A Bend in the River - V.S. Naipaul [141]
Ferdinand said, “My mother told me you had gone away. I was surprised to hear that you were still here.”
“I went to London for six weeks. I haven’t seen your mother since I’ve come back.”
“She’s given up the business. And you must do that too. You must go. You must go right away. There’s nothing here for you. They’ve taken you into jail now. They haven’t done that before. Do you know what it means? It means they’ll take you in again. And I won’t always be here to get you out. I don’t know how much Prosper and the others wanted from you. But next time it will be more. That’s all that it is about now. You know that. They haven’t done anything to you in jail. That’s only because it hasn’t occurred to them. They still think you are not that kind of man. You are a foreigner; they are not interested in you in that way; they just beat up bush people. But one day they will rough you up and then they will discover that you are like everybody else, and then very bad things will happen to you. You must go. Forget everything and go. There are no airplanes. All the seats have been reserved for officials coming up for the President’s visit. That’s standard security for these visits. But there’s a steamer on Tuesday. That’s tomorrow. Take it. It may be the last. The place will be full of officials. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Don’t take too much luggage. Don’t tell anyone. I will keep Prosper busy at the airport.”
“I will do what you say. And how are you, Ferdinand?”
“You don’t have to ask. You mustn’t think it’s bad just for you. It’s bad for everybody. That’s the terrible thing. It’s bad for Prosper, bad for the man they gave your shop to, bad for everybody. Nobody’s going anywhere. We’re all going to hell, and every man knows this in his bones. We’re being killed. Nothing has any meaning. That is why everyone is so frantic. Everyone wants to make his money and run away. But where? That is what is driving people mad. They feel they’re losing the place they can run back to. I began to feel the same thing when I was a cadet in the capital. I felt I had been used. I felt I had given myself an education for nothing. I felt I had been fooled. Everything that was given to me was given to me to destroy me. I began to think I wanted to be a child again, to forget books and everything connected with books. The bush runs itself. But there is no place to go to. I’ve been on tour in the villages. It’s a nightmare. All these airfields the man has built, the foreign companies have built—nowhere is safe now.”
His face had been like a mask at the beginning. Now he was showing his frenzy.
I said, “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I will do what I have to do.”
That had always been his way.
On his desk there was a glass paperweight—small flowers set in a half-sphere of crystal. He put the paperweight on the flat palm of his left hand and looked at it.
He said, “And you must go and get your steamer ticket. That was where we last met. I’ve often thought about that day. There were four of us on the steamer. It was midday. We drank beer in the bar. There was the director’s wife—you left with her. There was the lecturer who was your friend. He travelled down with me. That was the best time. The last day, the day of leaving. It was a good journey. It became different at the other end. I’ve had a dream, Salim. I’ve had a terrible dream.”
He took the paperweight off his palm and rested it on the desk again.
He said, “An execution is to take place at seven in the morning. That is what we are meeting for. We are going to witness the execution. It is one of us who is going to be executed, but the man doesn’t know. He thinks he is going to watch. We are meeting in a place I can’t describe, It may be a family place—I feel the presence of my mother. I am in a panic. I have soiled something in a shameful way and I am trying hard to clean it or to hide it, because I have to be at the execution at seven. We wait for the man. We greet him in the usual