Last Orders at Harrods

by Michael Holman

  Pearson stammered an apology, and looking down at his notebook to refresh his memory, tried to open the interview with the anodyne question he used at most presidential interviews, along the lines of: “What are your greatest achievements since independence?”

  But the president seemed not to have heard, and Pearson began to wonder if the stories about the old man going slightly bonkers were true. Nduka’s eyes were concealed behind his dark glasses, and he seemed preoccupied. Pearson looked desperately at the secretary for help. The man returned his gaze, impassively. Pearson came up with his second question, this time on agriculture. The combination of drought and flood was undoubtedly the main factor in the food shortage, but this happened every year – why should the international donors bail him out?

  There was still no response. Perhaps the question had offended the president? Pearson was about to come up with a third and last attempt to engage the man when Nduka broke his silence, and embarked on an anecdote apropos of nothing, yet one he seemed determined to tell.

  “When I was a young man, indeed, a boy, before Kuwisha became independent,” President Nduka began, “I worked as a kitchen toto.”

  He paused: “You know what a toto is, Pearson? A toto is a little boy who usually works in the house, like an apprentice house steward.”

  Cecil nodded.

  “I worked for a white man called Smiler May, who lived in a small town in the middle of Zimbabwe called Gwelo, now known as Gweru. Other white men had much admiration for Smiler. They said he knew how to manage natives. He knew how to manage natives. I saw it for myself, many times. Whenever his boy Joseph – they called men ‘boys’ in those days,” he chuckled, “whenever his boy got drunk, which I must acknowledge was many times, he gave him a sound thrashing, behind the kia.”

  He broke off, took a sip of water, and continued.

  “The kia, as I assume you know, Pearson, is the small room in which servants live, at the end of the garden.” Cecil nodded.

  “I expect you have a steward?”

  Cecil nodded again.

  “And no doubt a pension scheme for him, and for your other local staff?”

  Cecil shook his head. The president feigned surprise.

  “I assume you and your colleagues pay Kuwisha income tax?”

  Cecil started to get an inkling of what it must be like to be a cabinet minister exposed to one of Nduka’s public grillings.

  The president did not wait for an answer, which Pearson was confident he knew anyway. Neither he, nor any members of the foreign press corps, paid income tax, not in Kuwisha, and not in the UK. The government of Kuwisha had turned a blind eye to this omission, which made a posting to Kuwisha especially attractive; in return, the foreign correspondents were inclined to turn a blind eye to many of the country’s failings.

  “I digress. I was telling you about the sound thrashings, behind the kia. Yes, it was behind the kia, and the boys who were cheeky were given a sound hiding.”

  The president stopped.

  “Do you understand, Pearson?”

  The question was rhetorical, and Cecil nodded, and listened, while his questions about corruption and mismanagement became less and less pressing.

  “No one was more appreciative of these thrashings than Joseph,” continued Nduka. “No one was more appreciative of these hidings than Joseph, his boy. That is what Smiler May told his friends. I myself, I heard him say that.”

  “But one thing bothered my boss, Mr Smiler May.” The president paused between each of the last words, their subtle venom enhanced.

  “Mr – pause -Smiler – pause – May,” Nduka repeated.

  “One thing disturbed him. There was something in Joseph’s expression. At the end of each thrashing, complained Mr May, the boy was still cheeky.”

  “Do I have to explain what this word means, Pearson?”

  He didn’t wait for Cecil to answer.

  “It was the early 1950s, a time when the African nationalist movement throughout the continent was starting to flex its muscles. Cheeky meant dissent, potential rebellion. Today, Pearson, today Africa is again cheeky.”

  “You, your people, your institutions, the international community, the donors, you like to take us Africans behind the kia. The World Bank, the IMF, the Smiler Mays of today, take us behind the kia, and give us a sound thrashing. They think they know how to handle the natives, Pearson.”

  The president laughed.

  “They give us a sound hiding. But we African boys, we are still cheeky!”

