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The white man was apparently from one of the Eastern Bloc countries. He did not neglect to stress to me in an aside that he was there only as a friend of Max’s. He told me a lot of things quietly while the others were discussing some obscure details about the launching. I was as much interested in what he said as the way he said it. His English had an exotic qual
ity occasionally—as when he said that it was good to see intellectuals like Max, myself and the rest coming out of their “tower of elephant tusk” into active politics. And he often punctuated whatever he was saying with “yes”, spoken with the accent of a question.
I must say that I was immediately taken with the idea of the Common People’s Convention. Apart from everything else it would add a second string to my bow when I came to deal with Nanga. But right now I was anxious not to appear to Max and his friends as the easily impressed type. I suppose I wanted to erase whatever impression was left of Max’s unfortunate if unintentional presentation of me as a kind of pitiable jellyfish. So I made what I intended to be a little spirited sceptical speech.
“It is very kind of you gentlemen and lady—I say gentlemen and lady advisedly because this happens to be Africa—it is very kind of you to accept me so readily. I wish to assure you all that your confidence will be fully justified. But without trying to put a cat among your pigeons I must say that I find it somewhat odd that a party calling itself the Common People’s Convention should be made up of only professional men and women. . . .”
I was interrupted by many voices at once. But the rest gave way to Max.
“That is not entirely accurate, Odili. What you see here is only the vanguard, the planning stage. Once we are ready we shall draw in the worker, the farmer, the blacksmith, the carpenter . . .”
“And the unemployed, of course,” said the young lady with that confidence of a beautiful woman who has brains as well, which I find a little intimidating. “And I’d like to take our friend up on a purely historical point. The great revolutions of history were started by intellectuals, not the common people. Karl Marx was not a common man; he wasn’t even a Russian.”
The trade-unionist applauded the speech by clapping and shouting “Hear, hear.” The rest made different kinds of appreciative noises.
“Well, well,” I thought and gave up altogether my next idea of asking how the thing was going to be financed.
“At the same time,” said Max, acting the perfect chairman, “I can’t say that I blame Odili for making that point. He’s always been a stickler for thoroughness. Do you know the name we called him at school? Diligent.” Everyone laughed.
“I should add that he was called Cool Max,” I said. “He always played it cool.”
“And still does,” said the lady with a wink at him.
“I beg your pardon,” protested Max playfully. “Anyhow, lady and gentlemen, or rather, gentlemen and lady, to borrow our friend’s fine example . . .”
“Max!” protested the girl in mock outrage. “Well, I never!”
“I think to save all difficulty—yes? we should simply say comrades—yes?” suggested the European, laughing nervously which made me think he wasn’t joking like the rest of us.
“Hear! hear!” said the trade-unionist.
“Yes,” said Max coolly, “except that as I said several times before, I don’t want anybody to say we are communists. We can’t afford the label. It would simply finish us. Our opponents would point at us and say, ‘Look at those crazy people who want to have everything in common including their wives’, and that would be the end of it. That’s the plain fact.”
“I don’t know about that,” said the trade-unionist. “I think our trouble in this country is that we are too nervous. We say we are neutral but as soon as we hear communist we begin de shake and piss for trouser. Excuse me,” he said to the lady and dropped the pidgin as suddenly as he had slid into it. “The other day somebody asked me why did I go to Russia last January. I told him it was because if you look only in one direction your neck will become stiff. . . .”
We all laughed loud, especially the European.
“I know, Joe . . .” began Max, but Joe did not yield easily.
“No, excuse me, Max,” he said, “I am serious. We are either independent in this country or we are not.”
“We are not,” said Max, and everyone laughed again, including Joe this time, all the heat apparently siphoned off him.
I was struck by Max’s cool, sure touch. He was clearly in control of the situation. And he seemed to me to have just the right mixture of faith and down-to-earth practical common sense.
“We will not win the next election,” he told me on another occasion. In itself it was a fairly obvious statement; but how many mushroom political parties had we seen spring up, prophesy a landslide victory for themselves and then shrivel up again. “What we must do is get something going,” said Max, “however small, and wait for the blow-up. It’s bound to come. I don’t know how or when but it’s got to come. You simply cannot have this stagnation and corruption going on indefinitely.”
“How do you propose getting the money?”
“We will get some,” he smiled, “enough to finance ordinary election expenses. We will leave mass bribing of the electors to P.O.P. and P.A.P. We will simply drop cats among their pigeons here and there, stand aside and watch. I am right now assembling all the documentary evidence I can find of corruption in high places. Brother, it will make you weep.”
“I am sure.”
• • •
Because I had asked him jokingly as we were about to retire to bed if he still wrote poetry, Max had gone and fished out lines he wrote seven years ago to the music of a famous highlife. He wrote it during the intoxicating months of high hope soon after Independence. Now he sang it like a dirge. And, believe me, tears welled up at the back of my eyes; tears for the dead, infant hope. You may call me sentimental if you like.
I have the poem, “Dance-offering to the Earth-Mother”, right here before me as I write and could quote the whole of it; but it could never convey in print the tragic feeling I had that evening as Max sang it tapping his foot to the highlife rhythm, and bringing back vividly the gaiety and high promise of seven years ago which now seemed more than seven lifetimes away!
