Nadine Gordimer - A Guest of Honour

“You man, there, look on the plate, what’s that bone—”

Shinza held the bone up for the world to see: “What d’you mean, bone? That’s the wing bone, eh?” Nwanga dug a big greasy finger at Shinza’s plate. “There, there, what’s that big one — don’t show me any rubbish, just be straight, you hear — you take that leg, Colonel, take it, take it, you won’t get it for nothing, don’t worry—” Laughing, Shinza snatched up the bone the young man had singled out and threw it to a pale mongrel who caught it in midair. “He’s destroyed the evidence against him!” Basil Nwanga yelled, beating his palms on the table.

“Send the boy up to the house for more beer.” And to Bray, “Just mention booze, Nwanga drops everything. — And say we want a big pot this time, no bloody lemonade bottles — They make good beer at this place, the best I’ve had for years, since that very good beer— very good, eh? — my wife used to make, you know, my first wife, the tall one. A big pot, Nwanga—”

Making a pantomime of haste, fat Nwanga went over to the door to yell for a volunteer from among the children in the yard.

“You seem to be well established here.”

“Oh sure. These are all my father — in-law’s brethren. Their beer is mine to command.”

Bray gestured round. “Not only their beer.”

Shinza smiled at the unimportance of the place. “They’ll do anything for me. You want to stay up at the house tonight?” He had forgotten that Bray was, anyway, a friend of the owner.

“Look, when you send a message, Edward, why the hell don’t you make it a bit more precise. This is a huge estate. — Oh I realize everyone on it knows where you hide out — but then there’s the matter of time as well as place. I never know if you’re going to be here three days or one, I don’t know how long it’s safe to wait without missing you, and suppose for some reason I can’t drop everything and come right away …”

“I’m here until you come, of course.”

They laughed. Nwanga said, “What was the Sunday school treat like?” He was talking of the Party rally. “We heard you were there,” Shinza said. “Asahe is the man who wants to have me arrested.”

“Yes, I went with some friends — the daughter works with him.”

“Oh everyone knows about Asahe’s white girl. She pretty?” Nwanga was amiably disbelieving.

“Rather pretty.”

“He should have seen the girls I used to have in London, ay, Bray? And my American — you remember how she brought me those pyjamas when I was in prison at Lembe — silk, man, Nwanga, with a red belt with a wha’d’you call it, a tassel.”

“I’ve come into the political game too late, that’s the trouble.”

“Is Mweta happy?” Shinza said.

“Confident, yes, I should say, and that’s usually a sign one has no doubts. Or has stifled them successfully. He doesn’t seek any reassurance that he’s right.”

Shinza held a cigarette ready to draw but did not put it to his mouth while he listened; then said, “I see,” and took a pull.

Bray saw that the “he doesn’t seek any reassurance” gave itself away as admittance that Mweta had released him. Mweta has broken with my approval. He’s cut loose; I’m free. So many different bonds, so many kinds of freedom. And each relative to another bond: the freedom to commit yourself to it. Free to make love with her and so become a petty currency swindler. Freed of Mweta — for Shinza.

He said, almost impatiently, “Well, what’s happening?”

“Oh there are plenty of things to talk about … I want to discuss with you, quietly, you know? I wanted a chance to talk….” Nwanga at once became studiedly attentive as Shinza began to speak; they must have settled it all beforehand. “There’s no good to go over that whole business at Congress — a waste of breath, eh … I think along other lines now.”

“Yes?”

Shinza looked at him almost exaggeratedly anxiously, perhaps, being Shinza, a hint of parody of the seeking for reassurance that Mweta no longer showed. His half-smile admitted it. “There’s going to be all hell in the unions. And even if I were to die tomorrow, I’m telling you, it wouldn’t make any difference, there’d still be hell — I mean some of what he’s got coming to him I wouldn’t have anything to do with, it’s absolutely contrary to our policy.… The miners, now. Already they’re better paid than anyone else in the country. But there you are. You’ll see, by the end of the month they’ll come out, there’ll be the biggest row ever, and we’ll see what he’ll do then. That’s the one crowd everyone’s afraid of. He won’t hold them down so easily this time. The authority of the unions is broken, the government begins to run them itself, and then it turns out even government stooges ask the price for keeping quiet the one industry they’re scared to manhandle. What’s he going to do? If the miners get more there’ll be new demands everywhere. If he gets tough, it’ll run like wildfire, there’ll be a solidarity between those who’ve followed the government yes — men and been let down, and those who’ve refused to follow and are put down.”

“And the rebels will have to be blamed for the whole thing.”

“Of course. -So-called rebels,” Shinza corrected automatically, with the politician’s alertness never to be caught out in any semantic slip that could be construed to bely the legitimacy of one’s position. “Agitators! Shinza and Goma and Nwanga were there!”

“A good excuse to put us all in jail.” Nwanga had never been in one; spoken aloud casually, the subject of fear loses some of its potency.

Shinza had, many times; for him it was irrelevant to waste time contemplating eventualities in which one would be out of action. “The basis for whatever happens is the corruption in the unions, eh—?”

“Corruption?”

“Government interference. Same thing. That’s why I’ve been thinking, why not bring someone — some authority — who can show this up? Without taking sides in the political sense. Some opinion that no one can turn round and say … Well, I thought, while we’re going ahead here, you could take a little trip, James, go and see the family”—he stretched himself, gestured ‘something like that’— “you could go by way of Switzerland, say; lots of planes make a stop there, don’t they?”

For an idiotic moment to him the reference was to the money in a bank.

“Go on.”

“Oh nothing very terrible, nothing very difficult … you could go to the ILO and see if they would send someone — an observer, commission of inquiry — someone to look into the state of the unions here … what d’you think?”

It was his way to look at practical aspects first, to withhold other reactions until these were considered. “If the ILO did agree, don’t forget there’s no guarantee such a delegation would be let in. If I remember, there was the same sort of thing — in Tunisia, wasn’t it? — and the government refused. Of course it would be awkward for Mweta to say no, a man of his reputation for reasonableness, but … Then there would have to be a proper report to present to the ILO

“Oh Goma’s got all the stuff for that,” Basil Nwanga said, and Shinza added, “We’ll knock that out, no problem.”

“—And what would my authority be?” Logical considerations were nothing but playing for time; they were overtaken by others. “Ex-civil-servant busybody? Black Man’s Best Friend?” And as they all laughed. — “Political mercenary?” Basil Nwanga’s laugh became a deep delighted cluck and he hit his thighs. “—Yes, that’s it, that’s about the nearest definition we’d get for me—”

“Oh you’ll be properly fitted out,” Shinza said airily, sweepingly.