  “You thrash us, Pearson. Particularly your paper, the Financial News. Oh yes. You and your World Bank friends, and your IMF friends, you cuff us about the ears. Cuff! And we devalue our currencies. Slap! We privatise our state owned companies. Then comes a punch, and we cut subsidies. Another punch, and we are ordered to become a multi-party democracy! Five years it goes on, ten years, fifteen years of thrashing! Each time, after IMF agreements and World Bank loans, each time we come out from behind the kia, saying, just like Joseph, ‘thank you my baas, thank you my baas’. Just like Joseph, and Mr Smiler May. Thank you, baasie, thank you, master.”

  The president mimicked the singsong, whining intonation of a South African black man in the days of apartheid.

  “But we are still cheeky! We are not stupid, Pearson, we are still very, very . . . cheeky.”

  Nduka repeated: “Very – (pause) – very – (pause) – cheeky.”

  Silence fell. In a curious way, the story broke the ice.

  Cecil started to relax, and began to encourage the president to reminisce about the past.

  He did not need much encouragement.

  “Your people, Pearson, remember your history with Africa only when it suits you. But the past is not another country. Your mistakes live on. Just about wherever your people have been involved, there have been mistakes.”

  Pearson wondered if it had been unwise to steer the conversation in this direction, but it was too late now.

  “Your people sold Diego Garcia to the Americans, and it is now a military base. You sympathised with the white regime in Rhodesia, oh yes. You stopped Zambia getting money from the World Bank to build a railway line to Dar es Salaam, and Kaunda had to trade through white Rhodesia. You were, I remember, against the marriage of my friend, President Seretse Khama of Botswana, because his bride was white. Your rule in Northern Rhodesia lasted sixty years – yet when Kaunda won independence he had a dozen university graduates. You forget that Margaret Thatcher said that the ANC of South Africa was a ‘terrorist organisation’.”

  Nduka delivered his last salvo:

  “Your people give us lectures about human rights. We may deserve lectures, but I don’t like lectures from men who carry big sticks, but who are moral pygmies.”

  The two men had been chatting amiably for a good thirty minutes when Punabantu slipped back into the room and whispered in the President’s ear. The session was coming to an end, and to his shame, Pearson had failed to ask his tough questions.

  “I understand you are leaving us soon, Pearson?”

  “Yes, Mr President.”

  “Another three year man – I had hoped for more, Pearson, I had hoped for more. Perhaps we can persuade you to stay . . .”

  He chuckled.

  “But if we do decide to let you go, I also hope that you will leave having done less harm than good, but I doubt it.”

  Pearson’s blood ran cold. Could he have been rumbled? Was the president toying with him?

  Nduka stood up.

  “Have you seen much of our country? There is much to learn. Much to learn, Mr Pearson.”

  If he had learnt anything, Cecil had obtained an insight into the old man’s curious power over his people. Seldom if ever had he met a politician with such presence.

  “Victorian values and a dash of voodoo” – for the first time since he had tossed off the phrase in the FN profile, Pearson started to understand what it meant.

  He too rose to his feet.

 
“When I return to Kuwisha,” he found himself saying, “I would like to come with a few books, relax, and write my own book.”

  It was an odd thing to say. Pearson had no plans to return, and had told no-one else about his desire to write a book.

  Nduka responded graciously.

  “You will be welcome. You can take your books, read and write, on the Nyali plateau,” he said.

  “You must feel at home. And look at the animals, the animals will entertain you.”

  “I look forward to that, sir,” and once again Pearson surprised himself.

  Nduka wasn’t finished.

  “But be careful not to go too near the lion. And even worse, look out for the leopard. The lion is less dangerous than the leopard. I fear the leopard much more than the lion.”

