The Chip-Chip Gatherers

by Shiva Naipaul

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘Your problem is,’ Egbert Ramsaran said with sudden vehemence, ‘that you feel every woman have to be like your mother was.’

  ‘I didn’t say that either.’

  ‘It would make a change to have a woman with some life in she about the place. Let the worms wait a bit. Your Sushila still have some life left in she. Is not a museum we living in here. It was your mother who try to turn this house into a museum. She had no life inside of she that woman. Right from the beginning she was food for the worms.’ He spoke with rising vehemence. ‘To marry she was one of the biggest mistakes I make in my whole life. You know that? She was as dead as a doornail.’ Agitated ripples swept over the bedsheets.

  ‘Maybe she wasn’t to blame for the way she was,’ Wilbert ventured.

  ‘I don’t care who was to blame or not to blame. I used to think she was so because of the way the family used to treat she. But I was wrong. She was born dead. And what was worse, she try to drag me down into the grave with she. Wouldn’t leave me alone. Come here knocking on my door, whining, begging …’ He stopped speaking, gazing down at the bottle he had not ceased to hold. ‘You think I could have treated she better, not so? But I had no choice. Is a funny thing that of all the women in the world I could have marry I had to marry she. Maybe if I was a younger man when I had get married it would have been different. I could have marry the way my blood wanted me to marry. But a mature man – a man with money to his name – have to be very careful. You can’t marry the way your blood want you to marry. I wanted a nice, quiet woman. Somebody who wouldn’t get big ideas in they head. Somebody who would know they place. But because a woman nice and quiet, it don’t mean she have to be dead. That is what happen to me. It was my luck to marry someone dead as a doornail. He picked up the detective novel and flicked idly through the pages. ‘You understand what I saying?’

  ‘Yes,’ Wilbert said.

  Egbert Ramsaran leaned back further into the pillows. ‘Mind you, I would never have marry a Port-of-Spain girl. No city girl as a matter of fact. Not after what happen to me.’ He laughed. ‘There was this girl – I can’t even remember she name now. Something like Amelia. A stupid name like that. She father set a big Alsatian dog on me one day. It bit my leg – I still have the scar from it. Is a kind of souvenir. That is what teach me my lesson with them Port-of-Spain girls. After that – finish!’ He dusted his palms. ‘It was easy. All I had to do was look at that scar and remember … let me show you.’ He pulled up the leg of his pyjamas and showed Wilbert the scar. ‘Once bitten, twice shy as the saying goes.’ He laughed. ‘You better watch out for them Port-of-Spain girls yourself. If you was a gorilla and you had money they would be after you like a shot. Sunday lunch and what not! But if you poor – as I was then – well, is a different story altogether.’

  Voices drifted in faintly from the road. The night remained hot and stifling. Egbert Ramsaran’s agitation had abated. He gazed tranquilly at his son.

  ‘What I really wanted to say,’ he said after a short while, ‘was that it would be nice to have a woman with life in this house. Just for a change and even if is only for a few weeks.’ He drummed on the cover of the detective novel. ‘You grudge me that?’

  Egbert Ramsaran started to read. ‘Now you could go,’ he said.

  Sushila appeared in the yard of the Ramsaran house three days later. She wore a tight-fitting, sleeveless dress emblazoned with green and blue flowers of indeterminate species and a broad-brimmed straw hat pulled low over her forehead so that her eyes were invisible. Her slightly plump arms were reddened by the sun. Behind her, Farouk staggered under the weight of two brown suitcases that had seen much travel. A handkerchief was tied around his neck. Egbert Ramsaran watched the procession from the bedroom window.

  ‘Stop!’ His piping, querulous tones echoed across the hot yard.

  Sushila slowed to slatternly pace and swivelled lazily in the direction of the window, pushing the brim of her hat upwards with the tip of her index finger.

  ‘I was expecting you to come yesterday,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t say when I was going to come,’ she replied. ‘I had some preparations to make. You lucky to see me so soon in fact.’

