This Side Jordan (19 page)

– Doom along the Niger and down to the sea. Doom along the Congo and down to the sea. Doom to all the ports of golden Guinea.

– The slavers came. They came for gold and they came for men. They stirred the fires of tribal hate. They promised us help against our enemies. So we fought. Oh my children, we fought. We fought and we sold each other. We thought we were clever. We did not see it was only ourselves that we killed, only ourselves we sold into bondage. Tribe fought tribe and tribe fought tribe. And no one won but the slavers.

– Our states broke. Our tribes broke. Each village turned in upon itself, like a man hugging his secret, afraid, afraid, afraid. Who trusted his neighbour? Who could trust even his brother? Oh my ancestors, my children, why did you not see whose face it was behind the mask Fear wore? Oh my people, innocent and evil, forging the links for your own chains.

– And the slavers smiled. ‘These are not men, but animals, my brethren, have no remorse.’ They did not offend their God. Their God was happy at the haul of black ivory. Their sleep was calm, their gold unstained. They were bringers of mercy. In return for our lives, they were willing to share their God with us. What generosity! ‘How Sweet The Name Of Jesus Sounds’ – yes, how sweet it sounded to the man who wrote that hymn: a commander of a slave ship.

– I saw Elmina Castle, with its great stone walls. Stone on stone up to the parapets where the cannon were mounted. Stone on stone down to the cells beneath the ground. In went the bodies, and all of them alive. But not next morning. Not all alive then. The stench of death is in our nostrils and the taste of death is in our mouths. We called on our gods and our gods did not reply. We screamed and tore at each other in our madness. But the slavers were contented, for were they not our souls’ salvation?

– Then the black ivory market, deep in the castle, the market where the sea-captains bid for us. And the underground passage, out to the sea and the waiting ships. Many common men went that passage, and many princes. Many kings went that passage, and their sorrow was the sorrow of kings. Colour of the sun, colour of gold, colour of the king. And for gold, their emblem, the kings were sold and the sun, although it shone in the sky, had gone out.

– Oh my ancestors, my children. Chained in pairs, in the ship’s bowels. Chained to typhoid and to blackwater. Chained to madness and to death. Chained and made to dance. Yes, even that. Hauled to the deck and made to dance. Nothing spared. Made to dance. My people, who dance in joy, who dance in sorrow.

– Dance, black man, dance.

– Hate is a fire. Hate is a fire. Hate is a fire that consumes my soul. Once long ago I heard my father beat upon the Fontomfrom the song of hate –

– Did He create the whiteman, did He create the slavers? Yes, He created all things. Creator, what was the matter with Your mind on that day?

– After the slavers, the soldiers. Our land – overnight, it seemed – became not ours. Oh, it was paid for. Do not say otherwise. We were paid a few bottles of gin for our land. What did you pay us for our souls?

– We fought. Our kings were warriors, and our people. Oh yes, we fought. Year after year until it was over. We fought with spears. They fought with Maxim guns. Then it was over.

– The graves of our kings were destroyed. Casually, as one might kindle a fire to drive away the black-flies. The graves of our kings were holy. The gold-joined bones of our kings, oiled with sweet oil – they were holy and their spirits cried out to be cared for. Our holy duty was to tend them, then and forever. Casually, lightly, they were shattered, as the jaws of the dog splinter bone.

– And the whitemen tried to steal our soul. They tried to steal the Great Golden Stool, wherein lay the soul of
Asante. But we were as fire then. It was enough. We said NO. We hid the nation’s soul. But many men could not hide their own souls so well.

– ‘Take the gold from golden Guinea. Take the gold and bring them to the Lamb. Take the timber and let the light of Holiness shine upon them. Take the diamonds and be sure their souls are saved. Tut, tut, our black brethren, surely you do not want to lay up riches on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt?’

– Nathaniel, it is not good to hate, for it corrodes a man’s own soul. My people wash their souls to keep them from harm, to keep them from hate. My people wash their souls to keep them whole. Wash your soul, Nathaniel, wash your soul.

– I cannot. Hate is a fire.

– Wash your soul, Nathaniel. Your King commands it. Why do you hate? Why do you blame? Because it absolves you from blame?

– I cannot think of that. Not yet. Not for a while. Let me hate in peace.

