NW: A Novel

by Zadie Smith

  69. The invention of love: part one

  Frank was not at the bar or anywhere else in view.

  70. Partings

  On the bus back to the coach station, after what had been, let’s face it, a significant visit, perhaps even approaching the status of a dramatic event, Leah Hanwell said, rather sheepishly: “Hope it was all right, me disappearing. Least you and Rodders got the room back,” and this was all that was said that day about Leah Hanwell’s night with Alice Nho, nor did Natalie Blake mention the fact that she had not asked Rodney to come to her room that night and never again would do so. The bus started to climb what felt like a vertical hill. Natalie Blake and Leah Hanwell were pressed back in their seats and against each other. “Really good to see you,” said Leah. “You’re the only person I can be all of myself with.” Which comment made Natalie begin to cry, not really at the sentiment but rather out of a fearful knowledge that if reversed the statement would be rendered practically meaningless, Ms. Blake having no self to be, not with Leah, or anyone.

  71. Helping Leah get her heavy rucksack up the steps to the coach

  Natalie Blake had an urge to tell her friend about the exotic brother she had seen in Kirkwood’s class. She said nothing. Quite apart from the fact that the doors were closing she feared what, precisely, the gaping socio-economic difference between Frank De Angelis and Rodney Banks might say to her friend Leah Hanwell about her, Natalie Blake, psychologically, as a person.

  72. Romance languages

  Many of the men Natalie Blake became involved with after Rodney Banks were as socio-economically and culturally alien to her as Frank was, and were far less attractive, but still she didn’t approach Frank, nor did he approach her, despite their keen awareness of each other. A poetic way of putting this would be to say:

  “There was an inevitability about their road toward each other which encouraged meandering along the route.”

  73. The sole author

  More prosaically, Natalie Blake was crazy busy with self-invention. She lost God so smoothly and painlessly she had to wonder what she’d ever meant by the word. She found politics and literature, music, cinema. “Found” is not the right word. She put her faith in these things, and couldn’t understand why—at exactly the moment she’d discovered them—her classmates seemed to be giving them up for dead. When asked by other students about Frank De Angelis—she was not the only person who had noted their fundamental compatibility—she said that he was too full of himself and vain and posh and racially confused and not her scene at all, and yet the silent and invisible bond between them strengthened, for who else but Frank De Angelis—or someone exactly like Frank De Angelis—could she ask to accompany her on the strange life journey she was preparing to undertake?

  74. A sighting

  Five rows in front at the midnight showing of Black Orpheus, looking up at his doppelganger.

  75. Activism

  Natalie was cycling down University Walk when a young man she was sleeping with stood in her path, blocking her way. He had a frantic look about him and at first Natalie thought he was preparing to announce his undying love. “Have you got half an hour?” asked Imran, “There’s something I want you to see.” Natalie wheeled her bike round to Woodland Road and chained it up outside Imran’s halls of residence. In his small bedroom there were two other girls from their year and a grad student she didn’t know. “This is the action group,” said Imran, and put a video into the player. Of course, Natalie was aware of the Bosnian conflict, but it would be fair to say that the war had not been uppermost in her mind. She told herself this was because she had no television and spent most of her time in the library. Similarly, two years earlier the existence of a country called “Rwanda” and the reality of its genocide had come to her simultaneously, in a single newspaper article. Now she sat cross-legged and watched the soldiers marching and listened to the recorded speech of the crazed man screaming, and read the subtitles about racial purity and a fantasy place called “Greater Serbia.” This had just happened? Just now? At the end of history? She thought of all the times she and Leah had asked themselves—for the sake of a thought experiment—what they would have done, had they been in Berlin, in 1933. “We’re going to drive an ambulance of supplies to Sarajevo,” said Imran, “to help with the reconstruction. You should come.” To do so would break the first commandment of Natalie Blake’s family: do not put thyself in unnecessary physical peril.

  For the next several weeks Natalie threw herself into the organization of this trip, and made love to Imran, and thought of this period, years later, as representing a sort pinnacle of radical youthful possibility. Of sex, protest and travel, fused. That she never actually went on the trip seemed, in memory, some how less important than the fact that she had fully intended to go. (A quarrel with Imran, a few days before. He didn’t call, so she didn’t call.)