  ‘Who may I ask is that person you bring with you?’

  ‘That person is Farouk. A good friend of mine. You couldn’t expect me to tote them suitcases by myself.’ The battle, she suspected, had begun. So much the better. She had come determined not to yield an inch of her sovereignty to this man.

  ‘I don’t like strangers walking about in my yard.’

  ‘Well in that case I better go straight back where I come from this morning. I is no less a stranger than Farouk.’ Sushila started walking briskly towards the gate.

  Farouk, puzzled, shuffled indecisively after her.

  ‘Wait! What you think you doing? Come round to the back and let we talk it over.’ Egbert Ramsaran’s head disappeared behind the curtains.

  Sushila laughed. She retraced her steps.

  Farouk cursed. ‘You better make up your mind one way or the other. These suitcases don’t have feathers inside them, you know.’

  They trooped down the yard to the back of the house. Egbert Ramsaran was there to meet them. Farouk rested the suitcases on the bottom step.

  ‘What you have in there?’ Egbert Ramsaran looked disapprovingly at the two suitcases.

  ‘How you mean what I have in there? What you expect? Clothes! I can’t walk about the place naked, you know.’

  Farouk smiled.

  ‘Let your friend bring the suitcases inside for you. Then he could leave.’

  ‘Not so fast, Mr Ramsaran. I would like to clear up a point with you. I mentioned it when I was here but like you didn’t take any notice.’ Sushila, removing her hat, shook out her hair. She twirled the hat on her fingers.

  ‘We discuss already all it have to discuss,’ he said, his eyes fixed on the twirling hat as if he were mesmerized by its motion. ‘Let your friend take the cases inside and leave.’

  Farouk lifted the suitcases.

  Sushila rested a restraining arm on his shoulder. ‘Wait.’

  ‘I said to let him take the cases inside. If it have anything to discuss, we could discuss it later.’ Egbert Ramsaran’s voice whistled.

  ‘I’m not entering this house until I clear up that little point I was talking about,’ Sushila said. The hat twirled; a blur on the tips of her fingers. ‘I come here as a free person or a prisoner?’

  ‘What nonsense is all this?’

  ‘Is not nonsense to me, Mr Ramsaran. If I didn’t pay attention to such nonsense as you call it, I would have been a prisoner a hundred times over before now. If I hadn’t paid attention to such nonsense I would have been tied hand and foot. You have no idea how many people try to pull a fast one on me – try to bundle me up and lock me away in a cupboard. Is better to clear these things up right at the start. I come here as a free person or as a prisoner?’

  ‘Of course you come here as a free person.’ His greying, neatly trimmed moustache worked agitatedly. ‘Nobody ever suggest otherwise.’

  ‘Free to come and go?’

  ‘Free to come and go.’

  ‘As I please?’

  ‘As you please.’

  ‘Free to choose my own friends?’

  ‘What nonsense …’

  ‘Free to choose my own friends?’

  ‘Yes. Yes.’

  Sushila smiled. ‘Good. That is all I wanted to know. And we have a witness.’ She patted Farouk. Replacing the hat on her head and resting her hands on her hips, she said, ‘You could take the cases inside now, Farouk.’

  ‘All the same,’ Egbert Ramsaran added, stepping aside to let Farouk pass, ‘this is my house and not yours. You should remember that I have some rights too.’ Egbert Ramsaran stared sourly at her and returned to his bedroom.

  ‘You was very hard on the old boy,’ Farouk said when he was out of earshot.

  Sushila gigg
led. ‘I sure nobody ever speak to him like that before. I thought he was going to blow up.’

  ‘You shouldn’t push him too far. He still have teeth to bite with.’

  ‘I’ll sweeten him up a little. Don’t worry.’

  Farouk shook his head worriedly. ‘Take care, Sushila. You might be letting yourself in for more than you bargain.’

  ‘If he’s Samson, then I’m Delilah. Don’t let it worry you. I know how to take care of myself – and him.’ Sushila swung her body indolently and laughed full-throatedly.

