Paul Theroux - My Secret History

But the beaky man was smiling.

“They cannot break it. The door is strong.”

The hammering grew louder. Still the Indian smiled — he was smiling at the door.

“I made that door myself,” he said. “In my own workshop. I know my business.” He smoothed his suit. “But just to be on the safe side we will go to the roof, where it is comfortable.”

He led me to the stairs and looked back at the door, which was being thumped.

“That is a political matter,” he said. “That is nonsense. That is—”

And he loudly cleared his throat and spat.

On our way to the roof we passed a landing. Hearing us, an Indian woman stuck her head out of a beaded curtain and said something to the man.

“Your wife is inside. Not to worry. She is receiving treatments.”

Jenny was sitting, murmuring, her skirt hitched up and her thighs painted with antiseptic. Her forearms were cut, her dress was torn. I hugged her awkwardly and she began to whimper softly.

“We’re okay,” I said. “Thanks to this guy.”

“C. D. Patel,” the man said, and straightened and put out his hand. “Carpentry, furniture, bedding. And you?”

“Andre Parent.”

“Your occupation?”

“I’m a writer.”

We had tea and cakes under an awning on the roof as the last of the rioters passed beneath us on the street.

“What was that all about?” Jenny asked.

“African fuss and bother,” Mr. Patel said. “They attacked the British High Commission — they broke the doors down. Glass doors. And then they ran riot.”

His wife clicked her tongue in disapproval.

“It is a political matter,” Mr. Patel said to her, smiling.

“That was a nightmare,” Jenny said.

Mr. Patel was still smiling. “It is balderdash,” he said.

When he said that I was certain that I would be able to bear it, and understand it, and write about it. And in that same moment I was also certain that I would leave Africa as soon as I could.

“You must have some sweetmeats,” Mr. Patel said. “My wife has prepared them. We call this gulabjam . Please take.”

I was still listening to the last of the mob.

“They wrecked my car,” I said. “What do we do now?”

“You will be able to go home soon. I will drive you in my van.”

I remembered that I had seen policemen near my car, after I got out and the mob had surged around me. Why hadn’t they helped me — why hadn’t they stopped the attack? I was trembling with anger and was about to describe this — and all my other complaints, like Wangoosa, who had honked at me and obstructed my retreat — when Jenny suddenly stood up. She was not steady on her feet. She braced herself by gripping my shoulder.

“Oh,” she said softly and touched the great curve of her abdomen.

She tried to take a step, but she hesitated as water coursed down her legs and darkened her skirt. In the next second the Indian’s wife scrambled to her feet — before I could react. But I was looking at Jenny’s face. She seemed at once very calm and quietly surprised, as though she had just heard something — but no ordinary sound, it was a whisper from the heavens, something pulsing in the air.

It was winter in Siberia. I had been expecting deep snow and drifts, and had already rehearsed the phone call I planned to make in Khabarovsk: how cold it was, the icicles, the blizzards. But we traveled deeper into Siberia and though it was very cold, the snow was thin and disappointing. For miles at times there was nothing to see but slender peeling birches under a heavy sky — as if all the snow still lay packed in the low-hanging clouds, and was about to fall on me.

I was traveling westward from Japan and had been thinking about that phone call since Hokkaido, where I had tried three times to make it. It rang and went on ringing — the ring that makes you see the room again, but empty. It was Sunday in Japan but Saturday in London. Maybe she had gone away for the weekend?

The trouble with taking long trips was this suspense, which could be tormenting, and I hated guessing what was going on. But I had left in a hurry — I had left under a cloud. After six weeks I had called. This was in India, a miserable line, the squeezed and ghostly voice of the Indian telephone that makes you think of a séance. I heard her say faintly that everything was all right.

There were no letters waiting for me in Singapore two months later, but I was there a week and one arrived the day before I left. It was a short letter: she said she missed me. After that there was silence. I was in Vietnam, and when I knew it was impossible to call I stopped thinking about it. I kept writing my notes — it held me together, it ordered my thoughts, it helped me forget, and when I reread them I was consoled.

In Japan they said it was easy to call England. True, but no one answered. And then I had to leave. I was on a Soviet ship in the Sea of Japan — high waves and blowing slop; then in the cold brown city of Nakhodka; then on another train to Khabarovsk. Why was there so little snow in Siberia?

In those days before group tours to the Soviet Union the solitary traveler was escorted by an Intourist guide, who had a car and a driver. It was usually a large black limousine, and the driver a bad-tempered man or woman dressed like a bricklayer. The arrangement was intended to keep travelers in line — the guide a sort of jailer and nanny, of intimidating size. But I was not intimidated. I felt special. I was flattered that they thought I might be dangerous and needed to be watched. I enjoyed imagining that I was a spy. I liked having my own guide. I was very lonely.

After four months of continuous travel I suspected I was half crazy. I had forgotten why I had set out on the trip. But it no longer mattered, because I was on my way home.

That was why the phone call was so urgent. I needed to be reassured that home was still there, that they were waiting, that I was loved and expected. I had been sending letters into the dark.

In Khabarovsk, Irina said—“Is unusual”—and she implied that any unusual request was impossible. She meant the phone call.

Irina was my guide. She was from the Siberian city of Irkutsk, which she considered a cosmopolitan place. She had been posted here against her will, but she was making the best of it. She was young and very heavy, and she smelled strongly of perfume and of her hairy fox-furs. She was disappointed in me.

She said, “Where is your overcoat? Where is your scarf? And you have only these shoes?”

My coat was Japanese. It was too small. I had bought it for its rabbit fur collar. I had thin wool gloves and a ski cap lettered Hokkaido .

“I thought I could buy a scarf and boots in Khabarovsk.”

“Is not possible to buy such things here,” she said, and she laughed. That bitter laugh was the first indication I’d had that she hated being in the city where these simple necessities seemed like preposterous luxuries.

Irina was also disappointed in me because I was not interested in her. “From Scotland,” she said of her thick woolen scarf. “Made in Italia,” she said of her gloves. I could not understand her being so label-conscious, but I got the message. I kept my Intourist vouchers in a lovely leather pouch that I had bought in Thailand.

“Is nice,” she said the first time she saw it. “Is expensive?”

“Frogskin,” I said. That was true. “Very cheap.”

She sighed and looked out the window of the car. I knew I had failed her. She wanted me to woo her a little, give her a present — perhaps some perfume, or a trinket; and she would let me overpower her, if it happened to be convenient. Then she would shriek a little and demand me again. Afterwards she would put on all those clothes — the two sweaters, the boots, the furs, the Scottish scarf, the Italian gloves, and having reapplied all that makeup, off she’d go. Sank you.