Short story

The Fortune-teller

Shiva Naipaul Site paused at the familiar cave-like 1 h entrance. She had always hated coming I sitire. It was a punishment, a humiliation, e Periodically inflicted on herself and it irebu 1 p, ed her with a brooding self-disgust. Each visit was a defeat for her and a victory vo r Madame; and, after each, she would h°w,never to return. But while she may 'lye given up counting those broken vows, the k uad not given up making them. Even at that moment, standing there outside the ete-like entrance, being jostled by the b. Wds pushing past her on the narrow 'lvernent, she had not conceded defeat. 4,eould still turn her face away from that 6,,'neSS, still triumph over the impulse that '44 brought her there. She remained where the „,

11"as, relishing and investigating her ),,,,erri of will. The brick tunnel facing her ' Piled with sacks of charcoal — a char-

% as merchant used it his store-room. It raucous of the open gutter, coated with tAttleous slime, running down its middle. It berended murkily for about twenty yards ya„,ere opening out into a light-filled court- td criss-crossed with lines of dripping %flin8.

dominated was in that section of the town r,2"thated by the cavernous halls of the

4illt iral Market, by the warehouses of baleilesale merchants and by crumbling, 4flied tenements harbouring a vagrant L disreputable population. The surroun- q) network of streets and lanes was ptat.,etuallY jammed with lorries, hand- ed carts and bicycles. A permanent IDZIlna of putrefaction hung over the oruitY. The blending odours of rank fish, 40tting vegetables and fruit, of blood, of 4:111Posing offal, of sweat, fused into a reMis fog. This miasma not only ir- o the'ated the air but seemed to ooze out of 4h.4sPhalt and brick. One had to walk with oheL a permanent slick lubricated the kIte7ents. In the stagnant heat of mid- of 1.,41°011, the dirt, the stench, the clamour e„L.torns and bells and voices, became hay arable. Madame could, of course, IvIve. chosen a more wholesome spot in 41.1eh to live and carry on her trade. She ilk linlY did not lack the means to do so: all loteessful practitioners of her art made a Nti3f money. Iv aflame might even be reckoned a kit a sly I hY woman. But, pleading poverty with the eer, she refused to move; adding that leks,Was Perfectly comfortable where she tioh.. She steadfastly turned down invita- Nen' to visit her clients in their homes. Not tout inducement inducement of a handsome bonus terie` Persuade her to do that. It had to be 1114. 9cled that Madame derived a lila 'eous satisfaction, worth more than

neY, from dragging her respectable clientele to this pestilential quarter of the town.

Hesitating outside the entrance, a fresh surge of detestation and resentment welled up in her. Long ago she had sensed a sort of seething rancour in Madame, verging on hatred. 'You people,' Madame had once observed, 'come here and use me like a public convenience.' After which statement she had laughed. This memory made her wince. She thought also of the amount of money she had expended on the devilish woman. Over the years she must have squandered a small fortune. Fortunately, her husband was not the kind of man to in- quire into the outlets of her expenditure. She could do exactly as she pleased with the generous amount he gave her every month. Not once had he called her to account. Perhaps he should have done. It might have helped in more ways than he could have im- agined. But that was not his way. Kind, trusting, considerate man! What would he say if he could see her now, his cherished one, his Best Beloved, lurking outside this tunnel? There arose before her those big, dark, compassionate eyes of his. Again she winced. Her skin prickled and itched in the mid-afternoon heat.

It was not a fascination with the occult as such which led her to that tunnel; it was not a simple desire to know what was going to happen to her in the next month or two that brought her there — just as it is not always a simple desire for physical gratification that brings a man to a harlot's door. She came because it was only here, in the presence of this sneering, strangely hostile woman, into whose waiting palms she emp- tied her purse... it was only here that she was able, after a fashion, to expose and acknowledge herself to herself: a volup- tuous self-surrender. Her need to do so was not entirely dissimilar in its imperative nature from the overpowering urge to sex- ual fulfilment. How could she have begun to explain this malign impulsion to her hus- band (who called himself a rationalist) or to those who considered themselves her friends? It was not possible for her to reveal an appetite so elemental and so squalid. They would never overstep certain limits. Their instinct of self-preservation ran true and ran deep. It was precisely this instinct that wavered in her, fomenting a black ex- hilaration, a black yearning. It might have been no good to her if Madame had con- sented to leave her lair and see her in her own house. Maybe she needed to make the journey to this quarter of the town, to in- hale its suppurating odours. Lurking out- side the entrance to the tunnel, unable to turn away, she was revolted by her condi- tion.

