The Benevolent Dictator

An extract from a novel that I am currently writing called 'The Benevolent Dictator'.

Afarast Nestofali promises a great deal. Each day he stands on the hill, underneath the wizened old pine nut tree and shouts “I promise!” to anyone who’s there to listen. Around the blacks he’s a bold young man, always going on about our real home, “You don’t have to be a slave!” he shouts to us; his voice all bellowing and proud, “You come with me, I’ll take y’all home!”  But whenever the slavers came around, or when the big mayor arrived to inspect us all; Afarast disappears faster than a sparrow come the winter time, and he takes all his mighty promises with him. Not many of us listen to him anymore, none except old Winnie. Old Winnie’s the only one of us who remembers, “I remember!” she says, almost as often as Afarast says “I promise!” Old Winnie was just a baby, about as old as little Tom, when they took her, but she remembers, or so she tells us. Mama says that Old Winnie does remember, but papa says she don’t. But no matter what anyone remembers or what anyone promises, that don’t change a thing. Afarast Nestofali can stand under his pine nut tree all day, till the blazing sun sets over the corn fields, and often he does, but all the promises in the world won’t make us free, Afarast can’t stop the white men from beating my papa, he can’t order them to let us go back to the other place, the place what Old Winnie calls home, though she doesn’t remember, I’m sure. Afarast may be a free man, but he’s still a black man, and he can’t get no job, and he can’t earn no bread. So he just does nothing all day, eating our food and hiding when the big white men come around, ‘cause he’s supposed to be gone. Papa calls him a thief and spits when we say his name, “That man don’t work but he eats our food.” Papa always says, but Afarast don’t care none about that, he just stays on his hill and promises.