Pilgrims Way

by Abdulrazak Gurnah

  He knew she would not be on duty the following night, but he went to work looking forward to seeing her. The Dodo might have collapsed after her exertions on her sister’s behalf. Tooting might have been cut off by a transport strike, or be in the middle of a reign of terror by the A-team, making movement difficult and travel impossible. But the Dodo was there, skinny and cheerful as always, her gold teeth flashing with pleasure at the sight of Daud.

  ‘Did you enjoy your holiday in Mauritius?’ he asked her.

  ‘Stupid boy, I only gone to Tooting, to my girlie sister’s wedding,’ she said, giggling with indestructible silliness. ‘Look what I brought you. I knew you were on, so I saved you some halwa and ladhoo.’

  ‘You been in Tootingji,’ he said, imitating her voice. ‘Is it safe with all the hubshi there? They always be thinking of only one thing when they see a woman, you know.’

  ‘Ignorant boy, we all black in this country,’ she said, and laughed with enough force to convince anyone that she was lying.

  3

  The buds on the chestnut trees in the hospital drive were now fully open in early summer. He walked down the avenue and turned his back on the portico tower above the main entrance of the hospital. The grass verges along the drive were wet with morning dew. Daud glanced once over his shoulder because the prospect of the huge trees always pleased him. He crossed into St Jerome Street, a quiet road with neat little houses on either side. The order and the neatness appealed to him, as a condition he would only ever be able to admire, he thought, but never achieve. He had once seen a man down this street picking up pieces of dried dog-shit with a pair of tongs, sniffing them and putting them in a dustpan. When he realised that Daud was staring at him, he glared back an angry challenge. Daud had envied him the passion that he had brought to such a task.

  The street turned sharply, and he glanced behind him again before crossing the road. He was a tall man, but slim and light like a distance runner. The clothes he wore did not fit him very well, nor were they clean. The large yellow jumper had shrunk at the back and was pulled out of shape at the elbows. He tugged the back of it down whenever he remembered. His green trousers carried the tide-marks of months of dirt. With his close-cropped hair and untidy stubble, he gave an impression of hard-headedness, a fact of which he was unaware.

  It shamed him that his clothes were always so dirty. He had, after all, been brought up by a mother whose regard for hygiene bordered on the religious. There were times when he wallowed in delicious remorse, seeing his squalor as an eloquent manifestation of his decline. At the beginning of every week he promised himself that he would wash all his clothes, mend the hems of his trousers and stitch the buttons back on his shirts. On occasions he soaked his clothes in a bucket of soapy water for a few days and then rinsed them. Sometimes the few days extended to a lot of days, and he daily avoided the stinking bucket and its gradually thickening contents. He always had to concede defeat in the end, and plunge his hands into the glue, and try to rub the stink off. Your uncle gave his life to defend the empire from the yellow peril, he lectured himself on these occasions, and you wallow in the stink of rotting clothes. Was his sacrifice, and that of his comrades in the King’s African Rifles, for nothing?

  In the mornings after night-duty, despite the long, sleepless hours, he always felt that he was the one who was fresh, while the people he met looked tired and full of sleep. He watched out for the smart secretaries because he admired their bodies and the way they decorated and clothed them. He recognised some of them from previous encounters, and was always down-hearted if he failed to catch sight of his current obsession. He passed conventionally attired young men, accountants and solicitors’ assistants, he guessed. Sharp young men with homes to go back to. He envied them their clean jobs, their prosperous futures, and their smart dark jackets.

