Vidiadhar Naipaul - A Way in the World

“A few days out of that, I was in the world of my old dream, an infinity of water and sky. But there was no terror for me. The ship was its own little world. The shipboard days had their rhythm. The old man was calm in his cabin. He did a certain amount of writing; he talked to the surgeon; he spent a fair amount of time teaching me English. As for emotion: he grieved a lot for the tortoise, which had died: it was too hot on the ship, and there was no fresh green for the creature. With that kind of activity and emotion — teaching me English, worrying about the tortoise — the old man could trust himself. But for the most part he was like a man who had ceased to feel, separated from the rest of us, as I thought, putting myself in his place, by his idea of his own doom.

“His regard for me never faded. More than once the surgeon told me what other people were to tell me. I was an Indian from Guiana and his servant: ordinary enough on the other side of the ocean, but now every day more precious as a human being. When we got to England people would look at me and think better of the old man. I would be like a remnant or proof of the kingdom of gold in his head. So I was part of the vanity that remained to him, part of his idea of the world going on beyond the emptiness of the sea.

“The day came at last when we landed and put that emptiness behind us. Everyone was relieved. Everyone wanted to walk on firm land and drink clean water and eat fresh food. But the old man’s authority as general ended as soon as we touched land. As soon as we touched land he was the prisoner of his king. No chains were put on him. No one was waiting to take him away. We went to stay at his house, and there, with all the sorrow, he was still master. But everyone knew that his life was forfeit. Everyone was waiting for the king to act, and the king was in no hurry.

“For days after we landed I felt the ground move below me, as though we were still on the ship. And it was strange that though I was on land again and had that safety, for which I had longed, though the sky pressed low on me and I was once again with small views and small distances, there had come to me something of the mood with which I had travelled down the river from San Thomé to the Destiny. It had begun to come on me for a few days before we had arrived at land. It had come to me when I had heard people talking about arriving. I didn’t like that idea of arriving. I was nervous about it.

“When we came to the land and travelled to the general’s house I was seized by a great melancholy. It overpowered me. It ran through me like a cold fluid. It broke into my sleep. It was at the back of everything I did. It was like a spirit on my shoulder. Just as, on the launch coming down river, the dream of falling into the sea and the sky had lifted me above men, so this grief now cut me off from everything and everyone. I wanted to die. In the room the general’s people had given me in his house I tied a cloth around my forehead to feel that tension above my eyes, as though I was a child again, and I turned my face to the wall. I wanted to turn away from all that was around me. I looked at the wall and never closed my eyes. It was like looking at the sky I had seen as a child. I looked hard at that and longed to cease to feel and think.

“Sometimes from far away, as it seemed, I would hear the general and the surgeon calling me, ‘Don José, Don José.’ If I heard that clearly enough, it would make me think of the general and his own doom, and sometimes after a while the emptiness would leave me. When that happened I would feel my tongue getting furred and my breath getting very bad. It was as though the unhappiness in my head and heart and stomach had turned to that smell inside me.

“At last the messengers from the king came. We left the house and got into a big heavy coach. The surgeon and I travelled with the old man. There was another coach in front, and soldiers on horseback behind. It was warm. The sun came up much earlier than I had known and set much later. In all the villages we passed people were waiting to look at the general. They wanted to look at me too. The soldiers on horseback didn’t let them get too close. The surgeon and the general talked a lot sometimes.

“All the time we were getting nearer to the capital and his doom. We came one afternoon to a town where the houses were arranged as in a big square or plaza. The whole of one side of the square was occupied by a very big church with a very tall tower. The old man was in a very playful mood. ‘Look, Don José. You will never see anything so tall again. Would you like to go up there?’ I thought he was joking, but he said there was a way right to the top, inside the tower. The thought of climbing up so high made me feel giddy, roused me from my own grief a little. This pleased the old man, made him light-headed, I thought.

“We were to stop here for dinner. But when we got out of the coach the old man complained of having a headache. He walked into a post as the soldiers were taking him up to the room where we were to dine. He began to howl with pain, and he had to be supported into the room. He lay down in all his clothes. When food was brought up for him he sent it away. He said his headache was very bad and he felt he was going blind. The soldiers and officials were worried. The surgeon prepared something for him to drink, and immediately after that mixed an ointment for his bruises. All the time the general was groaning. At last he said he wanted to sleep. They took him to another room. They posted a soldier at the door.

“I was helping the old man to undress when he began to vomit. I went outside to get a bowl. That took some time. When I came back I found him half naked, crawling about the floor, chewing at the dried reeds spread there. The ointment the surgeon had applied had caused the bruises to come out in a rash that made me think of the effects of poisoned arrows. I called out to the soldier at the door, and when he saw he began to shout for people to come and help.

“The surgeon looked very serious. He said that the old man would become quite unbalanced if he didn’t rest. So the king’s officers decided to spend the night where we were. They had the old man’s chest brought up to the room. When we were alone I began to unpack what was needed for the night. The old man said, Taper, Don José, paper.’ He was standing, in his shirt, and smiling at me. I gave him the paper he asked for, and he sat at the table and began to write at great speed, as he had written that day in the cabin on the Destiny , after the death of the commander in the room above us. From time to time as he wrote he looked at me and smiled. I asked him what he was writing about. He said, ‘About the gold mines of San Thomé. What else?’

“He wrote until it was dark. He filled many pages. He said, ‘My wrist is hurting, Don José. I must stop.’ When it was dark the surgeon came. He was in his travelling cloak. The two men smiled at each other. From below his cloak the surgeon brought out, wrapped in cloth, pieces of the dinner the old man had refused earlier. The old man gave the surgeon the letter or the document he had been writing. The surgeon folded the sheets and put them in a pocket.

“The old man said, ‘Don José must eat with us.’ He lit a rushlight, and we ate off the wooden platters that were in the room. The old man was in a good mood. I had never seen him in such a good mood. It was like the time in San Thomé when the commander had insisted that the imprisoned Indian in the dead governor’s house and I should sit and eat boiled maize with them, with the two dead men lying in the next room, and the three dead men lying outside in the sun in the trenches they had dug the day before.

“The old man’s mood lifted my spirits. But I felt at the same time that death was close to all of us.