V. Naipaul - Guerrillas

He made it seem like a Sunday. He was dressed as for his beach house, in his fringed knee-length shorts and a long-sleeved jersey with a high neck, for his asthma. His white canvas shoes made his feet look very big and busy as he walked across the wet lawn.

Jane was glad to see him, but after greeting him she found it hard to speak. They went around the house to the back porch and passed through to the kitchen. Roche was there. He ignored Jane; he looked strained, distressed. But he was as anxious as Jane to claim Harry; and Harry seemed to hesitate before the warmth, and near wordlessness, of their welcome.

The right-hand pocket of Harry’s tight shorts bulged.

Roche said, “I hope that thing isn’t loaded.”

“No, man. I don’t want to blow my balls off — excuse me, Jane. I’m just hiding it from Joseph.” He took out the revolver and showed it, and they all sat down at the breakfast table. “It used to belong to my father.”

Jane plugged the kettle in. “Have you ever used it?”

“Not me. And I don’t know whether my father ever used it. It resemble him a little bit. He was about five foot high, with a temper to match. It looks a damn unreliable little thing, you don’t find? I feel the only person you would damage with this would be yourself.” He tucked the revolver back in his pocket and said, “But it’s so damn peaceful up here, man. So peaceful. Adela come back?”

Jane said, “I haven’t heard her.”

Harry pushed the revolver deeper into his pocket. He said, “You know, we used to laugh at the old people. And they had their funny little ways. But they were damn right about certain things. My father never employed anybody he couldn’t beat with his own two hands. He used to say to me, ‘Harry, if you’re employing anybody who is going to be close to you in the house or in the office, forget about qualifications and recommendations. Worry about that last. The first question to ask yourself is: “Should the occasion arise, would I be able to bust this man’s arse?” ’ Nowadays they’re sending people up to the States to do diplomas in personnel management and that kind of nonsense. The only personnel management you have to study is whether you could bust the feller’s arse. It’s not funny, Jane. You hear me talking like this now. And you know what? I got that big, hulking, hard-back nigger man walking about my house and yard. I am telling you, Jane. I am frightened to say good morning to Joseph.”

Jane brewed instant coffee in the heavy company cups. She said, “But, Harry, your asthma. It’s gone.”

“Well, girl, is as they say. Fire drive out fire.”

Roche said, “Does anybody know what is happening?”

Harry said, “I don’t think so. I don’t think anybody knows what is happening with the police down there. I don’t think even our local police people know. They’re just sitting tight and eating our food.”

“What about Jimmy?” Roche said. “Any more about him?”

“Jimmy kinda drop out of the news. At first it was all Jimmy Ahmed and the Arrow of Peace. Now you hearing about all kinds of guys popping up everywhere. Peter, tell me. Before Sunday, did you ever hear about the Arrow of Peace? How did I miss a thing like that?”

“I’m the last person to ask. I miss everything. I never thought Jimmy had it in him to start anything like that. I always thought that Jimmy was the kind of man who would disappear at the first sign of trouble.”

“That’s probably what he’s done. Events move too fast for him. And for Meredith too. The two of them wanted to play bad-John, and the two of them get licked down.”

Roche said, smiling, “Meredith was certainly planning something more long-term.”

Harry said, “A child could have told Meredith that they were calling him back to the government just to throw him to the crowd. You see how a man can destroy his life in two days. They did terrible things to Meredith. Joseph was telling me. They strip him naked. Joseph say somebody even put a knife to the man’s balls — excuse me, Jane. Then they give him a piece of palm branch and make him run for his life. You see the kind of thoughts that can get in those people’s head? And Meredith is one of them. He will have to hide now, you know. He can’t live here after this. The place is too small.”

Roche said, “I wanted to telephone Jimmy. I even went to the telephone once or twice. But I changed my mind.”

“Like me and Meredith. I don’t know what to do. I want to show some kind of solidarity with the guy, but I don’t know what the hell I can telephone him and say. And then I don’t even know whether half I hear about him is even true.”

Jane said, “You can telephone him and congratulate him on being a minister.”

“Yes,” Harry said. “You can say that Merry looked for what he got.”

Jane said, “Did you see the airplane on Monday afternoon?”

“Girl, I can’t tell you the stories. If everybody who they say leave was on that plane, the damn thing wouldn’t have got off the ground.”

Roche said, “It isn’t only Mrs. Grandlieu who can’t get to the airport.”

Jane ignored this. She said to Harry, “But the place just can’t stay like this. It can’t just turn into a great ripe cheese.”

Roche looked at her. He said, “ Why not ?” It was the first time he had spoken to her for two days, and the words held all his secreted rage.

Jane continued to look at Harry. Her eyes went moist; she took the coffee cup to her lips and held it there.

Harry, responding to Jane’s eyes, and then looking away, began talking, softly at first, and slowly. He said, “Those guys down there don’t know what they’re doing. All this talk of independence, but they don’t really believe that times have changed. They still feel they’re just taking a chance, and that when the show is over somebody is going to go down there and start dishing out licks. And they half want it to be over, you know. They would go crazy if somebody tell them that this time nobody might be going down to dish out licks and pick up the pieces.”

Jane looked at Harry while he spoke. Roche saw the look in her eyes: the violated. His anger grew again.

Roche said, almost shouted, “They know what they’re doing. They’re pulling the place down.”

Harry said uneasily, “All right, boss.”

Jane said, still looking at Harry, “So what are we to do?’ ”

Harry said, “What are we to do? Nothing. We can only sit tight and wait.”

Roche, looking between them, addressing neither of them, said, “The world isn’t what it was. So it must go up in flames.”

Harry stood up. “Jane, I want to make a telephone call.”

She said, “You can use the one in the sitting room.”

“No, it’s nothing private. I’ll use the one here.”

He went to the wall telephone near the door that opened into the garage, and he began to dial.

Roche leaned across the white breakfast table and brought his face close to Jane’s. She saw a face of pure hatred: the face whose existence she had intuited ever since that day when, too late, already committed to him and this adventure, she had seen him grin and had seen his long, black-rooted molars.

He said violently, “Yes, it’s going up in flames. But it’s taking you with it.”

Harry said into the telephone, “Bertie. Harry.”

Jane caught Harry’s pronunciation of his name: she understood now that he pronounced it Hah-ree when he used the name by itself, without his surname.

“But, Bertie, you’re like the Scarlet Pimpernel these days. How you liking the little excitement? … Still, I glad I catch you. Bertie, what the hell is happening? Your paper is telling me nothing. The damn thing is more like a crossword puzzle these days. Clues down and across all over the place. You saving up the solution for next week? … I understand … I understand the position.… But that is damn good news, man. If it is true.… Well, stick in a little something for us too, nuh … I don’t know. I hear some people talking about vigilante patrols.… I agree with you, Bertie. We don’t want to be provocative neither. To tell you the truth, I was thinking more of something like Ridge Residents Starve Dogs . I think there may be one or two guys down there who ought to be informed that the dogs up here haven’t fed since Sunday … no big fuss, but don’t lose it in the paper. Page one or page two, nuh … I wouldn’t say it is too obscure. It is a fairly straight message to whom it may concern. And is a nice little story too, I think.… All right, Bertie-boy. I’ll be reading the paper tomorrow please God.… ‘Please God’? Yes, man, these days we all start talking like the old people.”