– Wash your soul, Nathaniel.

– I cannot.

Nathaniel discovered that in his blind walking his footsteps had turned towards Futura Academy. As though some deep-buried need had led him there, he was standing outside the dwelling of Highlife Boy Lamptey.

Even during the holidays, Lamptey kept his room in the filthy tin-roof shacks known as the school residence. It was cheaper that way for him, and his own business demanded that he remain in Accra. In any event, he would never have returned to his home to visit. His village would have bored
him to distraction within a day. He was a city man. The only life he knew and understood was here.

Nathaniel entered. Lamptey had just wakened. He was perched naked on the edge of the narrow iron bed, his blankets a stale-smelling tangle around him. In his fingers he held chunks of cold kenkey, which he was chewing with distaste. He pointed towards two bottles of beer which stood among the litter of magazines and downflung clothes on the rickety table.

‘Can’t find the bottle opener,’ he cried, ‘and my teeth aren’t so strong any more. Gettin’ old, that’s it.’

After a few tries, Nathaniel knocked the bottle tops off on the table-edge. Lamptey seized one bottle gratefully.

‘Ahaa! My friend! You take the other one. Here, I got some cigarettes somewhere – look in that shirt pocket. No? Let’s see –’

Lamptey wriggled to his feet and wrapped a thin cotton blanket around his waist for decency’s sake. He pranced about the room, whistling softly to himself, his body looking weirdly thin and slight without its protective covering of gaudy loose-fitting shirt.

‘Here y’are, Wise-Boy. Only the best for a friend. Sit on the bed.’

Nathaniel did not know how to begin, so he put it off.

‘I’m surprised to find you alone.’

Lamptey’s shrill titter seemed to fill the room.

‘Hey, how d’you like that? Say, boy, whatever I do before I sleep, I go to sleep alone. What’s a woman, Nathaniel? Fine to play with, very terrible to sleep with. She never gets enough. She lies so close you both sweat like you’re sick to death. All the time she’s breathin’ in your ear and if you say “Move over, woman,” she’s mad as hell. Not for this boy, wha-at?’

But Nathaniel’s laughter would not come, not this time. Lamptey looked at him suspiciously.

‘Why you come to see me, Nathaniel? What you doing here, eh?’

Here it was. Nathaniel tried to look casual.

‘What about tonight, Lamptey? I said I’d go with you some night. Tonight all right?’

‘Sure! Tonight’s fine. We’ll go to “Weekend In Wyoming,” eh? Spider Badu’s band – that’s the Teshie Sandflies – they’re on tonight. Saturday today, eh? “Everybody Likes Saturday Night” – da da da da DUM da da daah – that was a fine highlife before the Europeans decide they like it – man, no one play it now – at all. Yessir, tonight. You know Spider Badu?’

Nathaniel shook his head.

‘He’s great, man, great.’ Lamptey broke off suddenly and gave Nathaniel an odd glance. ‘Say, you sure you want to go?’

‘Sure,’ Nathaniel said quickly. ‘Of course. Why?’

‘Well – ’ the Highlife Boy said, ‘you sure as hell don’t look happy, Nathaniel.’

Nathaniel choked down the fear that rose like bile into his throat.

‘All I need is a few drinks, that’s it,’ he cried, ‘and I’ll be happy tonight – true as God, Lamptey, I’ll be happy tonight!’

The bungalow was always hot; today it seemed insufferably so. Johnnie poured himself a beer and wondered who would live here next. Miranda would be sorry to leave this house. She even liked the plain, crude, locally made furniture, because it was solid mahogany. But most of the furniture in this country was mahogany – it was the cheapest wood. Miranda had outdone herself with the livingroom. On the floor, a Hausa rug, coarse wool, dirty white, patterned in black and a red the
colour of dried blood. On the bookshelf, an ebony head, an ivory crocodile, a clutch of mauve and white seashells. For ashtrays, small brass bowls that Whiskey polished with lime juice. Miranda said the Braque prints on the walls harmonized with primitive art.

‘The sooner the better,’ he said aloud. ‘The next ’plane would suit me.’

Miranda was standing in the doorway, sleek-haired, swollen, her eyes anxious.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Don’t you know why?’

