I recognized the tone of voice from the main character in his novel in progress. It was also often Vidia’s own tone of voice. Vidia and his hero agreed on most things, it seemed. They even used the same expressions, or “locutions,” as they called them: “latterly,” “crunch time,” “some little time.”
“I have been contemplating this visit to Nairobi for some little time,” Vidia said. “Yes. Some little time.”
Nearer the Rift Valley escarpment we saw a sign saying Hussain Co. Ltd. Sheepskin Coats for Sale. Vidia said he wanted to see them, though I suspected he merely wished to lecture Mr. Hussain. The coats were cheap. They were thick and bulky. Mr. Hussain took our measurements and said he would make the coats to order. He would send them in a month or so.
“And what are you going to do when the crunch comes?” Vidia said to Mr. Hussain after we paid our money.
“I have plan,” Mr. Hussain said, wagging his head ambiguously.
When we were back on the road Vidia said, “He was lying, of course,” and then, “I wonder if I can bring it off?”
He was speaking of the sheepskin coat.
“Of course you can,” Pat said from the back seat, always the encouraging spouse.
“Perhaps in Scotland,” Vidia said.
There were giraffes in the distance, crossing the valley, and a herd of grazing zebras and clusters of gazelles.
“Frosty weather. Snow. I can see that coat being useful. But I don’t know whether I can bring it off. I don’t think I’m big enough in the shoulders.” After a moment he said, “Paul, you must come to London. Meet real people. Bring your sheepskin.”
Nairobi was a small town with wide streets and a colonial air. “Mimicry,” Vidia said, but he liked the Norfolk Hotel, its cleanness, its comfort. He quoted his narrator on the subject of hotels. After we checked in, he said he had the address of a Nigerian man here in Nairobi who had access to the Kenyans. At first Vidia wondered if it might be too much trouble — Pat had already decided to stay behind in the hotel room — but then he grew curious. It was always this curiosity that overcame his reluctance. The Nigerian at the very least would have a West African point of view. His name was Muhammed, and he was a Hausa, from the north of his country. He met us at the door of his apartment wearing a blue pinstriped double-breasted suit. Vidia introduced himself.
“Jolly good,” Muhammed said. He led us to a room with a large bookcase and offered us tea.
“That would be very nice,” Vidia said.
“What about some music?”
There were stacks of record albums on one shelf.
“No music. No music.”
“Jolly good.”
While we drank tea, Muhammed spoke with Vidia about the persecution of Indians in Nairobi, but instead of interrogating him, Vidia grew laconic and impatient. I just looked at the books. I saw Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, The Kama Sutra, Naked Lunch, Lolita, Lollipop Lady, A Manual for Lovers, and others — variations on a theme.
Vidia was rising. “We must go.”
Muhammed, stopped in midsentence, said, “Jolly good.”
In the car, Vidia said he was disgusted.
“What’s wrong?”
He made a nauseated face at Muhammed’s building and said, “Masturbator!”
It took him a while to calm down, but when his mood eased I said, “I have to see Tom Hopkinson.”
“Hopkinson? The chap who was editor of Picture Post? He’s in Bongo-Wongo?”
“Yes. Want to come?”
“One has no interest.”
I dropped Vidia at the hotel and spent the afternoon with Tom Hopkinson. He was a well-known editor and journalist, and his highly successful Picture Post had been Britain’s answer to Life magazine. Hopkinson, in vigorous semi-retirement, ran the Institute of Journalism in Nairobi. It was my hope that he would come to Kampala and speak about freedom of the press at a conference I was trying to organize. A tall, thin, white-haired man, he was friendly and straightforward and clearly a Londoner: wearing a tie and long trousers and black shoes, he was overdressed for Kenya. We talked about novels — he had published two. He said he was too busy to give the lecture, but I suspected the rumors of violence in Uganda put him off. Most people in Kenya regarded Uganda as the bush.
“Tell me, tell me, tell me,” Vidia said that evening in the Norfolk’s bar. He said nothing else, but I knew it was his way of asking about Hopkinson.
“He’s writing a novel,” I said.
“Oh, God.”
“It’s his third.”
“Oh, God.”
“He spoiled the first two, he said. He rushed them. He said he was not going to rush this one.”
Vidia gagged on his tea and released great lungfuls of laughter, his smoker’s laugh that was so fruity and echoey.
“He’s just playing with art.”
“He was a friend of George Orwell,” I said.
“One has been compared to Orwell,” Vidia said. “It is not much of a compliment, is it?”
The Indian high commissioner in Nairobi, Prem Bhatia, gave a dinner party for Vidia. Now, as at the Kaptagat, I saw a contented Vidia: a respected visitor in the house of a man who admired his work. This role of guest of honor calmed Vidia and made him portentous and unfunny and overformal, and at the table he became orotund.
“One has been contemplating for some little time…”
Bhatia had been a distinguished journalist in India. He had lively talkative teenage children and the sort of ambassadorial household that was like a real family. It was not a stuffy party. Two dining tables had been set up in the courtyard of the residence for the Kenyan, Indian, and English guests. Vidia and his host sat at a head table.
As an elderly Sikh servant in a red turban poured wine, Bhatia followed him and said, “Now do enjoy your wine, but be very careful of the glasses. They cost five guineas each. I had them sent from London.”
Hearing this, one of the Englishmen picked up his wine, drank it down, and flung the glass over his shoulder at the courtyard wall. The glass made a soft watery smash as it hit the flagstones.
There was a sudden hush. Bhatia kept smiling and said nothing. The Englishman laughed crazily — he might have been drunk. His wife, her head down, was whispering.
“Infy.” It was spoken loudly from the head table.
After the party, when all the guests had gone and the servants had withdrawn, Vidia talked in his pompous visiting-elder-statesman manner, which was also the tone of his narrator, whom he had told me was a politician. The subject was the Indians who had been deported.
“This is disgraceful,” Vidia said. “How are you planning to respond?”
“We’ve lodged a very strong protest,” Bhatia said.
“You must do more than that,” Vidia said. “India is a big, powerful country. It is a major power.”
“Of course—”
“Remind the Africans of that. Latterly, the Africans have behaved as though they were dealing with just another shabby little country. Latterly—”
“I’ve sent a letter.”
“Send a gunboat.”
“A gunboat?”
“A punitive mission.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Shell Mombasa.”
“Who would do this?”
“The Indian Navy,” Vidia said. “One has thought about this extensively. Send the Indian Navy on maneuvers off the Kenyan coast. Anchor off Mombasa — a fleet of ships. Remind them that India is a formidable country. Shell Mombasa.”
The high commissioner was frowning.
“Punish them,” Vidia said. “When Mombasa is in flames they will think twice about persecuting Indians here. Aren’t there fuel depots in Mombasa? Yes, they will leave the Indians alone for some little time.”