by Paul Theroux
There was Heinz. He had phoned me in January and asked me to have lunch with him. He represented a new German magazine, he said, and had just come to Malawi from Rhodesia where the editors of the left-wing Central African Examiner (then banned by the Smith regime) were saying complimentary things about me.
I should explain that the previous year there had been an attempted coup d'état in Malawi. I knew several of the men involved as well as many sympathizers. One sympathizer was Mr David Rubadiri, a former headmaster of my bush school and later a delegate to the United Nations. At the time of the attempted coup the level of debate was not high. I remember seeing "Elvis for Prime Minister" chalked on the blackboard of my classroom the morning after the Prime Minister, Dr Banda, sacked his entire cabinet and threatened them with prison (Malawi had been independent for two months). I knew I could do better than plump for Elvis, so I began writing anonymous pieces about Malawi politics for the Examiner. Sporadic violence followed the abortive coup-. Dr. Banda's Young Pioneers beat up some people and killed others who were suspected of being in league with the rebel cabinet ministers. They clubbed villagers into joining Dr Banda's party, and they shouted "stoogie" and "Capricorni" at anyone who expressed doubt about Dr Banda or concern for the death of democracy. My articles were reasonably well-informed, and I wished to God that my name could appear on them. But that candor would have meant my immediate expulsion from the country.
Heinz ate a big lunch and encouraged me to do the same, and when we were finished he explained his mission. People in Germany, he said, were so ignorant about Africa. They still believed it was a savage place, and all they knew were the few facts that appeared in the German newspapers. His magazine planned to dispel this ignorance by having correspondents send monthly letters and reports giving detailed information about matters that never reached the press.
What he wanted was what, in the art of journalism, is known as "a thumb-sucker"—a background piece. He said I would be paid an honorarium (it was more than my Peace Corps salary) for my work.
He said that Germany and the world were quite progressive these days. His parting words were, "Sings are different now. We do not sink like our fazers sot."
I agreed, and that evening wrote my first article for him. A few weeks later he wrote:
"Many thank for No. 1! Some interesting facts: How could ex-ministers make a trip through the north without being captured? I heard, just in the north, there are about 200,000 people not supporting B, not obeying to governmental orders or instructions?
"What about C, is he still in the country, what is he doing?
"Could you please give a short analysis on the inner-political situation now; it seems there has changed something after Dr B's successful trip to Europe.
"Alles gut und recht viele Grüsse."
I became a keen correspondent. I wrote reports on sewage disposal; I wrote one on overcrowding in townships and several on the raid in February of a border post by the ex-ministers' guerrilla soldiers. Dr Banda, the Prime Minister, was always good copy; after the border raid, he said, referring to the leader of the guerrillas: "I want him brought back alive. If not alive, then any other way!"
One month I had other things to do. I wrote nothing. But my honorarium arrived at my bank. Another month passed; I couldn't think of anything to say about Malawi. Again I was paid. I felt guilty about this and so put an article together from pieces I had read in the local newspaper. The reply to that article did not come from Heinz:
"Thank you very much for your Report No. 10. This time it did not yield much information for the editorial staff, as the subject you treated was already known to us for some time, the African and international press, which we carefully analyze, having already dealt with it in detail. I would therefore deem it expedient if you confined your reports and continued informing us on the background of the development in this country. To be sure, it is possible that for some time nothing happens at all in Malawi, but then you naturally need not send us a report. I would, however, ask you to remember that we already know everything divulged by the Malawian, Rhodesian, Zambian and Tanzanian newspapers as we get them by airmail.
"Hoping that you will understand this and comply with our wishes, I remain—"
... it is possible that for some time nothing happens at all in Malawi, the gentleman said. But so much was happening! I can't remember ever having been so busy.
