Sir Vidia's Shadow by Paul Theroux Read Free Book Online Page B

they read the
Gita
and take action.”
    â€œNo, no!” Pat Naipaul cried out from the back seat. “How can you say that?”
    A growling in my guts told me that a quarrel was starting. I had never been in the presence of a husband and wife having an unself-conscious quarrel. I felt fearful and helpless.
    â€œThey should forget England. The bitches will lie to them. India is the answer. It is a real country. A big country. They make things in India. Steel. Paper. Cloth. They publish books. What do they make here? Nothing, or some rubbish that no one wants, while the infies tell them how wonderful it all is.”
    â€œIt would be worse for them in India. You’ve seen it,” Pat said with passion, and she seemed to be sobbing. “They’d be licking the shoes of those horrible people.”
    Coolly facing forward, Naipaul said, “You always take that simple senseless path.”
    â€œIndia would destroy them,” Pat said, and I could see in the rear-view mirror that she was wiping tears from her eyes and trying to speak.
    â€œI was offering him a real solution,” Naipaul said.
    Pat replied, but her weeping made it difficult for her to speak, and while she faltered, saying how unfair he was, Naipaul became calm, rational, colder, and did not give an inch.
    â€œStop chuntering, Patsy. You’re just chuntering, and you have no idea of what you’re talking about.”
    The tears kept rolling down Pat’s cheeks, and though she dabbed at her face she could not stanch the flow. There were tears on her pretty protruding lips. I was shocked, but there was something in her tear-stained face and her posture that aroused me.
    â€œI think we’ve done this,” Naipaul said, tapping the cigarette pack.
    After I took them home, I told Yomo about the Naipauls’ argument. She said, “Did he smack her?”
    â€œNo. Just talked, very coldly.”
    Yomo laughed. “Just talked!” She was not shocked in the least. She shrugged, pulled me to the sofa, and said, “I want to give you a bath.”
    The next afternoon, in the blazing sun, Naipaul and I were on the sports field again, being watched by urchins from the mud huts in the grove of trees beyond the field’s perimeter. They jeered at the perspiring runners—it was so odd for them to see white people run or sweat or suffer. They mimicked the movements of the cricketers. I ran around the track while Naipaul flung cricket balls at a batsman. Naipaul seemed to know what he was doing. He knew cricket lore. He had told me it was a fair game—that it was more than a game, it was a whole way of thinking. “There is no sadder sound of collapse than hearing a wicket fall,” he said. “The best aspect of cricket is that no one really wins.”
    He did not say anything about the argument with his wife until we were on our way into town afterwards for tea and cakes. He lit a cigarette and faced away from me, looking out the window—the same posture as the day before, the same time of day, the sun at the same angle, him smoking, me driving.
    â€œI hate rowing in public,” he said, and nothing more.
    At the teashop I had chocolate cake, he had cucumber sandwiches.
    â€œThese are cooling, but you need your cake. The body knows.”
    He clutched the empty teacup.
    â€œThey warm the cups at the Lake Victoria in Entebbe. That’s nice. But not here.” He poured the milk, he poured the tea, he added sugar, he stirred, he sipped. “We’re moving into our house tomorrow. Do you know those houses?”
    â€œBehind the Art Department, yes.”
    â€œThey’re pretty crummy.”
    He was more restless than usual. When he had gone without sleep his eyes became hooded and Asiatic. He looked that way today. He began talking about the Kabaka again, asking questions. People in Uganda, even expatriates, seldom mentioned him. He was an institution, a fixture, a symbol.