A Bend in the River - V.S. Naipaul [89]
She was more amused than apologetic. She had forgotten, but she knew there was something she had had to remember about that lunch. There had been so many changes of plan about the lunch—which was in fact taking place in the staff room of the polytechnic. She went away to make us some scrambled South African eggs. The servant came in to clear some receipts from the oval table, which was dark and highly polished, and to lay the table. “You live your life. A stranger appears. He is an encumbrance.”
On the upper shelf of the bookcase I saw the book Indar had shown me that evening in which there was a mention of Raymond and Yvette as generous hosts at one time in the capital—a mention which had mattered to Yvette. The bright light and the altered room seemed to make it a different book. Colour had faded from the backs of books. One book I took out carried Raymond’s signature and the date 1937—a note of ownership, but also perhaps at that date a statement of intent, Raymond’s expression of faith in his own future. That book felt very tarnished now, with the paper brown at the edges, the red letters on the paper spine almost bleached away—something dead, a relic. Another, newer book carried Yvette’s signature with her unmarried name: very stylish, that Continental handwriting, with a fancy y, and speaking in much the same way as Raymond’s signature of twenty-three years before.
I said to Yvette while we were eating the scrambled eggs, “I would like to read something by Raymond. Indar says he knows more about the country than any man living. Has he published any books?”
“He’s working on this book, and has been for some years now. The government were going to publish it, but now apparently there are difficulties.”
“So there are no books.”
“There’s his thesis. That’s been published as a book. But I can’t recommend it. I couldn’t bear to read it. When I told Raymond that, he said he could scarcely bear to write it. There are a few articles in various journals. He hasn’t had time for many of those. He’s spent all his time on that big book about the history of the country.”
“Is it true that the President has read parts of that book?”
“That used to be said.”
But she couldn’t tell me what the difficulties now were. All I learned was that Raymond had temporarily put aside his history to work on a selection of the President’s speeches. Our lunch began to feel sad. Understanding Yvette’s position in the Domain now, knowing that the stories I had heard about Raymond would have been heard by others, I began to feel that the house must have been like a prison to her. And that evening when she gave a party and wore her Margit Brandt blouse began to appear like an aberration.
I said, as I was getting ready to leave, “You must come with me to the Hellenic Club one afternoon. You must come tomorrow. The people there are people who have been here a long time. They’ve seen it all. The last thing they want to talk about is the situation of the country.”
She agreed. But then she said, “You mustn’t forget them.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. She left the room, going through the door that Raymond had gone through after he had made his exit speech that evening; and she came back with a number of magazines, Cahiers of this and that, some of them printed by the government printery in the capital. They were magazines with articles by Raymond. Already, then, we had Raymond in common; it was like a beginning.
The rough-bladed grass of the lawns or open areas of this part of the Domain was high; it almost buried the low-level lights housed in mushroom-like aluminum structures that lined the asphalted avenues. A number of those lights had been smashed, some a long time ago; but there seemed to be no one to mend them. On the other side of the Domain the land for the model farm had become overgrown; all that remained of the project was the Chinese gateway that the now absent Taiwanese or Chinese had