  The traffic was thick and swift on the road by the common, the drivers gazing ahead of them with grim concentration. Daud waved to a gloomy-looking man with a square face, who was sitting in a brown Maxi, becalmed in the queue of traffic. The man looked behind him to see whom Daud might have been waving to. Daud waved again, and added a powerful smile. The man shut his eyes, and opened them again, looking ahead. Dear Sir, Daud complained. You don’t know me, that is obvious and no fault of yours. It may therefore come as a surprise to you to hear from me in this way. You look like a fine, generous man to me – a little gloomy perhaps, but kind, most likely. I’m not being facetious. Without another glance I can tell that you will not allow your mother to be taken to an old people’s home when she gets too feeble for the stairs. I would guess that you are either a bowler or a wicket-keeper for your local team. Am I wrong? A noble sport! So how can a man like you, civilised to a fault and warmed by the love of your family, drive past me on this fine morning without a wave, without even asking me who I am, or where I come from or what I am doing here? Don’t you care?

  He saw a girl approaching on the other side of the road. She was slim and tall, with a long, pale face. She walked slowly over the bridge, blank-faced and indifferent. She stopped across the road, looking away from him. He was struck by the confidence with which she could seem so cold. There was a hint of arrogance about her wretchedness. He studied her furtively. Her eyes were very dark but with a kind of liquid light in them, as if she was about to burst into tears. She had a small mouth, gathered into the shape of a diamond by the stray lipstick that was smeared and spilling over her upper lip. Her face had an abruptness about it, as if its maker had rushed to complete the lower part. She was wearing a very tight pair of jeans, rolled a little up the calves. Her jacket, faded and grubby, reached down to her thighs and gave her a top-heavy appearance.

  As if she had known his presence all along, she looked straight at him. He looked hastily in the other direction, keeping his eyes away from her as he crossed the road. Dear Pale Face, he grumbled. What was that look for? Did you think I was studying you with desire throbbing through my veins? Is that why you looked so amused? Black Boy Lusts After White Flesh: This morning a girl was accosted by a red-eyed black boy on the Kingsmead Bridge. He stormed towards her through raging traffic, oblivious to the cars, goaded by a mad lust. ‘Who am I? What am I doing here?’ he screamed, tormented by a clash of cultures. The girl has asked for her name to be withheld, but the alienated creature’s name is Daud. You have been warned.

  On the path across the playing fields, he saw an old man. The man smiled behind his spectacles and said good morning. Daud was always respectful to such men, reminding himself that they had probably killed human beings during the wars, perhaps with bare hands. He replied to the greeting and stepped briskly aside, suppressing a military salute. Dear Corporal, I’ve written several letters this morning already. Some mornings are like that. Only I don’t want you to think that you fooled me for one minute. It’s a clever disguise, but not clever enough. I recognised your face from the Tana River campaign, where I saw you chasing the Mullah’s men out of Bajun country. I hope you haven’t forgotten the lessons you learned then.

  On his first night off he went to the pub where he had arranged to meet Karta. Karta was late, as he usually was, and Daud waited with customary unease as the pub filled up with the Friday night crowd.

  ‘Chin up,’ Karta said when he arrived, leaning forward and making to chuck Daud under the chin. Daud looked up and smiled with relief. Karta took a step back and opened his arms wide, inviting Daud to admire his costume and appearance.

  ‘Stunning,’ Daud said, smiling at his friend’s indestructible vanity. ‘You look like a young Harry Belafonte.’ Karta swivelled on one leg, showing Daud a back view and glancing over his shoulder to watch his reaction. He swivelled again and turned to face Daud, a happy smile on his handsome face. He was tall and a little heavy, although his head was small for the size of his shoulders. His belly was beginning to bulge, but he carried this off with casual grace, thrusting out his buttocks and chest whenever he remembered. His voice was deep and rounded, so that even whe
n he was being harsh and strident, it still kept its form. He laughed with a soft, throaty growl. As he did so, he became conscious of it, and cleared his throat before laughing again, trying too hard to make his laughter heard. ‘Eat your heart out, bro,’ he said, thrusting his hips out as he played out his pantomime. Some people close to them in the crowded pub applauded, and Karta acknowledged them with a curt nod.

  ‘You’re wasting yourself,’ Daud said, leaning back and feeling that a burden had been lifted off his shoulders. ‘You should be modelling for a mail-order catalogue. Nearly a third of their customers are now black, and they’re always looking to fulfil their three per cent.’

