The mimic men - V. S. Naipaul [4]
The christening party had assembled in the front basement room. Now, as three o’clock came and went, they began drifting into the bedroom to make inquiries and to remind Lieni of the time. She calmed them; they stayed in the bedroom to talk. One couple had come up from the country. I had met them before. She was Italian; she had bitter memories of the war and especially of the greed of priests. He was English, the tiniest of his race I had seen. This wartime romance, and the fact of children, had given him a good deal of confidence; but his eyes remained dark and creased with suffering. From his new security he saw himself ‘standing by’ Lieni; he was in fact to be the godfather. Another guest was a thin middle-aged Italian lady I had never seen before. She had a square jaw, very tired eyes, and was slow in all her movements. Lieni said she was a countess and ‘in society’ in Naples; in Malta she had once been to a ball which Princess Elizabeth had attended. ‘The Countess is thinking of buying this crummy house,’ Lieni said; the American slang word fitted her Italian accent. I smiled at the Countess and she smiled wearily at me.
At last we were ready. The tiny Englishman ran out to get a taxi. After a little time Lieni, now impatient, took us all out to the portico to wait. The street was already brown and squishy. But the snow still lay white on the columns of the portico, obscuring the name of the hotel. Presently the taxi came, the tiny Englishman sitting forward on the tip-up seat, overcoated and absurdly diminished but spry and restless. The church was not far. We got there at about twenty past three. We were in good time. No one was ready for us. The church had been bombed out and the christening was to take place in an annexe. We sat in an ante-room of sorts with other mothers and children and waited. Lieni was smiling all the time below her hat, the smart London girl. A baby squealed. A box of candles had a card: Candles twopence. Two young girls went to the box, dropped coppers, lit candles and fixed them in a stand. The mother of the girls looked round at us and smiled, inviting witness and approval.
At half past three an unshaven man with a dirty collar entered in a rush and said, ‘Christening?’ ‘Yes, yes,’ the mothers said. He went out again and reappeared a second later. ‘How many, how many?’ He counted the babies himself and said, ‘Three.’ He disappeared once more, returned as quickly as before, opened the door and asked us to follow him. We followed him up the stairs, candlestands all the way, candles twopence, and came into a large room with ochre walls. He took a white gown off a hook and forced himself into it. A priest came in silently, smiling. He went to a rack, picked up a purple scarf with gold crosses and arranged the scarf carefully over his shoulders. The unshaven man scuttled about, seeking the three godfathers to hand them little cards in transparent glossy sheaths. The christenings began. At last it was the turn of Lieni’s baby.
‘John Cedric, what doest thou ask of the Church? Say Faith.’
Our godfather didn’t like being