Jun 1, 2025 · 44 min · 19 segments
Edwidge Danticat joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Two Men Arrive in a Village,” by Zadie Smith, which was published in The New Yorker in 2016. Danticat, a MacArthur Fellow and a winner of…
Deborah TreismanHostNo entities detected.
And now here's Edwidge Danticat reading "Two Men Arrive in a Village" by Zadie Smith.
"Two Men Arrive in a Village." Sometimes on horseback, sometimes by foot, in a car or astride motorbikes, occasionally in a tank, having strayed far from the main phalanx, and every now and then from above, in helicopters.
But if we look at the largest possible picture, the longest view, we must admit that it is by foot that they have mostly come, and so in this sense at least our example is representative.
If two men arrive in a town, they will obviously arrive with more men, and far more in the way of supplies.
But when two men arrive in a village, their only tools may be their own dark or light hands, depending, though most often they will have in these hands a blade of some kind: a spear, a long sword, a dagger, a flick knife, a machete, or just a couple of rusty old razors.
What we can say with surety is that when these two men arrived in the village we spotted them at once, at the horizon-point where the long road that leads to the next village meets the setting sun.
Sunset has historically been a good time for the two men, wherever they have arrived, for at sunset we are all still together, the women only just back from the desert or the farms or the city offices or the icy mountains; the children are playing in dust near the chickens or in the communal garden outside the towering apartment block; the boys are lying in the shade of cashew trees seeking relief from the terrible heat, if they are not in a far colder country tagging the underside of a railway bridge; and most important perhaps, the teenage girls are out in front of their huts or houses, wearing their jeans or their saris or their veils or their Lycra miniskirts, cleaning or preparing food or grinding meat or texting on their phones, depending; and the able-bodied men are not yet back from wherever they have been.Night too has its advantages, and no one can deny that the two men have arrived in the middle of the night on horseback or barefoot or clinging to each other on a Suzuki scooter or riding atop a commandeered government jeep, therefore taking advantage of the element of surprise.
But darkness also has its disadvantages, and because the two men always arrive in villages and never in towns, if they come by night, they are almost always met with absolute darkness, no matter where in the world or their long history you may come across them.
And in such darkness, you cannot be exactly sure whose ankle it is you have hold of, a crone, a wife, or a girl in the first flush of youth.
It goes without saying that one of the men is tall, rather handsome in a vulgar way, a little dim and vicious, while the other man is shorter, weasel-faced, and sly.
The short, sly man leaned on the Coca-Cola hoarding that marked the entrance to the village and raised a hand in friendly greeting, while his companion took the small stick that he had up to that point been chewing, threw it on the ground, and smiled.
They could just as well have been leaning on a lamppost and chewing gum, and the smell of borscht could have been in the air.
We eat couscous and tilefish, and that was the smell in the air, tilefish, which even to this day we can hardly bear to smell because it reminds us of the day the two men arrived in the village.
The tall one raised his hand in friendly greeting, at which moment the cousin of the wife of the chief, who happened to be crossing the long road that leads to the next village, felt she had no choice but to stop opposite the tall man, his machete glorious in the sun, and raise her hand, though her whole arm shook as she did so.
The two men like to arrive in this manner with a more or less friendly greeting, and this might remind us of the fact that all humans, no matter what they do, like very much to be liked, even if it's for only an hour or so before they are feared or hated.
Or maybe it would be better to say that they like the fear that they inspire to be leavened with other things, such as desire or curiosity, even if, in the final analysis, fear is always the greater part of what they want.
And now here's Edwidge Danticat reading "Two Men Arrive in a Village" by Zadie Smith.
"Two Men Arrive in a Village." Sometimes on horseback, sometimes by foot, in a car or astride motorbikes, occasionally in a tank, having strayed far from the main phalanx, and every now and then from above, in helicopters.
But if we look at the largest possible picture, the longest view, we must admit that it is by foot that they have mostly come, and so in this sense at least our example is representative.
If two men arrive in a town, they will obviously arrive with more men, and far more in the way of supplies.
But when two men arrive in a village, their only tools may be their own dark or light hands, depending, though most often they will have in these hands a blade of some kind: a spear, a long sword, a dagger, a flick knife, a machete, or just a couple of rusty old razors.
What we can say with surety is that when these two men arrived in the village we spotted them at once, at the horizon-point where the long road that leads to the next village meets the setting sun.
Sunset has historically been a good time for the two men, wherever they have arrived, for at sunset we are all still together, the women only just back from the desert or the farms or the city offices or the icy mountains; the children are playing in dust near the chickens or in the communal garden outside the towering apartment block; the boys are lying in the shade of cashew trees seeking relief from the terrible heat, if they are not in a far colder country tagging the underside of a railway bridge; and most important perhaps, the teenage girls are out in front of their huts or houses, wearing their jeans or their saris or their veils or their Lycra miniskirts, cleaning or preparing food or grinding meat or texting on their phones, depending; and the able-bodied men are not yet back from wherever they have been.Night too has its advantages, and no one can deny that the two men have arrived in the middle of the night on horseback or barefoot or clinging to each other on a Suzuki scooter or riding atop a commandeered government jeep, therefore taking advantage of the element of surprise.
But darkness also has its disadvantages, and because the two men always arrive in villages and never in towns, if they come by night, they are almost always met with absolute darkness, no matter where in the world or their long history you may come across them.
And in such darkness, you cannot be exactly sure whose ankle it is you have hold of, a crone, a wife, or a girl in the first flush of youth.
It goes without saying that one of the men is tall, rather handsome in a vulgar way, a little dim and vicious, while the other man is shorter, weasel-faced, and sly.
The short, sly man leaned on the Coca-Cola hoarding that marked the entrance to the village and raised a hand in friendly greeting, while his companion took the small stick that he had up to that point been chewing, threw it on the ground, and smiled.
They could just as well have been leaning on a lamppost and chewing gum, and the smell of borscht could have been in the air.
We eat couscous and tilefish, and that was the smell in the air, tilefish, which even to this day we can hardly bear to smell because it reminds us of the day the two men arrived in the village.
The tall one raised his hand in friendly greeting, at which moment the cousin of the wife of the chief, who happened to be crossing the long road that leads to the next village, felt she had no choice but to stop opposite the tall man, his machete glorious in the sun, and raise her hand, though her whole arm shook as she did so.
The two men like to arrive in this manner with a more or less friendly greeting, and this might remind us of the fact that all humans, no matter what they do, like very much to be liked, even if it's for only an hour or so before they are feared or hated.
Or maybe it would be better to say that they like the fear that they inspire to be leavened with other things, such as desire or curiosity, even if, in the final analysis, fear is always the greater part of what they want.
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