The Chip-Chip Gatherers

by Shiva Naipaul

  The taste of toothpaste lodged in Wilbert’s throat.

  Mrs Bholai gazed earnestly at him. ‘You would never guess what she tell me the other day. “Ma,” she say to me – and this was straight out of the blue, mind you – “Ma”, she say, “I wonder why we doesn’t see Wilbert Ramsaran any more. He so polite and have such good manners.” Those were her exact words. And I say, “Wilbert Ramsaran don’t have time to waste. He’s a working man now.”’ Mrs Bholai giggled vacuously. ‘Wasn’t that a funny thing for she to say out of the blue?’

  ‘Very funny,’ Wilbert said.

  ‘She make me promise I would ask you to come and see we.’

  ‘I don’t have the time …’

  ‘That’s what I say. “He’s a working man now.” But she would be so disappointed. You must come and visit we again.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Keep it in mind.’ Mrs Bholai made ready to leave. ‘Shanty would be so disappointed.’

  Mrs Bholai hurried away in a fog of good will.

  Chapter Seven

  1

  It was with astonishment that Sushila realized she had been in Victoria for four years. She had never stayed so long in one place before.

  ‘Four years!’ she exclaimed to Egbert Ramsaran. ‘I been living here with you for four whole years.’

  ‘What of it?’ he replied complacently. ‘You want to have a celebration?’

  It was not an anniversary Sushila cared to celebrate: she was far from being in a celebratory mood. Her fourth anniversary in the Ramsaran household coincided with the appearance of her first grey hairs. They were a death sentence. She could not flee from them. Wherever she went they would accompany her; and do so in increasing numbers. She could pull them out – as she had tried to do – but there would always be another set to fill the breach. They were intimations of a disease from which Sushila believed she had been granted a special licence of immunity and therefore had not troubled to take precautions against. She had exploited the considerable resources of her youth and beauty with a reckless disregard for the future, trusting that the empty spaces she had left behind would be automatically filled in. Something had gone wrong: her guardian angel had let her down.

  Her endemic restlessness, which during the previous four years had lain dormant, revived. She had no desire to squander what remained to her of youth and beauty on the omnivorous Egbert Ramsaran whose complacency wounded her. They were wasting assets and Sushila wanted to have a final fling and relive former glories. Perhaps it would invigorate and cure her. She had always thrived on novelty and in her present mode of life there was no room for novelty. The monotony of her life in Victoria had sapped her energies. A ‘change of scene’ might do the trick. A change of scene! The excitement had gone out of the adventure: she had achieved more or less what she was capable of achieving; what she had set out to achieve. What was there to be gained from staying on? Her revenge on the Settlement was as complete as it was ever likely to be; and her hold on Egbert Ramsaran was as complete as that was ever likely to be. There was nothing else she could do here.

  Nevertheless, Sushila could not persuade herself to act on her decision. In this dilapidated house was more security and comfort than she had ever had. She was fettered by a harness of invisible threads and it was only now when she tried to move that she became fully aware of them. They were not an insuperable obstacle. Sushila could, had she so desired, have snapped her fetters and set herself at liberty. But she delayed. She had grown accustomed to the security and comforts provided by Egbert Ramsaran and she was reluctant to break the threads and discard them.

  The daily routine had acquired an insinuating rhythm of its own and her heart throbbed in unison with it. Her duties were not onerous and she could not honestly assert they were utterly distasteful to her. She was conversant with the ways of Egbert Ramsaran. The areas of mutual suspicion and distrust had been gradually whittled away. They had arrived at a compromise. She knew how far she could go with him; and he knew how far he could go with her. The compromise was respected by both sides and became part of the sluggish, domestic rhythm which had lulled Sushila into somnolence, and from which she had been precipitately roused by the discovery of a grey hair. She had woken to find she was a ‘prisoner’.

  Sushila neither particularly liked nor disliked Egbert Ramsaran. But, sharing the same bed night after night had established a bond of another order between them; and this had nothing to do with like or dislike; love or hatred. The customs and habits built upon the hunger pangs of desire had usurped the place of affection and made it seem unnecessary. No ties of sentiment bound them together: he was not a sentimental man and she was not a sentimental woman. To that extent they had appeared to be perfectly matched. Sushila shuddered when she recalled the relish with which he had described to her Rani’s fruitless journeys through the darkened house (‘smelling sweet sweet as if she blood was made out of perfume,’ he had said) and the blows he had administered on her upturned face. She had shared his relish and laughed as loud as he had.

  What use would such a man have for an ageing woman with grey hairs? She could not depend on his gratitude. He could obtain from a hundred different women what he obtained from her. Admittedly she had tried to impress her indispensability on him but she had reminded him just as often of the temporariness of the arrangement. The contest had worn her out and lowered her resistance. If she was no longer able to give him the pleasure she had promised – and what else could she ever hope to give him? – what was to become of her? Already she could feel the stings of his blows on her cheeks. For it was she who had taught him that the body was all; it was she who had suppressed his arguments by the elementary device of clapping her hand across his mouth; it was she, as guide and teacher, who had led him step by step and showed him how easy it was to still conscience and live for the moment.

  Sushila carried the knowledge of her decline like a dark secret and every morning she searched painstakingly through her hair for fresh signs of it. She understood her situation clearly. Go from this place she must – before Egbert Ramsaran noticed. But where could she go? Her old friends and contacts had dropped away. However, Sushila did not wish to see her old friends. They would remember her as she had been and that was intolerable. The allure of liberty regained belonged to the past. When Sushila imagined what it would be like – and she imagined it constantly – she pictured herself as she had been in her prime. She was afraid to commit herself to a new adventure in which, deprived of the energies of her youth, she would have no protection against failure. The uncertainty gnawed at her and undermined her resolution; and though the invisible threads chafed and bit into her, she did not have the courage to break them.

  There was a further obstacle in her path: Sita. What was to be done with her if she went away? Sushila did not wish to be burdened with extra responsibilities. Neither could she leave her here trusting to the tender mercies of Egbert Ramsaran. That was out of the question. He might go berserk and she could not say what he might take it into his head to do. The man was capable of anything. Here was the biggest stumbling block to her plans. Sita’s fate had never weighed with her before; but now it did: it was a convenient diversion from her other fears. Sushila directed her frustration on to this most concrete symbol of her oppression.

  She had been foolish to bring her here and even more foolish to allow Egbert Ramsaran to pay for her education. It had woven another thread into the web binding her. Sita was the primary cause of all her troubles. If it had not been for Sita the temptation to accede to Basdai’s wild schemes would not have been as great. She would have remained a free woman. It was for Sita’s sake and Sita’s sake alone she had sacrificed herself. And what had she received in return for her sacrifice? The experiment of living with her daughter had not been a resounding success. Sushila had been able to establish no area of contact with her. Not that she had tried very hard. She felt that by bringing her to live under the same roof she had done her mother’s duty by her and
was not inclined to do more. Sita was an essentially extraneous factor in her life. Thus Sushila had taken scant notice of her.

  Unhappily, Sita could no longer be easily dismissed. She was blossoming rapidly into womanhood. Daily, it seemed, her latent physical resemblance to what her mother had been grew more striking. Sita’s figure – though by no means as voluptuous as her mother’s – had filled out, shedding its bony, awkward angularity. Her features were settling into their final form and her movements were assured and decisive. The habitual, solemn expression of her eyes did not vanish but now and then there were flashes of gaiety and mischief. Mother and daughter were exchanging roles. It was at Sita the men whistled and stared when they went to Victoria Market to do the week’s shopping. Sushila was frequently stopped on the street. ‘What a lovely girl your daughter turning out to be, Mistress Sushila. She going to have all the men rushing after she, you wait and see. You must be very proud.’ To which Sushila replied brusquely and without a trace of pride: ‘You really think she good-looking? Better wait a few years. All girls does look nice when they come to Sita age.’

