Anthills of the Savannah (19 page)

“Go and bring me at once everybody who was on road duty on Saturday night.”

“Sorry, it was Friday night,” said Ikem.

“Sorry, Friday! Everybody here one time. Except those on beat… Again Mr. Osodi, I must apologize to you for this embarrassment.”

“No problem, Superintendent.” He had thought of putting in another mitigating word for the constable but remembered his utterly atrocious behaviour and held his peace.

At that point eight worried constables were marched in. Ikem spotted his man at once but decided that even engaging his eye would be a mark of friendship. They saluted and stood stock-still,
their worried eyes alone swivelling around like things with a life of their own.

The Superintendent gazed at them in turn without saying a word. In his code they were
all
guilty at this stage.

“Do you know this gentlemen?”

They all shook their heads.

“How you go know? Stupid ignoramuses. Who contravened him on Friday night at… Mr. Osodi, where did it happen?”

“Outside Harmoney Hotel on Northwest Street.”

This announcement was followed by the briefest pause of surprise or even shock which was mercifully overtaken by the constable’s owning up.

“Na me, sir.”

“Na you! You no know who this man be? But how you go know? When you no de read newspaper. You pass standard six self?”

“Yes sir.”

“Na lie! Unless na free primary you pass. This man is Mr. Osodi, the Editor of the
National Gazette.
Everybody in the country knows him except you. So you carry your stupid nonsense and go and contravene a man of such calibre. Tomorrow now if he takes up his pen to lambast the Police you all go begin complain like monkey wey im mother die… Go and bring his particulars here one time, stupid yam-head.”

The poor fellow scampered out of the room.

“Now all of you listen well. You see this man here, make una look im face well well. If any of you go out tomorrow and begin to fool around his car I go give the person proper
gbali-gbali.
You understand?”

“Yes sir.”

“Nonsense police. You think na so we do am come reach superintendent. Tomorrow make you go contravene His Excellency for road and if they ask you you say you no know am before. Scallywags. Fall out!”

B
ECAUSE OF HIS VISIT
to the Police Traffic Department at the other end of town Ikem had had to conduct his daily Editorial Conference two hours late. In making his apologies he naturally recounted his recent brushes with the police the details of which added considerable entertainment to the proceedings of a routine
conference. The only person who did not seem to find any of it in the least amusing was Ikem’s second-in-command, an earnest but previously obsequious fellow who in the last several months had struck Ikem as becoming suddenly a lot more aloof and inclined to disagree openly with whatever he said.

Back in his room Ikem’s officious stenographer gave him two messages, one from John Kent, the Mad Medico, who asked Ikem to call him back and the other from Elewa who said she would call again.

MM picked up the phone at the first ring and went straight into his business. He was wondering whether Ikem would be free to drop by for a quick drink this afternoon to meet a friend of his, a poet and editor from England. Ikem accepted most enthusiastically.

“Sure! I haven’t seen you in a long time. What have you been doing with yourself? And as for meeting a live poet and editor I just can’t believe the luck. Can I bring my girlfriend?”

“But of course. Which one by the way? Never mind bring whoever you like… Fivish. See you then. Cheerio.”

It was amazing, Ikem thought, how brief and businesslike MM could be at work. No sign of his madness once he climbed into that chair as the Hospital Administrator. Except the one near-fatal relapse—the Strange Case of the Graffiti, as Ikem called it in a famous editorial.

T
HEY WERE JUST ABOUT LEAVING
his flat for MM’s place when the doorbell rang and two strange men smiling from ear to ear
faced him at the landing. Ikem stood his ground at the doorway the apprehension that would certainly have been in order relieved only by those vast smiles.

“Can I help you?”

“We just come salute you.”

“Me? Who are you? I don’t seem to remember.”

“We be taxi-drivers.”

“I see.”

Elewa had now joined him at the door. The visitors were still smiling bravely in spite of the cold welcome. As soon as Elewa came into view one of the visitors said:

“Ah, madam, you de here.”

“Ah, no be you carry me go home from here that night?”

“Na me, madam. You remember me. Very good. I no think say you fit remember.”

“So wetin you come do here again? Abi, you just discover I no pay you complete? Or perhaps na counterfeit I give you.”

“No madam. We just come salute this oga.”

At this point the normal courtesies which the prevalence of armed robberies had virtually banished from Bassa could no longer be denied, Ikem and Elewa moved back into the room and the visitors followed them in.

“Ah, madam I no know say I go find you here, self.”

“Why you no go find me here? This man na your sister husband?”

“No madam I no mean am like that.”

“Don’t worry, Na joke I de joke. Make una sidon. We de go out before but you fit sidon small.”

By this time Ikem had realized who one of the visitors was—the taxi driver who had taken Elewa home late one evening about a week ago. But why he should be back now with another man and smiling profusely like an Air Kangan passenger who has achieved a boarding pass, was still a mystery. Elewa put it a little differently.

“When I see you smiling like person wey win raffle I say: who be this again? Then my brain just make
krim
and I remember… Who your friend be?”

“My friend de drive taxi like myself and he be member for Central Committee of Taxi Driver Union.”

“Welcome.”

“Thank you madam. Thank you oga.”

“Even na this my friend tell me that day say na oga be Editor of
Gazette.
Wonderful! And me I no know that.”

“How you go know? You de read paper?”

“Ah, Madam I de try read small. The thing we this oga de write na waa. We like am plenty.”

“Tell me one thing you done read.”

“Ah. How I go begin count. The thing oga write too plenty. But na for we small people he de write every time. I no sabi book but I sabi say na for we this oga de fight, not for himself. He na big man. Nobody fit do fuckall to him. So he fit stay for him house, chop him oyibo chop, drink him cold beer, put him air conditioner and forget we. But he no do like that. So we come salute am.”

