Some Great Thing (24 page)

“There’s your story,” Betts said. “We can write that Novak is forging ties with an anti-American mayor in Africa. The African’s gotta be a communist. Find out about that.”

“No,” Mahatma said. “If you want that shit in the paper, then you write it. I looked into your idea and I say there’s no story. I’m not writing anything. Not now. But I’ll cover that reception the mayor’s holding, when it comes up.”

“You do that, Mahatma. You do that.” Betts liked coming up against Mahatma Grafton. Good reporter. But one hell of a smartass. Betts would nail him sooner or later. Give Betts time and he’d get even.

Yoyo was the first to arrive at his own reception. Since his arrival in Canada, the notion of timeliness had been drilled into him repeatedly. Canadians seemed preoccupied with time. If someone were to invite you to dinner, the person would not only state the day and hour but specify even the quarter of the hour: “How about 6:45?” Canadians did not
appreciate your arriving late. But the one thing that disturbed them more was to arrive early. It was better to arrive one hour late than fifteen minutes early.

Sandra Paquette took Yoyo’s coat—it was the month of May and 12 degrees outside, but he was still wearing a heavy overcoat with a furry, elf-like hood. He was ushered into the mayor’s office. Yoyo said, “It is an honour and a privilege to be received like this.”

“Oh Yoyo,” Sandra said, “you’re so formal.”

Mahatma arrived just as people were crowding around the food tables in the mayor’s reception room. Despite Mahatma’s reservations, Betts had been urging him again to play up Novak’s connection to a communist African mayor.

Sandra Paquette met Mahatma at the door. She shook his hand. “I’m glad you could come,” she said. She had a beautiful smile. Eyes, darkish blue, tinged with green. “The mayor will be making an announcement that might interest you.”

They lingered together at the door. “Feel like coffee after the reception?” Mahatma asked.

“Sure.” Their smiles met. Just then, the mayor beckoned to Sandra. “Catch you later,” she said.

Mahatma headed toward the food table. He approached a stout, red-haired man in running shoes and an old suit. “Jake! What are
you
doing here?”

Jake Corbett brought a card from the same pocket into which he had just deposited two salmon sandwiches. “Sandra gave me an invitation.”

“So you’re back from New Zealand, safe and healthy again?”

“Yeah. But the welfare people cut off my payments.”

“Why?”

“They’re calling my trip to New Zealand a gift. A gift in kind. They say I can’t have gifts in kind. So they cut me off.”

Mahatma asked, “Did they put this in writing?” Corbett produced a photocopy. “I hope you’re not going to
The Star
with this story.”

“Are you gonna put it on page one?”

“No guarantees. You know that, Jake.”

“Well then, maybe I’ll call
The Star
, and maybe I

won’t.”

“You’ve turned into a real bargainer.”

“The welfare rights people in New Zealand told me not to put up with any nonsense. They said reporters will get you if you don’t watch out.”

Mahatma shrugged. “Can I have this photocopy?”

“Yeah. For fifteen cents.”

“I thought photocopies cost a nickel.”

“I gotta live, you know.”

Mahatma gave him a dollar.

In his speech, Mayor Novak said he was sending a note via Yoyo to Yaoundé mayor Boubacar Fotso. Novak was proposing that Yaoundé and Winnipeg become twin cities, that they establish a program of formal ties, with regular visits and contacts and exchange programs for students and teachers and civic officials. This would be the first time a Canadian city had established formal links with an African capital.

Mahatma didn’t consider it major news, but it was worth a few inches. He asked Yoyo for information about Yaoundé. Yoyo responded obligingly: Yaoundé, the capital city in the south of Cameroon, had a population of about 400,000. Cameroon was a country of some ten million
inhabitants. Shaped like a triangle with the apex at the north, Cameroon shared borders with six countries and had an area of 475,440 square kilometres—about three-quarters the size of Manitoba.

