From his shadow to his darkness. Story of a downfall

For many years, it had become a strong habit to converse on him in our family life. In fact, my job was like a second family and a dangerous concubine for Caroline. That’s why most of the time, she acted like a possessive and mad rival, always trying to know her enemy for a better demolition. So it was just normal that her belief on Mister Minister and my workplace was permanently negative. Mister Agbwala, who was a praiseworthy man, a role model for the society, had a very different image in my wife’s eyes. For her, he was a bad influence to me; he had a double personality and hidden face that will be pulled out one day with destructive consequences for people close to him like me. Even if I had never agreed with most of her opinions towards my boss and my workplace, her hatred was understandable for me. It was just a manifestation of her frustration, regarding the number of nights she slept alone and the number of times I left her because of a phone call from the office. She was deplorable.

The harshest part for her was the passion I had for my job and the power of constant motivation, adding to the fact that she had never succeeded to influence my view on my Godfather even after her perseverance. Apart from my invariable admiration, I started feeling a deep commiseration for him after all the attack he endured these last months. I was sad that despite his good actions, people still hated him. But most of the time, he was able to deal with it that even when the revelation of the Herald came out; he didn’t look much concerned about it. He surely thought it was “fake news” like the multiple ones he had been facing before. But this one seemed to be true. That was surely why for three weeks, he was particularly absorbed, sad and nervous, he wasn’t the same joyful and cheerful man I knew. Sometimes, I will find him sunk into deep thinking, so absorbed that he will not even notice my presence for long minutes. The worst was that he had a pile of newspapers treating this subject permanently on his table. I couldn’t be in his shoes but for me, reading all these rumor mongers wasn’t a good thing. He better stay focused on his work and has confidence in his lawyer and justice. I used to ask myself if he was feeling guilty of something, or if he had some key information, we did not take into account. We, his supporters, continuously showed him love and support.

The day after, despite my unusual punctuality and the tranquility, I was hoping at the beginning of the day, huge was my surprise to see a long queue of people waiting for my arrival, expecting an appointment for most of them. With no hesitation, my instructions to Jasmine, my secretary, were clear; no appointment until further notice. I had much work to do, and I focused my entire planning on that, even though the desperation I saw on many faces pained me. But I had no choice. But three hours later, a bigger duty sanctioned my dedication to work and reminded me that there was no higher obligation during my working hours: a phone call from Mister Minister completely changed my scheduling and made me postpone the termination of my work. He asked me to meet him at his office as soon as possible. Like every single time he requested my presence, it sank me into prayers and fears; the short distance between our offices turned like the way to the execution room.

When I entered his office, a pleasant silhouette of an unknown lady who was facing him welcomed me. As I hadn’t seen her face yet, I was speculating on her beauty, thinking of how gorgeous she could be. Then she turned her body to my direction, and I finally discovered her charming visage and her pretty lips. She looked shy and bent down her head while greeting me. The minister introduced me to her before instructing me to look for her an office where she could work. He stated that she will start as an intern, “then we will see,” he said before they exchanged a candid smile. Their unique and remarkable complicity made me conclude that they were probably from the same family even though some little doubting though forced me to focus on this subject for some long minutes. Since all these rumors about the cheating habits of mister Agbwala, it had become very difficult not to suspect him of bad intentions every time an unknown lady was around.

Her name was Caroline… This coincidence provoked a strange attraction in me; I was now treating her more kindly. She was stunning. While working with her, I noticed again her nice derriere. Some minutes later, we were discussing in a friendly atmosphere as two old colleagues; she was less reserved. I succeeded to make her open up. That’s how she detailed me her school background; she had a master’s degree in Bilingual Letters and Translation. It really impressed me. She looked too young to have attained such an academic level. Shortly after, we arrived at the office I chose for her at the Operational Department. I presented her to the chief of the department and left him some instructions. Christian, as they called him, couldn’t hide his feelings; he was shocked to see such a beautiful lady. I had never seen him that excited to welcome a newcomer before. The funniest thing was that the lady did not even notice the impact she had on him as she was seriously concentrated to appear sympathetic in this unknown universe she was brought into. After we exchanged friendly smiles, I left her and promised myself to keep my eyes on her knowing all the dangerous male of this office.

