The Drifters (16 page)

Finally one of the gilt doors swung open and a smallish black man in his late forties hurried into the room, extended his hand to Sir Charles, and said in Oxford English, ‘My oldest friend and counselor, welcome, welcome.’ He kissed Monica’s hand and said, ‘You are even more beautiful than my wife said. She saw you at the tennis.’ Then he took my arm, linked his with it, and led us to a more intimate corner of the great room. ‘Mr. Fairbanks, we are gratified that your superiors have seen fit to extend the loan.’

‘They did so because they want to remain associated with a prosperous country.’

‘We shall make it so.’

In appearance President M’Bele was quite undistinguished; he could have been the minister of a rural church in Virginia or the owner of a minor clothing store in Soho. He would have fitted in well in any large American city as the one Negro professor in a community college or as the political reporter for the colored newspaper. In the British government today there must have been two thousand white men who looked and acted much as he did, pecking away at jobs set them by their better-educated superiors, yet because of his education at Oxford he was, in Africa, a precious commodity and he discharged the job conferred upon him by the British when they left rather better than anyone else they could have found, and much better than any white man could have done. Like almost all the new leaders of Africa, he had been trained in law, but since both Oxford and the Sorbonne sponsored a rather broad interpretation of what law was, the Negro lawyers were at least as well qualified to govern as any other group would have been, and infinitely better than the military, who were beginning to shoot them off, one by one.

Seating himself at a large table, he spread his palms downward, leaned forward, and said, ‘I suppose you know what this meeting is about?’ He paused, and when Sir Charles nodded, the president continued: I am afraid, my dear friend, that the decision is irrevocable. There were the riots, you know. The young hotspurs insist that your job is one which our people can fill.’

At this point Monica gave her father a stern glance, warning him that she expected him to maintain his dignity. Sir Charles started well. ‘Excellency,’ he said softly, ‘I am dispensable. That’s been known since independence, hasn’t it? We’ve all known that, haven’t we. Monica?’ He appealed to his daughter for substantiation, but she stared ahead, convinced that this interview must end in disaster. She would do nothing to speed the moment.

‘But the function of the job, Your Excellency! That’s something quite different, isn’t it? Mettra fect, the function of the job is crucial to the welfare of this nation …’ He made an involved speech, repeating himself so often that I wondered at the president’s patience. Twice M’Bele cast imploring glances at Monica, as if trying to enlist her aid in silencing her father, but she ignored them. Much too late, Sir Charles ended his presentation with a plea. ‘So I am not asking preferential treatment for myself, Your Excellency, am I?’ This time the question was not supposed to be rhetorical but M’Bele treated it so, and Sir Charles ended lamely on what should have been the main thrust of his argument: ‘In five more years Thomas Watallah could well be able to discharge my duties—perhaps even in four years—but certainly not now, Your Excellency.’

Now the president had to speak, and in the mellifluous cadences of his poetic people, overlaid with the best accents England had to offer he recalled his debt to Sir Charles, and I judged that he did so in order to prevent Sir Charles from reciting these facts: ‘My dearest and oldest friend, you of all white men must know how deeply indebted I am. I recall, Sir Charles when I was a child fresh out of the jungle I came here to the capital to find it occupied by white men, hostile for the most part, and it was you and your dear wife Emily who educated me, gave me a vision of what a university was like in England, convinced me that I might even qualify for Oxford. You gave my brother a job in your family and kept him there for eighteen years. He told me what an inspiration you were. This young lady should know. My brother was her father when you were absent in the jungle. Sir Charles, if you came here this morning to remind me that I owed my present position to you, I would be the first to acknowledge that debt. Would to God that all white-black relationships had been as fruitful.’

I was dismayed when I saw Sir Charles wipe a tear from
his left eye and swipe futilely at a second which ran down his far right cheek. His chin was beginning to tremble, and I thought: This whole thing is going to fall apart.

