The Writer and the World

by V. S. Naipaul

  Near the window overlooking the street was a set of bulky, plastic-covered, upholstered armchairs. The pea-green walls, grimed and shiny from leaning and touching, were hung, apparently at random, with photographs in passe-partout frames. There was a tall bookcase with open shelves: Christian books. The chief was a religious man, not a pasteur, but an évangéliste.

  He came in from another room, tall, middle-aged, with gold-rimmed glasses, a big gold digital wristwatch, rubber sandals, and a big white surgical dressing on a damaged ankle. He wore a patterned chocolate-brown cloth that killed his colour, just as his colour made the cloth look drab and dirty: it was the African taste in fabrics.

  Djédjé, grave, his face closed, was carrying the bottle of gin wrapped in the newspaper. The chief’s eyes settled on it for a moment and then he didn’t look at it; and when we sat on the chairs near the window Djédjé put the bottle behind him on his chair.

  People in the street were shouting in through the open window, which was hinged at the top. From time to time, while he talked to us, the chief broke off and shouted to the children, chattering inquisitive faces pushed up between hinged window and window sill, to get away.

  People, adults, men, came in through the back door and stood about, near a table strewn with newspapers and various things. Some of the men who came in gave the chief money and he, appearing to pay no attention, held the notes vertically in the closed palm of his left hand. He gestured with this moneyed hand while he talked. From time to time, when he opened his legs, to pat his cloth down between his legs, he showed his dark-blue shorts.

  He was clearly pleased with the fame that had come to the village with the affair of the blazing house. But he said that he himself wasn’t a believer. He meant he didn’t believe in the power of sorcery, being a Christian and an evangelist. (On the wall above his chair there was a photograph of him in a suit receiving a diploma or certificate when he had been made an evangelist.) There had never been any trouble in the village, he said, no spiritual or magical manifestation, no sign of the Evil Spirit. But then this thing had begun to happen in the compound of the school. The house of one of the teachers, Mr. Ariko, had begun to catch fire. And that was an undoubted manifestation.

  Of course the matter had been brought to his attention and he, as village chief, had made investigations. He discovered that Mr. Ariko had two wives. Mr. Ariko had not long before given money to both wives—forty thousand francs to each, about £70. But the second wife thought she had been given less than the first wife. That was what the chief had found out, and the case at that stage had seemed perfectly straightforward: the second wife, or the Evil Spirit within her, had “provoked” the fires. It was a simple enough matter, and there were ways of dealing with it.

  There was a prophet in Bingerville, the old French colonial settlement not far from Abidjan. The prophet was quite well known and had a little sect of his own. He was consulted, and he prepared a white powder, which he gave to the chief. The powder was to be placed on the feet of the second, disaffected wife; it was guaranteed to destroy whatever magical powers she had been invested with by the Evil Spirit.

  This was done. The second wife became ordinary again. But the fires continued in Mr. Ariko’s house. The problem was extraordinary. It began to drive everyone to distraction. Muslim marabouts and other magicians were brought in to try their hand. The tormented Mr. Ariko was spending a lot of money. Sacrifices were made. But nothing happened. Then an evangelist of the Celestial Christian sect offered his services. The Celestial Christians were a new group, from Ghana; they had been in the Ivory Coast for only three years and were anxious to make their mark. The chief decided to let the Celestial Christian evangelist try.

  The evangelist—who had a pretty shrewd idea of what was going on—watched the house. He saw that during the night a young girl, physically invisible, was moving freely in and out of the house. It was that girl, and no one else, who was doing the mischief. In the morning the Celestial Christian evangelist assembled all the young girls from the school compound. He went straight to the young girl who had made herself invisible during the night: she was the daughter of the second, disaffected wife. She confessed, and her story could scarcely be believed: the gift of sorcery had been passed on to her by her mother, before her mother’s own powers had been destroyed by the prophet’s white powder.

  The Evil Spirit had been especially devious at Kilometre 17. It was that passing on of the sorcerer’s gift that had baffled everybody. And that was why the case had caught the public imagination.

  Powder had been put on the girl’s feet, and she and her mother had been packed off to the mother’s village. The other wife, out of simple prudence, had also been sent back to her village. Since then, the chief said, there had been no trouble at all.

  The chief said reflectively, clutching the banknotes: “I tell you that there had been no trouble in the village before this business. But I think I should tell you that in this area we do in fact have some well known génies.” Djinns, spirits. “Did you notice that very sharp bend in the road? Near the banana plantation. There are some génies at that corner. Very small hens.” He made a little gesture with both hands. “Not chickens, but very small hens. If a driver sees them he is bound to have an accident.”

  I wondered about the wife and the daughter who had been sent back to the village. Would they remain sorcerers? It was possible, the chief said. And Djédjé, always more grave than the chief, said that in the village—far from good prophets and Celestial Christians—the power of the white powder could be annulled, annulé. How did people become sorcerers? The terrible gift could be passed on to them when they were children. It could be passed on to anyone; there was no question of personal wickedness.

  Djédjé said, “Without civilization, everyone would be a sorcerer.”