  To her mother, Sita had become merely another woman; and, by definition, a rival. Sushila examined herself frenziedly in the mirror. She noted an incipient fatness and studied the lines on her face. The fleshy firmness of her arms was on the wane and her stomach bulged. ‘Oh my God! What happening to me all of a sudden? Is living in this house that doing it. A change of scene is all I need. By hook or crook I must get away from here. I must get away.’ Any word of praise for Sita was sufficient to give her a ‘headache’ and put her in a bad mood for the rest of the day. ‘Everywhere I go is Sita this and Sita that,’ she retorted furiously to one of her daughter’s admirers. ‘Like all you have nothing else to talk about?’ She struggled desperately to shake off this crippling jealousy which solved nothing and could only be self-defeating. But her jealousy would not leave her. Sushila’s malady was beyond cure.

  ‘You letting all this praise go to your head,’ she accused Sita. ‘You better watch out. I thought it was book alone you was interested in.’

  ‘I’m not letting anything go to my head. It doesn’t matter to me what people say – not even if they said I was ugly.’

  ‘Oh yes? Why you does let all them men makes eyes at you for then? They wouldn’t do it if you didn’t encourage them. Don’t think you could fool me, child.’ To call Sita ‘child’ was soothing and she dwelt lingeringly on it. ‘I been round this world long enough to know what is what.’

  ‘I can’t stop people from looking at me,’ Sita said mildly. ‘You’re behaving just like Phulo.’

  ‘You little bitch!’ Sushila’s face had gone blotchy. ‘What I have in common with that slave? I don’t have nothing in common with that slave. You little bitch. Don’t you ever speak like that to me again, you hear. Don’t you ever speak to me like that again or I’ll rip that tongue of yours out of your mouth for you.’

  Sita winced. She had never seen her mother like this. It was a distressing spectacle. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have …’ She gazed hopelessly at her mother. The damage had been done and it could not be reversed.

  ‘You think I would be here if it wasn’t for you?’ Sushila shouted. ‘It was for you I sacrifice myself. Give up all that I had. Friends included. For you and you alone I do that just so that same Phulo wouldn’t abuse and laugh at you.’ Sushila rubbed a hand along her forehead. ‘And what do I get from you in return? Headaches! That is what I get in return. Headaches so bad that I does feel dizzy. They driving me mad. Just to set eyes on you does give me a headache.’ Sushila swayed on her heels.

  ‘Why don’t you go and lie down for a little? That will make you feel better.’

  ‘Nothing will ever make me feel better so long as I have you around.’ Sushila gazed feverishly at her daughter. ‘From the day you was born you been nothing but a trouble and burden to me. The first time I set eyes on you I wanted to dash you to the ground. Ask Basdai if you don’t believe me. She will tell you.’

  ‘I believe you,’ Sita said.

  ‘You believe me, do you?’ Sushila laughed bitterly. ‘How could a child like you know what it was like? You haven’t even started to know. You could take my word for that.’ Sushila knew how unjust she was being: how irrational; how self-defeating. But justice, reason and common sense had no meaning for her.

  Having, as it were, broken the truce and declared her hand, Sushila gave herself over to the attack, seeking out her daughter.

  ‘Just let me be,’ Sita pleaded. ‘I didn’t ask to be born. What do you want me to do? Kill myself?’

  ‘That would be the biggest favour you could do me. But is my fault for not dashing you to the ground the day you was born. I should have kill you right there and then.’ Sushila squeezed her aching forehead. ‘These headaches you giving me going to end by driving me mad.’

  ‘I’m not the cause of your headaches,’ Sita said, ‘and it’s not me who is driving you mad. You know what the real cause is.’ Sita could not restrain herself: the bombardment was non-stop.

  ‘What is the real cause, you little bitch?’

  Sita did not answer.

  ‘What is the real cause?’ Sushila grabbed her daughter and shook her frenziedly.

  ‘Don’t force me to say something I don’t want to say. Let me go.’

  ‘Say it! Say it!’ Sushila dug her fingernails into Sita’s shoulders.

  ‘Don’t make me … please don’t make me.’

  ‘Say it!’

  ‘All right,’ Sita shouted. ‘You asked for it. You’re getting old! Worn out! No good to yourself or anybody else. Not even to him! You will end up a million times worse than Phulo. Will you let me go now?’

  Sushila staggered back from her. She opened and closed her mouth soundlessly.

  Sita rushed to support her.

  Sushila shrank from her. ‘Keep away from me. Don’t touch me.’