In the afternoon, as traditionally every third Wednesday of the month, Mister Minister invited his closest collaborators for a dinner. Contrary to our past consideration of this tradition, as many of us usually thought it was just a waste of money and time, this time around, we felt the necessity of it and took it as a good opportunity to have a good time and momentarily run away from the tension occurring in the office during that period. The place chosen by mister minister was the restaurant, “Monte Carle,” the best restaurant in the city, known for its amazing cuisine and the reputation of its chef, but very expensive for average people in the country. The cheapest plate there cost equivalent as food allowance for over three days for most families in the capital city. But that was the choice of Mister Minister. Who could blame him? He had the means, and sometimes, we all needed to enjoy life as far as we find time and money for.

When we arrived there, they welcomed us like kings by the restaurant staff. They were so excited to receive such high personalities, particularly the legendary Mister Agbwala. He was also cool with them, really at ease, calling everybody by their name like they were longtime friends. The female workers of the restaurant were more agitated than their male colleagues; it couldn’t be otherwise, seeing all these rich and powerful men were turning them into a trance. They were smiling for no reasons, displaying an eccentric cordiality. Many of them could easily offer their body to a man even if he was married just because of money; one has to be naïve to think dating this kind of girl will be a sincere love affair. But taking into consideration the poverty in our country, their salary and the harsh living conditions in the capital city, were they blameful?

Mister Minister requested the most expensive Champagne and some costly wine bottles. I was thrilled to see him in that humor, smiling, chilling, and joking. It was a memorable dinner, a break in a tense period we were facing.

Chapter 2

“Why all this hate? Why all this jealousy? Why Paul?”

The disenchantment full inside this passionate tirade had me imprisoned in a unique ambiguity at the beginning of a day I was expecting to be sunny and joyful. It got me to sink inside a huge confusion and left me with a difficult decision to make: which attitude should I have knowing that the author of this question was eventually talking alone even though he addressed me expressively and directly? I was facing a high risk of an incorrect judgment, taking the responsibility to respond could even worsen the psychological condition of this man already full of disappointment. Adding to the fact that consoling and reassuring people was not my biggest qualities, it was hard to pretend to have the solution to calm this kind of metabolism possessed by violent doubts. So I turned dumb, my mouth paralyzed, static like one of those Madame tusseauds celebrity’s statues. I was once again displaying my lack of valor, but what else could I do; the level of his disillusion was too high!

“Did you read this bullshit?” He added while pointing me to a newspaper, the damned edition which had surely suffered a lot on his hands when he was expressing his anger towards the editors. The scene made me remember a childhood memory; his displeasure was as high as the disappointment of my mother whenever she found out that the home duty he assigned to me in the morning before leaving the house wasn’t complete upon her arrival after her harsh job activities.

I replied to him with silence once more, and it had become very uncomfortable. The vigor of this last question was forcing me to give an answer even if it was a lame one, plus his depressed attitude after my voiceless reply got me into a strange shame. The reaction became a necessity; he was, therefore, displaying a pitiful sadness that made me feel as if I was deliberately refusing to console him. I was now willing to say something, but what could I say? I didn’t even read that article. I barely read tabloid and generally, every opposition’s media channel. In fact, for me, reading those newspapers was masochistic and useless, just a big waste of time. Like many civil servants and workers in public administration, knowing the hate that they exhibited towards the government and the establishment, I had always viewed those media as horrible vultures.

“No sir, I hadn’t read it yet,” I said with much delicacy. After my answer, his body language displayed dissatisfaction that I confusedly took as a deception towards my obvious lack of interest for the press. But in fact, he was just implicitly expressing the loneliness he felt, now that he could not count on sincere support from me. I really felt bad, his sadness became mine, my antipathy towards these people turned me into an incompetent and an unskilled advisor, and I couldn’t blame the ignorance. I was now regretting not to have read that article and to have always treated these media like a virus to avoid. Even though I disliked those tabloids, consulting them from time to time was also supposed to be a part of my professional duties, so I was reproachful. A profound sorrow touched me during the long second of silence that took place later on. Coming to see him early in the morning was finally not a good idea, I was now blaming my politeness, my intentions were to greet him and wish him a good day. But, it would have been preferable for me to stay in my office, I would have avoided this incongruous situation. The Herald’s article put him in a terrible mood; it was awful to witness!