  It was his vision of chaos, a world without reason or rules. I thought I understood that. But then I wasn’t sure I knew what Djédjé meant by civilization. When we had last met he had spoken against “development from the top.” He pined for village ways, the dances of his ethnie; he believed in fetishes. Was civilization the sum of those old, true things: an organized society, worshipping correctly, having access to the magic that protected it from arbitrary evil? Or was Djédjé saying something simpler? Was he, in the presence of the chief, a government official, repeating the government’s case for “development”?

  It was time for the chief to get his bottle of gin. He took the newspaper-wrapped bottle and, casually, half unwrapped it to check the label. His sour, care-burdened face momentarily looked fulfilled; and then, making purely social conversation, as if offering us a little extra in return for our gift, he grumbled for a bit about the difficulties of getting labour for his fields. People preferred to work for white men, foreigners from the big companies, who of course could afford to pay more.

  On the table at the other end of the room was the copy of Fraternité Matinwith the story about the burning house. Djédjé asked for the newspaper; the chief graciously gave it. And as we drove on in the taxi to the house itself—the chief had cleared our visit, and one of the young men who had come to the room was keeping us company—Djédjé read the newspaper story, ceaselessly fingering the paper, as though the type was raised.

  He shook his head. He gave a short, wise laugh. He said, “The Celestial Christians are certainly making publicity with their success.”

  The schoolteacher’s house was one of a cluster of little low concrete houses, all ochre-coloured and flat to the ground. The settlement—so ordinary, though so famous—was still a living place. But in the middle of its midday life there was mystery. The door of the schoolmaster’s house was open; the front room was apparently empty. Outside the open door, and set firmly in the earth, was a wooden cross, about three feet high, with the metal crucifix of the Celestial Christians.

  Each house in the settlement had its own open cooking shed at the back. The soft red earth between the sheds and houses had been swept and sho
wed rake marks. Wood fires between stones burned below aluminum pots. One girl was sweeping up wet, nasty-looking rubbish with a broom made from the ribs of long coconut leaves. A few feet away a woman was using a pestle to grind aubergines in a little bowl set on the ground; and there was a neat child’s turd near by.

  There were little children everywhere. Some were rolling about playfully on a purple-patterned grass mat. Djédjé, translating what our official guide said, told me they were the children of the teacher. But the guide was wrong, or Djédjé had misunderstood him. The teacher’s child was a melancholy little fellow, sitting alone and still, like a little old man, beside a cooking fire. Tears had stained his dusty face; he had fresh tears in his eyes. Sorcery was no joke; it had come here as a family disaster. The boy was being looked after by the sister of the teacher, now that the teacher’s wives had been sent back to their villages. The sister, squatting beside her fire, was in a green African dress. It was only when she stood up I saw that she herself was very young.

  The land rose up sharply at the back of the cooking sheds. It was planted with banana trees and other trees. Scattered there, like rubbish, were some of the partly burnt things from the teacher’s house, scorched clothes, scorched furniture. Disappointing to me—I had expected evidence of bigger blazes. But these scorched small objects, though discarded as malignant things, were still on display. The mystery was still fresh, its relics (already legendary) still accessible.

  In a cooking shed at the end of the row a group of women and girls—to get a little of the visitors’ attention—was encouraging a small child to dance. They chanted, clapped and laughed, and they looked from the child to us. And the toddler did for a few moments break into a slow, sweet, stamping dance: his feet alive, his legs alive, his child’s face mournful and blank. The women and girls laughed. The child did another little dance. It was done for us, but there was no answering wave from the women to our wave of farewell.

  We drove around the area. The bush, or what had looked like bush, had surprises. All around the settlement with the teacher’s house (and the cross) were the buildings of a research institute of some sort. Many Europeans were about. I expressed surprise. The man with us as our official guide (he was the son of a former chief) resented my surprise. He spoke sharply to me, as to a foreigner and a fool; and he never returned to good humour. We set him down at the main road, the Yamoussoukro auto-route. His dark African cloth quickly turning him all black, he crossed with a stamping swagger to the township on the other side and was at once lost in the crowd.

  7

  THE DJéDJé business ended badly. The fault was mine. I gave him too much money. He had said that he wanted two thousand francs for tips. I hadn’t understood that this—less than £4—was his own modest fee. I gave him that; and added six thousand francs, £10, as his fee. His eyes popped. With the first violent or inelegant gesture I had seen him make he grabbed the notes I offered. And then, slightly stooped, as though arrested in the grabbing gesture, he trembled for a second or two with excitement.

  He telephoned early the next morning. He said he was going to come in the afternoon to take me to a famous féticheur in Bingerville.

  He came. When I went down to meet him in the hotel lobby he said he had forgotten to tell me in the morning that the féticheur’s fee for an expérience would be fifteen thousand francs. I said I didn’t want an expérience; I just wanted to talk to the féticheur. Djédjé said it was a big expérience. The féticheur would cut his hand with a knife and make the wound close up again.

  Djédjé said, “For fifteen thousand francs he will give you three expériences.”

  “How much for one?”

  “Perhaps five thousand will be enough.”

