V.S. Naipaul - Magic Seeds

L ATERIN THE teak forest, in the first camp, when during his first night on sentry duty he had found himself for periods wishing only to cry, and when with the relief of dawn there had also come the amazing cry of a far-off peacock, the cry a peacock makes in the early morning after it has had its first drink of water at some forest pool: a raucous, tearing cry that should have spoken of a world refreshed and remade but seemed after the long bad night to speak only of everything lost, man, bird, forest, world; and then, when that camp was a romantic memory, during the numbing guerrilla years, going on and on, in forest, village, small town, when to travel about in disguise had often appeared to be an end in itself and it was possible for much of the day to forget what the purpose of the disguise was, when he had felt himself decaying intellectually, felt bits of his personality breaking off; and then in the jail, with its blessed order, its fixed timetable, its protecting rules, the renewal it offeredlater it was possible to work out the stages by which he had moved from what he would have considered the real world to all the subsequent areas of unreality: moving as it were from one sealed chamber of the spirit to another.

I T HAD BEGUN many years before, in Berlin. Another world. He was living there in a temporary, half-and-half way with his sister Sarojini. After Africa it had been a great refreshment, this new kind of protected life, being almost a tourist, without demands and without anxiety. It had to end, of course; and it began to end the day Sarojini said to him, Youve been here for six months. I may not be able to get your visa renewed again. You know what that means. You may not be able to stay here. Thats the way the world is made. You cant object to it. Youve got to start thinking of moving on. Do you have any idea of where you can go? Is there anything you feel you want to do?

Willie said, I know about the visa. Ive been thinking about it.

Sarojini said, I know your kind of thinking. It means putting something to the back of your mind.

Willie said, I dont see what I can do. I dont know where I can go.

Youve never felt there was anything for you to do. Youve never understood that men have to make the world for themselves.

Youre right.

Dont talk to me like that. Thats the way the oppressor class thinks. Theyve just got to sit tight, and the world will continue to be all right for them.

Willie said, It doesnt help me when you twist things. You know very well what I mean. I feel a bad hand was dealt me. What could I have done in India? What could I have done in England in 1957 or 1958? Or in Africa?

Eighteen years in Africa. Your poor wife. She thought she was getting a man. She should have talked to me.

Willie said, I was always someone on the outside. I still am. What can I do here in Berlin?

You were on the outside because you wanted to be. Youve always preferred to hide. Its the colonial psychosis, the caste psychosis. You inherited it from your father. You were in Africa for eighteen years. There was a great guerrilla war there. Didnt you know?

It was always far away. It was a secret war, until the very end.

It was a glorious war. At least in the beginning. When you think about it, it can bring tears to the eyes. A poor and helpless people, slaves in their own land, starting from scratch in every way. What did you do? Did you seek them out? Did you join them? Did you help them? That was a big enough cause to anyone looking for a cause. But no. You stayed in your estate house with your lovely little half-white wife and pulled the pillow over your ears and hoped that no bad black freedom fighter was going to come in the night with a gun and heavy boots and frighten you.