Guerrillas

7

THE SITUATION is desperate, Roy, the people here have been betrayed too often, it’s always a case of black faces white masks, you don’t know who your enemy is, the enemy infiltrates your ranks all the time. Massa Mister Roche he’s very importunate in his inquiries about one of the boys they sent here, Stephens, a little gang leader from the city, a big coup for them, they thought he was going to take over from me, as though I was going to let that boy draw me out on the streets for the police to shoot me down. No, Roy, I’m staying here in my unfortified castle, the time will come for me to move, the people will come of their own accord to their leader. But the situation is getting desperate now, in the still of the night I lose my courage, I feel it’s a losing battle, they’re sending other agents, I don’t know how to cope …

He broke off. The words had circled in on the wound that was still fresh. He considered his violated room: the books, the photographs, the carpet, the upholstered chairs, everything so nicely put away. And there was the bedroom, with the stained bed, where he was still unwilling to go. The desolation! And where was Bryant? Bryant, with whom he could share the pain of the moment, in whose rejection he might annihilate his own. The night and the bush outside. The silence.

Here’s a laugh, let me tell you about it. The other day one of our church big shots, a bishop or something, he held a service not in Latin or English but in some fancy language for the niggers, he said it was an African language, Yoruba or something, of course nobody here understands “head nor tail,” and wait for it, the message was that despair was the great sin. What a laugh, it’s like those Harlem movies about interracial sex they’re feeding the people on now to keep them quiet. These people live in a world of dreams, I don’t know how they believe people can stomach that kind of talk still.

In my father’s house there are many mansions, I remember this from my schooldays, they’d “bust your tail” with licks if you didn’t go to church. But the house is full up now, Roy, there are no more mansions. I suppose like everybody else I fooled myself that there was a mansion waiting somewhere for me, but I didn’t really fool myself, you mustn’t believe that, even when I was a child going to school from the back room of my father’s grocery shop, knowing that back room as the only place I come from in this great wide world, it wasn’t mine, I always knew I was fooling myself, I didn’t believe there was or would ever be any mansion for me.

Other people had the mansions and they were full up, like the people in our so-called “exclusive” hotel the Prince Albert, they used to take us there some afternoons from school, to the park outside, to play, for the people to see us, to show us where we couldn’t go. And even in England when there was some talk of me in the world, everybody was jumping on the bandwagon then, I knew there was no mansion, it was all going to end in smoke.

Things are desperate, Roy, when the leader himself begins to yield to despair, things are bad. The whole place is going to blow up, I cannot see how I can control the revolution now. When everybody wants to fight there’s nothing to fight for. Everybody wants to fight his own little war, everybody is a guerrilla.

He turned, hearing light footsteps in the front porch, and saw Bryant standing in the doorway, in a dark blue short-sleeved jersey and jeans, his pigtails erect, fearsome, his twisted face sweated and shiny, his eyes inflamed. He stood beyond the blue carpet, in the shadows, waiting to be noticed.

“Bryant-boy.”

“Field duties,” Bryant said, and came into the room, something in his walk and the way he held his head indicating irritation, an unwillingness to talk.

He sat down in one of the chairs and took up the paper, rustling it loudly. The light from the desk lamp fell yellow on the twisted side of his face and showed up the boniness of his forehead. White spittle had gathered in the corners of his mouth, and his red eyes seemed about to water.

Jimmy knew Bryant’s moods, and let him be. And, with Bryant sitting there, Jimmy became calmer. He looked at what he had been writing; it seemed far away. His despair had purged itself. He had momentarily lost control, but now he was better; now again he could see clearly.

“Yes, Clarissa,” this cool and amazing man said, “I owe you a dollar and I remember you.” And when he said this I got nervous, looking at his eyes I saw the game was up, I felt he could see right through me. I can’t hide anything from this man, I don’t know how I’ll explain myself to him.

I said, “Jimmy, I seek you out to warn you. They’re full of hate, Jimmy, they seek to destroy you because they’re frightened of the hate the oppressed of the world feel for them and they’re frightened that the oppressed might find a leader. They make it their business to seek out and destroy the leaders, Jimmy.”