“Those people are accusing me of any bad things, calling me names, can you imagine that in one article, they said that I was the joker of the president?” He said with a mix of irritation and discontent on his face. His detestation to that tabloid was furious; he was cursing the entire Herald organization, wishing hell for every single person working for that newspaper, from its general manager to its distributors.

“That’s terrible sir,” I reacted timorously after his complaints. My reply could have been better; it sounded like a lame effort to show my commiseration and displayed my deficient vocabulary when it comes to word of compassion; but after being soundless during his previous cries, I needed to say something to prove my concern and end the uncomfortable silence that was occurring. However, I was still hoping to console him a little, but the unhappiness on his face grew even bigger, he was now captive into darkness and sunk into obscure resentment.

“The worst is that they pretend that the charity event was nothing more than useless propaganda and that I was using these poor populations for my political ambitions. For them, I did nothing to change their situation, so what did they ever do for these Waloua people? Have they ever helped them?” He said while shaking his head in piteous distress. I was witnessing a hurting picture presenting a betrayed man, full of love for people but permanently subject to hate and jealousy. “Can’t you people see he is doing all he can for this country?” I said while crying in my heart.

He was then flaunting the distress of a child abandoned in the street by his careless parents and obliged to push passers-by to look at him pitifully while displaying his goodness as moral caution and proof the injustice he was enduring. Every human has weaknesses and limitations, among them, the ones we all shared our feelings and death, but the most powerful one will always be popular, no one would ever claim to dictate people’s sincere opinions until they reach a unanimity. Even God has haters, so who is the human being who can be loved by everybody? Mister Agbwala was a human like all of us, even though he was unique and great in our eyes, he had to accept to be criticize like everybody on this earth even if in my point of view those criticisms were abusive. As a close witness of his political venture since many years, I thought he was strong enough to face hate and jealousy, but I had before my eyes, this morning, the demonstration that nobody can be strong enough against these nuisances. I was deeply sorry for him; it was painful to stay powerless and condemned to only wish him to be continuing his mission and not abandon.

After using ten minutes to express his anger, suddenly, he began arranging his office before putting the controversial edition of the Herald that turned him moody in his cupboard. This unexpected behavior pleased me, it gave me the impression that he had turned this page and embraced the rest of the day in a better way. I was then hoping that he had definitely considered those media as enemies to stay away from and that he will never give much importance to these tabloids again. The main problem with popular people as he was, is to easily deal with persistent hatred and criticism. As a leader in a country where freedom of speech is supposed to be assured, he also had to tolerate opposition denigrations even if it can be as painful as torture.

Gracefully, my impressions were confirmed two minutes later. Matter of fact his humor switch became brutal even though I felt the premise before. He first started to hum a Papa Wemba song before deciding to play the disc of the Congolese musicians in his DVD. Just as the first song of the CD started playing, I saw him singing and dancing on his chair joyfully as if he was in concert attendance. That was stupefying! How could he so suddenly change his mood from a deep depression to an astonishing enjoyment?

His happiness was so wonderful that my entire person was rapidly contaminated. But my delight didn’t last for very long; shortly after, he shocked me again by asking me a question that made me regret my coming to greet him early in the morning.

“Paul, how far have you gone with the organization of the meeting with strikers?”

“Everything is ready, sir.” I reacted quickly.

I wasn’t expecting such a serious topic in this thoughtless atmosphere it had immersed us in for five minutes but fortunately, the promptitude of my reaction to his question cover my stun. So he could make himself comfortable, sip some Martini, listen to some good music, sing, dance, put his company in a tranquil ambiance and then bring out a grave subject, all in a short time!

Since about two weeks, I had been avoiding discussing this matter with him. In fact, the whole week, I had skillfully dodged every single occasion to be alone with him. Alas, I was once again caught up by my habits; I innocently came to his office forgetting this concern.

