Fireflies by Shiva Naipaul

Author:Shiva Naipaul [Naipaul, Shiva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141969329
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2012-04-17T16:00:00+00:00

Mr Khoja handled all the arrangements with a business-like efficiency. At six o’clock, what was called the ‘ice-box’, a crude affair, deep-sided and stained a dark, dull brown, arrived from the funeral home. It was brought into the house by two men, dressed in black suits and wearing hats, the motto of their firm (Courtesy and a Quiet Consideration, But a Part of Our Service) blazoned across their shirt-pockets. They stood mute and inseparable, enveloped in a funeral discretion born of many years’ service, while Mr Khoja and Mrs Lutchman discussed what would be the best place for ‘the body’. It was finally decided that it should be placed along the wall occupied by the cabinet. Mrs Lutchman removed all her most precious pieces of tableware and carried them upstairs to the bedroom. When this had been done, Mr Khoja signalled to the two men, who jumped forward and with an exaggerated delicacy carried the cabinet into the kitchen. The ice-box was set on trestles and moved into position. Then the men went upstairs with Mr Khoja and Mrs Lutchman to ‘prepare the body’.

Mr Lutchman was dressed not in his best clothes (that would come later), but in a pair of blue cotton pyjamas. His face was washed and coated with a dark powder to relieve the unnatural pallor and his hair was neatly parted and combed. This done, ‘the body’ was brought downstairs to the sitting-room and laid in the ice-box. To Mr Khoja’s disgust, it leaked, and a basin was put under it to catch the drips of water coming from the melting ice. ‘I ask them to make sure it was a good box,’ he fumed. ‘If they not careful, next time I’ll go to Mootoo Brothers. They don’t seem to realize that I’m one of their best customers. You just can’t expect people to do anything right these days.’

The mourners began to arrive after dinner. As they came in, they all went one by one up to the coffin and studied, more with curiosity than with sympathy or sorrow, the drawn, tight face, frozen under the circle of glass. Wilkie, when he entered the sitting-room, crossed himself and went into the kitchen to find Mrs Lutchman. She was making coffee. Wilkie was dressed more simply than he had been on Christmas Eve. Gone were the too tight trousers, the ready smile and desperate ebullience of that evening. He was almost dignified.

‘I heard it on the radio,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t believe my ears when I hear it. Is a shocking thing.’ Mrs Lutchman handed him a cup of coffee. ‘I never expect something like that would happen. True, these last few weeks he was always saying how tired he was, but I never thought it was anything serious.’

Mrs Lutchman arranged the cups of coffee on a tray. ‘Death can take us any time it want to, Mr Wilkinson. Is nothing we can do about that. As the saying goes, time and tide don’t wait for no man.

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