Yoyo was called to the podium. He spoke of Canada and Cameroon, the only two countries in the world with English and French as the two official languages. He spoke of Winnipeg, a city of cleanliness and decency! Winnipeg, at the junction of the two great rivers, the Red and the Assiniboine, whose majesty Yoyo would extol to his countrymen! Cameroonians would hear about Manitoba, its flat and open land, its cold. The cold in Winnipeg could freeze the moisture in your nostrils, or turn a lake into an airplane runway. Cameroonians would never tire of hearing of Winnipeg. All Cameroonians would think of this great city when they thought of world centres: Rome, London, Paris, Winnipeg…In concluding, Yoyo extended his most heartfelt wish: that Winnipeg’s population triple or quadruple, so that its streets would not seem so lonely. A million or two more people was what Winnipeg needed, and that was what he, as a true friend, wished the city.

After a lengthy coffee break with Sandra, which stretched into lunch at the Lox and Bagel, Mahatma returned to the office and wrote the Jake Corbett story.

Provincial officials have blocked social assistance payments to welfare rights advocate Jake Corbett because he accepted a free airplane ticket to New Zealand…

It wasn’t a bad story. Next, Mahatma wrote the blurb about Mayor Novak proposing that Yaoundé and Winnipeg
become twin cities. It was a five-inch story that Mahatma expected to find on page twenty-one, or perhaps not find in the paper at all, the next day.

The next morning was beautiful. Sunlight coaxed the buds on American elm trees. Birds fussed overhead. A warm breeze blew in from the south. Mahatma walked peacefully through Wolseley, along Westminister Avenue, past Mrs. Lipton’s, past the Wolseley Bicycle Company, past Prairie Books and The New Taste Bakery and Vegetarian Deli, thinking that it was a lovely morning, and continuing to think so until, minutes later on Portage Avenue, he bought
The Herald
.

Mahatma opened the folded paper. He groaned. He didn’t recognize his story. It wasn’t his story any more. All that remained of his story were a few details about Winnipeg’s plans to twin with Yaoundé—but even that information had been perverted. Mahatma looked at the story again.

Novak Forges Ties with African Communist

By Don Betts and Mahatma Grafton

Mayor John Novak has outraged local politicians and federal officials by trying to make formal ties between Winnipeg and the communist-run capital city of Cameroon.

Bypassing the federal Department of External Affairs, Novak is directly contacting the mayor of Yaoundé to propose that the two cities become “twinned” and set up regular student, work and cultural exchanges.

Employing leftist slogans such as “let us promote the solidarity of our peoples” and “let us toil against oppression and unite in transnational, transracial brotherhood,” Novak has written directly to Yaoundé Mayor Boubacar Fotso.

“He shouldn’t be doing that,” said External Affairs spokesman John Scarlatti when told by
The Herald
of Novak’s initiative. “The mayor of Winnipeg shouldn’t be proposing formal ties with another country without consulting us about protocol.”

Scarlatti confirmed that the Yaoundé mayor has advocated the use of violence to destroy South African apartheid. But Scarlatti refused to comment on concerns that the Yaoundé mayor may be a communist.

Winnipeg councillor Jim Read, however, said it was “scandalous” that Novak was promoting ties between Winnipeg and communist Africa.

“First it was Nicaragua, now it’s an anti-American mayor in Cameroon. Next we’ll be in bed with Moscow,” Read said. “Mayor Novak is a threat to his own people.”

Mahatma marched into the managing editor’s office.

“Great story, Hat! Papers all around the country are picking it up.”

“I didn’t write that story. Not any of it. All I did was a three-inch bullet that Novak was sending greetings to the Yaoundé mayor. Betts turned it into a controversy. Someone should have taken off my byline. I never would have written that story!”

“You think Betts exaggerated the communist angle?”

“I’m not convinced Ottawa is upset. I talked to a person ranking higher than the one Betts quoted and I was told
there was no problem. And Betts is probably wrong to call the Yaoundé mayor a communist. Cameroon is a non-aligned country with western leanings. Its mayors are appointed. The national government would never appoint a communist mayor. Communists have had to stay underground in Cameroon until very recently. So what does all this trash mean?”

“I don’t know. Give us a better story and we’ll look at it.”

