Paul Theroux - My Secret History

Rockwell said he had heard that some volunteers were picking up girls in town and taking them home.

“How can people do that?”

I said, “Are you saying that we’re just exploiting them? That we’re not giving anything back?”

“That’s the opposite of what I mean,” he said. “They’re exploiting us. All we do is give.”

He meant his latrine.

“All they do is take.”

I said, “We’re not doing much for them. This is an experience for us. They’re not getting much in return.”

“They love it,” he said.

He was partly right, which was always his most annoying characteristic.

“You probably take African girls home with you.”

I said nothing. I concealed everything from him — everything I did. And I concealed it from everyone else. It was important, it was my strength, that no one knew anything about my secret life; that way they did not know me at all.

“ ‘This is an experience for us,’ ” Rockwell said. “You sound so grateful.”

“I am grateful. Ward, we could be in Vietnam.”

“I’m four-F on account of my feet, so speak for yourself,” he said. “Listen, they’ve got incurable diseases. Hookworm, eye-worm, bilharzia, malaria, sleeping sickness.”

“You don’t get those from screwing, Ward.”

“They’ve got the clap. We had a movie about it in training.”

“Oh, dry up.”

“You’re going to get the crud.”

Everyone said that. He got a dose in Rhodesia . But this was not that kind of place. It was innocent, it was new. We were still children, all of us. That was perhaps why it seemed such an odd experience, at times a kind of frenzy, and to an outsider like Rockwell it must have looked like insanity. It had become such a habit that I hated to be alone.

Sex was an expression of friendship: in Africa it was like holding hands. There were times when I felt uncomfortably that it was exploitation, but then I thought: How could it be? It was friendly and fun. There was no coercion. It was offered willingly.

“You like me?” Boopy said.

“I like you, sister.”

“You buy me beer?”

“I buy you two beers, sister.”

“You take me home?”

“I take you home right now, sister.”

“That is better,” she said, and pinched me with her skinny fingers. “Okay.”

They never asked for money. It seemed to be the easiest thing in the world, and now that I had moved out of my house in Chamba and was living in the African township of Kanjedza I felt I was practically on equal terms with the girls.

Equality itself was a new thing. But I also tried to please them. I was gallant and attentive. I was very grateful. In Nyasaland these were novelties, which was why I was such a success. I was not imposing a system on them, I was simply attaching myself to their system and trying to treat them fairly. These African girls had been kicked out of their villages. I was far from home, too.

I used to imagine that I had attained a kind of maturity, and I knew I was very lucky. I thought: This is the right time, this is the right place, and I know it. It is all happening now. I was headmaster; I had a little responsibility, and a little power. And there was something about teaching English and hearing it spoken back to me that was very satisfying. Everything seemed to be working perfectly.

My weeks were full. After the busy weekend I went seriously about my duties at the school. I woke early and cycled up to Chamba through the dripping steepness of pines that had been planted by Her Majesty’s Forestry Commission. I conducted morning assembly and taught my classes and answered memos. If someone forgot to do something, I did it. The chimbuzi was rising. If I asked anyone to do anything the answer was yes. They always said yes. The students said yes. The people at Kanjedza said yes. The African girls said “okay” and that meant everything.

One Tuesday at the end of May I was teaching my English class and felt a tickling at the end of my penis. The lesson was gerunds and participles. I sat down behind my desk, still talking, and covertly touched myself. Was my underwear too tight?

“And gerunds include words like touching, tickling and rubbing. But the word order is very important. It’s a verbal noun. Take ‘itching.’ ‘The itching was driving him crazy.’ What’s the subject of that sentence? Miss Malinki?”

I stood up, wrote the sentence on the blackboard, and was stung again. But when I sat behind my desk to touch it I only made it worse. But touching also gave me little moments of relief.

“ ‘Squeezing’ is a gerund, too. Not ‘They were squeezing the banana’—that’s a verb. But ‘Squeezing is something that often produces pain.’ ”

And I squeezed. It was agony. My penis was limp and overheated, and pinching it made it raw.

“Excuse me.”

I hurried to the chim . It had walls but no roof yet, though it really had begun to look like The Alamo. And because all the pipes were in it was usable. Rockwell was nowhere in sight, and I assumed he was taking his math class.

I swayed and pissed razor blades, but the pain didn’t go. There was ground glass still streaming out of my bladder. Pinching my penis brought tears to my eyes and yet I felt it would relieve the itch.

“Anything wrong, Andy?”

That startled me. Rockwell was above me, laying brick, his head and shoulders above the end wall.

“Of course not,” I said. Had he seen the flame colored rosette at the tip of my dick?

“I think this is coming along real good, if I do say so myself.”

He disappeared, and I heard his boots on the rungs of the ladder. I tried to leave, but he met me at the door and began gesturing with his trowel.

“Notice how I staggered the joists and reinforced the supports? That’s for added strength. And what do you think about the returns on those corners?”

He wanted to talk. He propped himself against the door, blocking my way, and drew my attention to the hardwood beams.

“They look great,” I said. My penis was on fire.

“I figured a traditional design was best. Something you could adapt. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t make it look like an African hut, with mock-mud walls and a thatched roof.”

I had been wondering — and what was the point of making a traditional American design, the primitive Spanish look of Fort Alamo? But I wanted to scratch myself.

“I’m not wondering, Ward. Excuse me.”

He didn’t hear. Bores are always deaf.

“See, the point is they never had sanitary facilities before. Chimbuzi , as I understand it, just means latrine — well, we’re just talking about a trench.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“I’m not asking you how it looks,” he said, somewhat offended. “I’m also talking about strength and durability.”

“It’s the best chimbuzi in Nyasaland.”

“Don’t put me on.”

I wanted to claw the itch out of my penis.

I said, “Ward, it’s a shithouse. It’s a great shithouse, but it’s still a shithouse. Don’t get carried away. Did you join the Peace Corps to build shithouses?”

He set his face at me. I frowned at him. I was perspiring; my penis throbbed.

“You’re a very moody guy,” he said.

“I have to get back to my class!”

But he was deaf.

“Hey, if I can say after two years in Africa that I managed to accomplish one thing — and even if that one thing is a sanitary facility, I’ll be very proud. Now you’re probably saying to yourself, ‘Hey—’ ”

I was saying to myself: I once thought that. It was as though in his wordy way he was satirizing me. And God I was in pain.

“Later!” I said, and ran into my office. I slammed the door and massaged my penis, trying to ease it. But the tickle, which had become an itch, was now a fiery agony.