The Minister Primarily

by John Oliver Killens

  Well be that as it may, at the other end of the table sat a Black man who completed the Big Four in the ten-men-one-woman Cabinet of Ministers. He was Joseph Oladeli Babalumbi, Minister of Defense. At forty-eight, he was the oldest in the cabinet. He had a hard brilliance, a tough rugged intelligence, bred in revolution and British prisons and nurtured in European schools of learning from London all the way to Moscow. He was Olivamaki’s Great Black Father Image. A large handsome Robesonian head, a deep-black-brown face framed by a great unruly head of hair that was integrated black and white, as the saying went in those days. “Integration” was a great word in the folk myth of America back in those European-dominated days. It became a world-word. No one knew precisely what it meant but everybody used it. Again, be that as it may, and apropos of nothing, Babalumbi’s nickname was “the Lion.” And where he walked the earth did tremble.

  He roared softly from the other end of the table. “We will make no political commitments at this juncture. We are committed only to African freedom and independence. We have the largest, richest bed of the best bloody cobanium in the entire world. It may be the only one for all we know. This is our bargaining point north, south, east, and west. This is our position of strength. We have something the world wants and needs, or thinks it needs. We do not go forth as beggars.”

  Maria Efwa was the Minister of Education. She was the prettiest member of the cabinet. She was the only woman member. Five feet four of burnished ebony, and seemingly five or six inches taller than her actual height, and roundishly slim, and as fiercely proud of her womanliness as she was of her African comeliness, and she had plenty of both, and some to spare, especially around the edges. Her hair was au naturel and beautifully cropped, and her eyes were large and warm and black as the blackest warmest nights of Africa and slantingly shaped like almonds. A full curvaceous mouth; when she spoke in her small voice, reminding you of Miriam Makeba, the others listened. They had learned from experience that she would not be quashed by loud and masculine vocal cords.

  Maria Efwa said, “Next to financial aid, we need an educated citizenry. Trained people. We need schools and teachers, and while we’re over there, we must make arrangements for sending hundreds of Guanayans to American schools and colleges. They have some of the best in the world.”

  Mamadou Tangi said, irritably, “We would be wasting valuable time and energy. They do not allow Black people in their colleges. Why do you think those African American students were sitting in all over the place during the decade of the sixties? And now they’re starting up again.”

  His Wife’s Bottom could not restrain his indignation. “You are entirely misinformed, and, it had nothing to do with education and those students were concerned with the right to eat warm canines seated, because it seems that Americans had some eccentric superstitions regarding Black people eating warm canines in horizontal or vertical positions and while some Americans were for vertical, some were unequivocally for horizontal, and that was the basis of the Big Debate that is raging again over there, especially in Southern America.”

  James Osburn, Minister of Health, pulled at his ear and stated calmly, “The one thing we must remember is that Americans are a wonderful people but they’re incredibly schizophrenic. They mean no harm at all. It’s a national characteristic, but they will smile on one side of their faces and simultaneously growl at you from the other side. They will turn down one of their own people of African descent and in the same breath take one of us to their bosom. And even so and furthermore they will welcome you at the North and kick you at the South. They have strange personality problems. But they’re wonderful when you get to know them. They are the epitome of Western Man.”

  “They are the epitome of Western Man,” Mamadou Tangi agreed, sarcastically.

  Olivamaki stood, and as his long body unfolded, all eyes looked toward the head of the table. He was an incredibly handsome Black man of remarkable bearing and tremendous presence, a presence that he evoked and exuded effortlessly, and indeed seemed to be unaware of. No matter, the presence was real, almost tangible and tactile. He reminded one of a young Robeson of Rutgers. He leaned toward his eager colleagues. He stared down the length of the mahogany table into the fierce eyes of the Lion, and then his eyes went from face to face on each side of the table, holding momentarily on his first cousin, Maria Efwa, the most beautiful woman in Guanaya, perhaps in all of Africa. He felt warmly toward his colleagues. Three days from that very moment they would be thousands of feet in the atmosphere winging their way to the USA, every one of them, excepting the Lion, Babalumbi, who would be left behind to guard the nation and to mind the richest store in the world. So much had happened to them and their country in the last months, crisis after crisis, climax after climax. If he could only show them wisdom, if he could share with them his deepest feelings.

