Paul Theroux - The Mosquito Coast

"You kidding? It's a hundred in the shade. They'll get sunstroke if their heads aren't covered."

We tried on fishermen's ventilated hats and sun hats and sailor hats. The prices infuriated Father. He said, "Baseball hats are good enough," and bought us those.

Wearing these hats, we trailed after him like ducklings in a file. Here, in this one store, they sold everything — popcorn, rubber tires, rifles, toasters, coats, books, motor oil, palm trees in pots, ladders, and writing paper. Father picked up an electric toaster.

"Look at it. Isn't even earthed right. You'd electrocute yourself before you got any toast. You'd be toasted yourself on that faulty wiring—"

He was talking loudly and attracting attention. "Kyanize!" he said. "Congoleum!" I had the idea that the people who were staring at us knew we seldom went out shopping. Father was embarrassing in public. He took no notice of strangers. A few days ago in Northampton Hardware it was, "Are you working for the Japanese?" and I had wanted to hide my head in shame. Today he was even jumpier.

"Call this a can opener?" he was saying. "You'd lose a finger with that, or gash yourself and bleed to death. That's a lethal weapon, Mother!"

We trooped to the Camping and Outdoor Department. A man in shirtsleeves approached us. He had a smooth face and flat hair and did not look like a camper, but he said hello to all of us and winked at the twins and remarked, as everyone did, on their alikeness.

"What can I do for you today?" he asked, and nodded, giving me a better look at his hair. It was combed up from beside one ear and was stuck down in neatly arranged strands across the top of his head, making you look not at the hair but at the baldness between.

Father said he wanted to look at some canteens.

Jerry shaped the word camping with his lips, but I mocked him by wrinkling my nose.

The man handed one over. Father put his thumbs on it and said it was so flimsy he could squash it flat if he wanted to. He looked at it closely and laughed out loud.

"'Made in Taiwan'—a lot they know about canteens. They lost the war."

"It's only a dollar forty-nine," the man said.

"It's not worth a nickel," Father said. "Anyway, I'm looking for something bigger."

"How about these water bags?" The man dangled one by its nozzle.

"I could make one of those myself out of a piece of canvas and a needle and thread. Where's this turkey from? Korea! See, that's it — they've got sweatshops and slave labor in Korea and Taiwan. Little coolies make these. Up at dawn, work all day, never get any fresh air. Children make these things. They're chained to the machines — feet hardly reach the pedals."

He was lecturing us, but the man was listening and frowning.

"They're so undernourished they can hardly see straight. Trachoma, rickets. They don't know what they're making. Might as well be bath mats. That's why we went to war in South Korea, to fight for labor-intensive industries, which means skinny kids punching out water bags and making tin cups for us. Don't get heartbroken. That's progress. That's the point of Orientals. Everybody's got to have coolies, right?"

The water bag now looked like a wicked thing in the man's hands. The man put it away and patted his hair, and we stood there silently — Mother, the twins, Jerry, and me — while Father grumped. I had put my shirt collar up to hide my poison ivy.

"What's next on the list?"

Mother said, "Sleeping bags."

"On the rack," the man said.

Father stepped over to them. "Not even waterproof. A lot of good they'd be in a monsoon."

"They're for use in a tent situation," the man said.

"What about a rain situation? Where's this thing from? The Gobi Desert, Mongolia, someplace like that?"

"Hong Kong," the man said.

"I wasn't far off!" Father said, twitching with satisfaction. "They do a lot of camping in Hong Kong. You can tell. Look at the stitches — they'd fall apart in two days. You'd be better off with a plain old blanket."

"Blankets are in Household."

"And where are they made — Afghanistan?"

"I wouldn't know, sir."

Father said, "What's wrong with this country?"

"It's better than some places I could name."

"And a damn sight worse than some others," Father said. "We could make this stuff in Chicopee and have full employment. Why don't we? I don't like the idea of us forcing skinny Oriental kids to make junk for us."

"No one is being forced." the man said.

"Ever been to South Korea?"

"No," the man said, and he took on the hunted expression that people did when Father spoke to them. It was the one Polski had had on his face last night.

"Then you don't know what you're talking about, do you?" Father said. "Let me see some knapsacks. If they're from Japan, you can keep them."

"These are Chinese — People's Republic. You wouldn't be interested."

"Give us here," Father said, and holdmg the little green knapsack like a rag he turned to Clover. "A few years ago, we were practically at war with the People's Republic. Red Chinese, we called them. Reds, slants, gooks. Ask anyone. Now they're selling us knapsacks — probably for the next war. What's the catch? They're third-rate knapsacks, they wouldn't hold sandwiches. You think we're going to win that war against the Chinese?"

Clover was five years old. She listened to Father, and she scratched her belly with two fingers.

"Muffin, I don't care what you think — we're not going to win that war."

The salesman had started to grin.

Father saw him and said, "You won't be smiling then, my friend. The next war's going to be fought right here, as sure as anything—"

It was what he had said in the winter, those same words, although I thought he had only been ranting. Today he was in the same mood. I almost expected him to tell the salesman, "They'll get me first — they always kill the smart ones first."

He pushed the knapsack aside. "Do you sell anything like compasses, or have I come to the wrong place?"

"I do a complete range of compasses," the man said. He smoothed the knapsack with the flat of his hand and folded it like laundry, giving a little moan as he put it away. He placed a box on the counter. "This is one of my better ones," he said, taking out a compass. "It's got all the features of my more expensive models, but it's only two and a quarter."

"Must be a Chinese compass," Father said. "It's permanently pointing east."

"One of the features is a stabilizing control. When you release it, like so" — he flicked a catch on the case—"the needle swings free. See, that's north, over there by Automotive. As a matter of fact, this compass is made right here in Massachusetts."

"Then wrap it up," Father said. "You just made yourself a sale." He put his arm around Mother. "What's the list look like?"

"Cotton cloth, needles and thread, mosquito netting—"

"Fabrics," the man said. "Next aisle. Have a nice day."

Father said, "We'd be better off in the dump," as we walked away. In the next aisle, he took hold of a length of material that looked like a bridal veil and said, "That's the stuff."

The saleslady said, "Seventy-nine a yard," and snapped her scissors. She was old and trembling, and the way she scissored the air made her seem evil.

"I'll take it."

"How many yards?" Snip-snip. She was impatient. She had light webs of hair on her face and almost a moustache.

"Give us the whole bolt," Father said. "And if you really want to make yourself useful," he added, grabbing a fistful of Jerry's hair, "give this kid a haircut. Put him out of his misery."

But the old lady did not smile, because she had to unroll the complete bolt of mosquito netting in order to measure it and arrive at a price.

We set off in search of other items. I had never seen my parents buy so much in one morning, not even at Christmastime. We left K-Mart and went to Sears and the Army-Navy Store. We bought flashlights and American-made canteens, knapsacks, hunting knives, rubberized sleeping bags, and new shoes for all of us. Spending money made Father cross. He haggled with the salespeople and complained he was being robbed. "I can afford to be robbed," he said. "But what about the poor wimps who can't afford it?" I had no idea why he was buying these things, and it was embarrassing to hear him argue. Even Mother was getting fussed.