What Am I Doing Here? Read Free Page A

‘What?’
    â€˜A pen,’ I said.
    â€˜What for?’
    â€˜To write with.’
    â€˜A gun?’
    â€˜Not a gun.’
    â€˜Yes, a gun!’
    I sat on a bench, staring at the skinny boy who continued to stare at his toes. The corporal sat cross-legged in the doorway with his sub-machine-gun trained on me. Outside in the yard, two sergeants were distributing rifles, and a truck was loading with troops. The troops sat down with the barrels sticking up from their crotches. The colonel came out of his office and took the salute. The truck lurched off, and he walked over, lumpily, towards the guardroom.
    The corporal snapped to attention, and pointed to me. ‘Mercenary, Comrade Colonel!’
    â€˜From today,’ said the colonel, ‘there are no more comrades in our country.’
    â€˜Yes, Comrade Colonel.’ the man nodded; but checked himself and added, ‘Yes, my Colonel.’
    The colonel waved him aside and surveyed me gloomily. He wore an exquisitely-pressed pair of paratrooper fatigues, a red star on his cap, and another red star in his lapel. A roll of fat stood out around the back of his neck, his thick lips drooped at the comers. He looked, I thought, so like a sad hippopotamus. I told myself I mustn’t think he looks like a sad hippopotamus. Whatever happens, he mustn’t think I think he looks like a sad hippopotamus.
    â€˜Ah, monsieur!’ he said, in a quiet dispirited voice. ‘What are you doing in this poor country of ours?’
    â€˜I came here as a tourist.’
    â€˜You are English?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜But you speak an excellent French.’
    â€˜Passable,’ I said.
    â€˜With a Parisian accent I should have said.’
    â€˜I have lived in Paris.’
    â€˜I, also, have visited Paris. A wonderful city!’
    â€˜The most wonderful city.’
    â€˜But you have mistimed your visit to Benin.’
    â€˜Yes,’ I faltered. ‘I seem to have run into trouble.’
    â€˜You have been here before?’
    â€˜Once,’ I said. ‘Five years ago.’
    â€˜When Benin was Dahomey.’
    â€˜Yes,’ I said. ‘I used to think Benin was in Nigeria.’
    â€˜Benin is in Nigeria and now we have it here.’
    â€˜I think I understand.’
    â€˜Calm yourself, monsieur.’ His fingers reached to unlock my handcuffs. ‘We are having another little change of politics. Nothing more! In these situations one must keep calm. You understand? Calm!’
    Some boys had come through the barracks’ gate and were creeping forward to peer at the prisoner. The colonel appeared in the doorway, and they scampered off.
    â€˜Come,’ he said. ‘You will be safer if you stay with me. Come, let us listen to the Head of State.’
    We walked across the parade-ground to his office where he sat me in a chair and reached for a portable radio. Above his desk hung a photo of the Head of State, in a Fidel Castro cap. His cheeks were a basketwork of scarifications.
    â€˜The Head of State’, said the colonel, ‘is always speaking over the radio. We call it the journal parlé. It is a crime in this country not to listen to the journal parlé .’
    He turned the knob. The military music came in crackling bursts.
    Citizens of Benin . . . the hour is grave. At seven hours this morning, an unidentified DC-8 jet aircraft landed at our International Airport of Cotonou, carrying a crapulous crowd of mercenaries . . . black and white . . . financed by the lackeys of international imperialism . . . A vile plot to destroy our democratic and operational regime.
    The colonel laid his jowls on his hands and sighed, ‘The Sombas! The Sombas!’
    The Sombas came from the far north-west of the country. They filed their teeth to points and once, not so long ago, were cannibals.
    â€˜. . . lunched a vicious attack on our Presidential Palace
    I glanced up again at the wall. The Head of State