Afterwards for half an hour or so I was free simply to stroll. I liked walking beside the Arabian Sea, waiting for the sun to come up. Then the city and the ocean gleamed like gold. Alas for those morning walks, that sudden ocean dazzle, the moist salt breeze on my face, the flap of my shirt, that first cup of hot sweet tea from a stall, the taste of the first leaf-cigarette.
Observe the workings of fate. Th e respect and security I enjoyed were due to the importance of my employer. It was this very importance which now all at once destroyed the pattern of my life.
My employer was seconded4 by his firm to Government service and was
1. Servant. 3. I.e., a toilet. 2. Rainy season. 4. Temporarily transferred.
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ONE OUT OF MANY / 273 1
posted to Washington. I was happy for his sake but frightened for mine. He was to be away for some years and there was nobody in Bombay he could second me to. Soon, therefore, I was to be out of a job and out of the chambers. For many years I had considered my life as settled. I had served my apprenticeship, known my hard times. I didn't feel I could start again. I despaired. Was there a job for me in Bombay? I saw myself having to return to my village in the hills, to my wife and children there, not just for a holiday but for good. I saw myself again becoming a porter during the tourist season, racing after the buses as they arrived at the station and shouting with forty or fifty others for luggage. Indian luggage, not this lightweight American stuff! Heavy metal trunks!
I could have cried. It was no longer the sort of life for which I was fitted. I had grown soft in Bombay and I was no longer young. I had acquired possessions, I was used to the privacy of my cupboard. I had become a city man, used to certain comforts.
My employer said, 'Washington is not Bombay, Santosh. Washington is expensive. Even if I was able to raise your fare, you wouldn't be able to live over there in anything like your present style.'
But to be barefoot in the hills, after Bombay! Th e shock, the disgrace! I couldn't face my friends. I stopped sleeping on the pavement and spent as much of my free time as possible in my cupboard among my possessions, as among things which were soon to be taken from me.
My employer said, 'Santosh, my heart bleeds for you.'
I said, 'Sahib,5 if I look a little concerned it is only because I worry about you. You have always been fussy, and I don't see how you will manage in Washington.'
'It won't be easy. But it's the principle. Does the representative of a poor country like ours travel about with his cook? Will that create a good impression?'
'You will always do what is right, sahib.'
He went silent.
After some days he said, 'There's not only the expense, Santosh. There's
the question of foreign exchange. Ou r rupee6 isn't what it was.'
'I understand, sahib. Duty is duty.'
A fortnight later, when I had almost given up hope, he said, 'Santosh, I
have consulted Government. You will accompany me. Government has sanc
tioned, will arrange accommodation. But no expenses. You will get your pass
port and your P form. But I want you to think, Santosh. Washington is not
Bombay.'
1 went down to the pavement that night with my bedding.
I said, blowing down my shirt, 'Bombay gets hotter and hotter.'
'Do you know what you are doing?' the tailor's bearer said. 'Will the Amer
icans smoke with you? Will they sit and talk with you in the evenings? Will
they hold you by the hand and walk with you beside the ocean?'
It pleased me that he was jealous. My last days in Bombay were very happy.
I packed my employer's two suitcases and bundled up my own belongings in lengths of old cotton. At the airport they made a fuss about my bundles. They said they couldn't accept them as luggage for the hold because they didn't like the responsibility. So when the time came I had to climb up to the aircraft
5. Master (Urdu). 6. Indian currency, at this time worth ten cents.
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2732 / V. S. NAIPAUL
with all my bundles. The girl at the top, who was smiling at everybody else, stopped smiling when she saw me. She made me go right to the back of the plane, far from my employer. Most of the seats there were empty, though, and I was able to spread my bundles around and, well, it was comfortable.
It was bright and hot outside, cool inside. The plane started, rose up in the air, and Bombay and the ocean tilted this way and that. It was very nice. When we settled down I looked around for people like myself, but I could see no one among the Indians or the foreigners who looked like a domestic. Worse, they were all dressed as though they were going to a wedding and, brother, I soon saw it wasn't they who were conspicuous. I was in my ordinary Bombay clothes, the loose long-tailed shirt, the wide-waisted pants held up with a piece of string. Perfectly respectable domestic's wear, neither dirty nor clean, and in Bombay no one would have looked. But now on the plane I felt heads turning whenever I stood up.
I was anxious. I slipped off my shoes, tight even without the laces, and drew my feet up. That made me feel better. I made myself a little betel-nut7 mixture and that made me feel better still. Half the pleasure of betel,