  Punabantu, who had slipped in a few minutes earlier, was getting nervous. Looking at Pearson, he tapped his watch. The interview – or audience – was over. Pearson was gathering his notebook and tape recorder when he looked up. Nduka was leaving the room, but stopped, turned round, and waved. The wave was accompanied by a knowing smile, a smile of complicity and insight, and Pearson felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

  The president then nodded at him, and moved slowly out of the room, followed by his private secretary, who had not taken a note throughout the entire session. As Pearson left the room, ahead of Punabantu, a thought struck him.

  “As far as I know, there are no lions on the Nyali plateau,” he said to Punabantu.

  The press secretary looked at him tolerantly.

  “So?”

  “So the president was talking about domestic politics?”

  “Of course,” said Punabantu, “of course he was.”

  “What did he mean?”

  The press secretary smiled.

  “You’ll have to ask him that next time you see him. You’ll just have to come back to Kuwisha. Or perhaps we will not let you go.” Puna chortled, and patted Cecil on the back:

  “Only joking.”

  Pearson laughed with relief, and then, as Punabantu gave him an odd look, began to worry again.

  20

  “Only brave men eat the flesh of the old goat”

  The road back from the airport into the city was clear, and twenty minutes later Pearson was parking his car outside the high wall that surrounded the British High Commission. He was relieved to be on time for his meeting with David Podmore. The relationship between the two men was strained, and Pearson knew in his heart that he, rather than Podmore, was to blame.

  The diplomat, prompted by the high commissioner, had offered to host Pearson’s farewell drinks evening. Although grudgingly appreciative, Pearson was nonetheless somewhat miffed, and turned the offer down – prompting Lucy to call him “a pompous arse”. She was not swayed by his argument that after nearly three years in Kuwisha, during which time he had not caused the High Commission any serious embarrassment, and had never had need of its services, he deserved better than that. A farewell dinner hosted by the High Commissioner himself would have been about right, he felt.

  “Cecil!”

  Podmore had come down the stairs to collect his guest in a gesture that suggested respect and friendship, but in truth indicated the opposite. He took Pearson up the flight of stairs to his office, where tea and shortbread was waiting. The exchange then followed a long established pattern: mutual expressions of esteem, and insincere regret that they had not seen more of each other. But the conversation soon moved on to more contentious matters, while maintaining a veneer of pleasantries.

  The bread-and-butter matters were soon settled: how much emergency aid to Kuwisha would the UK provide? Why so little, given that scores of thousands had been made homeless by the floods? Why so much, given that corruption was endemic? Back and forth the exchanges went, neither side scoring off the other, and neither side caring very much anyway.

  The conversation then changed, both in tone and substance. Podmore reminded Pearson that everything had to be “off the record”, a vague term that was frequently misunderstood. Essentially it meant that the diplomat who was being questioned could prevaricate and deceive, knowing that he or she could deny what had been said with a clear conscience.

  Podmore had much to get off his chest.

  He began by expressing his concerns and doubts about the future of what after all was a delightful country with marvellous people, living in an troubled region. The “bloody Congo peace initiative,” as he termed it, seemed to have stalled again. Podmore pursed his lips, and put on his Africa expert look. He seemed to take the matter personally, as irritated as a sports-loving headmaster confronted by a stubborn boy who refuses to play rugby.

  He fiddled with an unlit cigarette.

  “When will these people start to respect their own kind?” Podmore asked, in a tone that made clear that he did not expect an answer to the question. He certainly gave Pearson no time to respond.

  “As you know, I have no brief one way or the other for the colonial period. Not my job,” he said firmly, “not my business. And anyway, it ended more than forty years ago. The past is past, for Christ’s sake, it’s bloody well over.”

  Podmore thumped the armrest of his chair in emphasis, a gesture that carried the implication that he had made a contentious or controversial statement. By way of confirming that he felt he had overstepped the diplomatic mark, he apologised.

  “Sorry,” he said, “got carried away. It’s just that it all gets me down sometimes. But it’s true – it’s bloody well over.”

  Pearson was tempted to argue, but opted for more shortbread.

  “Tuck in, old boy, Mrs P’s best.”

