The little drinking parlour was jammed to capacity with beer-beggars, drunks and civil servants ranging from school teachers, clerks, secretaries, etc., who were respecting the evening-rendezvous of cooling-off with cold beer before calling it a day.
The voice was heard even before the speaker was seen. It came from the doorway in military style like a gush of vicious wind— ‘Quiet!’ Everyone froze in mid-action. Bottles journeying to the mouth to empty their contents down thirsty throats got stuck midway. Half-finished phrases in conversations and gossips were not spared either. Most of them never recovered.
Most of the clients had abandoned their wives at home to face the wrath of disconsolate children. The spot of their evening rendezvous; a little but very popular drinking parlour at the junction of the Universityof Gbweya, was known well beyond the frontiers of the province by word of recommendation. Guests from different corners of the country, who had experienced the spell of the joint, recommended it to their colleagues who in turn looked forward to the same experience whenever they planned a trip to Gbweya. Whenever a wife was anxious about her husband’s late return or suspicious absence from home, the first possible place her intuition would consider would be ‘Ton-Ton Bar’ as it was called. This perhaps, better illustrates the reputation of spot.
At the blast of ‘Quiet!’ a twelve-year-old girl who was marketing ‘katanga’(fried cow-skin), spun around in fright. Her wheel-size bowl filled with the stuff skidded from her trembling hands and landed on the floor in a deafening crash. A general pandemonium erupted as oil splashed, instantaneously painting a vast circumference of the dusty floor with the colour of palm-oil. Though the fragrance of spices forcefully injected itself into all the nostrils around, the shockwave sent by the command was stronger. As a stupor descended in the dimly lit hall, a staggering slim figure walked in, dressed in a little oversized English suit and well polished black boots. The appearance and character of the figure matched well with the spirit of the place; large paintings of indiscernible jazz characters hanging on gecko and cockroach infested walls and ceilings.
The intruder was tall, with coffee-brown features. His face had two straight wrinkles on either side of pale cheeks. His eyes were large and displayed his standard of alcohol intake though red-shot eyes. With his right hand he pointed his forefinger at the barman; “Have you forgotten that the Head of State is delivering his annual speech today? Turn this german-time gramophone off and let the people listen to what will befall them in the coming year!” he vented before stumbling along to hunt for an empty seat. On his way he almost knocked a German anthropologist who was sitting silently at a corner in a desperate attempt to drink in political and cultural gossips for his thesis back in Bonn.
Clad in dust-coated jeans over a fading yellow T-shirt with a raffia bag bought in a village by his side, the German was less conspicuous and looked a natural part of the atmosphere in the shades of the dimly lit room. It was the second incident within less than a minute that tormented his sensitivity. The first was at the mention of ‘german-time gramophone’. He initially thought it was a racist slogan, but when the jabber did not even glance in his direction, he reasoned otherwise.
As the newcomer progressed in his search for a seat, he stopped by the stranded girl who was looking around in embarrassment for something to clean the stained floor. ‘Sorry my pekin. I no mean nam ... the barman go clean it don’t worry. Carry your bowl and go home, tomorrow come to my home. I go pay for all the katanga wey e fall down.’ The middle-aged secondary-school tutor said to the little girl. He finally took a seat and commanded a bottle of “33 export” beer. The fact that he was oozing an aroma of fresh palm-wine did not deter him.
In taking a seat his shadow took on a grotesque shape on the wall due to the angle of the 60-watt ceiling bulb. His sitting position impaired the view of other clients to the fourteen inch black and white TV screen that stood on a giant stool above the counter. He didn’t care. Nor did anyone dared to ask him to shift his position in fear of a verbal reprisal in ‘big grammar’, which he was reputed for.
A silence descended—a rare occurrence in the usually ear-splitting bar. The barman tuned the dust-coated TV on and immediately all eyes focused on it. The TV came alight first with tiny grains of dancing rice particles, and then obscure images. The barman further adjusted two spook-like antennas. The image of the Kaiser imposed itself imperiously on the tiny screen. The black and white screen did little justice to his hair and cheeks.
The viewers were just in time to catch the last quarter of his speech which summed their fate for the coming years. As his voice cracked on the speakers like the violent lash of a horse whip, sanity dawned on the minds of those whose thoughts had previously been clouded by alcohol:
“….here is a word of warning to those outlaws who provoke national disintegration. Well… as the Kaiser of every single individual who breathes the air of this land, I promise you, by the power invested in me, to deal with such as mentioned above swiftly, without mercy and believe me ruthlessly!