The local and national media pounced on the story. Novak was Canada’s only communist mayor. Winnipeg was vying to become the first Canadian city to twin with an African city. Yaoundé had a mayor who had spoken favourably of Moammar Gadhafi and of anti-apartheid forces in Africa. At a recent conference in France, Boubacar Fotso had blasted Reagan for his weak-kneed approach to apartheid. Fotso had said he supported the anti-apartheid struggle in Africa, including that by the Soviet-backed Libyan leader. “I don’t see the Libyans or the Soviets as a threat in this matter,” His Excellency had stated. “I share their outrage over apartheid.” At the conference, an American participant branded His Excellency a communist. Reuter and Associated Press picked that up. Subsequent articles referred to Boubacar Fotso as “the communist mayor of Yaoundé.” Betts had found these references in
The Herald
clipping files. This is what Mahatma learned as he researched another story.

Mahatma caught up with the mayor outside a committee meeting at City Hall. Mahatma explained he hadn’t written the story in
The Herald
. And he asked why Novak had contacted the Yaoundé mayor.

“Mayors should seize every chance to promote world peace. And as for the political leanings of the Yaoundé mayor, I would urge you to do more research.”

Mahatma tried to call the African mayor, but Yaoundé was seven hours ahead of Winnipeg, and His Excellency had gone home.

The Canadian media continued to refer to Fotso as the communist mayor of Yaoundé. More reporters pestered John Novak. How hard was he willing to push this twinned cities idea? Did he plan to travel to Cameroon? Was he prepared to ruffle Ottawa’s feathers over this disagreement about diplomacy?

Such was the excitement over this issue that editors lost interest in Corbett and the French language question. In the confusion and hustle about the twinned cities story, even Mahatma failed to notice at first that
The Herald
never ran his story about Corbett.

It took a few days, but Mahatma finally reached Boubacar Fotso.

Yaoundé Mayor Denies He’s a Communist

By Mahatma Grafton

Yaoundé Mayor Boubacar Fotso has vehemently denied that he is a communist and has invited Winnipeg Mayor John Novak to visit Cameroon.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Fotso said recent statements that he is a communist are false.

“Communist sympathies? Of course I have communist sympathies. I also sympathize with capitalists, Jews, Christians, Moslems, black people, white people and Asians. Does that make me
all of those things too? Let me state unequivocally: I am not a communist. I am the mayor of the capital city of a country which is non-aligned in world politics.

“Furthermore, I am not anti-American. Cameroon values its diplomatic and economic ties with the United States. In the past, I merely stated that the American president wasn’t doing his part to fight apartheid.”

Fotso expressed pleasure at having received recent greetings from Novak and said the Winnipeg mayor would be welcomed with “classic Cameroonian hospitality” if he agreed to visit Yaoundé…

Three weeks passed. Mahatma received a letter from Yoyo.

Mahatma, my dear friend and brother, every day I dream of your splendid land, of the friendly people in your wondrous country, second largest in the entire world.

Winnipeg, city of open spaces, so few people, cold, freezing winds that chase people into their vast, brick homes, Winnipeg, how I miss you, and your people, such as you, brother Mahatma, you who pulled me from the Polonia Park riot and visited me in the hospital and made my stay in a foreign land meaningful, you I will always remember and thank.

Please, dearest friend, write immediately, write this very minute! Tell me about yourself, tell me what has happened to the city since I left. Quickly! Tell me everything! I wait anxiously for your reply, which absolutely must come within the month! Already I long for Winnipeg, my adoptive city.

Yours, Yoyo

P.S. Come visit Yaoundé. Come soon.

The enthusiasm in Yoyo’s letter astonished Mahatma.

“It’s just the style,” Ben said.

“What do you mean?”

“Africans write like that.”

“How do you know?”

“Your old man has lived through a thing or two, you know.”

Mahatma improved the story about Jake Corbett losing his welfare because of the free trip to New Zealand, but
The Herald
wasn’t interested. “That retard has had enough coverage,” Betts said. “He’s been manipulating us for months.” Mahatma complained, in vain, to the managing editor.
The Herald
’s intransigence infuriated Mahatma. He spoke of it to his father, who encouraged him to keep writing. “Don’t give up. They’ll turn down one article, or two, but keep working away, and they’ll take the next one.”

A news release was issued in late June:

Mayor John Novak has the pleasure to announce that Winnipeg and Yaoundé, the capital of The United Republic of Cameroon, are to become twin cities.

