The Chip-Chip Gatherers

by Shiva Naipaul

  He cooked a simple meal of vegetables, most of which he had grown himself, and rice. He apologized with sarcastic humility for the simplicity of the food as he doled it out on to their plates. ‘Is what I myself does have to eat every day of the week.’ After they had eaten, he brought some sacking and spread it on the floor. ‘The bed is for you,’ he said. Wilbert demurred. Singh lost his temper. ‘Is not manners what make me offer it to you,’ he shouted. ‘I have no manners. I don’t know what manners is – nobody ever take the trouble to teach me. Out here in the country a man doesn’t have time to waste on things like that. You think if I really wanted to sleep on the bed I would offer it to you or anyone else?’ He must have startled even himself by this unexpected outburst for he finished by saying in a more subdued, placatory tone: ‘Is because I not accustom to sleeping on beds. That’s why. I prefer the floor.’

  He dimmed the oil-lamp and lay down on the sacking in the same clothes he had worn all day. He yawned. ‘I hope you rest well tonight, young master. Tomorrow it have somebody coming here who want to meet you. Is a person who been asking to meet you a long time.’

  ‘What person?’ Wilbert asked mechanically, too weary to be curious.

  Singh, propped on his elbow, was looking intently at him. ‘You’ll find out soon enough in the morning. Now stop asking so much question and go to sleep. We have a long day ahead of we tomorrow.’

  The bed was hard and uncomfortable and the fibre protruded from the mattress, grating against his skin. Wilbert drew the thin blanket provided up to his neck – in the manner of his father. Singh had not been telling the whole truth. The bed and the blanket had the smell of nightly use. Tired as he was, he could not fall asleep and tossed from side to side. Wilbert stared at Singh. He had drawn his knees up to the pit of his stomach and his big, clumsy hands pillowed his head. Watching him sprawled thus across the sacking, his fears lessened. Asleep, Singh seemed trusting; vulnerable; even innocent. He had thrown his head back – like a creature crucified – and he breathed laboriously through his wide open mouth. The lamp burned dimly, casting its mountainous shadows on the walls and ceiling; and outside, the unexplained noises of the night. Wilbert closed his eyes and waged ineffectual battle on the invisibly whirring mosquitoes.

  Well before daybreak Singh had risen and gone off with the gun and the two dogs. It was the report of the gun and the dogs’ frenzied barking that awoke Wilbert. At first, he did not remember where he was. Then he saw the oil-lamp and the dishevelled sacking and he remembered. The mosquitoes had vanished with the coming of the day and the moth too had departed its ceiling roost. Sunlight streamed into the room and the strips of canvas flapped in the breeze. It was still pleasantly cool. This, together with the absence of the mosquitoes and the brightness of the morning, cheered him up considerably. However, the sound of Singh’s rasping voice calling to him from just beneath the window did much to dispel his cheerfulness.

  ‘Time to get up, young master. Remember what I was telling you. Out here in the country we does get up with the chickens. I have a little present for you.’

  Wilbert kicked off the blanket and, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, went to the window and looked out. Singh held up a dead blackbird for him to see, its bedraggled feathers stained with clotted blood. It swung from the tips of his fingers. The dogs were leaping around it. Singh dangled it tantalizingly close to their gaping, snapping mouths. He laughed.

  ‘I shoot three of them this morning,’ he said. ‘I thought I would bring this one to show you. Not very pretty, what you say? But you mustn’t feel sorry for it. If I didn’t shoot them, I wouldn’t have a single vegetable left. I does shoot them and give them to the dogs. So!’ The bird plummeted from his fingers and the dogs, barking furiously, fell upon it. ‘They have a feast,’ he said, smiling up at Wilbert. ‘Go and get dressed now. Don’t forget we having a visitor this morning.’ The dogs scrambled and fought over the dead bird, growling and snarling at each other.

  Wilbert’s curiosity was stronger now. ‘What visitor?’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough. Go and make yourself ready.’

  Wilbert left the window and picked up his clothes draped on the back of the chair. Singh’s dark face appeared at the top of the ladder, the gun slung across his shoulders. He hauled himself grunting through the door. Beads of sweat watered the tip of his nose and his forehead and he breathed in sharp, irregular spasms. His knee-high boots were coated with mud. He eased the gun off his shoulder and rested it on the floor. Downstairs, the dogs growled.

  ‘Go downstairs if you want to wash,’ he said.

  The ladder leaned at a steep, precarious angle and it swayed alarmingly as Wilbert inched his way down the rungs. Singh’s boots resounded overhead: he was pacing and muttering to himself. The two mongrels, having finished their feasting, came running up to him, nuzzling his legs and whining. There was a mess of scattered feathers on the ground. One of the dogs rolled over on its back, exhibiting its spotted pink underside. It was pregnant and the sight of its distended teats filled him with sudden revulsion, and, following Singh’s example, he kicked it away. With its tail tucked between its legs, it shrank away from him. His attention was caught by something else. To his astonishment, there was, next to the oil-drums – the prospect of which he had been dreading – a bucket freshly filled with water, a new bar of soap and a towel. He gazed up wonderingly at the resounding floorboards and proceeded to wash.

  He thanked Singh on his return. Singh scowled and rejected his thanks gruffly. ‘Drink your tea,’ he replied, handing him a steaming mug, on top of which was balanced a slice of buttered bread. ‘Drink your tea and forget your thanks.’

  They had their breakfast in silence. When they had done, Singh, refusing Wilbert’s offer of help, washed the mugs, tidied up the bed and swept the room. The shrill voice of a woman called out to him.

  ‘That you, Myra?’ Singh shouted back.

  ‘No. Is King George.’

  ‘Bitch,’ Singh muttered. ‘Well,’ he shouted, ‘come up then. What you standing there for? You expect me to lift you up here?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, man. I have the child with me. How you expect me to climb the ladder with she?’

  ‘You could manage.’

  There were rebellious murmurs but Myra did manage to ascend the ladder with the child clinging to her waist.

  ‘You see,’ Singh said, ‘you could do it without my help. Safe and sound.’

  ‘No thanks to you,’ Myra puffed. ‘If I had fall and break both mine and the child neck …’

  She was a plump, dark-skinned woman of uncertain race – probably Indian and Negro. Her hair cascaded in untidy coils over a crude, heavy-jowled face. She wore a loose, pink dress and a pair of leather slippers. The baby, its thumb buried in its mouth, clung limpet-like to her hips. ‘I don’t know how you could be so inconsiderate as to make me climb the ladder with the child,’ she continued, smiling. ‘Sometimes I does feel you mad …’ The smile evaporated when she saw Wilbert standing in a corner of the room. She stopped speaking, looking at him and Singh in turn.

  ‘You guess right. That is him.’ Singh indicated Wilbert with an unceremonious jerk of the thumb.

  Myra glanced at Wilbert a second time as if to ascertain that he were really there and not a figment of the imagination. Her scrutiny, though unabashed, was neither friendly nor unfriendly. She hitched the straps of her dress further up her shoulders. Singh took the baby from her. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is Indra and that woman who can’t take she eyes off you is Indra mother. Indra is my daughter.’ He gazed at Wilbert defiantly. The baby started to cry. Singh peered at its pinched features and rocked it in his arms; but without real affection. Myra had retreated to the corner near the stove, her eyes fixed alternately on Singh rocking the screaming baby and Wilbert.

  ‘Like you didn’t feed she?’ Singh asked.

  ‘You think I would let she starve?’ Myra was offended. ‘It must be gripe she have.’

  ‘Gripe!’
Suddenly, Singh thrust – almost threw – the child at Wilbert, and instinctively he held out his arms to catch it.

  ‘Oh!’ Myra exclaimed involuntarily, clapping her hands across her mouth. ‘One day you going to kill the child with you foolishness. I never see a father behave like you in my born days.’ Nevertheless, she remained in the corner, making no move to interfere.

  ‘Shut up,’ Singh commanded.

  The baby screamed louder than before, squirming like a fish in Wilbert’s grasp.

  ‘Let me hold she,’ Myra said. ‘She not accustom to strangers.’

  ‘Stay where you is.’ Singh pushed her back rudely. ‘Let him hold she. He is not a stranger.’ He laughed.

  ‘How long he going to stay with you?’ Myra asked.

  ‘A day or two,’ Singh answered absently. ‘I haven’t decided yet. I been trying to learn him a few things.’

  Myra looked at Wilbert. Her neutrality was weakening: she seemed marginally more well-disposed towards him. ‘Be careful with him,’ she said. ‘You see how he does treat his own daughter. He half-mad.’

  ‘Nobody interested in your opinions,’ Singh replied angrily. ‘You better leave now.’

  Myra took the baby from Wilbert. ‘Somebody got to help me down the ladder. Coming up is one thing but going down …’

  ‘I will help you.’ Wilbert stepped forward.

  ‘You is a gentleman,’ Myra said. ‘Not like some I could mention.’

  Wilbert assisted her down the ladder. Myra departed.

  ‘Well, young master, that is my little family. What you think? As you see, we doesn’t even live together. A man can’t bring up a family here.’ Singh stared round the room. ‘Look at my daughter. What she have to hope for except to be somebody servant one day? Is not a fair world at all.’ He winked at him. ‘You agree with me?’ He picked up the gun from the floor. ‘Your answer wouldn’t make any difference anyway. Come.’ He went to the ladder. ‘Let we go for a little walk now. Show you the estate.’

  The early morning coolness had already vanished. Singh strode on purposefully ahead of Wilbert, the gun slung negligently across his shoulders. He started to whistle, raucous and out of tune. The two dogs skipped playfully back and forth, darting into the thick bush on either side of the path. Singh stamped and yelled at them but they paid him no attention. The path led steeply down from the hut to the muddy pond which Wilbert had noticed the previous afternoon. Singh paused by the pond.

  ‘It have a lot of cascadoo in there.’

  The dogs chased each other round the circumference.

  ‘You should see how big it does get in the rainy season. It does flood all over the place.’ He extended his arms in a wide sweep. ‘It does get deep too. A man could drown in it then if he didn’t take care.’ He spoke with relish and Wilbert could see for himself how much the pond had shrunk in the dry weather. It was surrounded by a broad band of caked, creamy-white mud, minutely veined and segmented by a mosaic of tiny cracks. Singh prodded at it with the butt of a gun. ‘Just think,’ he commented wonderingly, ‘that in another few weeks or so, all where we standing now will be under deep, deep water.’

  Not far away, but out of reach of the floodwaters from the pond, was the neatly fenced-in enclosure where Singh grew his vegetables. A lovingly detailed scarecrow had been pinioned on a wooden cross in the centre of the enclosure. Wilbert recognized Singh’s handiwork in the face it had been given: it was a replica of those he carved for him except in this one, to increase the effect, its cheeks were streaked with red and green paint. Wilbert tried not to look at it. This was the only cultivated spot in the estate and Singh was clearly very proud of it. ‘I does grow nearly everything I need here,’ he said. ‘Cabbages. Tomatoes. Peas. Beans. You name it.’ The banked beds were well watered and weeded. Singh vaulted the fence and strolled along proprietorially between the arrow-straight rows of plants, examining the leaves. He scooped up a fistful of earth and let it run through his fingers. ‘All my own work,’ he said. ‘From start to finish. Not a soul help me in doing this. It was high grass here, more than waist-high – just like it is down by the orange trees. I spend weeks clearing it and digging it, working with my bare hands in the sun and rain.’ He meditated on his calloused palms. ‘In sun and rain and with my own two hands I make this – so that I wouldn’t starve to death. Not a soul help me.’ The blood flooded his unattractive face and he pressed his teeth on his twitching lower lip. ‘So you see, when the birds come and try to …’ He laughed and, going across to the scarecrow, hugged it. ‘But with the help of my friend here, I does get by.’ He kissed the macabre countenance. ‘He and me is very good friends,’ he said. ‘He mightn’t be very pretty but he is my best friend.’ He smiled. ‘In that way, I luckier than you. I know who my best friend is.’

