The Chip-Chip Gatherers

by Shiva Naipaul

  Mrs Bholai swept on, heedless of his opinions. ‘Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, he does make people waste they money on rum. All them children you does see running about in rags wouldn’t be like that if Farouk didn’t make they fathers waste money on rum. Is a crying shame. The police should take away his licence and give it to somebody like you.’

  Mr Bholai sighed. ‘You just say is a crying shame that people does waste they money on rum and then in the next breath you want me to get a licence …’

  ‘If people stupid enough, why not? At least we would have a good use for the money. But what use Farouk have for it?’

  ‘Very true,’ Mr Bholai replied a trifle sadly. The possibility of Farouk losing his licence had often occurred to him. ‘You quite right. We would have a use for the money which is more than you could say for a man like Farouk who have neither wife nor family to worry about.’

  ‘The solution is simple,’ Mrs Bholai announced after reflecting briefly. ‘Don’t serve him in the grocery. And if he can’t buy food to eat he will have to go from here. You can’t eat money.’ She laughed.

  ‘If you running a business,’ Mr Bholai lectured, ‘you have to serve anybody who come to you. The law say so. No discrimination against race or creed. How many times I have to tell you that?’

  ‘Chut, man. You making it up. Anyway, Farouk would never report you to the police. He too frighten.’

  Mr Bholai sighed, his froggish eyes bulging wearily. ‘Even if Farouk was to go from here, is not to say the police would give me the licence. If I own both the grocery and the rumshop that would mean I would have a monopoly of trade in the area. The law don’t like that either.’

  ‘According to you the law don’t like anything at all.’ Mrs Bholai was losing her temper.

  ‘Farouk is a good customer. Don’t forget that. A lot of money he does make in the rumshop he does spend here. He like to eat well. Money is money however you look at it. Where it come from or who it come from is none of Vishnu Bholai business. All I concern about is that same money going to make Julian a doctor or dentist one of these days.’

  It was a good argument, persuasively put, and Mrs Bholai recognized its force. However, it could not prevent her anger from running its appointed course.

  ‘I think you want Farouk to stay here,’ she said. ‘Like you want Miss Sita to stay here and torment me. Two pound of butter, half-pound of salt, that is all you good for. You forgetting you is the father of four young children? You want them to grow up cheek by jowl with that drunkard and his devil daughter? What your so-called law have to say about that? Eh? What it have to say?’

  ‘Calm yourself, Moon. What it is you want me to do?’

  ‘If you had any self-respect you would move out of here. We would go and live by my family in San Fernando. I can’t live in this place a moment longer cheek by jowl …’

  ‘Okay. Say we sell the grocery. Where the money going to come from to make Julian a doctor or dentist? Answer me that one.’

  ‘Two pound of butter, half-pound of salt!’

  ‘That is not an answer.’

  ‘Two pound of butter, half-pound of salt. You want to drive me mad.’

  By the time Wilbert arrived, the Bholais had reached a fresh state of crisis which had thrown the entire household into disarray.

  2

  It was not the first time the idea of removal had presented itself to Mrs Bholai. Whenever the contradictions that ruled her life became too blatant she sought a scapegoat, blaming the Settlement for her troubles and asserting that she would be the happiest woman in the world if they had been living close to her family in San Fernando. Mr Bholai had humoured her. ‘Is only temporary, Moon. The moment we get the children off we hands we going to leave here.’ ‘Chut, man,’ she would reply, ‘I tired hear you say that. You don’t mean a single word of what you saying.’ Her grumblings would reach a climax and then die away, leading a subterranean existence until once again the contradictions became too blatant for comfort, when they would resurface. To Mr Bholai’s dismay, they had resurfaced in force.

  ‘I can’t stand it another second living cheek by jowl with Farouk,’ she moaned.

  ‘What you expect me to do, Moon? Lift up the shop on my back and tote it to San Fernando?’

  ‘Get Farouk out of here then.’

  ‘How, Moon? How? As I was saying to you before, it have no law …’

  ‘I tired of you and your blasted law,’ she shouted. ‘If I hear you use that word again … you making it all up, Bholai. I know you. Is shame you want to shame me and my children by making we live cheek by jowl with him.’

  ‘You not living cheek by jowl with him.’

  ‘You want to drive me mad, Bholai. That is what you want to do. You marry me just to drive me mad.’ She stared passionately at him.

  ‘Please be sensible, Moon. Nobody trying to shame you or drive you mad or anything. You making Wilbert embarrassed getting on so. Remember he is we guest.’

  ‘I don’t care what he is, Bholai. You know I always believe in speaking my mind and I not going to stop now for your or anybody else sake. I not cunning and sly like you, two pound of butter, half-pound of salt. If Wilbert don’t like it …’

  ‘Moon! Moon!’ Mr Bholai drew her to him. ‘You don’t know what it is you saying. Wilbert is we guest.’

  He released her. Mrs Bholai staggered away from him, clutching her head. ‘Sorry, Wilbert. Is not you I angry with. Is he who put me in a bad mood making we live cheek by jowl … I think I’ll go and lie down. I have a headache.’

  ‘That’s a very good idea, Moon. You go and lie down.’ Mr Bholai escorted her to their bedroom. He returned, rubbing his hands apologetically. ‘You must excuse Moon,’ he said to Wilbert. ‘I don’t want you to feel this is how we does always be. Ask the children. We is a happy little family really. Is just that Moon hasn’t been sheself these past few days.’ He babbled on. ‘Is not easy having to worry about the shop and four children and Moon is a born worrier.’ Mr Bholai sighed. ‘Is just she tired. Nothing to do with you at all. Nothing.’ He turned to his son. Why don’t you show Wilbert the rest of the house, Jules? You not being a very good host.’

  ‘What’s there to see?’ Julian asked laconically. ‘He wouldn’t be very interested.’

  Mr Bholai looked from one to the other, rubbing his hands as if he were soaping them thoroughly. ‘At least you could show him where he going to sleep.’

  The bedrooms opened off a narrow corridor running parallel to the sitting-room. Julian rose from his chair and led the way into the corridor in as laconic a manner as he had spoken to his father. He flung open the second of three doors. ‘This is my bedroom.’ These were the first words he had addressed to Wilbert since his arrival and they seemed to cost him a great deal of effort. ‘You’ll be sleeping here.’ He pointed to the first door. ‘Ma and Pa sleep in there and the girls share the room at the back.’

  Wilbert entered the room. It was small but light and airy. There were two beds covered with matching green counterpanes pulled tight as shrouds over the pillows. On one – presumably his – was a neatly folded towel and a bar of soap still in its wrapping. The walls were hung with photographs of Julian: Julian as a babe in arms being bathed by his mother; Julian, guided by his mother, cutting a cake with one candle stuck in the centre; Julian, urged on by his mother, taking his first tentative steps; Julian, his mother in the background, cutting a cake with four candles; Julian, his mother waving to him, setting off for school, a satchel slung across his shoulders; Julian, in fact, his mother’s watchful eyes presiding, at virtually every stage of his development. Wilbert stared at the photographs wondering where Mr Bholai had been When they had been taken. His absence could not be accounted for merely by assuming he was the man behind the camera. It was not the simple absence of the cameraman. It was something more: it was a denial of his existence. The photographs presented a vision of a world Wilbert had never known; a vision, however perverse and distorted, of tender se
ntiment and pride. He had no such photographs to commemorate him and he envied Julian. He stared at them open-mouthed.

  ‘That’s Ma’s work,’ Julian said in embarrassed tones. ‘She wouldn’t let me take them down.’

  Wilbert went to the window and stared out across the low roofs of the Settlement. The sugarcane fields stretched unbroken to the horizon; an undulating, restless sea lapping at the frayed edges of the village. Immediately below was the curving main road along which the cars passed in a steady stream. On a dresser next to the window were set out in splendid array rows of model aeroplanes with labels attached saying what they were.

  ‘You build these yourself?’ Wilbert asked.

  Julian nodded. ‘By myself. It was a hobby of mine at one time. I have nearly every kind of aeroplane there.’

  Wilbert picked up one of the models: a transport helicopter. He rotated the blades.

  ‘Careful,’ Julian said. ‘It’s only plastic and glue. They very easy to break.’ The model did indeed seem extremely vulnerable in Wilbert’s clumsy hands.

  Wilbert put it down.

