The Other Shore. Michael Jackson
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War I), and recalled the names of Palmer and Captain Leigh, who built the barracks at Gbankuma before the British moved to Falaba. He also described the first barracks at Kabala, built on the site of today’s town market, and told me when the frontier was fixed, and when the Court Messenger Force and the Chiefdom Police were established. And he recounted how taxes were paid to District Commissioner Warren—or Warensi, as he was known. Initially, the annual hut tax was two shillings and sixpence, but later rose to five, then to nine shillings, and finally to one pound five shillings, and one pound ten shillings per head.
“In those days, people were happy,” Mamina Yegbe said. “We were happy with our government. All the chiefs had their favorite music, and whenever the chiefs assembled, the jelibas would play. Chiefs Belikoro, Konkofa, Sinkerifa—I knew them all.”
At the District Officer’s office one morning, I was working through a stack of intelligence diaries and daybooks from the colonial period, hoping to corroborate Mamina Yegbe’s recollections of local history. Around me the clerks were busy with their own bureaucratic chores, filing memoranda, moving dog-eared files from the “out” tray of one desk to the “in” tray of another, sharpening pencils, or fetching ice-cold Coca-Colas for the D.O.
Before being allowed to inspect the records, I had been obliged to submit five copies of an application, all typed, signed, sealed in official envelopes, stamped, and countersigned. It was not long, however, before I was ruing the effort, and my eyes wandered to the whitewashed wall where two wasps were adding yet another accretion of moist red clay to their nest and beyond the barred windows of the office where the leaves of an enormous mango tree hung limply in the heat. I closed the daybook and made to go, already anticipating a few relaxed hours at home talking with Pauline over a simple lunch of bread and peanut butter.
At that instant, two clerks deserted their desks and asked for a lift to the market.
As I switched on the ignition I caught sight of Mamina Yegbe sitting on a rock under the mango tree, smoking his Bavarian pipe with the hinged metal lid.
“Do you want a lift?” I called, and gestured in the direction of the market.
Mamina Yegbe clambered up into the front seat of the Land Rover, beside the clerks. He was wearing an embroidered tunic and a blue silk cap with a tassel and sat bolt upright with an almost smug expression on his face, holding against his chest a large manila envelope marked in capital letters ON SIERRA LEONE GOVERNMENT SERVICE. The envelope was embellished with ornate signatures and sealed in several places with red wax. It resembled a Saul Steinberg drawing.
The clerks were clearly amused by the envelope.
“What’s the joke?” I asked.
The first clerk winked at me, then nodded toward Mamina Yegbe who was gazing straight ahead. The other clerk dodged the question by suddenly recognizing two friends sauntering along the road.
“Mosquito!” he yelled. “Heh! Peacecorps!” And he hung his arm out the window of the Land Rover.
A thin, gangly youth who answered to the first description, and his companion, wearing faded jeans with frayed cuff s, lifted their arms to wave, but the dust in the wake of the vehicle enveloped them.
After dropping the clerks at the market, I sought to satisfy my curiosity about the envelope.
“What is it?” I asked.
The old man continued to gaze straight ahead, but raised a finger to his lips. He then got down from the Land Rover and without a word disappeared into a crowd around the kola-nut traders.
That night I drove back into Kabala from our house at “One-Mile” to buy some cold Fanta at Lansana Kamara’s bar. The bar was a shabby and poky corner room that opened onto a verandah and the marketplace. It was furnished with several warped and dusty shelves, a battered deep freeze, and five armchairs with polystyrene foam bulging out through rents in the red vinyl upholstery. The jangling strains of a hi-life hit issued from a dilapidated record player at one end of the bar. “I really love you, Fati Fatiii...”
Lansana Kamara did not particularly like hi-life tunes, and whenever business was slack he would get out his records from Guinea and, with tears welling up in his eyes, listen to the stirring refrains of praise-songs from old Mali.
On the walls of L.K.’s bar were several fly-speckled calendars showing beaming Africans in open-necked shirts holding aloft bottles of Vimto, Fanta or Star beer. L.K. disdained such drinks.
With a lugubrious air he poured himself another large Martell brandy and a Guinness chaser.
I bought what I wanted and was about to go when I noticed Mamina Yegbe in the corner, surrounded by a dozen boisterous youths, among them the two clerks from the D.O.’s office. One of them made a remark that I could not catch, but it drew a burst of taunting laughter from the others, and the old man shrank back as if from a blow. I saw that Mamina Yegbe was still holding the big envelope, only now it had been ripped open, and bits of sealing wax littered the floor among the beer-bottle caps.
When the old man saw me he seemed to regain his composure, but before either of us could speak one of the clerks confronted me with bloodshot eyes and beery breath.
“He says it’s from Seku Touré and Siaka Stevens!” the clerk roared. “That envelope! He says they’ve given him a big country in Guinea and a million pounds cash! He says he’s coming to the D.O. tomorrow to collect it!”
Everyone broke into laughter. Then they looked at me, waiting for my reaction.
The clerk became angry. “He says he’s going to be appointed to a high position, in the government!” he shouted, as if I had failed to grasp the situation. “It’s all in the letter!”
I glanced at Mamina Yegbe, who raised a finger to his lips and smiled ingenuously. I appealed to L.K. for a clue as to what was going on, but L.K. simply smoothed his knitted singlet over his enormous belly, lowered his eyes, and took another sip of brandy.
The clerk, exasperated by my stupidity, lurched over to the old man, wrenched the envelope from his hands, and shook out its contents onto the bar. L.K. dolefully moved his glass to one side as his customers pawed at the sheaf of papers, spreading them out so that I could see what they were.
I recognized several old G.C.E. examination papers, some official memoranda and letters, and a page from my own field notes. I could not think how it had come into the old man’s possession.
Stabbing at the papers, the clerk drew my attention to a bundle of leaflets, all advertisements for Surf washing powder.
“This is the letter from the prime minister!” the clerk hooted. “Can’t you see what it is?’”
I recalled a Volkswagen Kombi that had turned up outside the market a few days before. A large display packet of soap powder had been fitted to the roof rack, and a loudspeaker blared out hi-life tunes. Four or five men in sunglasses and pale blue shirts had gone about distributing leaflets and occasionally giving away sample packets of Surf. In the afternoon the vehicle, still crackling with canned music, disappeared in a cloud of dust up the road toward Falaba.
“Yes, I can see what it is.”
I knelt down and started picking up the papers that had fallen on the floor. They were already smudged with red dirt from the clerks’ shoes.
The jokers appeared embarrassed by this crazy show of sympathy for the old man. They backed out onto the porch, making half-hearted gibes and clutching their bottles of beer. L.K. stared morosely at his glass of Guinness.
“Do you want a lift home?” I asked Mamina Yegbe.
“Awa.”
I looked down the unlit street, thinking, the generator’s gone again, and wanting to say this to Mamina Yegbe. I also wanted to ask the old man, now sitting in silence in the Land Rover beside me, if he still intended to present his letter to the D.O. and claim his fortune, but it might have seemed like another taunt. What simple faith we all place in the power of printed words, these fetishized markings on a page—the