Mister Minister assigned me the tricky mission of rearranging a meeting with a group of strikers who were threatening to provoke riot if we didn’t treat their requests with more consideration. This was previously the main issue we were focused on before the Herald brought out their accusation about supposed corruption in our administration. After the parliament approved the memorable and controversial labor law proposed by Mister Bottom, the Minister of National Labor, every trade union of our country expressed their dissatisfaction towards what they considered as unfair, as colonialism and slavery, but most of them did not turn their frustration into concrete actions with strike and limited their battle at the level of media. Unfortunately, among those few who showed a ruder reaction by going on the street, there was an organization under our responsibility: the Teacher’s Trade Union. The worst was that this association became the most active one and was gaining more and more support from the population as time was passing, for many citizens they were only expressing louder what people really think about the government. This popular approval they benefit was a serious challenge for us and especially for the minister who had always considered himself as the people’s hero. He was in a complicated situation; he had to choose his side between following people opinion on this law or supporting his colleague and the government he was working for. Regrettably, he followed his work obligation instead of his heart. I was, therefore, prepared to see his popularity decline, I even intended to warn him and advised him on staying loyal to people view but he insisted that his hands were tight. This situation was treacherous for him, I couldn’t leave things goes that way, so I presented him a judicious plan that could satisfy everybody, But he found it difficult to follow and refused to take it into consideration. His attitude really deceived me, he abandoned me with much apprehensions and frustrations by not even doing a small effort to make my brilliant ideas his. However, after that, I hoped that with the revelations of the Herald and all the other problems that came with it, he would change his decision and follow my advice. But sadly, he was just from destroying my last hopes this morning; I had no other choice than to do as he planned.

Despite my obvious lack of enthusiasm to follow his plan, I succeeded some days before to establish the first contact with the protestors. My dynamic colleague Christian noticed that he and one of them used to go to the same church, naturally, we used him as a liaison. So as I went out of mister minister office, I rushed to discuss the evolution of our plan with the young man hoping to catch him at his place, as he was most of the time assigned to activities in schools. I was lucky to meet him right at the corridor while he was preparing to leave his office into its ordinary wilderness. I discovered him in good company, Caroline, the new intern, was accompanying him with the goodness and devotion characteristic of every temporary staff. They were walking friendly; she was listening to him with much attention, and he was giving her some guidance for better work performance. Christian was literally glowing with happiness, and all this was because of the seductive prettiness of Caroline, it was so obvious that the young lady pleased him; I had never seen him cheerful like this before. I had a good opinion about him, for me he was a sincere and honest guy, a gifted, good worker with much value, and really disciplined person. Colleagues used to say that his good manners and his value were natural compensation for his unpleasant physique: he was thin, his dressing style was strange, and that he got a cuckold look. For me, they were just haters.

When I saw the way he and Caroline were enjoying working together, I started to imagine them as an eventual couple, in fact, that idea became interesting in my head: as the mentor and protector of this new intern, I preferred to see her dating a good guy like him than one these vicious people of this office. So I decided to cleverly push Christian to declare his obvious attraction to the lady soon and pray that a love affair begins between them soon.

“Hello young guys, I hope everything is going on well in the training? Caroline, is he taking good care of you?” I asked paternally.

“Good morning Paul, I am taking good care of her,” Christian replied instantly even though the question was not directly addressed to him. And soon, she will be capable to manage the communication process in school, he added while eyeing the lady as if he was expecting support from her. Hopefully, for him, she didn’t hesitate to promptly bear his affirmations.

“Yeah, Mister Paul, things are going perfectly, I am learning fast, my trainer is skilled.” She stated with a passion that made Christian go red in the face.

“Oh, ok, that’s good. I’m glad that your assimilation came so swiftly, keep on being so hardworking, that’s a great job Christian,” I added while approving with my head.

