Oh the city of Waq is turned on its head!
Well here I am, and here are the six bathrooms with golden taps in the shapes of swans and griffins, dozens of lavatories and crystal bidets, here are the apartments of the wives, four of them, great purple beds. Whose wives? Does it matter? Here are five thousand pairs of shoes, in these cupboards you will find three thousand pairs of pink panties. The Wouff carry me to the biggest bedroom of all: a field of a bed, clothed in gold, smelling slightly of onion.
This then is my position, I think. I am a guest of the Wouff or, seen in another light, you might call me a captive, a prisoner – but there are compensations. I have the run of the palace, except in the morning when the people are allowed in to gape at the spoils of the rulers, the thousands of bottles of anti-wrinkle cream, the boxes of toys bought for the children and never, as far as I can see, unpacked, the two hundred games of table football, for instance, and the thirty-six pogo-sticks, the entire rooms full of electric trains. Curious crowds wander in each morning and stroll down the corridors gazing at the beds, the chandeliers, the dozens of coffee-dispensing machines, and the Wouff make sure they do not touch anything though they are allowed to flush the toilets, which they do with great enthusiasm and cries of disbelief.
The Wouff, my guards or companions, patrol the corridors and they line the red carpet that leads to the throne. Yes, there is a throne, it’s the famous Leopard Throne. Well, it’s not what you might think of as a throne as much as a wooden chair, more a stool actually, made of two parallel discs of wood, one forming the base and the other the seat, and between these discs are a circle of leopards on whose backs ride little foetal creatures, baby spirits, infant ghosts. The back of the chair is carved in the shape of a trinity; a man sits with his knees spread widely apart and rests his hands on the heads of a man and a woman. It’s surprisingly comfortable and I’ve rather taken to it. This is where I am obliged to sit whenever visitors call. For instance, Kwatch, the barman, who drives over with hot food from the Kingdom Towers where it seems that the health of the Number One Peasant is still in the balance. I can see Kwatch would like to stay and talk but the Wouff prevent this, urging him onto the throne where he deposits my tray; it’s a kind of meals on wheels service, or rather a meals on knees service because poor Kwatch is forced to approach the Leopard Throne backwards, and on his knees, guided only by the sound of my breathing. Naturally I breathe as loudly as possible and try to guide him, I’m a kind of pneumatic lighthouse. Even so, he’s inclined to wander off course occasionally with unhappy results, falling over a pogo-stick or backing into a chair, and I’m afraid the Wouff seem to enjoy this.
As the weeks pass I feel more at home. I can, for example, now recognise the presence of my Wouff escort without opening my eyes; I can tell just by the swish of their little leather skirts when they are near, and the thump of the hollowed stones that they wear around their necks bouncing on their breastbones. And from the window I can see other tribes gathered outside the palace. The Kanga in their white robes, praying to Mecca, dark, silent and patient. The Ite, in jeans and coloured shirts, have set up a little entrance beyond the palace where the queues of people form. I strongly suspect they are charging an entrance fee to the trippers who wander the lower floors of the palace each morning.
All of them waiting.
The news of my condition, of my position, has been spreading. I’ve had a letter, which I will not read you, from Monsieur Cherubini. It seems that my uncle has been corresponding with another comet fiend in this part of the world for some time, and in the course of the letters they exchanged, his friend happened to mention the white girl who had been enthroned in the palace of the former Redeemer of Zanj. It was but the work of moments, the Angel writes, to guess her identity. It’s a surprisingly friendly letter. It seems they’re planning a trip to what the Angel calls my part of the world. Father Duval’s coming too. It’s to be a threesome. The reasons given are that the southern skies are very fine for astronomical purposes and that Uncle Claude, who has been much depressed since the loss of his soup, might here realise his life-long wish to discover a comet. But I am not fooled by this for a moment. They intend calling on me. They want to see if the rumours are true. Why else should Monsieur Cherubini ask if they should bring anything with them? If there’s anything that I need?
All I need is time. Down the road the Number One Peasant continues to pass away. This is the time of trial. If he dies then the old world will have vanished. If he survives and returns to the Presidential Palace then my future is unsure, to say the least. It will mean that the universe has been put into reverse, it will be the equivalent of the big crunch. But if he dies – then! Because at my end of Patrice Lumumba Drive things are expanding every day, growing by leaps and bounds. In next to no time at all the pinpoint of life within me has grown to something like the size (and this is only a rough estimate) of a grapefruit … These are the early days of creation in the city of Waq, and, in that mysterious time behind the Planck Wall where telescopes may not spy, my universe is hot and young, and anything may happen.
About the Author
Christopher Hope was born in Johannesburg in 1944. He is the author of nine novels and one collection of short stories, including Kruger’s Alp, which won the Whitbread Prize for Fiction, Serenity House, which was shortlisted for the 1992 Man Booker Prize, and My Mother’s Lovers, published by Atlantic Books in 2006 to great acclaim. He is also a poet and playwright and author of the celebrated memoir White Boy Running.
Also by Christopher Hope
FICTION
My Mother’s Lovers
A Separate Development
The Hottentot Room
Serenity House
Darkest England
Me, the Moon and Elvis Presley
Heaven Forbid
SHORTER FICTION
Black Swan
Learning to Fly
The Love Songs of Nathan J. Swirsky
The Garden of Bad Dreams
POETRY
Cape Drives
In the Country of the Black Pig
English Men
FOR CHILDREN
The King, the Cat and the Fiddle (with Yehudi Menuhin)
The Dragon Wore Pink
NON-FICTION
White Boy Running
Moscow! Moscow!
Signs of the Heart
Brother Under the Skin
Copyright Page
First published in Great Britain in 1989 by William Heinemann Ltd.
Published in paperback in Great Britain in 2010
and in e-book in 2016
by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.
Copyright © Christopher Hope 1989
The moral right of Christopher Hope to be identified as the
author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Acts of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner
and the above publisher of this book.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters
and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities,
is entirely coincidental.
Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright
holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any
omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention
at the earliest opportunity.
The quotations cited as epigraph are taken from the following sources:
&nbs
p; The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah (Panaf Books, 1957);
Selected Poems of e. e. cummings 1923–58 (Penguin, 1967);
‘The Song of Lawino’ in Modern African Poetry (Penguin, 1984).
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 84887 168 7
E-book ISBN: 978 1 78239 964 3
Printed in Great Britain
Atlantic Books
An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd
Ormond House
26–27 Boswell Street
London
WC1N 3JZ
www.atlantic-books.co.uk
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