I was at a new school and was an English teacher. We had no books at thé school that we could use for English lessons. The textbooks were very few, and what books we did have were an embarrassment. Why was it that there, in Central Africa, we had so many copies of a dramatized version of Snow White? We had a roomful of grammars from Kansas, many Enid Blytons and a chewed-up set of the Waverley novels that had been sent to us by the English-Speaking Union in London. We had a multitude of books from the USIS (Machines That Made America, Yankee From Olympus, and many of the From Log Cabin to White House variety), but we had nothing really suitable for African children learning English. In a year the students' English had not improved. Sentences such as "I wish to confabulate with you" and "I was oscillating with my girl friend" were common.
To remedy the situation—this was about the same time as Heinz contacted me—I decided to write my own English textbook, a chapter a week. Each lesson was composed of a reading passage with a Malawi background, a dialogue adapted from the passage, an exercise in sound discrimination (the students confused I and r, m and n, and s and sh) and the correction of a common Malawi error in English ("I foot to school," "I hear the flowers smelling," "I was caught by a cold"). As the months passed the books became more ambitious and eventually I collaborated on some sections with a man who was a trained linguistician. He said he thought the book could be published.
One day during a session of the Malawi Parliament my collaborator showed me a page from Hansard, the parliamentary report. He said, "We're finished."
Dr Banda had given a long speech in Parliament attacking the teaching of English in Malawi. He used his secretaries as examples of the result of bad teaching.
"These girls do not know English," he said. "If you ask them what a gerund is they wouldn't be able to tell you." The same went for subordinating conjunctions, adjectival phrases, semicolons, and the rest. Malawians needed grammar very badly, said Dr Banda. "These girls do not know how to use a comma properly!" The trouble was with the teaching: teachers in Malawi didn't know the first thing about English grammar. No one knew what an adverb was anymore! No one cared. "Hear, hear," and "Shouts of 'Shame'", and "Loud Applause" were scattered parenthetically through the official record of Dr Banda's speech.
My collaborator was worried. There was no grammar in our book: we had deliberately omitted it and concentrated on verb patterns and sentence structures. In his speech, Dr Banda had referred to this as "the nonsensical linguistic approach". But prior to the speech my collaborator, who was an inspector of schools, had arranged for an interview with Dr Banda to tell him about our English book, which was the first of its kind in Malawi.
It was too late to put in sections on grammar. With some apprehension my collaborator went through with the interview, and it was, predictably, a disaster. Dr Banda leafed through the typescript and said, "Where is the grammar? I want my people to know grammar! There is no grammar in this book! They must know what a clause is, what a phrase is..."
But I had less and less time to work on the book. For one thing, the German magazine was occupying my thoughts, even if I wasn't doing much writing for it. I had also recently struck up a correspondence with my old friend Mr Rubadiri, who said that he was disenchanted with the United Nations and very angry with Dr Banda for his casual arrests and his disorderly Young Pioneers. And I had started a newspaper.
I got the idea for the newspaper when a second piece I wrote for the Germans was returned to me with a note saying that they had read it before in the international press. The newspaper was modestly titled The Migraine; generally I printed the a
rticles of mine that were rejected by the Germans, and the Peace Corps office helped to mimeograph it. Three or four other volunteers were on the editorial staff; we had an excellent cartoonist and a number of good writers. Copies were sent free to all the Peace Corps volunteers in the country.
The July issue of The Migraine coincided with a migraine of my own. I received word that Mr Rubadiri had just denounced Dr Banda in New York, that he had resigned his post at the UN, and that he was leaving to take up a new job in Uganda. His denunciation was rather incautiously timed. Mr Rubadiri's mother was still in Malawi and so were most of his personal effects, a large car and an enormous library of books. Shortly after Mr Rubadiri arrived in Uganda I got a note from him asking me if I could find it in my heart to help his mother flee the country, and also would I mind driving his car to Uganda with his set of best china, a dinner service for twelve?
Mr Rubadiri's mother was a tough old bird. The Young Pioneers had threatened to set her house on fire and beat her up for what her son had said about "The Messiah", as Dr Banda was called. Mr Rubadiri had implied that Dr Banda was a betrayer of the revolution and a lackey of the Portuguese; Dr Banda called Rubadiri a stooge. Mrs Rubadiri said the Young Pioneers didn't scare her a bit and that she planned to write down all their names and get even with them when her son was back in power.
