Christopher Mlalazi
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Election Day by Christopher Mlalazi
(Published by the Edinburgh Review August 2006)
He suddenly stood up and punched a fist into his left palm.
‘Damn!’ he cursed to the empty room. Then he called out. ‘Twenty!’
Twenty entered the room. He went down on his knees in front him. ‘Your Excellency,’ he said, his
head bowed over a potbelly straining under a buttoned suit jacket.
His Excellency pointed at a sofa. ‘Sit.’
Twenty sat on the edge of the sofa, and His Excellency sank back into the throne, which completely
dwarfed him. Nine decades and four months old, he was now a shrivelled old man with a stooped
back and teary bloodshot eyes. He was dressed in an immaculate white safari suit, and a leopard skin
cowboy hat.
He frowned, looking at Twenty’s right foot. It was tapping on the richly carpeted floor. Then he
smiled sweetly. ‘Relax Twenty.’
The foot immediately ceased its activity, and Twenty wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of
his hand, his eyes on his knees. ‘Things are bad outside your Excellency,’ he said in almost a whisper.
His Excellency jerked forward on his seat, a finger pointed at Twenty’s forehead. ‘Eh! Eh! Don’t
exaggerate!’
‘I am not exaggerating - !’
‘Do you know your problem my dear comrade?’ His Excellency asked, still leaning forward, his eyes
on the bald patch on the crown of Twenty’s head. The remaining fringe of Twenty’s hair was dyed
pitch black. ‘You panic very easily, just like a puppy. Woof woof behind a fence, and if you pretend
to pick up a stone—it flees away with its tail between its legs!’
Twenty looked up. ‘I am not panicking your Excellency,’ he replied, his voice now whining, and
wiped his forehead again with the back of his hand.
‘Then why are you sweating like that – are you defecating?’
Twenty wiped his forehead in a sneaky manner. ‘The election results are not so good so far, your
Excellency. The ballot counting is almost finished, there is only one ballot box left uncounted, and the
opposition is leading us by a very wide margin - three million votes so far, and the remaining ballot
box contains less than one thousand ballot papers. We have lost. Everything is crashing down on us.’
His Excellency threw his head back and cackled in laughter. ‘And you are now crapping in your
pants!’ He clapped his hands sharply, and cackled again. But there was no laughter in his blood shot
eyes. They glittered wetly. ‘Stop being paranoid.’ He wagged his finger at Twenty. ‘To use your
own words - it is you who is going to crash out of my elite team if you behave like an old woman
who has just dreamt of her departed ancestors calling her name. Anyway,’ he spread out his hands in
front of his chest, palms up, his shoulders hunched. ‘Why should you be frightened of the election
results? You are not the leader of this country.’ He paused for a moment, his eyebrows arched, his
hands still spread out towards Twenty. Then he dropped them on the arms of the throne and
continued. ‘Let me tell you something for nothing my dear personal advisor. This is not a children’s
game we are playing here. This is not ara-wuru-wuru- skoko. It is a game of true men. Men who
are larger than life. Did you read comic books when you were young?’
Twenty perked up. ‘Yes I read them your Excellency – Kid Colt, Spiderman, Superman, Tin Tin -’
His Excellency waved his hand at him. ‘No, not that shit. There is one that you have left out. My
favourite.’ A tiny smile flitted across his lips.
Twenty’s eyes rolled to the ceiling in thought, and he looked sideways at His Excellency. ‘You mean
Wonder Woman?’
‘No,’ His Excellency shook his head, firmly. ‘Not that prostitute.’ He stood up, raised his spindly
arms and flexed them, his face twisted in effort. ‘The Incredible Hulk!’
Twenty’s face broke into a wide smile. ‘I love him! He is my heroe!’