  We went out to the hotel forecourt. He hadn’t arranged a taxi this time; I thought he had. He asked me to sit in one of the hotel taxis. He stood outside with the driver and they began a palaver. It went on for a while. Djédjé’s manner changed. He ceased to be grave. His body became looser; he propped himself in varying postures against the taxi and laughed and chattered like a street-corner lounger. I looked out of the window, to hurry things up. Djédjé, laughing and casual, as though he knew me very well, asked me to wait.

  At last he and the driver got into the taxi, and we started. The driver didn’t put the meter on. I took this to mean that the fare to Bingerville had been settled. But it hadn’t, because after a mile or two the driver raised the subject. He said to me, “You will have no trouble getting a taxi back from Bingerville.” I asked Djédjé what they had arranged about the fare. Djédjé said the taxi-driver had asked for ten thousand francs, and he had offered the driver a thousand. I took this to mean that some mid-way price was expected.

  I said, “Would we be able to get a taxi back?”

  Djédjé said, “Taxis are hard to get at Bingerville.”

  He began to talk about the powers of féticheurs. There was an even more famous one than the one we were going to see, but he had asked an astronomical price. That particular féticheur could make himself invisible and go through a closed door. It would have been a good expérience for me, but it wasn’t worth the money.

  The taxi-driver interrupted and spoke for some time in an African language.

  I asked, “What’s he saying?”

  Djédjé said, “He wants fifteen thousand francs.”

  “But that’s absurd.”

  “That’s what I told him. I offered him five thousand for the trip out and five thousand for the trip back.”

  “So you’ve settled for the original ten thousand?”

  “Yes.”

  It was very high, but there was no question of getting out of the taxi. It was mid-afternoon, very hot, and so far on the road out of Abidjan I hadn’t seen another taxi. I said, “Tell him that is to include an hour’s waiting.”

  It seemed settled, at last.

  The highway to Bingerville cut through soft slopes of bush: a wide view, the lower sky hazy in the heat.

  Djédjé talked about fetishes. They could be very expensive, he said. Europeans often wanted fetishes. I remembered that in Djédjé’s eyes I was like a European. I said I didn’t want a fetish; I only wanted to talk to the féticheur.

  “Yes, yes,” Djédjé said, not believing a word. “Some Europeans, some Africans too, can pay up to one hundred thousand francs for a fetish.”

  The taxi-driver said, “Listen. About my fare—”

  I said, “That’s settled.”

  And Djédjé with an open palm made a silencing gesture at the driver.

  Bingerville appeared, a scatter of ochre-coloured concrete buildings on low hills: like Grand-Bassam, another early French settlement in the Ivory Coast: degraded colonial architecture, concrete and corrugated iron, at the limit of empire.

  Djédjé had said he had made arrangements with the féticheur. It turned out now that he didn’t know where the féticheur lived.

  We turned off into a dirt road. It soon became a track. We asked directions of a plump young man who was wearing an orange-coloured tee shirt printed Bingerville. He was all good nature. He was perfectly ready to direct strangers to the local féticheur.

  We got back on to the highway. And Djédjé, to cover up his mistake, told of a particularly powerful fetish that had been prepared by the féticheur for a deputy of the national assembly at the last elections. The fetish converted votes given for the deputy’s opponent into votes for the deputy. The deputy won by a big margin, and the deputy’s opponent went mad wondering what had happened to all the votes that had been promised him.

  We got lost for the second time. And again, this time stopping near a group of schoolchildren in uniform, we had to ask—or Djédjé had to ask, calling out of the window—where the house of the féticheur was. And again no one seemed put out or surprised by our inquiry. One man—stopped as he was walking busily by—not only told us where the house was, but also offered (as though he hadn’t really been going anywhere) to be our guide. He got into t
he seat beside the driver and at once became very cheerful, relishing the idea of even a short ride.

  The turning we wanted was unmarked. It was a track across waste ground, and it led past a ragged screen of trees and bushes to a village: abrupt life in what, from the road, had looked only like bush. There seemed to be no road at all in the village. We drove straight at houses, and the car turned between houses. Dusty yards opened into dusty, littered yards, one man’s backyard somebody else’s front yard: cooking fires, wood piles, cooking utensils on black, trampled earth, children, men and women in a variety of costumes: the relaxed afternoon life of the village.

  We were just a minute or two from the splendid highway, with its logic of straight lines and easy curves. But already we were in an older and more tangled world, a version of a forest settlement. We continued to drive between houses. It continued to seem that we wouldn’t be able to get round the corners, that we would have to stop. But we didn’t stop.

  Djédjé, getting more tense as we drove deeper into the village, said suddenly, “You changed money? Give me some thousand-franc notes. It would be better, the thousand-franc notes.”

  My money was in a side pocket of my trousers. I was sitting, and couldn’t pull out the notes one by one. I pulled out what the bank at the hotel had given me: a set of ten new thousand-franc notes.

  Djédjé said, “That’s ten thousand, isn’t it? Give me ten thousand.”

  But he had told me that five thousand would be enough for the féticheur, for one expérience.

  I was uneasy at getting deeper in the village, which seemed to go on and on. And I was so uncertain now of Djédjé and the taxi-driver, who had changed their minds about every agreement, that I decided to give up the journey.