A Bend in the River - V.S. Naipaul [57]
Metty all this while was smiling at Indar and swinging his head from side to side, saying, “Indar! Indar!” And it was Metty who remembered our duty as hosts. He said, “You would like some coffee, Indar?” As though we were on the coast, in the family shop, and he just had to step down the lane to Noor’s stall and bring back the little brass cups of sweet and muddy coffee on a heavy brass tray. No coffee like that here; only Nescafe, made in the Ivory Coast, and served in big china cups. Not the same kind of drink: you couldn’t chat over it, sighing at each hot sweet sip.
Indar said, “That would be very nice, Ali.”
I said, “His name here is Metty. It means ‘half-caste.’ ”
“You let them call you that, Ali?”
“African people, Indar. Kafar. You know what they give.”
I said, “Don’t believe him. He loves it. It makes him a great hit with the girls. Ali’s a big family man now. He’s lost.”
Metty, going to the storeroom to boil the water for the Nescafe, said, “Salim, Salim. Don’t let me down too much.”
Indar said, “He was lost a long time ago. Have you heard from Nazruddin? I saw him in Uganda a few weeks ago.”
“What’s it like out there now?”
“Settling down. For how long is another matter. Not one bloody paper has spoken up for the king. Did you know that? When it comes to Africa, people don’t want to know or they have their principles. Nobody cares a damn about the people who live in the place.”
“But you do a lot of travelling.”
“It’s my business. How are things with you here?”
“It’s been very good since the rebellion. The place is booming. Property is fantastic. Land is two hundred francs a square foot in some parts now.”
Indar didn’t look impressed—but the shop wasn’t an impressive place. I felt, too, I had run on a little bit and was doing the opposite of what I intended to do with Indar. Wishing to let him know that his assumptions about me were wrong, I was in fact acting out the character he saw me as. I was talking the way I had heard traders in the town talk, and even saying the things they said.
I said, attempting another kind of language, “It’s a specialized business. A sophisticated market would be easier in some ways. But here you can’t follow your personal likes and dislikes. You have to know exactly what is needed. And of course there are the agencies. That’s where the real money is.”
Indar said, “Yes, yes. The agencies. It’s like old times for you, Salim.”
I let that pass. But I decided to tone the whole thing down. I said, “I don’t know how long it’s going to last, though.”
“It will last as long as your President wants it to last. And no one can tell how long that will be. He’s a strange man. He seems to be doing nothing at all, and then he can act like a surgeon. Cutting away some part he doesn’t like.”
“That’s how he settled the old army. It was terrible, Indar. He sent a message to Colonel Yenyi telling him to stay at the barracks and to welcome the commander of the mercenaries. So he stayed on the steps in full uniform, and when they arrived he began to walk to the gate. They shot him as he walked. And everybody with him.”
“It saved your bacon, though. I have something for you, by the way. I went to see your father and mother before I came here.”
“You went home?” But I dreaded hearing about it from him.
He said, “Oh, I’ve been there a few times since the great events. It isn’t so bad. You remember our house? They’ve painted it in the party colours. It’s some kind of party building now. Your mother gave me a bottle of coconut chutney. It isn’t for you alone. It is for Ali and you. She made that clear.” And to Metty, coming back then with the jug of hot water and the cups and the tin of Nescafe and the condensed milk, he said, “Ma sent you some coconut chutney, Ali.”
Metty said, “Chutney, coconut chutney. The food here is horrible, Indar.”
We sat all three around the desk, stirring coffee and water and condensed milk together.
Indar said, “I didn’t want to go back. Not the first time. I didn’t think my heart could stand it. But the airplane is