  Sushila took over Rani’s bedroom. It had not been lived in since her death and everything had remained more or less as she had left it.

  ‘I never see so much junk in my born days,’ Sushila exclaimed to Wilbert. ‘Where you mother pick up all this from?’

  ‘She always had it.’

  ‘Is unbelievable the things some people like.’ Her attention was caught by the faded photograph of the snowy Swiss mountain with skiers hurtling down its slopes. ‘What is this?’ She went up close to the photograph and peered at it ‘Why! Is just a picture cut out from any old magazine. What was so special about this one, I wonder?’ She shook with laughter. ‘You mind if I remove it?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ Wilbert said. ‘Is no use keeping it now.’

  With a sudden sweep of her hand, Sushila ripped the photograph off the wall and, rolling it into a crumpled ball, tossed it on the floor. ‘That’s much better,’ she said. ‘A real improvement.’ Where the photograph had been, there was now only a gaping rectangle – like a lost tooth – of lighter coloured paint. Having taken the plunge, she flitted rapidly around the room and, within a few minutes, that bizarre assortment of mementoes was gathered into an untidy heap on the floor. Sushila laughed even louder when she discovered the three stamp albums on the top of the wardrobe. ‘I thought only children used to keep stamp albums but I see I was wrong.’ She leafed through the albums, her hilarity growing by the second. ‘Is unbelievable. Almost all the stamps she have here is Trinidad one-cent stamps. What did she want to do with all this rubbish? Is really unbelievable. I never see the like in my born days.’

  ‘She used to say that one day she might come across something really valuable. Something worth hundreds of dollars.’

  ‘What would she have do with the money? Buy more stamps?’

  ‘I don’t know what she would have do with the money,’ Wilbert said. ‘The only thing I ever see her buy was a pair of gold glasses.’

  ‘I heard about those,’ Sushila replied. ‘Poor woman!’ She gazed at him, more serious now, her eyes clouding. ‘Sorry. Is wrong of me to be making fun of she like this. After all, she was your mother. Is very wicked – especially when the woman is hardly cold in she grave. But I can’t help it. It just don’t make sense to me.’ She held out the albums to him. ‘Maybe you would like to keep them as something to remember her by. I suppose they might have what people does call sentimental value. I myself don’t believe in that kind of thing, but I know for some people it mean a lot.’

  Wilbert drew away, suddenly not wishing to touch them.

  Sushila shrugged and tossed the albums on the heap. ‘If you have no use for them, much less me,’ she said. ‘They will only clutter up the place and I have my own stuff to find room for.’

  Like his mother’s death, this act gave Wilbert a sense of release. He would have liked to have seen every shred of evidence relating to her existence destroyed; and this for no reason he could properly fathom except that it pained him unbearably to be reminded of her.

  ‘And what is this?’ Going up to the gold-framed photograph and standing on tiptoe, Sushila examined the pallid, sunless face. ‘That is she on she wedding-day, not so? You could have frame a nicer picture than this.’ She shuddered. ‘I couldn’t sleep with that in here, to tell you the truth. It would give me nightmares. Whose idea was it to do this?’

  ‘Pa.’

  ‘Funny man, your father.’ She unhooked it. ‘If it should be anywhere at all it should be in your father bedroom – or yours. Either would be more suitable since this room going to be mine in the future.’

  ‘Since this room going to be mine in the future.’ The phrase jarred. Sushila giggled.

  ‘Well, you know what I mean. Not forever – but for the time being at any rate.’

  There succeeded an awkward pause.

  ‘How long you going to stay with us?’ Wilbert asked.

  ‘I don’t know. That depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘You is very inquisitive. Ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies.’ She laughed, wagging a finger at him. ‘How you expect me to know? It depend on a lot of things.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Like how I get on with your father for a start.’ Sushila studied his face. It was not as fine-featured as his father’s. ‘You think he going to like me?’ she queried lightly.