  76. Abandon

  Natalie Blake took out a large student loan and made a point of spending it only on frivolous things. Meals and cabs and underwear. Trying to keep up with “these people” she soon found herself with nothing again, but now when she put a debit card in the slot and hoped that five pounds would come out, she did it without the bottomless anxiety she’d once shared with Rodney Banks. She cultivated a spirit of decadence. Now that she had glimpsed the possibility of a future, an overdraft did not hold the same power of terror over her. The vision Marcia Blake had of such people, and had passed on to her daughter, came tumbling down in a riot of casual blaspheming, weed and cocaine, indolence. Were these really the people for whom the Blakes had always been on their best behavior? On the tube, in a park, in a shop. Why? Marcia: “To give them no excuse.”

  77. A Sighting

  Dressed as Frantz Fanon on a staircase at a party at which Natalie herself was dressed as Angela Davis. His costume consisted of a name-tag and a white coat borrowed off a medical student. Natalie had made more effort: a dashiki and a combed out ’fro, that did not stand up well due to years of damage with a hot iron. The costume party was in the shared house of four philosophy students and the theme was Discourse Founders. His date came as Sappho.

  78. A theory about the tracking of Michelle Holland

  It is perhaps the profound way in which capitalism enters women’s minds and bodies that renders “ruthless comparison” the basic mode of their relationships with others. Certainly Natalie Blake tracked the progress of Michelle Holland with a closer attention than she did her own life—without ever speaking to her. Besides Rodney, Michelle was the only other person from Brayton in the university. A math prodigy. She did not have the luxury of mediocrity. Raised in the brutal high-rise towers of South Kilburn, which had nothing to recommend them, no genteel church culture, none of the pretty green areas of Caldwell nor (Natalie presumed) the intimate neighbors. What could she be but exceptional? Father in jail, mother sectioned. She lived with her grandmother. She was sensitive and sincere, awkward, defensive, lonely. It was Natalie’s belief that she, Natalie Blake, didn’t have to say a word to Michelle Holland to know all of this—that she could look at the way Michelle walked and know it. I am the sole author. Consequently Natalie was not at all surprised to hear of Michelle’s decline and fall, halfway through the final year. No drink or drugs or bad behavior. She just stopped. (This was Natalie’s interpretation.) Stopped going to lectures, studying, eating. She had been asked to pass the entirety of herself through a hole that would accept only part. (Natalie’s conclusion.)

  79. The end of history

  When Natalie now thought of adult life (she hardly ever thought of it) she envisioned a long corridor, off which came many rooms—each with a friend in it—a communal kitchen, a single gigantic bed in which all would sleep and screw, a world governed by the principles of friendship. The above is a metaphorical figure—but it is also a basically accurate representation of Natalie’s thinking at that time. For how can you oppress a friend? How can you cheat on a friend? How c
an you ask a friend to suffer while you thrive? In this simple way—without marches and slogans, without politics, without any of the mess you get ripping paving stones out of the ground—the revolution had arrived. Late to the party, Natalie Blake now enthusiastically took her good friend Leah Hanwell’s advice and started hugging strangers on dance-floors. She looked at the little white pill in her palm. What could go wrong, now we were all friends? Remember to carry a bottle of water. Anyway, it was all already decided. Don’t chew. Swallow. Strobe lights flash. The beat goes on. (I will be a lawyer and you will be a doctor and he will be a teacher and she will be a banker and we will be artists and they will be soldiers, and I will be the first black woman and you will be the first Arab and she will be the first Chinese and everyone will be friends, everyone will understand each other.) Friends are friendly to each other, friends help each other out. No one need be exceptional. Friends know the difference between solicitors and barristers, and the best place to apply, and the likelihood of being accepted, and the names of the relevant scholarships and bursaries. “You choose your friends, you don’t choose your family.” How many times did Natalie Blake hear that line?