Before she left the country, Mrs Rubadiri sold me the car for a token few pounds and my name was entered as Present Owner in the car's logbook. She was in such a hurry—and who could blame her?—there was no time to get a new logbook; my name appeared under that of David Rubadiri, now considered to be a political criminal. In addition to the car I got a crate containing the dinner service. I told Mrs Rubadiri that her son could expect me in Uganda toward the end of August.
I needed a vacation. I couldn't think of anything to write for the Germans, and my bank account was swollen with unearned cash: there was quite literally no place to spend it in Malawi, and having done nothing to earn most of it I didn't feel right about spending it; The Migraine was not very popular ("Too negative," said one Peace Corps official); and the business about the grammar in the textbook was getting me down.
What made the car journey to Uganda something of a challenge were the many roadblocks on the Great North Road in Malawi, where Young Pioneers stopped cars, searched them for smuggled arms and looked for spies and infiltrators—they were looking in fact for friends of people like Mr Rubadiri. Also a distance of 2,500 miles separated my home outside Blantyre from Mr Rubadiri's in Kampala. The drive would be difficult, but the greatest danger was my name in the logbook.
I was hesitant to drive that distance alone. I persuaded a friend to come along to share the driving. There was only one thing that remained to be done before I left. President Johnson had just escalated the war in Vietnam by sending in 20,000 more troops: I wrote an article about this for The Migraine condemning Johnson's decision and also mentioning the recent fiasco in the Dominican Republic. That finished, we set off in the car for Kampala with the crate of dishes.
The drive in Malawi was harrowing. We were stopped at fourteen roadblocks and threatened by gun-toting Young Pioneers. At one roadblock a bottle of wine we were carrying blew its cork, making a loud bang and rattling the armed boys. We also took several wrong roads, trying a shortcut through the Luangwa Valley and crossing a disturbed area where the Lumpa sect, fanatical Christians led by a fat black lady named Alice Lenshina, were attacking police posts. Each Lumpa carried what they called "A Passport To Heaven" which guaranteed a kraal in Paradise; when the police opened fire the Lumpas rushed headlong into the blazing guns. Skirting the Lumpas, we circled back into Malawi and had more fearful moments at the northern frontier, which had been attacked on three occasions. Few people drive at night in Africa, and when we arrived at midnight at the border post the Young Pioneers thought we were raiding them. I hid the logbook. We were guarded at gunpoint while the car was searched. But it was dark and very cold, and the Young Pioneers gave up their search after a few minutes. Two thousand miles of Africa's worst roads remained, but we had no more problems. We saw lions and giraffes and Masai warriors; we had a glimpse of Mount Kilimanjaro. It was a marvelous trip, though the new car was a bit banged up by the time we reached Kampala.
On the other hand, we had broken only one small plate in the large dinner service. I transferred the car to Mr Rubadiri's name and he did me a favor. I told him about my writing for the German magazine and asked him if he would mind being interviewed by me: would he explain his attitude toward African independence, Malawi's relations with Portugal and South Africa, and Dr Banda? He agreed and we had a long, lively talk which I typed and sent to Munich. I had justified that month's payment at least.
Then he asked a favor of me. I would be flying back to Malawi and on the way stopping for an hour in Dar es Salaam; would I deliver an envelope to a Mr Yatuta Chisiza who would meet me at the airport in Dar? I said yes, of course.
"Ah," said the bearded Mr Chisiza with relief when he received the envelope. I was sure it was filled with money. "When does your plane leave?"
"In an hour or so," I said.
"Have a beer," he said. Though it was only ten in the morning, I obliged. He was leader of the guerrilla band, one of the most hated men in Malawi. He was reputed to have been trained in China.
"How was the drive?" he asked.
"So you know about Rubadiri's car."
