Anthills of the Savannah - Chinua Achebe [12]
“And why, if one may have the temerity to put such a question to the Honourable Commissioner?”
“You’ve just said it. Because I am the Honourable Commissioner for Information. That’s why.”
“Well that’s not good enough, Mr. Commissioner for Information. Not good enough for me. You seem to be forgetting something, namely that it is my name and address which is printed at the bottom of page sixteen of the Gazette and not that of any fucking, excuse my language, any fucking Commissioner. It’s me who’ll be locked up by Major Samsonite if the need arises, not you. It’s my funeral…”
“Quite irrelevant, Ikem. You ought to know that. We have gone over this matter a million times now if we’ve gone over it once; and I’m getting quite sick and tired of repeating it. I am doing so now for the last time, the very last time. Chapter Fourteen section six of the Newspaper Amendment Decree gives the Honourable Commissioner general and specific powers over what is printed in the Gazette. You know that well. I will now invoke the letter of that law and send you my instruction in writing. Expect it in the next half-hour. It is clear that’s how you want it, so I will oblige.”
He hung up and called in his new secretary. As she pulled up her chair and turned to a clean page of her dictation pad the telephone came alive and she made to answer it. But the Commissioner got to it before her and placed his hand on it, and while it continued to ring he said to her: “I am not in, no matter who it is.” Then he took his hand off and she picked up the receiver.
It was Ikem and he was shouting. Chris could hear his strangled disembodied voice quite clearly because the secretary held the handset a little way from her ear to save her ear-drum.
“He is not on seat, sir.”
“Don’t lie to me! He bloody well must be on seat because he just now hung up on me.”
“Well, sir, this is not the only telephone in the city, is it? He could have called you from his home or from the Presidential Palace or anywhere.”
Chris was smiling a mirthless smile. An angry man is always a stupid man. Make a thorough fool of him, my dear girl, he thought. Ikem’s concessionary silence was long and heavy. Then without another word he clanged the phone down so heavily that the girl jumped.
“Full marks, dear girl,” said Chris without a smile now. “And my apologies for the behaviour of my graceless friends.”
“Who was it?”
“Didn’t you know? That was the Editor of the Gazette.”
Her flag of victory seemed all of a sudden to lose its wind. Her face fell; Chris noticed it, the look of awe.
The sun in April is an enemy though the weatherman on television reciting mechanically the words of his foreign mentors tells you it will be fine all over the country. Fine! We have been slowly steamed into well-done mutton since February and all the oafs on our public payroll tell us we are doing just fine! No, my dear countrymen. This is Brigadier Misfortune of the Wilting 202 Brigade telling you you are not fine. No my dear countrymen, you will not be fine until you can overthrow the wild Sun of April. Later tonight, fellow countrymen, you will hear the full text from General Mouth himself—I am only a mouthpiece—you will hear the words direct from him after the national anthem shall have been played backwards. Until then, beloved countrymen, roast in peace.
The half kilometre to the Presidential Palace had already taken an hour and fifteen minutes in the closing-time heat and traffic, and he was not half-way there yet. The irresistible temptation of Abazon had brought him to this pass. As he inched forward and stopped and inched again and jammed his foot on the brakes he remembered: in heavy traffic the car to watch is the one ahead of the one behind you. Stupid cleverness, barren smartness that defeats ordinary, solid, sensible people. Like Elewa. She could never even begin to unravel that traffic conundrum.
He looked far ahead just before the next big bend in the road and saw another welcome twitch of motion working its way down the line towards him. He awaited it eagerly but when