Anthills of the Savannah - Chinua Achebe [10]
“Come in, Attorney-General… Sit down. I sent for you to ask you a direct, simple question. I realize that you are a lawyer but I am extremely busy and I want plain speaking and to the point. Right? I have received intelligence from various sources indicating that the Commissioner for Information is perhaps not as loyal to me as he might be. Now as you are well aware this is a very serious and very sensitive and very delicate matter and I am asking you in the strictest confidence. Nothing about this must get outside these four walls.” He indicated the four walls two at a time like an airline hostess pointing out exits in emergency drill before take-off. The Attorney-General nodded four or five times in quick succession.
“Fine. What would you make of such intelligence?”
The Attorney-General was perched on the edge of his chair, his left elbow on the table, his neck craning forward to catch his Excellency’s words which he had chosen to speak with unusual softness as if deliberately to put his hearer at a disadvantage; or on full alert on pain of missing a life and death password. As he watched his victim straining to catch the vital message he felt again that glow of quiet jubilation that had become a frequent companion especially when as now he was disposing with consummate ease of some of those troublesome people he had thought so formidable in his apprentice days in power. It takes a lion to tame a leopard, say our people. How right they are!
As he savoured this wonderful sense of achievement gained in so short a time spreading over and soaking into the core of his thinking and his being like fresh-red tasty palm-oil melting and diffusing itself over piping hot roast yam he withdrew his voice still further into his throat and, for good measure, threw his head back on his huge, black, leather chair so that he seemed to address his words at the high, indifferent ceiling rather than the solicitous listener across the table.
Suddenly suspicious like a quarry sniffing death in the air but uncertain in what quarter it might lurk the Attorney-General decided to stall. For a whole minute almost, he stood on one spot, making no move, offering no reply.
“Well?” His Excellency was stung into loudness by the other’s delay and silence. He was also now sitting bolt upright. “Did you hear what I said or should I repeat?”
“No need to repeat, Your Excellency. I heard you perfectly. You see, Your Excellency, your humble servant is a lawyer. My profession enjoins me to trust only hard evidence and to distrust personal feeling and mere suspicion.”
“Attorney-General, I sent for you not to read me a lecture but to answer my question. You may be the Attorney but don’t forget I am the General.”
The Attorney-General exploded into peals of laughter, uncontrollable and beer-bellied. Through it he repeated again and again whenever he could: “That’s a good one, Your Excellency, that’s a good one!” His Excellency, no doubt pleased with the dramatic result his wit had produced but not deigning to show it, merely fixed a pair of immobile but somewhat indulgent eyes on his Attorney-General, patiently waiting for his mirth to run its course. Finally it began to as he took the neatly-folded silk handkerchief out of his breast-pocket and dabbed his eyes daintily like a fat clown.
“You will now answer my question?” said His Excellency in a slightly amused tone.
“I am sorry, Your Excellency. Don’t blame me; blame Your Excellency’s inimitable sense of humour… To speak the truth, Your Excellency, I have no evidence of disloyalty on the part of my honourable colleague.” He paused for effect. But nothing showed on His Excellency’s face. “But lawyers are also human. I have a personal feeling which may not stand up in court, I agree, but I hold it very strongly and if Chris were here I would say it to his face. I don’t think Chris is one hundred percent behind you.”
“Why do you think you have that feeling?”
“Why do I have it? well let’s put it this way. I have watched my colleague in question closely in the last year or so and