Whereupon Dr. Hillman immediately assumed that His Excellency meant the direct opposite of what he said he meant, because it was the way diplomats talked to one another. They very honestly never told each other the truth about anything, no matter on how friendly terms the governments involved might be. It was tradition in Western diplomacy. Only scoundrels were completely honest. Honesty was the last resort of diplomats. A resort they never resorted to. Dr. Hillman tried another tack. “Your Excellency, may I ask you? Has cobanium been discovered in any of the other provinces?”
“Yes and no,” the PM answered emphatically and with deliberate ambiguity.
Dr. Hillman was not sure whether the PM’s “Yes and no” was in answer to “May I ask?” or to the second part of the question he had asked. The smiling scientist stared at the suave Prime Minister and then he looked from face to smiling face of the people seated around the long mahogany table, excepting that Tangi was not smiling. He never smiled for Europeans. It was against his personal religion.
Men and women were still dancing in and out of the cabinet office on their tiptoes, some of them even waltzing, bringing papers to be stared at and whispering excitedly to one or more of the conferees.
Dr. Hillman changed the subject. “Of course, Your Excellency, we want to put our technical experts at your disposal, to extract the high-grade ore as efficiently and as expeditiously as possible. We would hope that our expedition would be the only one and would have full charge carte blanche without outside interference from anyone, responsible only to the American government.”
His Wife’s Bottom said, “Exactly so.” And pompously.
Tangi gave his colleague a mean white look and then turned to Dr. Hillman and said, matter-of-factly, “The first responsibility of anybody working on any project in Guanaya will be to the Guanayan people represented by His Excellency and the Guanayan government.”
Jimmy Johnson said emphatically, “Exactly so.”
President Hubert Herbert Hubert gave the scientist a black look and then turned to His Excellency and said, “Yes, of course, Your Excellency, indeed. I’m sure Dr. Hillman did not mean to imply anything at all.” If his legs had been long enough, he would have kicked the doctor on his shin. He tried so hard that the muscles in the calf of his legs began to contract, severely, miserably.
Dr. Hillman’s face broke into a cool damp sweat. He lapsed into a peculiar combination of Dixie drawl and German guttural. “Of course, Mr. President, I meant nothing at all, indeed, Your Excellency.”
“He meant nothing at all,” Mr. Langford repeated.
“I understand English,” His Excellency assured Mr. Langford.
Metaphorically speaking, Dr. Hillman’s head was bloody but unbowed. He was a man of derring-do. He was the kind of scientific genius whom nobody had ever accused of being intelligent. An idiot savant, so to speak. Though there was none who dared to doubt his scientific genius. “What I really meant was, we would certainly insist that we would be the only outside experts working on the project inside.”
“Insist?” His Excellency inquired, with an aggrieved and puzzled look on his face. Then he turned to his Foreign Minister and rattled off a rapid ragged ad-libbed Hausa.
Tangi spoke back to him in Hausa. They engaged back and forth in a brief though animated dialogue. Then ignoring Dr. Hillman, Tangi turned to the President of the United States. “His Excellency says that you had given him your honorable assurances that in our two countries’ dealings with each other, there would be no strings attached. But, His Excellency says, the word ‘insist’ sounded to him more like the rattle of colonial chains.”
His Wife’s Bottom, Mr. Lloyd, cleared his throat and explained, “Please to understand that whenever His Excellency the Prime Minister of the Independent People’s Democratic Republic of Guanaya gets excited or exhausted, he always speaks in Hausa. Thank you very much.”
The President colored slightly but did not lose his poise. He tried again to reach Hillman underneath the table, but alas his legs had not grown any longer. “Yes, of course,” he said, “‘insist’ is a very strong word. Very aggressive word indeed, Dr. Hillman. Possibly the word ‘suggest’ might suggest a sentiment a little more or less suggestive.”
Tangi stared at the President long and hard, as if to make sure he had heard him clearly. Finally, he said, “Exactly so,” as did His Excellency, and finally the great scientist, who had somehow lapsed suspiciously into a Guanayan accent, agreed. “Exactly so.” Jimmy thought that Hillman was probably a better dialect man than he was a diplomat.
