Destined to Witness

by Hans Massaquoi

  “Sorry about that,” I told Morris, after explaining to him what had happened and why I had become physical. “I guess I owe you one.” Although my father had told me only negative things about Morris, I immediately liked him. During the afternoon, as he told me the story of his life, I was glad that my boyhood wish of having a big brother had finally been fulfilled.

  Morris told me that he was born in a hut on the outskirts of Monrovia. His mother was a native woman from the Kru tribe who never learned to read or write and who died when he was still a boy. Before she died, she told him that his father was a rich Vai man by the name of Al-Haj Massaquoi who lived in a big house on Water Street. Since an older aunt who “inherited” him had no use for a ten-year-old boy, she “gave” him as a houseboy to an Americo-Liberian couple named Williams. They named him Morris Williams, sent him to a missionary school, and all but formally adopted him. When he was in his teens, Morris said, he went to the big house on Water Street that his mother had told him about and presented himself to Mr. Al-Haj Massaquoi as his loving son. “The old man wanted no part of me and told me to get lost.” Instead, Morris continued, he went to all the other members of the Massaquoi clan and told them who his daddy was. He said they took only one look at him and told him, “Say no more; we know who your daddy is.” After welcoming him into the fold, he said, they told him not to let his “crazy daddy” upset him and that sooner or later, he’d come around. Morris said he made it a habit to drop by our father’s house at least once a week and wish him a cheerful “Good morning, Pa” or “Is there anything you want me to do for you, Pa?” Eventually, his persistence paid off. One day, to Morris’s surprise, our father gave him an errand to run. From that time on, he said, “the old man” gave him more and more things to do until, for all practical purposes, he was working for him. They got along so well, Morris recalled, that when he dropped the name Williams and substituted it with Massaquoi, our father not only didn’t mind, he himself began to refer to Morris as “son.”

  When I asked him why the relationship went sour, Morris mumbled something about “some woman palaver.” When I pressed him for details, he at first refused, but then told me, “What the hell, you might as well know.”

  According to Morris, our father had sent him on an extremely delicate mission, which involved fetching a young Kru woman he intended to “court” from her village in Liberia’s interior. To facilitate the mission, which was to take less than a day, and to impress the young lady, our father let Morris drive his brand-new American luxury car.

  Morris claimed that he had every intention of carrying out the mission faithfully and expeditiously, but when he saw the comely Kru maiden, he was so smitten that he decided to win her for himself. Since he spoke Kru fluently and our father didn’t, he said, that was easy.

  A week later, our father found his car, minus Morris and the Kru maiden, dirty and with an empty gas tank parked in front of his house. He let it be known throughout the Republic of Liberia and beyond that “that damn Kru rascal” who called himself Morris Massaquoi was not his son. Morris said that it took months before he dared to face our father, but that when he finally did, “the old man called me every kind of sonofabitch he could think of and told me to keep away from him for good. That was about four years ago,” Morris explained, “and I’ve stayed away from him ever since.”

  Morris concluded his story with a mischievous grin that showed everything but remorse. “I guess the old man told you not to have anything to do with ‘that damn rascal Morris,’” my brother said, aping our father’s British accent.

  “Can you blame him?” I shot back. “That was a rotten thing to do.”

  Morris agreed, still without showing any remorse. “I figured one week of fun with his car and girlfriend wasn’t too high a price to pay for all the years he neglected my mother and me,” Morris reasoned. Thinking of the hardships my mother and I endured in Germany, I decided that Morris definitely had a point.

  We agreed to keep in touch, but secretly, so as not to jeopardize my position. I had no doubt that our father would pull the rug from under me if I made “common cause” with Morris. To facilitate our future secret meetings, we enlisted Fritz as our go-between. I felt terribly guilty for having to deceive my father in this way, but the alternative of shutting my own brother out of my life seemed even less acceptable.

