A Bend in the River - V.S. Naipaul [102]
More and more they included us—Raymond and Yvette and people like myself—in their satire. It began to appear that in their eyes we were people not of Africa who had allowed ourselves to be turned into Africans, accepting whatever was decreed for us. Satire like this from people who were just passing through, people we weren’t going to see again but did our best for, people who were safe in their own countries, satire like this was sometimes wounding. But Raymond never allowed himself to be provoked.
To one crass man he said, “What you are failing to understand is that this parody of Christianity you talk so warmly about can only make sense to people who are Christians. In fact, that is why, from the President’s point of view, it may not be such a good idea. The point of the message may be lost in the parody. Because at the heart of this extraordinary cult is an immense idea about the redemption of the woman of Africa. But this cult, presented as it has been, may antagonize people for different reasons. Its message may be misinterpreted, and the great idea it enshrines may be set back for two or three generations.”
That was Raymond—still loyal, trying hard to make sense of events which must have bewildered him. It did him no good; all the labour that went into those thoughts was wasted. No word came from the capital. He and Yvette continued to dangle.
But then, for a month or so, their spirits appeared to lift. Yvette told me that Raymond had reason to believe that his selections from the President’s speeches had found favour. I was delighted. It was quite ridiculous; I found myself looking in a different way at the President’s pictures. And though no direct word came, Raymond, after being on the defensive for so long,and after all the talking he had had to do about the madonna cult, began to be more argumentative with visitors and to hint, with something of his old verve, that the President had something up his sleeve that would give a new direction to the country. Once or twice he even spoke about the possible publication of a book of the President’s speeches, and its effect on the people.
The book was published. But it wasn’t the book Raymond had worked on, not the book of longish extracts with a linking commentary. It was a very small, thin book of thoughts, Maximes, two or three thoughts to a page, each thought about four or five lines long.
Stacks of the book came to our town. They appeared in every bar and shop and office. My shop got a hundred; Mahesh got a hundred and fifty at Bigburger; the Tivoli got a hundred and fifty. Every pavement huckster got a little stock—five or ten: it depended on the commissioner. The books weren’t free; we had to buy them at twenty francs a copy in multiples of five. The commissioner had to send the money for his entire consignment back to the capital, and for a fortnight or so, big man as he was, he ran around everywhere with his Land-Rover full of Maximes, trying to place them.
The Youth Guard used up a lot of its stock on one of its Saturday-afternoon children’s marches. These marches were hurried, ragged affairs—blue shirts, hundreds of busy little legs, white canvas shoes, some of the smaller children frantic, close to tears, regularly breaking into a run to keep up with their district group, everybody anxious to get to the end and then to get back home, which could be many miles away.
The march with the President’s booklet was raggeder than usual. The afternoon was overcast and heavy, after