They were now looking each other with a mix of passion and smile, which made me suspect that the love affair I was planning to provoke had already started for long ago. Their complicity was not normal, their mutual attraction was clear, and if eventually, they were not dating yet; it was unproblematic to predict a passionate romance between the lady with an angelic face and the young executive full of value and very admirable. Even though it was pleasing me to be in this joyful atmosphere, and to see them exchanging lovely look and smiles, I had no other choice than brutally change the ambiance, I could not forget the reason I came to their office, my situation was critical, I needed to urgently discuss apart with Christian on the strikers matter before mister minister call me for an update. It was painful to see them distance each other with unhappiness and to hear the soprano voice of Caroline telling him “see you later”. This was wonderful to witness! In less than a month, their person became so emotionally involved that be separated for long minutes was surely now an awful thing aching to deal with.

“Christian, you will need to contact that man, that contact who’s a member of the teacher’s union. We will have to faster things and organize a meeting with them as soon as possible, mister minister is on my neck about that issue,” I told him curtly.

As if he was still trying to wake softly from a long and sweet sleep in which he had some wonderful dreams, Christian took much time before entering the conversation. However, it was noticeable that even under a horde of emotional feelings he could still give me a part of attention for much professionalism in his character. When he finally recovers from his emotion, he directly noticed that I had unmasked his feelings toward Caroline and drove my concentration to a different subject to feel less embarrassed.

“So he still wants to do as he planned despite all the arguments you showed him?” He said with an annoyed look.

“I’m telling you; let’s hope that we will find a point of understanding with their leader and that his popularity will not decrease more after that meeting.”

“I’m not optimistic Paul, the determination of these guys his high.”

Christian shared my view and my apprehension: we were in a weak position but still preparing to go in the enemy’s territory and face real voracious who will surely make not a concession, our worries were understandable!

So we elaborated an approach that will calm the opponent before the meeting by making them feels confident. Regardless of the fact that mister minister did not share our commune conviction and that his behavior toward the strikers till then was rude, this was the best way to reduce the tension before the negotiations.

Christian’s help was praiseworthy, although the matter had not much to do with his department and functions and that he was not a part of the team assigned for the meeting with the protestors, he was still putting a lot of energy and strength of mind in this mission. I was appreciative toward his usual friendship and admiring of his devoutness to work and availability to always assist others. He was a committed workaholic, full of enthusiasm, permanently focus on his job obligations during his office lifetime, not as distracted in conversations or others diversions like some of us used to be. That was the other reason that encouraged me to push him to flirt with Caroline, for me she was the entertainment an over-focus man like him needed, and also a better way to prevent him of one of those bad and materialistic girls out there always ready to ruin a man. A good soul like him must be protected in this world!

That’s why I couldn’t prevent myself from not bringing out that topic some minutes later when we finished elaborating our plan for the meeting.

“Bro, you know you, my brother, tell me, for real, Caroline, you like her right?” I asked him.

He first acted as if he did not understand what I mean before displaying a shy smile. I was expecting an answer but was instead left with a timid attitude from the guy who was actually still trying hard to hide his uncovered crush. I insisted and repeated my question faintly to make him feel at ease and secure, people like him always hesitated before sharing confidential things, one needs to look trustworthy before convinced them.

“I can’t lie, I’m attracted, and she is damn beautiful…”

“But…” I added after perceiving a harsh skepticism on his face. He then started to display the embarrassment of an obeisant child caught doing the wrong thing, my anticipation of his reaction disturbed him as a woman whose nudity had been accidentally exposed to strangers, I was far from being a mind-reader, he was not just capable to hide his feelings toward Caroline.

A silence took place after my reaction, and just at the moment I wanted to add something he finally replied:

“I don’t know… will a pretty girl like her be interested to date a guy like me? She is sweet and graceful; girls like her always date ministers or rich business people.”

“Why being pessimistic, plus you can never know if you don’t take a try. From what I saw she seemed to like you too.”

His lack of self-confidence didn’t surprise me, what can one expect from a disciplined and focus man like him. I couldn’t blame him; all his life was focused on work, and he had surely never been to a nightclub in his whole life none date a girl before. If it is a fact that being a quiet and serious guy is a quality, at some point it can also be a weakness, his lifestyle made him as naïve as a teenager. However, I was still hoping that after our discussion he will find the courage to declare his love to the young lady.