  When I returned home from my visit with my family, my father informed me that the police had been looking for me. “Don’t worry,” he added, when he saw my anxiety. “I took care of it.” He then explained that two policemen and the man whom I had beaten up the night before had come by to talk to me. “The man claimed you knocked his tooth out. I knew what they wanted, so I paid them some money and told them to forget the whole thing.” He then added, “In the future, don’t be so hasty with your fists, or I’ll wind up in the poorhouse.”

  “Right,” I thought, having just learned from my relatives that my poor-mouthing father was not only the owner of a most lucrative steamship agency, he was also the sole importer of Danish Tuborg beer, one of the country’s most popular brands. I didn’t let on that I had already heard about the knocked-out-tooth story from Morris. Instead, I apologized to my father for having caused him such inconvenience, but my heart wasn’t fully in my apology. I still felt that he should have been more appreciative of my coming to his defense and resolved that the next time he got into similar trouble, he would be on his own. When I asked my father what the attack had been all about, he explained that the attacker had once worked for him and claimed that he was owed some back pay. “He was mistaken,” said my father, “but I paid him what he asked for, just to get him off my back.”

  MEETING THE PRESIDENT

  Looking unusually pleased, my father informed me that his friend President Tubman had invited us to come to the Executive Mansion because he wanted to meet me. At first I was elated about being the subject of such a high honor, but as the Sunday of the meeting drew near, I came down with a serious case of the jitters. “What am I supposed to say when I meet the president?” I asked my father. “I’ve never met a president in my life.”

  “Don’t worry,” he counseled. “The president is not going to bite you. All you need to remember is to speak only when spoken to, and always to say ‘Yes, sir’ and ‘No, sir,’ instead of just ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ Otherwise, just be yourself.”

  On the day of the appointment, armed with that piece of paternal wisdom, my hair freshly cut, and dressed in pristine tropical white, I accompanied my father to the Executive Mansion, my growing anxiety giving way to full-blown panic. I still hoped that the president would send a message calling the whole damn thing off. But no such luck. Precisely at 4 P.M., my father informed a uniformed presidential guard of our arrival. Within minutes, we were greeted by the president’s bespectacled aide-de-camp, Colonel Alexander Brewer, who led us to a spacious veranda on the second floor where the president was in the midst of an animated conversation with two white gentlemen. When he saw my father, he got up from his chair, grasped my father’s outstretched right hand, and snapped interlocking fingers and thumbs in Liberia’s traditional salute. “I’m so glad you could make it, Mass,” said the president, then, turning to me, he shook my hand with the same enthusiasm while gazing at me with eyes that seemed to penetrate my soul. “This must be the young man we’ve heard so much about. I can see, Mass, that you didn’t waste your time while in Germany,” the president cracked, with a sly wink at my father.

  “I can’t say I did, Mr. President,” my father agreed.

  After introducing us to his other two guests, a captain of the U.S. Navy in charge of the construction of Monrovia Harbor and a young Ivy League-type American businessman by the name of Stettinius, the president invited us to be seated. Lighting a huge Havana cigar, he resumed the conversation, mostly about subjects that were miles above my head. When a butler offered me a cigar and a glass of Vat 69 Gold, the president’s favorite scotch, I had sense enough to turn down both offe
rs. As much as I wanted to appear sophisticated and debonair, my instincts told me that since I had never tried my hand at drinking whiskey or smoking cigars, this was not the place to start practicing. It bothered me, however, to see that the Stettinius fellow, who seemed hardly much older than I, was conversant in topics such as the U.S.’s financing of the multimillion-dollar Monrovia port project, the gold standard, and Soviet Russia’s intentions since the end of the war. I, on the other hand, had never given as much as a single thought to these matters. In addition, I noticed with envy that the young businessman was a poised whiskey drinker and cigar smoker to boot.

  I felt like a mule among thoroughbreds. Painfully aware that my education was woefully lacking, I resolved that afternoon to do whatever was necessary to correct this deficiency. Just as I resigned myself to sitting out the afternoon on the sidelines in embarrassed silence, President Tubman came to my rescue. “Now let’s hear from young Massaquoi, who has just arrived from Germany after spending the war years over there,” he broke the ice. “I understand you lived in Hamburg. How in the world did you survive the bombing raids?”

