The Chip-Chip Gatherers

by Shiva Naipaul

  ‘Don’t put your hands behind your head like that, son. Is not nice.’ It was a superstition of Mrs Bholai that to clasp one’s hands behind the head indicated a wish for somebody to die. Naturally, when Julian did this, she interpreted it as a wish for her own death.

  Julian laughed and closed the book. ‘It’s not fair to attack a person behind her back. Why shouldn’t Sita want to be a B.A. Languages?’

  Mrs Bholai twirled and twisted her bracelets. ‘You should be defending your own sisters instead of she – a total stranger.’ She stared intently at him. ‘She is a total stranger to you, not so?’

  Julian skirted round the question. ‘The only reason I’m defending her is because she has nobody else to do it for her. Shanty and Mynah and Gita have you. Mind you,’ he added, ‘I’m sure if she had the chance she could defend herself very well.’

  ‘How you know that?’ Mrs Bholai asked sharply. ‘Like you been speaking to she or something?’

  Julian was adroit. ‘You yourself said just now she was intelligent.’

  Shanty and Mynah giggled. ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’

  Gita, the eldest, remained austerely serious. ‘Julian right,’ she said. ‘Is not fair to attack a person behind their back.’

  Julian grinned maliciously at his distraught mother. ‘She’s very good-looking too. Have you notice? She resemble her mother.’

  ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’

  ‘Julian!’ Mrs Bholai gazed horror-stricken at her son.

  ‘There’s a very interesting case in the paper today …’

  ‘Shut up, Bholai!’ Mrs Bholai twirled and twisted the bracelets on her wrists, enmeshed in the coils of an acute distress. ‘Is all your fault, Bholai. All your fault. None of this would have happen if you wasn’t so stubborn. You hear how Julian talking about she? Soon Miss Sita will be thinking she is more than the equal of my children. B.A. Languages! What any child of Sushila have to do with booklearning? Is all pretence. I was speaking to Phulo in the shop only yesterday and she say that she sure as she name is Phulo that Miss Sita does only be pretending to read all them book she does tote home from the Library Van.’

  ‘Phulo can’t tell “a” from a “b”,’ Julian said goadingly. ‘So how come she know when people reading or not reading?’

  ‘Jules! It does break my heart to hear you say such things.’ Mrs Bholai began to cry. ‘Miss Sita should be learning how to cook and wash and sew. That is all any child of Sushila should ever want to learn how to do. Is all she will have any use for.’

  ‘Rubbish.’

  Mrs Bholai lost control of herself. ‘What that wretch ever do for you, eh? What? I will wring she neck. You want to kill me that is what you want to do. Take your hands from behind your neck.’

  Julian laughed. ‘You being silly.’

  ‘You want me to die … to die.’ Mrs Bholai sobbed. ‘My own son want me to die.’

  ‘I can’t take this any more.’ Julian got up from the floor, dusting the seat of his trousers. ‘You see what I mean, Ramsaran? It’s a madhouse you come to.’

  ‘Where you going, Jules? How you could be so cruel to me?’ Mrs Bholai tried to grab at her son as he went past but he dodged her and slipped into the corridor. ‘Jules …’

  The door to his bedroom closed.

  ‘Is all your fault, Bholai. All your fault.’ Mrs Bholai swayed on her chair.

  ‘I don’t see how is my fault,’ Mr Bholai said softly. ‘Nobody would ever dream we have a guest in this house.’ He stared belligerently at the vases of flowers. ‘Julian better learn to control that temper of his. Is a little too quick for my liking. He not a doctor as yet.’

  The cars went by on the road below, their tyres screeching on the curve. Mrs Bholai, slumped in her chair, paid no attention to her husband. She was more vulnerable to Julian’s indifference than he was. Her sensibilities being rawer and more various, they had a correspondingly greater liability to outrage. Having invested so much of her passion and devotion in him, she reacted violently to any diminution in the return she had led herself to expect. Julian recognized this and made full use of it. His ‘defence’ of Sita was not motivated purely by gallantry: he was fully aware it would enrage his mother; as he was fully aware what the effect of clasping his hands behind his head would be.

