by Wole Soyinka
My official aide-de-camp from the Foreign Ministry was given the report the moment he arrived the following morning, and of course it became quite a moderate-sized scandal. The response of the Nigerian squad was to set up its own round-the-clock protection unit. During the day, they moved physically into the lobby of the Grand Hotel, and they would not depart until I was safely locked in my room. First thing in the morning, they were back.
The woman in question was interrogated. She admitted that she had in fact booked a room at the Grand Hotel before the arrival of the laureates so as to be able to hand me a present personally—a commissioned painting. So the husband was indeed right in some of his suspicions. Was it all an innocent jape? The lady had taken the trouble to book a room well in advance so as to have easy movement into and out of the hotel occupied by the laureates, never mind that she lived in the suburbs of Stockholm.
I received a note from her afterward. She was very upset that she was now obliged to move out, having earned herself a hostile interrogation by hotel security and some discreet checks by the police—all undeserved, she protested. I was bombarded by messages sent through every Nigerian she met. She even attended, quite legitimately, a party organized by our embassy; she was on the regular embassy guest list, it seemed, or at least had acquired a genuine invitation. However, by then, the “boys”—Olu Agunloye, Deji Akintilo, Yemi Ogunbiyi, and others—had formed a cordon sanitaire around me and would not let her get within spitting distance. Each time she attempted to move in my direction during the party, she was physically blocked. I was not aware of all this at the time, though I did notice some deft footwork, some strange concerted movements and signals going on around me.
Not that she gave up, so desperate was she to explain her side of the story and hand over the present. Her “husband” was not a husband as such but a business partner with whom she had once lived, but that affair was long over, even though they still maintained their business relations, including running the nightclub. She desperately wanted me to visit her gallery and wrote me a letter asking for a face-to-face meeting. I replied, thanking her for the present and her hospitality to my compatriots, sympathizing with her for her ordeal with her business partner and the police; I did not consider a meeting necessary, however, and regretted that it would not be possible.
Swiftly pushed to the forefront of my mind, from the moment the irate “husband” uttered his first accusation, was the scandal—also involving a woman—in which Martin Luther King, Jr., was very nearly embroiled in Oslo when he received the Nobel Peace Prize. The CIA was alleged to have engineered that incident.
THE NOBEL APPEARS to be a bug whose bite is craved, sometimes without any sense of discrimination or inhibition. The best-organized siege that was laid to my newly acquired sponsorship clout—as perceived by the outsider—was a whirlwind “courtship” by the wife of a former European minister who had established a quite impressive philanthropic foothold in East Africa, especially with children. Hers was a bold, direct, and quite impressive semiofficial campaign. At first, I did not know what she wanted.
I received a message that the lady had flown in by private plane the morning of the ceremony. She could be present in Stockholm only for the day, as the plane was taking her somewhere else for another engagement and she had to be back at her African station some time later. My recollections of this high-powered encounter are somewhat imprecise, as so many encounters took place at the same time. If she did indeed arrive that morning, an advance party must have preceded her, because, when I came down to the lobby, an impressive area had been devoted to literature by and about her. Coffee-table publications, expensively produced, jostled with brochures, photographic displays, citations, and a few artifacts from the regions where she had worked with children. There was a huge tome of a register for visitors to the mini-exhibition to sign, and it was not enough just to sign it. Visitors were also urged to write their impressions—in effect, testimonials to the humanitarian work being done by the lady.
The madam had an able assistant—a suave, lanky government official— whose duty appeared to be to prepare visitors in advance for the phenomenon they were about to encounter, enumerate her virtues, her selfless dedication to The Cause, and ensure—or perhaps this service was performed only for myself?—that they were not fooled by her reticent and inhibited nature. He owed it to her mission to place her achievements in perspective and lamented how the world had so far failed to appreciate them sufficiently, but was confident that I, as a discerning person, would see how this kind of work needed to be catapulted into world attention. She had met numerous African leaders; I would see the glowing testimonials they had written when we arrived at the exposition. As for her journeys by boat—her favorite mode of transportation, it seemed, and one that enabled her to penetrate the continent with tons and tons of supplies for undernourished and sick children—they were epics in themselves. First, the boats had to be cajoled from their owners or sponsors; than—I believe he explained—she sailed around the world obtaining supplies and medicines from governments, companies, and other donors. She next sailed around African ports, from which commenced yet other grueling journeys into the interior—using jeeps, camels, and any other form of transportation, breaking through into neglected areas where no one had trod before.
