In A Free State

by Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul

  The ruined man became guarded. 'No trouble up here.' He nodded to the photograph of the president. 'The witchdoctor's all right. Oh no. No trouble here. Tourism's going to be big business, and the African knows he can't manage it by himself. Say what you like, the African's no fool.'

  Bobby put the magazine down and began to move away. He didn't hurry; there was no need. The ruined man started after him, but couldn't pursue.

  The African was still outside the office. The spaniel sat, old and blank, on the office steps. The woodpile outside the cottage door had been pulled down. Near it Bobby now saw lavender in bloom, an old bush. As he bent down to break off some spikes he saw, among the scattered logs, a lizard's tail, separate, dead. Then he saw Linda and Carter. Linda waved. It was a large gesture; her blue trousers and cream shirt, seen at a distance, against the gravelled path and the unsettled light of the open hillside, were vivid; and again, as at the start of the day, it was as though they had an audience and were all three in a film or play. Bobby turned: it was only the gaze of the African, cleaning his top lip with his tongue.

  Linda said, 'What have you got, Bobby?'

  'Lavender.' He passed a spike below her nose. 'I love lavender. Is that effeminate of me?'

  She laughed. For the first time he saw her poor teeth. 'I wouldn't say effeminate. I would say old-fashioned.'

  She was the brightest of the three when they went into the high timbered dining-hall.

  They sat at the edge of the desolate room, next to the high fireplace. There was no fire, but logs had been laid. The boy was nervous and abstracted and kept on adjusting the cutlery on the table. His white shirt was less than fresh; his dusty black bowtie was askew.

  Carter said, 'You colonialists did pretty well.'

  'What a lovely word,' Linda said. 'One so seldom hears it in conversation. You make it sound very big and technical.'

  'Sitting here, I feel they must have been very big people. Giants in fact. I suppose that's why they haven't lighted the fire for us. We're too small.'

  Or too ugly, Bobby thought, breaking his roll.

  The frightened boy brought in the soup plate by plate, pressing his thumbs on the rims. He walked with a stoop, raising his knees high; his big feet, loosely hinged at the ankles, flapped up and down.

  'He almost looks like one of ours,' Carter said.

  'Carter says there's a four o'clock curfew in the Southern Collectorate, Bobby. The army's rampaging somewhat, apparently.'

  'That's what African armies are for,' Carter said. 'They are intended only for civilian use.'

  'So it looks as though we'll have to spend the night at the colonel's,' Linda said. 'Or stay here.'

  'The "boy" might light the fire for you,' Carter said to Bobby. Something was wrong with Carter's molars, and he ate like a dog, holding his head over his plate and catching the food in his mouth with every chew, at the same time giving a slight hiss, as though every mouthful was too hot.

  He finished a mouthful and made conversation. He said, 'I can't get used to this word b_oy__.'

  'Doris Marshall tried to call hers a butler,' Linda said.

  'Isn't that typical!' Bobby said.

  'In the end she settled for steward. It always seems to me such an absurd word,' Linda said.

  Bobby said, 'It offended Luke. He said to me afterwards, "I am not a steward, sir. I am a houseboy."

  'Who is Doris Marshall?' Carter asked.

  'She's a South African,' Linda said.

  Carter looked puzzled.

  'Luke is Bobby's houseboy,' Linda said.

  'I imagine,' Bobby said, looking at Linda, 'she thought she was bending over black-wards.'

  Linda cried, 'Bobby!'

  'We are on to my favourite subject,' Carter said. 'Servants.'

  Bobby said, 'It always fascinates our visitors.'

  Carter ate.

  'I can't,' he said later, looking round the dining-hall, once more playing the visitor, 'I can't get over the Britishness of this place.'

  'When I was in West Africa,' Linda said, 'everyone was always saying what rotten colonialists we were and how good the French were. And when you crossed the border it looked true. You saw all those black men just like ours sitting on the roadside and eating French bread and drinking red wine and wearing those funny little French berets.'

  'So at least,' Bobby said, 'we might be spared over here.' Carter looked at Bobby and said with direct aggression, 'You do pretty well.'

