The Painter of Signs

by R. K. Narayan

  He wished he could question her about herself, discreetly, interspersed with technical points relating to the sign-board. Luckily, when Veerappa left them for a moment in order to blow his nose and inhale a pinch of snufl’, Raman managed to squeeze in a question as to where she lived.

  ‘Not far from here, an outhouse in the Third Cross, Number Seven, to be entered by the side gate opening on the Fourth Cross, so that one need not go through the main gate.’ When Veerappa came back giving some explanation as to why he had gone out, Raman looked satisfied, as if he had arrived at a secret understanding with Daisy, who, he imagined, looked significantly in his direction as if to confirm their sudden intimacy.

  That had happened a couple of hours ago. Now he wished he could go back to her and clear one or two doubts occurring to him suddenly. But having been in her office all evening, it might look odd to go after her again. He was not sure if she would open the door for him - or whether she might choose to clear his doubts through the window-bars. He was now determined to give her the best possible service and please her; he lovingly selected the planks for her; he’d get the new sepia paint, which would give the work a touch of class. He felt again a surging impulse to cycle up and visit her, but held himself back. Must not make a fool of myself, he thought, a fellow whose outlook is to place sex in its place. To pursue a female after seeing only the upper half, above the desk - she might be one-legged, after all. But this is not sex which is driving me, but a normal curiosity about another person, that’s all.

  Next evening, after arriving at Number Seven by the side gate on Fourth Cross, he spent a long moment with his nose close to the door, unable to decide whether to knock or turn round and leave quietly. If the door suddenly opened and he were to be seen receding down the steps, she might consider him a crook, or if, while he hesitated, the door opened without his knocking, he might find himself face to face, within an inch of her, and that would be even more awkward. He decided to knock, and the knocking had to be not with his palms as if battering the door, like a boor, but with the knuckles of his right forefinger, properly crooked, a couple of taps, a pause, and tap, and if no response, he should retreat softly in a dignified manner. A soft knock, a gentle knock could convey the quality of the visitor; it should be like a musical note (as much as could be extracted from a wooden panel), conveying noble intentions. His mind sizzling with these plans and possibilities he knocked on the door, with measured distance between his finger and the door, as if executing some precision task. He heard a stirring on the other side of the door. Suppose she had a lover, and had to disengage herself suddenly? While this speculation troubled his mind, the voice inside asked, ‘Who is there?’

  Would she know if he mentioned his name? Could he say, ‘Sign-board painter’? For the first time he realized the unimpressiveness of his designation and wished he could all himself a ‘lettering artist’ - but even that sounded absurd and roundabout.

  ‘I’m Raman, we met last evening, I came to your office.’

  The door opened, and there she stood like a vision. He felt confused and once again found himself unable to assess her personality, saw her as in a mist. ‘Oh! It’s you!’ she said. ‘Come in.’ He crossed the threshold hesitantly, wondering how to explain his business — actually no business. There seemed to be no one else in her house - courageous of her to admit a fellow in. He left the door open, unable to decide what he should do about it. He was going through a series of moments of indecision. Never had he been in such a predicament. He wished he had not embarked on this adventure. She said, ‘Come in, come in,’ and he felt like explaining, I was afraid ... people might mistake us ... He hoped his personality was showing up favourably. There was a single folding chair in a corner, and she moved it up and gestured him to sit down. He hesitated and said, ‘Don’t trouble yourself. I can be standing. Please sit down yourself.’ She turned round, went into an inner room and returned carrying a stool, placed it against the wall, and sat down leaning on the wall. She indicated the chair again, and there ensued a pause, as if she waited for his opening sentence to inaugurate the meeting.

  ‘I was passing this way, and you remember you were good enough to tell me where you lived.’

  ‘You had asked for it,’ she said coldly.

  ‘Yes, yes. I wanted to know because -’ and she watched intently for him to complete the sentence. He had nothing to complete it with, and only added, ‘I was passing this way ...’

  ‘Where?’ she asked.

  ‘Eh ... eh ... to meet a friend in Kabir Street. A lawyer,’ he added, without waiting for her to cross-examine, mentioning the first name that came to his head. ‘He owes me money. That apart I wanted to see you. Would you like the letters on the sign-board to slant a bit and shaded with sepia tint?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. Her tone was both firm and gentle. She seemed to know her mind and its limits. The conversation seemed to collapse. Raman never imagined it would conclude so abruptly. He had prepared himself for this visit with the utmost care. Kept awake half the night thinking of it; roused himself from dreams relevant and irrelevant to his mood, and dressed himself with care - a light yellow bush-coat and white trousers with the creases in perfect shape; shaved his chin to a gloss; combed his hair back, applying brilliantine.

