The Interpreters, page 23
Sagoe did not relent. “Then you should be more careful. There is violence in words too.”
“No, no, that is rationalising. Let me try and find you a photograph of this boy. I don’t keep an album, but I keep all his cuttings. He is successful now; he’s danced in Berlin and the States and in one of two other European capitals. I had a card from him recently—from Madrid.” He laughed. “Yes, he began to get more regular work and he paid me every penny I’d spent on him. That’s how he is. Paid it all back. But at least he took it, he had to accept my kindness. It was the only source of pride he had left—to pay back his debts. But I had broken him just the same. When he’s broke now he doesn’t hesitate to ask me for money.”
Joe Golder grew more and more distasteful every moment, but Sagoe felt he would wait. To keep himself there—and reasonably civil—he began to look for things in Joe to admire. There was his love of solitude, his deliberate self-isolation which was marked all over the room, and yet the room was repellent. It gave a crawling sensation down his back and he mouthed the American word—sick!
“You are not saying anything. I still do not know you, or isn’t there anything to know? I mean, what makes you tick. Go on, what makes you tick?”
“Do you always make your friends—sorry, acquaintances if you prefer that word—do you always make them feel they are smuggled watches on sale outside Kingsway—ah oga, seventeen jewel, cheap-cheap automatic with calendar, try this one oga.”
“O-oh, I don’t know how I make anybody feel. But I don’t like mystery.”
“You like probing the works to see the tick mechanism.”
“I don’t know what I like. But you haven’t said anything at all. And I always want to know about people. I find that people exploit you. If you are kind to them they exploit you. I have tried to help people—lots of times, especially when I was in Paris where the world’s bums are gathered. Not anybody, mind you. Only people of my colour. I like black people, I really do. Black people are exciting, their colour has such vitality, I mean it is something really beautiful, distinctive…”
Quite unfairly, because he knew it wasn’t true, Sagoe said, “You are mentally white, you know.”
“It sounds Rousseau but I have a right to feel the way I do. Black is something I like to be, that I have every right to be. There is no reason at all why I shouldn’t have been born jet black.”
“You would have died of over-masturbation, I am sure.”
“You enjoy being vulgar?”
“A genteel British reproof. It is amazing how much English did get into you. Perhaps that’s why you are constantly attacking. Look, the truth is that I get rather sick of self-love. Even nationalism is a kind of self-love but that can be defended. It is this cult of black beauty which sickens me. Are albinos supposed to go and drown themselves, for instance?”
Until then, he had completely forgotten Lazarus. His mind went to him now and it made him suddenly restless. He stood up.
“Are you leaving?”
“Yes.”
“So you don’t find your skin beautiful?”
“I have never given it any thought. I saw a white girl at a party the other night and I considered her beautiful. That is an aesthetic judgement. I cannot remember much about her colour. When you talk of this black vitality I can almost hear you salivating and since I happen to be black—neither fault nor credit to me—I find it all rather nauseating.”
“No, wait a minute…”
“I am astonished that black men can bear to be slobbered over, even by black men.”
Joe Golder rose. “It is some distance. I’ll drive you. Or stay if you like, it is quite late.”
“No, my friend would wonder what happened to me.”
“You seemed to be locked out when I saw you.”
“No it wasn’t that. That Peter, the German boy with the smelly breath—he hasn’t left. And I wasn’t in any mood to face him.”
“You are staying together?”
“We are both guests of an old school friend.”
“Oh, I know Bandele very well.”
“And played him a mean trick. He got landed with Peter after you ditched him. One minute in the same house as Peter is a trial. Bandele is quite superhuman.”
“You can move in here if you like.”
Sagoe laughed. “And your sudden moods? I hate to think of me relaxing here and you running all the way from the lecture room to throw me out. I don’t quite fancy knocking my head on the stone steps.”
“No, no, I can always tell. There is no likelihood of my doing that.”
“No, I’m only here for a few days anyway and we’ll only get on each other’s nerves. I am still rather startled, you know. I mean, look, you must admit you are a bit of a surprise. Much too much to absorb at once.”
“Stay tonight anyway. I’ll drive you back first thing in the morning.”
Sagoe was tempted. “I must admit I would sleep better knowing I wouldn’t see Peter first thing in the morning.”
“Good. And there are no mosquitoes at all. Too high, I imagine. I’ll sleep here and you can use the bedroom.”
“No. I like this sofa. You stick to your bedroom.”
He had become very cheerful. “No no, that is not my idea of hospitality.”
“You’ll have to give in. I don’t use a bed when there is a sofa. Even cushions on the floor will do me.”
“All right. Then we’ll both sleep on cushions,” he said.
“Look, I don’t…” But Golder had gone into the bedroom, and left by himself in the room the vague unease returned. Sagoe stood there, irresolute. When Joe Golder reappeared, he knew he was not going to stay.
“I’ve put out a new towel for you in the bathroom. It is right through the bedroom.” He put on another record. “I hope you have made up your mind to use the bedroom.”
“No, I…don’t think so.”