The mayor and his counterpart, His Excellency Boubacar Fotso, take pride in initiating the first formal and regular series of
educational, cultural and professional contacts between a Canadian and an African city.

Mayor Novak has accepted an invitation from His Excellency Boubacar Fotso to visit Yaoundé for one week in July. At that time, the mayors will sign a friendship pact and plan future contacts between the two cities.

Members of the news media should contact Sandra Paquette if they wish to accompany Mayor Novak on his trip to Cameroon.

Four Winnipeg news outlets decided to send reporters to cover the event. They rarely sent reporters anywhere, but this story was national news.
Canada’s only communist mayor forges ties with anti-American leader of Yaoundé
…In a telephone interview, Edward Slade got the mayor of Yaoundé to say, “Capitalist trade with South Africa must be defeated so that common people may lead decent lives.” The next day,
The Star
ran the headline
African Mayor Says Kill Capitalism
. Slade’s story began: “Capitalism must crumble to give working stiffs a chance in South Africa, says Yaoundé Mayor Boubacar Fotso.”

Slade frightened his editors into sending him. “What if some nut knocks off Novak over there? You wanna miss that story?” After learning that
The Star
was sending Slade,
The Herald
did decide to send somebody. Betts wanted to go, but Van Wuyss chose Mahatma, whose bilingualism would help in Yaoundé, where French was predominant. CBRT Radio sent its crime and City Hall reporter, Susan Starr. She had always wanted to see Africa and was considerably more enthusiastic about the assignment than Bob Stone of CFRL Radio, who was also being sent. “Who wants to travel with Slade?” Bob
grumbled, but he finally agreed to go. He had his eye on Susan and thought that she might return his glances in the tropics.

Sandra Paquette was finding it impossible to work. After Edward Slade had written that the mayor would be selling communism in the darkest of Africa, City Hall was bombarded by the media calls. Local reporters scrummed the mayor whenever he left his office. Others were phoning from Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal and the U.S.

The office of His Excellency Boubacar Fotso had also been swamped by phone calls. At first, this stroked his vanity. Reporters calling all the way from Canada! But one impudent reporter named Edward Slade had provoked him with questions about communism. Mayor Fotso lost interest in the call. This reporter was a boor. No other reporter was quite so bad—indeed, the mayor had a delightful chat with Mahatma Grafton, to whom Hassane Moustafa Ali had frequently referred in
La Voix de Yaoundé
. But the calls interfered with His Excellency’s work. He was obliged to dispense with African hospitality and have his secretary unplug the phone.

Mahatma wrote to Yoyo. He mentioned that Jake Corbett was still fighting to recuperate his welfare, but that
The Herald
editors felt Corbett had burnt up his credibility over his welfare holiday and for that reason hadn’t let Mahatma write about it. Mahatma said he was looking forward to seeing Yoyo soon.

Ben was proud that his son was following the mayor of Winnipeg to Africa. It deserved an entry in Ben’s “Negro History Appreciation” book. The boy was terribly busy now, writing around the clock, getting vaccinations, compiling information about Cameroon. Ben hardly saw him. It didn’t matter. Ben slept well at night, knowing that Mahatma was there with him, under the same roof. Ben watched his son coming in at night, leaving early in the morning. He noticed that Mahatma had become too busy to dwell on himself. He actually showed an interest in the world. He had escaped the curse of his generation.

The entire Winnipeg contingent, including Mayor Novak and Sandra Paquette, arrived in Yaoundé on a steamy July afternoon. Walking off the airplane, Mahatma felt as if he had stepped inside a car that had been baking in the sun. For a moment, the heat seemed pleasant, like lying in bed under too many blankets. But within a minute, his armpits grew wet. He hurried toward the shade of the airport terminal.

Waiting for his luggage in the hot, humid terminal, Mahatma studied the crowd forming in an adjacent room. Through the glass, he saw many people staring at him. Children too. Why were all those children at the airport? Shoeless, shirtless, they certainly weren’t there to travel. He saw them clapping; he could hear them singing some strange and happy song; he could also hear the drum of tam-tams. Finally, he spotted Yoyo, waving wildly. Mahatma waved back. Yoyo pounded the window.

