The Chip-Chip Gatherers by Shiva Naipaul

Author:Shiva Naipaul [Naipaul, Shiva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141969312
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2012-04-18T04:00:00+00:00

2

Sita rocked on the hammock watching the cars go by on the road. A book was open on her lap and her legs dangled over the sides. Her shoes scraped the pounded earth floor. The air was warm and aromatic with the smell of dust and dry grass. Phulo sat on the steps of her hut combing through the hair of one of her children and searching for lice. The heat of early afternoon had smothered activity and when there was a lull in the traffic the only sounds would come from the clucking hens and the monotonous whirr of Sharma’s sewing-machine. Basdai was asleep. Beyond the dilapidated fringe of houses hugging the curves of the main road were the green and dismal rectangles of sugarcane. Staring at that burning, offensive green, Sita’s eyes acquired a remoteness of depth and a brooding melancholy. She swayed back and forth on the hammock.

A taxi stopped with a screech of brakes. Sita gazed at it idly but her expression changed to one of interest when she saw her mother step out and come quickly down the path. Sita got up from the hammock. Sushila smiled broadly at her as she entered the compound.

‘Go and pack your clothes, Sita.’

‘Why?’ Sita asked. ‘Where we going?’ As if she did not know too well.

Phulo looked up.

‘I come to take you away. Today self you going from here.’

Phulo thrust her child to one side. ‘Well, well,’ she said. ‘It didn’t take you long to bamboozle him.’

Sushila glanced at her, not deigning to answer. ‘Go on, Sita. Go and pack your clothes. We don’t have time to waste.’

‘Ma!’ Phulo yelled. ‘Wake up! Come and hear the big news! Wake up!’

Sharma’s machine stopped its whirring. ‘What big news?’ She poked her good-natured face through the window.

‘Sushila taking Sita to live with she.’

Basdai groaned inside the hut. ‘What’s all that racket out there? I trying to get some rest.’

‘Big news,’ Phulo yelled hoarsely. ‘Sushila come to take Sita with she.’

The children, galvanized into life, poured into the compound and joined in the chant. ‘Sushila come to take Sita with she … Sushila come to take Sita with she …’

Basdai, rubbing her eyes, came outside. ‘Eh? What’s that you telling me?’ She was bemused.

‘I say Sushila come to take Sita with she,’ Phulo yelled. ‘At last.’

‘For truth?’ Basdai asked, comprehension slowly dawning. ‘For truth?’

Sushila nodded. ‘Today self.’

‘It didn’t take she long to bamboozle him,’ Phulo said.

‘And not only that,’ Sushila said. She surveyed them proudly. ‘He going to pay for she education too.’

Sita stared at her mother.

‘You joking with me,’ Basdai murmured.

Sushila shook her head. ‘He going to pay for she education and, what is more, he going to send she to a Port-of-Spain school.’

‘Well I never!’ Basdai exclaimed. ‘Even I never thought …’ She was too overcome to go on.

Phulo’s mouth hung open. Sita continued to stare at her mother with a robot-like rigidity.

Basdai conquered her astonishment. She cackled joyously. ‘I had tell you it would work out but you didn’t believe me.

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