The Interpreters, page 22
Lights were out in most houses. Some dogs barked very close, and remembering Bandele’s analysis of their code, Sagoe picked up a stick.
“For the dogs? They don’t bite.”
“I’ll make sure they don’t.”
“Are you afraid of dogs?”
“No. But I’ve been bitten before.”
“I was too, but that was different. In my own home town, where a white fool set his dog on me.” He laughed and seemed to anticipate Sagoe’s puzzlement. “Oh, you are taken in like others. I am negro. One-quarter negro in fact.” He smiled then. “I wish it were more.”
“I met a lot like that in the States.”
Golder was surprised. “You’ve been in the States?”
“For quite some time.”
“I am surprised someone hasn’t brought you along then.” He climbed to a falsetto. “You’ve been in the States? Oh you simply must meet Joe Golder. A most cha-a-rming little man. He has a most ma-a-rvellous tenor voice.”
“You sing?”
“You would have found out sooner or later. Unfortunately I love to sing, and I think it is true I have a good voice—best tenor in the college, some say. But usually it is the women who say that. And most of these tired housewives will not understand that I join their opera group to sing, not for the sherry and tittle-tattle afterwards.” He was growing excitable again. “And I have a piano in my flat, so they think it a good idea to drop in for a short rehearsal. And it does not matter that I say no each time, they believe they can wear me down with trying. Look, if there is one thing I cannot bear, it is some female voice singing in my flat. It is an insufferable intrusion. I am very jealous of my privacy, I cannot tolerate any fool invading it and they so love to take you for granted…”
After they took the last turning into a fresh, barely made wheel-track, the nature of the silence had changed. It was no longer mere cessation wrought by a sleeping community, but a deadening load, a third oppressive companion on the walk. It came from the matted bush, and the dank of lopped palm bases, uprooted but alive, from a black blanket of toads’ spawn on a shallow stream. Even across the cawing and the disturbed pauses of the toads, it was there. Sagoe smiled the smile of a contented Voidante immersed in perfect silences.
“You are smiling,” Joe Golder intruded suddenly.
He came back to his presence, but soon lost him again.
“You are a silent person,” Joe Golder said.
“Hm?”
“I say you are a silent person. You don’t say much but you keep smiling to yourself.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. What were you thinking?”
“On the metaphysics of Voidancy.”
“Oh, yes, thank you very much.”
They walked on in silence and Sagoe wallowed in it. He was growing steadily vacuous. Soon his mind was quite empty—a mistake it seemed, where Joe Golder was concerned.
“What are you thinking?”
He made no reply.
Indifferent to Sagoe’s state of beatific passivity, Joe Golder became an insufferable intrusion. Sagoe wished earnestly that the man would shut up. He could not understand that any human could appear so sensitive and yet remain outside the octopoid lethargy of the night. Golder continued to intrude on the spell with his drum of tribulations until they reached the flats.
He lived in the newest block of flats, the furthest from the college centre and the tallest. And he had, without any difficulty, secured the top flat—nobody seemed to want it but he.
“It is eight flights of stairs, so take it easy. I hoped the labour would discourage callers.”
“How did you get the piano up?”
“Same as for one flight. Hard work, but I persisted.”
As he inserted the key in the lock, “I have no friends. You will hear a number of people say Joe Golder is their friend, but that is only their conceit. Strangers come up to me and say, ‘So you’re Joe Golder, I met a friend of yours only yesterday…’ ”
“Often it’s only a manner of speaking.” Sagoe was becoming irritated, with reason.
A picture of an elderly woman confronted Sagoe and the rest of that wall was covered in books, all elegantly bound, similar.
“I once worked in a library. In Paris. Have you been to France? You have? Most of the books which the library threw out I took. And they often sold others cheaply, I bought them. Had them rebound. It did not matter what they were, I simply took them. Next to music, my passion is books.”
The room had such a fastidious air Sagoe could not immediately sit. And in spite of a light metal and canvas chair, a Design Centre coffee table, low, with white Formica, in spite of the cubist designs on tiny cushions, Sagoe had stepped into a remote world, ponderous, archaic. There were two candlesticks on the piano, with red candles…
“For heaven’s sake don’t make a joke about Liberace. All the Americans who come here do.”
“Liberace is dated,” Sagoe said, inspecting the ornate designs.
An oval antimacassar was spread on the piano, on top of it, another framed photo, both parents. “Yes, they look completely white, don’t they, but my father is half negro. One of the passing ones you see. He took his wife away before I was due. But I seemed all right and he came back.”
“What happened then?”
“Nothing for fifteen years. And then the past caught up with him.” He remained silent for some time. “He’s dead now. Suicide.
“You may be horrified when I tell you I drove him to it. I was so ashamed of him and I did not hide it. I spat on my flesh to his face because it came from him…I was young…”
There were a few fussy pieces on the piano, and a figure of Buddha. “Jade?” Sagoe enquired. Golder said he didn’t know. On a shelf, the three brass monkeys.
Golder had a fake mantelpiece. “It goes with me when I change flats. Built it myself. I have rather peculiar tastes, there are somethings I cannot do without in a room.’