Mahatma touched Sandra. “Look. There’s Yoyo!” She jumped up and waved in a funny motion that only North Americans make, moving the hand like a windshield wiper. The children’s chanting grew louder. Mahatma grabbed Sandra, who leaned against him excitedly. “Those kids! They’re here to welcome us!”

“No way,” said Edward Slade, who had already entered into his notebook that beggars had jammed the airport.

They were swept past customs. In the next room, two men rushed up to greet the mayor and Sandra. Yoyo pumped Mahatma’s hand. “Mon ami, welcome to Cameroon, which is my country and yours!” Yoyo greeted the other Canadians with equal warmth. Slade said he needed to get to a phone immediately. “A telephone?” Yoyo repeated. “A little later, my friend.”

“I have a deadline and—”

“Soon, Edward, very soon,” Yoyo promised. He skipped ahead to welcome the mayor.

A man on a platform silenced the crowd. Yoyo led the mayor, Sandra and Mahatma onto the platform with three Cameroonian officials. Hundreds of people surrounded the platform. Barefoot children. Men dressed in large African
boubous
, women wrapped in multicoloured
pagnes
and bearing platters of fruit and drinks on their heads. Mahatma counted one hundred heads in a section that he judged to be one-tenth of the entire crowd. He scribbled: “one thousand people greet Novak at airport.” Someone introduced the mayor to the crowd. “Un très très grand canadien, Son Excellence le Maire de Winnipeg!” The crowd exploded with applause and tam-tam drumming. The man motioned again
for silence, which followed immediately. “Et son assistante, Mademoiselle Sandra Paquette!” Again the crowd exploded. “Et le célèbre journaliste canadien, Monsieur Mahatma Grafton!” Again the crowd went nuts.

Edward Slade knew little French, but he understood that this guy had just called Grafton “a celebrated Canadian journalist.”

Hundreds of children broke out in a song. They sang at the top of their voices, wonderfully pitched, laughing, loving little voices, singing something whose message of friendship any foreigner could divine:

Bokele, bokele bo,

bokele, bokele bo, Canada!

bokele, bokele bo.

Bokele, bokele bo,

bokele, bokele bo, Cameroon!

bokele, bokele bo.

The African officials on stage began singing. The mayor joined in. So did Sandra. Mahatma saw a clutch of radiant children waving at him and, despite the piercing stare from Slade, Mahatma sang. He sang along with his thousand hosts. It was a delightfully happy melody. This contrast, more than any other, would stay with Mahatma during his week-long stay in Yaoundé. In Canada, airport crowds fought for taxis and luggage carts. In Cameroon, they sang.

They sang another song. And a third. A man on stage welcomed the Canadians in the name of His Excellency the Mayor Boubacar Fotso, the city of Yaoundé and the entire country
of Cameroon. The man then conferred with his colleagues, the crowd grew talkative and boisterous, the Canadians on stage fidgeted and waited, and nobody seemed to know what would happen next. Suddenly the emcee broke out of a huddle with his colleagues and called out in French for the other Canadians to come up on stage. Yoyo translated. Susan and Bob mounted the platform, but Edward Slade refused.

An official in a long blue
boubou
approached him. “You don’t wish to join your colleagues on stage?”

“They’re not my colleagues. They’re my competition.”

The African scratched his head. “You don’t like Cameroon?”

“It’s not that. I’m here as a reporter. That’s all.”

A second official conferred with the first.

“He doesn’t wish to go onstage?”

“No. He says he’s a reporter and that he doesn’t like Cameroon.”

The second man clucked with his tongue and led the first one away.

Slade watched them go. It wasn’t his fault if they couldn’t understand English. Look at them! Slade whipped out his notepad. Two men walking hand-in-hand. Not even ashamed! Slade saw other men doing the same. He wrote, “Homosexuals uninhibited in Yaoundé airport!” He underlined this observation. He had a great idea! He could write about sexual diseases in Yaoundé. AIDS in Africa.

Leaving the stage, the Canadians were mobbed by children. Susan scooped a little boy up in her arms. “Isn’t he a darling!”

Something tugged at Mahatma’s leg. Engaged in conversation with an official, he ignored it. The tug made itself felt
again. “Papa!” cried a little voice. Mahatma looked down. A shirtless, shoeless boy with a bald head and ebony disks for irises again closed his fist around Mahatma’s pant leg and called up, “Papa!”