The president, hoping to avoid what I feared, reasoned: ‘But the forces of history in Congo Africa cannot be stayed. Sir Charles, you must know better than I that in the cities I am beset by radical intellectuals who insist that the top jobs be given to blacks. In the bush I am threatened by the tribesmen who want their members given important positions. In the interests of humanity the white judges must be retained for another ten years. In the interests of national security the two Irish generals must be held onto. So what’s left? Jobs like yours which must be transferred quickly to black control … to forestall revolution. It’s as simple as that, Sir Charles.’ He bowed his head, pressed his palms even more firmly against the table, and muttered, ‘It’s as simple as that old friend.’

Sir Charles allowed not one second of silence, pouncing upon the president’s argument and turning it to his own advantage: ‘That’s precisely what I am talking about, Your Excellency! I too am afraid of revolution! If the economic measures which I’ve started are not carried …’

‘Father,’ This harsh, commanding word, uttered by a girl, filled the Salle des Audiences and brought the interview down to fundamentals.

‘I promised Monica I’d control myself, Your Excellency, and I shall. But truthfully, Vwarda is my home. For twenty-one years it’s been my whole life.’ He laughed nervously, his chin twitching insecurely, and made a little joke which pleased him: ‘Twenty-one years! I’ve reached my maturity here. I’m old enough to vote.’

The president smiled and Monica looked as if she might jump out the window. She was about to prod her father again, when he resumed his argument: ‘So this is my home. It’s my country, too. What can I do if I’m suddenly told, “Your work is ended?” I’m not an old man.’

‘It was with that in mind, Sir Charles—and also, I may say frankly, because of your long and devoted service to Vwarda, not forgetting your father, who laid the foundations of this nation in his arguments at Versailles …’ The president found himself ensnared in a sentence that covered too many points, so he threw up his hands and laughed at himself. ‘I talk like a lawyer,’ he said, and I thought how lucky Vwarda was to have such a sensible man as its
head during these critical years. ‘What I was trying to tell you, Sir Charles, was that the cabinet has proposed that you receive pension and a half for the remainder of your life. You’ll not be destitute, Sir Charles.’

‘It’s not money that worries me, Your Excellency. It’s Vwarda. The nation itself. You need me.’ His voice trembled, and when he had brought it under control he asked, ‘What would I do retired in England?’

President M’Bele was growing impatient. Having anticipated Braham’s unhappiness at being fired, he had personally insisted upon pension and a half, and now to have it rejected as irrelevant was irritating. ‘We must have your job,’ he said firmly. ‘I am announcing at noon today that Thomas Watallah is assuming your duties.’ He rose to indicate the interview was over, but Sir Charles had numerous other arguments which he had not yet pressed and which he was sure would sway any thinking man.

‘Your Excellency! Just a moment! Have you considered the cotton barter with Egypt? Thomas Watallah simply cannot … And the leases on the sulphur drilling … There’s still that business at the dam …’

‘Father!’ Monica cried with brutal disgust. ‘Shut up and make believe you’re a man.’

President M’Bele turned back on his way to the door, his dark eyes flashing as he said, sternly, ‘You should be ashamed of yourself. He’s your father.’

‘It’s him I’m ashamed of,’ she snapped.

Take him back to England. And be sure you go too. You have both used up your days in Vwarda.’ He strode toward the door, but before he could exit, Sir Charles asked pitifully, ‘Couldn’t I stay on … I could work for Thomas and help him over the … There are many things I could do …’

‘It would not be dignified,’ M’Bele said, and with the innate dignity of a man who had inched his way from the jungle to Oxford, he left the room.

‘You damned fool!’ Monica cried, grabbing at her father’s arm. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘Where will we go?’ Sir Charles asked in pitiful confusion, sweat showing along the collar of his shirt.

‘Into exile,’ Monica said quietly as she led him from the Salle des Audiences. At that moment, though she was only seventeen, she seemed extraordinarily mature, as if she alone among the four who had participated in the interview
appreciated what had happened. An old order was passing, new forces with new faces were intruding upon the scene and it was appropriate that there be entrances and exits. What galled her was that her father was playing his role so poorly.

