by William Boyd
“I like the suit, Morgan,” he said. He had a hoarse Teutonic drawl, as if he were just recovering from laryngitis. “A business suit, yes?”
“No,” Morgan said feeling embarrassingly spruced-up beside Muller’s rumpled ease. “I’m going on somewhere. I just popped in.”
“I didn’t know you were a friend of Sam’s,” Muller said.
“I’ve met him once or twice … Celia invited me.”
“Aah. The lovely Celia.” Muller waved his glass at the courtyard. “Quite a party. Have you seen the tarts? They say Adekunle flew some of them in from Lagos and Abidjan. He’ll be impressing a lot of people tonight. Still, I wish him luck.”
“Is that official BRD policy?” Morgan asked.
Muller laughed. “It won’t make much difference to us whoever wins. No, I’m speaking as a businessman. Sam buys a lot of wood from me and if he wins—well, you know how these things work—business will boom.”
Morgan was curious. “What does a Professor of Economics want with wood?”
“Hell, man,” Muller said. “He owns the biggest construction company in the Mid-West: Ussman Danda Ltd. Where have you been living these last years, Morgan?”
Morgan blushed. There was nothing in the Kingpin file on this. He knew the name, there were even commercials on the TV for it. “Is that common knowledge?” he asked.
Muller shrugged and stroked his goatee. “A few people know about it,” he said. “It’s not a very great secret. I thought you would have heard it somewhere.”
Morgan changed the subject. “Are these tarts on the house too? Like the beer.”
“Why don’t you try and see?”
“No thanks.” A few people were out on the dance floor, shuffling rhythmically around in the pronounced stick-arsed fashion of highlife as the band thumped and perspired away manfully. Morgan glanced out of the side of his eye at Muller. His wife was long dead and it was rumoured that he slept with his cook’s thirteen-year-old daughter. But Muller never gave anything away and Morgan suspected that the story—like most of the poisonous anecdotes floating round Nkongsamba—had its source in a vindictive, drunken midnight conversation. Muller looked too ascetic for sex, Morgan decided, like some life-long opium-toker, genitals withered and redundant. He found it rather disgusting that he should be speculating on the state of Muller’s loins so he changed the subject.
A short while later there was a commotion at the door as a passageway was cleared through the crowd and Adekunle appeared, flanked by a praesidium guard, waving his short stick above his head. The band halted in mid-number and there was a great shout from the assembled guests and a burst of tumultuous applause. “KNP. KNP. KNP,” they chanted.
Tonight Adekunle more than ever resembled an African Henry VIII. His already considerable girth was amplified by the voluminous folds of his native costume which was white, trimmed and embroidered with gold thread. He moved slowly among his guests shaking hands, waving and smiling broadly. Some people bowed, others genuflected, ducking down and brushing the floor in front of him with the fingers of their right hand.
“Of course,” Morgan whispered to Muller, “he’s a chief, isn’t he?”
“One of the biggest,” Muller replied. “His father owned virtually all of Nkongsamba before the British took it away.”
“Did they?” Morgan said, astonished.
“Oh yes. Compulsory purchase, sometime before the war. I think they gave him about two hundred pounds for it.” He paused, an amused look in his eye as he saw Morgan digesting this information. “Look,” he added. “There’s Celia.” Morgan looked and saw Celia Adekunle amongst the others in Adekunle’s train. She was wearing a rich red and blue native costume, her thin face small under the hugely knotted head-tie. She was smiling in a strained unrelaxed way as she received and returned greetings from and to the party faithful. He suddenly felt very sorry for her.
Adekunle returned eventually to the centre of the dance floor where a small dais had been placed. He took up his position on this and raised his hands to still the applause.
“My friends,” his voice boomed out powerfully. “My friends, thank you, thank you. I just have a few words for you tonight. As the saying goes, ‘Make sure you fit talk, ’fore dey drink all de beer.’ ” The burst of pidgin English brought shrieks of delighted laughter and foot stamping. Morgan and Muller took this opportunity to withdraw to the bar where snatches of Adekunle’s speech came to them over the packed heads of the spectators. There was a great deal of bellowed rhetoric and crude mud-slinging in it, and at one point Morgan caught a glimpse of the politician, his face distorted with emphasis, brandishing his stick, his broad shoulders heaving as he vilified the policies of an opponent. Morgan knew that for the sake of Project Kingpin he really ought to try and listen more closely but demagoguery seemed to switch off vital circuits in his brain. As the shouts of passionate agreement began to crescendo Morgan whispered in Muller’s ear, “He’s a different man on a platform, isn’t he?”
