Half a Life_ A Novel - V. S. Naipaul [39]
The poet, when he came, received his homage from the editor, and then he and his wife sat sullenly together in one corner of the little room.
The Colombian woman was older than Willie expected. She might have been in her late forties. Her name was Serafina. She was slender, delicate, worried-looking. Her hair was black enough to suggest a dye, and her skin was very white and powdered up to the hair. When eventually she came and sat next to Willie she said, “Do you like ladies?” When Willie hesitated she said, “Not all men like ladies. I know. I was a virgin until I was twenty-six. My husband was a pederast. Colombia is full of little mestizo boys you can buy for a dollar.” Willie said, “What happened when you were twenty-six?” She said, “I am telling you my life story, but I am not in the confessional. Obviously something happened.” When Perdita and Roger began to pass the food around she said, “I love men. I think they have a cosmic strength.” Willie said, “You mean energy?” She said with irritation, “I mean cosmic strength.” Willie looked at Peter. He had prepared for the evening. He was wearing his expensive-looking white shirt with the starched, waxy collar high at the back; his semi-military blond-and-grey hair was flat at the sides, with just a touch of pomade to keep it in order; but his eyes were dim and fatigued and far away.
Roger, passing with food, said, “Why did you marry a pederast, Serafina?” She said, “We are rich and white.” Roger said, “That's hardly a reason.” She ignored that. She said, “We have been rich and white for generations. We speak classical Spanish. My father was this white and handsome man. You should have seen him. It is hard for us to get married in Colombia.” Willie said, “Aren't there other white people in Colombia?” Serafina said, “It is a common word for you here. It isn't for us. We are rich and white in Colombia and we speak this pure old Spanish, purer than the Spanish they speak in Spain. It is hard for us to get husbands. Many of our girls have married Europeans. My younger sister is married to an Argentine. When you have to look so hard and so far for a husband you can make mistakes.”
Richard the publisher called out from across the room, “I would say it's a mistake. Leaving Colombia and going to live on stolen Indian land.”
Serafina said, “My sister has stolen no land.”
Richard said, “It was stolen for her eighty years ago. By General Roca and his gang. The railway and the Remington rifle against Indian slings and stones. That's how the pampas were won, and all those bogus smart estancias. So your sister moved from old plunder to new theft. Thank God for Eva Perón, I say. Pulling down the whole rotten edifice.”
Serafina said to Willie, “This man is trying to make himself interesting to me. It's a common type in Colombia.”
Marcus said, “I don't think many people know that there were large Negro populations in Buenos Aires and Uruguay in 1800. They disappeared in the local population. They were bred out. The Negro gene is recessive. Not many people know that.”
Richard and Marcus carried on the cross-room talk, Richard always moving around what Marcus said and aiming to be provocative. Serafina said to Willie, “He is the kind of man who will try to seduce me as soon as he is alone with me. It is boring. He thinks I am Latin American and easy.” She went silent. Through all of this Peter remained perfectly calm. Willie, no longer having to listen, and idly looking around the room, let his eyes rest on Perdita and her long upper body. He did not think her beautiful, but he remembered the elegant way she slapped the striped gloves down on the Chez Victor table, and at the same time he thought of June undressing in the room in Notting Hill. Perdita caught his gaze and held it. Willie was inexpressibly stirred.
Roger and Perdita began clearing away the plates. Marcus, in his brisk, zestful way, got up and began to help. Coffee and brandy came.
Serafina said absently to Willie, “Have you felt jealousy?” Her thoughts had been running