His Excellency’s teeth flashed in grim smile. ‘I am the new Incredible Hulk of this continent.’ He
roared like Hulk, grabbed a startled Twenty and threw him to the ground. Twenty immediately rose
up, fear on his face. His Excellency roared again, and threw him down for the second time. This time
Twenty did not try to rise up. His Excellency strutted around the room, roaring, and flexing his thin
arms. He went back to Twenty, who was still lying on the ground. Twenty cringed back in fear.
His Excellency offered him his hand, now laughing. ‘Get up comrade! You look so undignified on the
floor.’
Twenty took the offered hand, but used his own power to propel himself up. His Excellency sank
back into the throne, and Twenty sat on the edge of the sofa, his right foot tapping again.
‘That is the lesson Twenty. Never worry – nobody can defeat the Incredible Hulk, not even with the
assistance of the devil himself, or their fucking atomic bomb.’
‘But, your Excellency, the election results!’ said Twenty. ‘It is over for us.’
An irritated frown creased His Excellency’s brow. ‘I told you not to bother yourself about that. Have
you never heard of a soccer team leading six nil being beaten at the very last minute without even any
match fixing?’
‘I beg your pardon your Excellency, but this is not soccer –‘
‘Your scrotum!’
Twenty did not even blink. ‘But if we lose your Excellency, what is to become of us?’
‘Don’t have sleepless nights over it, otherwise your wife will give it to your hungry garden boy if you
are so frightened that you can’t get it up for her.’
‘If I may speak-’
‘Shut up!’
‘But your Excellency, you have not walked the streets of the cities for a very long time now. You do
not know what is happening out there. As your personal advisor, I know better. I live with them - ’
‘Twenty – what kid of a name is that anyway? Mmh? What was your father thinking of when he
gave you such a funny English name? Come to think of it, I have never heard of an English man with
such a name too. By the way, what kind of a job was your father doing when you were born? Do
you remember that far into colonialism?’
‘Yes I remember,’ said Twenty. ‘He was employed as a garden boy – a garden man – a gardener – in
the suburbs by a Mr Williams, your Excellency.’
‘Then Twenty must have been a very memorable number for him to be so excited by it as to give it to
his beloved son who is now personal advisor to a respected, and feared, let me not forget to mention
that, Head Of State. What could have given him an erection about this number twenty? Would you
know?’
‘I don’t know your Excellency.’
‘You never even asked him?’
‘Yes I never.’
‘How could you not ask him? Maybe he was insulting you!’ His Excellency smiled. ‘Let me try to
guess. He must have been given Twenty very sweet lemons by this Mr Williams as his salary for that
month when you were born. So I think your father left other names out. He should have called you
Twenty Sweet Lemons. T.S.L. Now let me give you some very free advise my personal advisor. You
have made a very wrong assessment of the povo, just like judging the sweetness of an orange by its
skin, or that of a woman by the shape of her lips.’
‘But this is different your Excellency -.’
‘My people will never desert me. Do you hear me T.S.L.? I am their life leader if you didn’t know,
chosen by the ancestral spirits themselves. That is why you always hear me refer to the povo as my
people, my country, not me their person, or their country – or even our country too. Simple as all
that.’
Twenty spread his hands in appeal. ‘But I am the one who is supposed to advise you your
Excellency. The election results -’
‘Rubbish! You don’t know anything about the election results! Why are you such a coward?’
‘How can I not be afraid when I know very well what is waiting for us outside? The people are going
to tear us to pieces.’
‘They will tear your grandmother to pieces!’
‘Your Excellency, I beg you to listen to me. Poverty is rife in the streets, the people are hungry, and
very angry!’
