The Moors Last Sigh

thousands upon thousands of public functions at which the leader was unable to be present owing to the pressures on his time. The Lenin-thesps memorised, and then delivered, the speeches of the great man, and when they appeared in full make-up and costume people shouted, cheered, bowed and quaked as if they were in the presence of the real thing. ‘And now,’ Camoens excitedly concluded, ‘applications from foreign-language actors are being solicited. We can have our personal Lenins right here, properly accredited, speaking Malayalam or Tulu or Kannada or any damn thing we please.’
    ‘So they are reproducing the big boss in the See See See Pee,’ Belle told him, placing his hand on her belly, ‘but, husband, see see see please, you have already begun a little reproduction of your own.’
    It is a demonstration of the ludicrous – yes! I dare to use that word – the ridiculous and ludicrous perversity of my family that – in a period when the country and indeed the planet was engaged in such momentous affairs – and when the family business needed the most scrupulous attention, because in the aftermath of Francisco’s death the lack of leadership was becoming alarming, there was discontent in the plantations and slackness at the two Ernakulam godowns, and even the Gama Company’s long-term customers had begun to listen to the siren voices of its competitors – and when, to crown it all, his own wife had announced her pregnancy, and was bearing what turned out to be not only their firstborn but also their only child, the only child, what is more, of her generation, my mother Aurora, the last of the da Gamas – my grandfather became increasingly obsessed with this question of counterfeit Lenins. With what zeal he scoured the locality to discover men with the necessary acting skill, memory capacity and interest in his plan! With what dedication he worked, getting copies of the latest statements of the illustrious leader, finding translators, acquiring the services of make-up artists and costumiers, and rehearsing his little troupe of seven whom Belle, with her customary brutality, had dubbed the Too-Tall Lenin, the Too-Short Lenin, the Too-Fat Lenin, the Too-Skinny Lenin, the Too-Lame Lenin, the Too-Bald Lenin, and (this was a misfortunate fellow with gravely defective orthodonture) Lenin the Too-Thless … Camoens corresponded feverishly with contacts in Moscow, cajoling and persuading; certain Cochinian authorities, both pale- and dark-skinned, were likewise persuaded and cajoled; and finally, in the hot season of 1924, he had his reward. When Belle was bursting with child, there arrived in Cochin a genuine, card-carrying member of the Special Lenin Troupe, a Lenin First Class, with the power to approve and further instruct the members of the Troupe’s new Cochin Branch.
    He came by ship from Bombay and when he walked down the gangway in character there were little gasps and shrieks from the dockside, to which he responded with a series of magnanimous bows and waves. Camoens noticed that he was perspiring freely in the heat; little rivulets of dark hair-dye ran down his forehead and neck and had constantly to be mopped.
    ‘How may I address you?’ asked Camoens, blushing politely as he met his guest, who was travelling with an interpreter.
    ‘No formality, Comrade,’ said the interpreter. ‘No honorifics! A simple Vladimir Ilyich will suffice.’
    A crowd had gathered at the dockside to watch the arrival of the World Leader and now Camoens, in a little theatrical gesture of his own, clapped his hands, and out of the arrivals shed came the seven local Lenins in their beards. They stood shuffling their feet on the dockside, grinning sweetly at their Soviet colleague; who burst, however, into long fusillades of Russian.
    ‘Vladimir Ilyich asks what is the meaning of this outrage,’ the interpreter told Camoens as the crowd around them enlarged. ‘These persons have blackness of skin and their features are not his. Too tall, too short, too fat, too skinny, too lame, too bald, and that one has no teeth.’
    ‘I was informed’, said Camoens, unhappily, ‘that we were permitted to adapt the Leader’s image to local needs.’
    More barrages of Russian. ‘Vladimir Ilyich opines that this is not adaptation but satirical caricature,’ the interpreter said. ‘It is insult and offence. See, two beards at least are improperly affixed in spite of the admonishing presence of the proletariat. A report