  ‘You have any hobbies yourself?’ Julian asked politely.

  ‘No … well … I used to collect stamps at one time.’

  ‘Stamps! I was never very interested in those. I find them very boring. Give me planes any day.’ Julian leaned negligently against the door, swinging it to and fro. ‘You had a big collection?’

  ‘Not very … I don’t have it any more. I destroy it.’

  ‘Why? That was a strange thing to do.’ Julian laughed.

  Wilbert shrugged. ‘I lose interest,’ he said.

  ‘You could read any of my books while you here,’ Julian said. He indicated a laden bookshelf. ‘I’ve got all the classics there.’

  Wilbert scanned the bookshelf without visible interest. ‘I don’t read much.’

  ‘You don’t read at all?’ Julian seemed incredulous.

  ‘I don’t care for it.’

  ‘That’s very strange,’ milan said. ‘I couldn’t live without books, I think.’ It was his favourite word: ‘strange’.

  ‘I don’t find it so strange,’ Wilbert replied sullenly. ‘I does live well enough without them.’

  ‘Oh well …’ Julian said.

  There was an awkward silence.

  ‘So,’ Julian said, ‘Your father finally agree for you to come.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You wanted to come?’

  Wilbert, his back to him, did not answer.

  ‘If I was you,’ Julian blurted out suddenly, ‘I wouldn’t have bother to come.’

  Wilbert turned to look at him. ‘Why?’ He was taken aback.

  Julian swung the door. He laughed. ‘You see for yourself how Ma and Pa like to quarrel. It’s not because she “tired” either. That’s rubbish. You might as well know the truth. They always at one another’s throats. I can’t think why they ever got married. It’s very strange. Very strange.’ Julian brushed his hair from his eyes. ‘And you must know why Pa was so anxious for you to come here.’ He peered at him. ‘You know, don’t you?’

  Wilbert stared at him.

  ‘The only reason he wanted you to come was so that he could boast about it to everybody …’

  ‘Why you telling me all this for?’

  ‘I thought you might as well know …’

  Mr Bholai’s voice boomed behind them. Julian fell silent.

  ‘I hope Julian is making you feel at home, Wilbert.’ Mr Bholai entered the room smiling cheerfully. ‘I want you to treat this place exactly as if it was home.’ He slapped Wilbert on the back. ‘You must promise me you would do that. The son of my best friend must be no stranger in this house. We’ll all be one happy little family.’

  ‘That’s what I been telling him,’ Julian said. ‘I’ve been giving him all the lowdown.’

  After dinner, when the family was relaxing together, Mr Bholai said to Wilbert: ‘It have one thing I could never understand and perhaps you could explain it to me since Julian … well’ (defying his son’s clearly expressed disapproval) ‘… what I wanted to ask you was this. The two of you is good friends at school, not so?’ Mr Bholai scraped away at his teeth with a toothpick.

  Julian and Wilbert looked at each other. It was the question Wilbert had been dreading.

  ‘The thing is,’ Mr Bholai went on quickly, ‘whenever I ask Julian …’ Mr Bholai’s smile was tinged with apprehension.

  ‘We not in the same class, Pa. How many times I have to tell you that?’

  ‘That is what he does always say.’ Mr Bholai dried the toothpick on the sleeve of his shirt, doggedly addressing his remarks to Wilbert. ‘It don’t make much sense to me.’

  Wilbert took his cue from Julian; ‘Being in different classes,’ he said, ‘we don’t get much chance to speak to one another.’

  ‘That is what I keep telling him,’ Julian said relievedly.

  ‘And you quite sure that is the only reason? What I mean is … the two of you haven’t quarrel or anything stupid like that?’ Mr Bholai stared at Wilbert hopefully.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Pa. What reason the two of us will have to quarrel?’

  ‘That is all I wanted to know. You don’t have to bite my head off. It would be hurtful to think that my son and the son of my best friend …’

  ‘Oh God!’ Julian said. ‘Why can’t you leave us alone, Pa?’

  Mr Bholai picked up the newspaper. ‘Not another word,’ he promised.

  The mention of her husband’s ‘best friend’ appeared to revive Mrs Bholai who, up until then, had been subdued.

  ‘How is your father these days?’ she asked.