But in fairness to the doctor, it must be said, he did not give up easily. “What I really meant to say was: We would certainly hope that we would not have to work with any other outside forces inside the project. For example: If there were an American expedition, there would hardly be any need for a Russian one, although, don’t misunderstand me, I hate to bring up the question of Russia into this discussion. I mean, this amiable discussion—because certainly as a scientist, I am loathed to bring the Cold War into this great expedition of the Twentieth Century. Nevertheless—”
The fake PM seemed to hear only one phrase in Dr. Hillman’s speech, and that phrase was “Cold War.” He stared at Dr. Hillman with all his pearly white showing in his dark face, but they all knew he was not smiling pleasantly. Then he turned to Tangi and his face turned into one of righteous indignation, and he said, “Coldwar!” making one word of the two words. And then he launched into a tirade of potluck Hausa at Tangi as if his Foreign Minister were a white devil in a black disguise. Now and for good measure, or to make sure Tangi perfectly understood the context, he threw in a few words of Afro-Americanese.
Tangi stared understandingly (tongue-in-cheek) at His-Angry-Excellency and accepted his scolding like a man. When H.E. finally ran out of steam (most probably because he ran freshly out of his Hausa vocabulary), Tangi said quietly, “Exactly so, Your Excellency.”
Then he turned to the perplexed cherubic Prexy of the USA, and said, “His Excellency says, he is loath to bring the Coldwar into this, the great expedition of the twentieth century.”
And they all agreed, “Exactly so.”
The President gave Dr. Hillman a dark dark look, and the great scientist got the message this time and kept quiet for the remainder of the conference. But Dr. Hillman notwithstanding, the PM and the Prexy got along, but famously. It was like love at first sight. And they made good ballroom partners, adroit as they both were in dancing nimbly around the burning issues of the day. When they had finished not-discussing communism and profoundly not-discussing Peking and not-discussing Cuba with such tremendous insight and perception and not discussing South Africa and Angola, and Zimbabwe and Namibia and Grenada, they discussed generally the question of cultural exchange and teachers and trade and finances. Then drinks were brought in and the President suggested that they drink to peace on earth.
The PM said, “Peace and freedom, Mr. President. We cannot have one without the other. A slave is never at peace with his master.” How could the President not agree?
By the time they finished this session, Jimmy had worked his short-ranged Juju on the President and had him drinking out of the PM’s calabash, so to speak, and drinking to uhuru, to Pan-Africanism and to an end to colonialism and everything else. Somewhere near the end of it the fake PM held out his glass toward the President and shouted softly, “Up the PAs! Up the Pan-Africanists!”
The kindly President immediately upped the PAs and the Pan-Africanists, and with vigor. He was determined to keep the PM in a jovial mood. He would up almost anything to keep the “noble savage” happy.
But this time “Jaja the Magnificent,” as he thought of himself modestly, sometimes, this time he lunged his glass toward that of the President’s, and his aim was off target, and all his highball ended up on the bosom and in the lap of the chief executive.
Presidential flunkies rushed forward and wiped the front of the President hastily and put another drink in the dark han
d of His Excellency.
The red-faced President said, “It was all my fault, Your Excellency. How can you ever forgive me for such impropriety?”
His Excellency said, “Exactly so.”
Perhaps there was a breakdown in communication?
The PM stared at the Prexy long and hard, as again he struck his glass (with better aim this time) loudly against the Prexy’s. “Up the Black folk in South Africa!”
And the Prexy immediately upped the Black folk in South Africa. It did not cost him a red cent. Upping after all was an inexpensive exercise.
The bogus PM shouted, loudly this time, “Up His Excellency, Olivamaki!” Forgetting that he himself was His Excellency Olivamaki. The rest of the party stared at Jimmy; the Guanayans because they thought he had exposed himself, either as an egomaniac or as the great fraud of the twentieth century; the Americans because they thought him drunk never before having ever heard of a man offering a toast to himself. Fortunately, the President thought that the PM was following a good old native African custom. He looked around at the rest of them and held his glass toward the PM and shouted, “Up the President of the United States!”