His Excellency suddenly stood up, went to Twenty, and grabbed his shirt collar with both of his
hands. Then he hissed into his face ‘How can they not be disillusioned when you have US$500m in
your private Swiss Account, and I have one billion pounds? How can they not be angry when I have a
sprawling coffee plantation in South America, limousines in every capital city in Europe, a castle in
Belgium, a pleasure boat in the Indian Ocean, a private jet, a diamond mine in South Africa amongst
my many international assets, and inflation here is at the ceiling? That is what you want to hear isn’t
it?’ He released Twenty’s shirt collar, and wagged a finger at his face. ‘If you run away my dear
boy, you won’t have far to run, because the people of this country, with the assistance of the world’s
robo-police of course, will hunt you down and once they catch you, you will learn not to be a dull
embezzler.’ He suddenly smiled, a charming smile, stooped and patted Twenty’s shoulder, his face
close to his. ‘Calm down Twenty. Calm down. I am still around. I will take care of you my dear
boy. Haven’t I done so these past years we have been working together? I even made you what you
are today!’
Twenty rearranged his shirt collar. ‘Yes you did, but –’
‘Now get out of my sight!’
‘Your Excellency -!
‘I said get out!’ His Excellency’s hand dipped into his inside jacket pocket, and it came out holding a
tiny silver pistol. Twenty jumped up from the sofa and scooted out of the room. The door closed
softly.
His Excellency returned the pistol into his jacket pocket, and blew his nose at the carpet. Wiping his
nose with his fingers, he went to the throne and plopped into it. He sat back, softly stroking his
cleanly shaven chin in deep thought. Then he picked up a telephone on a side table, dialled, and spoke
into it.
‘Twenty?’ He listened. ‘I want to go to the back garden for some fresh air. Get the army ready, and
two gunships in the air. Bring a vest for me as well. Let’s meet in the kitchen right now.’
He stood up, took a walking stick that leaned against the throne and walked out of the room, balancing
heavily on it.
***
Six members of the Presidential Guard, all armed with submachine guns, lined the corridor, three on
either side. They snapped into attention when His Excellency appeared from the inner sanctum door.
He walked between them, headed towards the door of the kitchen, which was the second on the
right. The third door on the left opened, and the First Lady also walked into the corridor, carrying
two brown leather suitcases. At sixty years of age, she was slim-bodied, and still retained signs of her
maiden beauty that had made her win a University beauty pageant at age nineteen, from where his
Excellency had snapped her up.
‘Modi,’ His Excellency said, coming to a stop. ‘Why all these bags my dear? Are you visiting
somewhere? I don’t remember you telling me about it.’
‘Let’s go and talk in there,’ Modi replied in a grim voice, nodding towards the half-open door of the
inner sanctum.
They stood inside it, the door closed, and Modi’s suitcases on either side of her.
‘The jet is waiting at the airport,’ she whispered in a hoarse voice. ‘I have packed everything we shall
need. Let us go now before they come and get us!’
‘Who get us? I don’t understand dear,’ His Excellency said in a calm voice.
‘Have you heard the results?’ Modi’s eyes were opened wide in fright.
His Excellency laid his left hand, with the right one on top if it, on the head of his walking stick and
regarded Modi with a slightly furrowed brow. ‘The results of what dear?’
‘The election results!’
His Excellency waved a hand airily at her. ‘O that. What of them?’
‘They are winning!’
‘Who is winning?’
‘The opposition!’
‘What are they winning?’
‘The elections of course! Let us leave right now whilst there is still time! O God I am so frightened!’
His Excellency laid a hand on her arm. ‘Relax my dear.’ He pointed at a sofa. ‘Sit down.’
‘I am not sitting down! Let us go!’
His Excellency blinked his eyes at her. ‘Go where darling?’
‘Pease stop asking silly questions! You know very well what I mean. We are going to the coffee
plantation in South America, or the castle in Belgium. There we shall be safe.’
‘Modi, I told you to relax. Relax. Sit down. Should I order a glass of water for you?’
‘I don’t want it!’
His Excellency shrugged his shoulders. ‘So be it.’ He sat down on the arm of the sofa.
Modi stood before him. ‘If you don’t want to come, I am taking the children and going without you!’
His Excellency looked up at her. ‘You panic easily my dear. Everything is under control. I have just
been telling that fool Twenty the very same thing. The final election results have not yet been
announced, and everybody around me is already peeing in their trousers. What kind of people am I
surrounded with. Surely they don’t all wear napkins?’