  “We stand here today,” Jaja Olivamaki said in a resonant and quiet voice, “in the center of gravity of history. Our deliberations, our actions, our strategy, our tactics, affect the very universe and the earth as it turns on its axis. We are a young independent nation and we are young leaders and will make many blunders and this is our inalienable right. But it is a right we cannot afford to indulge in very often. Our people are free and independent, but they are also poor and ignorant. What we do within the next few days will affect them for generations yet unborn. The discovery of cobanium within our borders has changed our economic outlook. Everything is possible now, and not tomorrow but today. Suddenly our horizon is vast and endless. But as we go forth to meet the entire world, East and West, North and South, we must remember, our greatest natural resource is not our rich beds of cobanium, not our timber or our gold. Our greatest resource is our people.”

  His Wife’s Bottom said absently and pompously, “Hyah-hyah. Hyah-hyah.” American translation: “Hear! Hear! Hear! Hear!” or “Amen! Amen! Amen!”

  Afro-American-Caribbean version: “Right on!” and “Let it all hang out!”

  “Our people’s independence and their dignity we must never ever barter.”

  His Wife’s Bottom said, “Hyah-hyah!”

  “Our purpose is to reconstruct a nation oriented more to people than to things.”

  At this moment a sub-cabinet member tiptoed into the room and whispered excitedly into the Lion’s ear and when he finished, left as quietly as he came. The Lion said, “Pardon me, Jaja, but this discussion may have suddenly become academic.”

  The PM stared at his Defense Minister as did the others. “You obviously have a reason for this observation.”

  “I have just received word that leaves no doubt, there is a plot to overthrow the government while His Excellency is in absentia.”

  Suddenly there was a deafening roar of silence in the room. Then they talked all at once, excitedly, till finally the PM got them quiet, and they listened to the Lion tell them of the plot, which he had suspected but had never had positive proof until the present moment.

  Tangi said impatiently, “Round them up, arrest them, and throw the key to the jail out on the desert into a harmattan” (sandstorm). “What does this have to do with the trip to America?”

  “We don’t know exactly who the leaders are as yet,” Babalumbi said.

  The PM said quietly, “Obviously we have to postpone the trip.”

  “Exactly so.” From the pompous Mr. Lloyd, His Wife’s inevitable Bottom.

  “On the other hand, if we do postpone the trip,” the PM thought aloud, “the world will know we’re having difficulties and will think we are unstable. Great nations do not lend their money or technicians on this basis. And furthermore, it will encourage outside interference in our affairs. We have enough spies and intriguers here already. It’s difficult to say what steps we should take.”

  Mr. Lloyd’s contribution was again, “Exactly so.”

  They kicked it back and forth for another hour and finally decided that, despite the damage it would undoubtedly do to their international image and their bargaining power, despi
te the threat of outside intrigue inside their beloved country, they would have to postpone the trip. They had no alternatives. At this point Tangi got to his feet and announced that he had a solution to the dilemma. They all stared at the Foreign Minister.

  “We could let half of the cabinet stay behind with the Prime Minister, and let the other half go to America with the Prime Minister.”

  They stared wordlessly at Tangi. Obviously the tensions of the last months had been too much for the fiery Foreign Minister. First freedom and independence, then unimagined prosperity, not to mention notoriety.

  “Kindly tell us how H.E. can be two places at the same time?” Slight intolerance in the Lion’s voice. He was usually rather patient with his younger colleagues.

  “Just give me two hours, my brothers, and I will bring the answer back to you.”

  All of them began to speak at once, but the Lion roared, almost sarcastically, “The people of Guanaya will be in your eternal debt, my brother.”

  “Hyah! Hyah!”