  80. Ideology in popular entertainment

  In case anyone was in danger of forgetting, the most popular TV show in the world pressed the point home, five times a week.

  81. The Unconsoled (Leah’s sixth visit)

  “Oh Jesus I just saw Rodney in Sainsbury’s!” said Leah, distraught, dropping two shopping bags on the table. “I looked in his basket. He had a meat pie and two cans of ginger beer and a bottle of that hot sauce you put on everything. I came up behind him in the queue, and he pretended he’d forgotten something and hurried off. But then I saw him a few minutes later at a far end queue and he had exactly the same four items.”

  82. Milk round

  A festive, chaotic scene, as well attended as the Fresher’s Fair, although this time the banners were not homemade, and instead of Tolkien societies and choral clubs they had printed upon them the melodic names of law firms and the familiar names of banks. Girls in cheerleader outfits bearing the logo of a management consulting firm went round the room giving out little pots of ice cream and cans of energy drinks. Natalie Blake twisted the can in her hand to read the tag that ran round it. Claim Your Future. She dug into the ice cream with a little blond wood panel, and watched the green balloons of a German bank slip from their tethers and float slowly up to the ceiling. She heard Rodney’s voice coming from somewhere. He was three tables along, sitting with monstrous keenness on the very edge of a plastic chair. Opposite him, an amused man in a suit and tie made notes on a clipboard.

  83. Mixed metaphors

  A year and a half later, when everyone had returned or else moved to London and Natalie was studying for the bar, Rodney Banks sent a letter c/o of Marcia Blake that began: “Keisha, you talk about following your heart, but weird how your heart always seems to know which side its bread is buttered.” Frank De Angelis took this letter from Natalie Blake and kissed the side of her head. “Poor old Rodney. He’s not still trying to become a lawyer, is he?”

  84. Groupthink

  A television advert for the army. A group of soldiers leap from a low helicopter to the ground. Chaotic camerawork: we’re to understand these men are under attack. They run through a harsh landscape of wind and dust, through a clearing, emerging at the edge of a chasm. The wooden bridge they hoped would take them across is half-destroyed. The broken slats tumble into the ravine below. The soldiers look at the ravine, at each other, at the heavy packs they carry.

  85. Lincoln’s Inn

  A crowd of new arrivals in eveningwear sat watching this advert, slouched over chairs and sofas, making boisterous conversation. Natalie Blake was a new arrival too, but more shy. She stood at the back of the rec room, trying to busy herself at the refreshment table. Now some text appeared, branded with hot irons into the screen. It was accompanied by the voice of a drill sergeant:

  IF YOU’RE THINKING HOW DO I GET ACROSS, THE ARMY’S NOT FOR YOU.

  IF YOU’RE THINKING: HOW DO WE GET ACROSS, GIVE US A CALL.

  “I’m thinking: how are you getting across.”

  He was pointing at the television, and all around him people were laughing. She recognized his voice at once, its louche trace of Milan.

  86. Style

  The dreadlocks were gone. His dinner jacket was simple, elegant. A starched pink handkerchief peeked out of the top pocket and his socks were brightly clocked with diamonds. His Nikes were slightly outrageous and box fresh. He no longer seemed strange. (Any number of rappers now dressed like this. Money was the fashion.)

  87. The first Sponsorship Night dinner of the Michaelmas term.

  Natalie Blake was “captain” of her section. She was unsure what this meant. She stood behind her dining chair at the appointed table and waited for her sponsor, a Dr. Singh. She looked up at the vaulted ceiling. A white girl in a satin gown came and stood next to her. “Lovely, isn’t it? That majestical roof fretted with golden fire! Hello, I’m Polly. I’m in your team.” Next to Polly came a boy called Jonathan who said that “captain” only meant the food was served to the left of you. Portraits of the venerable dead. Heavy silverware. Fish forks. The Benchers filed into hall in their black flapping gowns and bowed. A Latin grace began. Bored, contented voices repeated alien words.

