Chinua Achebe - Anthills of the Savannah

Elewa is still equitably cursing her woman's lot and me. I shall say nothing more, just sit here on this window-sill and keep a look-out for the taxi which is taking much too long to appear. I wonder why. At this time of night you can generally get them to come within the hour.

'Imagine… To put a girl for taxi at midnight to go and jam with arm robbers in the road.'

'You know very well, Elewa, that there are no more armed robbers in Bassa.'

'The woman dem massacre for motor Park last week na you killam.'

'Nobody will kill you, Elewa.'

' Nobody will kill you Elewa. Why you no drive me home yourself if say you know arm robbers done finish for Bassa. Make you go siddon.'

'I can't take you home because my battery is down. I have told you that twenty times already.'

'Your battery is down. Why your battery no down for afternoon when you come pick me.'

'Because you can manage a weak battery in the daytime but not at night, Elewa.'

'Take your mouth comot my name, ojare. Tomorrow make you take your nonsense battery come pick me again. Nonsense!'

She is turning really aggressive. If I didn't know my Elewa I would be really worried. But she will call me first thing in the morning; perhaps during my nine o'clock editorial conference. The first time we parted in this kind of mood I was convinced I had lost her for good. That was the night I first tried to explain my reason for not letting her sleep in my flat. I should not have bothered with reasons at all if she hadn't kept saying I had another girl coming, that was why. 'Your compliment to my stamina notwithstanding,' I said totally and deliberately over her head, 'the reason is really quite simple. I no want make you join all the loose women for Bassa who no de sleep for house.' She stared at me with her mouth wide open, quite speechless. Thinking to press home my point and advantage I said something like: 'I wouldn't want a sister of mine to do that, you see.' She fired back then: 'Anoder time you wan' poke make you go call dat sister of yours, you hear?'

When we parted I thought we were through. But next morning in the middle of my editorial conference my stenographer came in from the outer office and asked me to take a call.

'Who is that?' I asked angrily.

'A certain girl,' he said, in his stupid officialese.

'Tell her to call again whoever it is. Oh, never mind I'll take it. Excuse me gentlemen.'

It was Elewa asking if I would take her to the beach in the afternoon to buy fresh fish from fishermen coming ashore before the 'thick madams' of the fish market had a chance to gobble up everything. 'I go cook you nice pepper soup, today,' she said.

In the end the taxi does appear and I grab my torchlight and take her down our unswept and unlit stairs. Whenever I go up or down those stairs I remember the goat owned in common that dies of hunger. The driver opens the rear door from his seat. No interior light comes on. I flash my light where it ought to have been and see a few tangled wires. To reassure Elewa I make a show of studying the driver's face in the light of my torch. The driver protests:

'I beg make you no flash light for my eye. Wayting?'

'I want to be able to recognize you in the morning.'

'For sake of what?'

'For nothing. Just in case.' I move to the front of the car and flash the light at the registration number.

'Na him make I no de gree come for dis una bigman quarter. Na so so wahala.'

'Do you know it is an offence to operate a vehicle without interior lights according to the Criminal Code chapter forty-eight section sixteen subsection one hundred and six?'

'Na today — even na jus' now as I de come here de light quench out.'

His lie is as good as mine but I have an advantage: I know he is lying; he doesn't know I am, and he is scared.

'OK. Tomorrow morning, first thing, make you go for mechanic fixam proper.'

'OK, oga.'

'I seal our mutual understanding with a twenty kobo tip and then turn to Elewa who has withdrawn totally into herself and the far corner of the back seat. 'You'll be alright, love.'

'Driver, kick moto make we de go, I beg you.'

I will keep trying till I find a reason that clicks with her.

I have never seen the sense in sleeping with people. A man should wake up in his own bed. A woman likewise. Whatever they choose to do prior to sleeping is no reason to deny them that right. I simply detest the very notion of waking up and finding beside you somebody naked and unappetizing. It is unfair to you but especially to her. So I have never bargained with my right to repossess my apartment and my freedom fully. To shower and retire to my bed, alone is, it seems to me, such a simple, straightforward and reasonable expectation. But many women take it as a personal affront, which I find very odd indeed. They are their own worst enemy, women are.

Elewa thinks it proves I don't love her well enough. It proves the exact opposite. I am extremely fond of the girl, more than anybody I can remember in years. And her lovemaking is just sensational. No gimmicks. I suppose I shall never discover where in that little body of hers she finds the power to lift you up bodily on her trunk while she is slowly curving upwards like a suspension bridge, her head and feet alone driven like steel piles into the riverbed. And then — mixed metaphors, unmixed blessings — shake you like a miner panning for gold! When we agree about sleeping separately we will have great times together. She is really a fine, fine girl.

Who was it invented the hot shower? It's the kind of thing one ought to know and never does. We clutter up our brains with all kinds of useless knowledge and we don't know the genius who invented the shower or the paper stapler… Let us now praise famous men and our fathers that begat us. Except that our fathers were not very famous in the invention line. But what does it matter? The French taught their little African piccaninnies to recite: our forefathers, the Gauls … It didn't stop Senghor from becoming a fine African poet… A true descendant of the Mandingauls!

I must get to work. That's the other thing about sleeping together. It prevents work. And if we are to improve on our fathers' performance in the invention business we must learn the sweet uses of hard work. I couldn't write tomorrow's editorials with Elewa's hands cradling my damp crotch.

Chris keeps lecturing me on the futility of my crusading editorials. They achieve nothing. They antagonize everybody. They are essays in overkill. They're counter-productive. Poor Chris. By now he probably believes the crap too. Amazing what even one month in office can do to a man's mind. I think that one of these days I shall set him down in front of a blackboard and chalk up for him the many bull's-eyes of my crusading editorials. The line I have taken with him so far is perhaps too subtle: But supposing my crusading editorials were indeed futile would I not be obliged to keep on writing them? To think that Chris no longer seems to understand such logic! Perhaps I have been too reluctant to face up to changes in my friends. Perhaps I should learn to deal with him along his own lines and jog his short memory with the many successes my militant editorials have had. Except, there is a big danger in doing it.

Those who mismanage our affairs would silence our criticism by pretending they have facts not available to the rest of us. And I know it is fatal to engage them on their own ground. Our best weapon against them is not to marshal facts, of which they are truly managers, but passion. Passion is our hope and strength, a very present help in trouble. When I took over the National Gazette from Chris I had no strong views one way or another about capital punishment. I even had no particular abhorrence about staging it publicly. If I had to vote I would probably vote against it by instinct but without much excitement. But all that was changed for me in the course of one afternoon. I became a passionate crusader. Chris said I was a romantic; that I had no solid contact with the ordinary people of Kangan; that the ordinary people of Kangan believed firmly in an eye for an eye and that from all accounts they enjoyed the spectacle that so turned my stomach.