City of Spades by Colin MacInnes

visible at this distance. At the other, just behind us, was a soft-drink bar, with Coca-Cola advertisements and packets of assorted nuts, where teas and coffees were also being served. Among the square columns that held up the low roof were tables, some set in sombre alcoves. And between them a small floor where couples jived gently, turning continually like water-beetles making changing patterns on a pond.
    By the bar, I saw Mr Karl Marx Bo. ‘You’re taking time off from your studies?’ I asked him.
    ‘Man, even the greatest brains must occasionally relax.’
    ‘Please meet my friend Theodora Pace. Theodora, Mr Karl Marx Bo.’
    ‘Good early morning to you, lady. You like I find you a table? But the drinks is much more expensive when you sit.’
    He led us, without waiting for a reply, to a little gallery I hadn’t seen: up six steps, and overlooking the larger trough of the dancers and the tight-packed tables.
    ‘Theodora,’ I said, ‘is, like you, a student of social phenomena.’
    ‘Is that why you bring her to this interesting GI knock-shop?’
    ‘Is that what happens here, then?’
    ‘Everything happens here, lady. But mostly it is a spot where fine young American coloureds can destroy themselves with female white trash peddled to them by West Indians and by my fellow countrymen, who collect these women’s earnings and usually the GI’s pocket-book as well.’
    ‘Then why do you come here, Mr Bo?’ said Theodora.
    ‘Lady, it is a weakness, but serious individual as I am, I cannot always resist the lure of a little imitation joy.’
    ‘You found more joy in your own homeland?’
    ‘Oh, naturally. We Africans, you see, are not a people who deposit our days in a savings bank, like you do. Our notion is that the life is given us to be enjoyed.’
    Theodora fixed him firmly with her spectacles. ‘But one must build,’ she said. ‘To build a civilisation requires effort, sacrifice. If you find the English mournful, it is because we turn the easy joys into parliaments, and penicillin.’ I began to think Theodora had also been at the gin. ‘You will find that out,’ she continued, ‘when you put on shoes and come out of the easy jungle. The new African nations will have to learn to sing less, smile less, and work.’
    ‘Theodora, you’re being priggish, tactless and a bore.’
    ‘Is all right, Mr Pew. I have no objection to this lady’s open personal statements.’
    ‘Thank you, Karl Marx,’ said Theodora. ‘Well, then. If your countrymen find life so enjoyable at home, why do they flock here to England?’
    ‘Always these white people who ask us why we come here! Do we ever ask you, lady, why your people came to our country long ago?’
    ‘Don’t be so sensitive , Mr Bo. I’m not saying you oughtn’t to come here …’
    ‘Oh, thank you, thank you.’
    ‘… but only asking why you do.’
    ‘I came here to study, as you know.’
    ‘You, yes. But all the others. All the hundred thousand others, or whatever the figure is, because nobody knows.’
    ‘Your statistics are illogical, lady, if you speak of Africans. Most of that number are West Indians, and you know very well why they come here – it is to eat. Their little islands will not hold their bursting populations, and America, where they wish much more to travel, has denied them the open door. So they come here.’
    Theodora leant forward and tapped the table four times with her finger.
    ‘Please don’t be so elusive, Mr Bo,’ she said. ‘Do stick to the point. West Africa is prosperous, expanding, filled with opportunity. Why come here?’
    ‘To study: law, and nursing, and et cetera …’
    ‘Yes, yes, you said so.’
    ‘Or in show business. You like the wild illusion of our African drummers.’
    ‘Nonsense. How many Africans are there in show business in London? Fifty at most? And anyway, you know you can’t compete in that with American Negroes,or even with West Indians, because your music isn’t entertainment as we