“Thank you very much,” said Ikem deeply touched. “Can I offer you a drink of something?”

“Don’t worry sir,” they said. They knew he was going out and must not delay him too much. It was then the real story of the visit came out. This man was not only the driver who drove Elewa home from here that evening over a week ago. He was by the strangest of coincidences the driver Ikem got into a bizarre contest with for a tiny space of road in a dreadful traffic jam. And now he had come, and brought a friend along, to make an apology!

“Oh my God. You don’t owe me any apology. None whatsoever. I should apologize to you, my friend.”

Ikem walked up to him to shake his hand but he offered not one but both his hands as a mark of respect. The trade unionist did the same.

Ikem felt awkward, but also in a strange way, somehow elated. It was uncomfortable to be reminded that with his education and all that he could so easily get embroiled in a completely ridiculous fight with a taxi-driver. The elation came perhaps from this rare human contact across station and class with these two who had every cause to feel hatred but came instead with friendship, acting out spontaneously and without self-righteousness what their betters preach so often but so seldom practise.

Apparently it was the trade unionist who was in the car behind the car behind Ikem in the traffic and it was he who recognized Ikem as he turned into the Presidential Palace and promptly told the other; and the two decided on a visit of apology immediately. But it had taken them all this time to track down Ikem’s address, only to discover that one of them had been there so recently. Na
God him work, was the way he summed up the string of coincidences.

The trade unionist who had so far played only a supporting role to his friend now spoke up:

“I want answer that question which Madam ask my friend: to call one thing we done read for
Gazette.
Me self I fit call hundred things but time no dey. So I go talk about the one every taxi-driver know well well. Before before, the place where we get Central Taxi Park for Slaughterhouse Road de smell pass nyarsh. Na there every cattle them want kill come pass him last shit, since time dem born my grandfather. Na him this oga take him pen write, write, write sotay City Council wey de sleep come wake up and bring bulldozer and throway every rubbish and clean the place well well. So that if you park your taxi there you no fit get bellyache like before, or cover your nose with cloth. Even the place so clean now that if the akara wey you de chop fall down for road you fit pick am up and throw for mouth. Na this oga we sidon quiet so na him do am. Na him make I follow my friend come salute am. Madam, I beg you, make you de look am well. Na important personality for this country.”

“Make you no worry for that,” said his friend, “Madam de look am well well. That day I come pick madam from here I think say them make small quarrel…”

“Shut your mouth. Who tell you say we de make small quarrel?”

“Madam, I no need for somebody to tell me when man and woman make small quarrel. When you see the woman eye begin de flash like ambulance you go know. But that day when I de vex because oga shine torch for my eye the same madam wey de grumble come tell me not to worry because the oga can talk sharp but na very kind man. No be so you tell me as we drive for night?” Elewa nodded.

“But why you no tell me at the same time say na Editor of
Gazette
?”

“Why I go tell you? And if I tell you wetin you go do with am? Illiteracy de read paper for your country?”

“Wonderful! You no see say because you no tell me, I come make another big mistake. If I for know na such big oga de for my front for that go-slow how I go come make such wahala for am? I de craze? But the thing wey confuse me properly well be that kind
old car wey he come de drive. I never see such! Number one, the car too old; number two, you come again de drive am yourself. Wonderful! So how I fit know na such big man de for my front? I just think this I-go-drive-myself na some jagajaga person wey no fit bring out money to pay driver, and come block road for everybody. To God, na so I think.”

“Never mind,” said Ikem. “That wahala for road no be such bad thing as he come make us friends now for house.”

“That na true, oga. Wonderful!”

As he drove to Mad Medico’s place that afternoon Ikem turned over and over in his mind one particular aspect of the visit of the taxi-driver and his friend—how it seemed so important to him to explain his failure to recognize an admired “personality” like Ikem; and how adroitly he had shifted the guilt for this failure round to the very same object of admiration for driving a battered old Datsun instead of a Mercedes and for driving with his own hands instead of sitting in the owner’s corner and being driven. So in the midst of all their fulsome and perfectly sincere praise of Ikem those two also managed to sneak in a couple of body-blows.

Ikem could understand well enough the roots of the paradox in which a man’s personal choice to live simply without such trimmings as chauffeurs could stamp him not as a modest and exemplary citizen but as a mean-minded miser denying a livelihood to one unemployed driver out of hundreds and thousands roaming the streets—a paradox so perverse in its implications as to justify the call for the total dismantling of the grotesque world in which it grows—and flourishes.

But even in such a world how does one begin to explain the downtrodden drivers’ wistful preference for a leader driving not like themselves in a battered and spluttering vehicle but differently, stylishly in a Mercedes and better still with another downtrodden person like themselves for a chauffeur? Perhaps a root-and-branch attack would cure that diseased tolerance too, a tolerance verging on admiration by the trudging-jigger-toed oppressed for the Mercedes-Benz-driving, private-jet-flying, luxury-yacht-cruising oppressor. An insistence by the oppressed that his oppression be performed in style! What half-way measures could hope to cure that? No, it had to be full measure, pressed down and flowing over! Except that in dictatorships of the proletariat where roots have already been dug up and branches hacked away, an atavistic
tolerance seems to linger, quite unexpectedly, for the stylishness of dachas and special shops etc. etc., for the revolutionary elite. Therefore what is at issue in all this may not be systems after all but a basic human failing that may only be alleviated by a good spread of general political experience, slow of growth and obstinately patient like the young tree planted by David Diop on the edge of the primeval desert just before the year of wonders in which Africa broke out so spectacularly in a rash of independent nation states!

When finally Ikem’s thoughts broke out into words seeking Elewa’s view on the matter her response was sharply and decisively on the side of basic nature and the taxi-drivers: