by Paul Theroux
There were so many ways that a woman got into bed—all the postures that meant I’m joining you, and the slow, reluctant movements a woman made when she was simply tired, the way she lay down flat, with no sideways motion, as though she were alone.
But I was still awake, and shortly I was on Grace. Her eyes were open, but her body seemed asleep.
“Are you finished yet?” she said.
And then I could not continue. I rolled over and looked at the ceiling. Even in this cold season, Captain had draped the bed with a mosquito net. It looked mockingly like a bridal veil.
“Do you want to stay?”
“It will cost more.”
I was thinking about Africa. What an excellent place it was in the dark, and how lucky I was to be out of America and out of Vietnam. I could go on living, and from here in Central Africa I had a good vantage point on both those places; I could begin to write something that was my own. I considered the word nocturnes. There was no writing here at all, and nocturnes was a word that had to be written—no one ever said it, which was why it was still so beautiful. I had tried to write a story about these African girls, but it kept coming out funny. I did not know that its comedy was its truth. I needed to write, because so much had happened to me to make me feel lonely, and writing about these past events was the best way of being free of their power. The thought stirred me and made me want to live a long time.
That took seconds.
Grace slammed the door hard and woke the dogs, and people started calling out, and cocks crowed, as light appeared in slashes between my curtains—another day. Though something had ended in Africa I was still smiling. I wanted to go on remembering this.
FOUR
BUSH-BABY
1.
No one looks more like a displaced person than an Indian in an overcoat. My friend, S. Prasad, the writer, was waiting for me behind the glass doors at Victoria Air Terminal. His winter clothes, and his thick meerschaum pipe, and the way he glowered—his complexion was more gray than brown this December day—made him seem forbidding. But I knew better. He was an unusual alien: he knew everything about England, he had an Oxford degree, owned his own house, and had published half a shelf of books. He had won five literary prizes. “I don’t want to hear about prizes,” he sometimes said, making his famous face of disgust. He had lived here since he was eighteen. Still, he called himself an exile. He said he didn’t belong—he looked it in his winter coat. Seeing me, he frowned with satisfaction.
He told me about his being an exile as we crossed London in the back of a taxi on the way to his house. I was listening, but I was also rejoicing in the weather.
In Uganda, where I now lived, the sun’s dazzle filled the sky, so most days there was no sky. After that dangerous and squan-dered-looking sunlight, England this wet day looked like a city underground. It was cold, it gleamed, it was black, it seemed indestructible. But this was only a holiday interval for me. I was tired of spending hot drunken Christmases in Africa. This time I would do it right—stay here, sing carols, tramp through the snowy streets; then back to the jungle.
“I have no home,” Prasad was saying, biting his pipestem. “You Americans are so lucky—you can always go home. But how can I go back to that ridiculous little island? Exile is a real word for me, you know. These chaps—”
We were at a red light and men in bowler hats and black suits, like a crowd of morticians, were crossing the road in front of our taxi.
“—these chaps have no idea. They have pensions and families and houses and, good God, they have children. They’re secure. They’re doing very nicely—probably putting a few pence away. What is that bespectacled son of a bitch looking at?”
It was a skinny-faced Indian in a pin-striped suit, waiting for the light to change and glancing at S. Prasad as we drove off.
“Pakistanis. They’re everywhere,” Prasad said. “Can you blame the English for complaining? They’re no better than your bow-and-arrow men.”
I said nothing, because I knew he was only half serious, and he was at his best when he was allowed to range freely. He was an intensely private and usually silent man, which was why when he stepped out and began to speak he could be startling. Also, he tested his opinions on perfect strangers. I hate music was one of the first things he ever said to me. He never repeated it, and so I assumed he probably did not mean it. Now he was talking about Pakistanis and Islam and Mr. Jinnah.
I was transfixed by the people—the pretty girls in short skirts, the purposeful way they walked, the curve of their thighs, and all the hurrying people, so different from the shufflers in Wandegeya.
Prasad saw that I was interested, but before I could speak he said, “London does not swing for me.” And he smiled. “It might for you, Andre.”
We crossed a bridge over the Thames and we seemed to be traveling outdoors for the length of it. I got a glimpse of the river and the pale winter light: white sky, black buildings. Then darkness again on the far side, and the taxi buried us in south London.
“I should move from here,” Prasad said, as the taxi slowed on a narrow street of bulgey brown brick houses. “I’ve put this little place on its feet. It’s time to go.”
The house looked freshly painted—bright trim, a new gate, a garden in which the slender trees still flew tiny white tags from the nursery.
“You ring the bell,” Prasad said, pocketing his latchkey. “Sarah likes a little drama.”
His wife appeared a moment later, and threw her arms around me, and exclaimed, “Andy!”
“I’ve been thinking of a small flat in an area that is uncompromisingly fashionable,” Prasad was saying behind me. I could tell he was biting on his pipe. “Haven’t I, darling? Oh, do go in!”
I had been an admirer of Prasad’s writing for about four years when we met by chance in Africa. He said he was passing through; he was restlessly working on a book that he carried from hotel to hotel. He read some things of mine and said, “Promise me one thing. That you will write about this place.”
He meant Africa. I promised I would. And so we became friends. When he and Sarah left Africa he urged me to spend Christmas with them in London. Christmas was a long holiday in Uganda, where I was teaching—three weeks of rain and stifling heat, and nothing to do but drink. And there was nothing to keep me there—I had no family. So I gladly went to London. I was grateful for Prasad’s invitation.
“You’ve never been here before!” he shouted in his friendly way. “Sarah—it’s Andy’s first day in London!”
He laughed very hard and asked me how old I was—although he knew. And then he became grave and motioned with his pipe.
“You saw Nyasaland and Tanganyika before you saw England,” he said. “You think it’s nothing, but that simple fact will probably affect you the whole of your writing life.”
From the other room, Sarah said, “Nyasaland and Tanganyika have new names, you know.”
“But who can pronounce them, darling?” And he laughed. “They’re jolly hard—but I’ll bet Andy can!”
Then he took off his jacket and tie and put on his pajamas. He wore a purple bathrobe with velvet lapels and carpet slippers. It was eleven o’clock in the morning. He said he had work to do.
He saw that I was puzzled.
“I dress for dinner,” he said. And he laughed. “I dress for dinner!”
The next morning when I came downstairs for breakfast I saw Prasad sorting Christmas cards. He took a letter from another pile and handed it to me. It had a bright Ghanaian stamp on it.
Prasad said nothing, he was still sorting the Christmas cards; but I knew he was watching me as I read it. I had been expecting this letter from Francesca.
Over breakfast he said, “Sarah, Andy got a letter this morning—from the Gold Coast! Imagine.” He turned to me. “Are you going to pay them a visit, the old Gold Coasters?”
“I was thinking about it.”
“But European handwriting,” he said, and he squeezed his features in i
ntense thought, and making this face he said, “French? Italian? It had a certain—”
“Italian,” I said.
He saw everything.
“Ah,” he said. “I wish I had your energy, Andy.”
He changed into a different pair of pajamas before he went to his study, and passing me on the way he said, “All this travel, all these tickets. I imagine you’re very well paid out there. The salaries are so grand. You probably have a pension plan. But what about your writing?”
“I’m going to write some articles for a newspaper in Boston,” I said. “That’ll pay my way.”
“That’s it,” Prasad said. He looked pleased at the news that I was paying my way. “You’re full of ideas, Andy. You have such a gift for these things.”
“It means I’ll have to go back via Ghana.”
“The Gold Coast,” Prasad said. “But you have a friend there.”
He said friend as though he were saying woman: he knew.
“And then maybe Nigeria.”
“More bongo drums,” he said.