  ‘Don’t be insulting,’ Karta said, then pointed a dramatic forefinger at Daud’s empty glass. ‘Broke again! You should leave that job. I’ll buy you a drink now in case that English Ape turns up.’

  ‘African hospitality,’ Daud said solemnly when Karta returned with the drinks.

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ Karta said just as solemnly. ‘What three per cent?’

  ‘Wogs in the population. You may not have noticed it, but mail-order firms, in a selfless act of community responsibility, have chosen to make the pictures in their catalogues reflect this. Three per cent of the population is black, so three per cent of their models should be black. That’s the democratic tradition for you.’

  ‘To the mail-order firms,’ said Karta raising his glass again.

  ‘How is the exploration into the effects of Christianity on African societies going?’ asked Daud, nodding to encourage Karta to bare the fruits of his research. ‘Have you got to the abolition of human sacrifice yet? Have you exposed all the lies that Europeans told about savage practices in African religions?’

  Karta shook his head, grinning at the provocation. ‘I can’t get past the parading of the maidens,’ he said. ‘Anyway, let me tell you about my new outfit.’ He stood up and took his denim jacket off so that Daud could admire his black trousers and green silky shirt. While he talked about where he had bought the clothes and how much they had cost him, Daud noticed that several people were watching them. Karta seemed oblivious to them, and needed none of Daud’s feeble encouragement to complete his performance. When he sat down again, he was grinning with self-congratulation. He took a long draught of his beer, and then turned to the nearest of his audience. ‘What are you staring at?’ he asked.

  Faces turned quickly away while Karta glared with puffed-up indignation. Daud watched his friend with amusement, remembering how he had been when he first came the previous year, full of jokes and cunning, and unsparing in the mockery of his own absurd expectations of England. A year ago he would have played his audience along, teased them and persuaded them to make fools of themselves. ‘Look at them,’ he said. ‘What a craven bunch of conquerors! The sun never sets on their cowardice and hypocrisy. They don’t even have the nerve to look you in the eye and tell you I hate you, black man. This shit-hole of a place!’

  ‘You really want them to do that?’ Daud asked. ‘Spit in your eye and tell you how much they hate you? And put chains round your ankles and whip you morning and evening?’

  ‘And force me to sing “Rule Britannia” before breakfast, as they used to at school, I might add,’ Karta said and glared around the pub, blaming everyone there for the indignity he had suffered.

  ‘Exactly,’ Daud said. ‘And call you to lunch with the angelus and send you to sleep without supper. I’d rather take the craven bunch of coconuts myself.’

  ‘Conquerors,’ Karta corrected, then sighed. ‘I am so fed up of this place, this arm-pit of the world. I’m pining for the motherland and some sun on my back.’

  ‘Yes,’ Daud sighed too. ‘The steamy afternoon aromas of the mangrove swamp, and the grease and wood-smoke of the overflowing Freetown streets. I bet you pine for all of it! The ineluctable musk of the city bar! The stench of rotting garbage in the roads.’

  ‘Oh, you’re making me homesick, you bastard. Stop!’ Karta cried, laying a hand on Daud’s arm.

  He had met Karta at a party for foreign students, given by the Society of Friends. Daud was very surprised to receive the invitation, not only because he was no longer a student, and the invitation referred to his studies, but because he was alarmed that they had discovered his presence in this country of millions. Did they have access to Immigration files? Or would he come under Customs? Would they force him to kneel before the cross and then steal his immortal soul? Would they trick him to eat pig meat and then sell him into white slavery?

  He had his own image of what the Quakers were like: intense, slightly intolerant eccentrics who wore long beards and burned witches. He saw them as the English version of the Afrikaner: obscenely pious, resourceful and self-righteous. He went to the party because he found the image irresistible. He told himself that it was a mistake, that he would be forced to drink orange squash and listen to an ex-settler talking about good works. Nobody that he knew had ever mentioned these gatherings, so he was not surprised to find only eight foreign students when he got there, being entertained by four normal-looking natives in their forties. The party was in the hall of the meeting house. One corner of the huge room was occupied by a trestle table on which were scattered a selection of viands and colourful beverages: biscuits and squashes. Another corner was noisily occupied by a Dansette record player. The dozen people who were there were marooned round the old, ribbed radiator, doing their best.

