Guerrillas (31 page)

He’s been waiting outside for three days. Thrushcross Grange is empty, he goes there and back, there and back all the time, through the bush, but I know no cooking is going on in the Grange, nothing much in that line ever went on there, they were too pampered, I made it too easy for them, and he is shiftless and feckless like the others, a slum child and starving but they don’t mind, yam and breadfruit and salt fish is all they know about. I leave food for him outside the door, you would think he is a dog, and he comes like a dog and eats the food I leave out for him. The world is full of things like this that frighten you and make you ashamed, people always make you hate them, because I treat him like a dog he comes like a dog in the night and eats the food, I hear him, before he eats he rubs the cutlass on the concrete steps, like the giant in the story sharpening up his knife, just to let me know he has a cutlass, and the white plate is empty in the morning on the step
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You see how the pain comes Marjorie, you see how the glory of manhood ends. I picked him out of the gutter, you wouldn’t believe the sight, the poisonous black scarecrow with pigtails like macajuel snakes on his head. He thought he was dirt, dirt, I showed him his beauty, but he’s forgotten, he’s gone mad with his manhood. You understand the glory and pain of manhood Marjorie, you will understand that it was too much for me to bear, and every time I look at my nakedness I feel the pain and think of you, you showed me my manhood, you made me a man for the first time, never mind what the others said, to this day Marjorie when I look down at myself I think of you. I didn’t have to hide anything from you, I didn’t have to pretend I was anybody else, you do not know the joy. But I suffered more as a man. When I was a child I was a child, when you made me a man I couldn’t bear being that child in the back room of that shop. The things women do and can do they have no shame and thought for the children who come after them who will have to endure all that they did, women don’t know how men can hate them for the things they do, make sure your children don’t find out about you
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In this quiet night Marge I want to clear my heart and wipe the slate clean. You made me a man so late and I had to behave like a man. The others were jokers, you thought I didn’t know, but I knew they were joking with my manhood and pain, but I was joking with them too, they didn’t know and when they found out they didn’t like it, they sent me back here, to make me nothing again, I knew what they were up to, don’t think I don’t know, I played along. You shouldn’t have let me down Marjorie, you shouldn’t have sided with the others, I didn’t want to hate you like the others, you were my maker, you broke my heart, you made me and then you made me feel like dirt again, good only for dirt. But it’s funny how people always catch me out and let me down, so I am dying in anger Marge as you prophesied and isn’t that a terrible way to die
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You people sent me back here to be nothing but I picked myself up, I must have surprised you, you must have read about me in the papers, the people here knew who I was, they knew what I had done, they knew what I was offering them, the glory and pain of manhood, never mind the revolution, they knew that and that was why last week I could have burned this place down to the ground, until that dead boy’s mother refused to have me in her house and those crazy black people started shouting for Israel and Africa, and I was a lost man, but I was always lost, I knew that since I was a child, I knew I was fooling myself. But I am a man Marjorie, it is what you made me, the pain you brought me, and you see how it is ending. Sweetheart, sweetheart even as I write those words my nakedness rises and it makes me sad to think it’s useless, these things make sense only when there’s someone else who needs it, they get life from it, you know what they say, dead men come once
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The open pad lay before him, part of the paper debris on his desk. But he no longer saw what he had written. He had stopped writing, long ago, it seemed; he had returned to himself.

The room was full of shadows; only the desk lamp was on. The house was full of noises, the scattered metallic snaps of the corrugated-iron roof, the creaks of the rafters. At last, above these
noises, he heard what he had been waiting for: a disturbance outside, no clear sound, more like a disturbance of the air.

He said, “Bryant?” and then, distinctly, through the open barred windows he heard footsteps outside, soft, rubber-soled, moving swiftly down the side of the house. He stood up and shouted, “Bryant!” The sound of the cutlass blade being dragged flat over the concrete steps outside the kitchen set his teeth on edge. He moved quickly about the room, putting on all the lights. He said, “Bryant, don’t try anything tonight. Do you hear? Don’t do it, boy.”

He went to the kitchen and stood against the door. He looked up at the ceiling and said, “You’re tired. You’re not well. Why don’t you eat, then go and rest? Go and rest, Bryant. We’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll come over to the Grange to see you. We’ll talk. It isn’t the end of the world. We’ll leave this place and go somewhere else. There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’ll get better. But you must go and rest.”

THE OLD truck ahead, its untrue double tires hissing on the soft tar, was carrying a load of river sand. The sand was wet and dripping, but the truck left no water trail on the road. The broken trickles of brownish water, whipped about by the truck’s speed, and evaporating in the afternoon heat, vanished as soon as they touched the asphalt.

Jane was in a taxi. The taxi was a large American car past its prime, its pieces no longer absolutely fitting together. In spite of its size it gave little protection against glare and heat. Hot air and exhaust fumes came through the windows, and the sun struck through on the driver’s side, scorching the plastic seat cover.

The truck went past the turning that led, through young sugar cane, to the airport. The taxi continued to follow the truck: the airport was not Jane’s destination. Presently, a bare and dusty black arm signaling, the truck turned off into a factory yard. Some miles later, the traffic less regular, the area of factories left behind, the taxi turned off the highway. And Jane saw the landscape she thought she would never see again: the rough narrow road, broken here and there, overgrown at the edges, the flattened scorched areas, the rows of brick pillars, still looking new, but stripped of their timber superstructures and hung with dried-out creepers, the distant wall of bush.

The taxi stopped at the house. Bougainvillaea and hibiscus were bright in the burnt garden.

Jane said to the driver, “Can you wait? I won’t be long.”

“How long?”

“Fifteen minutes, half an hour.”

“Better you telephone the office when you ready.”

