William Boyd - A Good Man in Africa

‘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. Ijustpopped 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 front 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. ‘Orimir-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 realized he was a complete fraud. He felt suddenly rather ashamed of himself. Kinjanja was a mystery to him, he realized, 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.