At some point we finally came upon the lady, waiting dutifully by her exposition. She piloted me through the eloquent photographic essays on the table: she fending off African heat in a safari outfit complete with pith helmet, with supplies in the boat, with one prime minister after another, then masses of photographs of her with African babies in her arms, crawling all over her, scrawny babies, plump babies—before and after—testimonies galore, and heavy photo publications—about Voyages I, II, and III, and now the preparations for IV. The “reticent” lady went over the ground already covered by her able spokesman, filled in gaps, presented me copies of these backbreaking tomes, then wondered how best to package the books for convenient transportation. No sooner was the thought spoken than she seized her wine-red Cartier briefcase, flung its contents on the table, then began to stuff it with books, photographs, brochures . . . and of course I was to keep this expensive designer briefcase, and, while I was at it, did I smoke? I was mumbling that I did smoke the odd cigar now and then when from nowhere an elegant Cartier lighter appeared, still in its case. And then there was a third item that was pressed into my hands, and of course I was not to worry—it would all be sent up to my room since she appreciated that I did not have much time and we should really go now and have that coffee together. It was kind of me to spare her that much time, but she just wanted to draw my attention to the children’s books especially, the ones that contained the children’s spontaneous songs to her, expressions of their childlike faith in her works, much more important than any tribute a head of state might pay or any state decoration she might receive. Mr. Soyinka, what you could do for this cause . . .
“Ah yes, madam, what would you like me to do?”
“I am preparing a new book, and how wonderful it would be if you could write the foreword, endorsing our efforts and—yes—wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could compose a poem on this work for the children of Africa, and it would be a poem both in your own language and in English, and we would translate it into other languages? I think it is something those children would understand. Did I tell you that they call me the White African Mother? It’s in one of those children’s tributes. So if you wrote a poem . . .”
“I have to warn you, I do not find it that easy to simply sit down and scribble a poem to order. Not even the simplest-looking poem.”
“Well, it needn’t be a poem, Mr. Soyinka. It could be simply something from your own tribe. Are you Ibo? That would be Biafran, not so?”
“I am Yoruba.”
“Aah, of course, Yoruba. I know about the Yoruba, very rich culture. So, some kind of children’s Yoruba poem, which you would translate for us. Something that has to do with a mother’s c
are for her children. The relation between mothers and their children is something that struck me so forcefully as I traveled all over the place. We are like that in my country, you know. So do you think you could do this for the cause? It would be like a kind of dedication to the work of the White African Mother. . . .”
“White African Mother,” I said. “You’d like a poem to the White African Mother?”
“Or some Yoruba saying that could be adapted, something to do with the mother. I am sure you still retain some songs, something from your own childhood.”
I nodded with full comprehension. “Well, you’ll have to give me some time to think about it. This hectic atmosphere does not exactly facilitate regressions into childhood, you realize.”
She was fully understanding but abundantly prepared. “Actually, my aide and I were thinking about that, and we found what might be the solution. An original poem can come later if you feel like it, a traditional song or saying. But we brought along this poem, and it’s already translated into English, ready to go into the new book. So what is needed is for you to translate it back into your own language, Yoruba, and then dedicate it to these children’s White African Mother. Anything else you care to send later on, that will be more than kind, Mr. Soyinka. Do you think the translation is something you can do in the next few days? I have to be gone. My government was very kind to lend me a plane, but now it must take me back. But my assistant—there he is, you’ve met already—will be staying around with the exhibition. You can copy your translation directly into the large book I showed you, and then, with the dedication, it will appear in this new publication.”
It would be easier dealing with the gentleman assistant, I decided. I stood up, feeling battered and bruised. I had actually dared to imagine that all she sought was the use of my newly augmented profile to promote her work on the continent, obtain more support from African governments especially, and call attention to the plight of the children. Well, maybe that was the ultimate goal. The enthronement of a White African Mother might just open up the sluice gates of the milk of human kindness. She kindly let me go to prepare for my morning’s engagements, and I took my leave, unsure whether I should kiss her hand or give her a filial embrace. Her assistant dutifully followed with the spoils of the encounter, determined to see me to my room.
“Did she mention the other matter?” he asked.
“You have more than one project? Apart from the boat campaign?” I was most impressed. Being a White African Mother, I would have thought, was already a full-time job.
He rolled his eyes, shook his head in despair. “I say it all the time, she is a very reticent lady. Too reticent for her own good. She said nothing about the nomination?”
“Nomination? You mean as the White African Mother?”
“No, Mr. Soyinka, that is only to show how she is perceived in Africa. How she is loved and respected, like a mother. We feel that with that kind of acknowledgment, if you, Mr. Soyinka, can give support to the idea, she will definitely win the Nobel Peace Prize. I have to tell you, Mr. Soyinka, that the lady is too reticent, which is why the government gives her some staff to help her. She has been nominated before but did not win. We feel that, again next year, she has a hundred percent chance with your support. This is a work that is done in Africa, for Africans, for the African children, and you are now the African Voice. This is why we came to see you; we need your support for it to take place.”
I gave myself a few seconds for the idea to sink in, then scrambled for a solution. “I’ll tell you how we will proceed. Our ambassador here happens to be a woman, very cultured, very sophisticated, and most caring. I have known her for nearly twenty years. I shall speak to her. I assure you, she’ll be most happy to take this on—I mean, continue where I leave off. Maybe you can leave a set of these publications with her?”
