A House for Mr. Biswas (42 page)

‘You want a certificate?’ The Negro’s lips snapped ferociously shut between words.

‘Certificate?’

‘Birth, marriage, death.’ The Negro adjusted his mutilated spectacles low over his nose and from a shirt pocket stuffed with paper and pencils he pulled out a sheet of paper and let his pencil circle impatiently above it.

‘I don’t want any certificate.’

The pencil stopped playing. ‘I can’t understand it.’ The Negro put away paper and pencil, sat down on a long, shiny bench, took off his spectacles, thrust the scratched, white end of the remaining arm into his mouth, and shook his legs. ‘Nobody wanting certificates these days. If you ask me, the trouble is that nowadays it just have too damn many searchers. When I sit down on this bench in 1919 I was the onliest searcher. Today every Tom, Dick or Harry running up and down this place’ – he jerked his chin towards the fountain –‘calling themself searchers.’ His lips snapped ferociously. ‘You sure you don’t want a certificate? You never know when these things could be useful. I get lots of certificates for Indians, you know. In fact, I prefer getting certificates for Indians. And I could get it for you this afternoon self. I know one of the clerks inside there.’ He waved to the office at his back and Mr Biswas saw a high, polished brown counter and pale green walls, lit, on this bright afternoon, by electric light.

‘Helluva job,’ the Negro said. ‘No Christmas and Easter for me, you know. At times like that nobody want any certificate at all. And every day, whether I search for ten or two or no certificates, that damn clerk inside there got to get his twenty cigarettes.’

Mr Biswas began to move away.

‘Still, if you know anybody who want a certificate – birth, death, marriage, marriage
in extremis –
send them to me. I come here every morning at eight o’clock sharp. The name is Pastor.’

Mr Biswas left Pastor, overwhelmed by the thought that in the office behind the green notice-board records were kept of every birth and death. And they had nearly missed him! He went down the steps into St Vincent Street and continued south towards the masts. Even Pastor, for all his grumbling, had found his place. What had driven him on a day in 1919 to take a seat outside the Registrar-General’s Department and wait for illiterates wanting certificates?

He had thought himself back into the mood he had known at Green Vale, when he couldn’t bear to look at the newspapers on the wall. And now he perceived that the starts of apprehension he felt at the sight of every person in the street did not come from fear at all; only from regret, envy, despair.

And, thinking of the newspapers on the barrackroom wall, he was confronted with the newspaper offices: the
Guardian,
the
Gazette,
the
Mirror,
the
Sentinel,
facing each other across the street. Machinery rattled like distant trains; through open windows came the warm smell of oil, ink and paper. The
Sentinel
was the paper for which Misir, the Aryan, was a cent-a-line country correspondent. All the stories Mr Biswas had got by heart from the newspapers in the barrackroom returned to him.
Amazing scenes were witnessed yesterday when … Passers-by stopped and stared yesterday when …

He turned down a lane, pushed open a door on the right, and then another. The noise of machinery was louder. An important, urgent noise, but it did not intimidate him. He said to the man behind the high caged desk, ‘I want to see the editor.’

Amazing scenes were witnessed in St Vincent Street yesterday when Mohun Biswas, 31 …

‘You got an appointment?’

 … assaulted a receptionist.

‘No,’ Mr Biswas said irritably.

In an interview with our reporter … In an interview with our special correspondent late last night Mr Biswas said …

‘The editor is busy. You better go and see Mr Woodward.’

‘You just tell the editor I come all the way from the country to see him.’

Amazing scenes were witnessed in St Vincent Street yesterday when Biswas, 31, unemployed, of no fixed address, assaulted a receptionist at the offices of the
TRINIDAD SENTINEL.
People ducked behind desks as Biswas, father of four, walked into the building with guns blazing, shot the editor and four reporters dead, and then set fire to the building. Passers-by stopped and stared as the flames rose high, fanned by a strong breeze. Several tons of paper were destroyed and the building itself gutted. In an exclusive interview with our special correspondent late last night Mr Biswas said …

‘This way,’ the receptionist said, climbing down from his desk, and led Mr Biswas into a large room which belied the urgent sounds of typewriters and machinery. Many typewriters were idle, many desks untenanted. A group of men in shirtsleeves stood around a green water-cooler in one corner; other groups of two or three were seated on desks; one man was spinning a swivel-chair with his foot. There was a row of frosted-glass cubicles along one wall, and the receptionist, going ahead of Mr Biswas, knocked on one of these, pushed the door open, allowed Mr Biswas to enter, and closed the door.

A small fat man, pink and oiled from the heat, half rose from behind a desk littered with paper. Slabs of lead, edged with type, served as paperweights. And Mr Biswas was thrilled to see the proof of an article, headlined and displayed. It was a glimpse of a secret; isolated on the large white sheet, the article had an eminence tomorrow’s readers would never see. Mr Biswas’s excitement increased. And he liked the man he saw before him.

‘And what is your story?’ the editor asked, sitting down.

‘I don’t have a story. I want a job.’

Mr Biswas saw almost with delight that he had embarrassed the editor; and he pitied him for not having the decision to throw him out. The editor went pinker and looked down at the proof. He was unhappy in the heat and seemed to be melting. His cheeks flowed into his neck; his neck bulged over his collar; his round shoulders drooped; his belly hung over his waistband; and he was damp all over. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘Have you worked on a paper before?’

Mr Biswas thought about the articles he had promised to write, but hadn’t, for Misir’s paper, which had never appeared. ‘Once or twice,’ he said.

The editor looked at the door, as though for help. ‘Do you mean once? Or do you mean twice?’

‘I have read a lot.’ Mr Biswas said, getting out of dangerous ground.

The editor played with a slab of lead.

‘Hall Caine, Marie Corelli, Jacob Boehme, Mark Twain. Hall Caine, Mark Twain,’ Mr Biswas repeated. ‘Samuel Smiles.’

The editor looked up.

‘Marcus Aurelius.’

The editor smiled.

‘Epictetus.’

The editor continued to smile, and Mr Biswas smiled back, to let the editor know that he knew he was sounding absurd.

‘You read those people just for pleasure, eh?’

Mr Biswas recognized the cruel intent of the question, but he didn’t mind. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Just for the encouragement.’ All his excitement died.

There was a pause. The editor looked at the proof. Through the frosted glass Mr Biswas saw figures passing in the newsroom. He became aware of the noise again: the traffic in the street, the regular rattle of machinery, the intermittent chatter of typewriters, occasional laughter.

‘How old are you?’

‘Thirty-one.’

‘You have come from the country, you are thirty-one, you have never written, and you want to be a reporter. What do you do?’

Mr Biswas thought of estate-driver, exalted it to overseer, rejected it, rejected shopkeeper, rejected unemployed. He said, ‘Sign-painter.’

The editor rose. ‘I have just the job for you.’

He led Mr Biswas out of the office, through the newsroom (the group around the water-cooler had broken up), past a machine unrolling sheets of typewritten paper, into a partially
dismantled room where carpenters were at work, through more rooms, and then into a yard. Down the lane at one end Mr Biswas could see the street he had left a few minutes before.

The editor walked about the yard, pointing. ‘Here and here,’ he said. ‘And here.’

Mr Biswas was given paint and a brush, and he spent the rest of the afternoon writing signs: No Admittance to Wheeled Vehicles, No Entry, Watch out for Vans, No Hands Wanted.

Around him machinery clattered and hummed; the carpenters beat rhythms on the nails as they drove them in.

Amazing scenes were witnessed yesterday when …

‘Tcha!’ he exclaimed angrily.

Amazing scenes were witnessed yesterday when Mohun Biswas, 31, a sign-painter, set to work on the offices of the
TRINIDAD SENTINEL.
Passers-by stopped and stared as Biswas, father of four, covered the walls with obscene phrases. Women hid their faces in their hands, screamed and fainted. A traffic jam was created in St Vincent Street and police, under Superintendent Grieves, were called in to restore order. Interviewed by our special correspondent late last night, Biswas said …

‘Didn’t even know who Marcus Aurelius was, the crab-catching son of a bitch.’

