And they dare bemoan the fate of a violent criminal!
Thank goodness there are still people to be found who can take his mind off these things. Like the fellow who made the film for him about hunting rattlesnakes. One of the rattlesnakes reared up and rattled and blinked its tiny eyes, just like his chancellor. He should command the chancellor to watch the film as well. Let him see it. Let him learn something.
The chancellor waddles into the room, little snake's eyes, the legs of a chicken, a leonine mane smoothed smoothly back, large protruding ears. 'I suggest we speed things up, Comrade,' he hisses with his snake's voice. 'We must depart soon, in an hour.' And he gestures vaguely towards the leather folders.
The chancellor carries on talking, dispensing advice and instructions. A walking textbook, this treacherous rattlesnake with the legs of a chicken. The capital city is Omba (or Bomba — he didn't quite catch it, and it's beneath his dignity to ask). They can offer us uranium, cocoa beans, cotton and copper; the prime minister studied law at Cambridge, even if he is black, from the Bantu tribe. Now be carefuclass="underline" the Bantus have an ancient culture, they even have their own literature, epic poetry. Avoid mentioning
law; talk about the economy instead. Remember they give us uranium, copper, cotton, cocoa beans. We give them trucks, cannons, tanks, chemicals. Don't say anything against God, avoid ecclesiastical politics, music is a possible, the prime minister plays the piano, is fond of the romantics — Grieg, Beethoven, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Liszt. Stay away from modern painting in our own country. Advisable to talk about the struggle against colonialism. The prime minister has a special custom: once a month he has a complex court case presented to him, along with appeals and petitions for pardon. He summons the disputing parties, hears the case himself, offers his opinion or grants clemency as the case may be. This practice has won him acclaim both among his own people and abroad. He has suspended the death penalty, so it's advisable to avoid mention of our own practice.
And then there was the recent accident at the explosives factory. A while ago, when a whole building blew up, he had ordered the management to take strict measures to avoid a recurrence. Instead, they merely rebuilt the roofs so that when an explosion did occur, the roof would blow off and the walls would remain intact. Of course there was another explosion, and they all went through the new roof — the nitroglycerine mixers, the entire saltpetre section, eight fifteen-year-old apprentices, the warehouse workers and a car park full of lorries and drivers and drivers' mates — all of them lifted into the air in a single instant, transformed into ashes and smoke, atoms of human matter scattered in all directions by a whirlwind. Not a single recognizable particle of any of those people was ever found. The officials were refusing to issue death certificates, and the president would have to intervene personally, visit the place himself and put medals in the hate-filled hands of weeping widows and angry widowers and, in this way, confirm the deaths as heroic, the victims as heroes of labour, as warriors in a common cause, the cause of the people, of the most forward-looking system in history, for which so many have already laid down their lives.
When he awoke that night, there were the biers again, covered with white sheets. This time there was no one
under the sheets, only emptiness, air. He got out of bed and walked past them, opened the door into the long corridor, and there they were, more of them, side by side, each with a white sign at its head with a name written in black letters. A hundred and thirty-nine of them. And when he walked past them, down the corridor faintly illuminated by the moonlight, the biers suddenly began to float. He couldn't understand how his enemies had created this effect. Perhaps it was overheated air, or magnetism, but the biers floated up to the level of his chest, wobbling slightly so that the wooden legs and the frames collided and sounded like the clacking of bones, like a menacing applause, and then, above all these sounds, there emerged a high-pitched howling, as though a hundred throats were wailing all at once, and he came close to opening the window in sheer terror and jumping out to escape those sounds. He might have leapt from the heights into the depths and fallen, not flung to his death at the hands of an outraged people but driven by the intrigues of those who did not hesitate to exploit the wretched victims of a tragic accident in their silent campaign against him.
And the prime minister's wife — he realized that the cunning reptile was still speaking to him — her name is Patricia, she's his only wife, and be careful to remember that both are Christian, she studied psychology in California and you can talk about charitable activities and medical care, not about. .
The valet enters carrying his black suit over his arm. He will tell him that the time has come to go into the bathroom and change. The chancellor snaps the folder shut. 'Any comments, Comrade President?'
The ministers and experts will be present at the negotiations. Let them worry about those things. That's what they're paid for, after all. Let them think about something else for a change besides their secret Swiss bank accounts.
'Would you like to read over the welcoming speech now?'
'In the car, there'll be time enough in the car.' The valet guides him into the bathroom.
There's a shirt on a hanger, a pure white shirt, and his
golden cuff-links lie ready on a small wooden tray.
Suddenly he has an idea. 'That hijacker, the one sentenced to hang,' he says, turning to the chancellor. 'Do you know who it is?'
The chancellor does a little skip on his chickenlike legs and nods enthusiastically.
'Summon him here,' he orders. 'I want to hear what he has to say.'
'But, Comrade President,' he says, winding himself around the president's leg, 'He's a dangerous criminal and the court has already sentenced him. . '
'Summon him,' he repeats, 'I want to review his case and offer an opinion.'
'Of course, Comrade President.' The chancellor's voice sounds constricted, as though the hunter were already closing his hand around his neck. 'When?'
'Find some time,' he says. 'But let it be when this nigger is still here.'
'Yes, Comrade President.'
'And that film-maker who entertained me so well.' The name has slipped his mind and he doesn't even know the film-maker's crime. That's not important, they'll find that out for him. Let the chancellor look at himself writhing in the hands of a hunter, watch as they break his poisonous teeth.
'Should I summon him as well?'
He dips his hands in the wash-basin. Behind him the valet obligingly holds a clean white towel ready for him to use. The chancellor's snakelike eyes gaze at him disapprovingly.
That's their method: prevent him from meeting with anyone, except perhaps some black man who will put on airs and flaunt his authority. They even say he can act as a judge because he's got a Cambridge education, while the president has only been to a provincial university. So he will choose someone, summon him and then demonstrate his magnanimity. But how can he do this when they sabotage his invitations, when they only pretend to do as he says? And then, of course, they spread rumours that he can't relate to people, that he's incapable of judgement, of making decisions, that he can't do anything, or change anything and should therefore be replaced. But he will surprise
them all. He will foil their treacherous plans, and one day, when they least expect it, he will appear before the people and declare freedom. Let the people themselves decide his fate, and then let all his enemies tear themselves apart. But he will have done what he had to do, and no one will ever again say that he lost touch with the people or that he had governed merely through compulsion and fear.