A Bend in the River - V.S. Naipaul [144]
Late in the afternoon there were footsteps on the external staircase. Metty. I was surprised. Normally at this time he was with his family.
He came into the sitting room and said, “I heard they let you out, Salim.”
He looked wretched and confused. He must have spent some bad days after reporting me to Prosper. That was what he wanted me to talk about. But I didn’t want to talk about it. The shock of that moment of three days before had vanished. My head was full of other things.
We didn’t talk. And soon it was as though we had nothing to talk about. There had never been a silence like this between us before. He stood around for a little, went to his room, then came back.
He said, “You must take me with you, Salim.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“You can’t leave me here.”
“What about your family? And how can I take you with me, Metty? The world isn’t like that nowadays. There are visas and passports. I can hardly arrange these things for myself. I don’t know where I’m going or what I’ll do. I hardly have any money. I’m scarcely able to look after myself.”
“It’s going to be bad here, Salim. You don’t know what they’re talking about outside. It’s going to be very bad when the President comes. At first they were only going to kill government people. Now the Liberation Army say that isn’t enough. They say they have to do what they did the last time, but they have to do it better this time. At first they were going to have people’s courts and shoot people in the squares. Now they say they have to do a lot more killing, and everybody will have to dip their hands in the blood. They’re going to kill everybody who can read and write, everybody who ever put on a jacket and tie, everybody who put on a jacket de boy. They’re going to kill all the masters and all the servants. When they’re finished nobody will know there was a place like this here. They’re going to kill and kill. They say it is the only way, to go back to the beginning before it’s too late. The killing will last for days. They say it is better to kill for days than to die forever. It is going to be terrible when the President comes.”
I tried to calm him down. “They always talk like this. Ever since the insurrection they’ve been talking of the morning when the whole thing is going to go up in flames. They talk like that because that is what they would like to happen. But nobody knows what is going to happen. And the President is smart. You know that. He must know they’re preparing something for him here. So he’ll get them excited, and then he may not come. You know the President. You know how he plays on the people.”
“The Liberation Army isn’t just those boys in the bush, Salim. Everybody’s in it. Everybody you see. How am I going to make out alone?”
“You have to take your chance. That’s what we’ve always done. Everybody has done that here. And I don’t think they’ll trouble you—you don’t frighten them. Hide the car, though. Don’t tempt them with it. Whatever they say about going back to the beginning, they’ll be interested in the car. If they remember and ask you about it, tell them to ask Prosper. And always remember that the place is going to start up again.”
“How am I going to live then? When there is no shop, and I have no money? You gave me no money. You gave it away to other people, even when I was asking you.”
I said, “Ali! I gave it away. You’re right. I don’t know why I did that. I could