She paid him and went through the open gate. He turned in the gateway, the big car dislodging a light rubble of stray pebbles, the tires crushing to ocher powder little clods of dry earth blown there by the wind; and he went back the way they had come.

No one had appeared at the sound of the car. The car port was empty, the oil stains on the concrete floor dry and dusted over. The front door was closed; Jane had remembered it open. The shallow terrazzo steps and the porch, already slanted with sunlight, were gritty, unswept.

Before she could knock, Jimmy opened the door. He held it open, and for a second or so he appeared not to see her: he was looking over her shoulder. He was as she had first seen him that day at Thrushcross Grange, when, after walking bare-chested down the aisle between the iron beds, he had put on the drab-colored Mao shirt. He was wearing that shirt now; his plump cheeks were as coarse from close shaving as they had been then, his full mouth as seemingly clamped shut below the mustache, his eyes as blank and assessing.

He said, after that little silence, “Jane. You made it, then?”

“Why do you sound so surprised?”

“I’m not surprised.”

She passed into the room, and he locked the door behind her. The room felt airless, though the barred windows were open. And she saw disorder: she saw he had not prepared the house for her visit. Disorder emphasized the cheapness of the furniture, its impermanence in that room: it no longer gave delight. There were newspapers on the furry upholstered chairs, and cups and plates and tins and sticky marks on the dining table. The electric-blue carpet, loose on the terrazzo, curled at the edges: the floor could easily be imagined without it. There was dust on the glass-topped
table, and a confusion of papers, writing pads and blue air-letters on the desk.

She sat down in the upholstered chair next to the glass-topped table. The synthetic furry fabric was warm. She remembered to stroke it: it was as tickling smooth as she had remembered.

Jimmy said, “Make yourself at home. Can I get you anything? No rum punch. That’s your drink, isn’t it?”

“It’s too hot for that. I’ll just have a glass of water.”

He went out to the kitchen, and from that room, which she had seen once, he said, “Supplies are running low, Jane.”

Hot air came through the windows. The sky was pale blue.

He came out and handed her a glass of water, without ice. The glass was wet on the outside; his hand was wet. He sat at the desk.

“Well, Jane. What can I do for you?”

She was taking the wet glass to her lips. But she saw that it was stained, with dark brown trickles, and she just held the glass a little way from her mouth. She said, “I’m leaving.”

“You told me on the telephone. You’re going back to London. And massa?”

“I suppose Peter’s leaving too.” She put the glass down on the glass-topped table. “But I don’t know about him.”

“So in a few days you’ll be back. In a few days you will be watching television. BBC and ITV. And listening to the radio in the mornings. Today.”

Don’t remind me. I can see it all so clearly. It makes my heart sink.”

“Does it?”

“Is there anything I can do for you? Is there something you want that I can get? Can I see anyone?”

“What will you tell them?”

“I will tell them that I’ve seen you.”

“Is that all you’ll tell them?”

She avoided his eyes. After a while she said, “Will you stay here?”

“Jane, do you know why you came?”

She didn’t answer.

“You came because you’re going away. That’s why you came. If you were staying you wouldn’t have come. You’ve caused me so much pain, Jane.”

“I don’t see how I’ve caused you pain.”

“I’m not asking for sympathy, Jane. You mustn’t think that. What would be the point? You know the score as well as anybody.”

She was unwilling to let the question go. “How have I caused you pain?”

He said, in another tone, “You’re wearing your Moroccan necklaces.”

She put her hand to them and then let them fall back on the overtanned, coarsened skin in the opening of the blouse.

Jimmy said, “The ones given you by a lover.”

She gave the smile with which she acknowledged her exaggerations, mischievousness, or untruths.

“He didn’t want money to come between you.”

“Jimmy, are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you? Isn’t there something you’d like me to take for your children?”

“You wouldn’t be welcome there. You’ve caused me a lot of pain, Jane. You mustn’t make it worse.”

He broke off, making a sign to her with his open hand, raised his head and turned it to one side. A breath of warm air made the curtains move and disturbed the dust in the room. Jane listened with him and heard, far away, the rustle of the bush, a sound so steady it was like part of the silence.

He said, “And now you’re leaving.” But he was still listening. Then, abruptly, he relaxed and looked at her. “I like those necklaces.”

She held the three pendants together between her thumb and forefinger, flicked them stiffly up, then down.

He said, “I remember them.”

She let the pendants fall again on that part of her skin that had aged from too much sun. She said, “They’re quite worthless.”

“That was what you said. I suppose I like them because I see them on you. Why did you wear them today?”

“I didn’t really think about it.”

“You didn’t think about it, Jane? But you were coming to see me. I remember them very well. I’ve remembered everything about you. And now you’re leaving. Does massa know you’re here?”

“I told Peter I was coming to see you.”

“Did he tell you to tell me anything?”

“Should he have?”

“He’s very worried about you, Jane. He’s coming here. Did you know that? He said there was something he wanted to see me about. That’s a good laugh for a hot day. Massa isn’t going to let you go, Jane. It will kill him to lose you. Did you know that?”

“Peter? Are you saying that Peter cares for me? Peter cares for nobody.”

“You’re his last chance.”

“I don’t believe anybody is anybody’s last chance.” She opened her bag and brought out her cigarettes and her lighter.

“I remember that.”

“What do you remember?”

“The way you’re looking now. Your eyes. Your mouth.”

She lit her cigarette and kept the lighter in her hand. He went to the shelves and took the heavy, round ash tray, bubbles in the blue-tinted glass, and put it on the glass-topped table. He stood above her and she could see up the short sleeves of his loose Mao shirt to his armpits. Her eyes went moist. He sat on the furry arm of her chair; her smoking gestures became smaller, constricted.