  His aunt had been constrained to question his sudden interest in grooming himself so thoroughly. He dismissed her questioning indifferently, and said, ‘Don’t expect me to explain everything I do, and all the time.’ She accepted the snub cheerfully, as she always did. This was an established mode of contact between them. Raman proved extremely considerate to her at times and extremely rude at other times, but the lady accepted with equal composure both treatments. She brought him a dish of some delicacy to his room. While he ate, she explained, ‘This is something they don’t do in this part of the country; it’s known only in Poona.’ He knew she would revert to her grandfather’s Poona days. He had heard the story piecemeal again and again — how her grandfather had run away after his marriage, deserting his young wife, how years later his grandmother went after him, walking all the way with pilgrims going north, and had cornered her husband while he was living with his concubine in Poona, in grand style. He had heard this story often enough, but had to hear it again and again out of consideration for her. Some days, when his mind was preoccupied, he just got up and left in the middle of the narrative. But when his mood was tranquil and receptive, he listened to it again and again - how grandmother managed to get her husband to trek back southward, how he had brought his concubine along also but only up to Bangalore, midway in their journey, where the grandmother rushed neck deep into a lake and threatened to drown unless the concubine was abandoned, whereupon the grandfather somehow rid himself of the woman, and proceeded onward and settled down in his original home at Kumbakonam to a happy life. The good lady bore him several sons and daughters and died when her husband was seventy-five years old; thereafter he married again (just to spite his eldest son, who had slighted him in some way), a girl of seventeen, whose parents were after his wealth and ultimately poisoned him. That was the end of the Poona grandee. Raman’s aunt remembered being carried in the arms of her mother during his funeral.

  Now, sitting in Daisy’s parlour, he was desperately trying to continue the conversation. She had slipped through a curtained door and brought him a cup of tea and salt biscuits. He noticed her figure and was satisfied with her proportions; not too tall — just tall enough to suit his height. He wondered why he should measure her against him. Not his business. Nothing to do with him. He looked about. The walls were bare, no furniture of any kind, and bundles of paper in a corner and dust-covered magazines. It was the hour between evening and night with no lights on yet. He liked this half-lit hour - it suited his pensive mood. It suited her complexion, he thought, which was a translucent brown - the best complexion that the human skin could attain. He drank the tea with many murmurs of appreciation. He asked, ‘What about you?’ She muttered some excuse. H
e found her reserved and not very communicative. No chance to seek any clarification about her antecedents. One could only hope that if she were married, her husband had deserted her. He was aware that it was he that was doing much of the talking. He explained his philosophy of letters grandiosely: ‘You see, madam -’ he realized that he was not even told her full name. He resented it, as if it were his right to be told everything. He was several times on the point of stopping to demand, What exactly is your real name, by which persons close to you know you? but he checked himself. There was a firmness, a calculated coldness in her look, which came through her elegance and femininity and discouraged one from taking chances with her. So he went on elaborating his philosophy of letters. ‘You see, madam, whatever the language, the letters must have backbone and stand up to deliver the message, in unmistakable terms. I hate supine letters that bend low and crawl and cringe for attention and are floral. There was, for instance, a bangle-seller who wanted to be strict in cash matters, but afraid to say so - I refused to rewrite his sign to his order; you would have had to hide the word “cash” obscurely and let your customers search for it with a lens, surely!’ This idea seemed to amuse her, and there was just a trace of a smile in that beautiful face. Encouraged by it, Raman repeated, ‘I refused to rewrite and took away the plank, though it meant a waste of several days’ work and a special plank of wood.’ He felt heroic, and slightly drew himself up.

  There was some sign of thawing, as she asked, ‘Do you think you could be so assertive and firm in conveying a message for population control?’ He paused to consider how best to answer without upsetting this divine creature. If it had been his circle at The Boardless restaurant, he would have slyly played about with the words ‘population’ and ‘copulation’. A person who dealt in this kind of propaganda should not be squeamish, or pretend that population grew by itself. He studied her face for a moment to detect, if possible, some encouragement. But she looked business-like and detached, like a zoologist watching an ant. He said quietly, ‘Yes, of course.’

  He realized that it was time to leave. She was looking at the calendar on the wall and the timepiece. ‘I hope I am not keeping you waiting?’

  ‘For what?’ she asked.

  He wondered what she meant, and said, ‘Maybe you have something to do.’

  ‘Some women will be coming to see me.’

  What sort of women? he wanted to ask, but forbore. They’d probably talk all evening on how to avoid pregnancy.

  On his way home, he realized that he had not really discussed the sign-board or the business aspect. She had dismissed the whole issue in one sentence: ‘I don’t know,’ and had only specified later that a proper red triangle must be painted at one corner of the board, since it happened to be the symbol of Family Planning, and was found on letter-heads, sign-boards, and everything connected with it. He wanted to utter a caution that the red triangle was likely to defeat their purpose, by acting as a sort of physical reminder rousing the baser instincts in some men. But that was none of his business. Anyway, a great responsibility was on him now, and he would show her his design at some stage and rectify any errors, since he would not like to engage himself in any sort of controversy with her later. He’d probably carry the half-finished plank and show it to her for approval - but that would be unpractical. People who saw it on the road might smile and joke. If that wag and rival Jayaraj ever set eyes on it, that would be the end. He might build upon it a frightful edifice of scandal and make it difficult for Daisy to survive here. On the way home, he stopped by at the temple to take the key from his aunt. She got up from the assembly and handed him the key with the usual advice about food. It was eight o’clock and the story-telling would go on for at least a couple of hours more. ‘Today, he is going to narrate Krishna’s wedding with Rukmini, and I want to stay through.’