Before Mahatma and the other Canadian journalists were led from the airport, four Cameroonians—including two local reporters—stunned Mahatma by asking him about “the famous” Jake Corbett.

John Novak and Sandra Paquette snacked with His Excellency, a corpulent, middle-aged man with a booming laugh and quick eyes. Afterwards, the mayors retired to another room, leaving Sandra to wait in His Excellency’s office. Sandra yawned. She tried reading, but her eyes hurt. She wondered what the reporters were doing. Sleeping, probably! Sandra put her book down and fell asleep on a couch. She was awakened by His Excellency’s baritone chuckle.

“She’s a lazy one, a real sleepyhead,” His Excellency joked to Novak.

Sandra stared at her boss. Novak said, “We’re both quite tired.”

“Absolutely,” said His Excellency. “My driver will take you to the Hotel Kennedy. He’ll pick you up in time for the press conference.”

The Hotel Kennedy, however, had only reserved one room for the mayor of Winnipeg. It had not been informed about his assistant and had no room for her. Nor did any other hotels in town. Sandra was put up with the reporters in the university dormitory.

Murmurings, excited squeals and hissing sounds slowly drew Mahatma out of his nap. At first, he didn’t know where he was. Then he did. The hissing resumed. Every few seconds, it came like a brief rush of water. Between each rush came the murmurings and squeals. It was a delightful chain of sounds: water, laughter, then water again. Mahatma climbed out of bed, swept aside the curtains and leaned out his window. He saw a valley of brilliant green and a red clay road connecting earthen, box-like homes.

Directly below his second-storey window, boys conferred under a mammoth tree. It was pregnant with mangoes. Every few seconds, a boy would hurl a stone up into the foliage, aiming for the peduncle linking a fruit to a branch. Mahatma stood at the window for fifteen minutes, mesmerized by the boys, their excited gestures and their strange language, which he couldn’t understand, except for numbers of felled mangoes, which were called out in French.
Deux. Trois. Quatre. Cinq mangues!

Somebody knocked at his door. Yoyo had brought food for Mahatma and his fellow journalists. He brought baguettes and spicy chunks of goat meat bundled in paper, and short, thick bananas twice as thick and tasty as those sold in Canada—and four bottles of Sprite. The Canadians devoured the food and pumped Yoyo with questions. Edward Slade asked, “Where are the phones?” Susan asked, “Who is that cute guy across the hall?”

Mahatma asked, “What do we do next?”

“Bananas make me constipated,” Bob mumbled.

“Would you all shut up and let Yoyo talk?” Slade said.

Yoyo said he would take them later to the bank. Then they could file their stories from the telecommunications building. Then, time permitting, they could sight-see. Then attend a press conference. Then attend a banquet and dance at the mayor’s residence.

“Couldn’t we just file our stories and come back here to sleep?” Bob whined.

Yoyo was amazed. “But you can sleep in Canada, my friend! Surely you didn’t come all this way to sleep?”

Slade asked, “Where’s the mayor? Where’s Sandra?”

“The mayor is sleeping at his hotel. Sandra has a room in this building…she came in while you were sleeping.”

Mahatma flung open his windows to let in the sunlight and the sound of stones skimming through mango trees. Then he activated his portable computer and wrote two articles. The first described Cameroon’s recent political history. Mahatma mentioned that former president Amadou Ahidjo had steered the country into independence in 1960 and led it for twenty-two years, handing over the reins subsequently to the current leader, Paul Biya. And that Biya, who had quashed an attempted coup in April of this year, now sought visits from foreign dignitaries to reaffirm the government’s credibility. Mahatma tied this into John Novak’s visit, mentioning the welcome at the airport.

Mahatma wrote a second story about enthusiasm in Cameroon for Jake Corbett.

In Canada, he has been jailed, refused service in restaurants and publicly ridiculed.

But in Cameroon, Winnipeg welfare activist Jake Corbett has a hero’s following.

Articles about the 46-year-old anti-poverty crusader have frequently appeared on the front page of the biggest newspaper in Cameroon—to which Corbett has never travelled. And local journalists are anxious to discuss “the Corbett case” with visiting Canadians.