You Must Set Forth at Dawn: A Memoir by Soyinka Wole

Author:Soyinka, Wole [Soyinka, Wole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Autobiography, Literature, Non Fiction
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Dinner with an Avatar

HE MOST EXPENSIVE DINNER I EVER ATE IN MY LIFE TOOK PLACE DURING A period of great continental—indeed, global—exultation. I did not choose the menu, the wines served were just about average, I have forgotten details of half the company that framed the large round table at the edge of the Parisian skyline, but I have never regretted or begrudged such unintended extravagance for one moment. I could not even write it off as tax-deductible. Even in 1990, I had yet much to learn about the world of taxation.

The individual at the heart of that dinner, the truly honored guest who honors that often dubious accolade, remains, even today, blissfully unaware of how he came to upset my monthly budget. No, he did not belong to the host of devils for whom the long spoon was invented; only those who jailed him for most of his mature life perceived him as such. For that angelic host, a political progressive or liberation fighter (being only another expression for a Communist) was the human clone of Satan, and they had resolutely advertised that dinner guest as being one.

Out of the blue into my Abeokuta redoubt came an urgent message from the French Embassy in Lagos. The chargé d’affaires—the ambassador was away—wondered if I could travel to Paris the following day for a very important dinner being hosted by President Mitterrand. The embassy was standing by to do everything possible, anything at all to ensure that I was present.

I gave my ha-ha chuckle reserved for all outlandish proposals, sent the courier back with empty hands, and returned to whatever was then preoccupying me in my backwater township. Back came an even more intense plea from Lagos. The French president was insistent, my presence was considered vital. And now some further elaboration followed: it was not a state/official dinner but a private one. And it was not François Mitterrand who was offering this dinner but the foundation named for his wife, the Danielle Mitterrand Foundation. A private dinner, yes, but naturally the presidency was involved; thus the invitation had been routed through the embassy. The strange proposal began to attract my interest—to fly to Paris for a dinner; this would be no ordinary dinner, since it could not possibly belong to the typical exhibitionist nature of a dinner-on-the-whim in which some of our Nigerian tycoons indulge—“Abi k’a ti e sere lo si Paree, ka gbagbe awon olosi ti won npe ra won l’oselu?”45

More details came tumbling through. The dinner transcended privacy—it was secrecy itself. It would take place in the roof garden restaurant of the Théâtre National Populaire, in whose long-suffering bowels I had smothered la langue française in Joan Littlewood’s quixotic production of Conor Cruise O’Brien’s Les Anges Meurtriers in 1971. Then came the detail that should have preceded all others: Nelson Mandela was visiting Paris—one of his very earliest ports of call after his release—to consult privately with some French businesses and nongovernmental institutions. The Danielle Mitterrand Foundation was

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.