African Laughter - Doris May Lessing [200]
When his Party wins an election/the War in the Bush/gains Independence from a European power because the Winds of Change have blown his way, he at once becomes the only man who could possibly ever have led the country: hindsight is a persuasive writer of history. But while he finds himself able to handle the former Colonial power, the leaders of other African countries, and trips to meet world leaders, being a popular leader does not come easily. He never had the gift of eloquence, and does not have it now. He has never swayed crowds. He watches colleagues, some of them brave figures from the fight for Independence, easily gather to themselves hearts and minds which they seem to wear like badges or medals, for when they stand on platforms it is as if they are surrounded by an aura of confidence: I love you, you love me. Secretly he yearns over his people like a shy lover. It is not unknown for him to weep while speaking/stutter/appear pedantic because overcontrolled.
The man so isolated inside his shyness soon seems proud and austere and even cold. Some call him a saint. He is known for his integrity. He lives simply and makes sure everyone knows it. He tries to moderate the excesses of associates who are energetically getting rich.
His first love/wife dies, or he finds her simple village ways (which match his own) a handicap. He meets a woman who at once attracts him. She has everything he lacks. Large, ebullient, beautiful; loud, laughing, extrovert,’ she commands everyone with her charm. (It might be interesting to make her from another part of Africa or from another tribe, adding to her attractions for him, but to the suspicions of the populace about an outsider.) This man feels as if he has been in prison all his life and this woman has released him from it: suddenly everything that had been difficult for him becomes easy. When they are with friends in the evening (it seems now there are parties every night) she communicates with them all, using her whole body: no one can take their eyes off her. When she stands on a platform (which she increasingly does, claiming her right to be Mother of the Nation) she holds crowds with her majestic breasts and thighs just as much as with her beautiful face, her full voice. He watches her, admiring, full of love, but uneasy. How does she do it? What is this gift which he has been so absolutely denied? He jokes with her–but in his way, which is as if jokes might turn out dangerous when unmonitored–that she has not been elected, and while it is all right to be Mother of the Nation in her role as his wife, she must not go beyond that.
‘Nonsense!’ she cries, and, seeing she has hurt him, for he withdraws like one of those acacia leaves that fold themselves up even at the approach of a finger, she embraces him and he again feels life flow through him.
She is crying ‘Nonsense!’ often. When he says that their rule of life must be modest. When she returns from some Conference which she has spent talking with other wives, and now says she has opened a Swiss bank account, and he says No, it is dishonest to spend the People’s money. When an opportunity comes (pretty often as the country develops) for her to take part in deals that are increasingly shady, and he remonstrates. It takes him a long time to understand she has not one molecule in her body of what he has always taken his stand on: his honesty, for which he is known all over Africa and the world. She really does not know what he means when he says, We must set an example, or We must not let our country become corrupt like the others. ‘Why not? Corrupt? But everyone does it,’ she might carelessly say, laughing. And she teases him as she sometimes does for his inhibitions in more intimate ways. She even uses the same words: ‘Where do you get these ideas from? Who says no? Is there a law which says we mustn’t….