Married But Available. B. Nyamnjoh

Lovemore insisted.

      “He doesn’t worry about me the same way mom does, but we are very fond of each other. I’ll call him when I’m settled,” Lilly Loveless would not be drawn.

      “So what would you like to do today? Whom do you want to see? Where would you want to be taken? I’m at your disposal.” He was admiring her curly blonde hair as he spoke, but not wanting to give that impression.

      Lilly Loveless was far smarter than he imagined. She noticed his eyes behind the goggles hover over her like butterflies in spring.

      “First, I’d like to call Desire, your colleague, to make a new appointment to see the studio she is renting out. I missed our appointment this morning. Then, perhaps we could go to the Archives, and to the university. Later in the day, I’d just want us to sit somewhere so I can take down the names of possible people to meet, interview, and so on. In short, I want all the help you can give, but I wouldn’t want to keep you from your work.”

      “It’s my pleasure to show you round,” he smiled. “After all, one good turn deserves another. Moreover, if I am to stay in your mom’s good books, that’s what I must do: take good care of her beloved daughter.”

      “Thanks. You’re most kind. Much appreciated.” She touched his arm. “A quick call to your colleague, then we can go.”

      Lilly Loveless took out her notebook for the number. “Hi Desire… It’s Lilly … Lilly Loveless… I’m sorry I missed our appointment this morning. Could we meet this afternoon? … Yes, 3pm is fine… He knows your place… OK. I’ll ask him to bring me there. … Thanks… Thank you very much… Bye.” Lilly Loveless looked up. “Appointment with Desire at 3pm,” she told Dr Wiseman Lovemore. “She says you could bring me where she lives. But you could just describe to me how to get there…”

      “No problem at all,” he interrupted. “How many times am I going to tell you that?” he appeared to take offence. “I’ll take you there, after the Archives.”

      She dropped her key at the reception and they walked out to where his car was parked.

      “I suggest we walk. The Archives are just a stone’s throw away.”

      “Perfect,” she smiled. “I love walking.”

      They arrived at the Puttkamerstown Archives, whose surrounding bushes of wild cassava, cocoyam, creepers and crawlers, rodents and reptiles, elephant grass and other plants immediately appealed to Lilly Loveless. She was introduced to the archivist, a friendly old man, weak with the burden of years, who described himself as “a willing horse” and “a forgotten beast of burden”.

      Stooped and dented by age, toil and the ingratitude of those who should know better, Prince Anointed was his real name. A pious smile gracing his wrinkled face, he proclaimed with inner pride: “I have worked here since the Muzungu man said farewell to Mimboland.”

      He gracefully guided them through the collection, the way he did every single visitor.

      “The entire weight of keeping the Archives alive rests on my feeble shoulders.”

      There was a sense of ‘these are my babies’ in the way he went through the stacks. Proud as he was of the place, and especially of the efforts he had personally put in to preserve the documents, there was a certain sadness and disappointment in his voice. He was not happy with the uncultured practices of the Ministry of Culture. One could see he was pregnant with disdain for ministerial indifference to the need to preserve history and ensure continuity by documenting the present with care.

      “The entire government is most impatient with documentary evidence,” he told them. “I don’t know how familiar you are with Mimboland,” he addressed Lilly Loveless, “but every now and again, you hear strange things about the archives of this or that ministry going up in flames,” he smiled in bitter cynicism.

      “Such mysterious fires always coincide with rumoured embezzlement of public funds. To destroy evidence, they don’t mind destroying institutional memory and our public service history. I know of a governor in Zintgraffstown whose first act in office was to clean out the archives for a big bonfire, allegedly because he needed the building so he could receive his mistresses without attracting his wife’s attention.” His look was grim.

      Lilly Loveless who could not tell if he was exaggerating or not, said: “A sort of spontaneous combustion of archives. Suspicious, isn’t it?”

      Prince Anointed nodded and went on: “All too often, you come across market women and little children selling their goods wrapped in important documents that should be here at the Archives,” he shook his silvery head with disappointment.

      “Sometimes, I’m so possessed by fury that I find myself begging for coins from passers-by to purchase these documents from the market women and hawking children for the Archives. I hate to see history killed by callous indifference.”

      He told them, as he would anyone who cared to listen, how he came to work at the Archives.

      “In the colonial days, Archives and Antiquity was a very important service. There was this Muzungulander anthropologist who took a look at me and said: ‘Young man, I want you to keep records.’ He anointed me an instant gardener of official documents, and would refer to me as ‘the anointed one,’ when he spoke with his colleagues. He entrusted me to his wife, a very nice lady, who was much, much younger then and who has stayed committed to the Archives to date. She taught me everything I know about classifying documents and keeping history alive.”

      The couple eventually retired to Muzunguland. Twenty years later, the lady, whose husband had by then passed away, came back to Mimboland for a conference and decided to stop by at the Archives.

      “Not only was she surprised to find out I was still there, she wept at the state in which she saw the Archives.”

      The roof was leaking, and rainwater and humidity had damaged lots of files. She turned to him, an angry look on her face. She needed an explanation.

      “Without funds flowing from the government, and with my salary discontinued, there is little even a devoted mother can do…”

      She understood. The theme of the conference she had just attended was all about that: The Missing State in Mimboland.

      The government did not seem to notice the Archives. Nor did it bother about an archivist enfeebled by age and misery forced to trek kilometres to work five days a week to classify and register documents, repair files, dust, kill bookworms, chase rats and white ants and cockroaches, and attend to researchers without electricity, water or usable toilets.

      He told her, “When I retired 10 years ago, there were at least nine employees. Now I am alone. As you can see some files are lying on the floor, some are not classified, most are at the mercy of rats, and every document is at risk because of the humidity and leaking roof. Even if the resources are there, this place needs at least twenty people to work effectively.”

      He came short of adding that her husband would turn in his grave if he knew the state of his beloved Archives today.

      “When the grand lady returned to Muzunguland, she raised funds and sent back the dehumidifier, the photocopier and the computer you see over there,” he gestured to machines covered in cobwebs and thick with dust.

      “The photocopier has been helpful, but repeated power cuts have crippled it.”

      Even the dehumidifier was temperamental, probably for the same reason. The lack of an uninterrupted power supply unit to control surges meant that he could hardly use the computer to ease his work. To make matters worse, a diskette got stuck in the computer.

      With a wry smile he concludes: “Mimboland is not interested in heritage and the preservation of records. Some concerned university professors have struggled to have me paid to no avail.” Then, turning to Lilly Loveless, he teased seriously, “It is thanks to the generosity of researchers like you, that the willing horse continues to assume its burdens.”

      Lilly Loveless