After that, he was marched back to the Rover and again dumped into its trunk. He did not struggle or make a sound. The camera, it seemed, had given him back his dignity.
Roadblocks manned by soldiers had been erected on the road to the presidential palace. At the approach of Benjamin’s Rover they opened the barricades and saluted as we passed. We were a feeble force-two ordinary sedans not even flying flags, four police constables, and an American spy with a defective passport, plus the prisoner in the trunk of the car who was the reason for the soldiers’ awe.
The palace came into view, illuminated as before by the megawatts that flooded down from the light towers. A dozen stretch limousines, seals of high office painted on their doors, were parked in the circular drive of the presidential palace. The palace doors were guarded by police constables armed with Kalashnikovs. On the roof of the palace, more constables manned the machine guns and antiaircraft guns that they had taken over from the army.
Benjamin waited for the constables in charge to haul Ga from the trunk, then he got out of the car. He gave me no instructions, so I followed along as he strode into the palace with his usual lack of ceremony. We climbed the grand stairway All busts and statues and portraits in oil of Ga in his many uniforms had been removed. Less than an hour before, he had walked down these stairs as President of the Republic for Life. Now he climbed them as a prisoner dragging chains. There was a dreamlike quality to this scene, as if we did not belong in it or deserve it, as if it were a reenactment of an event from the life of some other tyrant who had lived and died in some other hour of history. Did Caesar as he felt the knife remember some assassinated Greek who had died a realer death?
A courtroom of sorts had been organized in Ga’s vast and magnificent office. His desk and all his likenesses had been removed from this room, too. The Ndalan flag remained, flanked by what I took to be the flags of the armed forces and other government entities, but not by the presidential flag. The presidential conference table, vast and gleaming and smelling of wax, stood crosswise where Ga’s desk had formerly been. Through the window behind it Ga’s antelopes and gazelles could be seen, bathed in incandescent light as they bounded across the paddocks of his game park. Half a dozen grave men in British-style army, navy, and air force uniforms sat at the table like members of a court-martial. They were flanked by a half dozen others in black judicial robes and white wigs, clearly members of the supreme court, and a handful of other dignitaries wearing national dress or European suits.
All but the military types seemed to be confused by the entrance of the prisoner. In some cases this was obviously the last thing they had expected to see. Some if not all of them probably had not been told why they were there. Maybe some simply did not recognize Ga. Who among them had ever imagined seeing in his present miserable state the invulnerable creature the president of the republic had been?
If in fact there were any doubts about his identity, Ga removed them at once. In his unmistakable voice he shouted, “As president for life of the republic, I command you, all you generals, to arrest this man on a charge of high treason.”
He attempted to point at Benjamin but of course could not do so with his wrists chained to his waist. Nevertheless, it was an impressive performance. Ga’s voice was thunderous, his eyes flashed, he was the picture of command. For an instant he seemed to be fully clothed again. He gave every possible indication that he expected to be obeyed without question. But he was not obeyed, and when he continued to shout, the large constable did what he had done before, at the radio station. He clapped a hand over Ga’s mouth and pinched his nostrils shut, and this time prolonged the treatment until Ga’s struggle for breath produced high-pitched gasps that sounded very much like an infant crying.
The trial lasted less than an hour. Some might have called it a travesty, but everyone present knew that Ga was guilty of the crimes with which he was charged, and guilty, too, of even more heinous ones. Besides that, they knew that they must kill Ga now that they had witnessed his humiliation, or die themselves if he regained power. The trial itself followed established forms. Benjamin, as head of the national police, had prepared a bundle of evidence that was presented by a prosecutor and objected to by a lawyer appointed to defend Ga. Both men wore barrister’s wigs. Witnesses were duly sworn. They testified to the massacre of the beggars. The immaculate young captain testified that Ga had embezzled not less than fifty million American dollars from the national treasury and deposited them in secret accounts in Geneva, Zurich, and Liechtenstein. The court heard tape recordings of Ga, in secret meetings with foreign ambassadors and businessmen, agreeing to make certain high appointments and award certain contracts in return for certain sums of money. Damning evidence was introduced that Ga had ordered the death of his own brother and had perhaps fed him alive to hyenas in the game park.
Without retiring to deliberate, the court returned a unanimous verdict of guilty on all counts. Benjamin, who was not a member of the court-martial, did not join the others at the table and was not called to testify. He spoke not a single word during the proceedings. When Ga, who had also been silent, was asked if he had anything to say before the sentence was pronounced, he laughed. But it was a very small laugh.
The prisoner was delivered to Benjamin for immediate execution. After this the court-martial reconvened as the Council of the High Command, and in Ga’s presence-or, more accurately, as if Ga no longer existed and had been rendered invisible- elected the chief of staff of the army as acting head of state and government. Benjamin kept his old job, his old title, his old powers, and presumably, his pension.
I wish I could tell you for the sake of symmetry that Ga died the kind of barbarous death that he had decreed for others, that Benjamin fed him like a Thomson’s gazelle to the cheetahs or gashed his flesh and set a pack of hyenas on him under the stadium lights. But nothing of the sort happened.
What happened was this. The generals and admirals and justices and the others got into their cars and drove away. Ga, Benjamin, the sergeant, the two constables, and I went outside. We walked across the palace grounds, Ga limping in his chains, away from the palace, over the lawns. Animals in the zoo stirred. Something growled as it caught our scent. Only the animals took an interest in what was happening. The constables guarding the palace stayed at their posts. The servants had vanished. Looking back at the palace I had the feeling that it was completely empty.
When we came to a place that was nearly out of sight of the palace-the white mansion glowed like a toy in the distance- we stopped. The constables let go of Ga and stepped away from him. Ga said something to Benjamin in what sounded to me like the same language that Benjamin and the sergeant spoke to each other. Benjamin walked over to Ga and bent his head. Ga whispered something in his ear.
Benjamin made a gesture. The sergeant vanished. So did the two constables. I made as if to go. Benjamin said, “No. Stay.” The stadium lights went out. The sun was just below the horizon in the east. I could feel its mass pulling at my bones, and even before it became visible, its heat on my skin.
We walked on, until we could no longer see the presidential palace or light of any kind no matter where we looked. Only moments of darkness remained. Ga sank to his knees, with difficulty because of the chains, and stared at the place where the sun would rise. Briefly, Benjamin placed a hand on his shoulder. Neither man spoke.