic circles round and up the hill, on top of which the Presidential Retreat perches like a lighthouse, was a movingly beautiful experience even to a mood as frayed and soured as mine that evening. The rumoured twenty million spent on its refurbishment by the present administration since the overthrow of the civilians who had built it at a cost of forty-five million may still be considered irresponsibly extravagant in our circumstances but… But what? Careful now, before you find yourself slowly and secretly leaning towards Chris’s reasonableness!
As a matter of fact he and Ikem had had one of their fierce arguments in my presence over the vast sums spent on the refurbishment of the Retreat. Money, incidentally, which had not been passed through the normal Ministry of Finance procedures. On that occasion I had been totally on the side of Ikem.
“Retreat from what? From whom?” I recall him demanding with characteristic heat. “From the people and their basic needs of water which is free from Guinea worm, of simple shelter and food. That’s what you are retreating from. You retreat up the hill and commune with your cronies and forget the very people who legitimize your authority.”
“Don’t put it on me,” cried Chris. And then he side-stepped the issue completely to produce one of those beautiful historical vignettes his incredibly wide reading and fluency makes him so good at. “Nations,” he said, “were fostered as much by structures as by laws and revolutions. These structures where they exist now are the pride of their nations. But everyone forgets that they were not erected by democratically-elected Prime Ministers but very frequently by rather unattractive, bloodthirsty medieval tyrants. The cathedrals of Europe, the Taj Mahal of India, the pyramids of Egypt and the stone towers of Zimbabwe were all raised on the backs of serfs, starving peasants and slaves. Our present rulers in Africa are in every sense late-flowering medieval monarchs, even the Marxists among them. Do you remember Mazrui calling Nkrumah a Stalinist Czar? Perhaps our leaders have to be that way. Perhaps they may even need to be that way.”
“Bloody reformist,” said Ikem, infuriated and impressed for though he may be a great writer yet when it comes to speaking off the cuff he is no match for Chris.
A pleasant-faced army major searched my handbag at the entrance and another officer took me up a wide and red-carpeted flight of stairs. At the landing a huge open door led into an enormous and opulent room where guests were already settled in. As soon as I had appeared at the door His Excellency had rushed out to meet me, planted a kiss on my forehead and led me by the hand into the room. The guests sat in scattered groups of twos and threes on chairs, settees and pouffes drinking and dipping into bowls of assorted finger-food laid out on stools and on the floor.
“Who don’t we know?” asked the host and without waiting for an answer added: “Let’s start with the ladies.” Meanwhile the men had all struggled to their feet to stand guard, as it were.
“Come and meet Miss Cranford of the American United Press. Lou is in Bassa to see if all the bad news they hear about us in America is true.” The dark-haired girl who would have fitted my stereotype of an Italian beauty if I hadn’t been told she was American was smiling and playing her hand like a pair of cymbals to get them free of salted peanuts in preparation for a hand-shake which when it came would have given her Americanness away for its over-eager firmness. Meanwhile His Excellency was literally reciting my CV. “Lou, this is one of the most brilliant daughters of this country, Beatrice Okoh. She is a Senior Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of Finance—the only person in the service, male or female, with a first-class honours in English. And not from a local university but from Queen Mary College, University of London. Our Beatrice beat the English to their game. We’re very proud of her.”
“Wow,” said Lou. “That’s terrific. How did you do it Beatrice?”
The rest was routine. There were I think eight men and seven women including myself.
Of the men I knew only one reasonably well—Joe Ibe, the Commissioner for Works. When His Excellency got to him and said: “But of course you know Beatrice,” he had replied: “Me? I am sorry sir, I have never seen her before,” which must be about the most predictable and tired of Bassa witticisms and yet it always produced some laughter most of it on this occasion from the humorist himself who immediately added as if to bring everything down again to the literal level of those not bright enough for high humour: “Long time no see, Beatrice. How’s my friend Chris?” To which I replied with my own feeble effort at joke-making: “But I should ask you. You see him more often than I do. He is always at one or other of your meetings.”