More than two months had passed since she had last stood there. It was the longest interval she had managed to sustain between visits. To that extent, she could congratulate herself. On leaving the house she had not conceded it was here she intend-

ed to come. Just as, even while standing outside the entrance, she had not conceded that she was necessarily going to walk in there and climb the stairs to the top of the tenement. She stood there, debating with herself, testing her freedom and power of will.

From a little blue-painted bar on the op- posite side of the narrow street poured the pounding rhythms of a juke-box. Its ex- terior was adorned with crude but colourful renderings of jiving blacks. However, the centrepiece, occupying almost a whole wall, portrayed an imagined African landscape. It showed an extensive grassland, bordered by hills, watered by many rivers, dotted with lions, giraffes and hippopotamuses. Flocks of white birds populated the blue sky. These decorations were a recent refine- ment. They had not been there on her previous visit to Madame. Within the bar, she saw a large framed photograph of the President, wearing a tunic buttoned up to the neck. His face was smooth as lava and his sleepy eyes exuded a hibernatory poten- cy of desire. Above it was affixed a printed exhortation: End Oppression And Ex- ploitation Now! One Nation! One Party! One Redeemer!

She became aware that she was being scrutinised. A young black, bearded, hair plaited, a knitted cap clamped like a bowl on his head, was staring at her from the doorway of the bar. She realised, with sud- den alarm, how conspicuous she must be, loitering there in her sleeveless, salmon- coloured dress, wearing dark glasses that hid nearly half of her face, a tasselled leather handbag hanging over one shoulder, her open-work shoes displaying shining, red-painted toenails. She looked away from the hostile face in the doorway. A man car- rying a bulky load on his back bumped into her. The rancid odour of his sweat enveloped her. She swayed away from him, in the process almost losing her balance on the slippery pavement.

'Is something you looking for, Miss? Or somebody?'

Startled, she glanced down at the ques-

tioner, a wrinkled crone crouched a few feet away from her, selling little heaps of sun- baked fruit arranged on a tray. The creature regarded her dispassionately.

Abruptly, as if propelled by some outside force, she set off down the tunnel, making her way between the sacks of charcoal. She came to the wooden stairs. Again she hesitated. A woman, pegging out lines of dripping washing in the courtyard, paused to look at her. Some naked children, laughing and shouting, were splashing themselves at a stand-pipe. She started the ascent, her eyes fixed straight ahead of her. The stairway was poorly lit and encrusted with dirt. A faint smell of urine mingled with the stagnant odours of stale cooking. On the landings, doors leading into lightless warrens were thrown wide open. From within old women and children stared at her. She climbed swiftly to the top of the building.

She reached the familiar, green-painted door with its brass knocker shaped like a lion's paw. She stopped to catch her breath. Daylight seeped through a cracked window coated with grime. She looked down into the courtyard at the criss-crossing lines of washing. The children at the stand-pipe were still laughing and shouting, their bodies glistening in the sunlight. She lifted the lion's paw. Inside she could hear coughing, groans, reluctant stirrings — the unmistakable sounds of Miss Bertha. The door opened a crack, no more than its security chains would allow. Miss Bertha's rheumy eyes stared at her. A flannel cloth was wrapped around her head. She exuded

medicinal vapours, compounded in the main of bay-rum and camphor. Miss Ber- tha's collapsed, toothless mouth worked ceaselessly, futilely, as she scanned the visitor.

Images of murderous assault nearly always presented themselves when she came here. She would think of Dostoievsky's Raskolnikov armed with his axe. How easy it would be to come in here one day with a machete and slaughter these two old women

The Spectator IS December 1982 whose lives could hardly have mattered, to anyone except themselves. She would agine herself carrying out the deed — st!",h. denly revealing the machete, raising it a cry of triumph, bringing it down on we'i soft skulls; she imagined the expressions helpless terror and disbelief that would On" tort their faces. Indeed, it was a cause for surprise that they had survived all then,e,. years without coming to any harm in the': little eyrie. Madame must have an indeeer: fortune stashed under her mattress. She v17 an ideal candidate for Raskolnikovia° tack. But this, alas, was not St Petersburge' Madame might very well be murdered ono of these days, but there would he kii,r Raskolnikovs involved. Her death, whet"' violent or peaceful, would have no red our ing qualities; no metaphysical glaIntnled Like everything else in this sun-stunned vacuum, it would have no meaning. Miss Bertha, mouth ceaselessly work alill; scanned her face. At length,, reOgit'file dawned. After a spasm of fumbling' The succeeded in replacing the chains. A room was flooded with dusty sunshine._, strip of red carpet, mottled with threadba'; patches, covered the floor. To the left WOS wooden partition rising to the eenFa. Behind that was the cubby-hole ° `studio' where Madame received her eliet/a. Her insinuating buzz penetrated the Pn'ye. tion. To the right was a curtained ale°,A The room was crowded with furniture 0d bric-a-brac. A sofa of cracked leather arrang ed two matching armchairs were a around a low, carved table; there was A. grandfather clock with only an hour Mileure' there were chests of drawers; there vilvet; footstools upholstered in faded ve,ing- there was a Bible lying open on a reaubips stand. Paintings of flowers and bra decorated the walls. Ornaments of "' and glass and porcelain were hanh°" arranged on sagging shelves. Vases, an namented with Chinese dragonfish 000 the floor. Some of these were ed with sbtoemuqsuceotsatoefdpwaiptehr dfluoswt.ers, their Petals a