‘But the opposition is leading by a very wide margin. We have lost.’
‘Modi, when I married you, I told you that I wanted a wife with nerves of steel, not a woman with
the heart of a pigeon that beats a thousand times in a minute.’ He stood up, went to the phone, picked
it up and dialled. ‘Twenty?’ he said into it. ‘Can you please come in?’ He placed the phone down.
Then he walked to the throne and sat down. He threw his right leg of over the left one, his hands laid
on his lap, the fingers touching in a steeple, and his eye fixed on the door meditatively. Modi’s eyes
were on him, her face sulking.
The door opened softly. Twenty walked in.
‘Help my wife carry her bags back to her chambers.’ His Excellency crisply ordered him. ‘Thank
you.’
Twenty looked at him. ‘Your Excellency –‘
‘Don’t make noise you cunt! Leave, both of you!’
***
Twenty and Modi stood before the door of her chambers. Twenty held her suitcases in either hand.
‘Can’t you convince him that there is no longer any hope now?’ Modi asked.
Twenty placed the suitcases on the floor and looked up at her. She was taller than him. The bald
patch on his head glistened with sweat. ‘I tried hard this morning ma’am, but he does not want to
listen to me.’
‘But you are his personal advisor!’
‘Yes I am, but today he is turning a deaf ear to my advice. He is even giving me advice instead.’
‘Do you think this might have affected his mind?’ she whispered. ‘I have never known him like this,
and you know he is no longer a young man now.’
‘I have never known him like this too,’ Twenty said. ‘He has always been a shrewd and calculating
man who does not take any unnecessary risks, especially where his life is concerned, but now – I don’
t know. I just don’t know.’
‘Maybe he has become disorientated and he thinks it’s his party that is leading the polls.’
‘Maybe. He is behaving so strangely today. Can you imagine if we lose? I don’t even want to think
about it. I can already see the povo pouring into state house – no!’ he shook his head, as if to shake
off a nightmare.
‘All because my husband does not want to face reality,’ Modi said. ‘What can I do to convince him
we have to run whilst there is still time, and the airports are still open to us?’
‘You know your husband’s temper too well when he is crossed ma’am,’ Twenty said. ‘A few
minutes back he nearly shot me.’
Tears sprang into Modi’s eyes. She opened the bedroom door, took the suitcases and went inside.
The door closed as Twenty walked away from it along the corridor.
***
His Excellency, sitting on the throne, picked up the phone from the side table and dialled.
‘Twenty? Is the vote counting finished? Good. I don’t want to hear the final results. Tell Amon to
announce them to the people on the national electronic media. In the meantime, I will be in the
bathroom preparing myself for the people, since, to use your words, they now want my blood.’ He
banged the phone down. There was a determined look on his old face. He stood up from the throne,
took his walking stick, and walked towards the door, his body erect.
***
Modi sat on the bed in her bedroom, her eyes fixed on a big screen colour television on a table before
her. On it Amon, the National Vote Director, stood behind a podium in the vote counting room. A
battery of TV cameras and microphones were arrayed before him. In his hand he held a single sheet
of paper. He cleared his throat, and spoke.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. Now for the moment we have all been waiting for. The final
results of the vote counting.’ Modi sighed deeply. Her heart was pounding in her chest. ‘Ladies and
gentlemen, the impossible has happened tonight. I am sure the opposition are already celebrating
wherever they are right now, and their leader is preparing to go to State house.’
Modi placed her right hand over her heart. It was now thudding.
‘The opposition has done the impossible.’
Modi bit her lower lip, and the TV screen swum as tears filled her eyes.
‘They have lost the election when at one time they were leading by three million votes, and there was
only one ballot box left uncounted. Thank you ladies and gentleman.’
Modi toppled back on the bed in a faint.