"Everybody does!" he said. "That was a wonderful job!"
"We spent most of the time bluffing our way through roadblocks," I laughed, though I had been scared stiff at the time.
Mr Chisiza unfolded a map on the table. "Show me where they are," he said. And when I did, he said, "So many! They must have put up a few more since the last time we were there."
"So you still go to Malawi now and then?"
"Now and then." He smiled.
My plane was announced. I finished my beer and started walking toward the door.
"I wonder if you'd do me a favor or two," said Mr Chisiza.
"That depends," I said.
"It won't be any trouble." He said I was to deliver two messages in Malawi: one was to tell a Mr M that his two boys were fine, that they had gotten safely over the Tanzanian border and had started school; the other was to tell a certain Greek fellow that on October 16th he should deliver his bread to Ncheu, a town thirty miles from Blantyre.
My readiness to say yes to favors may suggest a simplicity of mind, a fatal gullibility; but I was bored, and the daily annoyance of living in a dictatorship, which is like suffering an unhappy family in a locked house, had softened my temper to the point where anything different, lunch with a stranger, the request for an article, the challenge of a difficult task, changed that day and revived my mind. The risk was usually obvious, but it always seemed worth it—better that than the tyranny of the ordinary.
I knew that Mr M's boys must have been in Mr Chisiza's army which had attacked the border post. Furthermore, when someone mentions delivering bread on a certain day in a certain place many hundreds of miles away, I know as well as the next man that the order is a euphemism for a plot. But passing on a simple message requires no personality; if there was a plot, I knew mine was a blameless involvement; neither message was much of a revelation: I was available.
That was about the middle of September. In the next four weeks my luck started to change.
I took my time delivering the messages. Mr M worked, I was told, for Radio Malawi. He was pointed out to me; I made sure he was alone in his office and then introduced myself and said, "I'm just back from Dar es Salaam. Your boys are fine—both of them are in school."
Mr M covered his face and began sobbing. He said, "Oh, thank God!" and got up and shook my hand a number of times. Calmer a few minutes later, he said that he thought his boys had been killed. His wife had just been arrested in the north.
"That's terrible," I said. "Aren't you worried about yourself? Banda's men might be after you."
"No," he said. He had just written a song called Brother, Pay Your Taxes which Dr Banda liked very much—Malawi was close to bankruptcy—and Mr M thought that if he kept writing songs he would be in the clear for a while.
Then Mr M asked: "Would you do something for me?"
He needed some money, he said, to go up north by plane—there wasn't much time—and see if he could get his wife released from prison. I could hardly refuse. His tears had moved me, and the indignity of having to write a song called Brother, Pay Your Taxes for a government which had imprisoned his wife was really intolerable. From the large bank balance of the mounting German funds I gave him seventy-five pounds and wished him luck; and I told him that it might be better if we never saw each other again.
Mr M had cried when I told him his news. The Greek baker trembled and went pale when I told him about the delivery he was to make in Ncheu. He took me into his back room and asked me to repeat it. He held his head in his hands. He did not say, "Thank God," but he might very well have said, "Oh God." He held his head tightly and did not look at me, and I noticed that he was wearing a wig, glossy stiff animal-like hair, the shape of a fancy bathing cap.
"Stay here," he said. "I'll be right back."
When he was out of the room I looked around. My eye was caught, as most people's are, by a bookshelf. But on this bookshelf there were three or four books with their spines turned to the wall. Thinking I might get some clue to my errand, Mr Chisiza's odd message, I whipped them around and read their spines. The first was titled Defeating Baldness, the rest were about hair restoring, head massage, and how to thicken your hair.
The Greek returned no less nervous than when he left. I remembered Mr Chisiza had said that I should tell the Greek to give me the drink he owed him. I did so, as good-humoredly as I could.
"He should buy me a drink," the Greek snapped. He asked me my name. I told him, and said that I was just an English teacher in the Peace Corps and that I didn't want to get involved in anything.