The lampshade on the piano was a peculiar criss-cross box of black-painted wood and there was a similar creation, purely ornamental on the mantelpiece. “I intend to turn that into a fish-bowl.” Sagoe puzzled how he would do this but refrained from asking.
“What will it be? Coffee or stronger?”
“I feel thirsty now. Have you beer?”
“You are frowning. What is the matter?”
“Was I?”
“Heavily.”
“I didn’t know. I suppose I find it all very disquieting. Too quiet. Quite a disquieting quiet requite thee. How’s that?”
Not even a smile acknowledged it. Instead he turned a hard face and said,
“How do you mean? You have something on your mind, what is it?”
“I don’t know. Just give me a beer.” And Sagoe went and stood on the balcony.
Beyond reality lay the town, congealed sheets of rust and silver patches. A miniature forest lay below, life-size only in the fastness of its head of hair. The stream which they had crossed looked a discarded rope, the palm bases like big tubers. The block was that tall. A glow-worm alone shone equal, landing close by Sagoe’s watch. Two in the morning.
“What are you thinking now?” His voice was quite harsh, resentful. “You were thinking just now.”
“Was I?”
“You were frowning again. Why? Why do you keep frowning?”
Sagoe tried to co-operate, made a serious effort to discover why he frowned. But it had worse results. The quiet beat him and his effort at concentration was soon swallowed by lassitude. He promptly forgot Golder’s existence.
“Well, if it takes you that long to remember what you are thinking…”
Sagoe woke up. “I am sorry. I don’t think I was working on it really.”
It happened four or five times; Golder was so persistent and Sagoe never recovered sufficiently to resent his needling intrusion. It was as if he continually fell asleep on an invited guest, and he remained conscious of ill manners.
“You are a very silent person, aren’t you? You don’t appear to talk much.”
Sagoe found this amusing. “If only you knew.”
“So you do talk. Why aren’t you talking then? You haven’t said much since we met. You hardly open your mouth unless I prompt you.”
“Maybe I’m tired.”
“You are not tired. I know when a man is tired.”
“Well, lazy then. You know what I mean. Heights affect me this way and the quiet is doping.”
“But you are talking now. So tell me what you were thinking just then.”
“Do I have to think of something?”
“About yourself then. Go on. I want to know what kind of a person you are. Tell me what makes you tick. I know I am a misanthropist. I don’t care for people and I don’t want them to care for me. Most of them are phonies anyway. I’ve been to several European countries and human beings are all the same. Boring, insincere. I came here hoping Africans were different.”
And it went on like this. He sat on the railing poised like an inquisitor, but he only plunged deeper and deeper into his own case-history.
“I prefer my own company. Stay up here, and write. I am writing my second book, a historical novel set in Africa.” And then, with a mad edge to his voice, “You are not listening. You keep thinking. What are you thinking about?”
This time, he came through and Sagoe sat up with a jerk. “What is the matter? I said I wasn’t thinking, and if I was and I don’t want to tell you, that is my business.”
Joe Golder when he laughed sometimes, was frightening. He had big teeth and his lips slid apart in a near snarl. Sagoe was more alert now, and began to wonder if the man was playing a part. “You like to act strange, perhaps?”
Joe Golder stopped laughing. “Why do you think that?”
“Nothing. It occurred to me that I had better ask.”
“I am one of the most sincere people I know.”
“Even that can be a front. I mean, a deliberate attitude.”
“We will get stuck,” he said, going to a cupboard. “These walks always make me hungry. Would you like something too?”
Sagoe apparently took too long considering the offer, and Golder jumped.
“Christ, you don’t have to have it. I merely made the suggestion.”
“This is getting mad. Do you never ponder whether to eat or not?”
But he had gone into the room and he opened a cupboard. Sagoe followed him, making a distinct effort to be sociable.
“When I was in Paris,” said Joe, “I knew a dancer from British Guiana, he was so goddamn proud it hurt him to say thank you, so he would avoid your doing anything for him. God! I hated his guts and he hated mine. He was starving in Paris, you know, and I had a good job in that library. And he would come to my flat after tramping to all the agents looking for work, he would flop in a chair and listen to records. His shoes were an eyesore and you could see he hadn’t eaten for a week. But would he agree to eat? No thank you, in his best Oxford accent. No thank you! It made me so mad just seeing him seated there, pretending he had eaten when his guts were crying for a crumb. Oh he was so damn British. So bloody correct. He was a student in Oxford with me, you see, but he flunked his exams so we both came to Paris. It was dancing which interested him anyway.
“You know, I went to his room one day, a shabby rat-hole in an attic. I hadn’t seen him for days so I went to look him up. Took me three hours to find the slum he was living in. He was in bed, weak, quite weak from hunger…I opened his cupboard and there wasn’t even a garlic. But he forced himself up to open the window and tell me in that damn British manner that he’d eaten, oh God he was simply stupid with pride. I had to go out, buy him food and cook it for him, and you could see he was weeping inside to eat the food I had bought.”