 … interviewed late last night, Biswas … Mr Biswas said, ‘The ordinary man cannot be expected to know the meaning of “No Admittance”.’

‘What, still here?’

It was the editor. He was less pink, less oiled, and his clothes were dry. He was smoking a short fat cigar; it repeated and emphasized his shape.

The yard was in shadow; the light was going. Machinery clattered more assertively: a series of separate noises; the carpenters’ rhythms had ceased. In the street traffic had subsided, footsteps resounded; the passing of a motor, the trilling of a bicycle bell could be heard from afar.

‘But that is good,’ the editor said. ‘Very good indeed.’

You sound surprised, you little chunk of lard. ‘I got the letters from a magazine.’ You think you are the only one laughing, eh?

‘I could eat the Gill Sans R,’ the editor said. ‘You know, I don’t really see why you should want to give up your job.’

‘Not enough money.’

‘Not much in this either.’

Mr Biswas pointed to a sign. ‘No wonder you are doing your best to keep people out.’

‘Oh. No Hands Wanted.’

‘A nice little sign,’ Mr Biswas said.

The editor smiled and then was convulsed with laughter.

And Mr Biswas, the clown again, laughed too.

‘That was for carpenters and labourers,’ the editor said. ‘Come tomorrow, if you are serious. We’ll give you a month’s trial. But no pay.’

A chance encounter had led him to sign-writing. Sign-writing had taken him to Hanuman House and the Tulsis. Sign-writing found him a place on the
Sentinel.
And neither for the Tulsi Store signs nor for those at the
Sentinel
was he paid.

He worked with enthusiasm. His reading had given him an extravagant vocabulary but Mr Burnett, the editor, was patient. He gave Mr Biswas copies of London papers, and Mr Biswas studied their style until he could turn out presentable imitations. It was not long before he developed a feeling for the shape and scandalizing qualities of every story. To this he added something of his own. And it was part of his sudden good fortune that he was working for the
Sentinel
and not for the
Guardian
or the
Gazette.
For the facetiousness that came to him as soon as he put pen to paper, and the fantasy he had hitherto dissipated in quarrels with Shama and in invective against the Tulsis, were just the things Mr Burnett wanted.

‘Let them get their news from the other papers,’ he said. ‘That is exactly what they are doing at the moment anyway. The only way we can get readers is by shocking them. Get them angry. Frighten them. You just give me one good fright, and the job is yours.’

Next day Mr Biswas turned in a story.

Mr Burnett said, ‘You made this one up?’

Mr Biswas nodded.

‘Pity.’

The story was headlined:

‘I liked the last paragraph,’ Mr Burnett said.

This read: ‘Sightseers are pouring into the stricken village, and we do not feel we are in a position to divulge its name as yet. “In times like this,” an old man told me last night, “we want to be left alone.” ’

Abandoning fiction, Mr Biswas persevered. And Mr Burnett continued to give advice.

‘I think you’d better go a little easy on the amazing scenes being witnessed. And how about turning your passers-by into ordinary people every now and then? “Considerably” is a big word meaning “very”, which is a pointless word any way. And look. “Several” has seven letters. “Many” has only four and oddly enough has exactly the same meaning. I liked your piece on the Bonny Baby Competition. You made me laugh. But you haven’t frightened me yet.’

‘Anything funny happen at the Mad House?’ Mr Biswas asked Ramchand that evening.

Ramchand looked annoyed.

And Mr Biswas gave up the idea of an exposure piece on the Mad House.

On his way to the
Sentinel
next morning he called at a police station. From there he went to the mortuary, then to the City Council’s stable-yard. When he got to the
Sentinel he
sat down at a free desk – no desk was yet his – and wrote in pencil:

Hezekiah James, 43, unemployed, who discovered the dead baby, told me …

‘Good, good,’ Mr Burnett said. ‘But heavy. Heavy. Why not “I am able” instead of “I am in a position”?’

‘I got that from the
Daily Express.’

‘All right. Let it pass. But promise me that for a whole week you won’t be in a position to do or say anything. It’s going to be hard. But try. What sort of baby?’