There are no secrets in this town (‘At least, none that we know of’). So when Awni banishes all the children from the veranda and herds them at the rim of the Rest House land with the youngest and cruellest of the electricians to stand guard, we all leave our homes and our fields to join the crowd and call out, ‘What’s the fuss? What are we missing?’ ‘Keep back,’ says Awni. ‘You’ll find out in good time.’ ‘Find out what? Won’t you tell?’
Awni closes the door from the veranda to the restaurant. All we can hear now is the hammering and chipping and nailing of electricians at work. He stands with his back to the door facing out over the veranda towards the crowd. The youngest and the cruellest electrician can control children with stern words but he cannot hold the crowd. It edges forward until it lines the veranda steps.
‘What’s the fuss, Awni?’
‘There is no fuss. You’re making the fuss. Go home!’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing … improvements…’
‘What improvements? Why can’t the children see? What are they making for you in there? An electric woman?’
Even Awni laughs at this.
‘Listen,’ he says, coming close to us. ‘Be patient. You see these?’ He points to the petitions and lofty announcements which decorate the wall. ‘Now this town is on the map. We have electricity. Soon the road will be made up. Then we will have an airstrip, a cinema, a radio transmitter, a factory, our own abattoir. But first we have electricity … so let us be ambitious, let us have the best electricity in the world. Let the Minister come here and see how we excel with electricity. Then he will nod and say to himself, “Ah, that town has vision. Send engineers, send aeronauts, send projectionists, send radio operators, send industrialists, send slaughtermen. Send money. Turn that town into a city!”’
‘But what are you hiding, Warden Awni?’
‘I will show you,’ he says. We crowd behind him as he throws back the door to the inner room of the restaurant. Inside, the electricians are standing on chairs and tables, their arms lifting and pushing towards the ceiling.
‘Let us see. What is it? What is it?’
A thin girl crawls past Awni into the room and walks into the centre of the circle of electricians. She looks up and then returns to the crowd at the door.
‘They’re fixing the propeller to the ceiling,’ she says. ‘They’re making an aeroplane.’
Awni stands aside for us all to enter and admire. ‘It is my gift to this town,’ he says, ‘to mark the visit of the Minister and the installation of electrical power. It is the largest, the finest fan in the land.’
The last screw of the fitting which attaches Awni’s fan to the ceiling is tightened. An electrician pushes against one of the huge polished blades. It turns resentfully, unpowered, its tip nearly reaching the restaurant walls. Its shadow, cast by the light from the veranda windows, is a huge black moth. ‘Solid wood, solid metal,’ says Awni boastfully. ‘A monumental fan.’
THE FIRST to arrive is the Minister’s Secretary. His black Peugeot has been dusted grey by the journey over bad, dry roads. He has seen maned deer, quibbling flocks of ground-thrush, a mesmerized bandicoot caught mid-carriageway by the engine roar. He sees gnawed gourds and damaged saplings — the work of Baird tapirs and their comic snouts. All good pot animals, and sitting targets, too. The thought of land here becomes more attractive. The comfortable family lodge with a small gourd farm transforms into a hotel for hunters, weekend marksmen keen on game but untempted by treks and danger and patience. Is there profit here, good business? When he first sees the Rest House he becomes more certain. This is no competition for his hoteclass="underline" it is a timid, wind-swept little coop in wood and plaster, badly situated and poorly equipped. What idiot arranged for the Minister to switch on the current from there? Tin-pot town. Tin-pot people.
The Minister’s Secretary waits in his car a field’s distance from the Rest House. Soon the army jeeps will arrive with the soldiers and ceremonial equipment.
The Secretary is free to scheme. Later that day he will investigate Nepruolo land and select a good site, close to the road and the police station, but wind and neighbour free. Electricity has come; the gourds will fatten. Nepruolo will be kept to his promise. Landowner and Secretary, as ever, will see eye-to-eye — particularly as they now share interests in the same town. A newly surfaced road — now, that would benefit both. Remove those potholes. Lay that dust with tarmac. Weekending huntsmen, purses full and game bags empty, speed to the country: they pass brimming convoys of Nepruolo trucks delivering plump-as-dove candy gourds to city wholesalers. The Secretary can see it all. He will speak dreams to his colleagues, the secretaries of appropriate ministries.
Once the jeeps and the black car draw up outside the Rest House the crowd begins to gather. They will wait all day for the Minister to arrive. They babble and laugh and miss nothing. The Minister’s Secretary is perplexed. He turns to the commander of the six soldiers for explanations. ‘What are they doing?’ he asks.
‘They’re shaking their backsides and snitching their noses.’
And who is this?’ Awni has come out onto his veranda and begun an oration.
‘Honoured Minister and friend,’ he says. ‘We welcome you…’
‘Not yet. Save your prostrations. I am not the Minister. I am his Secretary.’
Awni beams and clasps the visitor by the elbow. ‘Then we have corresponded,’ he says, and points to his gallery of documents. ‘I am Warden Awni. Here is my petition for electricity, you remember? And here, today, is the outcome.’ He raises his arms in self-congratulation and swings the newly hung glass lanterns in yellow, green and orange. ‘But I cannot claim all the credit. The Minister, too, deserves our thanks…’
The Minister’s Secretary begins to wonder whether he is the victim of some subtle irony. ‘These people?’ He indicates those few in the crowd who are still racing bums and noses. ‘What is the point which they are making? Who are they?’
‘Townspeople, Secretary. They have come to admire the electricity and the Minister.’
‘Yes, but what is this shaking?’
‘Ah,’ says Awni, happy to provide the simple explanation. ‘They are sending messages from their brains. No sooner sent than received. Like electrical power!’
Now the Secretary is convinced that his hotel will have no competition. The Warden of the Rest House is as mad as a mongoose. Perhaps it would be politic — just for the day — to lock him out of sight. The Minister is a man not keen on aberrations. But the Warden has hurried off, busy with preparations and self-esteem. The Minister’s Secretary is left to deploy his soldiers (‘Subdue those shakers. Let no one pass’) and then spy out his land. Soon the ceremonial will be over and business can begin.