The TV droned on. ‘These were very free and fair elections, so the international observers have
declared…’
(Published by the Edinburgh Review August 2006)
He suddenly stood up and punched a fist into his left palm.
‘Damn!’ he cursed to the empty room. Then he called out. ‘Twenty!’
Twenty entered the room. He went down on his knees in front him. ‘Your Excellency,’ he said, his
head bowed over a potbelly straining under a buttoned suit jacket.
His Excellency pointed at a sofa. ‘Sit.’
Twenty sat on the edge of the sofa, and His Excellency sank back into the throne, which completely
dwarfed him. Nine decades and four months old, he was now a shrivelled old man with a stooped
back and teary bloodshot eyes. He was dressed in an immaculate white safari suit, and a leopard skin
cowboy hat.
He frowned, looking at Twenty’s right foot. It was tapping on the richly carpeted floor. Then he
smiled sweetly. ‘Relax Twenty.’
The foot immediately ceased its activity, and Twenty wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of
his hand, his eyes on his knees. ‘Things are bad outside your Excellency,’ he said in almost a whisper.
His Excellency jerked forward on his seat, a finger pointed at Twenty’s forehead. ‘Eh! Eh! Don’t
exaggerate!’
‘I am not exaggerating - !’
‘Do you know your problem my dear comrade?’ His Excellency asked, still leaning forward, his eyes
on the bald patch on the crown of Twenty’s head. The remaining fringe of Twenty’s hair was dyed
pitch black. ‘You panic very easily, just like a puppy. Woof woof behind a fence, and if you pretend
to pick up a stone—it flees away with its tail between its legs!’
Twenty looked up. ‘I am not panicking your Excellency,’ he replied, his voice now whining, and
wiped his forehead again with the back of his hand.
‘Then why are you sweating like that – are you defecating?’
Twenty wiped his forehead in a sneaky manner. ‘The election results are not so good so far, your
Excellency. The ballot counting is almost finished, there is only one ballot box left uncounted, and the
opposition is leading us by a very wide margin - three million votes so far, and the remaining ballot
box contains less than one thousand ballot papers. We have lost. Everything is crashing down on us.’
His Excellency threw his head back and cackled in laughter. ‘And you are now crapping in your
pants!’ He clapped his hands sharply, and cackled again. But there was no laughter in his blood shot
eyes. They glittered wetly. ‘Stop being paranoid.’ He wagged his finger at Twenty. ‘To use your
own words - it is you who is going to crash out of my elite team if you behave like an old woman
who has just dreamt of her departed ancestors calling her name. Anyway,’ he spread out his hands in
front of his chest, palms up, his shoulders hunched. ‘Why should you be frightened of the election
results? You are not the leader of this country.’ He paused for a moment, his eyebrows arched, his
hands still spread out towards Twenty. Then he dropped them on the arms of the throne and
continued. ‘Let me tell you something for nothing my dear personal advisor. This is not a children’s
game we are playing here. This is not ara-wuru-wuru- skoko. It is a game of true men. Men who
are larger than life. Did you read comic books when you were young?’
Twenty perked up. ‘Yes I read them your Excellency – Kid Colt, Spiderman, Superman, Tin Tin -’
His Excellency waved his hand at him. ‘No, not that shit. There is one that you have left out. My
favourite.’ A tiny smile flitted across his lips.
Twenty’s eyes rolled to the ceiling in thought, and he looked sideways at His Excellency. ‘You mean
Wonder Woman?’
‘No,’ His Excellency shook his head, firmly. ‘Not that prostitute.’ He stood up, raised his spindly
arms and flexed them, his face twisted in effort. ‘The Incredible Hulk!’
Twenty’s face broke into a wide smile. ‘I love him! He is my heroe!’
