Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth

by Wole Soyinka

  “I thought not. And this is not a mosque?”

  The liaison was instantly on his guard. Sir Goddie was right, the man was simply a mischief-maker. He looked warily at him. “This comes from the private fridge of the first lady—I went directly to her residential quarters. In fact she had learnt you were here through the People’s Steward. I didn’t know you were family friends.”

  “We are not,” Duyole firmly corrected him.

  “No? She spoke as if you are.”

  The engineer shook his head firmly. “No such thing.”

  Now the emissary stood confused. “She even asked me to let you know you are welcome to come over for dinner if the audience drags on till late.”

  Duyole shook his head in the negative as he treated himself to a second gulp. “It’s looking that way, isn’t it? We may not even meet today after all. I just hope you all remember I’ll be flying out of the country in a few days. And once I return to Badagry, I’m not coming back here.”

  “Of course, of course, that’s why the Steward rushed the appointment—you know he only got in a week ago. Look, Mr. Pitan, he will definitely see you. That’s why I’m here. He told me to keep you company.”

  The engineer settled more comfortably in his seat. The key to the locked room of the full story lay in that publication, so he picked it up again, ostentatiously.

  The liaison could not resist. “That’s my latest. Very latest. Actually straight off the press. How do you find it?”

  “I hadn’t quite started reading.”

  “The original cover read The Making of a Nation’s Servant. You know that story already, I’m sure. Everyone does. But not the trouble it caused for us here. I had to rush to stop press the day after that infamous rally. This new cover—you can’t imagine—we kept the press open all night, just to change the cover. Plus the few pages which bore the original servant. The villa is really blessed with a dedicated staff.”

  “Why the rush? Pulping goes on all the time in governance. Pulping and shredding is all part of the business.”

  “No time to waste. Independence Day ahead. Elections round the corner. And need one mention the festival itself? Luckily the villa has its own press—it can turn out thousands of copies even of the entire Quran without outside help if we wish.”

  Duyole whistled. “Impressive. Or the Bible?”

  “Or the Bible. Any book you like.”

  “Really. I am impressed. Can I keep this?”

  The young man leapt up. “I’ll get you more copies. You may like to share them with your friends—your scientific colleagues and others over in the U.S. In fact, we’re shipping bundles to embassies. Fortunately the former version had not been distributed—not that it matters. We can always recall.”

  Pitan-Payne gave his best muckraker seduction grin. “Is it all in here? The full story?”

  “Not yet, but soon. Everything. The People’s Steward is an upfront leader, you know. Tell it like it is—that is his philosophy.”

  “It should make riveting reading. Thanks. But don’t trouble yourself about the extra copies. I can share this copy with others.”

  “It’s no trouble. No trouble at all. I’ll see to it. I am glad that it caught your interest.”

  “Interest? I’m dying to go through—once I’ve got this audience over with. A magnum opus like this requires concentration, not something to be tackled while waiting. Talking of which…”

  “Any time now, Mr. Payne, any time. Just give us a few more minutes.”

  “A few more minutes? Why not? I’m not rushed. I left my home for the airport at five a.m. Just to be sure I caught the first flight out—that’s always the most reliable. I’ve only been in Abuja”—he raised his watch-bearing wrist ostentatiously—“for over four hours. I can wait another four.”

  Wasted sarcasm; his equivalent was simply elated. “That’s the spirit. The People’s Steward appreciates that. Let me get you those copies.”

  “No, no, what’s the hurry? I can take a package when I’m leaving. Plenty of time.” He smoothed the slim publication against his thigh, bent over confidentially, and offered his own vintage Uriah Heep ingratiation smile. “This must have taken some doing. Digging for facts. Analyzing. Then putting it all together, thinking, Ah, job well done. Then having to redo it all over, all in one night? I bet you’re already thinking of a sequel.”

  “What?”

  “A sequel. A follow-up. Something along the lines of The Steward No One Knows.”

