The Chip-Chip Gatherers

by Shiva Naipaul

  Sita shook her head. ‘Why would the future Dr Julian Bholai want to be friends with me? Does the future Dr Julian Bholai expect me to be grateful? What does the future Dr Julian Bholai take me for? I bet it never occurred to you that I mightn’t want to be friends with you. You just took it for granted that I would jump up and down with joy. Didn’t you?’

  Her vehemence astonished him. ‘It wasn’t like that at all. You not being fair to me.’

  ‘What was it like then? “Poor little girl,” you said to yourself. “Poor little girl. Nobody talks to her. I will take pity on her. I, the future Dr Julian Bholai, will go and talk to her. That’s bound to make her feel nice.” Wasn’t that how it was?’

  ‘Not at all.’ She had come perilously close to the truth; one side of it.

  ‘Why don’t you tell me how it was then?’

  ‘You not giving me a chance.’

  Sita was silent.

  ‘All the people around here … they don’t even know what a book is half of them. Even my sisters don’t read much so you can’t discuss things with them. It’s nice having somebody you could talk to – even if it’s only once a month.’ That was the other side of the truth.

  Sita was flattered. However, she was determined not to show it. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said harshly. ‘I don’t believe a word you say.’ She climbed down the steps of the van and walked briskly away from him.

  Sita was overcome by remorse. Why had she rejected his offer of friendship? The reasons he had given might have been genuine: she had no evidence to the contrary. After all, he had come out of his way to meet her, defying his mother’s wishes. She could not deny it would be nice to have a friend with whom she could ‘discuss things’: a flesh and blood friend, that is, instead of the phantoms whom she had spun out of her longings. And Julian was the ideal companion. She strove desperately to persuade herself that the accusations she had levelled against him were right and fair. Books apart, they had nothing in common. ‘He’s going to be a doctor,’ she said. ‘And I … what am I going to be?’ Their paths would diverge radically in the not too distant future. It was the height of foolishness to embark on a friendship which was doomed; in which she would be the one to suffer. A friendship had to be permanent and the disparity between what he was to be and what she was to be was too great to allow that. The argument bounced back and forth and she could reach no satisfactory conclusion. She did not want to reach a conclusion. Would Julian be at the Library Van the next time it came? Sita hoped that he would – and that he would not. ‘If he’s there,’ she reasoned, ‘that’s OK. It would mean he’s serious and I’ll be nice to him. If he’s not there, that’s OK too because that would mean he wasn’t serious in the first place.’

  She waited suspensefully for the van’s next scheduled visit. It was like waiting to see how a penny would fall: heads or tails. The days dragged on one after the other. She frowned at the Chinese calendar as if it were responsible for the delay. The appointed day did finally arrive, however. Sita took extra care with her dress that morning though she told herself that it was no more than the care she normally took to ensure she was presentable. To demonstrate there was nothing special about this particular visit (beyond that of seeing how the penny would fall) Sita did not go to the van immediately it was ready for business; as was usual with her. She dawdled some minutes over invented tasks.

  ‘What happen?’ Phulo asked. ‘Is ten minutes the van there now. Like you tired pretending to read all them book?’

  ‘I have more than enough time,’ she said nonchalantly. ‘It’s not going to fly away.’

  Sita let fifteen minutes elapse before setting off for the van which was parked on the outskirts of the village. She walked slowly, not daring to raise her eyes from the road because then she could see at a glance if he were there or not there. Sita chose to prolong the suspense. At last, when she could no longer resist the temptation, Sita raised her eyes quickly and furtively. There was no sign of Julian. ‘That’s OK,’ she murmured. ‘I was right to treat him as I did. He wasn’t serious after all.’ She quickened her pace.

  Sita climbed the steps of the van and deposited the books which were due back on the librarian’s tiny desk.

  ‘You late today, Miss.’ He smiled. ‘I thought you wasn’t coming. Without you is hardly worth my while stopping here.’ He stamped her yellow card and handed it back to her.