  Wilbert considered. His face broadened into a smile. ‘It depends,’ he said.

  They both laughed.

  Chapter Four

  1

  Important as it was, the chief public building of the Settlement was not the notorious Palace of Heavenly Delights. It was the grocery with the solid red doors owned and operated by Vishnu Bholai. Like Farouk’s establishment, Vishnu Bholai’s grocery was the only one of its kind within reasonable walking distance. His was a captive market and he prospered as a result. The Settlement had its grievances against him – as was inevitable: Vishnu Bholai was universally disliked because he refused to extend credit to any of his customers. This, however, was not the full story. The Bholais were generally regarded as moving on a superior plane. They were in transit, so to speak, through the Settlement and their children were not encouraged to associate with those of the village. This was acknowledged to be largely the doing not of Mr Bholai himself but of his wife. She it was who kept her husband’s more democratic instincts well in check. Mr Bholai had married a little above his station: his wife was reputed to have family with extensive business connections in San Fernando. ‘She does give old Vishnu hell,’ it was confidently asserted, and heads would nod in bleak satisfaction. ‘That go teach him to be high and mighty with we.’

  For some reason, the Bholais had decided to call their youngest child Julian: they had given unambiguous Indian names to their three daughters. At the back of Vishnu Rholai’s mind might have lurked the example of his childhood friend Ashok. He must have thought it would ease his son’s passage through the world as once it had eased his friend’s. From the day he was born, the Settlement had been made to understand that Julian Bholai had a great future ahead of him. His father had broadcast the fact to all and sundry. Julian was destined to be a doctor – or a dentist. ‘He could choose any of the two,’ Mr Bholai said magnanimously. ‘Both have a lot of money in it these days. One jab with the needle worth ten dollars nowadays. You pull out one small teeth – twenty dollars and no questions asked.’ His froggish eyes bulged contentedly. ‘So, you see, it don’t matter to Moon and me which of the two he choose to be. The boy will decide that for himself when the time come.’

  Nearly all the profits he made in the grocery were being set aside for Julian’s education in England. The girls were expected to find themselves suitably rich husbands. ‘But with a boy is different,’ Mr Bholai enlarged. ‘He will have a wife and children to support one day. Now you will understand why it is that I don’t give anyone credit. A man in my position can’t afford to take risks like that. Is not that I saying’ (he was careful to add) ‘that any of you will cheat me. But the fact is I never see money come out of credit yet. So how you expect me to take the chance and risk the future of my boy? Eh? If no money does come out of credit, as you yourself would be the first to agree,’ (they had agreed to nothing of the sort) ‘and I start giving credit left, right and centre, is like throwing good money down the drain. Julian would never become a doctor or a dentist at that rate.’ He behaved as if Julian’s career was of as vital import to them as it was to him.
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  Attitudes to Julian in the Settlement varied according to mood. On the one hand, people respected him because he was going to be a doctor – or a dentist. On the other hand, they disliked him because he was, ostensibly, the cause of their not being granted credit. Opinion seesawed from day to day and from hour to hour; but, on the whole, he was more respected than hated. After all, Egbert Ramsaran apart, the Settlement could not boast of any illustrious native sons and few doubted Julian Bholai’s future would be as glorious as predicted by his father. Also, Mr Bholai had promised that Julian would not charge more than was strictly necessary for his services – unlike ‘other doctors’. ‘He will give all of you discounts when the time come. What I don’t give you now, he will give you later. You have to learn to think far ahead – like me.’ It was an ingenious argument, calculated to appeal to their forbearance. Mr Bholai was secretly terrified that someone, in a fit of pique, might try to burn down the grocery: he did not relish the idea of wasting money on insurance. Since he seemed sincere enough, the Settlement, despite its better judgement, gave him the benefit of the doubt and no fires were started. To further tip the scales to his advantage, Julian Bholai was a handsome boy; and, as an additional mark of distinction, his hair developed a reddish tint when exposed to the sun. This his father – and the Settlement – interpreted as a sign of manifest destiny.