  Shekere Garuba’s delight was boundless. “How did you guess? Actually, I’m giving it the title Enigma. Something Enigma, or Enigma Something Something. Because that is what he is—an enigma.”

  Pitan-Payne put on his most solemn face, nodded gravely. “You’ve said it—an enigma. That’s what that treacherous governor failed to appreciate. He did not know who he was dealing with. I’m sure this work is a revelation.” And he patted the pamphlet anew.

  “It was not even my department, really, but I felt the story had to be told. People don’t appreciate him. They simply do not appreciate what they have. The Steward, he is a godsend. He’s a genius. He’s our father-mentor-prophet rolled into one. People misunderstand him.”

  “I know, I know.” Duyole’s pursuit shifted into a renewed confidential gear. “Take a seat—that is, if you have no urgent national emergency sitting on your desk. That strange man, that governorship candidate—what a character, eh? Did you know him personally?”

  A satisfied air of achievement settled all over Shekere. “Well, you see, it wasn’t really my doing. The man brought it on himself. He was a snake who finally swallowed an apple too big for his gullet—if I may quote the Steward’s own words.”

  Duyole’s roar of delight brought the chief of staff from nowhere. A door whose flush existence with the wall had remained unnoticed pushed outwards and a face briefly occupied the gap. It was with relief that Pitan-Payne actually heard a voice emerge from it.

  “Is everything all right?”

  The engineer waved him away with exaggerated cheerfulness—the beer had put him in a good mood, but even more important, he was on a promising trail and was even getting attuned to the tempo of this restricted environment. “Go away. My equivalent and I just found that we have some things in common. Thank you, but we’re doing fine.”

  Puckered eyebrows of the chief of staff registered disapproval of such boisterous violation of the solemn ambiance of the nation’s power hub but withdrew. Duyole gestured the adviser to come closer.

  “Fill me in. I’ll be away quite a while, so I’ll be missing all the fun. Something to recall and console myself with when I feel homesick over there. You must have gathered lots of material.”

  The young man hesitated. “Well, it’s not as if I did anything in particular. The man was a loose cannon. When he jumped ship and came over to us, to our great party, the Steward asked me to stay close to him. Bring him into the inner circles of the party but also keep an eye on him—those were his instructions. You see, our leader is very shrewd, very, very shrewd. He doesn’t just take anyone at face value. His very words to me were ‘I don’t trust turncoats, so watch him, in case he turns out to be a rotten apple.’ I promised him I would be the rotten worm inside that rotten apple if he proved to be one.” A smirk of self-satisfaction and he continued. “Oga smiled over that, you know. He gave me that big smile and slapped me on the back, just like an equal. He said, ‘You’re learning fast—I’ll let your father know, he’ll be proud of you. Good. You be the deadly worm inside the apple. When he bites into it, I want to see his teeth corrode.’ ”

  This time Pitan-Payne stifled his struggling burst of delight. “I like that. I like that! You know, the way I’ve heard people talk about that governor’s takeoff, it’s the proverbial case of the man the whole community wants to roast. So what does he do? It’s Harmattan weather an
d on the chilly side. So he rubs palm oil all over his body, wraps himself in blankets, and sits next to a roaring fire.”

  “Exactly. Our man wasted no time in carrying out his election promise to hit the ground running. He didn’t even wait to hit the ground before starting to run—he was already pedaling in midair like one of those circus performers from China. Writing postdated cheques on the government treasury, to be settled once he took office! I mean, he has yet to take office, he has yet to take the oath of office. But he arranged it all with the outgoing governor, the one who is still sitting there right now. Beat that if you can. I mean, match it!”

  “But he is quite wealthy. He has lots of money.”

  “Elections cost. Elections eat money. And then politicians like to play big. In my four years with Sir Goddie, I have seen it happen. So that is what I’m telling you. Say it anywhere that you heard it from me. I said, this character Akpanga, governor-elect, has already signed postdated payments on government chequebooks. Wallahi! Write it down that I, Shekere Garuba, said so!”

  “Why not a straightforward prosecution?”

