Chinua Achebe - Anthills of the Savannah

There was a huge applause, not only from the tables where the Abazon people sat but from other tables as well.

'But that was not the end. More shifting-eyes people came and said: Because you said no to the Big Chief he is very angry and has ordered all the water bore-holes they are digging in your area to be closed so that you will know what it means to offend the sun. You will suffer so much that in your next reincarnation you will need no one to tell you to say yes whether the matter is clear to you or not.'

'God will not agree,' replied many voices.

'So we came to Bassa to say our own yes and perhaps the work on our bore-holes will start again and we will not all perish from the anger of the sun. We did not know before but we know now that yes does not cause trouble. We do not fully understand the ways of today yet but we are learning. A dancing masquerade in my town used to say: It is true I do not hear English but when they say Catch am nobody tells me to take myself off as fast as I can.'

There was loud laughter from all parts of the courtyard, some of the people savouring the joke by repeating it to themselves or to their neighbours and laughing all over again.

'So we are ready to learn new things and mend our old, useless ways. If you cross the Great River to marry a wife you must be ready for the risk of night journey by canoe… I don't know whether the people we have come to see will listen to our cry for water or not. Sometime ago we were told that the Big Chief himself was planning to visit our villages and see our suffering. Then we were told again that he was not coming because he had just remembered that we had said no to him two years ago. So we said, if he will not come, let us go and visit him instead in his house. It is proper that a beggar should visit a king. When a rich man is sick a beggar goes to visit him and say sorry. When the beggar is sick, he waits to recover and then goes to tell the rich man that he has been sick. It is the place of the poor man to make a visit to the rich man who holds the yam and the knife.'

'That is indeed the world,' replied the audience.

'Whether our coming to the Big Chief's compound will do any good or not we cannot say. We did not see him face to face because he was talking to another Big Chief like himself who is visiting from another country. But we can go back to our people and tell them that we have struggled for them with what remaining strength we have… Once upon a time the leopard who had been trying for a long time to catch the tortoise finally chanced upon him on a solitary road. Aha , he said; at long last! Prepare to die. And the tortoise said: Can I ask one favour before you kill me? The leopard saw no harm in that and agreed. Give me a few moments to prepare my mind , the tortoise said. Again the leopard saw no harm in that and granted it. But instead of standing still as the leopard had expected the tortoise went into strange action on the road, scratching with hands and feet and throwing sand furiously in all directions. Why are you doing that? asked the puzzled leopard. The tortoise replied: Because even after I am dead I would want anyone passing by this spot to say, yes, a fellow and his match struggled here.

'My people, that is all we are doing now. Struggling. Perhaps to no purpose except that those who come after us will be able to say: True, our fathers were defeated but they tried. '

When Ikem got to his parked car outside the big iron archway on which HARMONEY HOTEL shone in fluorescent letters he found a huge police motor cycle parked in such a way behind it as, quite clearly, to prevent its moving out. As he looked around in surprise a police constable stepped out of the shadows and asked:

'Na you get this car?'

'Yes, anything the matter?'

'Why you no put parking light?'

Parking light. That was a new one. He had never been asked about parking light in Bassa before. But never mind.

'Well, I didn't see any need. With all this light around.'

He waved his hand at the many fluorescent tubes shining from Harmoney Hotel's perimeter walls.

'So when you see electric for somebody's wall it follow say you no go put your parking light? What section of Traffic Law be that one?'

'It's a matter of common sense, I should say.'

'Common sense! So me self I no get common sense; na so you talk. OK, Mr. Commonsense, make I see your particulars.'

A number of people had come out of the hotel premises to watch the palaver and were joined by a few passers-by on the road. Very soon every Abazon man still around had joined the scene and the Master of Ceremonies stepped forward and asked the policeman if he did not know the Editor of the National Gazette .

'I no know am! Na sake of editor he come abuse me when I de do my work. He can be editor for his office not for road.'

'He no abuse you. I de here all the time,' said one bystander.

'Make you shut your smelling mouth there, Mr. Lawyer. Abi you want come with me for Charge Office to explain? You no hear when he say I no get common sense. That no be abuse for your country? Oga, I want see your particulars. Na you people de make the law na you dey break am.'

Without uttering another word Ikem produced his papers and handed over to the policeman.

'Wey your insurance?'

'That's what you are looking at.'

He opened a notebook, placed it on the bonnet of the car and began to write, now and again referring to Ikem's documents. The growing crowd of spectators stood in silence in a circle around the car and the chief actors, the policeman playing his role of writing down somebody's fate with the self-important and painful slowness of half-literacy… At long last he tore out a sheet of his note-paper and handed it like a death warrant to Ikem.

'Come for Traffic Office for Monday morning, eight o'clock sharp. If you no come or you come late you de go answer for court. Kabisa .'

'Can I have my papers back?'

The policeman laughed indulgently at this clever-stupid man.

'That paper wey I give you just now na your cover till Monday. If any police ask you for particular show am that paper. And when you come for Monday make you bring am.'

He folded Ikem's documents and put them with his notebook into his breast pocket and buttoned down the flap with the flourish of a judge's gavel.

The Master of Ceremonies was boiling into another protest but Ikem made the sign of silence to him — a straight finger across sealed lips, and then swung the same finger around to hint at the law officer's holster.

'Don't provoke a man doing his duty. The police have something they call accidental discharge.'

'No be me go kill you, my friend.'

This retort was made frontally to Ikem. With a strange expression of mockery and hatred on his face the policeman mounted his heavy machine and roared away. The Master of Ceremonies asked Ikem:

'Did you get his number?'

'I'm afraid I didn't think of that. Anyway it doesn't matter.'

'Here it is.'

And he held to him a number written with biro on the palm of his left hand and Ikem took it down on the back of his summons paper.

Monday morning at the Traffic Police Office. Ikem had decided to do what he rarely did — use his clout. There were more important things to do with his time than engage in fisticuffs with a traffic warden. So he had telephoned the Superintendent of Traffic from his office and made an appointment for nine-thirty.

There was a senior officer waiting for him at the Desk Sergeant's front room who took him straight into the Superintendent's office.

'I never meet you before in person sir,' said the Superintendent springing out from behind his massive wooden desk. 'Very pleased to meet you sir… I was expecting a huge fellow like this,' and he made a sign sideways and upwards.