  ‘I had some things to do.’ She stared at him in confusion.

  ‘Better late than never.’

  Sita’s gaze swept with an air of businesslike efficiency along the shelves. Book after book she leafed through and returned to its niche. She could find nothing that appealed to her. They were all uniformly dull and insipid. She grew bad-tempered.

  ‘You very hard to please this morning,’ the librarian said.

  ‘You have A Tale of Two Cities?’

  ‘It not on the shelves?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then we don’t have it, Miss. Whatever you don’t find on the shelves we don’t have. Sorry.’

  ‘I have it though.’ A voice spoke close to her ear. ‘I have nearly everything Charles Dickens write.’

  Sita jumped and spun round. Her face was already lit by a smile which she could not bring under instant control. She was suddenly happier. Much happier. She tried to dampen this access of spontaneous gaiety.

  ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s you. I wasn’t expecting … you shouldn’t have done that. You scared me.’

  Julian saw how pleased she was. ‘I could lend you A Tale of Two Cities,’ he said. ‘I could go home right now and get it for you.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that.’

  ‘It won’t take a minute. Wait here for me.’ Julian, bypassing the ladder, charged out of the van and jumped on to the road. ‘Don’t go. It won’t take a minute.’

  ‘He could break a leg,’ the librarian said.

  Sita was still smiling. She chose two books at random. ‘I’ll take these.’

  The librarian smiled. ‘I didn’t know you was interested in this sort of thing, Miss.’

  ‘What?’

  He held up one of the books The Boy’s Book of Motor Cars. ‘You want to change your mind?’ he asked kindly.

  ‘Of course I don’t want to change my mind … I’m very interested in motor cars.’

  The librarian made a note of the books and stamped her card again. ‘Here you are then, Miss. If the van ever break down I’ll know who to come to.’ He pointed behind her. ‘Look. Your boy-friend come back.’

  ‘He’s not my …’

  Julian was beside her, panting. ‘Here it is,’ he announced triumphantly, flourishing the book in front of her face. ‘I read it some time ago. It was first-rate stuff.’ He paused to regain his breath. ‘The last bit especially was very moving. “It’s a far, far better thing’”’

  The librarian watched. “‘I do than I have ever done,’” he chimed in, “‘a far, far better rest …’”

  ‘Let’s go outside,’ Julian said. ‘It’s easier to talk out there.’

  They climbed out of the van. ‘No offence meant,’ the librarian said.

  Sita climbed down the ladder. Julian jumped. They strolled round the van out of sight of the houses.

  ‘We mustn’t go too far.’

  ‘Just over there,’ Julian said, indicating a spot where the land dipped to form a crater-like bowl. ‘The Hollow’ it was called in the Settlement. It was a popular lovers’ haunt at night.

  Sita squirmed. ‘Do we have to go there?’

  Julian laughed. ‘Don’t worry. Don’t worry. There’s nowhere else we could go. And, unless we very unlucky nobody will see us.’

  They scrambled down the grassy banks of the hollow – that grass with reddish-brown blades. Two tall, spreading mango trees grew side by side in the centre of the hollow, providing the only shade from the scorching sun. Julian slumped on the ground and squinted up at her.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down? It’s much more comf
ortable.’ Julian rested his head on one of the trunks.

  ‘I prefer to stand.’

  ‘Sitting down doesn’t mean … you should relax.’

  Sita hesitated. Then she too sat down, though her back remained stiff and erect. She picked up a stone, scraping the earth off it with her fingernails. ‘I’m sorry about what happened last time.’

  Julian was gallant. ‘What happened last time? Oh that! I’ve forgotten about it already.’

  ‘Please.’ She was vexed by his gallantry. ‘You don’t have to play the gentleman with me.’

  ‘I’m not playing the gentleman,’ he said, affronted. ‘I really have forgotten about it.’

  ‘Please let me finish what I was going to say.’ She was severe. ‘I didn’t mean to be so rude to you that day,’ she continued, lowering her voice. ‘It was just that …’ She looked at him, scraping the stone. ‘… it was just that I don’t like people doing me favours just because they suddenly start to feel sorry for me.’