  He exploited her credulity to its limits. ‘I think I’ll be a lawyer after all,’ he would speculate loudly in her presence. ‘They might make me into a judge.’ Mrs Bholai swallowed the bait instantly. ‘Jules! You not being serious with me. What you want with being a stupid lawyer?’ ‘I’m being very serious, Ma. You wouldn’t catch me dead as a doctor or dentist. I don’t like the sight of blood.’ Mrs Bholai, as was her habit, vented her frustration on her husband. ‘This is all your doing, Bholai. You won’t get away by hiding your head behind that damn newspaper of yours. I see your hand in what Julian saying plain as day.’ ‘I didn’t say a word to the boy, Moon. Cross my heart.’ ‘I don’t believe anything you say, Bholai. Liar is your middle name. I always know you didn’t want him to be a doctor. You does sneak behind my back and put ideas in his head.’ She would start to weep. ‘I didn’t put any ideas in his head,’ he protested. ‘You could see the boy only joking with you.’ ‘I’m not joking,’ Julian intervened with all the appearance of absolute seriousness. ‘I’m going to be a lawyer like Pa was going to be before he open up the grocery.’ Mrs Bholai was beside herself by this time. ‘That is proof is all your doing, Bholai. Two pound of butter, half-pound of salt!’ And, turning to her son, ‘Say is only joke you joking, Jules, and put my mind at rest. You mustn’t let him lead you astray. Say you don’t want to be a stupid lawyer.’

  Julian would give up when he grew bored and tired of the game; or when his mother was dangerously close to hysteria. He taunted her mercilessly; teasingly withholding his favours. Mrs Bholai never learnt to ignore him. Where her husband was concerned her scepticism seemed to have no limits and her powers of forgiveness were nonexistent. However, where Julian was concerned, the contrary was the case. Then it was her credulity which seemed to have no limits while her powers of forgiveness were extravagantly abundant. She treated his absurdities at their face value and refused to rest until she had extorted from him, through bribes and tears and cajolery, exactly what she wished to hear.

  A frivolous word from Julian could plunge her into darkest distress; while another equally frivolous word lifted her into lightest ecstasy. Sometimes Julian would persist in his obstinacy for days on end, driving her to distraction, and it was Mr Bholai and the girls who would have to pay for his inconstancy and pettishness. These performances were masterpieces of their kind; so convincing and plausible that he himself appeared to be taken in by them and was angry if anyone should suggest they were a feint. ‘This is the end of me,’ Mrs Bholai would whimper. ‘I not going to forgive him this time even if he come crawling back to me on his hands and knees. It would take more than that – much more than that – to make up for even a tiny part of the suffering his thoughtlessness causing me.’ Julian did not need to crawl. His charm never failed to save him and Mrs Bholai was too grateful to remember her vows. ‘I knew all along it was only joke he was joking with me. I was a little worried but never really frightened. Boys must have they fun.’

  Julian could conjure up feelings and emotions at will. He had inherited much of his mother’s chameleon nature; except that with him it served no higher purpose than self-indulgence. With this ability went the capacity to turn off his emotions and feelings at will. Each day, he could invent a new and tantalizing Julian Bholai, quite distinct from the Julian Bholai one had talked to the day before. He would have made a marvellous actor; and, indeed, he tended to treat the world as a scenario written especially for him and the people he encountered as characters to be manipulated. His versatility and elusiveness gave him a startling power over his mother. She, with an inveterate blindness, refused to understand its real nature and, as a result, she suffered terribly.

  Shanty followed Julian out of the room. Myna
h, taking a file from the pocket of her dress, filed abstractedly at her nails, humming a popular tune. Mr Bholai watched her.

  ‘Stop filing your nails in front of me, child. You should have more respect and manners.’

  Mynah stopped her filing, holding the file lightly between her fingers. She continued to hum.

  Mr Bholai sighed. ‘I wonder where Shanty and Julian get themselves to,’ he muttered irritably. ‘Shanty! Julian!’

  There was no reply.

  Mynah jerked her head in the direction of Julian’s bedroom. ‘They lock themselves up inside of there telling each other secrets.’ The light slid sharply off the nail-file, dazzling her father.

  ‘Since when Shanty and Julian have secrets to keep from me?’

  Mynah laughed. ‘What you mean “since when”? They always had their secrets. Just like everybody else.’

  ‘You have your secrets too?’

  ‘Of course!’

  He looked at Gita. ‘What about you?’

  Gita blushed and stared down into her lap.

  Mynah giggled vindictively. ‘You should know better than to ask Gita a question like that, Pa. She want to be a nun. Always praying to God.’

  ‘To be a nun you have to be a Catholic,’ Gita said.

  ‘Why don’t you tell Pa how hard they always trying to convert you in school?’

  ‘Convert you? Who trying to convert you?’ Mr Bholal smiled perplexedly at Gita.

  ‘Nobody trying to convert me,’ Gita replied morosely. ‘Mynah playing the fool. But,’ she concluded defiantly, ‘I don’t see anything wrong in praying to God.’

  ‘Nothing wrong at all in praying to God,’ Mr Bholai replied soothingly. ‘I does pray myself – sometimes. But it depend on what you does pray for. Tell me what you does pray for.’

  Gita frowned and was silent.

  ‘You see, Pa,’ Mynah chirped happily, ‘even a saint like Gita have secrets from you.’

  ‘You shouldn’t make a mockery of God,’ Gita said sternly.

  ‘Now, now, children. What kind of behaviour is this? We have a guest staying with we. You should have some consideration for him. Wilbert must be getting a very bad impression of we.’ He smiled apologetically at Wilbert. ‘Don’t let all this fool you. We is a happy little family when you get down to it. But even in the happiest of families you must have your little misunderstandings from time to time. Things can’t run silken smooth all the time.’

  Mrs Bholai, who seemed to have fallen asleep, opened her eyes at this. ‘Huh! Sometimes I really like to hear you talk, Bholai. Things would be running silken smooth if we was living in San Fernando. Two pounds of butter, half-pound of salt!’ Having fired her parting shot, she too got up and left the room and went into the kitchen.

  ‘Come, come,’ Mr Bholai appealed. ‘Let’s forget all this nonsense about God and San Fernando.’ He summoned up a cheerful smile from the recesses of his despair. ‘Did I ever tell you, Wilbert, about the time when Mynah wanted to learn the violin and …’

  ‘Pa!’ Mynah interrupted without a trace of friendliness. ‘I must have hear you tell that story at least a dozen times. And is not very funny either.’

  Mr Bholai’s feigned enthusiasm was checked. ‘But Wilbert never hear it.’

  Mynah rose from her chair. ‘I’m going to go if …’

  ‘Ah! These children!’ Mr Bholai looked at Wilbert ‘They have no patience at all with they old father. I don’t understand it. Sit down, Mynah.’

  ‘Not if you’re going to tell that story.’

  ‘I won’t say another word. Not another word. Promise.’ Mr Bholai, crossing his heart, shook his head sadly and relapsed into silence.

  It had been Mr Bholai’s misfortune to be drawn into close association with people more energetic, more ambitious and more ruthless than himself. His was an inert temperament which, left to its own devices, would have followed the paths of least resistance and been content with its meagre lot. Fate had not been so kind to him: it had seduced him from his natural bent and forced him into a series of roles for which he was ill equipped. There had been, to start with, his unlikely association with Egbert Ramsaran; and then, there had been his no less unlikely marriage. He was now busy reaping the fruit of his fatal perversity.

  Mr Bholai was a lonely man. He could confide neither in his wife nor in his children. Instead, he seized on his guest and to him uttered traitorous thoughts such as he would never dare to utter in front of his wife and children. ‘You is an outsider,’ he told him. ‘The son of my best friend. To you I can talk like I can’t talk to the rest of them. They have no use for me any more.’ The froggish eyes dimmed. ‘Is one of the reasons I wanted you to come and stay with we. A man must have somebody to talk to otherwise he might go mad and have to be put away somewhere.’

  It was not that Mr Bholai did not love his wife and children. He was absolutely devoted to them. His devotion to his wife – or a portion of it – sprang from the fear that he was not worthy of her; that he had won her under false pretences. ‘Moon could have marry any of a hundred different men,’ he said to Wilbert. ‘They was lining up. But it was me – Vishnu Bholai – she choose out of all of them.’ He exaggerated the extent of the competition but exaggeration was essential to him in that, at one and the same time, it comforted him to believe he had triumphed over so many rival suitors; and, also, it emphasized Moon’s innate superiority.