  Tangi stood unshakable. “Will His Excellency give me two hours?”

  Jaja Okwu stared at his watch and looked at the members of his cabinet. He rose to his full length in his long white flowing boubou (robe). “We gather here again at ten o’clock.”

  “Two more requests,” Mamadou Tangi said. “I should like two internal security men assigned to me immediately, and a few bottles of champagne here at the conference room by the time we reassemble, so we can drink to our successful journey out there into the other world.”

  One of the ministers got to his feet and gave the Guanaya freedom salute and softly shouted, “Uhuru!”

  They all stood up and gave the salute, and—“Uhuru! Uhuru! Uhuru! Freedom! Freedom!”

  His Wife’s Bottom said, “Exactly so.”

  2

  James Jay Leander Johnson, colored, Negro, Afro-American, Black man, sepia fella, tan Yank (take your choice), folk singer, was born in Lolliloppi, Mississippi, Near-the-Gulf, Southern USA, where he lived as a boy but could never grow up to be a man, Black manhood and womanhood (for that matter) being highly hazardous pursuits anywhere in Mississippi back in those days when European Americans dominated the great southern territory. Also anywhere in Alabama and Georgia, South Carolina and Louisiana, a fact every Freedom Rider would attest to, North Carolina, Tennessee, and every sit-in student would have been witness to, and every Black man, woman, and child understood instinctively, even two decades after the fact. Life insurance policies were astronomical on Black manhood and womanhood everywhere in dear old Dixie. The era of NeoReconstruction was caught up in the ebb tide. History was in repetition. The prophecy of Sam Yette’s The Choice was entering its fulfillment as were Lerone Bennett’s pronouncements on the New Reconstruction.

  Exactly three months to a ticktock before our story began, the same James Jay Leander Johnson (colored) fell from London via BOAC over Europe, his heart pounding like the four engines in the jet airliner, over the Mediterranean over Libya over the Great Sahara to the northern reaches of Guanaya. He was on his way to Lagos in Nigeria. The plane stopped over in Bamakanougou for only a half an hour, but Jimmy was so elated, so filled up all inside him with four hundred years of homecoming, he got off the plane just to put his feet on African soil and he could not help himself, he got down on his knees and kissed the soft sweet dark earth of Mother Africa. “I salute you, long lost Mother!” He wet the warm dark earth with his tears, which he could not keep from spilling down his cheeks onto his Africa.

  “Your wayward son salutes you!” He started singing: “Where is my wandering boy tonight. The boy of my tenderest care?” He thought, Your boy is home, Mama. Your wayward son is finally home! Thrill after chill after thrill raced across his back from shoulder to shoulder. His eyes shamelessly overflowing. You’re in Africa! His happy heart cried out to him. It was like he’d been on a long long journey all the lonesome days of his life and finally he was home again. Now he knew how the prodigal son must have felt. Great God from Ancient Timbuctoo! Behold your errant son returneth! Kill that fatted calf!—Jimmy has made the scene at last!—and Lordy Claudy!

  Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your retrospective point of view, it was a time when the Guanaya gendarmerie was alerted against infiltration of colonial agents and provocateurs and saboteurs of foreign powers who came in varying disguises. A vigilant officer of the law who was always on his toes saw Jimmy on his knees, and, thinking the chap had either lost something, possibly his marbles, or was up to something, signaled to another member of the constabulary and they dashed quickly out toward Jimmy with whistles whistling and torchlights flashing in the early African darkness that was falling all around them. It was not exactly the kind of African welcome Jimmy had envisioned.

  They pulled him roughly to his feet and demanded to know what he was looking for. He told them with a face full of the warmest feeling (fighting fiercely back his tears), told them with the greatest gravest dignity, “Brothers,” choking up, “I am here to find my heritage. I’m looking for my roots.” (Don’t let them see you cry, you fool!) They were the most wonderful-looking cops his glad eyes had ever witnessed. And he hoped like hell he could restrain himself. In Lolliloppi, Mississippi, Near-the-Gulf, as a boy, he’d never been overly fond of the blue-suited men who made up Lolliloppi’s finest. But it was just that these cops were so damn black and beautiful. These were—

  “Are you Guanayan?” the tall Black Cop inquired.