“They expect it,” Muller said. “They think that if a man can’t make his voice heard, then his argument must be weak.”
Morgan was suddenly conscious of his almost total inexperience. “How long have you been out here, Georg?” he asked.
“In Kinjanja? Since 1948. But before that I was in the Cameroons.”
“Think Adekunle’s going to win?” he said as casually as possible.
“He’ll win here in the Mid-West. And I should think the KNP will win overall. That is, if the Army let them.”
Morgan nodded sagely in agreement. What the hell did the Army have to do with it? he asked himself in confusion.
“I don’t see any Army boys here tonight, do you?” he asked spontaneously, playing for time.
Muller scanned the crowd. “You’re right,” he said. “Good point. Not even in mufti. Of course, politicians are very unpopular with the military just now.”
Morgan felt vaguely excited by his lucky observation, but a little confused as to its ramifications. Still, he had actually gathered some information tonight. He could now say to Fanshawe, “Do you know, there wasn’t a single Army boy at Adekunle’s party. Very interesting, I think,” and Fanshawe wouldn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about, but he’d be impressed just the same. Following up on his good fortune Morgan recalled a headline in a local newspaper about recent Army promotions.
“Interesting reshuffles going on at the barracks,” he said to Muller out of the side of his mouth.
Muller nodded. “Orimi-Peters is a Moslem, you know.”
“That’s right,” Morgan said. “Very interesting.” The opaque, cloudy void of his ignorance seemed to stretch away in front of him. He decided he’d better stop talking before Muller realised he was a complete fraud. He felt suddenly rather ashamed of himself. Kinjanja was a mystery to him, he realised; he knew next to nothing about the way its inhabitants’ minds worked, the way its colonially imposed institutional superstructure related with the traditional tribal background; he knew nothing of the ethnic, racial and religious pressures surreptitiously influencing events. He felt suddenly like leaving and was aware of an absurd resentment directed at Muller, with his assured range of knowledge and his calm experience. Perhaps that’s what comes of sleeping with your servant’s children, he observed cruelly, and was immediately further ashamed by his mean-mindedness. A prolonged cheering outburst signalled the end of Adekunle’s speech at that point.
“Have another drink?” Morgan asked Muller, as if to make up for his pusillanimous thoughts.
“No thanks,” Muller said. “Only one a night. Doctor’s orders.”
“Not Dr. Murray, I trust,” Morgan said scornfully.
“Alex Murray?” Muller asked. “I wish it was, but you have to be in the university to get him.”
“At least he’s consistent,” Morgan sneered.
“Oh, he’s very consistent,” Muller said, misinterpreting. “A very consistent man.”
Muller left shor
tly after that, and Morgan chatted for a while to some people from the university he knew and wondered how he was going to get near enough to Adekunle to put his new proposition to him. He spent a fair bit of time actively building up his confidence which had slipped alarmingly low since arriving at the Hotel de Executive. He felt like some medieval underling trying to present a suit to a feudal lord or overweight bishop, or one of those minor characters in Shakespeare’s Roman plays who intrude upon the principals with petty wrangles about legacies or property disputes. Adekunle’s stature and prestige now impressed itself on him much more forcefully as a result of the massive adulation and respect the assembled dignitaries were offering up. He felt simultaneously the unreality, stupidity and ill-conceived nature of Fanshawe’s “mission” for him. He and Fanshawe were like a couple of retarded kids playing a game together as the real world rumbled by unaffected.
“Cheer up,” Celia Adekunle said coming up to him. “Why so gloomy? It’s meant to be a party, you know.”
“Sorry,” he said glumly. “Lot on my mind.”
“Really?” she said. “Anything I can do?”
Morgan laughed more harshly than he intended. “I doubt it,” he said. Then, “Sorry. Thanks for asking, but it’s not that important. I must say that’s a splendid … um, outfit you’re wearing.” The cloth was heavy and the colours glowing, and she wore a lot of gold around her neck and wrists.
“Thank you,” she said without much enthusiasm. “I don’t wear this stuff all the time, you know; I’d hate you to think I’d gone totally native.” The surprising stress she put on this last word embarrassed them both. Morgan looked away.