  ‘Certainly. Don’t hurry back. I’ll look after myself.’

  He put away his bicycle on the veranda of his house, but did not open the door. He went past his house, turned to his left on the rough track, ploughed through the sands, and sat on the top of the river-steps. With the stars above, and the faintly gleaming water flowing downriver with a soft splash, he felt a strange equanimity, and fell into a fit of introspection. All through the evening, he had behaved like a fool, had spoken words without any relevance. Tried to ... tried to do what? Present himself as an all-important man. This visit itself was ill-motivated. Tried to invent problems and miserably failed. Succeeded in being incoherent, that was all. I’m sex-obsessed, that’s all, to admit the plain fact. The first exposure to a sari-clad figure, and I drop everything and run after it. What excuse could I have for knocking on the door of a woman living by herself? She was quite generous in letting him in. She could have easily shut the door in his face. He brooded for a minute on the significance of her letting him in - was it possible that she cared for him? He tried to go over all her words of the evening. Not one sentence could be interpreted romantically. Remembrance of his own words filled him with shame and disgust. He had defeated his own image and cheapened it. Her words were brief, to the point, and with the occasional ‘why’ or a ‘what’ from her he became muddled and never gave a proper answer.

  Our puranas were full of instances of saints failing in the presence of beauty. The gods grew jealous of austere men and manoeuvred to disturb their rigours, and their purpose; their agency was always a woman of beauty. Now the same situation was presenting itself in the garb of a Daisy. He had determined to give sex its place, and somehow the gods didn’t seem to like it. Having written sign-boards for so many years, it was rather strange that he should be presented with a female customer now, and that it should prove so troublesome. He was going to shield himself against this temptation. Mahatma Gandhi had advised one of his followers in a similar situation, ‘Walk with your eyes fixed on your toes during the day, and on the stars at night.’ He was going to do the same thing with this woman. He would not look at her eyes when he met her, nor involve himself in any conversation beyond the strictest business. That business part of it was most important. To deliver the board next week, and take more orders if it was satisfactory.

  He carried the half-finished plank, tied to his cycle-bar, and met her at her office at the New Block. She had a couple of visitors with her. They were all talking in a low tone, and their talk ceased when Raman entered the room. He stood at the door, paused for a moment, and said, ‘I can come later, if you please.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the lady drily, and noticing the board he was carrying, ‘Is that our board?’

  ‘Yes, it’s only a trial writing, not final.’

  ‘Leave it there and come back’ - she glanced at her watch - ‘in thirty minutes.’

  ‘I’ll come and unwrap it myself, the paint is still wet,’ he said, leaning the board against the wall. He turned round and went out, shutting the door behind him. He was visiting her after six days, and she had not displayed surprise, interest, or any sort of emotion in meeting him now. Just as well. He would be saved if she did not flash her eyes on him, and he would follow Mahatma Gandhi’s formula and look at the ground while talking. The eye was really the source of mischief. One’s thoughts followed what the eye saw. Thoughts developed from sight. He would wear coloured glasses so that she might not note where he was looking.

  He lounged about the Market Road. An arcade of some interesting little shops had developed in an abandoned alley down the road, displaying all kinds of trinkets, flashlights, cuff-links, and so forth, most of them being tacitly approved smugglers’ outlets for forbidden goods unloaded on deserted coasts. Would it not be nice to write a sign-board to declare: SMUGGLERS’ ARCADE - STRICTLY IMPORTED GOODS. He could design an interesting board for it, in a slightly blue background with a suggestion of the sea. But the traders here were strangers constantly disappearing and reappearing under new names, hence no sign-board would be feasible. A sign-board pinned things down to a sort of permanency — it gave things an air of being established. That was
why he appreciated Daisy’s efforts now. That meant she intended to be permanent. At the thought of her, he was conscious of a sudden racing of his pulse. Quiet, he told himself. Time to turn round. He saw what he had come looking (or — sunglasses, a stall full of them. He picked up a pair and tried it; through the dark smoked glass he could hardly decipher the face of the shopman, who looked grotesque with his thick lips, square nose, and no chin. Very satisfactory. ‘What’s the price?’

  ‘Fifty rupees ...’

  ‘Nonsense, I’ll take it for ten.’

  ‘It’s from Hong Kong - make it fifteen ...’

  ‘Twelve,’ and the bargain was over.

  Two idlers watched this transaction with interest and one of them murmured. ‘It’s a good purchase ...’ Raman put on the glasses and looked at them. Their faces, too, looked monkeyish. He took off the glasses, found them not so monkeyish. Very satisfactory. He had come in a deliberate négligé today — a dhoti and a striped bush-coat - and if she spurned him for it, so much the better.

  In exactly thirty minutes he was back in her office. As he was going up, Daisy’s visitors were descending. He wore the dark glasses when he entered her room, hoping that she would think, This hideous fellow is back! She was waiting for him. He said very little, briskly removed the cover of the board, and held it up for her to see. She came very near - perfume, reminiscent of some strange herbs, wafted from her.

  ‘Good,’ she said, ‘the letters are big enough to be seen from the street.’