“Then Uganda.”
“The bow-and-arrow men.”
To change the subject, I said, “Are you working on anything?”
“A story,” he said. “Want to hear the opening?”
This was unlike him—he never spoke about his work. I said I would be delighted to hear it.
He said, “John Smithers was buggering Simon Panga-Matoke when the telephone rang. He withdrew, and with tainted tumescent penis entered his study. He picked up the receiver. It was the Director of the Ugandan Space Program.” Prasad stared at me. “You like it?”
I shook my head slowly, not wanting to speak.
“I don’t know how you stand it, Andy,” he said. “Now remember your promise.”
Sarah asked me to call him for lunch when I returned from a walk that morning.
Prasad’s study was in total darkness, but when I opened the door I saw him lying on a sofa, still in his pajamas, smoking a cigarette.
“I finished my book,” he said. “I have nothing to do. The book almost killed me, man. I’m like a bird with a broken wing.”
My problem was that I had no name for him. He was known as S. Prasad. His first name was Suraj—no one called him that. (His hotel and restaurant reservations often appeared in the name “Sir Arch Prasad,” which pleased him.) I was beyond calling him Mr. Prasad. Sarah called him “Raj.” It suited him, particularly when he was wearing his purple bathrobe and his Indian slippers. I did not know what anyone else called him. I had never met any of his friends. But that second day at lunch I said, “I’d like to take you both out to lunch tomorrow.”
“You go with Raj,” Sarah said. “I have work to do.”
“What do you say, Raj?”
It was the first time I had used this intimate name.
He smiled, and I felt we had advanced in our friendship, yet I was still conscious of our being master and student.
“Lunch is a delightful idea,” he said. “And I can drop off my proofs afterward.”
He went to his study—to work, he said. But now I knew he was smoking in the darkness, lying on the sofa, like a man grieving.
In the evening we watched television. I found the programs fascinating and intelligent, and I watched them hungrily, like a dog watching his meat being dumped into a bowl. Prasad hated them.
“You think that man is smiling? That man is not smiling. That is not a smile. That man is a politician. He is very crooked.”
That was a documentary on the BBC. Then there was a discussion. The chairman made a joke and the studio audience laughed.
Prasad’s lips were curled in disgust and pity. “Poor Malcolm,” he said. He turned to me. “Promise me you’ll never go on a program like that, Andy.”
Sarah snickered as I solemnly promised never to appear on the panel of The World This Week.
But Sarah wasn’t mocking me. She found Prasad endlessly amusing and unexpected. She was English, exactly his age, and such a good companion to this new friend of mine that I did not dare find her attractive.
She stood at the door the next day as if seeing two boys off to school, or an outing—she fussed and hurried us and said, “Now remember not to leave your umbrella on the tube, Raj.”
He didn’t kiss her. Perhaps he saw that I noticed.
“I hate displays of affection,” he said.
On our way to the station he stopped at a newsagent’s bulletin board and peered closely at the various cards that were pinned to it. French Lessons. Theatrical Wardrobe. Very Strict Games Mistress Will Not Spare the Rod. For a Good Time Ring Doreen. Young Model Seeks Work. Dancing Lessons. Dusky Islander Seeks Driving Position.
“This is a little lesson in English euphemism,” he said. But he kept his eyes on the cards. “I wonder if there’s anything here for you.” He did not move his head, and yet I knew he was watching me in the reflection from the glass. “No, I suppose not.”
In the train he explained that the cards were put up by prostitutes. It was very straightforward. You called them and made an appointment. The price was agreed over the phone. And then you paid them a visit. Prasad saw that his explanation, even in his disgusted voice, had given me a thrill.
“Sex is everywhere in this country,” he said. “It’s the new mood. It’s on everyone’s mind. It’s all people think about. It has become a kind of obsession.”