  ‘It wasn’t at all like that with me.’

  ‘There’s no reason to feel sorry for me. None at all.’

  ‘I never said I was feeling sorry for you. It was you who said so. Not me.’

  ‘That’s OK then. I just wanted to clear that up.’

  Julian plucked a blade of grass and chewed on it. His hair, tinted red by the sun, flopped untidily over his forehead. He was very handsome. Sita leaned back against the rough bark, smoothing her skirt. She stared at the shifting patterns of light and shadow on the ground. The heat was dry and soporific. It was suffused with the smell of the canes. The wind rustled through the grass and through the cooler green leafage above their heads. On the road, invisible from where they were, the cars went by, their steady drone broken by the screech of their tyres on the curve near the grocery. There was an indistinct rattle of farm machinery in the distance.

  ‘Do you ever dream of going away?’ Julian asked.

  ‘I don’t allow myself to dream of such things.’

  ‘You wouldn’t like to go away? See other places? See snow?’

  ‘That’s a different question. But what I would like to do isn’t possible. At any rate not for me. That’s why I don’t allow myself to dream of such things.’

  ‘Don’t you ever dream at all?’

  Sita did not answer.

  Julian laughed. ‘You don’t mind feeling sorry for yourself, I see.’

  ‘That’s not feeling sorry for myself. That’s facing the facts.’

  Julian nodded. He let himself slip farther down the trunk of the tree so that only his neck and head were upright. ‘What would you like to do? Or is that a secret?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ She laughed. ‘I would like to roll cheese down a mountainside. I’m not like you. You know you want to be a doctor.’

  ‘I want to be more than a doctor. Making money is not everything.’

  Sita raised her eyebrows.

  ‘I would like to write.’

  ‘What would you write?’

  ‘I don’t know as yet. Poetry, I think. Yes. I would like to write poetry. Do you read poetry?’

  ‘Not much.’ Sita smiled. ‘Who’s your favourite poet?’

  ‘Shelley,’ he said. ‘I like Shelley very much. Shelley and Keats.’

  ‘Not Wordsworth?’

  ‘I could take him or leave him,’ Julian said.

  ‘I suppose you have everything – or nearly everything – Shelley and Keats ever wrote?’ She glanced at him pertly.

  ‘You making fun of me.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Julian spat out the blade of grass he had been chewing. He clasped his hands behind his head. ‘My mother believes that when I put my hands behind my head like this I want her to die.’

  Sita laughed. ‘That can’t be true.’

  ‘It is. I swear to you. She’s a very stupid woman. My father is even more stupid though.’

  ‘I like your father.’ Sita was serious. ‘What’s stupid about him?’

  Julian plucked another blade of grass. ‘Do you know he wanted to be a lawyer at one time?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well he did.’ Julian giggled. ‘Could you ever imagine him being a lawyer?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I can’t. And that’s because he’s stupid. Running a grocery is the only thing he’s fit for.’

  ‘You’re very conceited,’ she said angrily. ‘Conceited and cruel. You’ll never make a poet.’

  Julian was surprised. ‘What you have to be getting so angry for? It’s nothing to do with you.’

  ‘It’s a lot to do with me. Soon you’ll be turning down your nose at everybody who is not a doctor or a poet. Including me.’

  ‘I thought you liked facing facts,’ he said calmly.

  ‘What’s that got to do with the facts?’

  ‘There are two kinds of people in the world. The intelligent and the rest – which is the vast majority – who are stupid. It’s the intelligent people who have to run the world.’

  ‘I suppose you regard yourself as being one of the intelligent?’

  ‘Yes. And you too.’

  ‘Thanks for the compliment. But I don’t believe that people are born stupid. It’s the other things over which they have no control that make them stupid. Things like the place where they were born. Whether their parents were rich or poor. Whether they had a good or bad education. Hundreds of things!’ Sita waved her arms violently. ‘That’s what causes one man to be stupid and another man to be not stupid.’