  It began to rain. The dining-hall grew dark; the roof drummed. 'That stretch of mud,' Linda said. 'It's the one thing that makes me hysterical, skidding on mud.'

  'I wonder if it's true about the curfew,' Bobby said. 'You don't have to take my word for it,' Carter said. 'I don't have to take your word for anything.'

  Linda appeared not to notice. 'Poor little king,' she said, going girlish and affected. 'Poor little African king.'

  After this there was nothing like conversation. They finished the bottle of Australian Riesling; and then, to the visible relief of the boy, lunch was over. Bobby seized the bill when the boy brought it. Carter became morose.

  'Office,' the boy said. 'You pay office.'

  The African was still there, sheltering under the narrow eaves.

  Rain blurred the edge of the hill, dripped down the tiled roof of the cottages onto the flowers, washed the gravel path. It was almost chilly. Carter was alone in the dining-hall when Bobby went back. They didn't talk; Carter turned and looked out at the rain. Linda, when she came in, was as bright as before.

  It was time to leave. Bobby began to fuss.

  'I'll stay here for a little,' Carter said.

  'Will we be seeing you later perhaps?' Bobby asked.

  'Let's leave it open,' Carter said.

  Bobby ran through the rain to the car and drove it up to the hall entrance. Linda got in. She looked at Carter; she seemed concerned now. There was some sort of movement in the shadows behind Carter, and the ruined man appeared, leaning forward, as if with exaggerated interest. As Bobby was driving off the woman with the arm-sling came out on the office steps. She gestured towards the African with her uninjured hand and shouted through the rain.

  Bobby stopped and rolled down the window. 'Can you take him down to the road?'

  'Oh Lord,' Linda said, leaning over the seat to clear her things away.

  The African opened the door himself. He filled the car with his smell. Through the rain, the windows misting, they drove off, Linda rigid, Bobby wiping the windscreen with the back of his hand. When Bobby looked at the rear-view mirror he caught the African's smiling eyes.

  'You work here?' Bobby asked, in the brisk, friendly, simple voice he used with country Africans.

  'In a way.'

  'What you do? What your work?'

  'Anyanist.'

  'Oh, you mean _trade__ unionist. You _organize__ the workers, you _bargain__ with the employers. You get your members more money, better conditions. That right?'

  'Yes, yes. Anyanist. What you do?'

  'I work here.'

  'I don't see you.'

  'I work in the south. The Southern Collectorate.'

  'Yes, yes. South.' The African laughed.

  'I'm a civil servant. A bureaucrat. I have my in-tray and my out-tray. I also have my tea-tray.'

  'Civil servant. That is good.'

  'I like it.'

  They were driving slowly down the rocky slope, the rain washing against the windscreen, almost too fast for the wipers. An African came round the corner at the bottom of the slope, walking up to the Hunting Lodge. He saw the car and stood at the side of the road to wait for it to pass. His hat was pulled down low over his head and the lapels of his jacket were turned up.

  'He is getting absolutely soaked,' Bobby said, still in his friendly simple voice.

  'That is obvious,' Linda said.

  'You stop,' the African in the car said to Bobby.

  When Bobby looked in the mirror he met the African's gaze. 'You stop,' the African
said, looking at the mirror. 'You take him.'

  'But he is not going in our direction,' Bobby said.

  'You stop. He is my friend.'

  Bobby stopped beside the African. Rain ran down the sloping brim of the African's hat; nothing could be seen of his face. Still in the rain, he took off his hat; he looked terrified. The African in the back opened the door. The man came in. He said 'Sir' to Bobby and sat on the edge of the plastic-covered seat until the first African pulled him back.

  The Africans made the car feel crowded. Linda rolled down her window and breathed deeply. Rain spattered her scarf.

  The level polo ground was awash and now, with the scattered clumps of reeds and grass rising out of the water, looked more than ever like a swamp. Rain had darkened the ruined pavilion. 'Is your friend a unionist too?' Bobby asked.

  'Yes, yes,' the first African said quickly. 'Anyanist.'

  'I hope you don't have too far to go in this weather,' Bobby said.