  Garuba laughed. “Who will be prosecution witness? His opposition partner in crime? Outgoing or incoming, this crosses party lines. Who will agree to testify?”

  “Too bad he has immunity. That means four years in which to cover his tracks. Case files get lost. Witnesses disappear.”

  “Good. Now you understand the whole thing. As long as you don’t cross the line, you can do what you want. Nobody really bothered their heads about that. But what the man did at the rally—that was the real sabotage. Sir Goddie will never forgive him. All day yesterday we were still at it. And nearly all night.”

  Pitan-Payne sat up, leant forward eagerly. “Even more serious matters?”

  “Heavy. All yesterday. It was one hot session after another. Only top party members, the very top, allowed in. Even I was not invited. Until after they had all finished, then I was summoned to carry out their decisions. Can you imagine? It’s not right.” Garuba had turned resentful, even maudlin. Pitan-Payne consoled him with the smarmiest tut-tutting of fellow feeling he could muster, patted him on the knee with consoling gentleness. Garuba felt a genuine warmth for this earlier execrated thorn in the flesh—he seemed not a bad fellow after all, indeed a sympathetic ear and willing confidant. His eyes roved cautiously round the room, lingered a little on the wall through which the apparition of the chief of staff had emerged and vanished. Satisfied, he drew his chair yet closer to Duyole Pitan-Payne, whose impatience from the long wait had again changed texture from angry resignation to that of the insatiable story harvester. Already he could hear himself narrating the crisis meeting of the POMP caucus “from the inside,” larded with voice mimicry and variations from his own special effects. He heard his equivalent commenting, “One thing I can tell you, though, the People’s Steward got the best part of the bargain. He always does.”

  Just then, extracting from the engineer a loud expletive of frustration, Duyole’s mobile phone rang. He moved to silence it, thinking it was yet another check call from his wife, Bisoye, who wanted to make sure that he was still at his post. Then he saw the caller’s name—Kighare Menka, his acquired twin. The engineer slid instantly into a playful, indulgent mode as he tweaked the Answer button, raised a hand in apology to Garuba, and rolled out his name in his best lord-of-the-manor theatrical drawl: “Aduyole Muyomi Pitan-Payne, engineer, head of the Pitan-Payne dynasty, speaking. May I ask who the hell are you?” Meant to be followed by a plea to give him some half hour or so and he would call back. Not even his inseparable companion from schooldays, the surgeon Kighare Menka, would be allowed to jeopardize the delicious stream of confidentiality that teetered on the edge of delivery—not unless it was a matter of life and death.

  Pitan-Payne cut himself off midstream, a heavy frown on his face displacing all the earlier frivolity. Kighare Menka had just spoken in a language he had not heard in years. It was reserved only for emergencies, an internal SOS known only to a foursome whose student antics had resulted in the famed brand now known as Brand of the Land. Without even bothering to mutter a polite excuse, he stood up and moved slowly away from the man on whom he had been working so unsubtly to fullfill his lust for “insider stuff.”

  “Kiln ready stoked,” Shekere Garuba thought he heard the engineer respond to whoever it was. His hearing had not deceived him.

  8.

  Jos

  For any wanderer into Hilltop Manor, Jos, in the Plateau State of Nigeria, all claims that the sun had set over the British Empire would appear to be premature.

  For now, none of the regulars—mostly locals, but with a sizeable foreign sprinkling—in the private members’ lounge of the prestigious Manor Club had the sheerest premonition that this would be the last sunset they would celebrate together at that sturdy legacy of colonial occupation. It was indeed a nostalgia-inducing countryside implant, an imposing, stately granite home set in ample, symmetrically manicured grounds, lulled by a temperate climate that seemed divinely ordered for the former British overlords. That entire oasis was known as the Plateau, a name to be later adopted by that portion of the northern region of the nation when it was split into several pieces by one of the post-independence military dictatorships.

