A Bend in the River - V.S. Naipaul [29]
The gymnasium hadn’t been built. All these demonstrations of loyalty and faith in the future and civic pride had gone for nothing. Yet the book had survived. Now it had been stolen, its money-attracting properties recognized. The date had been altered, very obviously; and Father Huismans’s name had been written over the signature of the earlier principal.
I said to the man before me, “I will keep this book. I will give it back to the people to whom it belongs. Who gave you the book? Ferdinand?”
He looked helpless. Sweat was beginning to run down his puckered forehead, and he was blinking it away. He said, “Mis’ Salim.”
“You’ve done your job. You’ve given me the book. Now go.”
And he obeyed.
Ferdinand came that afternoon. I knew he would—he would want to look at my face, and find out about his book. He said, “Salim?” I didn’t acknowledge him. I let him stand. But he didn’t have to stand about for long.
Metty was in the storeroom, and Metty must have heard him. Metty called out: “Oo-oo!” Ferdinand called back, and went to the storeroom. He and Metty began to chat in the patois. My temper rose as I heard that contented, rippling, high-pitched sound. I took the gymnasium book from the drawer of my desk and went to the storeroom.
The room, with one small barred window set high, was half in darkness. Metty was on a ladder, checking stock on the shelves on one wall. Ferdinand was leaning against the shelves on another wall, just below the window. It was hard to see his face.
I stood in the doorway. I made a gesture towards Ferdinand with the book and I said, “You are going to get into trouble.”
He said, “What trouble?”
He spoke in his flat, dead way. He didn’t mean to be sarcastic; he really was asking what I was talking about. But it was hard for me to see his face. I saw the whites of his eyes, and I thought I saw the corners of his mouth pulling back in a smile. That face, that reminder of frightening masks! And I thought: Yes—what trouble?
To talk of trouble was to pretend there were laws and regulations that everyone could acknowledge. Here there was nothing. There had been order once, but that order had had its own dishonesties and cruelties—that was why the town had been wrecked. We lived in that wreckage. Instead of regulations there were now only officials who could always prove you wrong, until you paid up. All that could be said to Ferdinand was: “Don’t harm me, boy, because I can do you greater harm.”
I began to see his face more clearly.
I said, “You will take this book back to Father Huismans. If you don’t, I will take it back myself. And I will see that he sends you home for good.”
He looked blank, as though he had been attacked. Then I noticed Metty on the ladder. Metty was nervous, tense; his eyes betrayed him. And I knew I had made a mistake, saving up all my anger for Ferdinand.
Ferdinand’s eyes went bright, and the whites showed clearly. So that, at this terrible moment, he seemed like a comic in an old-time film. He appeared to lean forward, to be about to lose his balance. He took a deep breath. His eyes never left my face. He was spitting with rage; his sense of injury had driven him mad. His arms hung straight and loose at his sides, so that they seemed longer than usual. His hands curled without clenching. His mouth was open. But what I had thought was a smile was no smile at all. If the light had been better I would have seen that at the beginning.
He was frightening, and the thought came to me: This is how he will look when he sees his victim’s blood, when he watches his enemy being