  88. The invention of love: part two

  Natalie Blake flattened her thick linen napkin over her lap and spotted Frank De Angelis running late, moving toward her table, spotting her. He looked devastating; more like Orfeu than ever. She was flattered by his reaction: “Blake? You look great! It’s great to see you. Oh Captain my captain . . .” He did a little bow and sat down extremely close, thigh to thigh, examined the menu card, made a face. “Cottage pie. I miss Italy.” “Oh, you’ll survive.” “You two already know each other?” asked Polly. And there was indeed something intimate about the way they spoke to each other, heads close, looking out across the room. Natalie fell so easily into the role she had to remind herself that this intimacy had not existed before tonight. It was being manufactured at this present moment, along with its history.

  The bad wine flowed. An ancient Judge rose to give a speech. His eyebrows sprung owlishly from his head, and he did not neglect to mention Twelfth Night’s first performance or paint a bloody picture of marauding peasants burning law books: “. . . and if we look to Oman’s translation of the Anonimalle Chronicle, we find, I’m afraid, a somewhat dispiriting portrait of the profession . . . For, upon being cornered in our own Temple Church, our not-so-noble predecessors did little to deter the angry mob. If I may quote: It was marvelous to see how even the most aged and infirm of them scrambled off, with the agility of rats or evil spirits . . . These days I can reassure you that beheading—in London at least!—is gratifyingly rare, and abuse of lawyers generally limited to . . .” Natalie was enthralled. The idea that her own existence might be linked to people living six hundred years past! No longer an accidental guest at the table—as she had always understood herself to be—but a host, with other hosts, continuing a tradition. “And so it falls to you,” said the judge, and Frank looked over at Natalie, trying to catch her eye and yawning comically. Natalie folded her arms more firmly on the table and turned her head toward the judge. As soon as she’d done it, she felt it was a betrayal. But who was Frank De Angelis to her? And yet. She looked back at him and raised her eyebrows very slightly. He winked.

  89. Time slows down

  A Polish waitress moved discreetly round the table, seeking the vegetarians. Frank spoke, a lot, and indiscriminately, lurching from topic to topic. Where she had once seen only obnoxious entitlement Natalie now saw anxiety running straight and true beneath everything. Was it possible she made him nervous? Yet all she was doing was sitting here quietly, looking at her plate. “Your hair’s different. Real? That your butter? Have you seen James Percy? Tenant, now. On the
first try. You look good, Blake. You look great. Honestly, I thought you’d be gone by the time I got here. What have you been doing for a year? Here’s my confession through a mouthful of bread: I’ve been skiing. Listen, I also fitted in the law conversion. I’m not totally the waste of space you think I am.” “I don’t think you’re a waste of space.” “Yes, you do. No, I’ll have the beef, please. But what’s up with you?” Natalie Blake had not been skiing. She’d been working in a shoe shop in Brent Cross shopping center, saving money, living with her parents in Caldwell, and dreaming of winning the Mansfield scholarship, which had actually—

  An apologetic Dr. Singh materialized, displacing the turbaned worthy of Natalie’s imagination with a petite shaven-headed woman in her thirties, a purple sink blouse peeping out from between the folds of her gown. She sat down. The Judge finished. The applause sounded like braying.

  90. Difficulties with context

  Natalie Blake turned from flirting with Francesco De Angelis to listing all her academic achievements to Dr. Singh. Dr. Singh looked tired. She poured some water into Natalie’s glass: “And what do you do for fun?” Frank leaned over: “No time for fun—sista’s a slave to the wage.” Surely meant as a joke, if a cack-handed one, and Natalie tried to laugh, but saw how Polly blushed and Jonathan looked down at the table. Frank tried to rescue himself by making a wider, sociological point. “Of course, we’re an endangered species around here.” He looked out across the room with one hand to his brow. “Wait: there’s another one over there. That’s about six of us all told. Numbers are low.” He was drunk, and making a fool of himself. She felt for him deeply. That “us” sounded strange in his mouth—unnatural. He didn’t even know how to be the thing he was. Why would he? She was so busy congratulating herself on being able to empathize with and correctly analyze the curious plight of Francesco De Angelis that it took her a moment to realize Dr. Singh was frowning at both of them.