On the stove the stew was boiling and Samuel added the soft vegetables to it. He wiped the counter, threw the peelings into a bucket for the chickens, put the seeds aside so that he could plant them again, and washed the knife and board. In the sink one of the worms had managed to crawl to the far end and was now attempting to climb up the side. Samuel splashed some water in its direction, watching it curl up and wash away towards the plug hole where the others had already been lost. Now the man was at the doorway, dressed in clothes that Samuel had left for him. The jersey was too short, as were the trousers. “Do you want to eat?” Samuel asked. The man looked back blankly. Samuel pointed at his stomach, his mouth, the pot on the stove. “Are you hungry?” The man smiled. He nodded. Samuel gestured at the table and chair. Then he went into the living area, returning a moment later with a three-legged stool for himself. It was speckled with paint stains and the long-ago paths of woodworm. He took a trivet from the counter and placed it in the centre of the table, gloved his hands in a potholder, and carried the stew to the trivet. He paused. He had only one plate. He used it for all his meals; there had never before been a need for another. Though, in truth, there was one more: a giltedged cake plate that was on display in the living room despite its chips and cracks. It had come to him in a box of charity items. When he had lifted it out from amongst the bric-a-brac, he had imagined it once having had a place on the dining room table of the country’s first president – whose mansion boasted a hall with a table that could accommodate one hundred guests at a time, all seated under a cascade of glistening crystal chandeliers. “This is what Africa can be! This is what Africa is!” had been the president’s pronouncement, sending out photos for the newspapers to publish, and printing leaflets that were carried through the slums for dispersion to the poor and illiterate. “We are not lost without the colonisers. Look at what we are in our independence!” -paratassi-> frasi semplici, lingua parlata,