&nb
sp; “That’s what he tells you?” And that really cracked everybody up.
“Joe is right, you know,” said His Excellency with a wink. “If I were you I would do spot checks now and again.”
As soon as the introductions were over the American journalist came rushing to me to say she hoped that besides getting acquainted this evening we would be able to sit down somewhere in the next seven days over a meal or something and talk about things in general. Especially the woman’s angle, you know. To which I replied rather sharply that I couldn’t see what a reporter who could stroll in any time and get it all direct from the horse’s mouth could want to hear from the likes of me. Involuntarily perhaps her eyes narrowed into a fighting squint for the briefest moment and then just as swiftly changed tactics back to friendliness.
“I won’t leave the country now without talking to you,” she said. “Not after all the things I’ve just heard. It’s a promise!” And she moved off and left me in peace for the moment.
I knew I had been unduly shrill in our brief exchange. But I seemed not to be fully in control of my responses. Something tougher than good breeding had edged it aside in a scuffle deep inside me and was imparting to my casual words the sharp urgency of incantation. I assumed to begin with that I was still over-reacting to the abnormal circumstances of my invitation to the party and remembered Chris’s advice to remain calm. To his shade I promised now to try harder.
So these were the new power-brokers around His Excellency! I was seeing the controversial Director of SRC at close quarters for the first time and did not, as I might have expected, like him in the least. He is youngish and good-looking, and strong in a vaguely disagreeable way. Perhaps it was those enormous hands of his like a wrestler’s which struck you at once as being oversize even for a man as big as he. I think he feels awkward about them and is constantly shifting them around from beside to behind him and then inside his pockets which of course draws more attention to them. He speaks only when spoken to and then in an absurdly soft voice. And to finish him off finally as far as I was concerned he was so excessively obsequious to His Excellency during the dinner. Was he a guest like the rest of us or some kind of superior steward? He would leave a guest in midsentence and go after the serving crew because a glass somewhere was three-quarters empty.
The Chief of Army Staff was more popularly known, more self-assured and a more agreeable person altogether.
The ladies were the most surprising. They were all over-dressed or perhaps nobody had told them about the informality of the occasion; and none of them had very much to say. These couldn’t be some of the wild and fashionable set that rumour claimed dominated His Excellency’s current party life. Perhaps this drab group was chosen on pathetically incompetent advice to impress the American girl. Wasn’t it conceivable that some daft fellow on the President’s staff seeing so many raving American and American-trained preachers on sponsored religious programmes nightly on television might actually believe that a show of Presidential decorum would be desirable!
The food was simple and tasty. Shrimp cocktail; jollof rice with plantain and fried chicken; and fresh fruit salad or cheese and English crackers for dessert. The wines were excellent but totally wasted on the company, only His Excellency, the American girl and myself showing the slightest interest. The Bassa men stuck as usual to the beer they had been drinking all day; one of the ladies had double gins and lime and the other two a shandy of stout and Seven Up which one of them—Irene, I think her name was—apostrophized as Black Is Beautiful.
His Excellency was a perfect host. From the head of the oval-shaped table he dispensed conviviality and put every one at their ease. Had there been just a little less eagerness on the part of the guests to agree with everything he said and laugh excessively whenever they thought he was making a joke the evening might have been quite remarkable really. He had placed me on his right and the American girl on his left so that we faced each other across a thin end of the oval. On my right was the reticent Major Ossai and across the table from him the Commissioner for Works. The Chief of Army Staff controlled the far end of the table like a second-class chief attentive, whenever required to do so, to the paramount chief but sometimes out on his own quietly filling the gin-and-lime girl with giggles.
The host’s efforts to get the American girl and me talking together failed dismally. I simply couldn’t muster anything you could call enthusiasm to sustain an exchange even with the Head of State chipping in to fan the failing flames. The other, after my initial rebuff was no more than merely polite. Whenever I was not talking to the host I would turn to the gentleman on my right and engage him seemingly in deep exchanges. And he was ideal for my purpose having no greater will for social courtesies than a standby generator has to produce electricity when the mains are performing satisfactorily.