V. Naipaul - Guerrillas

“So in a few days you’ll be back. In a few days you will be watching television. BBC and ITV. And listening to the radio in the mornings. Today.”

Don’t remind me. I can see it all so clearly. It makes my heart sink.”

“Does it?”

“Is there anything I can do for you? Is there something you want that I can get? Can I see anyone?”

“What will you tell them?”

“I will tell them that I’ve seen you.”

“Is that all you’ll tell them?”

She avoided his eyes. After a while she said, “Will you stay here?”

“Jane, do you know why you came?”

She didn’t answer.

“You came because you’re going away. That’s why you came. If you were staying you wouldn’t have come. You’ve caused me so much pain, Jane.”

“I don’t see how I’ve caused you pain.”

“I’m not asking for sympathy, Jane. You mustn’t think that. What would be the point? You know the score as well as anybody.”

She was unwilling to let the question go. “How have I caused you pain?”

He said, in another tone, “You’re wearing your Moroccan necklaces.”

She put her hand to them and then let them fall back on the overtanned, coarsened skin in the opening of the blouse.

Jimmy said, “The ones given you by a lover.”

She gave the smile with which she acknowledged her exaggerations, mischievousness, or untruths.

“He didn’t want money to come between you.”

“Jimmy, are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you? Isn’t there something you’d like me to take for your children?”

“You wouldn’t be welcome there. You’ve caused me a lot of pain, Jane. You mustn’t make it worse.”

He broke off, making a sign to her with his open hand, raised his head and turned it to one side. A breath of warm air made the curtains move and disturbed the dust in the room. Jane listened with him and heard, far away, the rustle of the bush, a sound so steady it was like part of the silence.

He said, “And now you’re leaving.” But he was still listening. Then, abruptly, he relaxed and looked at her. “I like those necklaces.”

She held the three pendants together between her thumb and forefinger, flicked them stiffly up, then down.

He said, “I remember them.”

She let the pendants fall again on that part of her skin that had aged from too much sun. She said, “They’re quite worthless.”

“That was what you said. I suppose I like them because I see them on you. Why did you wear them today?”

“I didn’t really think about it.”

“You didn’t think about it, Jane? But you were coming to see me. I remember them very well. I’ve remembered everything about you. And now you’re leaving. Does massa know you’re here?”

“I told Peter I was coming to see you.”

“Did he tell you to tell me anything?”

“Should he have?”

“He’s very worried about you, Jane. He’s coming here. Did you know that? He said there was something he wanted to see me about. That’s a good laugh for a hot day. Massa isn’t going to let you go, Jane. It will kill him to lose you. Did you know that?”

“Peter? Are you saying that Peter cares for me? Peter cares for nobody.”

“You’re his last chance.”

“I don’t believe anybody is anybody’s last chance.” She opened her bag and brought out her cigarettes and her lighter.

“I remember that.”

“What do you remember?”

“The way you’re looking now. Your eyes. Your mouth.”

She lit her cigarette and kept the lighter in her hand. He went to the shelves and took the heavy, round ash tray, bubbles in the blue-tinted glass, and put it on the glass-topped table. He stood above her and she could see up the short sleeves of his loose Mao shirt to his armpits. Her eyes went moist. He sat on the furry arm of her chair; her smoking gestures became smaller, constricted.

He said, “I was frightened of what I saw.”

“Why were you frightened?” She touched the tip of her cigarette, as yet without ash, on the thick rim of the ash tray.

“It always happens like that. I knew I would be involved with you. I knew you were going to come back.” He whispered, “You told massa?”

She looked at him. Her moist eyes were full of irritation, alarm.

He looked at the lighter in her cigarette hand and said, “I remember that. From the Sahara.”

She held out the cigarette to the ash tray; she was about to swallow. He squeezed her hand hard over the ash tray; and her face moved to his, her mouth open, the cigarette falling from her fingers, the lighter hurting in her palm. Her mouth opened wide and pressed against his, and her lips and tongue began to work.

He took his mouth away and said, “Be calm. You’re too greedy. You give yourself away when you kiss like that. A woman’s whole life is in her kiss.”

He released her hand; the lighter fell on the glass-topped table. Her head remained thrown back on the chair; when he went to her mouth again he found her lips barely parted, her tongue withdrawn. He said, “That’s better.” Very lightly, he ran the tip of his tongue between her lips, then on the inside of her lower lip. Then, still lightly, he sucked her lower lip. He took his mouth away and looked at her. Her eyes were still closed. She said, “That was lovely.” He held her face between his hands, jammed the heels of his palms on the corners of her mouth, covering her almost vanished period spots, distending her lips. He covered her mouth with his; her lips widened and she made a strangled sound; and then he spat in her mouth. She swallowed and he let her face go. She opened her eyes and said, “That was lovely.” He put his hands below her wet armpits and began to lift her. But she stood up of her own accord.

She said, “Your eyes are shining.”

“Your eyes are screaming still.”

He touched her with the tips of his fingers in the small of her back, and casually, like old lovers, they walked into the bedroom.

She saw the bare ocher-washed walls, the shiny brown fitted wardrobe, and, through the high wide window, the pale sky. The bathroom door was ajar: she saw the low tiled wall around the shower area, the dry concrete floor. Standing separate from one another, they began, without haste, to undress. The bed was unmade, the mattress showing at the top, the middle of the rumpled sheet brushed smooth and brown from use and spotted with stiff stains. The yellow candlewick bedspread hung over the end of the bed and rested on the maroon carpet.

Jane, unbuttoning her blouse, smiled and said, “Your candle-wick bedspread.”

“So you remember it. You didn’t seem to care for it the last time.”

She nodded slowly, once, and gave her mischievous smile. She took off her blouse and threw it on the brown chest of drawers. Against the rest of her the red, aged skin below her neck looked like a rash; the little folds of flesh in her shaved armpits were wet. She let the Moroccan necklaces fall, with a little ripple of metallic sound, on the chest of drawers. She didn’t take off her brassiere: her breasts were small: he noted that shyness. She stepped out of her shoes and was at once small. She didn’t step out of her trousers, but lifted one leg after the other, in an athletic movement, and pulled the trousers off: a rough, masculine sound. Suddenly, then, her pants a shrunken, wrinkled roll on the carpet, she was on the unmade bed, sighing, smiling at him, her head on the oily pillow; and she looked big again. She opened her legs, put her hand there, and drew her fingers upward through moist flesh and hair. The wanton’s gesture: he noted it, and he seemed to say, “Hm.”

She said, “I hate that shirt.”

“I am taking it off.” His voice was soft.

When, looking very big, he moved toward her, she closed her eyes. She said, “Kiss me, Jimmy,” and waited with lips open, tongue withdrawn. Crouching beside her, he jammed his palms against the corners of her mouth. She made the strangled sound and he covered her mouth with his. He made her swallow, and she rested her hands on his back and said, “Love, love.”