No Past, No Present, No Future by Yulisa Amadu Maddy

Author:Yulisa Amadu Maddy [Maddy, Yulisa Amadu]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803288925
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Chapter Four

‘Ladies and gentlemen; I don’t know what you think or expect of me. Perhaps by the time I finish talking to you, whatever you think of me now will not be the same.

‘We, me and you, we are living together. Perhaps I should say we are experimenting how best to live together peacefully and amicably. It is not easy. No. It never has been easy to live together with strangers. I am a stranger. You treat me like one. I am constantly reminded that I am a stranger. It is not only a heavy burden, it is a torture. But, am I the only stranger? Why am I the target? Why am I the always-detected villain? I have seen other strangers go undetected. Unpunished! Unmolested! Untortured! I have seen your grin changed to warm laughter. Your sneers to hospitality. Your resentment to loving-kindness. You offer yourself and all you have willingly to them, and they are strangers like me. But you do me in. Why? Funny.’

Santigie was delivering the end-of-term lecture at his college, and had invited Ade and Joe Bengoh. He had not informed either that he was inviting the other, knowing that if he did he might end up with neither of them coming. This lecture was an important point in his life. He wanted both Ade and Joe to be present to hear what he had to say. As he spoke his opening words, he scanned the hall looking for them. He could see Joe sitting in front. Ade was somewhere at the far end. He was with a white girl. Santigie smiled to himself, took a drink of water.

‘My talk for tonight, ladies and gentlemen, will be based on the relationships between races in the white world of the United Kingdom, as seen by me, Santigie Bombolai, an African. I am the stranger who is unlucky. The victim of all the curses you care to name. The curses that will grind me into oblivion in this your metropolis, or make me kill in order to survive. Just like animals in my jungle. I am an animal. Worse still, I am a savage animal. I am in a zoo. Nobody put me there. I decided to put myself in. But to save you trying to find out why, I have decided to talk it over with you. To make you understand that guilt, mine or yours, must not be left for future generations to solve. I will be looking for other animals to keep in my zoo. I will not hesitate to snatch them, catch them, keep them, make them mine. Slaves! prisoners! victims! You see, you are responsible for my undoing, as I am going to be blamed and held responsible for your vindictiveness towards my kind.’

Joe listened. He knew Santigie had of late developed some resentment towards white people. But this was mainly in the political sphere. He expressed bitter views on the apartheid policies in South Africa.

He should be worried about his exams, Joe thought.

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