  Conversation that evening, during preparations for the nation’s Independence Day celebrations, did turn unusually heated, and perhaps the residual cinders, when all the members had retired to their homes, simmered through the night, then burst into flames at the very onset of dawn. Several of the expatriate population, woken up by explosions, cautiously tiptoeing to peek through the louvers of their tropical windows, would later confess that when they glimpsed the distant spurts of flames through the early-morning haze, they mistook the glow for rehearsals of Independence Day fireworks in the state. It would have been just another day of routine ceremonials, but its governor had also sworn to show Boko Haram, the psychopathic warriors of fundamentalist Islam, that nothing would stop citizens of Plateau from sharing in the “dividends of democracy.” It was thus projected as a feat of defiance and the conquest of fear. A few feared that Boko Haram itself was sending yet another signal that it had a different agenda for Independence Day celebrations. Such pessimists were proved wrong.

  Preparations were certainly in high gear, and the army appeared to retain the upper hand against the insurgency. Enemy infiltrations did occur—there had been one that very morning, a female suicide bomber—but they had become infrequent and blunted in deadliness. If the escapist sanctuary of Hilltop was indeed burning—the rumours were not long in filtering through—damage would be confined to some minor detritus of the past—not to be regretted, shrugged a handful—and such futile flickers would soon come under control. The stone sentinel would survive intact; the rhapsodies of expatriate sun-worshippers, whenever the sun was simply setting up shop or closing for the day, would continue as one of those idiosyncratic traits that the locals found bemusing. It was a favourite topic also among the elite, an affliction to which the British appeared especially prone. What those locals would have thought, had they known that such displays once featured, right up to the sixties, in special dispatches of the local district officer to the Home Office—that is, the colonial desk of the Ministry of Home Affairs—was probably beyond speculation. The exceptions—such as the resident surgeon Dr. Kighare Menka, senior civil servants, technocrats, school headmasters, and a handful of other sophisticates—were those whose schooldays had featured musical concerts with a repertoire of songs that vowed that the sun would never set on the British Empire. Such cynics probably wondered if their rulers’ obsession with the sun’s private business was a confession of nervousness over the hubristic prediction. After all, wasn’t it the same sun they had watched setting piecemeal over those possessions ever since even before 1960? One after the other, members of that empire appeared to delight in jumping off the fiery chariot.

  Muc
h had changed in that colonial redoubt, but not to such a degree as would permit the members to recognize, for instance, the existence of any such aberrations as Yeomen of the Year or its crown jewel, the People’s Award for Common Touch. Keeping one’s feet on the ground was one thing; ostentatious slumming transgressed the limits of tolerance. The superficies of colonial presence required only minor adjustments here and there, not a wholesale substitution by nationalist buntings. The temperate climate was a balm that seemed specially designed also for successors to the departing mandate. It was cool, most especially in the evenings. In the main, the sun’s antics were lost on them.

  Once upon a time it had indeed provided the erstwhile administrators a measure of consolation after the restless sleep that capped each arduous day of running the affairs of a restive populace and the prospect of more of the same—another day, sigh!, among the thieving, devious ingrates, sigh, sigh! Not anymore. The lucky expatriate residents whose bedroom windows overlooked the east could luxuriate in the admittedly generous pyrotechnics that made up for their daily imposition of awakening, signaled by the muted entry of the uniformed steward. In impeccably white uniform, he shuffled in on apologetic feet with a tea tray to be served in bed—unless of course he had watched “Master” staggering home after midnight from an extended night out with the boys at the clubhouse, or in the redder spots further inland, the Sabon Gari zone, conceded to alcohol-swilling strangers and infidels. That had tutored him to expect a hangover the morning after, so the faithful steward pulled back the curtains with extra solicitude to gradually let in both view and refreshing air, also now freed of mosquitoes. The agonized Beauty Awakening shielded his eyes at the first incursion of light, gingerly opened one after the other behind spread fingers, blinked rapidly, then solemnly yawned the day’s ritual consolation: “Gabriel, just look at the colours of that sky.”

  “Yessir. I look am just now.”