He spoke quite gaily, “All right, we’ll both use the cushions then.”
“No-no, I don’t think I’ll stay at all.”
Joe Golder retained the pick-up, incredulous. “Why? Why have you changed your mind?”
“I never really did make up my mind.”
He turned in fierce accusation. “You did, you had agreed to stay.”
“All right, let us say I did.” Sagoe was sure he was having more than his share of a night’s annoyance. “You haven’t a monopoly of sudden moods, you know.”
“But why won’t you stay?”
“I just do not feel like it.”
“No. That is not why. What is your real reason?”
“Are you seriously demanding a reason?”
“Yes yes. I want to know why.” His voice had turned shrill, all his poise, even at his most violently resentful had vanished. “Just tell me the truth.”
“Well, for one thing, you have made it abundantly clear that you resent intrusion.”
“No, that was only to explain myself, which you, typically, refused to do. It is true I am subject to moods, but I do want you to stay. You must realize that I want you to stay.”
“You’ll get on my nerves.”
“For one night? What is the real reason?”
Suddenly Sagoe thought, we are both fencing, but why? What am I fencing about? What does he expect me to know for God’s sake? In his mind, he sensed a blockage that prevented conscious admission of the issue, but tonight was one of his slow nights and he asked what, what, what? Joe Golder was taunting and Sagoe found that there was still another turn to his face; it was twisted and looked unripe, an abortion.
Finally Sagoe said, “You have some suspicions on your mind. You can either say it out or keep it because I am going. And if my reason does not satisfy you, find your own.”
“You are the one beating about the bush; the English in you again…”
“For God’s sake!”
“Yes, and you know it…. It is very kind of you really but I can’t stay. Just like that dancing friend of mine who won’t eat. I can’t stand all the pretence. Say what is on your mind, I want to know.”
Sagoe looked at him with deliberate pity now and walked to the door. “Since you are so obssessed with British this and British the rest I’ll tell you one new reason why I won’t stay. You will bore me to death. I hope that is good enough for you.”
“Wait.” He came closer, almost pleading. “Tell me something, quite honestly. Are you afraid of me?”
Sagoe went past feeling; his mouth slacked open and remained there.
“You needn’t look so astonished. I want an honest answer. Are you afraid of me?”
“Afraid of you?”
Again Sagoe was forced to give up; he had meant no contempt in his voice, no cause for Golder’s subsequent rage. “God, you are the strong confident type, aren’t you? I knew it the moment I saw you. So cocksure, so damned sure of yourself. You are the strong black type, afraid of nothing. Where do you get your conceit from anyway? I asked what made you tick but you didn’t say. The strong, silent type, so bloody sure of himself. Nothing makes you afraid.”
Deliberately Sagoe taunted him, “I can take care of myself, yes. And what about it?”
And then he thought, he is mad. The man is mad. If he had a knife he would stab me. But why? What have I done?
The American was speaking again, much more slowly now. “Do you think…are you afraid I might molest you? Is that it? Do you think I am a homo?”
“Good God, no.” The suggestion startled Sagoe and he did not even think before he rejected it. “You have some rather effeminate mannerisms, but that is all.”
“Come come, be quite frank now.”
“I’ve answered you! Listen you, it is true I have spent some time in places where every possible perversion is practised, but I do not on that account jump to hasty conclusions. I happen to be born into a comparatively healthy society…”
He jumped on him. “Don’t give me that? Comparatively healthy society my foot. Do you think I know nothing of your Emirs and their little boys? You forget history is my subject. And what about those exclusive coteries in Lagos?”
Sagoe gestured defeat. “You seem better informed than I am. But if you don’t mind I’ll persist in my delusion. I’m tired anyway. Look, I’m only trying to say that I suspect you of nothing. I have learnt not to jump to conclusions in so many things. Anyway, please, let’s take this up some other time.”
He seemed somewhat mollified. “I’ll run you back.”
Up till that moment, Sagoe had kept nothing back, assumed no more than he admitted. He had erected the wall in societies where sex was the key to town planning, where designs for park railings were turned down because of unsuspected symbolisms. Unable, while in America to accept that three out of every five of his friends were perverts, active or latent, and that the fourth was in love with his mother, he simply pulled down a cast-iron shutter and developed a judo chop for those whose movements in a darkened cinema theatre left him in no doubt at all.
With men he learnt to ignore hints and searching questions for fear he had misunderstood. But where the language was plain, he calmly chopped the errant wrist and earned an insulating reputation.
“What are you thinking now?”
“Oh no, let’s not start that again.”
He drove through the dirt track onto the rain-tree lined avenue. “You see,” said Joe Golder, “I like men.”
Sagoe was singularly stupid that night, or perhaps he never really listened. Joe Golder repeated it twice over, with more emphasis, before he finally admitted the meaning and began to curse his slowness.
“I mean…I really do. I like men like that, yes, like that. I thought you knew.”
“No. I’m afraid I didn’t.”
“Well, I thought you did. I couldn’t think of any reason why you wouldn’t stay. But do you mean you didn’t even suspect?”
