“Bloody Yanks,” the Major said. “I couldn’t eat it.”
With minor variations, he told me the same story four times. I did not mind. I felt that this casual abuse would give Vidia a perspective on an American’s life among these English settlers in Africa.
Vidia found a room in the hotel he liked. He negotiated a weekly rate, and soon he and Pat moved in. The idea was that Vidia would finish writing his novel there, and it was at the Kaptagat Arms that he told me its title, The Mimic Men. Pat did some writing too. She kept a diary. She also had literary ambitions — she wanted to write a play — but she seldom discussed her plans, always deferring to Vidia. From time to time she broke into helpless blubbing, either as the result of a disagreement or simply because of some sorrowful sight — broken shoes, a snotty-nosed child, a woman bereft, a gardener laboring on his knees. Often her tears roused me. I did not know why, but her weeping made me want to hold her and fondle her breasts.
There were no other guests at the Kaptagat Arms. The Major had several mild-mannered Labrador retrievers, which nuzzled our legs, their tongues lolling, hoping to be scratched. Some British teachers from a nearby prep school came to the bar most nights and got drunk.
“That silly Jewess,” a male teacher shrieked one night.
Vidia said to avoid them. “Infies.”
He understood the Major, he said. The Major’s Indian Army nickname had been “Bunny.” The poor man was tormented by passion and frustration. Clearly, he was a very sensitive soul, Vidia said. “Look at those eyes.” (To me, the Major’s blue eyes seemed cold and depthless.) The Major had a feeling for India, which was a mark of his sensibilities. He had heart. He was a good soldier and respected his men. He understood the culture. He was intelligent. He had brought this sense of order to Africa, where, imparting skills, building an institution, he was in a way running a miniature colony of his own.
Vidia, suspecting that the Major found him to be a puzzle, seemed to look for ways to make himself more puzzling. Yet Vidia had such simple, inflexible rules that, if they were strictly followed, he was happy. For example, Vidia’s vegetarianism caused a dilemma in the kitchen. Omelets were a frequent solution. “I have had to buy more cookery books,” the Major told me.
I visited Vidia whenever I could, at first for weekends and then for weeks at a time. The Kaptagat routine was quite different from my life in Kampala, and I grew to like playing bar billiards and eating steamed chocolate pudding, putting sherry in my soup and walking the Major’s dogs.
What occupied me — though I never spoke of it — was my own novel. It was understood that my writing consultations with Vidia were just about over. My cowardice essay was nearly done. “I think it’s an important statement,” Vidia said, “though you might have revealed too much of yourself.” I had moved on. I did not say what I was doing. Anyway, no one asked. I was the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
“My narrator has something to say about that,” Vidia would say in the middle of a conversation, and it was often as simple as a reference to the fluctuating price of land. He was close to all his characters — he quoted them, and he often quoted the narrator, who was a wise, if world-weary, forty-year-old with opinions on politics and oppression, friendship and money. Vidia was happy with his novel’s progress now that he was the resident of this comfortable hotel. All his needs were seen to. He had rusticated himself and was looked after by the Major and his Kikuyu servants, whom in Kenyan fashion he had begun to call “Cukes.”
Pat said, “Amin asked, ‘What work does the bwana do in his room all day?’ I told him that your work is like praying. So he has to be very quiet.”
“‘The bwana is praying,’” Vidia said. “Yes. It’s true. I’m glad you put it that way.”
He had started the novel in a hotel in the southeast London district of Blackheath, having deliberately checked in to find atmosphere and enter the mood of his narrator, who was a temporary hotel resident writing a novel-memoir. It was appropriate that he was finishing the book in another hotel. He said many times, “My narrator likes hotels. I like hotels.” He enjoyed the attention he received, the tidy rooms, the staff toiling away, the illusion that this was a manor and he was the lord. And such conditions were perfect for the writing of a book.
“This is an important book,” he said of his novel. “These things have never been said.”
It’s just a book, I thought. It amazed me that he could talk about his work so admiringly and with such fondness. But I also thought: I want to feel that respect about something I have written. I want to value it. I want to have that confidence. I want to invest all my intellect and my effort in it. I want to be rewarded.
“Patsy objects to something I wrote,” Vidia said over dinner one night. “Patsy doesn’t want me to say ‘wise old coon.’”
“Oh, Vidia,” Pat said, and her eyes became moist.
“Patsy wants me to say ‘wise old negro.’”
They both seemed awful to me, but I could tell from Pat’s anger and the argument that ensued — more tears at the dinner table — that she would prevail.
He worked on an Olivetti portable, one of those lightweight flat machines that seemed modern to me and that went chick-chick-chick. I used an old black Remington that clacked loudly when I typed, going fika-fika-fika.
“I love to sit in the garden and hear you both typing,” Pat said.
In the bar one night Vidia said, “How do you spell ‘areola’?”
I thought he was saying “aureole” and began to spell it, but he said no. He asked the Major for a dictionary and found the word.
“Isn’t it a nipple?” asked the Major.
“It’s the portion that surrounds the nipple,” answered Vidia.
While they talked, I looked up the word “pathic,” but it was not in the Major’s small student dictionary, which must have belonged to one of the Kikuyu staff.
“Is that for your book?” the Major was asking Vidia.
“My narrator mentions it, yes.”
“I must read this book.”
Pat smiled at this but said nothing. She had a smooth pale face, a slightly jutting jaw, and a pendulous lower lip that made her seem thoughtful, on the point of speaking. She was shy, she spoke sweetly, she was modest and always polite. I was careful never to swear in her presence. I had seen how the word “fuck” upset her when spoken by a man in the Kaptagat bar. I did not want to ask myself why her reaction stirred me.
In the garden, beyond the hedge of purplish bougainvillea, she read, she wrote in her diary, always looking lonely and somewhat embarrassed, as though she were obviously waiting, keeping an ap pointment with someone who would never show up. She was small and demure and shapely. I give her a chaste kiss at night.
“Keep Pat company,” Vidia would say. He was wholly occupied with his book.
I wondered what his words meant and wanted them to be less ambiguous, or for her to take the initiative. I was twenty-four and still missed Yomo badly, although in Kampala I sometimes took women home from the Gardenia bar.
Pat and I drove to nearby villages or to Eldoret, where there was a post office. We went for walks. It was not unusual to stumble across an African couple rutting, or a boy chasing a girl through a field, or to hear, as we did one day, shrieks of pleasure from a corn field. This sort of thing roused me. Pat appeared not to notice, as a well-bred woman will avert her eyes from two dogs copulating in the road. She was friendly and receptive but always polite. Was her politeness her way of keeping her distance?