“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:
Four Children Roasted in Hut Blaze
Mother, Helpless, Watches
“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:
Last week the Sentinel Bonny Baby Competition was held at Prince’s Building. And late last night the body of a dead male baby was found, neatly wrapped in a brown paper parcel, on the rubbish dump at Cocorite.
I have seen the baby and I am in a position to say that it did not win a prize in our Bonny Baby Competition.
Experts are not yet sure whether the baby was specially taken to the rubbish dump, or simply put out with the rubbish in the usual way.
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?”
“Sort?”
“Black, white, green?”
“White. Blueish when I saw it, really. I thought, though, that we didn’t mention race, except for Chinese.”
“Listen to the man. If I ran across a black baby on the rubbish dump at Banbury, do you think I would just say a baby?”
And the headlines the next day read:
White Baby Found on Rubbish Dump
In Brown Paper Parcel
Did Not Win Bonny Baby Competition
“Just one other thing,” Mr. Burnett said. “Lay off babies for a while.”
The job was urgent: the paper had to be printed every evening; by early morning it had to be in every part of the island. This was not the false urgency of writing signs for shops at Christmas or looking after crops. And even after a dozen years Mr. Biswas never lost the thrill, which he then felt for the first time, at seeing what he had written the day before appear in print, in the newspaper delivered free.
“You haven’t given me a real shock yet,” Mr. Burnett said.
And Mr. Biswas wanted to shock Mr. Burnett. It seemed unlikely that he would ever do so, for in his fourth week he was made shipping reporter, taking the place of a man who had been killed at the docks by a crane load of flour accidentally falling from a great height. It was the tourist season and the harbour was full of ships from America and Europe. Mr. Biswas went aboard German ships, was given excellent lighters, saw photographs of Adolf Hitler, and was bewildered by the Heil Hitler salutes.
Excitement!
The ships sailed away with their scorched tourists, distinguished by their tropical clothes, after only a few hours. But they had come from places with famous names. And in the Sentinel office news from those places spilled out continually on to spools of paper. Outside was the hot sun, the horse-dunged streets, the choked slums, the rooms where he lived with Ramchand and Dehuti; and, beyond that, the level acres of sugarcane, the sunken ricelands, the repetitive labour of his brothers, the short roads leading from known settlement to known settlement, the Tulsi establishment, the old men who gathered every evening in the arcade of Hanuman House and would travel no more. But within the walls of the office every part of the world was near.
He went aboard American ships on the South American tourist route, interviewed businessmen, had difficulty in understanding the American accent, saw the galleys and marvelled at the quantity and quality of the food thrown away. He copied down passenger lists, was invited by a ship’s cook to join a smuggling ring that dealt in camera flash-bulbs, declined and was unable to write the story because it would have incriminated his late predecessor.
He interviewed an English novelist, a man about his own age, but still young, and shining with success. Mr. Biswas was impressed. The novelist’s name was unknown to him and to the readers of the Sentinel, but Mr. Biswas had thought of all writers as dead and associated the production of books not only with distant lands, but with distant ages. He visualized headlines-FAMOUS NOVELIST SAYS PORT OF SPAIN WORLD’S THIRD WICKEDEST CITY-and fed the novelist with leading questions. But the novelist considered Mr. Biswas’s inquiries to have a sinister political motive, and made slow statements about the island’s famed beauty and his desire to see as much of it as possible.
I want to see that frighten anybody, Mr. Biswas t
hought.
(Years later Mr. Biswas came across the travel-book the novelist had written about the region. He saw himself described as an “incompetent, aggrieved and fanatical young reporter, who distastefully noted my guarded replies in a laborious longhand”.)
Then a ship called on the way to Brazil.
Within twenty-four hours Mr. Biswas was notorious, the Sentinel, reviled on every hand, momentarily increased its circulation, and Mr. Burnett was jubilant.
He said, “You have even chilled me.”
The story, the leading one on page three, read:
Daddy Comes Home in a Coffin
U.S. Explorer’s Last Journey
On Ice
by M. Biswas
Somewhere in America in a neat little red-roofed cottage four children ask their mother every day, “Mummy, when is Daddy coming home?”
Less than a year ago Daddy-George Elmer Edrnan, the celebrated traveller and explorer-left home to explore the Amazon.
Well, I have news for you, kiddies.
Daddy is on his way home.
Yesterday he passed through Trinidad. In a coffin.
Mr. Biswas was taken on the staff of the Sentinel at a salary of fifteen dollars a fortnight.
“The first thing you must do,” Mr. Burnett said, “is to get out and get yourself a suit. I can’t have my best reporter running about in those clothes.”
It was Ramchand who brought about the reconciliation between Mr. Biswas and the Tulsis; or rather, since the Tulsis had few thoughts on the subject, made it possible for Mr. Biswas to recover his family without indignity. Ramchand’s task was easy. Mr. Biswas’s name appeared almost every day in the Sentinel, so that it seemed he had suddenly become famous and rich. Mr. Biswas, believing himself that this was very nearly so, felt disposed to be charitable.
He was at that time touring the island as the Scarlet Pimpernel, in the hope of having people come up to him and say, “You are the Scarlet Pimpernel and I claim the Sentinel prize.” Every day his photograph appeared in the Sentinel together with his report on the previous day’s journey and his itinerary for the day. The photograph was half a column wide and there was no room for his ears; he was frowning, in an unsuccessful attempt to look menacing; his mouth was slightly open and he stared at the camera out of the corners of his eyes, which were shadowed by the low-pulled brim of his hat. As a circulation raiser the Scarlet Pimpernel was a failure. The photograph concealed too much; and he was too well dressed for ordinary people to accost him in a sentence of such length and correctness. The prizes went unclaimed for days and the Scarlet Pimpernel reports became increasingly fantastic. Mr. Biswas visited his brother Prasad and readers of the Sentinel learned next morning that a peasant in a remote village had rushed up to the Scarlet Pimpernel and said, “You are the Scarlet Pimpernel and I claim the Sentinel prize.” The peasant was then reported as saying that he read the Sentinel every day, since no other paper presented the news so fully, so amusingly, and with such balance.
A House for Mr. Biswas Page 33