  “No,” he answered. “I—”

  “Are you Hausa?” from the short one.

  “No—I—”

  “Are you Bambara? Kikuyu?”

  “Are you Tuareg or Watusi?” They threw the questions at our bewildered hero. “Are you Zulu or Mandingo?”

  “That is just the trouble,” he told them. “It’s hard to say what I am or where I’m from. Maybe Nigeria, maybe Zaire, maybe Togo or Dahomey. Maybe Guinea. Maybe Mali. Maybe Zimbabwe or Kenya. It’s been so damn long.” Suddenly he felt profoundly sorry for himself. “Between one and two hundred years ago, maybe three or four hundred, perhaps even five. I don’t know when, I don’t know where. That’s why I’m here to find my roots and learn the folk songs of my people.” He sounded pretty corny, even to himself. Good Lord! Suppose they didn’t believe him!

  The cops looked at each other as if to say, “What is he? Some kind of a nut?” And Jimmy felt precisely like some kind of a nut, although he could not identify the species.

  “What people?” the big cop asked him cagily.

  “I don’t know what people,” Jimmy helplessly admitted. And he looked from one to the other, as if he thought they should have recognized him by now. He thought, They’re pulling my leg. They must be. They’ll throw their arms around me any minute. What a sense of humor my African brothers have. What jokers! Practical, that is. He laughed briefly, very feebly.

  The short cop said to the big one, “There’s something familiar about this chap. I have seen his face before somewhere.”

  And Jimmy thought, Maybe on the jacket of my one and only record album!

  The big one glared at Jimmy and nodded his head in agreement, and said, “Aanh-aanh.” Jimmy’s heart filled up and overflowed with the desperate hope of recognition and acceptance. He had traveled years and years and thousands of miles from Rejection to this place, and he could not take rejection here.

  “I’m also somewhat of a Calypsonian,” he volunteered, meekly, in all modesty. “By profession and adoption.” He struggled desperately for some faint sign of recognition. Anything at all!

  But seemingly neither of the members of the constabulary had heard of the Republic of Calypsonia, because, after giving him the third degree they threw their arms around him, but with very little affection, and dragged him away to the immigration authorities, young Black men who also made his face fill up with dignity and pride, and who also agreed he looked familiar, as they searched their files to see if they had a picture of him, or if he was wanted for a prior
offense, since he was obviously an agent of some foreign power. This was just too much for Jimmy.

  “I am not a spy!” he shouted.

  “Of course you’re not.” The immigration chap agreed, pleasantly, sarcastically. “You’re His Excellency Jaja Okwu Olivamaki, incognito. Come now, you might as well admit it. Modesty will get you nowhere or everywhere, as the case might be.”

  “I never heard of him!” Jimmy shouted with indignation. “Whoever he is! I’m innocent! I deny the allegation and defy the alligator!” He tried to calm himself. It was simply a case of mistaken identity. “Most of all I am insulted. Highly,” he added. His timing was off, slightly. And his timing was rarely ever off.

  The immigration officials smiled knowingly at each other. The one doing the questioning scribbled furiously on a pad before him on his desk. He wrote, mumbling to himself, in monotone. “This one is an unusual specimen. Honest face—without a tuppence of integrity. Boldly proclaims his innocence as if he has been accused of something specific. Guilty conscience or persecution complex. Paranoid definitely!”

  He looked up at Jimmy again. “Are you sure you’re not Jomo Kenyatta come back from the dead? Sékou Touré, perhaps? Kwame Nkrumah reincarnated?”

  Jimmy thought he must be having a nightmare in the daytime, wide awake.

  “What is the matter with you people?” he demanded hoarsely. “Everybody knows Kenyatta and Nkrumah are dead!” he added as an afterthought. “And so is Sékou Touré.”