His Excellency’s teeth flashed in grim smile. ‘I am the new Incredible Hulk of this continent.’ He
roared like Hulk, grabbed a startled Twenty and threw him to the ground. Twenty immediately rose
up, fear on his face. His Excellency roared again, and threw him down for the second time. This time
Twenty did not try to rise up. His Excellency strutted around the room, roaring, and flexing his thin
arms. He went back to Twenty, who was still lying on the ground. Twenty cringed back in fear.
His Excellency offered him his hand, now laughing. ‘Get up comrade! You look so undignified on the
floor.’
Twenty took the offered hand, but used his own power to propel himself up. His Excellency sank
back into the throne, and Twenty sat on the edge of the sofa, his right foot tapping again.
‘That is the lesson Twenty. Never worry – nobody can defeat the Incredible Hulk, not even with the
assistance of the devil himself, or their fucking atomic bomb.’
‘But, your Excellency, the election results!’ said Twenty. ‘It is over for us.’
An irritated frown creased His Excellency’s brow. ‘I told you not to bother yourself about that. Have
you never heard of a soccer team leading six nil being beaten at the very last minute without even any
match fixing?’
‘I beg your pardon your Excellency, but this is not soccer –‘
‘Your scrotum!’
Twenty did not even blink. ‘But if we lose your Excellency, what is to become of us?’
‘Don’t have sleepless nights over it, otherwise your wife will give it to your hungry garden boy if you
are so frightened that you can’t get it up for her.’
‘If I may speak-’
‘Shut up!’
‘But your Excellency, you have not walked the streets of the cities for a very long time now. You do
not know what is happening out there. As your personal advisor, I know better. I live with them - ’
‘Twenty – what kid of a name is that anyway? Mmh? What was your father thinking of when he
gave you such a funny English name? Come to think of it, I have never heard of an English man with
such a name too. By the way, what kind of a job was your father doing when you were born? Do
you remember that far into colonialism?’
‘Yes I remember,’ said Twenty. ‘He was employed as a garden boy – a garden man – a gardener – in
the suburbs by a Mr Williams, your Excellency.’
‘Then Twenty must have been a very memorable number for him to be so excited by it as to give it to
his beloved son who is now personal advisor to a respected, and feared, let me not forget to mention
that, Head Of State. What could have given him an erection about this number twenty? Would you
know?’
‘I don’t know your Excellency.’
‘You never even asked him?’
‘Yes I never.’
‘How could you not ask him? Maybe he was insulting you!’ His Excellency smiled. ‘Let me try to
guess. He must have been given Twenty very sweet lemons by this Mr Williams as his salary for that
month when you were born. So I think your father left other names out. He should have called you
Twenty Sweet Lemons. T.S.L. Now let me give you some very free advise my personal advisor. You
have made a very wrong assessment of the povo, just like judging the sweetness of an orange by its
skin, or that of a woman by the shape of her lips.’
‘But this is different your Excellency -.’
‘My people will never desert me. Do you hear me T.S.L.? I am their life leader if you didn’t know,
chosen by the ancestral spirits themselves. That is why you always hear me refer to the povo as my
people, my country, not me their person, or their country – or even our country too. Simple as all
that.’
Twenty spread his hands in appeal. ‘But I am the one who is supposed to advise you your
Excellency. The election results -’
‘Rubbish! You don’t know anything about the election results! Why are you such a coward?’
‘How can I not be afraid when I know very well what is waiting for us outside? The people are going
to tear us to pieces.’
‘They will tear your grandmother to pieces!’
‘Your Excellency, I beg you to listen to me. Poverty is rife in the streets, the people are hungry, and
very angry!’
