Palace of the Peacock by Wilson Harris Read Free Book Online

all my imagination save that sometimes I feel I’m involved in the most frightful material slavery. I hate myself sometimes, hate myself for being the most violent taskmaster – I drive myself with no hope of redemption whatsoever and I lash the folk. If they do murder me I’ve earned it I suppose, and I don’t see sometimes how I can escape it unless a different person steps into my shoes and accepts my confounded shadow. Some weight and burden I confess frankly,” he laughed as at an image – alien to himself – he was painting. “Still I suppose”, he had grown thoughtful, “there’s a ghost of a chance …”
    “Ghost of a chance of what?” I demanded, swept away by his curious rhetoric.
    “Changing my ways,” he spoke mildly and indifferently. “Not being so beastly and involved in my own devil’s schemes any more. Perhaps there’s a ghost of a chance that Ican find a different relationship with the folk, who knows? Nothing to lose anyway by trying. I suppose it’s what I’ve always really wanted.” He spoke absentmindedly now, stooping to the fire and helping himself to a plate of fish. “God,” he said to himself, eating with sudden awareness and appetite, “I am damnably hungry” – brooding a little as he ate, his face growing severe as of old, spoilt, hard, childish with an old obsession and desire. He tapped me on the chest turning ruthless and charming and smiling. “Of course I cannot afford to lean too far backwards (or is it forwards?) can I? Balance and perspective, eh, Boy? Look what’s happened now. Nearly everybody just vamoosed, vanished. They’re as thoughtless and irresponsible as hell. I was lucky to find even this old bitch” – he pointed to the old Arawak woman – “still hanging around. You can never trust these Bucks you know but she seems harmless enough. Isn’t it a fantastic joke that I have to bargain with them and think of them at all?” He spoke bitterly and incredulously. “Who would believe that these devils have title to the savannahs and to the region? A stupid legacy – aboriginal business and all that nonsense: but there it is. I’ve managed so far to make a place for myself – spread out myself amply as it were – and in a couple of years I shall have firm prescriptive title myself. If”, he spoke bitterly again, “these Indians start to kick up the world of a rumpus now it could be embarrassing and I may have to face costly litigation in the courts down there” – he pointed across the wrinkled map of the Arawak woman’s face in the vague direction of the Atlantic Ocean as towards a scornful pool in heaven – “to hold my own, not to speak of forfeiting a cheap handsome source of labour. It’s all so blasted silly and complicated. After all I’ve earned a right here as well. I’m as native as they, ain’t I? A little better educated maybe whatever in hell that means. They call me sir and curse me when I’m not looking.” He licked his lips and smiled. “The only way to survive of course is to wed oneself into the family. In fact I belong already.” His brow wrinkled a little and he pointed to his dark racial skin.“As much as Schomburgh or Cameron or anybody.” He could not help laughing, a sudden set laugh like a mask.
    “We’re all outside of the folk,” I said musingly. “Nobody belongs yet….”
    “Is it a mystery of language and address?” Donne asked quickly and mockingly.
    “Language, address?” I found it hard to comprehend what he meant. “There is one dreaming language I know of …” I rebuked him … “which is the same for every man …. No it’s not language. It’s … it’s” … I searched for words with a sudden terrible rage at the difficulty I experienced … “it’s an inapprehension of substance,” I blurted out, “an actual fear … fear of life … fear of the substance of life, fear of the substance of the folk, a cannibal blind fear in oneself. Put it how you like,” I cried,