  Suddenly, I was given an opportunity to talk about a topic I knew more about than anyone present. Within minutes, I had the president and his guests at rapt attention as I related some of my experiences during the British and American air attacks. Occasionally, my listeners interrupted me with questions about certain details. When President Tubman asked at what point the German people realized that the war was lost, I answered him that it depended entirely on which Germans we were talking about. Die-hard followers of Hitler didn’t believe in an Allied victory until Allied troops actually marched through Germany’s streets, I explained, while Germans opposed to Hitler predicted a German defeat from the very outset of the war.

  “Very interesting,” the president commented. “You are a lucky fellow to have come out of all this alive and without a scratch.” At the conclusion of the afternoon visit, the president thanked my father for bringing me. “Mass, you have to promise me to bring your son back soon so he can tell us more about his interesting experiences during the war.”

  “I certainly will, Mr. President. I certainly will,” promised my father, his chest swelling with unmistakable fatherly pride.

  As we were driving home, my father congratulated me on the way I had conducted myself and told me that he was proud of me. “By the way, that young man we met at the Executive Mansion is the son of former U.S. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, a multimillionaire industrialist.” When I confessed that I had felt woefully ill-prepared, mainly because of young Stettinius’s polish, my father promised to help me make up for my educational deficiencies by having me attend college, perhaps in the United States. His words were music to my ears, and I intended to do everything I could to earn his continued support and trust.

  Shortly after our meeting with the president, my father had another event planned for me. “It’s about time that you meet our people,” he announced, “so next Sunday, I will take you to Vai Town.” Vai Town, he explained, was the small settlement of thatch-roofed clay huts we had passed many times. It was scenically located on a stretch of Atlantic Ocean beach a ten-minute drive outside Monrovia. The real homeland of the Vai people, my father added, of which his father had once been king, straddled Liberia and the British colony Sierra Leone.

  I had never been too crazy about meeting “our people,” if by “our people” my father meant people who lived in clay huts instead of homes with indoor plumbing. “Our people,” in my book, were people like Aunt Fatima, Fritz and Arthur, and my grandfather Momolu, not people who could not read or write. Because of my European upbringing, most of it during the racist Nazi era, my regard for “primitive natives” was woefully lacking.

  When my father and I drove up to the town, we were greeted by deafening drums, men and women in colorful robes, and potbellied children with broad smiles and shaven heads. Obviously, we had not arrived unannounced. As we slowly made our way through the crowd, the people were reaching out to shake our hands.

  At the center of town, we were greeted by the settlement’s chieftain, a grizzled man in an immaculate white robe and a gold-embroidered black cap. He invited us into his large thatch-roofed meeting hall and motioned us to be seated on two richly carved wooden stools beside him and in front of a semicircle of seated elders. The chieftain gave a lengthy address in Vai, during which, I was told later, he paid homage to my grandfather and father and welcomed me “home.” My father responded briefly, also in Vai. We then were served a milky beverage called palm wine and large chunks of corn bread. This was followed by a seemingly endless procession of men and women who filed past us, shaking our hands while wishing us a long life and happiness. It was almost dark when the last person shook our hands and the chieftain and several elders accompanied us to our car. As we drove away, the sound of the drums followed us even after Vai Town was out of sight. Although I hadn’t understood a single word that had been spoken, I had felt the sincerity of the speakers. Listening to the drums, and recalling the massive outpouring of love and devotion from Vai Town’s humble people—our people—I suddenly felt a deep sense of appreciation and pride about my Vai heritage.