  ‘You forced me into saying it. You shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Keep away. You want me to take leave of my senses but I won’t give you that satisfaction.’ She caressed her arms. ‘Don’t think you is a woman because you have two scrawny legs and breasts. That don’t make you a woman.’

  ‘You’re making yourself ill.’

  Sushila snatched up her skirt. ‘Look at these! Feel them!’ She stroked her legs. Sushila dropped her skirt. ‘Oh my God! Is like the Devil himself pounding inside my head. I could rip it off.’ She was crying.

  ‘Let me take you to bed.’

  Sushila allowed herself to be led to her bedroom and Sita put her to bed.

  ‘Try and go to sleep.’

  ‘It take more than two scrawny legs and breasts to make a woman. It take a lot more. More than you ever dream of …’

  ‘Try and get some rest. You don’t want him to find you in this condition.’ Sita covered her with a blanket.

  ‘… a lot more … more than you ever dream of …’

  ‘Go to sleep.’

  ‘… to be a woman, that is the hardest thing in the world. I should have been born a man …’ Sushila stared at the glossy photographs pinned to the wall. ‘… a man … I should have been born a man. Then I would never have to …’

  Sushila tossed feverishly. Sita closed the curtains and tip-toed out.

  2

  Sushila’s campaign against Sita was fuelled by the regular visits of Julian Bholai and the whispered conversations in the verandah; and whatever the initial drift of her attack it came inevitably to pivot on him.

  ‘I tired seeing his face here,’ she stormed. ‘Is as if he don’t have a home of his own.’

  ‘He doesn’t come here more than once a week,’ Sita replied. ‘And sometimes not even that.’

  ‘Every time I turn he does be here. It does give me a headache just to look at him.’

  ‘He doesn’t get in your way. You don’t even have to see him.’

  Sushila sneered. ‘How I could help seeing him since he always here?�
� She waved a finger in Sita’s face. ‘I know all this underhand boy-friend and girl-friend business.’

  ‘He’s not my boy-friend,’ Sita answered sharply, ‘and never will be. There’s nothing underhand either. If I was going to be underhand I wouldn’t let him come here. I would go somewhere else to be underhand.’ She opened the door of her bedroom.

  Sushila pursued her. ‘What the two of you does have to talk about so? That is what I would like to know.’

  ‘Feel free to come and listen any time you want.’ Sita tried to close the door but it wedged against her mother’s foot.

  ‘I thought it was studies you was interested in. But it seem to me that is only Dr Julian you really interested in. Ever since you get them two scrawny legs and breasts and start feeling you is a woman …’

  ‘Don’t start up on that again.’ Sita tugged at the door.

  Sushila laughed. ‘He going to throw you away like a old paper bag when he go to England.’

  ‘Please …’

  ‘Like a old paper bag …’

  ‘I heard you the first time. Let go the door.’

  Sushila removed her foot and Sita closed the door and locked it. She went to the window and breathed in deeply, looking at the rusting hulks. She stared in the opposite direction at the sunlit hills and the clapboard houses teetering on the lower slopes. Then her gaze swept slowly past the roof-tops of Victoria. She turned her back on the window and on the sunbleached bones of the Ramsaran Transport Company and stared at the books on her desk. Sitting down at the desk, she picked up her diary and drummed pensively on the cover. She smiled, recalling the struggle with Wilbert.

  When he had told her that Julian was destined to marry a white woman, he had told her nothing she did not already know; nothing she had not already told herself many times over. Neither was she in the least troubled or disconcerted by Sushila’s taunts about Julian throwing her aside ‘like a old paper bag’. She was under no illusions as to the outcome of their friendship. The universal disapproval it aroused – Mrs Bholai, Wilbert, her mother – amused her. They all took it far more seriously than she did. Even Julian took it more seriously than she did. She saw that he revelled in the ferment to which their association had given rise. It fed his sense of drama but he was as much its dupe as his mother was. The play had acquired a semi-independent life. He wrote her foolish, impassioned letters in which he called her Isolde and signed himself Tristan. Sita did not reply to the majority of these letters; and when she did she called him Julian and signed herself Sita. Julian was upset.