V. Naipaul - Guerrillas

“I never thought that was true about you, Merry,” Harry said. “Everything you said made a lot of sense to me. But if a man like you start talking like this, then this place has no future.”

“You were never blind, Harry,” Meredith said. “The one man in the country.”

“If you think we should all start jigging up to the reggae, not me, eh. If I had my way I would ban music here.”

“What do you mean by the future? What do you want? Different people want different things. Jane doesn’t want what you want. If you had one wish, Jane, what would you ask for? Shall we play that game?”

From the beach there came the sound of chatter again, and they all listened: the group returning, walking as briskly, their voices more animated now, and one voice — hard to tell whether it belonged to a man or woman — breaking into a shriek of laughter just below the house.

Harry said, “Joseph will be wanting to go and have his dip. You are staying for lunch, Merry?”

“No, man. Pamela.”

Jane said, “Let’s play the game. Ask me my one wish.”

Meredith said, “Tell us.”

Jane said, “I want lots and lots of money.”

Meredith said, “I thought you would say that.”

“You took the words out of my mouth,” Roche said. “You never miss an occasion, my dear.”

Meredith said, “Harry?”

“Occasion?” Jane said.

“To tell us how privileged you think you are,” Roche said.

Harry said, “My one wish? Well, Merry-boy, I think a lot about this one. And I suppose the truthful answer is that I want nothing. At the moment all I want is to get Marie-Thérèse back.”

Meredith said, “You mean you want to be in a position where you want nothing?”

“Merry, you putting words in my mouth. I know what you driving at. No, man, I mean nothing. I don’t want to want anything.”

Roche said, “You want to be a vegetable.”

“You can put it like that.”

Jane said, “How horrible.”

“What a restless man you are, Harry,” Meredith said. “You’ve given yourself away completely. Peter?”

Roche said, lingering over each word, “I would like to have the most enormous sexual powers.”

Jane, blowing out cigarette smoke in her ugly way, through wet lips, said, “That would solve nothing.”

Meredith smiled. “But it would be a lot of fun.”

“We can’t get away from the subject today,” Harry said.

Roche said, “And you, Meredith?”

Meredith continued to smile at Jane. Then his expression became serious. He raised his head slightly, so that again the great gap between his everted nostrils and his mouth was noticeable. He paused; he was creating a silence, as though to frame a prepared statement. He said, “I would like to express myself fully.” And for a while he held his head in the same raised position, and the expression on his face, of the bullied schoolboy, remained unchanged. So that, black, and the only one among them sitting upright, he seemed central and solitary on the porch, distinct in the light, sitting on the thin striped cushion of the low stool. At last he relaxed and began to smile again.

Harry said, “But you’re cheating, man, Merry. You ask us to say one thing. And you say four or five things. It’s as though you ask a guy to tell you in one word what he want, and he say ‘Everything.’ ”

“I don’t think I’m cheating. I would say I’m asking for less than you. When I am about to die I want to feel that I have lived. I can even put it negatively. I don’t want to feel that I’ve been denied life.” He spoke with seriousness, making no attempt to match Harry’s jovial tone. And again he seemed to be sitting on the porch as on a stage, against the white sky and dazzling sea.

Jane said, “This is getting creepy.”

“You think so?” Meredith said. “The really creepy thing about people is how little they expect of themselves. Or for themselves. That is the creepy thing.”

Roche said, “Human ambition is limitless.”

“But capacity is restricted,” Meredith said. “We can prove that right now, the four of us. Do we have time?”

Jane said, “Is it another game?”

Harry sat up in his hammock. He was wheezing; the flesh around his sunken eyes looked bruised. He said, and his chest sang through his words, “Joseph is getting a little cantankerous.”

Jane said, “Let’s play the game.”

Harry got out of the hammock and moved toward the living room. “You people just hearing pots and pans in the background. And you think Joseph is just doing his stuff. But with Joseph I am like a mother with a baby. I know the meaning of every noise he make. And I’m telling you: Joseph is getting damn mad.”

Meredith said, “When you come out, Harry, bring a pencil and paper.”

Harry sucked his teeth and went inside. A wheezy whisper was followed by muffled bass noises. Pots and pans banged. And when Harry came out again, with a pencil and a “Don’t Forget” pad, he was wheezing hard.

Meredith took the pad and began to write. He said, “I am writing down the answer you will all give to a question I’m going to put to you.”

Jane said, “That doesn’t sound much of a game, if we’re all going to give the same answer.”

“You mustn’t anticipate, Jane.” Meredith stopped writing and put the pad face down on the terrazzo floor. “I am not asking for one word or one sentence. In fact, I want you to be as imaginative as possible.”

“If this one has a catch,” Harry said, “I don’t want to play.”

“There is no catch,” Meredith said. “You have everything you want. Right? Everything, anything. It’s all been granted. All I want to know is how you spend a full day. A working day, if you’re still working. I want it in detail. You can create any personality for yourself. But you mustn’t duck the question. I don’t want a catalogue of the things you own or your talents or your achievements. I want to see you living with all your blessings through twenty-four hours. Just remember this, though: If you’re the world’s greatest painter, you will be spending a lot of time painting.”

Jane said, “But I can’t answer just like that. I will have to think about it.”

“That’s a good answer,” Meredith said. “I think it proves my point.”

“And then I don’t know whether I want to tell you about my perfect day.’

“Who was talking about a perfect day? That’s a woman’s reaction. But all right, Jane. You’ve dropped out.”

Roche said, “That doesn’t mean that her expectations aren’t great.”

“It means they are very vague. And the whole point of the exercise is that you’ve got not to be vague. I didn’t want to say this before, but this isn’t a game that women can play. Their expectations have to do with somebody else. Like that perfect day we aren’t going to hear about. A woman can’t visualize too well because she has too many possibilities. She can be anything. Anything can happen to her. But it’s out of her hands. It all depends on this man who’s going to find her. That’s a terrible thing, if you think about it. I often think that if I were a woman I would be very frightened.”

Roche said, with a faint smile at Jane, “Jane doesn’t look very frightened.”

She said brusquely, “I’ve dropped out.”

“Harry doesn’t want time to think,” Meredith said. “Start, Harry. Let’s see you getting up in the morning. Lovely bedroom, fabulous view, fabulous house.”

“Well, yes. I will take a little honey, and then I suppose I will do my yoga.”

Meredith said, “You don’t have asthma. You’ve got rid of that.”

“I will still take the honey. And I will still do the yoga.”

“Excellent.”