North of South by Shiva Naipaul

Author:Shiva Naipaul
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141961972
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2010-01-03T16:00:00+00:00

“I hear you have traveled abroad,” I say.

“Yes,” Hassan replies. “My girl friend took me with her.”

“Who was your girl friend?”

“She was a lady from Switzerland.”

“Did you ask her to take you abroad with her?”

“No. She invited me.”

“What did she say to you?”

“She said she liked me. She said she was lonely and wanted me to be her friend and companion. Her husband had just died, and she had a lot of money from him.”

“Did you think it strange?”

“No. Many mzungus offer to take beachboys like myself home with them. I have had many invitations.”

“How old was your girl friend?”

Hassan hesitates. The question embarrasses him.

“Was she much older than you?”

“Much.”

“How much?”

“She was fifty years old.”

“How did you meet her?”

“As I meet all the other mzungus. They come, they ask for a guide. If they pick me, I take them around and show them what there is to be seen. Most of them, though, do not only want a guide.”

“What do they want?”

“I am sure you can guess. Germans are the worst.”

“And you give them what they want?”

“Why not? They pay me well.”

“Men too?”

“Yes. Men too.” Hassan smiles. “It is all the same to me—men or women.”

“Tell me more about your girl friend from Switzerland.”

“She was not a human being. Very few mzungus are human beings.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because of the way they treat us.”

“How do they treat you?”

“Like animals. Most of them only want one thing from us.”

“Why, then, did you go abroad with your Swiss girl friend?”

“Because I wanted to see the world and she was giving me the opportunity. Because I didn’t think she would be like all the rest who wanted to take me with them.” Again Hassan hesitates. “She said she wanted to adopt me.”

“To adopt you!”

“That was what she said.”

“Did you see something of the world?”

“Yes. We spent many months traveling. She took me to Italy, to France and to Spain.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“To begin with. I liked seeing all those different places and learning how other people lived. But then it got harder and harder for me.”

“What went wrong?”

“She turned out to be of a very jealous disposition.”

“How did it show itself?”

“In many ways. She would get very angry if she saw me talking to another girl. She would even get angry if she saw me looking at another girl. She wanted to have me all to herself. Once—I believe it was in Paris—she threw a glass of wine over a waitress who smiled at me. In Spain it got very bad. She wouldn’t let me out of her sight; she wouldn’t let me leave the hotel room to go out for a walk. I was like a prisoner. Also…”

“Yes?”

“She became very demanding. Day and night she wanted me. An old woman like that—it was disgusting. She wasn’t human at all by then.”

“What did you do?”

“I was a prisoner. She had all the money—she would never let me have any in case I ran away from her. Finally, it got so bad I

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