As we left the presidential palace and walked to the Rolls-Royce, Monica said nothing, but I could see that she was evaluating her father coldly, with the innocence of youth. Later, in their home, she told me of that moment: ‘Remember what happened after the president walked out on us? We were left standing in that preposterous Salle des Audiences and I stared up at the ridiculous ceiling with its plaster-of-Paris cherubs, and when I looked back at my father he seemed like one of them—a bare-ass little cherub, devoid of self-respect. I could have wept.’ When I asked what Sir Charles had done to earn her contempt, she said, ‘He backed the wrong horse … empire … grandeur of the Queen … England expects every man … all that immortal claptrap. And when it blew up in his face … You know, to tell the truth, I don’t blame him getting angry over surrendering his position to Thomas Watallah. Did you ever do business with Thomas? Really, a colossal fart.’ She shook her head wearily at her recollection of the man, a conniving, almost illiterate fool who ruined everything he touched and then stole the pieces; Africa was not well served by the smart-alecky young black men who replaced the English, the French and the Belgians.

‘It must be deflating for poor Father,’ she reflected as we drank beer. ‘You persuade yourself you’re doing work of humanity … indispensable, really … whole Congo basin fall into chaos if I leave. And when they kick you out they hand your job to some clown like Thomas Watallah, and things go on about as well as they did when you were in charge.’

She shook her head, recalling the disasters of that interview. ‘What really finished me was Father’s lack of dignity. That’s what gnaws—that a man should waste his life on baubles and at the end cry out, “I’ve been defrauded.” Believe me, at my end I’ll not complain.’

‘Are you confessing that you’ve already made wrong choices?’

‘We all do. The trick is to accept the consequences when
they fall due. I’ve no respect for your generation, Uncle George, because at the end you chicken out.’

I judged that Monica intended to react differently.

The next three weeks were as difficult as any I had known since that summer of 1948 when my son had stormed out of our home, for then I was shown what the gap between the generations meant, and now it was a headstrong young girl who was repeating the instruction. After the announcement of his dismissal Sir Charles begged me to stay on as a guest while he went about the doleful business of winding up his affairs in Vwarda and deciding what to do with the remainder of his life. He was, as you might guess, disoriented and poorly equipped to deal with Monica’s various rebellions and he wanted me to give the girl some guidance.

He chose poorly. I had always been fond of Monica and unable to discipline her. In the years when the great dam was under construction I had often stayed with the Brahams and had pampered her, bringing her whatever gramophone records she wanted and occasional dresses or adornments from London, so it was impossible for me suddenly to turn dictator, not only because I was not inclined that way but also because she would have ignored me had I tried.

What was she like that African autumn of 1969? She was seventeen years old, motherless, with no brothers or sisters to cushion her extravagances and with a father whom she held in contempt. Intellectually she had done well in school, both in Rhodesia, where her father had sent her at the age of nine, and in England, where I had taken her. Morally she had not done so well. She had been kicked out of the Rhodesian school for cursing the mathematics teacher and, as I have told you, she was expelled from the English school for having sexual relations with the music instructor. In each school there had also been instances of shying books off the heads of other students.

She seemed to grow more beautiful each day, her fine English complexion showing white with natural touches of rouge in the cheeks. She had started wearing her jet-black hair in a coil on top of her head. When I asked her why, she said frankly, ‘Older men don’t like to go with
girls who wear their hair schoolgirl style.’ And when I asked her why she felt she had to go with older men, she said, ‘Because they know what’s what and they don’t waste time.’

Her beauty lay principally in her dark eyes, which were keenly expressive, almost penetrating, and I could appreciate the complaint of the English headmistress who had told me, on the afternoon of Monica’s dismissal, ‘I’m afraid none of our teachers, fine girls from average backgrounds, is a match for Miss Monica.’ Having met some of the instructors, my guess was that Monica was much keener than any of them. Her thin face, so exquisite when she looked up at you suddenly, peering directly into your eyes, as if she could cope with whatever you wished to say, was often marked by a half-smile that clung to the corner of her mouth; she seemed to be reserving judgment as to whether or not to laugh outright. She weighed less than a hundred pounds and would have given the impression of being skinny had she not been so unusually graceful. Often she reminded me of the impalas that roamed the plains of southern Vwarda, animals of grace and poetry who could leap far into the air and land on their small feet, looking startled at having traversed such distances.