And everybody followed suit, even the bogus PM, who thought it very strange for an American President to be toasting himself, but he went along with the gag, if any.
They upped quite a few other things, including the Black folks of the USA, and downed quite a bit of the White House liquor. But the PM was not drinking as much as he pretended to be, and neither was the jolly cunning President. And both the President and the PM finally got wise to each other. And yet they kept the pretenses up; each pretending that he was getting drunk and that he was not wise to the other pretending that he was getting drunk. They each knew that the other was wise to him, but it did not stop them from pretending, but it did get very confusing, and furthermore it was the easiest way in the world for both of them to get completely stoned, which is what was happening and almost happened and would have happened, had not Tangi reminded the PM of a previous commitment that they did not have.
The PM asked the President again about Lolliloppi, Mississippi, which had a sobering effect on Hubert Herbert Hubert as if a bucket of ice-cold water had been thrown onto the front of his trousers. He jumped, and in a second, he was as sober as judges are supposed to be but rarely ever are.
Then he got himself together and stared shrewdly at the PM. “Why would you want to go to a place like that, Your Excellency? Wouldn’t you rather see America first? How about Chicago?”
“Isn’t Lolliloppi in America, Mister President? I mean, it did not secede from the union yet, did it, Mr. President?”
The PM laughed and everybody followed suit—naturally.
“Wouldn’t you rather go to a place like the golden shores of California, the home of the moving picture stars, and Sammy Davis Jr. and the Brooklyn Dodgers?”
“Lolliloppi, Mister President,” the PM said with malice aforethought. “Lolliloppi, Mississippi.”
“How about Florida?” the President persuaded desperately. “The land of sunshine and ocean breezes? That’s further south than Mississippi.”
“A promise is a promise, Mr. President, and Lolliloppi is Lolliloppi.”
“Yes indeed—a promise certainly is a promise, and Lolliloppi is Lolliloppi,” the President agreed bewilderedly, as under his breath he swore off whiskey. How could he have made such a promise to this innocent-youth-of-noble-savage-and-Black Prime Minister? He took the pledge forthwith, and it was the water wagon for him. For the duration. Or certainly as long as the PM and his party were around to make naive requests like “May we visit Lolliloppi, Mississippi?” How much native naivete can a naive native have? he asked himself rhetorically but not aloud.
14
Now the newsmen and TV and photographers were let loose into the room, and they were the wildest bunch of American natives the Guanayans had ever witnessed, even in the moving pictures. Flashbulbs were exploding all over the place, and TV cameras grinding, and the PM posing now with the beloved Prexy.
And Maria Efwa posing with this one, that one, and the other.
“What do you think of our country?” one of the newsmen asked Jimmy Johnson, on television. Live TV.
He glimpsed Maria Efwa getting her picture taken with Mister Parkington of the State Department.
“Yes indeed,” the PM answered cagily.
Now they had her posing with the bad-teeth scientist. Jimmy imagined that Hillman had a sensational case of halitosis. He felt like galloping to her rescue on his great Black horse.
“What do you think of the Cold War climate, Mr. Prime Minister?”
Now she was posing smilingly with the Secretary of State, Jimmy Johnson observed.
“Too much weather,” the PM cagily answered, even though he was distracted.
“How does it feel to be in the Free World, Mr. Prime Minister?”
“Oh, it’s very nice indeed, and I bring you greetings from it. You should visit us sometimes.” He smiled whitely, Black and pretty for the people of the press, and Lloyd jabbed him in the ribs. His ribs were getting tenderized from the constant elbow jabbing by His Wife’s Nervous Bottom and Foreign Minister Mamadou Tangi.
“You are a bachelor, aren’t you, Mr. Prime Minister?” a newsman from a liberal American paper which shall be nameless asked. “What do you think of our American women?”
The other newsmen laughed and giggled.
