A Bend in the River - V.S. Naipaul [29]
He said, “Mis’ Salim.”
I took the ledger, and he looked away, puckering up his brows.
The ledger belonged to the lycée, and it was old. It was something from near the end of the colonial time: a subscription list for a gymnasium the lycée had been planning to build. On the inside of the cover was the lycée label, with the coat of arms and the motto. Opposite that was the principal’s appeal, in the stiff and angular European handwriting style which had been passed down to some of the Africans here. The first subscriber was the governor of the province, and he had signed royally, on a whole page. I turned the pages, studying the confident signatures of officials and merchants. It was all so recent, but it seemed to belong to another century.
I saw, with especial interest, the signature of a man of our community about whom Nazruddin had talked a great deal. That man had had old-fashioned ideas about money and security; he had used his wealth to build a palace, which he had had to abandon after independence. The mercenaries who had restored the authority of the central government had been quartered there; now the palace was an army barracks. He had subscribed for an enormous amount. I saw Nazruddin’s signature—I was surprised: I had forgotten that he might be here, among these dead colonial names.
The gymnasium hadn’t been built. All these demonstrations of loyalty and faith in the future and civic pride had gone for nothing. Yet the book had survived. Now it had been stolen, its money-attracting properties recognized. The date had been altered, very obviously; and Father Huismans’s name had been written over the signature of the earlier principal.
I said to the man before me, “I will keep this book. I will give it back to the people to whom it belongs. Who gave you the book? Ferdinand?”
He looked helpless. Sweat was beginning to run down his puckered forehead, and he was blinking it away. He said, “Mis’ Salim.”
“You’ve done your job. You’ve given me the book. Now go.”
And he obeyed.
Ferdinand came that afternoon. I knew he would—he would want to look at my face, and find out about his book. He said, “Salim?” I didn’t acknowledge him. I let him stand. But he didn’t have to stand about for long.
Metty was in the storeroom, and Metty must have heard him. Metty called out: “Oo-oo!” Ferdinand called back, and went to the storeroom. He and Metty began to chat in the patois. My temper rose as I heard that contented, rippling, high-pitched sound. I took the gymnasium book from the drawer of my desk and went to the storeroom.
The room, with one small barred window set high, was half in darkness. Metty was on a ladder, checking stock on the shelves on one wall. Ferdinand was leaning against the shelves on another wall, just below the window. It was hard to see his face.
I stood in the doorway. I made a gesture towards Ferdinand with the book and I said, “You are going to get into trouble.”
He said, “What trouble?”
He spoke in his flat, dead way. He didn’t mean to be sarcastic; he really was asking what I was talking about. But it was hard for me to see his face. I saw the whites of his eyes, and I thought I saw the corners of his mouth pulling back in a smile. That face, that reminder of frightening masks! And I thought: Yes—what trouble?
To talk of trouble was to pretend there were laws and regulations that everyone could acknowledge. Here there was nothing. There had been order once, but that order had had its own dishonesties and cruelties—that was why the town had been wrecked. We lived in that wreckage.