“Big crowd,” he said. “Is there any chance of talking to your husband, do you think? Or is that a vain hope?”
“You’re very keen to see Sam, aren’t you,” she said thoughtfully, lighting a cigarette. “I told him you were coming. He’s expecting you.”
“Oh,” Morgan said gratefully. “That’s very good of you.”
“That’s OK,” Celia Adekunle said, scrutinising him through a cloud of smoke. “Just wait until the official meeting and greeting is over.”
“Right,” Morgan said. “Let me get you a drink in the meantime.” He replenished her glass and stood chatting to her for a while. He asked her where she and Adekunle had met.
“Sheffield of all places,” she said. “Sam did his BA there. I was secretary to his professor. Sam had some trouble at one time with his bursary and so I saw a lot of him in the office one term, getting forms signed and letters written.” She paused. “He was so different from the other students. Much older of course, very ambitious and somehow experienced, even though he was at a bit of a loss in Sheffield at first. It wasn’t much fun being a black student in those days. We went out together a few times … got our share of strange looks.”
“When did you get married?” Morgan prompted, feeling mildly interested.
“Sam went off to Harvard to do his PhD. He came back suddenly after a year and asked me to marry him, and I did.” She shrugged. “We had two years in the States. My first boy was born there. Then we came here.”
Morgan smiled awkwardly. The story had been delivered in a curiously dead-pan tone. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. “So you’re a secretary by trade,” he said lamely.
“No, I started off as a nurse. But I couldn’t stick it. My mother had been a midwife and I was rather forced into the profession. But it’s not something you can just do. You have to be a certain kind of person. It just got me down. Sick people all the time, people dying.” She gave a brittle clear laugh. “I should have been a midwife. Get people going, instead of meeting them at the end of the race.”
“So you became a secretary.” Morgan felt his line of questioning was uninspired to say the least, but she seemed happy to talk about herself.
“I was waiting round, undecided. It seemed a good stopgap, but then I found I quite liked it, especially working in a university. Intelligent people all around you, all that. My boss was nice too.”
“Sam’s professor.” Morgan suspected that there was another story there too.
“Yes. He was a kind man. He … Then,” she made a mock-dramatic gesture, “Sam Adekunle walked into my life, needing a signature on a bursary form.”
Morgan saw it all: the bored, frustrated secretary; Adekunle—black, potent. A chief’s son, no doubt hints dropped of great wealth and limitless tribal lands. The sense of failure prompting a spirit of rebellion—go out with a black man, show how free you are, how you spurn the conventions of your life.…
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “But I can assure you it wasn’t how you imagine.” Morgan protested vehemently. “It’s alright,” she said, “I know what they say about the white wives of Kinjanjans out here, and it’s probably fairly accurate. But with Sam it wasn’t like that. He was quite a different person in those days.”
Morgan found himself blushing. “Look,” he insisted, “I wasn’t thinking anything, for heaven’s sake.”
“I believe you,” she smiled. “Relax. Only it’s just that I haven’t spoken about me and Sam for ages. And I do know what the expats say, I’ve been on the receiving end of enough nasty gossip.”
“Please. Don’t classify me as a typical expat. Anything but.”
“Sorry,” she said. “But I became pretty good at recognising that ‘look’ in people’s eyes.” She jokingly speared two fingers at Morgan’s eyes. “I thought I saw it flashing there.” She glanced over her shoulder, “Oh good,” she said. “I think Sam’s available now.”
Adekunle steered Morgan into a corner of the courtyard. He muttered something to one of his aides. “Don’t worry,” he said to Morgan. “We won’t be disturbed.”
Morgan looked about him. “Isn’t there somewhere less … exposed?”
Adekunle’s laugh boomed out. “My dear fellow, it would attract far more attention if I were seen leaving my own birthday party with you.” Morgan realised he was right.
“I found your speech very interesting,” he said.
“Did you?” Adekunle asked sceptically. “And how does the Deputy High Commission rate the KNP’s chances?”
“Good.” Morgan drew the word out as if it were the product of long deliberation. “If the Army let you.” Adekunle looked at him sharply. Morgan was gratified by the accuracy of his shot in the dark.
“What do you mean by that?” Adekunle said with more interest.
“I don’t think we need to go into detail, do we?”