‘I don’t understand it,’ she said. ‘He must have had better students than those. There must be some reason –’

‘There is. He selected them because they paid him well to do it. What do you think of that? I wanted to be certain before I told you. I’m certain now. I saw him today. Your black friend has been doing rather well on bribes.’

Miranda’s eyes widened.

‘I – can’t believe it.’

‘I still have the boys’ addresses. Would you like to hear it from them?’

‘No,’ she said in a low voice, ‘that won’t be necessary.’

The sullen triumph receded like a wave returning to sea, leaving him empty as a beach.

‘I’m sorry, Manda. But you might as well realize it right now. They’re all the same.’

‘That’s ridiculous. You know they’re not. You told me Kojo could do Bedford’s job.’

‘All right, so they’re not all the same. The odd one here and there might possibly do. But how am I going to find them? Time’s running out.’

‘What do you mean – time’s running out?’

‘Cameron Sheppard,’ he said impatiently. ‘He needs his showpieces quickly, to dangle in front of the Board, before he’ll be given a completely free hand here. The whole thing’s got to be done before Independence. What the hell will I tell him now? What’ll he think? It makes me look like a fool –’

‘You’d better go back a bit, and explain. There seems to be a lot that I don’t know.’

He hadn’t intended to tell her about his arrangement with Cameron, but once he began, it was almost a relief to speak it. Only one thing he did not mention. He did not say where Cameron had obtained his information about the Thayers and Cunninghams.

‘I see,’ Miranda said. ‘The Africanization issue was merely a lever to get James and Bedford out of the way.’

He took her face between his hands, not gently.

‘What would you have done, then?’

She twisted away.

‘James has – nothing else. Only this. You’ve said so yourself.’

It was a release, to be able to feel uncomplicated anger towards her.

‘I tried –’ he said. ‘I did try not to say it. But God damn it, you’re going to hear it now. You know who had the idea in the first place, for me to start my own Africanization scheme. This is a fine time for you to get squeamish. You weren’t bothered about it before, were you?’

Her handsome face, the beauty of its bones, hurt him now with its uncertainty.

‘I didn’t know – ’ she said, ‘I didn’t know at all what it would mean –’

He put an arm around her.

‘I know,’ he said tiredly. ‘I know you didn’t. But I did. And I’m not making any excuses, either. I tried to save my job, that’s all. But after what’s happened now, I can see it isn’t the slightest bit of use. James was right – Africanization may be fine in theory, but it won’t work. It’s going to cost the Firm a packet to find that out, and by the time they do, it’ll be too late to do us much good.’

The anger that he had locked into himself ever since Nathaniel’s visit now beat again like prisoners’ fists.

‘If I could only see that bastard Amegbe in jail – do you know, I can’t think of anything at this point that would make me more happy –’

‘Johnnie – don’t. What’s the use?’

‘Just to see him there, blinking behind those ridiculous spectacles, blinking and saying if they’d only let him explain. And all the time, the sweat bubbling out onto that squat face of his –’

Miranda had drawn away from him.

‘Is that what it was like in your office? Is that what he said to you?’

‘You should have seen him, sweating and stuttering when he knew he’d been found out. By God, I really wish you’d been there. It would have finished you with the whole damn lot of them, once and for all.’

‘You didn’t let him explain, did you?’

He turned on her.

‘Don’t tell me you’re going to start defending him.’

‘I persuaded him to go and see you in the first place,’ she said dully. ‘I don’t believe he’d ever have gone, otherwise. So who’s really responsible for what happened? Perhaps we all are.’

‘Like hell we are. Look at the use he made of your friendship. Isn’t that enough to show you what he’s like?’

Miranda was looking at him with a curious detachment.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how much is enough to show what anyone is like. That night when you and Cameron talked so late, I wakened. Voices carry, with all the windows open. I wasn’t awake for very long. But it was long enough. You had just started on James and Cora. I didn’t understand, then, why you were doing it, but I know now.’

Johnnie did not speak.

‘All the things Cameron needed to know,’ Miranda finished. ‘All the things he couldn’t have found out himself, because people only reveal those things to someone they think they can trust.’

Johnnie turned and walked out of the bungalow.

He started the car too quickly, with a clashing of gears. He drove through the city, through a maze of sidestreets. Finally he noticed that he was approaching the ‘Weekend In Wyoming’. He drew up the car in front of the night club and got out.