His Excellency suddenly stood up, went to Twenty, and grabbed his shirt collar with both of his
hands. Then he hissed into his face ‘How can they not be disillusioned when you have US$500m in
your private Swiss Account, and I have one billion pounds? How can they not be angry when I have a
sprawling coffee plantation in South America, limousines in every capital city in Europe, a castle in
Belgium, a pleasure boat in the Indian Ocean, a private jet, a diamond mine in South Africa amongst
my many international assets, and inflation here is at the ceiling? That is what you want to hear isn’t
it?’ He released Twenty’s shirt collar, and wagged a finger at his face. ‘If you run away my dear
boy, you won’t have far to run, because the people of this country, with the assistance of the world’s
robo-police of course, will hunt you down and once they catch you, you will learn not to be a dull
embezzler.’ He suddenly smiled, a charming smile, stooped and patted Twenty’s shoulder, his face
close to his. ‘Calm down Twenty. Calm down. I am still around. I will take care of you my dear
boy. Haven’t I done so these past years we have been working together? I even made you what you
are today!’
Twenty rearranged his shirt collar. ‘Yes you did, but –’
‘Now get out of my sight!’
‘Your Excellency -!
‘I said get out!’ His Excellency’s hand dipped into his inside jacket pocket, and it came out holding a
tiny silver pistol. Twenty jumped up from the sofa and scooted out of the room. The door closed
softly.
His Excellency returned the pistol into his jacket pocket, and blew his nose at the carpet. Wiping his
nose with his fingers, he went to the throne and plopped into it. He sat back, softly stroking his
cleanly shaven chin in deep thought. Then he picked up a telephone on a side table, dialled, and spoke
into it.
‘Twenty?’ He listened. ‘I want to go to the back garden for some fresh air. Get the army ready, and
two gunships in the air. Bring a vest for me as well. Let’s meet in the kitchen right now.’
He stood up, took a walking stick that leaned against the throne and walked out of the room, balancing
heavily on it.
***
Six members of the Presidential Guard, all armed with submachine guns, lined the corridor, three on
either side. They snapped into attention when His Excellency appeared from the inner sanctum door.
He walked between them, headed towards the door of the kitchen, which was the second on the
right. The third door on the left opened, and the First Lady also walked into the corridor, carrying
two brown leather suitcases. At sixty years of age, she was slim-bodied, and still retained signs of her
maiden beauty that had made her win a University beauty pageant at age nineteen, from where his
Excellency had snapped her up.
‘Modi,’ His Excellency said, coming to a stop. ‘Why all these bags my dear? Are you visiting
somewhere? I don’t remember you telling me about it.’
‘Let’s go and talk in there,’ Modi replied in a grim voice, nodding towards the half-open door of the
inner sanctum.
They stood inside it, the door closed, and Modi’s suitcases on either side of her.
‘The jet is waiting at the airport,’ she whispered in a hoarse voice. ‘I have packed everything we shall
need. Let us go now before they come and get us!’
‘Who get us? I don’t understand dear,’ His Excellency said in a calm voice.
‘Have you heard the results?’ Modi’s eyes were opened wide in fright.
His Excellency laid his left hand, with the right one on top if it, on the head of his walking stick and
regarded Modi with a slightly furrowed brow. ‘The results of what dear?’
‘The election results!’
His Excellency waved a hand airily at her. ‘O that. What of them?’
‘They are winning!’
‘Who is winning?’
‘The opposition!’
‘What are they winning?’
‘The elections of course! Let us leave right now whilst there is still time! O God I am so frightened!’
His Excellency laid a hand on her arm. ‘Relax my dear.’ He pointed at a sofa. ‘Sit down.’
‘I am not sitting down! Let us go!’
His Excellency blinked his eyes at her. ‘Go where darling?’
‘Pease stop asking silly questions! You know very well what I mean. We are going to the coffee
plantation in South America, or the castle in Belgium. There we shall be safe.’
‘Modi, I told you to relax. Relax. Sit down. Should I order a glass of water for you?’
‘I don’t want it!’
His Excellency shrugged his shoulders. ‘So be it.’ He sat down on the arm of the sofa.
Modi stood before him. ‘If you don’t want to come, I am taking the children and going without you!’
His Excellency looked up at her. ‘You panic easily my dear. Everything is under control. I have just
been telling that fool Twenty the very same thing. The final election results have not yet been
announced, and everybody around me is already peeing in their trousers. What kind of people am I
surrounded with. Surely they don’t all wear napkins?’
