Half a Life_ A Novel - V. S. Naipaul [87]
The African city had grown a lot with the coming of the army. It was now like a series of joined-up villages, with corrugated iron and concrete or concrete blocks taking the place of grass and cane. From a distance it looked wide and low and unnaturally level. Clumps of trees at the very edge marked the original shanty settlement, the city of cane, as people said. It was in that older African city that Ana's half-brother lived. Driving was not easy. The narrow lane we entered twisted all the time, and there was always a child carrying a tin of water on his head. In this dry season the dirt lane had been scuffed to red dust inches thick; and that dust billowed behind us and then around us like smoke. Runnels of dark waste from some yards were evaporating in the dust, and here and there were pools or dips of stagnant water. Some yards were fenced in with corrugated iron or cane. Everywhere there was green, shooting out of the dust, big, branching mango trees and slender paw-paw trees, with small plantings of maize and cassava and sugar cane in many yards, almost as in a village. Some yards were workshops, making concrete blocks or furniture, patching up old tyres or repairing cars and trucks. Ana's half-brother was a mechanic, and he lived next to his big mechanic's yard. It looked busy, with many old cars and minibuses, and three or four men in very greasy shorts and singlets. The ground was black with old engine oil.
His house was better than most in the African city. It had no fence; it was built right up against the lane. It was low, of concrete, and it was carefully painted in yellow and green oil paint. The entrance was at the side. A very old black man, perhaps a servant, perhaps a distant relative, let us in. A wide verandah ran along the main rooms, which were on two sides of the yard. On the other two sides were separate buildings, servants' or visitors' quarters, perhaps, and the kitchen. All the buildings were linked by concrete walkways that were six inches or so above the thick dust (which would also turn into mud with rain). People were looking at us from the kitchen and the quarters, but the man himself came out to the verandah of the main house only when we were led there by the servant.
He was a dark man of medium height. He didn't look at Ana or at me. He was barefoot. He wore a singlet and very short and ragged shorts. Without looking at Ana he talked to her in a kind of mixed local language which was not easy for me to follow. She replied in the same language. Casually, dragging his soles on the concrete, he led us inside, into the formal room for visitors. A radio was going full blast; the radio was an important part of the furniture of this formal room. The windows were closed and the room was dark and very warm. I believe he offered to turn the air-conditioning on. Ana, as courteous as he was, told him he was not to bother. The room was stuffed with the formal furniture a room for visitors had to have: a set of upholstered chairs (these were covered in a shiny synthetic fabric), and a dining table with a full set of dining chairs (they were unpolished, raw-looking, and might have been made in one of the furniture workshops in the lane). There wasn't really room for everything; everything was jammed together. All the time he talked, showing Ana what he had, without looking at her, and all the time Ana was complimenting him. He invited us to sit on the upholstered chairs. Ana, matching his courtesy, said we would prefer to sit outside; and so, turning off the radio, he went back with us to the wide verandah, where there were everyday chairs and tables.
He shouted, and a very small white woman came from one of the rooms. She had a blank, full face; she was not young. He introduced this woman, his wife, as I now understood, to Ana; and Ana was gracious. The small white woman—and she was very small indeed, not much taller than the glass-walled cabinet (with ornaments) against which she leaned—asked us to drink something. Immediately there was shouting in the kitchen.