  'Not far,' the first African said.

  Rain splashed the frothing red puddles in the deep wheeltracks.

  Sometimes the car slithered. The road began to rise to the high embankment of the highway.

  'You turn right,' the African said.

  'We are going left,' Bobby said. 'We are going to the Collectorate.'

  'You turn right.'

  They were now nearly where the red dirt road turned to sand and rock and widened for the last sharp climb to the highway. The African was still looking at the rear-view mirror.

  'Is it far, where you want to go?' Bobby said.

  'Not far. You turn right.'

  'Christ!' Linda said. She leaned back and put her hand to the rear door handle. 'Out!'

  Bobby stopped. The wet African, behind Linda, at once jumped out. Almost at the same time the African who had been talking opened his door and got out and put on his hat. Immediately he was faceless, his smile and menace of no importance. Bobby moved up to the embankment, leaving them there, standing on either side of the dirt road, hats pulled down to the shape of their heads, soaking in the rain, two roadside Africans.

  'What a smell!' Linda said. 'Absolute gangsters. I'm not going to get myself killed simply because I'm too nice to be rude to Africans.'

  Just before he turned into the highway Bobby looked in the mirror: the Africans hadn't moved.

  'I've had this too often with Martin,' Linda said. 'It's these damned oaths they're swearing. They feel that everybody's scared stiff of them as a result.'

  'But still, it makes me so ashamed. So cocky, and then going just like that. What I can't understand is why he should have hung around for so long up there. You don't have to be from a foundation to find that a little sinister.'

  'Sinister my foot. It's just stupidity, that's all. Let's open this window. You can smell the filth they've been eating.'

  The rain slanted in, big drops. Bobby, looking in the mirror, saw the Africans standing on the highway. Black, emblematic: in the mirror they grew smaller and smaller, less and less distinct in the rain and against the tar. They began to walk. They walked off the highway, back into the road that led to the Hunting Lodge. Bobby didn't think Linda had seen. He didn't tell her.

  4

  'IT'S SO PATHETIC,' Linda said.

  'I'm sorry. I should have been firmer.'

  'You feel sorry for them, and you keep on feeling sorry and saying nice things, nice encouraging things, and before you know where you are you have a Sammy Kisenyi on your hands. I'm afraid we shall have to close the window. The Marshalls talk about the· smell of Africa – have you heard her?'

  'I should have been firmer.'

  'This very special smell.'

  'I've never got on with people who talk about things like the smell of Africa,' Bobby said. 'It's like people who talk about, well, the Masai.'

  'You may be right. But I used to think. I wasn't very sensitive, getting this smell of Africa that the Marshalls and everybody else said they so loved. But I got it this time, when we came back from leave. It lasts about half an hour or so, no more. It is a smell of rotting vegetation and Africans. One is very much like the other.'

  It was the smell, in a warm shuttered room, that Bobby liked.

  He said, 'Perhaps it is time for you to go South.'

  'It's so damned pathetic. You remember when the president came to the Collectorate? All those thin and haggard white men, all those fat black men.'

  'I don't know why you have this thing about them being fat.'

  'I like to think of my savages as lean. You wouldn't believe it now, but Sammy was as thin as a rake when he came back from England. Martin showed the president round the studios. Sammy, of course, doesn't know a microphone from a doorknob. Do you know the first thing Martin said afterwards? It's so embarrassing to say. Martin said, "I'll say this for the witchdoctor. He smells like a polecat." Martin! Well, you know, that sort of thing makes you feel ashamed for everybody, yourself included. But then.'

  'Oh dear.'

  'Perhaps the word will get around and they'll deport me. I'd like that.'

  'Lunch wasn't a good idea.'

  'Perhaps not.'

  'Your views seem to have changed a good deal since the morning.'

  'I don't know whether I have any views really.' Linda's voice was going lighter. 'That's why it would be nice to be deported. We must tell Busoga-Kesoro.'

  Bobby didn't like the archness; he didn't like the innuendo. He began to drive fast, too fast for the wet road.

  He said, 'They say the animal is always sad afterwards.'

  'How romantic, Bobby.'

