Incontinent …
So rears
The anthill
Into the rainbow sky –
The intercellar city, the tail
In the mouth files of anonymous
Citizens overburdened with work,
The soldiers guarding well
Beyond the gates, each
Together, severally
And equally
For the commonweal
But here,
Where is the care,
the pool,
the queen?
Another, at once more obvious and oblique pictures the city as some promiscuous, chic client of neon-lit night clubs –
A dumpling by day
At night a fairy
In a dance of stars.
And yet a third, almost an epigraph, writes off the great iron heap in rather funeral terms –
The skyscrapers and
Bridges, among the avenues
And isles, are pyramids
And aqueducts, cutting
Swathes on a tired ground
Saddling streams running to sand.
Admittedly, these are all uncharitable remarks, but driving through the many-storeyed mounds and obelisks of New York, all of them set out in their square lots and rows, and then running every now and again past its vast, sprawling burial grounds with all those spendid tombs and tablets, several of them decked with fresh flowers and flying flags, authentic versions of the star-spangled banner, the eye tired of looking upon stone and glass forms, whether squat or slender, and the fact became more blurred in the mind as to which structure and block was put up to the dead and which to the living.
At long last night came. Leaving London earlier in the day, the gimmick had been that you take off at 11.30 a.m. and touch down five hours later at exactly the same hour in New York. Actually we did not arrive till almost double that time. By then we had been served lunch in the air. But what with the weird protraction of day going west I was to have yet another lunch, a regular Nigerian dish of jolof rice and stewed chicken, washed down by long draughts of cold beer. The effect was to the restore the bottom which I sort of felt and feared had dropped out of my being. One of those interminable parties at the United Nations was going on that night, and my old school friend, into whose apartment I had moved, after his initial grumble at not being warned in good time of my coming, brightened up on the second Bourbon and ginger, and it was in that expansive spirit, he suggested I come along with him. I demurred, said I needed a good warm bath, and that even a vigil long as that for an elder of the clan gone home had to come to an end sometime.
As it happened, I kept further vigil on that my first night in the United States. I was curled up in the bath, splashing and singing to myself, (spluttering it was more like), when the telephone rang in the sitting room. ‘Let it,’ I muttered above the suds. ‘Whoever is calling will hang up soon enough.’ But the buzz-buzzing noise of it went on, and worse than that of a fly or mosquito, it was futile trying to beat it off my ears. So cursing and sopping wet, I put about me the towel nearest to hand and padded out into the bedroom to take the call there. The voice at the other end was that of a woman obviously heavy with caresses – more for her own self.
‘No, he isn’t in,’ I told her. ‘You saw him at the party, did you say? … I see … He stopped at yours … Yes, I am the guest just from Africa … You told him you’d come and keep me company? Wasn’t that real sweet of you! Oh, no, I can’t believe you are a tough nut at all … Really? You mean right now? How wonderful! Hold on, I don’t know the number off-hand … That’s good, I forgot you know the place yourself … Well, bye-bye then till ten.’
For what appeared the arrested hand of time I held up the receiver in the air gulping and ogling at it – just as soulfully as they do in the films. Here was a sudden burst of a torch out from the dark, and though blinking somewhat, I told myself I would follow it wherever it led, even at the risk of stumbling upon mound or pit. The sideboard of an expatriate, whether colonial or consular, is his sure comforter. So diving into my host’s which even by diplomatic standards was pretty well stocked, I poured myself a drink and settled down to watch television until the arrival of my surprise visitor.
A closer look, however, at the Maverick strip that was running then, one that showed the rascal bursting the ring of some ruthless bank-busters led by his old flame, who entertains the Wild West crowd in the pub below to belly dancing while the deed is being done upstairs, and I was sure I had seen the episode before on TV – months and months ago back home in Nigeria. I picked up the weekly programme to find something fresh to turn to. It told a similar story. Dr Kildare, Cheyenne, Laramie, Bonanza, The Loretta Young Show, People are Funny, and all the other drug-peddling, punchpacking, cow-poaching, bust-flaunting and dollar-spilling serials, exported as ceaselessly to stations in Nigeria as they are sedulously decried by Yankees there as anything but poor specimens of the real products at home, all of them filled the bills and were actually in many cases touted as the highlights of viewing for the teenager, the adult, and indeed the entire family. All of them which made me feel rather at home.
So that I felt more or less rattled when my mysterious caller turned up and said she was Australian. She asked me to help her out of her overcoat, a sort of ritual over here, I was to discover, expected of anyone playing host. A touch of winter was in the weather, she said, so she had had to wear a medium-weight one. By the time I had found where to hang it up, she had sat herself down on the couch, and turned off the TV set, saying, ‘Could we put on some records instead?’
I said, ‘Oh yes, and what will Madam drink?’
‘Scotch and no soda,’ she said, ‘and please no Madams either, the name is Grace, and what is yours?’
She turned out more curious than gracious, asking one question after another when I had not answered the first, at least, to my satisfaction. ‘So you are a journalist and dabble in poetry and plays?’ She gave me a squint-type of look. She knew a couple of poets down in Greenwich Village, and was it poetry I was going to teach at Princeton? I repeated again that the fellowship taking me there was not a teaching one, nor a studying one exactly, ‘but one, and I quote,’ I added, ‘aimed at bringing talented young men from the new and developing nations of the world so that they can improve on their capabilities and be better able to serve their countries –’
‘And the USA, of course!’ she laughed, teasing the words off my lips.
‘Aren’t you a real witch?’ I swept up to her, using the chance to plant myself more advantageously by her side.
‘Oh, nothing of the sort,’ she shook her well coiffeured hair, all brilliant and bronze, and which she was prompt to point out was all hers. ‘I have worked for one or two foreign missions here and come across that type of crap talk. Pretty catching stuff.’