  Of the eight foreigners, four he guessed to be West Indian nurses. All four were wearing bright, chiffony dresses – pinks and blues with satin petticoats. Powder covered their black necks, and their mouths glistened the colour of moist blood. He knew that if he spoke to them they would ignore him and walk away, taking him to be after only one thing. Two of the other students were Malaysian, he guessed. One wore a red cummerbund. They were smiling at the tall English woman who was talking about the difficulties of educating an apathetic public in the benefits of multi-cultural and multi-racial exchanges. There is so much we can learn from each other. I myself do not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, and I have found it so immensely rewarding to discuss this with Muslims, who, of course, do not see Jesus as divine either. He wondered if that was his ex-settler. One of the students was a European of some kind, dark-skinned with bright-red hair – Bulgarian or Greek or Armenian – with a firm touch of the tar-brush. The remaining student was Karta, only recently arrived from Sierra Leone, and not yet confident enough to express his full horror at the ugliness and complacency of his laughable hosts. He was dressed in all-black.

  Daud’s arrival was greeted with howls of joy by the two English couples, who rushed over to ask his name, check it off a list clipped on to a board and ask him what he thought of England. The four West Indian nurses ignored him when he asked them if any of them danced. He had only asked them to prove himself right. The two Malaysians smiled and smiled, and asked him if there were many Muslims in his country. The Bulgarian watched him warily, admiring his English. Karta made a fist with his left hand, and Daud nodded and smiled at him.

  The party ended abruptly at nine. The four West Indian nurses said they were on early duty the following morning. Daud had noted Karta’s bewildered failure to obtain even a greeting from them. By then the small group of revellers had sampled the refreshment and almost made the complete round of their range of conversation – and were back with the benefits of multi-racial and multi-cultural exchanges. There was a moment of panic when one of the hosts asked Daud if he was happy at the institution where he was studying. He replied that he was not a student and saw a momentary hardening in his host’s eyes. Gate-crasher! By an unspoken agreement, everybody ignored his reply. Karta called him brother man, and they decided to go for a drink, to celebrate the reunion of exiles from the black homeland.

  Karta had complained bitterly. They were so dirty. The food was so horrible, it either gave him the shits or indigestion. Everything tasted like pulped cabbage. Was the water safe? The television was all dancing
girls and racist jokes. Everything was so squalid, so mean. And yet everyone was so mighty, so pleased with their Englishness. How long had he, Daud, been in this arsehole of a place? Was he at the university? That was where he, Karta, was. He was doing a Masters. Thank God he was only going to be here for a year. What did Daud say he was studying? Man, this is one racist arsehole of a place. Haba! How could they force someone of your intelligence to work as a cleaner in a hospital?

  Daud had invited him round for a meal. Thinking back to his own early days, he made Karta a pepper stew. Karta ate with relish, closing his eyes and humming with ecstasy as the pepper burnt his palate. Marie, the pretty, dark-haired German girl who was Daud’s latest conquest on the au-pair circuit – this was in the dark days when he still thought of such things as conquests – was sitting at the table but not eating. Karta kept glancing at her and she frankly returned his interest. Karta enthused: excellent food, wonderful company, almost as good as being at home. Daud was flattered despite himself, and told Karta to come round whenever he felt like it. Karta had looked at his black brother and then glanced round triumphantly at Marie, whose own eyes were beginning to water. That’s African hospitality, he said. Marie was so moved by Karta’s performance that she went to see him in the hall of residence the next day. When Daud discovered how he had been jilted, he pretended that it did not matter to him. He admitted to himself that he had treated her very casually and deserved the casual way she discarded him. She was only the first of many for Karta.