  He decided to say no more.

  The rain thinned. The sky lifted. The road shone in a silver light.

  An obstruction in the road ahead defined itself as police jeeps, policemen in capes, and two zebra-striped wooden barriers.

  Linda said, 'I suppose this is what is known as a roadblock.' Slowing down, preparing a face for the policemen, Bobby began to smile.

  'Please don't be too nice, Bobby. So English those policemen, with their black uniforms and their capes and caps. You can tell that the boss is the fat one, with the plain and fancy clothes.'

  It passingly enraged Bobby that the man Linda spoke about seemed to be in charge. He was young and big-bellied; a darkbrown felt hat sat lighdy on his head; below a police-issue cape he wore a flowered sports shirt.

  With two uniformed policemen he came down the centre of the road to the car.

  Bobby said, 'I am a government officer. I'm attached to Mr Ogguna Wanga-Butere's department in the Southern Collectorate.' The plainclothesman said, 'Licence.'

  While he examined Bobby's driving permit his lips and tongue played together, and he held his elbows tight against his sides, giving his paunch a slight lift from time to time.

  'My compound pass is on the windscreen,' Bobby said.

  'Bonnet and keys, please.'

  Bobby pulled the bonnet-release lever and handed over the keys. The uniformed men searched under the bonnet and in the boot, while the plainclothesman himself patted the upholstery on the doors and felt between the seats. He opened Linda's suitcase and pressed down the flimsy contents with a flat, broad hand.

  'So' you've been troubled,' he said at last.

  It was the formula of dismissal. Then hurriedly, when the car was moving off, like a man remembering part of the drill, he smiled and raised his hat. The hair on which the hat sat so lightly was extravagantly of the English style, scraped together in a high springy mound on one side, with a wide, low parting on the other side.

  'It's a consolation anyway that he's one of "ours",' Linda said, as Bobby drove between the zebra-striped barriers. 'But I thought they were looking for the king in the capital, didn't you? The story last night was that he'd got away in one of those taxis.'

  'They were looking for arms. I happen to know that there's a lot of concern high up about people smuggling in arms to the Collectorate. Tourists and so forth. They say there's an absolute arsenal in the kin
g's palace. Weren't they extraordinarily polite, though?' The roadblock, the policemen, the rain on the black capes, the open road, his own security: excitement was in Bobby's voice. 'That's Simon Lubero's doing. He's very keen on good relations with the public and so on. Everybody says that Hobbes keeps him up to the mark, but I met him at the conference last year and was most impressed. There was an interview with him in the paper the other day which I found extremely good, I must say.'

  'In our own "Two-Minute Silence". Preparing us all. Simon's very British.'

  'That's not bad. With him.'

  , "So' you been troubled,", Linda mimicked. 'I feel there must be a curfew, don't you? I know we are white and neutral, but I'm beginning to wonder whether we shouldn't be "racing" in the other direction. We don't seem to have too much company.'

  He was in fact racing, half acting out, after the peculiar excitement of the roadblock, a make-believe of danger and escape on the empty African road, lined now on one side with the tall, bare, candelabra-like branches of sisal: the rain almost gone, the clouds high, the light shifting, the rolling land streaked with luminous green, bright colour going on and off on the distant mountains.

  He looked at the petrol gauge and said, 'We'll stop at Esher and fill up with petrol.'

  'At the time of the Asian boycott everybody in the compound always kept their tanks full, ready to dash off at any moment of day or night to the border.'

  'My dear,' Bobby said, 'such excitement. Daily mentions on the BBC, signing on for the airlift at the High Commission, laying in tins.

  'I laid in my tins.'

  Linda was showing the effect of the lunch and the Riesling and the drive. Her face was white and strained, dark below the eyes, and the tan on her prominent temples looked like stains, yellow below brown.

  She said, abruptly, 'I love this dramatic light, don't you? And the sisal. It all looks so empty until you start seeing those little brown huts. You feel that nothing has ever happened here.' Her voice was going mystical; she was listening to herself speak; Bobby could tell now. 'No one will ever know what has happened here.'

  He said, 'Some of us know what happened here.'