  Despite my father’s low opinion of “American Negroes,” who, he felt, looked down on Africans, he accepted an invitation for us to attend a social gathering at the home of a high-ranking official at the U.S. Embassy, which was almost exclusively staffed by black Americans. From the moment we arrived, it became clear to me that my previous social experiences with Americans, which were limited to merchant marine seamen and GIs, were of absolutely no use in this new environment. If anything, they were counterproductive. The black embassy staffers were a far cry from the uninhibited, jive-talking, zoot-suit-wearing hipsters I had hung out with on Hamburg’s waterfront and whom I had tried my level best to emulate. Without exception, the embassy folks were refined, articulate, conservatively dressed, and college-educated.

  To get by in this sophisticated milieu without making an absolute fool of myself called for quick adjustment. Remembering my visit with President Tubman, I resolved to be a good listener and to open my mouth only when I thought I knew what I was talking about. Before long, I was mixing with the guests with appreciable ease, exchanging how-do-you-dos and I’m-so-very-pleased-to-meet-yous as if I had graduated summa cum laude from a charm school.

  Since virtually all the black Americans I had met before had been male, I was pleased to discover what to me was an entirely new species—black American women. Most were embassy employees and embassy wives. Besides being refined, sophisticated, and impeccably groomed, I found many of them extremely pleasing to the eye. Thus, with only a little encouragement from my father, I took to the dance floor, where, to the strains of a piano and the delight of my partners, I managed to reenact some of the fanciest steps I had learned at Herr Lucas’s dance classes in wartime Barmbek.

  Attracted by the beautiful piano playing, I joined some guests who had gathered around the player and were singing along to some of the most popular American hit tunes of the time. The musician, to my surprise, was a blind man, who, someone explained to me, was a Liberian music professor known far and wide as Prof Hayes. While I got caught up in the sing-along, my father tapped me on my shoulder and told me that he had to leave in order to take care of “some urgent business” and promised to return shortly. “Just go on having fun,” he urged. I had no problem with that.

  When he returned a short while later, he handed me my saxophone case. “Show them what you can do,” he urged. “I know Prof Hayes won’t mind.”

  Since a few glasses of wine had wiped out any inhibitions I might have had, I gladly complied. Within minutes my alto sound blended seamlessly with Prof Hayes’s rendition of “Till the End of Time.” After his initial surprise, a broad smile on the face of the blind musician let me know that he thoroughly approved of my collaboration. At the end of the tune, while the guests were applauding and calling for an encore, Prof Hay
es got up from his seat and gave me an enthusiastic hug.

  That evening I made another new friend, Vice Consul Charles Hanson from New York, a horn-rimmed six-footer with degrees from Harvard and Yale and a genuine appreciation for all people. “Come and see me at the embassy after work hours any time you feel like it,” the thirty-something bachelor told me. “Perhaps you can help me polish up my German, which is getting mighty rusty.”

  I told him that we had a deal if he would help me spruce up my English.

  My father, who had been strutting about all evening like a peacock with a that’s-my-boy kind of attitude, assured me that I had done well and again told me that he was proud of me. There was nothing I enjoyed hearing more.

  Most of my “normal” days in my new environment started around 8 A.M., when my father and I would meet for a light breakfast consisting of toast, some fruit, and tea. Freshly out of the shower, still dressed in his bathrobe and slippers, my father would pace the floor between sips of tea and puffs on his cigarette while expounding on just about every subject under the sun. It was during these daily breakfast talks that we came as close to father-and-son bonding as we ever would. Grinning mischievously, he would tell me all about his ongoing legal skirmishes with his brother Nat, whom he called the brain trust of the family’s rebellion against him. “They have gotten nowhere so far,” he explained, “and now that you are here, they are beginning to realize that they’ll never get their hands on my money.”

  He often regaled me with stories of his days as a student in England and Ireland. He never tired of showing me an old and brittle newspaper clipping with a photo that showed him, “Prince Al-Haj,” seated beside Edward, Prince of Wales and future king, at a dinner in Buckingham Palace. He also delighted in informing me that it was he who brought the first automobile, a Mercedes-Benz, to Liberia, sometime during the early twenties, long before there were paved roads.