Catching a spectral glimpse of herself;1

lo 1 gilt-framed mirror, she quickly

away. Miss Bertha, exhaling camPhnr ;1; bay-rum, spoke behind her.

'Is Sister expecting you?' she as-1'611,a- 'Noo.m in

'No...' behind hstteneedpatortitthioenrrmur

ing from 'You didn't make an appointment tolY Appointment! Madame was cat, just tcuorm, nNei ond.g. di dt nh world.ma make e an a ppohrnY °e d e ent.

she's too busy to see me, I'll go.' a half-hearted move towards the dcTurffied Miss Bertha stayed her. She sn:.,oer- across to the partition and knockemdigsslera 1Y. Madame growled in response. tha opened the door and poked her. 11.-aeacl. twoiwtharind.sCtlhoesisnogfath.e door, she shuffled back within.

will see you,' she whispered

you going to have to wait.' COul° She was torn, Even now sr by escape. But she let herself be le bebertha across to the curtained alcove. Miss pushed her in and drew the curtain. This alcove was one of Madame's few con- cessions to the sensibilities of her clients — v1.110, on the whole, did not much like run- ning into each other. If, for instance, they encountered each other on the stairs, faces would be averted as they sidled past. illhadarne and Miss Bertha did what was in r,"1.,e11- Power to isolate their visitors. Ac- sluents, though, did happen. To date, nevertheless, her luck had held.

The alcove was furnished in the style of ,a down-at-heel doctor's or dentist "alting-room. Two or three chairs were grouped about a round, glass-topped table Piled with out-of-date English and American 141kagazines. Too often had she lurked in wr"ere, invisible behind its floral curtain, ,,.alting to be summoned to Madame's Wesence. Now she went across to the win- hbw. The children had finished their v,„at_,Inng and disappeared from the court- '0'0. So had the washerwoman. She looked heacross the jumble of rooftops, through e brassy glare of the afternoon, at the grey harbour which rippled with an oily, vise,0u

s swell.

L '311e had spent all her life in this town it 1 iLbking out at its derelict perspectives, t 4eeined to her that she was looking out on amiriore than an extension of herself. She into the city were one. When she ventured 411° it, it was like venturing into an in- ivh-enahle part of herself. What she saw, N'at she heard, what she felt, held no :velations for her. All its perspectives were

re

she pathways through her brain. h e knew its rank odours when, after a sie..,44 shower of rain, the glistening streets hr4nUed under the raw blast of the sun dae,king through the clouds. She knew the ir';'s ----, like today — when the humid air w'hill, bled and shimmered and the sky was 40,,ite and dead at three o'clock in the after- its'n. She knew its brief, purple dusks and kii thick, starry darknesses. She felt she everY ew the shape of every leaf, the texture of br stone, the rustle of every warm to,e,e.Zie• Each had impressed on her a to-i'l'Ised trace. She knew the faces and giriees of the government clerks, the shop Of sthe secretaries, the schoolteachers, all fae;n0rn, at bottom, seemed to have one it- and speak with one voice. (14„' was summed up for her by those Sun- bed, afternoons when you lay in a darkened the r°°111 with nothing to do, drowned in 110 afternoon silence, mesmerised by the b: rotations of the ceiling fan, the mind euir3" i ing with vacancy, stunned by its 4lth eruPtiness. There came to her an on ()st forgotten image of herself sprawled i in'nbed, watching with torpid fascination she -kscluito that had settled on her wrist. tre,;',_ad watched it feed on her, letting it knloated with her blood; until, sated, it test "coated lethargically away and come to 111i°n the wall behind her. freh,e vacancy ... you could not get away tu "tiht for long. Whichever way you turn- ' "ere it was, lying in wait for you. There

was a time when she had yearned to separate herself from it; when she had yearned to sail in a big, white ship out of that harbour upon whose oily swell she now gazed, to escape forever the sun-stunned vacuum and live another kind of life somewhere else. Only misery and death had been exhaled in this vacuum imprisoned

