Half a Life by V. S. Naipaul Read Free Book Online Page B

fussiness of his composition class took over. He tried out other versions of the sentence in his head, and he found when he got to the school that he had forgotten his father and the occasion.
    But Willie Chandran's father hadn't forgotten Willie. The silence and smugness of the boy at lunchtime had disturbed him. He knew there was something treacherous in the exercise book, and then very quickly in the afternoon he became sure. He left a client in the middle of a foolish consultation and went to the verandah on the other side. He opened the exercise book and saw that week's composition. It was headed “King Cophetua and the Beggar-maid.”
    In a far-off time, when there was famine and general distress in the land, a beggar-maid, braving every kind of danger on the road, went to the court of the king, Cophetua, to ask for alms. She gained admittance to the king. Her head was covered, and she looked down at the ground and spoke so beautifully and with such modesty that the king begged her to uncover her head. She was of surpassing beauty. The king fell in love with her and swore a royal oath there and then, before his court, that the beggar-maid was going to be his queen. He was as good as his word. But his queen's happiness didn't last. No one treated her like a real queen; everyone knew she was a beggar. She lost touch with her family. Sometimes they appeared outside the palace gates and called for her, but she wasn't allowed to go to them. She began to be openly insulted by the king's family and by people in the court. Cophetua seemed not to notice, and his queen was too ashamed to tell him. In time Cophetua and his queen had a son. There were many more insults in the court after that, and curses from the queen's beggar relations. The son, growing up, suffered for his mother's sake. He made a vow to get even with them all, and when he became a man he carried out his vow: he killed Cophetua. Everybody was happy, the people in the court, the beggars at the palace gates.
    There the story ended. All down the margin of the exercise book the red pen of the missionary teacher had ticked and ticked in approval.
    Willie Chandran's father thought, “We've created a monster. He really hates his mother and his mother's people, and she doesn't know. But his mother's uncle was the firebrand of the backwards. I mustn't forget that. The boy will poison what remains of my life. I must get him far away from here.”
    One day not long after he said, in as gentle a way as he could (it wasn't easy for him to talk gently to this boy), “We have to think of your higher education, Willie. You mustn't be like me.”
    Willie said, “Why do you say that? You are pretty pleased with what you do.”
    His father didn't take up the provocation. He said, “I responded to the mahatma's call. I burnt my English books in the front courtyard of the university.”
    Willie Chandran's mother said, “Not many people noticed.”
    “You can say what you please. I burnt my English books and I didn't get a degree. All I'm saying now, if I'm allowed, is that Willie should get a degree.”
    Willie said, “I want to go to Canada.”
    His father said, “For me it's been a life of sacrifice. I have earned no fortune. I can send you to Benares or Bombay or Calcutta or even Delhi. But I can't send you to Canada.”
    “The fathers will send me.”
    “Your mother has put this low idea in your head. Why would the fathers want to send you to Canada?”
    “They will make me a missionary.”
    “They will turn you into a little monkey and send you right back here to work with your mother's family and the other backwards. You are a fool.”
    Willie Chandran said, “You think so?” And put an end to the discussion.
    A few days later the exercise book was on the verandah table. Willie Chandran's father didn't hesitate. He flicked through the red-ticked pages to the last composition.
    It was a story. It was the longest thing in the book and it looked as though it had