want to stay at a hotel. He seemed to take up a lot of room in the house, which in spite of all the little tricks of the architect was really very small. Roger, oppressed-looking, came up from the basement and did the introductions.
The editor remained sitting down. He said he saw Mahatma Gandhi in 1931 when the mahatma came to England for the Round Table Conference. He said nothing else about the mahatma (whom Willie and his mother and his mother's uncle despised), nothing about the mahatma's clothes or appearance; he spoke only of seeing him. When Marcus, the West Indian West African, came, the editor told in a similar way about seeing Paul Robeson.
Marcus looked confident and humorous and full of zest, and as soon as he began to talk Willie was captivated. Willie said, “I've been hearing about your plans for a white grandchild.” Marcus said, “It's not so extraordinary. It'll only be repeating something that happened on a large scale here a hundred and fifty years ago. In the eighteenth century there were about half a million black people in England. They've all vanished. They disappeared in the local population. They were bred out. The Negro gene is a recessive one. If this were more widely known there would be a good deal less racial feeling than there is. And a lot of that feeling is only skin deep, so to speak. I'll tell you this story. When I was in Africa I got to know a Frenchwoman from Alsace. She said after a time that she wanted me to meet her family. We went to Europe together and went to her home town. She introduced me to her school friends. They were conservative people and she was worried about what they would think. In the fortnight I was there I screwed them all. I even screwed two or three of the mothers. But my friend was still worried.”
The poet, when he came, received his homage from the editor, and then he and his wife sat sullenly together in one corner of the little room.
The Colombian woman was older than Willie expected. She might have been in her late forties. Her name was Serafina. She was slender, delicate, worried-looking. Her hair was black enough to suggest a dye, and her skin was very white and powdered up to the hair. When eventually she came and sat next to Willie she said, “Do you like ladies?” When Willie hesitated she said, “Not all men like ladies. I know. I was a virgin until I was twenty-six. My husband was a pederast. Colombia is full of little mestizo boys you can buy for a dollar.” Willie said, “What happened when you were twenty-six?” She said, “I am telling you my life story, but I am not in the confessional. Obviously something happened.” When Perdita and Roger began to pass the food around she said, “I love men. I think they have a cosmic strength.” Willie said, “You mean energy?” She said with irritation, “I mean cosmic strength.” Willie looked at Peter. He had prepared for the evening. He was wearing his expensive-looking white shirt with the starched, waxy collar high at the back; his semi-military blond-and-grey hair was flat at the sides, with just a touch of pomade to keep it in order; but his eyes were dim and fatigued and far away.
Roger, passing with food, said, “Why did you marry a pederast, Serafina?” She said, “We are rich and white.” Roger said, “That's hardly a reason.” She ignored that. She said, “We have been rich and white for generations. We speak classical Spanish. My father was this white and handsome man. You should have seen him. It is hard for us to get married in Colombia.” Willie said, “Aren't there other white people in Colombia?” Serafina said, “It is a common word for you here. It isn't for us. We are rich and white in Colombia and we speak this pure old Spanish, purer than the Spanish they speak in Spain. It is hard for us to get husbands. Many of our girls have married Europeans. My younger sister is married to an Argentine. When you have to look so hard and so far for a husband you can make mistakes.”
Richard the publisher called out from across the room, “I would say it's a mistake. Leaving Colombia and going to live on stolen Indian land.”