  ‘He well,’ Wilbert replied.

  ‘I suppose it must make a big difference having another person in the house.’ It was an apparently casual remark, thrown out randomly to stimulate the flagging conversation. Wilbert took it in this spirit; but Mr Bholai, who had begun his nightly exercise of going through the court cases in the Trinidad Chronicle, looked up anxiously from his newspaper.

  ‘Yes,’ Wilbert said. ‘It make a big difference.’

  ‘For better or worse you would say?’ Mrs Bholai smiled sweetly at him.

  ‘Now, Moon,’ Mr Bholai butted in cautiously, ‘that is no kind of question to ask Wilbert.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking to you, Bholai. You feel is only you who could ask question? If Wilbert don’t want to answer he don’t have to answer. Mind your own business.’

  Mr Bholai returned to his newspaper.

  Mrs Bholai did not press the point, however. She asked another question. ‘I hear that Sushila daughter might be coming to live with you as well. It have any truth in that rumour?’

  ‘I haven’t heard anything about that,’ Wilbert said.

  ‘Somebody was telling me – your grandmother I think it was – that your father was thinking of it. He haven’t told you?’

  ‘I haven’t heard anything about that,’ Wilbert said.

  ‘Now, Moon, all that is none of your business.’

  ‘Keep out of this, Bholai.’ Mrs Bholai glared at her husband. She turned again to Wilbert. ‘You would like Sushila daughter to come and live with you?’

  Wilbert did not answer. He gazed at the vases of flowers arranged with artistic pretensions sprinkled about the room.

  ‘They say Sita is a very intelligent girl.’ Mrs Bholai giggled. ‘She does read a lot of book – from the Library Van.’ Remembering Basdai’s tattle about what happened on its monthly visits, her eyes clouded. ‘She could count herself a lucky girl if she come to live with you and your father.’ Sita living in daily contact with the Ramsaran fortune! Her imagination spawned grotesque images of the benefits that might accrue to her. ‘My girls had to do with a lot less. For instance, Mynah teacher tell me she never meet anybody so bright yet. I would have pawned my soul to give my daughters a really high-class education. But all the money we ever earn we put aside for Julian to be a doctor one day.’ She was sitting directly beneath the electr
ic light and her oval face was extraordinarily pale in its yellow glow.

  Mr Bholai could not concentrate on the court cases. He folded the newspaper and rested it on his lap. ‘You have nothing to reproach yourself with, Moon. We doing the best we can.’

  Mr Bholai could not concentrate on the court cases. He at the floor, ‘a grocery is only a grocery after all. And the Settlement is only the Settlement. You can’t expect miracles.’ She breathed in deeply. ‘Even so, I glad to see it have somebody from the Settlement making they way up in the world.’

  ‘That is the best way to look at it,’ Mr Bholai said peaceably.

  ‘Is exactly what I thought you would say, Bholai. No self-respect – that’s your trouble. Two pound of butter, half-pound of salt! If you had more self-respect we wouldn’t be living here today. My girls would have been going to school in San Fernando, getting a proper education. Instead you have we living cheek by jowl with that drunkard Farouk.’

  ‘Now, now, Moon,’ Mr Bholai implored. ‘I thought we had finished with that nonsense. You working yourself up again for no reason.’

  Mrs Bholai brushed his objections aside. ‘You know what it is Sita want to be when she grow up?’ It was a rhetorical question aimed at the room in general. She turned fiercely on Wilbert. ‘You know what it is Sita want to be?’

  The girls giggled.

  ‘Sita want to be a B.A. Languages,’ Mynah drawled. ‘Everybody know that.’

  Mrs Bholai snorted. ‘A B.A. Languages! I hope you hear that, Bholai. Miss Sita want to be a B.A. Languages. A child of Sushila want to be a B.A. Languages. But what about your own daughters, eh? What they going to be?’

  ‘Moon, Moon …’

  ‘Why shouldn’t Sita be a B.A. Languages? What’s so strange about that?’ Julian, sprawled on the floor, flipping through the pages of a book, looked up lazily at his mother.

  Mrs Bholai studied her son sorrowfully. ‘I don’t know how you could say things like that, Jules.’

  Julian clasped his hands behind his head. ‘All I’m saying …’