I shall not tolerate disunity. Nor those prone to infest the peace-loving and docile attitude of my people with the plague of alien political philosophies. In political facts, I will meet such resistance not with words but with the necessary measures as to discourage even those who are yet to be born from such rebellious tracks!”
He paused, mopped his sweat-dripping face. An interior smile lit his intellect. ‘The speech is going down well,’ he though to himself before carrying on;
“As I said earlier, we are bound to live up to global expectations. We have to boldly confront the current global economic reality. The question each citizen should ask is, ‘How to deal with the fall of prices in the world market, especially of cash-crops which are our main exports? I count very much on your spirit of resilience which you have demonstrated in hard work, and your sense of moral rectitude that did help in the past to mould our nation to what it is today.
We are entering a new phase in our national history, which I term as the epoch of ‘Rigour and Moralisation’. Under these qualities, we shall sail through the forthcoming difficult days. I call on all of you therefore to fold your sleeves and prepare to work.
After a studious consultation with economic experts, it was deemed imperative to decree certain measures in order for us to sail through these difficulties. There will be another Cabinet reshuffle with an expansion in the ministries. Some ministries considered too large, will have to be split up. But irrespective of this, there will be a lay-off. The civil service will have to forcefully retire twenty-percent of its work force. This is an attempt to increase efficiency within the public service. The laid-off workers shall be paid a six-month salary up-front as compensation. The laid-off workers would be free to try their hands in the private sector. This will boost the private sector and making it more competitive.
However, paramount on these measures, compatriots, is the reduction of salaries by thirty-percent….”
As the Kaiser uttered the last lines, he accelerated his speech in a diplomatic technique to quell a fast-rising national dismay which he could feel radiating from grumbling TV viewers across the country. Dismay crystallized into rays of burning thought-forms, piercing through hundreds of thousands of TV sets across the country aimed at the speaker.
‘But,’ The Kaiser went on, “the…
The secondary-school tutor, who was following the speech with ultra concentration, felt a violent pain at the pit of his stomach at the mention of a thirty-percent salary slash. The image of his unfinished retirement home which he had been working on for 15-years, swept through his mind. In one second he felt what he had made the other viewers feel when he shouted ‘Quiet’ upon his arrival. His hidden ailments; gastric ulcers, malaria, chronic pneumonia, shot through his veins in a violent hustle of pain. Each vied to out-pain the other. The crushing effect reeled his senses and he became the school teacher he was all of a sudden.
At the Kaiser’s ejaculation of ‘But… ’, the tutor did not wait to hear what followed. Dashing like a tumbling dice he was across the room. Before anyone knew what he was up to, he switched off the TV, simultaneously flinging his half–empty bottle of beer to the floor. This caused the second deafening squash of the evening after the katanga bowl of the little girl. The first was accidental. The second deliberate. Silence descended. Even the cockroaches and geckos respected the torturing stillness provoked by the unfinished speech. In their transcendental minds they felt sorry for their human counterparts.
‘Blast the prophet of doom!’ someone shouted.
A peasant returning late from his farm with a long, glittering cutlass hanging on his shoulders and clasped with both hands, had joined the crowd to follow the speech. In the height of the stillness he walked in majestically. In his stained and torn dress that emitted fresh-plant fragrance, he stopped at the counter and ordered a beer. His natural odour overpowered the stench of cigarettes and beer; “Barman... I beg make you give me one cold “33 export” to quench my thirst.” Turning around he addressed the clients who, traumatised by the speech could not move from their seats, “Wetin wonna don see? That one be na cry for pussy!.... Economih don papleh!”
“Terrible!” Someone shouted in frustration.
“It’s simply incredible!” Another added.
The German anthropologist, who found the whole incident quite fascinating, turned to his escort;
“Excuse me, but what did the man in rags over the counter there mean by saying ‘economih don papleh? I presume he is mad from his attire?”
“No. He isn’t mad. He is a farmer returning from his plantation. He simply said in broken language that ‘the economy has gone crazy.” The escort replied placidly.
‘Waow!’ the anthropologist exclaimed excitedly, reaching for his writing pad and pen.
Simon Mol.
(Warsaw: 2005).
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