  ‘What about genes? You ever hear of those? I was reading about genes the other day and …’

  Sita got up. ‘I won’t listen to another word you have to say. You could talk all you want but I won’t listen.’ She blocked her ears.

  Julian laughed. ‘What books you borrow today? Show me.’

  ‘I’m not showing you.’ The Library Van came to her rescue. They could hear the splutter of its engine. ‘I don’t have time to show you,’ she said relievedly. ‘The van will be going soon.’ She walked away.

  Julian ran after her. ‘What about next time?’

  ‘I have to see,’ Sita said. She clambered up the slope of the hollow and disappeared over the rim.

  These meetings became a regular affair: an hour’s get-together once a month. Their ‘discussions’ centred mainly on books – those they had read during the previous month and those they wished to read. A competition developed between them as to who had read the greater number of books in the interval. The enforced secrecy of their meetings – though both would have denied it – helped to increase their pleasure, and Sita looked forward more than ever to the visits of the Library Van. She did not care to probe too deeply into the implications of these encounters, dismissing any speculation as to where or to what they might lead. She allowed herself to drift aimlessly on the currents of their odd friendship. But while books formed the chief topic of their conversations, it was not the only one. Now and again, with a studied recklessness, they drifted further afield and talked – in speculative terms – of love and marriage.

  ‘You believe people should only marry for love?’ Sita asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Julian answered readily. ‘Why would you marry if not for love?’

  ‘Your father and mother marry for love?’

  ‘They are the older generation. Is different with us.’ He spoke confidently.

  Sita was thoughtful. ‘What you call love is not real love,’ she said.

  Julian was offended. ‘You trying to say I’m lying?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Sita replied hastily. ‘You mustn’t jump to conclusions.’

  ‘I don’t see what you getting at then.’ The sun was burning his hair red.

  ‘What I’m getting at is this. You wouldn’t marry someone who was ugly and poor …’

  ‘Of course I would – if I loved the person.’

  Sita’s lips parted in a sceptical smile. ‘But the chances of your falling in love with such a person are very very s
mall. You must admit that.’

  ‘Well?’ He brushed his hair back from his forehead irritatedly.

  ‘The person you fall in love with would have to be pretty and she would have to be educated. Her skin might have to be as fair or fairer than yours. She would have to be shorter than you because men don’t like to have wives taller than them. She might have to have a straight nose and not a crooked one. She might even have to have grey eyes. She would have to be all kinds of things before you could love her. You admit that?’

  ‘Well?’ Julian plucked a blade of grass from the earth and started to chew it. ‘You can’t expect me to fall in love with Frankenstein.’

  ‘I would say your love wasn’t real love in that case. Not pure love. In pure love it wouldn’t matter a bit that the person was any of those things I just mentioned. In pure love it wouldn’t matter in the slightest that someone was Frankenstein. Pure love doesn’t depend on anything. It will last forever – even after the two of you die. If people married for pure love they would never get tired of each other. They would never be unhappy because they suddenly decide that they prefer green instead of grey eyes. They would always be happy.’

  Julian scowled. ‘So you will only get married for this so-called pure love of yours?’

  Site’s eyes darkened. ‘I will never get married,’ she said.

  ‘You only saying so now. But you can’t tell what might happen in the future. One day some rich man with ‘green eyes will sweep you off your feet.’ He was bantering.

  Sita shook her head.

  Julian was amused. ‘Who will support you if you don’t get married? You intend to spend the rest of your life here being an old maid?’

  ‘Nothing wrong at all with being an old maid,’ she answered abstractedly, scrutinizing a strand of her hair and sucking on the end of it.

  ‘Suppose you meet somebody you really love?’

  ‘He mightn’t love me.’ She brooded.

  ‘But suppose he love you and you love him. What will you do then?’ Julian laughed. ‘Run away and hide in a corner and say you prefer to be an old maid?’

  ‘I will never meet anybody like that.’ She spoke with stubborn assurance.