“I am not usually this thick, it is very difficult to explain. But it must have crossed my mind a few times…I really can’t think why it didn’t fasten on. A reaction I have developed, I think. When I can’t think what sickness belongs to a man, I don’t go for fashion.”
“Well, I should have thought it was obvious.”
“No. I lived with this European conspiracy to de-sex men and it drove me mad. So I simply developed a most stubbornly rooted reaction. But even so…I surpassed myself…the drink must have congealed my lobes, I think.”
“Do you know, you haven’t even told me your name.”
“Common with pick-up cases—don’t you think?” Now that his mind was unblocked, Sagoe was not ready to be so nearly considerate.
He noticed then a book lying on the seat beside him and picked it up, holding the cover to the dashboard.
“It’s Another Country, the latest Baldwin. Have you read it?”
“I spell it Another Cuntry, C-U-N-T.”
“You don’t like it?”
“It reminded me somehow of another title, Eric, or Little by Little! Said with an anal gasp if you get my meaning.”
“You enjoy being vulgar,” he said again.
“And you? Why is this lying on the car seat? So when you give lifts to students you can find an easy opening for exploring?”
“You are trying to hurt me?”
They drove in silence the rest of the way. Golder pulled up outside the house and asked, still hopefully, “Well?”
“Well what?”
“The invitation still stands. You can come and stay any time.”
“Thanks, but frankly, I don’t think I will.”
“Because of what I said?”
“For the hundredth time, I can take care of myself.”
This always acted as a blow to his face. “Oh yes yes, I forget”—and again the abortion sneer—“you are big and strong. Big silent African.”
Bandele opened the door for him. “Wasn’t that Joe Golder’s car?”
“It was. And thank you for a most eventful stay. Thank you very much indeed.”
“What’s the matter?”
“First Peter, then your native breed, now that Golder character. I just hope you haven’t any more surprises in store for me.”
Bandele stared. “Oh I see. Oh dear, I should have warned you.”
“Never mind. I suppose as a journalist I should take it all in my stride. Trouble is I don’t see any of it that my editor can use.”
14
It was lunch-time again at the house of Faseyi. For Bandele, a pleasure of the gut which he never could resist, for it was an after-crisis lunch, and Faseyi’s mother would be working miracles of the kitchen. As for the penalty, it was little to pay, he heard nothing that he did not wish to hear, made the appropriate sounds at the right time, and turned his nose towards the kitchen to catch the fore-whiffs of the feast.
Monica, accustomed to the drill, poured out the drinks and left. Faseyi hardly waited for the door to shut on her before he pressed Bandele against a wall. “You saw it all, didn’t you? You saw what happened. You saw how that woman disgraced me!”
The deprecating gesture from Bandele. “It was nothing. No one really noticed.”
“How can you say that? Look, Bandele, you are always honest with me. Enh? What about Kola, was he there?” Looking directly at Kola but curiously addressing Bandele. “Was he at the party?”
“I wasn’t,” Kola said, very firmly.
“Wasn’t he? I would have sworn it was he who went and danced with Monica afterwards.”
“No, no it wasn’t me.” He turned to Egbo and began to talk to him.
“No, I don’t remember seeing Kola,” Bandele said.
“You see how it is? I mean, I could understand if I was one of those who marry illiterate girls from London so that they can boast that they have a white wife. You tell me honestly, do I look that kind?”
Bandele said something about Monica being OK.
“So you see, for her to go and disgrace me like that! As if she does not know the simple rules of etiquette.”
“Look Fash…” But Faseyi interrupted. “You are not looking at it from my point of view…wait, just a minute.” He went and listened at the door. “Good. Mother is talking to her now. You know what the Prof’s wife told her? She said she would never tolerate Monica’s presence at her house again.”
Bandele murmured, “Terrible.”
“You begin to see my point don’t you? To behave like that in decent society. Why? Sometimes I think that Monica just has no respect for Africans. That’s all I can say. Would she do that in a white man’s house? If the Professor had been a white man, would she have done that?”
“Have you seen the Prof?” Bandele next asked.
“Not yet. But I will have to go and apologise. Not that it can repair the damage. Do you know a Minister was present. Yes, and one or two other VIPs. Oguazor knows people, you know. I saw four corporation chairmen there, and some Permanent Secretaries. A thing like that, Kola, one is simply socially finished.”
“Yes, you, of course.”
“Look, let’s face the facts. The university is just a stepping-stone. Politics, corporations—there is always something. Not to talk of these foreign firms, always looking for Nigerian Directors. I mean Kola, you are an artist, but I am sure it is all a means to an end, not so?”
Kola feigned deafness.
“I didn’t sleep all night you know. In fact I am so glad you could come. Mummy is all very well—I went to fetch her first thing this morning—but one can really talk only with people of one’s age. And Mummy is too fond of Monica. She really indulges her.”
“What did your mother say?”
“Nothing yet. She says she will hear her side of the story. As if there is anything left to be said.”
“Let’s go to the balcony, Egbo.”