His eyes lit up. “Certainly. Certainly, Mr. Soyinka. We’ll be delighted to do that.”
It was a very happy man who deposited my “gifts” in a convenient spot in my room, bowed his gratitude, and took the good news back to the White African Mother. On my part, I cast my eyes in the direction of the gods of restitution in whatever corner of my suite they were chuckling and asked, “Is this a mere foretaste? Do you have more exactions riding on the Nobel?”
Three Lost Years
AFTER A FEW MONTHS OF RESISTANCE, I SURRENDERED. THERE WAS CLEARLY a price to be paid by Nobel Prize winners, most especially one from the African continent. No one had prepared me for it, but I soon found that I had embarked on the rites of restitution. I handed over 1987 to the implacable Swedish deity of dynamite and fulfilled my duties, swearing silently that the moment the next beauty queen was crowned had better be recognized as my hour of liberation. I had been stretched to the limit. My constituency was always wide—in the creative industry, in home politics and those of the continent, in issues of human rights—which, for me, includes the right to life, a commitment that led to my creation of a national Road Safety Corps and the unglamorous labor of hounding homicidal maniacs off the Nigerian highways and educating them the hard way.
This constituency had swollen beyond all rational projection. Still, I consoled myself, perhaps a year was not too heavy a price to pay. I found myself compelled to acknowledge that, in the Third World especially, my presence at a number of events appeared to induce so much plain, undisguised pleasure, generated such a sense of collective vindication for a variety of causes—and in the least expected places—that some of the satisfaction bounced back to me. I could even persuade myself, sometimes, that I had got the better part of the bargain. There is pleasure in giving pleasure—even as one feels that a portion of oneself is constantly shed in the effort, that one is being, literally, eaten piecemeal. No matter, one year, and that was it! The year 1987 proved indeed to be a dry year for creativity; I produced not even so much as an occasional poem that I can recall. I envisaged 1988 waiting in the wings, when the frustrated mind would slide back gradually into a creative normality.
I could not have been more mistaken; 1988 went the same way, only it was much, much worse. So did most of the following year, and then 1990 began to look like it was following the example of the others. It took a while for me to realize that my increasing unease went beyond the nonevent of not writing; that had never been a problem. I have never felt under a compulsion to write. If I felt noncreative, for months, for a year, I underwent no pressure, no sense of a dereliction of duty. There were always other things to do with one’s time.
This time, however, I did not merely not write, I did not wish to write, did not wish to think creatively in any direction, to be involved in any creative project. I was indifferent to any artistic activities around me. Abroad, I rarely visited the theater. No concerts, no opera, no jazz clubs. My short list of books marked down for reading expanded beyond the normal growth rate—oh, I still browsed through the review pages of journals, I could somehow manage that, but it was more an accustomed drug on which my system had grown dependent, not an act of pleasure, curiosity, or enlightenment. I jotted down titles because I feared that the phase might pass suddenly, and I could not rely on my memory. Mostly, I simply did not care. I was overwhelmed by the futility of everything I had ever done or known in the realms of literature and the arts. Even during normal times, this was always a question I deplored, but if that intrusive brigade with the perennial “What are you working on now?” only knew what leaped to the tip of my tongue during this period, they would have recoiled at the furnace that raged within me and regretted their unintended temerity. They were not to know of course, but a huge void had settled into my life, usurping the habitat of a vital presence.
I remained in thrall to this absence, whose memory still haunts me, as it does so many others in varying degrees—from Ibadan and Lagos to London, Beirut, Cannes, Cairo, or Bergamo—a now-disembodied life force that pops up in the midst of festivities, not dampening the spirit but resurrecting bereavement, a throbbing amputation but mostly evoking the pre
sence of an enlivening guest, bringing with his recollection a sense of wonder at the unimaginable plenitude that we had all shared in the sheer being of this individual.
WHY DID HIS FAMILY choose to abandon his body in an obscure German village called Wiesbaden? Was it envy? Hate? And why, when I finally brought him home, did they frustrate the anticipation of so many to bid him adieu, to pay simple tribute to him as friends, acquaintances, business partners, even business rivals who respected him for his remarkable enterprise and flair? Why? And then, unavoidably, my own nagging sense of guilt. Seven months of total rupture—had it been truly necessary? Really unavoidable?
I have tried to imagine my attendance at the Nobel Prize conferment without Femi, that instinctive embodiment of pleasure and celebration. It would have been such a hollow event. The Nobel was made for O. B. Johnson! He had to be there for the ceremony to have any meaning, for any rite of celebration to become a rounded experience, once one has incurred a life sentence for the crime of knowing OBJ for even one day. And so I felt profoundly grateful to the ancestors that they had intervened to ensure that I was not deprived of the attendance of one who was capable of enjoying and enlarging the occasion in ways I never could, right there in the flesh, absorbing the panoply of it, ingesting and exuding it through his own larger-than-life persona as a shared acquisition over which he exercised the major right of possession.