Paul Theroux - My Secret History

“So this is the Yank we’ve been hearing about,” Dave said.

“Don’t be beastly,” Jill said, and laughed as she pushed his head.

This made Dave smile. “They say everything in America is bigger than over here. Cheers, James”—Mr. Graves had refilled the tiny glass of sherry—“Happy Christmas. God bless.” He took a sip. “That right?”

His eyes were on me in an aggressive stare. Did he want me to answer him?

“Oh, Dave, don’t start,” Jill said, and laughed affectionately.

Mr. Fry said, “I’ve got a cousin who went out there. Canada. Toronto, I think. They usually send a Christmas card.”

“A big Christmas card,” Dave said. “Bigger than ours.”

“I don’t come from Canada.”

Rosamond said, “Andrew’s from Boston.”

“They’re more English than the English,” Mr. Graves said.

Now they were all staring at me, waiting for me to speak again.

“How are you getting on here?” Mr. Fry asked.

Before I could answer, Rosamond’s mother spoke up. She was twisting her apron in her hands. “People criticize us, but this is ever such a small place, and we’re not as wealthy as we used to be.”

I did not know whether this woman was talking about herself or England, but it hardly seemed to matter. Still she clutched her apron.

“Oh, do leave Andrew alone,” Rosamond said. “You’re just putting him off.”

I loved the way she chewed the word orf .

“If I don’t see to the roast potatoes,” her mother said, and she left the hot room without finishing her sentence.

“Because of the blacks,” Dave said with force in his voice, his cheeks tightening. “That’s why they criticize us. Your friend knows a bit about that, I reckon, Ros.” He created a silence in the room with his confidence. He said again, “Blacks.”

I could not hear the word without seeing dark dumb blunt things, like stumps in a burned forest.

Mr. Graves cleared his throat and began to speak. I was relieved to think that he would lighten the atmosphere. He smiled, but I realized that his smile was only to give an edge to his sarcasm when he said, “But do we get a word of thanks? Not a bit of it. I tell you, my heart goes out to those Rhodesians.”

“Andrew works in Uganda,” Rosamond said, as a sort of protest.

“He would, wouldn’t he?” Dave said, which made Jill laugh.

Janey was looking at me eagerly and smiling, the fascinated younger sister, with her lovely eyes and her large young lips.

Mr. Graves said, “That’s just what I mean, Ros. Now the Americans are going to Africa and saying what a bad job we did of it. Well”—and he glanced at me—“see how they like it.”

“I’m sorry to have to say this,” Mr. Fry said, not sounding sorry at all, “but the Americans are welcome to them. They can have every damn one of them.”

“And not only in Africa,” Dave said. “There’s a few round our way I’d like to send over.”

“My mother used to say, ‘American men cry a great deal, and they never take their hats off when they go inside,” Mr. Fry said. “She often went to the pictures, my mum.” And he smiled.

The conversation turned and turned, like a merry-go-round that I was trying to get on, but each time I made an attempt it speeded up. I saw that I would fall if I just leaped aboard, and so I did nothing and felt foolish.

Dave was telling a confused story. It took awhile for me to realize that it was a joke, about a black man at a bus stop who was asked how long he had been here. He said, “Five years.” The Englishman replied, “That’s a long time to wait, even for a Number Eleven bus.” Dave compounded the malice of the joke by swearing it was true.

Mr. Graves said, “Drink up, everyone. I can hear Dickie calling us.”

Rosamond’s mother was called Dickie?

“That’s the spirit,” Mr. Fry said, seeing me smiling, “don’t take this mob seriously.”

I nodded and smiled again realizing that the name Dickie had made me smile, and then I wondered whether Mr. Fry was being sarcastic.

“I’ve always wanted to visit America,” Jill said, as we filed into the dining room. “See the Statue of Liberty. See Niagara Falls. Do they really have cowboys out there?”

“That’s the question my African students always ask,” I said.

She did not hear me. She was handing me a Christmas cracker and yanking at the same time. There were a series of pops and shouts. Then the reading of the mottoes, and everyone put on a paper hat.

“Poor Andy,” Rosamond said. “I’ll pull your cracker.”

“I’ll bet you will,” Dave said, and Jill shrieked.

And then I put on my paper dunce cap.

We sat close together around a small sunlit table of steaming vegetables. Mr. Graves straightened his paper hat and talked about Rhodesia. “Those are our own people,” he said. Mr. Fry was next to me, not eating but mashing food onto the tines of his fork and making a lump of it like an African daubing a wall. On my other side, Rosamond sulked in embarrassed silence, hearing her father use the expression “our kith and kin in Rhodesia.” Her mother — what was your name if people called you Dickie? — looked tired and tearful. Perhaps she was drunk. She said we mustn’t miss the Queen’s Christmas message on television.

“That went down very well,” Mr. Fry said, arranging his knife and fork parallel on his empty plate.

“Talkative, isn’t he?” Dave said to Rosamond, and when I looked up I saw everyone staring at me again and laughing loudly — much too loudly, when I said nothing.

The Christmas pudding was doused with brandy and lighted. A blue flame flickered around it for a few seconds. I was given a crumbling wedge. I ate a forkful of it, and tried another, but when I bit down I cracked a tooth and began to choke. Then I took a small smeared coin out of my mouth.

“Andrew’s got the sixpence,” Rosamond’s mother said.

“That’s lucky,” Mr. Fry said.

“I guess I’ll need it to pay my dentist,” I said.

No one laughed.

We went into the parlor again to have coffee and to watch the Queen on television. The Queen looked very white and nervous, and she was sitting in a room just like this parlor, rather cluttered and fussily arranged, with framed family pictures, doilies, porcelain knickknacks, footstools, and frilly lampshades.

Mr. Graves awkwardly proposed a toast and then everyone except Dave and Jill went for a walk to the river, which was as still as a pond and black, with black leafless trees on both banks. Before we had finished our walk, a wreath of fog gathered on the water, and then night fell — the early darkness of an English winter.

“Will Andrew stay for tea?” Rosamond’s mother asked her, although I was standing next to her.

I hated the way the question was put, and so I pretended to be deaf. Rosamond made an excuse and said we’d have to go back to London right away.

On the train she said, “I’m really sorry,” and nothing more. Now I was grateful for her silence. She took my hand. I felt miserable. There seemed something final in the pressure of her hand on mine.

“I was expecting you somewhat later than this,” Prasad said, when I returned to his house, and then he looked closely at me. “Oh, God, what happened?”

I told him of my Christmas visit.

“Pay no attention to them,” he said. “They’re inferior people. Did they have one of these depressing houses, and a monkey wagon in the driveway? You should have nothing to do with them. Just walk away. Don’t be sad, don’t be angry. These people are only dangerous to themselves.”

He was making stabbing gestures with his pipestem. He wore his pajamas, his bathrobe, his slippers — and the socks I had given him for Christmas.