Nadine Gordimer - A Guest of Honour

At the lunch break Bray hung about near one of the fish tanks; his white face couldn’t be missed anyway. The delegates had the gaiety of boys let out of school before work has even begun; no one got farther than the chatter of the foyer. Several old PIP campaigners came up to greet him — Albert Konoko, once treasurer (not an entirely honest one but he was long ago relieved of the post and the early “irregularities” forgotten), old Reverend Kawira from the Ravanga district with his stick and his dog — eared briefcase, Joshua Ntshali, the mayor of Gala— “We should have made arrangements to come down together — why didn’t you give me a tinkle? Plenty of room in my car — some cold beer, too”—the one or two Indians who survived at delegation — level from the small band who had supported PIP openly from the beginning. People threw cigarette ends in the tank and with his rolled — up agenda he lifted out one at which a fish had begun to nibble. “Poor fish.” Shinza stood there. Shinza was good at private jokes derived from other people’s absent moments. “You know Basil? Basil Nwanga.” He had with him the heavy young man with the tiny hippo ears who had almost run Bray over outside the House of Assembly one day. They recognized each other, grinning. “I heard him put his word in, in the House, not long ago.” Nwanga went off after a few moments with the air of one who had been curious for an introduction, got it, and knows he mustn’t intrude. “Are you going to eat?” Bray said.

“Where’re you staying?” Shinza considered.

“With Dando.”

“Oh. Well there’s a café down the road. The one near the post office. I’ll meet you in a few minutes.”

As Bray was leaving Roly Dando came up level with him, but left the distance of two or three people in between. As white men, there was a tacit feeling they shouldn’t appear to stick together in any sense; a feeling based, in any case, below its social meaning, on the private inkling that their positions had become very different, although they were old friends. Roly said, “Having a good time?” His face was small with gloom. He had changed so much; the sexually spritely, dapper Dando of ten years ago really existed only as one remembered him; this was the aged, middle — aged face, completely remoulded by disappointments, desires and dyspepsia, that is more characteristic of a white man than his skin. No African ever transformed himself like that.

The shops run by Greeks had always been called “cafés” although they had little enough in common with the European institution from which they took their name. The one near the post office sold the usual fish — and-chips over the counter, for consumption in the street — a relic of the days when black people were not allowed to sit at the tables — and still served the staple frontiersman diet of eggs, steak, and chips. Shinza was already there drinking a glass of some bright synthetic juice that churned eternally in the glass containers on the counter. He held up a finger to settle an important question: “Steak and eggs? Sausage?” “Yes, sausage, I think.” Between them on the table was the usual collection of bottles, like antidotes kept handy — Worcester sauce, tomato sauce, bleary vinegar. “Could almost have been old Banda himself in some places, ay,” Shinza said; Mweta’s address was between them with the sauce bottles.

Bray smiled. “For example?”

Shinza fluttered his hands over the table impatiently. “ ‘This is the answer et cetera to those who talk of nationalization.’ ‘… no sense in talking nationalization in an underdeveloped country.’ That’s just what the mad doctor himself tells them in Malawi.”

“Not quite as bad. He always says you have to accumulate wealth before you can nationalize — something like that. ‘Nationalization as national suicide.’ No — Mweta’s was more Senghor’s line.”

“Senghor?” Shinza grinned at him to prove it.

“Oh yes. Senghor once said it — very much the same as Mweta. He rapped the trade unions over the knuckles and wrote an article saying there was no point in nationalization for an underdeveloped country.”

“Ah, I remember what that was about. Yes, I suppose it’s possible he did….” Shinza gave his snort, acknowledging himself a man of no illusions. “He’s always had it in for socialist — minded unionists. D’you know when that was? That was before sixty — one. When he was fighting UGTAN’s demands for the development of a publicly owned sector in the economy. He was busy calling the union boys a hypocritical elite and a lot of other names.” He nodded his head significantly at the parallel he saw he had stumbled upon there.

“I haven’t had a good look at the resolutions yet. How’ve you done with the secretarial committee?”

Shinza pressed his shoulders back against the uncomfortable formica chair and his pectoral muscles showed under his rather smart, long — sleeved shirt. He wore no tie but the shirt buttoned up to a pointed collar and there were stitched flaps to match on the breastpockets. The outfit ignored as fancy dress togas or paramilitary tunics (he had worn a Mweta tunic during the days of the independence struggle, so this was a sign that, for him, there was no dilly — dallying in the past) and disdained the terylene — and-wool prestige of the new black middle class. He said — one who knows his chances don’t look too good, but prefers to ignore this— “We submitted that the position of the Party in relation to trade union affairs be re — examined, but that was chucked out. But— so was the Young Pioneers’ one that the Party should support the government ‘in its efforts to consolidate the unions against disruptive elements in their ranks.’ A little bird told me that’s how it went. — I like that one, don’t you? I like that. As one disruptive element to another.” They laughed. “But we had a lot of smaller stuff — resolutions here and there that’ll give more or less the same opportunities … we had an idea the big one wouldn’t make it onto the agenda.… We’ve got quite a few that will do.”

“How did the committee manage to squirm out of the big blast?”

“Oh you know — the old formula: all matters that would come under that heading were actually being dealt with separately under other resolutions, so there was no point. Well, we’d thought of that, too.… And the Young Pioneers must’ve been asked to go easy and give in on theirs. No need to have Congress discussing what they’re allowed to get away with every day, after all.”

Shinza ate quickly and almost without looking at what was on his plate. He cleaned it with bread, like a Frenchman.

Bray paused often. “I see the business of challenging Mweta’s power to appoint the Secretary — General of the Trades Union Congress is coming up. How’d you manage that?”

“That’s a resolution from the Yema branch—”

“—Yes, so I noticed.” At Yema there were railway workshops and phosphate mines; the Party branch was one of the oldest established, started by trade unions organized by Shinza years ago.

Shinza gave his breathy chuckle; released his tongue with a sucking sound. “That was a tough one. They said it was a matter for the UTUC congress itself, not the Party Congress. But as it happened”—he raised his eyebrows and his beard wagged— “several other branches sent in exactly the same resolution … so … It made things difficult for the committee. They were forced to hear us.”

“I was surprised.”

Shinza nodded slowly.

“It could be very important,” Bray insisted; either a question or a statement, depending on the way Shinza took it.

“It could be—” Shinza was gazing off in absent curiosity at the waiter clearing the next table, and then his eyes came slowly back to Bray and were steady there, his nostrils opened slightly, and tensed.