Vidiadhar Naipaul - A Way in the World

“Bernard. I knew a Bernard in Paris. He later came to London. I sent out a Bernard here from England seven years ago. To keep an eye on things for me. He came and I never heard a word. Not a word. Will this be the same man? Worried that I’m turning up? Or deciding that there is something I can do for him? What do you think, General?”

“General Miranda, you asked just now about your letters. They are in your room. But there is another. It was thrown into the sentry box yesterday morning. It is anonymous. It may be abusive of me. It is what I’ve had to live with here. I am not Sure that honour applies here, but I pass that letter on to you as a matter of honour. My request is that you will handle it in the same way. You have been the object of calumny and persecution yourself, General. It is very easy to be vilified in a place like this.”

The men separate. Dinner is to be at three. Miranda goes to his section of the house, henceforth his headquarters. He sees the satchels with the Tortola and Leeward Islands mail. And the folded dingy anonymous letter Hislop mentioned.

The room is at the back of the house. The grass and trees outside are wet from the recent rain. A hill rises up not far away. The air is damp, and the very smell of rain and earth and dead leaves brings back to Miranda the smell of the cocoa valleys to the north of Caracas, and reminds him of the sacks of cocoa beans his father had sent with him on the Prins Frederik in 1771, to be changed for money in Cadiz.

The room is full of small, yellowish lizards; their droppings are everywhere. There is a muslin canopy over the bed, to protect it from dust and termite wood-dust and things like lizard droppings. The canopy is discoloured and in its folds or wrinkles grey with old dust; it sags in the damp air.

Outside there is movement, talk. The slaves are not speaking Spanish or French or English, but an African language.

He begins to shape a letter in his head: “My dear Sally, this is a kind of homecoming for me, after thirty-five years. It is quite amazing: I know this rainy-season smell. Soon I suppose the rain and the wind will bring the smell of the vanilla vine. I feel I know this place very well. It is my own. It exists in my mind. But it is now full of strangers. I don’t like the sensation. I feel a great gap. Without the thought of you I would be quite lost.”

He opens the Tortola satchel and soon, among the official, secretary-written letters, sees the broad, irregular, awkward handwriting he has been looking for.

“27 Grafton Street, Fitzroy Square, London. April 15th. My ever dear General, I embrace this opportunity of writing to you my dear Sir for wile I am a night and the two babies are asleep it seames as if I am talking to my dear Friend Himself and can hear his own voice. Leander has set down his drum and sword and gun, we have had a fair in the Road, and he makes such a noise my dear Sir saying Mamy I am going to the war to fight for the General—”

Miranda thinks, partly framing his reply, “ Querida . My dear Sally, I love every misspelt word you write and every mistake you make. These words you wrote four months ago come to me now with your own voice. I can see my house and the library and the books again. I think without you, my dear Sally, I would become quite dizzy here, in this place I don’t know any longer, and try not to see too clearly or find out too much about, where the Negroes talk in an African language, and I can still smell the cocoa estates all around …”

“Leander sleeping is the picture of my dear Sir. My uncle from Yorkshire is with us to keep us company and to get some London portrait work. He sets Leander down in the G’s library, I must tell you I light a fire there one day every week winter and summer, and my uncle draws his picture but he doesnt set still a moment. And I am very flatter that everybody says he has the Wisdom of twice his years. My dear Sir I have followed all your Instructions and I now propose to give you the regular Budget of news Mr. Rutherfurd says I should give you to keep your Spirits up in all your trying circumstances. I talk in my mind every night to my dear G, but I don’t have news every day.

“My dear Sir your second son and mine Francisco was born on the 27th of February. All that day my thoughts were of you and your danger on the High Seas. You wished this son to have your own name, and Francisco and Leander were both of them Baptised as agreed on the 23rd of March. Mr. Rutherfurd came in the morning with Mr. Longchamp and they took us to St. Patrick’s Soho Square in a Coach. Mr. Longchamp responded for both babis. Father Gaffey wrote Mr. Longchamps name wrong in the Register and had to scratch it out both times. I give here the copy of the Baptismal Certificate for Francisco that Father Gaffey gave me for my dear Sir it’s all in Latting so the G. must forgive errors. Die 23 a Martii 1806 baptisatus fuit Franciscus filius Francisci Miranda et Sarae Andrews. Natus die 27 a Februarii praecedentis. Patrinis juit Joannes Michael Jean du Longchamp. Per Daniel Gaffey.

“When we went back to Grafton street Mr. Rutherfurd told me that not a few Eyebrows had been raised by the Roman Catholic Baptism with certain people we well know saying that you said one thing but in your heart of hearts were another. But I kept my peace about my dear Gen’s intentions, and I thought hard of him and his dangers that day and the next when as agreed I knew that after the Baptism of our sons my G would be making his Officers swear to serve the people of South America and their new Flag. I think about that Flag my dear Sir the hours I spent making it here in Grafton Street spreading it out sometimes on the floor of the library, with Leander tied to the table leg so he couldn’t get too close—”

“Sarah, I will never find the courage to tell you. The flag that carried so much of you was lost five weeks after you wrote that, when the Bee and the Bacchus were lost, with all the landing party. I waited until the 12th of March before I took the flag out of my trunk and showed it to the men on the Leander. I thought that Francisco would have been born by then. I know now that he was two weeks old. The Bee and the Bacchus were both unarmed sloops. The other ships we were expecting all the way down never came. After that long voyage, with those unruly, mocking Americans, butcher boys, I had to try to land. I couldn’t just go away without doing anything. The Spaniards will dishonour that flag. They will find special ways …”

“First of May 1806. I wait for news of my dear Sir and try to guess what other people know. Mr. Holland the print-seller sent to my uncle for a Picture of the Gen, and my uncle sat down all morning at the small library table and drew one of my dear Sir in Profile with his long white queue hanging down his back tied up at the end with a little ribbing and with his silk cravat below his chin, all in Profile, very serious and stern, and my uncle says that in the Print the Engraver will show clouds and a Crown above the Gen’s head. I thought this was a good sign, because as my uncle says Mr. Holland wants to sell his prints and he knows when to expect good news. But then Mr. Turnbull came and walked through the house in a way he wouldn’t have dared if my Gen was here. Standing up in the library and Ex-Claiming when are those Volumes going to be paid for, they cost Thousand’s, the booksellers and binders are sending their bills to the firm of Turnbull and Forbes, I never authorized that. Walking through the house as though I wasnt there, no bowing and no my good lady now, Leander and Francisco and their mother not much thought of now that you are not here. My dear Sir they are all snake’s in the Grass as long as I live I will encourage Leander and Francisco to look for their Deseat. I was mighty sick after he left and my heart allmost broke. Take yourself out of their power my dear Sir, I nightly pray in the silence of the house for you soon to claim your own, and for that Crown to be sett on your head.”