He said, “Clarissa, go back and tell your employers I’m not running anymore.” I said, “My employers, Jimmy?” He said, “No one is getting me to come out of my unfortified castle and be shot down, Clarissa. You see, Clarissa, I’ve been caught by people like you once before and I’ll not be caught again, you talk of revolution but you belong to the establishment, Clarissa, you think you will come and flash your milk-white thighs before the poor blacks and they will believe your story. You think you will play with the little black boys and then you will go home, but I’ve news for you, Clarissa, the little black boys are not playing anymore. I know your game, Clarissa, now tell me, wasn’t your father in Intelligence?”

I said, “Jimmy, I’ve told you, I beg you to understand, that I’ve to do my duties but I’m amazed by the man you are.” He said, “The black boys aren’t playing anymore, every man in this hotel lobby understands your game, Clarissa, look around, look at the waiters, do you think they don’t know that you’re rotten meat, do you think the taxi drivers don’t know, everybody has seen you accosting me in public and they will know that you’re rotten meat, and so I must warn you that in future you must walk only in daylight and in open places, Clarissa.”

As he said this the fear gripped my heart and I looked at his unblinking eyes but could find no pity there, I don’t know how I can tell him that he possesses my mind, it’s true I’m of the establishment and of a certain class and only bad-talk England to put people off the scent, I understand his hate which I can see in his eyes, I understood everything when I saw that hate there.

“Here is your dollar,” he said, throwing a note down on the table, “I’ve already settled the bill with the waiters.” And so saying he turned on his heels and stalked out of the lobby and leaves everybody standing in amazement not least of all myself.

I don’t know where to look, I feel I’m exposed, it’s true what he said, the waiters look at me in a funny way and the taxi drivers look at me in a funny way, and so it continues day and night it’s as though Jimmy has blighted this place for me, I see his powerful mocking face in every face I see, and I begin to see that this obsession will drive me mad. And I’m scared like anything, I don’t know what to do, I can’t tell my husband now, I’ve to live with this, I feel I somehow have to throw myself on Jimmy’s mercy and beg him to give me another chance, because I know that he’s the man who controls this hate I see around me and he’s the only man who can turn this hate into love.

In public places I walk with circumspection and so too in quiet places, because I don’t know what will spring out at me, who are these men I ask myself whenever I see people approaching, what do they want of me. Of course I’m full of hate for these shiftless people, no wonder they can’t get on, and now I’m frightened of this hate and scorn I bear for them because I feel it is bringing retribution and retribution is what I’m afraid of everywhere, in the street, on the Ridge, on the beaches with the tourists, because every taxi driver and every waiter knows what I am, and one day at midday I’m on the beach and walking in the grove when I see these boys with pigtails like the boy at Thrushcross Grange, and they begin to close in on me and when I walk faster they walk faster and they begin to mock and chase me and I know that my hour has come and that no one can save me only Jimmy and I begin to run through the grove to the open sea because at least there would be people there tourists and lifeguards and all the other things that you see but it seems I will never get to that place and I’m thirsty, dying for water on this blue and cloudless day and then I see a car in the distance and I begin to run to it and as I run the boys run and I see it is an old Ford with those curving front fenders—

“The rat!” Bryant screamed, throwing down the paper on the carpet. “Jimmy, I see the white rat today!”

Jimmy started. Light changed around him; he turned from the desk and saw Bryant, not far away, on a beach, in the middle of the day, but sitting on a furry chair, his face half-lit, close to tears. Jimmy pushed back his chair and stood up.

“Don’t touch me, Jimmy!” Bryant screamed. “I will kill you if you touch me, Jimmy.”

He was going to speak comfortingly to Bryant, in the language and accent of the streets. But he spoke formally. He said, “She came to see you, Bryant. She wanted to get her dollar back.”

“Jimmy, Jimmy.” And Bryant, throwing back his head, began to cry.

He went and put his hands on Bryant’s shoulders. His fingers pressed against the gritty jersey and the damp skin below. He took his face close to Bryant’s and said, “I’ll give her to you.”