‘But the opposition is leading by a very wide margin. We have lost.’
‘Modi, when I married you, I told you that I wanted a wife with nerves of steel, not a woman with
the heart of a pigeon that beats a thousand times in a minute.’ He stood up, went to the phone, picked
it up and dialled. ‘Twenty?’ he said into it. ‘Can you please come in?’ He placed the phone down.
Then he walked to the throne and sat down. He threw his right leg of over the left one, his hands laid
on his lap, the fingers touching in a steeple, and his eye fixed on the door meditatively. Modi’s eyes
were on him, her face sulking.
The door opened softly. Twenty walked in.
‘Help my wife carry her bags back to her chambers.’ His Excellency crisply ordered him. ‘Thank
you.’
Twenty looked at him. ‘Your Excellency –‘
‘Don’t make noise you cunt! Leave, both of you!’
***
Twenty and Modi stood before the door of her chambers. Twenty held her suitcases in either hand.
‘Can’t you convince him that there is no longer any hope now?’ Modi asked.
Twenty placed the suitcases on the floor and looked up at her. She was taller than him. The bald
patch on his head glistened with sweat. ‘I tried hard this morning ma’am, but he does not want to
listen to me.’
‘But you are his personal advisor!’
‘Yes I am, but today he is turning a deaf ear to my advice. He is even giving me advice instead.’
‘Do you think this might have affected his mind?’ she whispered. ‘I have never known him like this,
and you know he is no longer a young man now.’
‘I have never known him like this too,’ Twenty said. ‘He has always been a shrewd and calculating
man who does not take any unnecessary risks, especially where his life is concerned, but now – I don’
t know. I just don’t know.’
‘Maybe he has become disorientated and he thinks it’s his party that is leading the polls.’
‘Maybe. He is behaving so strangely today. Can you imagine if we lose? I don’t even want to think
about it. I can already see the povo pouring into state house – no!’ he shook his head, as if to shake
off a nightmare.
‘All because my husband does not want to face reality,’ Modi said. ‘What can I do to convince him
we have to run whilst there is still time, and the airports are still open to us?’
‘You know your husband’s temper too well when he is crossed ma’am,’ Twenty said. ‘A few
minutes back he nearly shot me.’
Tears sprang into Modi’s eyes. She opened the bedroom door, took the suitcases and went inside.
The door closed as Twenty walked away from it along the corridor.
***
His Excellency, sitting on the throne, picked up the phone from the side table and dialled.
‘Twenty? Is the vote counting finished? Good. I don’t want to hear the final results. Tell Amon to
announce them to the people on the national electronic media. In the meantime, I will be in the
bathroom preparing myself for the people, since, to use your words, they now want my blood.’ He
banged the phone down. There was a determined look on his old face. He stood up from the throne,
took his walking stick, and walked towards the door, his body erect.
***
Modi sat on the bed in her bedroom, her eyes fixed on a big screen colour television on a table before
her. On it Amon, the National Vote Director, stood behind a podium in the vote counting room. A
battery of TV cameras and microphones were arrayed before him. In his hand he held a single sheet
of paper. He cleared his throat, and spoke.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. Now for the moment we have all been waiting for. The final
results of the vote counting.’ Modi sighed deeply. Her heart was pounding in her chest. ‘Ladies and
gentlemen, the impossible has happened tonight. I am sure the opposition are already celebrating
wherever they are right now, and their leader is preparing to go to State house.’
Modi placed her right hand over her heart. It was now thudding.
‘The opposition has done the impossible.’
Modi bit her lower lip, and the TV screen swum as tears filled her eyes.
‘They have lost the election when at one time they were leading by three million votes, and there was
only one ballot box left uncounted. Thank you ladies and gentleman.’
Modi toppled back on the bed in a faint.
The TV droned on. ‘These were very free and fair elections, so the international observers have
declared…’