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Authors: Allen Drury
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and uneasy relationship with the British, but underneath it all Cullee had the impression that it concerned Sue-Dan.
They had been in Molobangwe for a week at the request of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the visit had proved, so far, quite disappointing. “Why don’t you run along over there and see what’s up with that boy?” Representative J. B. (“Jawbone”) Swarthman of South Carolina, chairman of the committee, had suggested in his lazy drawl. “Mebbe he’ll let you in on things he wouldn’t tell the rest of us.” It was indicative of the working relationships in the Congress that neither Cullee nor Jawbone made any point of this practical reference to his color.
Jawbone’s assumption, however, had been false, and this had been very disturbing. In Africa he soon began to feel that he was being received, not as a fellow Negro, but as a prying and probably hostile American. Despite his preliminary reading, he had been a little too goodhearted to expect this, and so his first visit to Africa was proving something of a shock. The conversation with Terry had served to increase this unhappy realization that in a continent of tribes he was regarded as the representative of just another one, and that probably inimical. The whole thing was so foreign to his idealism about his own background, both racial and national, and his exhilaration at the great African surge to independence that was contemporaneous with his college years and start in public life, that he was having considerable difficulty accepting it. Consequently he did not pay too much attention to the M’Bulu’s rambling, if charming, discourse. Except that, at the end of it, he had gathered enough to be able to report later to the committee in Washington that there was probably real trouble coming with the British; and to carry away in the back of his mind the feeling that Terence Ajkaje, given half a chance, would love to appropriate his wife.
Whether Sue-Dan fully understood this he never knew directly, except as he was male enough to know when his female was desired by another male. He did realize that she was conscious of it to some extent, and perhaps bothered by it a little. He preferred to think that she had not encouraged it, and indeed there was little opportunity during their long, jolting rides through the back country in Terry’s old American jeep that had come down to Gorotoland through the mysterious channels of jungle and desert trade from some unknown long-ago battleground far to the north. His wife had been circumspect and noncommittal in the presence of the M’Bulu, who alternated between showing off his gorgeous robes and appearing stripped to a breechclout with his magnificent torso rippling like molten ebony in the sun. Sue-Dan had professed to be unimpressed by all this, and had even remarked sardonically at one point, “For a man with as many pretty clothes as you’ve got, Terry, you sure do like to undress.” Terry had given her his charming smile and exploded into delighted laughter. After that, save for his final talk alone with the Congressman when they had both sat around half-naked drinking native wine in the steaming hot room that had once resounded to “Rock of Ages” thumped out on a pump organ, the M’Bulu had been ceremoniously and fully clothed.
And now, Cullee thinks uneasily, Terry is at the United Nations and his argument with the British is front-page news, and sooner or later their paths will probably cross again. In fact, he is almost sure they will, for although he has turned down Jawbone’s suggestion that he “trot along down to that Jason party for the Emmbooloo in Charleston,” he is sure Terry won’t miss the chance to come through Washington on his way back to New York and create as many headlines as possible for himself in the process. And he, as the most popular, well liked, and respected Negro in Congress, will indubitably be expected to be on hand at some point along the
They had been in Molobangwe for a week at the request of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the visit had proved, so far, quite disappointing. “Why don’t you run along over there and see what’s up with that boy?” Representative J. B. (“Jawbone”) Swarthman of South Carolina, chairman of the committee, had suggested in his lazy drawl. “Mebbe he’ll let you in on things he wouldn’t tell the rest of us.” It was indicative of the working relationships in the Congress that neither Cullee nor Jawbone made any point of this practical reference to his color.
Jawbone’s assumption, however, had been false, and this had been very disturbing. In Africa he soon began to feel that he was being received, not as a fellow Negro, but as a prying and probably hostile American. Despite his preliminary reading, he had been a little too goodhearted to expect this, and so his first visit to Africa was proving something of a shock. The conversation with Terry had served to increase this unhappy realization that in a continent of tribes he was regarded as the representative of just another one, and that probably inimical. The whole thing was so foreign to his idealism about his own background, both racial and national, and his exhilaration at the great African surge to independence that was contemporaneous with his college years and start in public life, that he was having considerable difficulty accepting it. Consequently he did not pay too much attention to the M’Bulu’s rambling, if charming, discourse. Except that, at the end of it, he had gathered enough to be able to report later to the committee in Washington that there was probably real trouble coming with the British; and to carry away in the back of his mind the feeling that Terence Ajkaje, given half a chance, would love to appropriate his wife.
Whether Sue-Dan fully understood this he never knew directly, except as he was male enough to know when his female was desired by another male. He did realize that she was conscious of it to some extent, and perhaps bothered by it a little. He preferred to think that she had not encouraged it, and indeed there was little opportunity during their long, jolting rides through the back country in Terry’s old American jeep that had come down to Gorotoland through the mysterious channels of jungle and desert trade from some unknown long-ago battleground far to the north. His wife had been circumspect and noncommittal in the presence of the M’Bulu, who alternated between showing off his gorgeous robes and appearing stripped to a breechclout with his magnificent torso rippling like molten ebony in the sun. Sue-Dan had professed to be unimpressed by all this, and had even remarked sardonically at one point, “For a man with as many pretty clothes as you’ve got, Terry, you sure do like to undress.” Terry had given her his charming smile and exploded into delighted laughter. After that, save for his final talk alone with the Congressman when they had both sat around half-naked drinking native wine in the steaming hot room that had once resounded to “Rock of Ages” thumped out on a pump organ, the M’Bulu had been ceremoniously and fully clothed.
And now, Cullee thinks uneasily, Terry is at the United Nations and his argument with the British is front-page news, and sooner or later their paths will probably cross again. In fact, he is almost sure they will, for although he has turned down Jawbone’s suggestion that he “trot along down to that Jason party for the Emmbooloo in Charleston,” he is sure Terry won’t miss the chance to come through Washington on his way back to New York and create as many headlines as possible for himself in the process. And he, as the most popular, well liked, and respected Negro in Congress, will indubitably be expected to be on hand at some point along the
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