W.E.B. Du Bois: A Private Life

1961, Accra

The fan above the desk moves the heat but does not lessen it. By afternoon the paper sticks lightly to the wrist, and even the glass of water tastes warm before it reaches the mouth. Accra gives me a kind of freedom, yet not the sort sentimental men like to name. Freedom at ninety-three is still bounded by the body’s timetable, by the stairs I no longer take without thought, by the breath that shortens while the work remains obstinately unfinished. Drafts for the Encyclopaedia lie open beside government correspondence and old American arguments that refuse to die merely because I crossed an ocean. Shirley tells me I have done enough for the day when the hand slows. That is affection. Affection also becomes management if one is not watchful. I have already lived through being made exemplary, dangerous, disloyal, prophetic, passive. They have arranged me into every shape but the inconvenient whole. If I leave this last ordering to admirers and enemies alike, they will bury contradiction first and call the burial dignity.