His Excellency was unperturbed. “I have not seen much of them, but from what I have seen there’re plenty of them.”
He let them figure that one out.
“Where are you going from Washington, Mr. Prime Minister?”
“I am going to your fabulous New York City, of the extraordinary monstrous Apples of which I intend to bite into extensively, and where the buildings scrape the sky and people wash their faces in the clouds.”
He could hear some of the newsmen snickering politely, and then he politely lowered the boom.
“From New York I am going down to sample some of your good old Southern hospitality in Lolliloppi, Mississippi.”
Suddenly it got very quiet. One of the Southern newsmen fainted. It was quiet hot in the Cabinet Room, despite the air conditioning, what with the klieg lights on, and everything.
Now they were moving, PM and Prexy, shoulder to shoulder, like old buddies, down the red-carpeted hall toward the northern entrance to the White House, flanked by distinguished conferees from both countries, and G-men and SS-men and newsmen and photographers. When they were about fifty feet from the northern portico, a door opened suddenly, and two young SS men ran breathlessly toward them. Had he had the proper pigmentation or lack of it, whichever, Jimmy Johnson would have paled visibly. As it was, he settled for other clichéd manifestations. He perspired profusely. His stomach doubled into knots; crabs staged an orgy in his entrails. And he knew somehow the jig was up; the masquerade was over. He felt a sudden wave of claustrophobia, saw visions of the Rock of Alcatraz. Everything closed in on now. He looked around him for some place to run and hide, but there was no place. He thought about the great Joe Louis. He could run but he could not hide. He almost lost his cool completely.
When the two excited young men reached them, they spoke rapidly to Carlton Carson, who whispered nervously to the President. The President paled visibly.
He said, “Dammit to fu-fu-fucking hell!”
Carlton Carson whispered further.
The President’s second contribution was, “Dammit to fuh-fuh-fucking hell!”
The party had stopped about ten or fifteen feet from the northern entrance and Jimmy (he was Jimmy now, from head to toe, no more no less) could hear a commotion outside that sounded like a lynch mob. He almost paled visibly despite his pigmentation. But even at this dire moment, our hero never lost his sense of humor. The jig is up, he thought, and I will be the jig that’s up.
Finally, the nervous President turned to His Most Distinguished Excellency from the Independent
People’s Democratic Republic of Guanaya. “Mr. Prime Minister, I wonder if I might show you one of the other entrances to the White House. You would be surprised at how many entrances there are.”
But abruptly he was the PM again and the wave of claustrophobia all mixed up with paranoia suddenly subsided, and he thought he smelled another kind of rat. He almost said, “Ah-ha!” Furthermore, in his role as a Black man of the American diaspora, which he had almost but not entirely forgotten at the moment, he automatically took umbrage toward back door and side door entrances.
He threw it on the President, his great disarming smile. “We have an ancient belief in my country, Mr. President, that a man should leave by the same door he entered, unless there are compelling reasons or circumstances that dictate to the contrary.”
He heard the noise outside clearly now, and he was both Jimmy Johnson (colored) and His Excellency Jaja Okwu Olivamaki, and nothing could have kept him, short of gunpoint, from going out of the northern entrance. At the moment his role as prime minister was overshadowed by his American-Negritude or vice versa. He thought he heard chanting outside and he giggled deeply in his abdomen.
“We could ride the White House elevator,” the President suggested. “Or we could leave by the East Gate. Or even better, go through the Oval Office through the french doors and we could see the famous beautiful Rose Garden. They didn’t even show the Rose Garden to Premier Krookshelf.”
“Are there compelling reasons why we should not leave by the same door through which we entered?”
“Certainly not,” the President admitted.
“Well then, there you are,” the PM said decidedly.
The poor President did not know what to do. Whether “to shit or to go blithely blind” as they say in ’Sippi in educated company. “But surely, you’re not superstitious, Your Excellency. You’re a modern man in every respect, and from this side entrance there is such a magnificent view. The famous Rose—Gar—I mean, every morning I—”
The Minister Primarily Page 20