V. Naipaul - Guerrillas

“Then a little walk around the garden, I suppose. And I’m not looking at sand and sticks. No drought.”

“Fantastic garden,” Meredith said. “But where’s this house? In what country?”

“I love this country. But you know the situation.”

“There is total stability wherever you are. You have absolute security.”

“I have to think of the children. They’re more ambitious than me. I think it will have to be in Toronto. Well, after breakfast, nuh, with a little honey, I go to the office.”

“Fabulous business,” Meredith said.

“No, nothing too big. No fun in running something that get too big and you can’t feel it. I get to the office before anybody else. I find it cool and quiet and clean. I love being in a clean office first thing in the morning. Nobody around you, nobody talking, your desk empty. That’s when I do my thinking, in that first half hour. All kinds of fantastic ideas come to me. I see how I have to play this and play that, and I feel in control. Then the guys start coming in, the letters come up, and work starts. In the middle of the morning the guys come in with some problem that is driving them frantic. Well, I listen to them and I go through the papers and I straightaway see how you have to play the thing. I say so-so-so-so. And the guys fall back in amazement. And they know why I am the boss. Well, lunchtime, nuh. Nothing too elaborate. You know me. As soon as I eat or drink too much I start choking.”

“This is excellent, Harry,” Meredith said. He got up and passed the pad on which he had written to Jane.

“I’m forgetting,” Harry said. “There is no music anywhere. I am not hearing music anywhere. In the afternoon I dictate half a dozen magnificent letters. I’ve been turning them over in my head all day, and at three o’clock I call the girl in and I’m ready to go. And that’s it. Eight or nine problems. All settled, and I feel I can look forward to developments. I’m planning years ahead, you know. At four o’clock I’m feeling damn good. And everything I do now is like a reward.”

Jane read what Meredith had written and began to laugh.

Harry said, “Am I saying something funny?”

She said, “No, no. Go on, Harry. Do go on.”

“In the evening I go back home and walk around the garden and do a little yoga and splash about in the pool. Then I shower and put on clean clothes. I love clean cotton. And then some lovely friends come for dinner. And then we end up in the bar.”

“And that’s it?” Meredith said.

“I suppose so.”

Jane said, “Meredith is right.”

She took the pad back to Meredith, and he passed it to Roche.

Roche read: The life being described is the life the speaker lives or a life he has already lived. The setting may change, but no one will make a fresh start or do anything new.

Harry got out of the hammock and said, “Let me see, Peter.”

They all stood up. The sun was slicing across one corner of the porch. The light was hard; the parched lawn was beginning to reflect heat.

Roche said, “I suppose that’s true of me too. I was changing the setting. So I wouldn’t feel I had to do anything about anything.”

“Release,” Meredith said, and at that moment was like a friend again. “That would be lovely. Just to be oneself. That’s how I see it too.”

Roche said, “I was trying to see myself in this new setting as a successful lawyer. I feel like you. The law engages the whole personality. Scholarship, memory, judgment, knowledge of men—”

Jane said, “But you didn’t mention Marie-Thérèse, Harry.”

“I thought about it, but somehow I didn’t want to.”

Meredith said, “Don’t believe him. He wasn’t sure. But that’s standard. Men who play this game seldom mention sex. The man who has everything takes that for granted. Cruel but true.” He was standing beside Jane. She was as tall as he. He began to rise and fall on his toes, began again to swing his arms, slapping the matchbox against the cigarette pack. He said, “But we might talk more about this, Peter. On the radio. I’ve had you on my Encounter list for a long time. As a matter of fact, it’s what I wanted to see you about. You should have been on the program a long time ago. But I wanted to let you settle down. I don’t think there’s any point in asking a man who’s just arrived what he thinks about the place.”

Roche said, “Now that I know, I’m relieved. But I suppose I’ll have to ask Sablich’s.”

Meredith said, “They’ll give you a bonus. It’ll be very nice for them. The format’s quite simple. We’ll record for an hour and cut it down to twenty-five minutes. Roughly what we’ve been talking about. Something offbeat. Nothing about our beaches and our wonderful hospitality or the way we look after our old people. I’ll telephone you next week.”

He rose on his toes, small, solid, bowed to Jane, said, “Jane,” and then, arms swinging, matchbox striking cigarette pack, he walked with his springy step through the dark living room, acting his exit as he had acted his entrance, saying loudly, in a local accent, “But, Harry, where Joseph? Joseph gone? Take care he don’t leave you too, eh, Harry.”

The car door slammed. The engine started.

Harry said, “Well, all right, man, Merry. Nice of you to come over. Love to Pamela, eh. And tell her the boycott over. Well, right, man.”

The car moved away, and Harry came back into the living room, wheezing, looking very tired.

Joseph had gone down to the beach. But he had laid the table in the alcove at the far end of the living room and had put out the food on the ledge of the wide kitchen hatch.

Harry said, “Well, sit down, nuh.”

His tone was the jocular tone he had used seeing Meredith off. But his voice had grown hoarse. All at once he closed his eyes, held up quivering hands, and said, “I feel like screaming. I feel I should go out somewhere and cut my throat.”

Roche said, “Count ten, Harry.”

And while Jane squeezed in between the bench and the table in the alcove, Harry put his hands on his hips, lifted his head and began to take short, noisy breaths. When, eventually, the spasm was controlled, and they were all seated, he said, “That man draws something from me these days. It isn’t so much what he says. It’s a kind of feeling he gives off. When you look at his face and that little smile you feel: Oh my God, what’s the use, why do anything. And you want to push your hand through a glass window. And he always ends up looking so damn happy. That gets me so mad, man.”

Jane said, “I can’t get over his looks. He mesmerizes me. When he was sitting down on that low chair I thought he looked like a wistful little frog.”

Roche said, “That probably explains a lot.”

“He was aggressive today, man,” Harry said. “I’m sorry, Jane. I’m very sorry. But I’ve never heard Meredith use language like that before in company.”

Jane said, “I scarcely hear what he’s saying. I just sit and admire.”

Harry said, “Somebody’s given him a sniff of power. You notice he didn’t say too much about his perfect day? I was waiting to hear whether he was prime minister. But he didn’t mention politics at all.”

Roche said, “I can understand that.”

“No, man,” Harry said. “He wants power. Or what he thinks is power. I’ve been hearing stories. And he is a damn fool. They will chew him up again. And this time he will really mash up his life. I don’t know how he thinks he can go down to the beach and talk to those people. They don’t want to hear anyone like Meredith.”

Roche said, “That’s why he’s so worried. He knows he will be chewed up.”

“I don’t know how a man can change so much,” Harry said. “Jane, you wouldn’t believe what fun it used to be with Meredith. Terrible things would happen in this place, and then you would hear Meredith talk and he would put everything in place for you and your mind would be settled. You would feel that with people like that things couldn’t be so bad. But look today. You know, I’ve never heard Meredith talk so much about Jimmy Ahmed. To Meredith the man was a joke. Today he talk as though he want to kill the guy.”