V. Naipaul - Guerrillas

Roche said, “How much longer are we going on?”

Meredith, readjusting his expression, said, “Not much.” Then he spoke to the microphone again.

“But we’ll leave it, Peter. You say you found Jimmy Ahmed attractive.”

“He seemed to get things done.”

“But what he was trying to do was antihistorical. Did you think someone with a shopkeeping background was really equipped for the task he set out to do? Or did you think, since it was antihistorical, it didn’t matter?”

“I thought he might have chosen another project. With Jimmy, you always had to bring him down to earth. Farming is a serious business. It requires a lot of boring application. It isn’t for someone who’s easily bored or wants quick results.”

“I think you are being naïve, Peter. You were a stranger when you came. I accept that. But did you think, after you’d got here, that someone with a Chinese shopkeeping background could be in tune with aspirations of black people?”

“He seemed to have followers.”

“Yes, followers. That’s why our brothels are full. But let’s leave that too. You said you came here because you wished to do creative work. That implies you felt you were needed.”

“I was wrong.”

“But it’s nice to feel needed. And that also implies that you felt you would be welcome. And you are welcome. But what a nice world you inhabit, Peter. You have so much room for error. I wouldn’t be welcome among white people, however much I wanted to work among them.”

“That’s the way the world is.”

Roche looked away and said, “I’m choking. I can’t think clearly in this studio.” But he spoke without temper.

Sweat was running down Roche’s forehead into his eyes and down his neck into his shirt. He was aware of the studio manager in the dimly lit cubicle; and he had half addressed those words to him. But there was no response from the big man behind glass, cool in his white shirt and striped tie. The man had missed the appeal; he remained neutral; his expression didn’t alter.

Roche looked away, past Meredith and the microphone, to the picture window, radiating heat. Beyond the two panes of glass was the silent view: the sun going down behind the hills, the sky turning pale ocher, the sea silver, the hills red-black, the royal palms darkening against the sky.

The studio manager, responding to the silence, said, “Shall we stop?” The curiously soft voice again, singsong and slightly effeminate.

Meredith, his face wet, his shirt wet and sticking round the collarbone so that his skin and vest showed, said, “We’ll go on for a little longer. It’s bad for me too, Peter.” He pulled out a loose white handkerchief from his hip pocket; but then he changed his mind; he didn’t use the handkerchief, and he left it on the green table.

“I don’t want to embarrass you, Peter. Especially now that you say you’re leaving us. Have you any plans for the future? Do you know what you’ll do?”

“I suppose I’ll go back to England and try to get another job.”

“In the same field?”

“No.”

“So you’re washing your hands of us. I feel we’ve let you down. I feel you haven’t enjoyed your time with us.”

“I wish my life had taken another turn.”

“What do you mean? Do you wish you hadn’t done what you did? Do you think it’s all gone to waste?”

“We’ve talked about this before, Meredith. I don’t think regret enters into it. I suppose I would do it again. I would have no option. I don’t suppose I ever thought about it going to waste or not. I just wish it hadn’t been necessary to do what I did. I wish the world were arranged differently, so that afterwards I didn’t feel I had been landed with a side. I wish I hadn’t walked into that particular trap.”

“Trap?”

“Thinking I had somehow committed myself to one kind of action and one kind of cause. There is so much more to the world. You know what I mean. You mustn’t pretend you don’t know what I mean.”

“As you say, you feel like a stranger here. You don’t feel involved. And I can see how some of our attitudes can irritate you. I feel we’ve let you down. We haven’t used you well — and that’s true of a lot of other people besides yourself. Because you’re a brave man, Peter. People who’ve read your book know that you’re a brave man and that you’ve suffered for your beliefs, in a way that most of us will never suffer. Can we talk about your book? It wouldn’t embarrass you?”

“We can talk about my book.”

“It’s an extraordinary book. Quite a document. But I’m sure you don’t want me to repeat what the critics have already told you.”

“They didn’t say that.”

“One of my problems with the book is that, although it’s very political — and I know that you consider yourself a political animal — there seems to be no framework of political belief.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“We’ve talked about this. You write as though certain things merely happened to you, were forced on you.”

“Some people have said this to me. It was what the publisher said. I suppose that’s what’s wrong with it as a book.”

“You describe the most monstrous kind of white aggression against black people. Monstrous things happened to you and to people you know. And some of those people are still there. You describe individual things very clearly. But it isn’t always easy to see where you were going or where you thought you were going.”

“I began to feel that when I was writing. What was clear at the time became very confused as I was writing. I felt swamped by all the people I had to write about, and all the little events which I thought important. I thought I would never be able to make things clear. But I was hoping people wouldn’t notice.”

“But the astonishing thing is that you risked so much for so little. Looking back now, the guerrilla activities you describe in your book, the little acts of sabotage — they really cannot be compared with the guerrilla activities of other people in other countries. Would you say that was fair?”

“We were amateurs. The situation was different in other countries.”

“And perhaps the motivation was different as well. It isn’t for me to pass any judgment, so far from the scene. I can only admire. But I find it hard to imagine that you expected what you were doing to have any result. Tearing up a railway, bombing a power station.”

“I’m amazed myself now at the things we tried to do. I suppose we led too sheltered lives. We exaggerated the effect of a bomb.”

“It was a gesture. You were making a gesture.”

“It didn’t seem so at the time.”

“And you and your companions paid heavily for that gesture. You were tortured, Peter.”

Roche, warm sweat tickling through his hair and down his forehead, stared at the microphone.

“Even that you write about as something that just happened.”

Roche turned his head and looked at the picture window. The royal palms were dark warm silhouettes against the glowing sky.

“No bitterness,” Meredith said. “No anger. Many people have remarked on this. But I have a problem with it. At school — many people will remember this — we were sometimes given a punishment assignment. I don’t know what happens nowadays, but we wrote lines. The way of the transgressor is exceedingly difficult.’ ”

The tone of Meredith’s voice, and a certain rapidity in the delivery, indicated that this was something he had prepared. Roche heard the professional laugh in the voice. Dutifully — the duty owed to someone who had prepared so well and was trying so hard — Roche turned to face Meredith again. He saw the smile, not the smile of the uplifted face, but Meredith’s other smile.