  ‘Of course,’ he elaborated, ‘I was a lot handsomer in those days. I didn’t have my pot belly then. I remember I used to take she chocolates – the kind with pretty pictures on the box.’ He laughed. ‘I never discover till long after I marry she that she didn’t like chocolates at all.’ He became serious. ‘I had tell she I was going to be a lawyer and she had believe me. I wasn’t lying. I had set my heart on that since I was a boy. You could ask your father. I used to dream about the Inns of Court. Funny kind of name, eh? The Inns of Court. The problem is that you have to have money to study law and where was I to get the money from? I didn’t know any Latin either – you need that for the Roman Law. So nothing ever come of it.’ He chuckled. ‘That was how I end up in the grocery business – not wearing a gown and wig but an apron. Two pound of butter, half-pound of salt. I wanted Julian to be a lawyer but Moon wouldn’t hear of it. “Look where being a lawyer get you.” she say. You can’t really blame she for thinking like that.’ He derived a vicarious pleasure from reading – preferably aloud – the cases reported in the Trinidad Chronicle. Even this Moon frowned upon.

  Tutored by their mother, his children had reached the stage where they tolerated rather than respected their father. He had been effectively cast out from their lives and they treated him with an indifference verging on contempt. It was Julian who, in a moment of inspiration, had coined the phrase ‘two pound of butter, half-pound of salt’ which was forever afterwards to pursue Mr Bholai. He accepted it all with an outward show of calm and forbearance, only the slight twitch around the edges of the mouth betraying him. Constant repetition brought him perilously close to believing that the name (for Mrs Bholai had pounced on it with relish and made it his name) was no more than his just due. Julian inspired in him the same mixture of fear and devotion as did his wife. If he felt himself to be unworthy of the one, he felt himself to be no less unworthy of the other. He had long ago succumbed to the notion that Julian was the exclusive property of his mother. Sufficient for him was the glory – and undeserved privilege – of having fathered such a prodigy.

  Mr Bholai’s rebellions against his wife’s propaganda were ineffectual and lacking in conviction. None could deny, not even he, Julian’s cleverness, handsomeness and goodness except on grounds of jealousy. To do so would have been tantamount to sacrilege. The intermittent accusations he levelled against Julian augmented the already substantial burden of guilt he carried around with him and were generally followed by vigorous disclaimers to the contrary. He would allow no one else to criticize Julian and he could be as zealous in his defence as his wife. ‘I don�
��t want you to get the wrong impression,’ he warned Wilbert. ‘Julian is a good son to me. He is a boy with brains and you can’t expect him to be patient with his foolish old father all the time. You have to make allowances for that. If I does complain a little now and then is just because I is a selfish old man. Nothing more. No father could be more thankful and grateful than me for being blessed with a child like him.’

  Yet he could not control the note of bitterness which crept into his lamentations. His children had no use for him beyond the satisfaction of elementary necessities: food and shelter and clothing. ‘Yet, it have nothing surprising in the way they turn out,’ he confessed to Wilbert. ‘Is how we wanted them to be after all – to be different from us. To be better. Is why we sacrifice to give them a education. Is like doing another man work – like being a builder. You spend all your time and energy planning and building a great big house for somebody else to live in while you yourself can’t do better than a little rundown shack.’

  Mr Bholai, seeing the inevitable approaching, had employed delaying tactics. He had tried to prolong their childhood, perpetually reviving – to their considerable annoyance – memories of their earliest years. ‘You wouldn’t believe how well we used to get on together when they was small. Daddy-father they used to call me. I bet you would never guess that from the way they does behave to me now, eh? It used to be Daddy-father this and Daddy-father that. Is amazing how things does change.’ The sense of rejection, of superfluity, gave rise to harsher moods in which his concealed bitterness found its full expression. ‘What happen? What does make people change and become so? Is it something they was born with inside of them? What is it?’ He had witnessed so many mutations; while he had remained essentially the same, trying to keep pace but always left behind. Ashok to Egbert. The girl he had married to the woman who despised him. Daddy-father to lonely old man. Where was the key to these transformations? ‘Maybe if I had beaten they backsides raw, it wouldn’t be like this today. Having secrets from me! I’ll teach them how to have secrets. A lot of the blame must rest with Moon. She digging she own grave without knowing it. Playing with fire.’ It was a monologue of grief, bitterness and despair to which Wilbert listened.