“As you wish,” Adekunle said. “We’ll take a rain-check on it, as the saying goes. Anyway, Mr. Leafy, I believe you wanted to talk to me.”
Morgan took a deep breath. “I’m here—unofficially—to convey the—how shall I put it?—less unofficial nature of Britain’s, um, interest in the fortunes of the KNP.”
Adekunle thought about this. “I see,” he said. “But you shouldn’t be talking to me. I am only, as our French friends say, a fonctionnaire.”
“Ah yes. But an important one. Certainly in the field of foreign affairs.”
“Just a supposition, Mr. Leafy. I don’t even know yet if I will be a member of the National Assembly.”
Morgan smiled patiently. “You have a point there. But, after all, a lot of diplomacy never gets further than supposition. And, on the strength of this one we … we would be interested in preliminary consultation with the, ah, putative Foreign Minister.” Morgan finished; he was quite pleased with the way he’d expressed himself and with his neat ambiguities.
“Consultation?” queried Adekunle.
“In London,” Morgan said.
“I see. In London.”
“Yes,” Morgan said, suppressing his impatience. This dainty circumlocution was suddenly getting on his nerves. “We will be happy to arrange the flight—first class of course—and your accommodation.”
“In Claridge’s, I assume,” Adekunle said with a broad grin.
“Well, yes, as a matter of fact.”
Morgan was surprised.
Adekunle gave a loud laugh. “My good God,” he said. “You British are indeed astonishing. You still think that all you need to do to get an African politician eating out of your hands is to offer first class air tickets and bed and breakfast at Claridge’s.” He wheezed with laughter. A few people nearby looked round and started to laugh too.
“Thank you,” Adekunle said finally. “Thank you for your offer. I will see if I can fit it into my itinerary.”
“Itinerary?” Morgan repeated, nonplussed. “Do you mean …?”
“Yes, my dear Mr. British Deputy High Commission man. You are a very late bird to catch this worm, as the saying goes. Once I’ve been to Washington, Paris, Bonn and Rome I’ll see if I can drop in on London. Thank you again, Mr. Leafy,” he said still smiling. “No wonder the Empire went. Yes?” He broke off and wandered away to speak to his waiting guests.
Morgan ordered a whisky and soda from the barman. The hot blush had left his face but he felt his ears were still glowing. That stupid old fool Fanshawe, he railed to himself, nothing but shame, disgrace and public humiliation had attached itself to this spectacularly misconceived piece of under-the-counter dealing, and most of it was particularly closely associated with him. He heard Adekunle’s laugh above the hum of conversation and imagined him amusing his friends with the details of their recent conversation.
The barman put down his glass.
“What of ice?” Morgan asked tersely.
“Ice ’e dey finish,” the barman snapped back equally shirtily and turned away. Bloody rude black bastard, Morgan seethed to himself, this fucking country was determined to …
“Go alright?” asked a voice at his shoulder. It was Celia Adekunle.
“Oh, fine,” Morgan said frostily. “Listen, do you think you could tell this snotty so-and-so to get me some ice for my drink?”
Morgan lay back on the bed in Hazel’s hotel room. He could hear the high-pitched whine of a mosquito around but he didn’t care. He threw the sheet off his damp body, sweat slicked every crevice and fold. The neon lights on the façade of the cheap hotel filtered through the shutters, the tinny music from the bar competed with the honking and revving of the traffic outside. He peered at the luminous dial of his watch: twenty past twelve. Hazel slept silently beside him on the grubby bed. He felt itches spring up spontaneously all over his body. He needed to piss. He needed a bath. He felt dreadful, in fact—he had drunk far too much, he was sweaty and uncomfortable and the vigour of his sex with Hazel had supplied him with a tingling electric ache in his penis. The details of the night’s unsatisfactory events crowded in on him. He let out an apologetic sigh—he had been unpardonably rude to Celia Adekunle. On being informed that the bar had indeed run out of ice due to excessive demand he had loudly declaimed that it was exactly what he had come to expect of Kinjanja and was a small but cogent illustration of what was wrong with the country. He had then bidden her a curt goodnight and sniffily walked out of the party. He could still clearly recall the hurt and surprise that had registered on her face as he strode past her. He clenched his fists beneath the sheets and groaned silently to himself. It wasn’t her fault that he had been made to look a complete fool; she had only been friendly and helpful. He buried his knuckles in his eye sockets in an agony of futile remorse.