He was biting his pipe. The passengers on the train were wearing heavy coats and scarves and hats, and their thick-soled shoes were scuffed and wet, and their faces were very white. Over their heads pink-faced women were shown in fancy underwear ads, and with red lips advertising lipstick, and in sunshine modeling bathing suits.
“Let them carry on,” Prasad said. “I don’t want to suppress it. I want everyone to be completely satisfied and then to stop. Let them get it over with. Let them burn.”
He looked around this Northern Line train and went on, “I want that urge to burn itself out. And then I want to hear no more about it.”
We went to Wheeler’s Restaurant. We both ordered sole.
“Shall we have a carafe of the house wine?” Prasad said in a discouraged voice. “Oh, let’s have a classic wine. You have a job, you have a few pence—didn’t you say you’re on expenses? And this way we’ll remember it. People say, ‘I drink plonk.’ But why? Surely life’s too short for that. Let’s have a classic, one of the great wines, perhaps a white burgundy.”
We had a bottle of Montrachet 1957. Eight pounds, ten shillings.
“Taste that,” Prasad said, urging me to drink. “You’re going to remember that.”
After lunch Prasad took me to his publisher, where he intended to drop off the corrected proofs of his book. I knew nothing about it other than it was his hotel novel, the one he had carried around East Africa, on his search for the perfect place to write it.
Howletts Ltd., Prasad’s publisher, occupied a small gray building of misshapen brickwork near the British Museum. The British Museum was to be our second stop—Prasad wanted to show me the manuscripts in the glass cases: “Johnny Keats, Jimmy Joyce, Sammy Johnson—even a bit of Shakey. They’ve got them all.”
But there was a problem with the proofs, or perhaps it was the foreign rights. Whatever—it meant that Prasad would be detained.
“Oh, God,” he said, in real misery. “I’ve let you down. And after that lovely lunch.”
He said he would be busy all afternoon, but perhaps I could find my own way to the BM? It was just over the road. He would see me later at home.
“Don’t be depressed,” he said.
“I’m not depressed,” I said, though I felt a little drunk from the wine and might have been looking rather frog-eyed. “I’ll find the way.”
“You’re so resourceful,” he said. He gave me his latchkey for the front door, in case I happened to come home late.
As I was leaving Howlett’s a blonde girl was also leaving, and I held the door open for her. She was very pr
etty, about my age, and was dressed like a Cossack in the fashion that was then in vogue—a fur hat, a long dark coat, and high boots. I sized her up quickly and then asked her directions to the British Museum.
“I’m going right past it,” she said. “Follow me.”
It was her way of conveying that she was interested in me, too. She could so easily have given me directions.
Her name was Rosamond. She worked at Howlett’s as an editor. But it was a small firm; she also did typing, publicity, and ran errands.
Hoping to impress her, I said that I had been to her offices with one of Howlett’s writers, and I told her who it was.
“Roger thinks he’s a genius,” Rosamond said, hinting in her tone that she didn’t agree.
“Who is Roger?”
“Roger Howlett. He’s sort of the owner.”
She had long hair which she swung back and forth as she walked, and her stride was brisk and Cossack-like, her sleeves thrashing and her boots clumping. People stared at her and I drew closer to her side.
“Everyone’s afraid of Prasad. He’s frightfully direct sometimes, and he has a beastly temper.” She smiled as though remembering an incident. “What are you doing at the BM?”
“Just killing time.”
She thought this was funny, but she tried to hide her reaction—probably for fear I’d be offended.
Then we were at the gates of the British Museum.
“Want to have a drink sometime?”
She shrugged and said, “My friends and I usually go to that pub after work.” She pointed across the street.
“Let’s meet there at six o’clock.”
“All right,” she said.
Inside I thought: If I hadn’t had that bottle of wine for lunch I wouldn’t have spoken to her, and when I thought of Rosamond’s face I remembered Prasad saying Let’s have a classic. I might marry her, I thought—my whole life changed by a bottle of white burgundy.