Sagoe, fascinated by the man, watched him light the kerosene stove.
“I don’t use the electric stove,” he said. “Not since I got the first bill.”
He began to break eggs into a saucepan. He was breaking the third when Sagoe said, “I hope none of that is for me.”
“You don’t want any?”
“No, don’t think so.”
“I see you are still thinking.”
“I don’t want any.”
“Are you sure? Or is that the British in you?”
“The British in me of course. But I don’t want any just the same, thank you that’s very kind of you don’t want to put you to any trouble absolutely sure so sweet of you.”
“At least you have a sense of humour.”
“I don’t think I have, but it doesn’t matter.”
“No? I must confess I derive a kind of pleasure from detecting hunger in people. It is another bad habit I picked up. I didn’t tell you, before I took that library job I did a bit of starving myself. That put me off hunger for ever. The sort of people who claimed to be starving for art, starving for their freedom, starving for the day they would burst on the world their genius—all phut! They had nothing in them, the fools of the Latin Quarter. Oh I lived that life for some time. I was sent a little money from home, so I was lucky. Sickening, all those phonies. One thing they could all do well, sponge on you. They had a genius for that.”
“I saw some too in New York.”
“Oh yes. Greenwich Village.”
“And San Francisco. Your beatniks amazed me. Why do they congregate, why?”
“You mean you gave that serious thought? That dancer friend of mine, he starved, but he didn’t parade it like those others. When he went broke he simply stayed in his flat and dreamt. We were great friends. I liked him a lot and I hated his guts. God I hated his guts I didn’t know how much. You know how I found out? When he was ill, broke and in hospital. I hate hospitals, I never visit anyone in it. When my mother was ill once I thought up all sorts of subterfuge to avoid going to see her. But this boy, the moment I learnt he was really ill I went to hospital just to see him there, helpless, totally dependent. You know, he didn’t possess a cent. I paid his bills, took him fruits and flowers. Oh he was really rotted with pride, you could see humiliation all over his face, never gratitude, I hoped it would slow his recovery. I paid his rent—he had been out of a job for some weeks before his illness, so he was in debt all over the place. I went and cleaned his house before he returned. Oh but he hated me, hated the sight of me like he’d never done before but he couldn’t help himself. He had to accept my help and even ask for it. I did it, you know. He had to go for an audition and he needed new ballet shoes. I knew it but I said nothing. He had to ask. Ask! He asked me for money, damn him!”
Fresh air blew in from the balcony; reassuring. Sagoe felt plunged beyond his depth. What is the matter with him? What is the matter with him? In desperation his mind flew to Dehinwa and her gruff, exasperating affection, to Egbo, who could have matched Joe Golder for violence—of a more straightforward nature.
“Is it all right if I put this on?” He stood by the record-player.
“OK by me.” Sagoe did not add that his lethargic self-indulgence was already destroyed anyway, and that he still resented the fact. A soprano drowned the sound of spurting oil.
“Coloratura, Italian. Do you like it? I like the human voice. Next to a violin the human voice is the perfect instrument. I play my favourites only when I am alone. I am liable to cry, you see.”
“It is funny, but I am not surprised to hear that.”
“Do I look the kind who cries easily?”
“Let us just say that you are very vulnerable.”
Sagoe was standing by the only painting in the room. It showed white streaks on a fully black background. It could have been forked lightning on a black sky but he knew it wasn’t. The tongues which darted from the main gash were wet, dripping. No power or violence but a deliberate viscosity, the trapped dreg of milk pushing through wrinkled film and trickling uncertainly.
“Do you like that?”
“I find it sickening.”
He stopped short. “You are the first to say that. Others say they can’t understand it.”
For a long time afterwards Sagoe would wonder why he asked the question. Unconscious that he had even framed it, unaware until it dropped, he heard himself ask, “Did your dancer friend do it?”
“Yes.” And Joe Golder watched him for quite some time. “How did you guess?”
“I have no idea.”
Instantly furious, “You never like to say anything. So damn secretive…”
“Before you work yourself up over nothing, I tell you again, I have no idea.”
“I’ve noticed that. You Africans, once you’ve told a lie, you feel bound to stick by it. Even when you are confronted with the evidence which even a child must see, you must lie, lie…”
Sagoe was ready to strike him now. “If I ever hear you talk that kind of shit again…”
“I can, you see, because I am not white. Take my first houseboy…”
“You affect much scorn for British attitudes and now you stand there calmly asserting one. You try that superior stuff on someone else.”
“So you can’t even accept a simple truth. You Africans are so damned nationalistic.”
“Shut your blasted mouth!” He had got on his feet threatening.
Golder recoiled, visibly terrified. “I hate violence.”
“Then don’t open your big mouth again to draw profound conclusions from your houseboy! God, you Americans are so damned insufferable it’s a wonder you get out of anywhere alive.”
The strain was worse when the record came to an end. Joe Golder pushed the food aside and went to the bottles. “Now I cannot eat.” He was shaking slightly.
“What’s stopping you?”
“I hate violence. Any form of violence upsets me.”