  Podmore took a sip of tea, and Pearson braced himself for what was to come.

  “At least they knew what was what,” said Podmore, with a touch of defiance.

  “What what?” asked Pearson.

  Podmore looked at him suspiciously.

  “What do you mean, what?”

  “Well, just what what was what? I mean, what what were you referring to, exactly . . .”

  He allowed his voice to trail away, deferentially.

  Podmore seemed mollified.

  “You can say what you like about the colonial days, and quite frankly, to be perfectly honest, I would probably go along with much of it. But the wananchi, the common people, the ordinary blokes, they could sleep safe in their beds, respected the police and vice versa, the civil service was honest, the rule of law was respected, schools had books, clinics had basic medicines, and so on.”

  Pearson was about to break his silence, but thought the better of it.

  “I know what you’re going to say,” said Podmore. “And I agree with you.”

  He pushed his chair nearer to Pearson, close enough for Cecil to smell that he had been smoking on the sly, and lowered his voice, as if concerned about eavesdroppers.

  “To be honest, there should have been more schools, there should have been more locals in the civil service, and so on. It’s unforgivable, a bloody disgrace.”

  He assumed the air of a man who was tough but fair.

  “Whatever else you can say, and I would be the first to say it, you cannot deny that. A bloody disgrace. But on balance, life was a damn sight better for the average indigenous.”

  Podmore sat back with an “I-may-be-a-British-diplomat-but-I-believe-in-plain-words-and-plain-speaking” expression on his face. It was a touch redder than usual, due to the passion with which he was expressing his views.

  Pearson nodded his head in apparent agreement, encouraging Podmore to continue.

  It came out in a rush. Strung together with familiarity and a fluency that stemmed from belief and conviction, were all the familiar code words and weasel phrases: inexperience, impressive, potential, couldn’t be friendlier, let down by their leaders, splendid people. They all emerged in Podmore’s lecture, in a tone of baffled frustration, underlaid with irritation, in which he set out what was wrong with Kuwisha in particular, and Afric
a in general.

  Pearson was undecided. Should he break his silence, and tell the diplomat that he was talking balls, or keep quiet, finish his tea and eat the rest of the shortbread? He decided to compromise.

  “Ermaagh” he mumbled.

  “Help yourself to another biscuit,” said Podmore.

  By God, I’m earning every bloody crumb, thought Pearson, and tucked in.

  Podmore was in full swing.

  “Just take Rwanda,” he said, his face now shrouded in an expression of pain, which hinted that he had seen, at first hand, unspeakable brutality. “Strictly off the record,” he continued, and Pearson prepared himself for a disclosure of stunning banality.

  “Strictly off the record, what I cannot understand is this black on black violence, killing their own kind.”

  He looked at Pearson with dislike, despite the professional bonhomie. The sub-text was clear:

  “You might think me a narrow-minded reactionary, but I have a point. You damn liberals won’t admit the evidence before your eyes. You know that it is all bloody hopeless, and all hopelessly bloody, but you just cannot bring yourselves to admit it.”

  “I see what you mean,” said Pearson through gritted teeth and a mouth full of shortbread.

  Podmore shot him a look of contempt, and did not reply.

  Pearson helped himself to yet another piece of home-made shortbread, drained his cup, and took refuge in the British diplomats’ time-honoured way of disagreeing fundamentally with what the speaker had said while remaining polite.

  “I hear what you say, I hear what you say.”

  That at least was what how he meant to end the exchange, but to his shame, Pearson heard himself throw in the towel:

  “You have got a point, David, you have got a point.”

  Furniver was never at his best in the morning, but today he felt especially awful.

  It had been a terrible, ghastly evening. What on earth did Mr Kigali think of his employer? Would he leave his service? And if the steward did leave, how would he explain it to Charity? Jobs were scarce in Kuwisha, and while it was not uncommon for stewards to be sacked, it was almost unheard of that one should resign.