  Away from the pond, the land rose again and the deeply rutted track disappeared in the high grass. The wall of the forest approached closer and the crowns of tall trees drooped somnolently overhead. Birds Sew and twittered among the branches that seemed to brush the sky. Their feet crunched on fallen twigs and leaves. Singh moved with assurance, naming unfamiliar trees and flowers. There were a great many varieties of palm. The grey monumental pillars of the royal palm towered all about them; as did the less spectacular cabbage palm; and the gru-gru palm with its clusters of shining red nuts, the size and shape of marbles. There was another palm whose name Singh did not know, the trunk of which was nailed with hard, sharp thorns. There were clumps of bamboo whose polished stems curved upwards in gentle arcs with leaves like the brushed strokes of Chinese writing.

  ‘It have something I want to show you,’ Singh said.

  They left the track and waded a few yards into the forest.

  A damp hush enclosed them and the sky was lost from view. ‘Look.’ Singh pointed with his rifle at an avenue of stone pillars buried in the dim recesses of the bush.

  ‘What is it, Singh?’

  ‘That used to be a house, young master. A long time ago that used to be a house. Rich people used to live there.’ He spoke with the same sense of awe and wonder as he had done when describing the desiccated pond’s transformation in the rainy season. They could see the ruins of a porch and the broad flight of weed-choked steps leading up to it. They climbed the steps and looked in through the yawning gap that must once have been the main entrance, and entered with the trepidation of interlopers defying an invisible, guardian presence. There were scattered heaps of crumbling masonry everywhere. Trees had established themselves in the crevices of the brick pediment, marauders pillaging the ruins. Jagged portions of the outside walls had survived the battering miraculously intact – though much overgrown with strangling networks of vines and creepers – and the vague outlines of rooms were discernible; ghostly outlines traced in the rubble. What had they been? Sitting-rooms? Bedrooms? Kitchens? There were no clues left in this gutted shell. Their footsteps were dogged by the invisible guardian presence that haunted the place, intimating, by a chill of discomfort, its displeasure with their unwarranted intrusion. They hurried between the avenues of decapitated pillars, not speaking. Many of the pillars had tumbled to the ground. Bits of glass glinted among the rubble and foliage. At the back they found the ruins of outhouses: the stables and servants’ quarters, dank, dark cells with the subterranean atmosphere of caves and carpeted with velvet moss. There was a flutter of wings inside and they drew back. Beyond the outhouses were the skeletal remains of a garden planted with fruit trees gone wild; an ornamental pond, paved paths wandering through the grass, leading nowhere. They saw rusting water-tanks lying on their sides and mud-filled drains and ditches. Further beyond, the collapsed drying-house for cocoa and scattered rusting pieces of machinery, abandoned to the encroaching jungle. It was a comprehensive, abject surrender without terms.

  ‘The people around here believe this is a haunted place.’ Singh laughed heavily. They had come to a clearing in the trees. He slumped on a half-rotten log. ‘They does never come here. Only I brave enough to do th
at – I don’t believe in ghosts and all that stupidness.’ He squinted slyly at Wilbert. ‘You believe in ghosts, young master?’

  Wilbert sidestepped the question. The chill of their recent explorations was strong upon him. ‘Who used to live here, Singh?’

  ‘Some Scotsman or the other. He used to own not only your father estate but nearly all the land you see around here. But that was a long time ago. Before even your father was born. Or before even his father father. A long time ago.’

  ‘Why he leave?’

  ‘That, young master, is a mystery. Maybe he died and didn’t have any children. Maybe he thought he had made enough money out of it. Maybe he just get fed up and wanted to go back home – to Scotland. Who is to say what happen? Is a mystery. Nobody will ever know why.’ Singh laid the gun across his knees. ‘What this place must have been like! Is almost as if you could still hear them talking and laughing. You could almost smell the cocoa drying.’ He appeared to listen. ‘You hear the talking and laughing, young master? Listen carefully and you will hear it. Listen!’ Singh cocked his head.

  Wilbert shuddered. ‘Let’s go from here, Singh.’ He looked around fearfully.