between ocean and jungle — the primeval miseries of the small bands of wandering aborigines, worshipping fierce gods, living on roots and berries and small wild animals, at intervals hunting each other's heads; the miseries of the second-rate conquistadors who had come looking for gold and, find- ing none, had gone mad with disappoint- ment and blood lust; the miseries of the slaves and their-terrible revolts; the miseries of a fabricated statehood. The history of this patch of earth was written in blood. Pain was the only thing that had ever flourished on its red soil. Only in pain had they been self-sufficient. But, gradually, recognising the impossibility of escape, the yearning had died. Somehow, it had oozed away until she could say, not without truth, that she no longer cared what happened to her. Yet, to say it had oozed away was not quite correct. It would be more accurate to say that she had let it go . . let go of it ... and allowed the vision of redemption those fleeting intimations of richness, of possibility, which sometimes welled up in her — to recede from her and eventually die. Was she to blame for what had happen- ed to her? She did not think so. She had had no alternative. There had never been much chance of her escaping; of her sailing away in a big, white ship. For she had come

to understand that this place, however much it appalled her, ran in her blood. There was no escaping the hurt and deform- ity it had inflicted on her. Its sterility and pain were part of her sterility and pain. She could not be made new and uncon- taminated. She would always carry its hurt, its presence, within her.

Miss Bertha had drifted off to sleep again and was snoring. Now and again she emitted startled grunts and seemed to be on the verge of choking to death. At other times she would break into an incoherent babble. Then she would fall quiet and the cycle would start all over again. She picked up one of the magazines piled on the glass table. The pages were tacky and fraying at the edges. She paused at an advertisement which showd a group of elegantly dressed men and women sitting at a candle-lit table. To judge from the picturesque disorder of knives and forks, crumpled napkins, scat- tered crumbs, bits of cheese and half-empty bottles of wine, they had just finished eating. A bowl-shaped lampshade hung low over the centre of the table. Cigarette smoke coiled up towards it. There was laughter on every face. Someone had evidently made a witty remark. Beyond the table was a marble fireplace heaped with glowing coal. Above it hung a mirror reproducing the happy scene.

Next door Miss Bertha wheezed and coughed and babbled. She idly turned the pages, pausing at another of the adver- tisements. This one showed a man on a white horse riding through a misty, sylvan landscape. A half-clad woman, freshly risen out of the foam of her luxurious ablutions, watched him dreamily from a window.

Next door Miss Bertha wheezed and coughed and dreamed of demons.

Putting aside the magazine, she listened to Madame's honeyed murmurings leaking through the partition. She was herself close to dozing off, beginning to dream of her own demons, when she was suddenly rous- ed by the irruption of Madame and her client into the sitting-room.

'If you do as I tell you,' Madame was saying, 'everything will turn out to your ad- vantage. Have no fear.'

The man mumbled self-effacingly. No doubt he was aware of her presence behind the curtain. She suspected Madame of relishing these situations.

'Come back and see me in a month's time.' Madame spoke like a doctor now. 'Let me know how you've progressed.'

The man promised that he would; the door opened and closed. His footfalls faded rapidly down the stairs. Madame returned to her studio. She was not called im- mediately because Madame liked to rest a little between her consultations. She ex- perienced the tingle of anticipation that nearly always accompanied these moments. The effect produced was like that induced by a quick intake of alcohol. She sur- rendered to the illicit warmth of the sensa- tion. After a few minutes Miss Bertha parted the screen and announced that Sister was ready to receive her.

Madame was sitting at a table placed in the centre of the room. Her head was thrown back and her eyes were closed. Her stubby fingers were splayed out on the edge of the table. Without opening her eyes Madame indicated by a languid, downward sweep of her plump arm that she should take a seat opposite her. Miss Bertha drew out the chair. She sat down. Miss Bertha retreated, glancing with nervous deferrence at her sister as she did so.

The studio was dark and airless. Madame did not stir. The noises of the city were muted by the closed windows. Along one wall was a narrow bed where Madame, when she was especially exhausted, was sometimes to be found lying with a damp towel covering her face. On the other side of the room was a glass-doored cabinet in which she stored the tools of her trade manuals on palmistry, astrological charts, a crystal ball. To divert herself, she studied Madame's double chin, her thick, short neck, the smooth mounds of her cheeks which shone as if they had been dipped in oil, the flattened, gaping triangles of her nostrils.

Presently, Madame opened her eyes and lowered her head. She blinked rapidly.

'Well, my dear,' she murmured, her shin- ing cheeks swelling into a smile, 'how can I help you? Tell me.' © Shiva Naipaul 1982