Collected Short Fiction

by V. S. Naipaul

  He said, ‘Gimme time, man. Gimme time. This is a big thing. I have to think it over.’

  And there the matter rested.

  I remember the night when the news of peace reached Port of Spain. People just went wild and there was a carnival in the streets. A new calypso sprang out of nothing and everybody was dancing in the streets to the tune of:

  All day and all night Miss Mary Ann

  Down by the river-side she taking man.

  Bolo looked at the dancers and said, ‘Stupidness! Stupidness! How black people so stupid?’

  I said, ‘But you ain’t hear, Mr Bolo? The war over.’

  He spat. ‘How you know? You was fighting it?’

  ‘But it come over on the radio and I read it in the papers.’

  Bolo laughed. He said, ‘Anybody would think you was still a little boy. You mean you come so big and you still does believe anything you read in the papers?’

  I had heard this often before. Bolo was sixty and the only truth he had discovered seemed to be, ‘You mustn’t believe anything you read in the papers.’

  It was his whole philosophy, and it didn’t make him happy. He was the saddest man in the street.

  I think Bolo was born sad. Certainly I never saw him laugh except in a sarcastic way, and I saw him at least once a week for eleven years. He was a tall man, not thin, with a face that was a caricature of sadness, the mouth curling downwards, the eyebrows curving downwards, the eyes big and empty of expression.

  It was an amazement to me that Bolo made a living at all after he had stopped barbering. I suppose he would be described in a census as a carrier. His cart was the smallest thing of its kind I knew.

  It was a little box on two wheels and he pushed it himself, pushed with his long body in such an attitude of resignation and futility you wondered why he pushed it at all. On this cart he could take just about two or three sacks of flour or sugar.

  On Sundays Bolo became a barber again, and if he was proud of anything he was proud of his barbering.

  Often Bolo said to me, ‘You know Samuel?’

  Samuel was the most successful barber in the district. He was so rich he took a week’s holiday every year, and he liked everybody to know it.

  I said, ‘Yes, I know Samuel. But I don’t like him to touch my hair at all at all. He can’t cut hair. He does zog up my head.’

  Bolo said, ‘You know who teach Samuel all he know about cutting hair? You know?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I. I teach Samuel. He couldn’t even shave hisself when he start barbering. He come crying and begging, “Mr Bolo, Mr Bolo, teach me how to cut people hair, I beg you.” Well, I teach him, and look what happen, eh. Samuel rich rich, and I still living in one room in this break-down old house. Samuel have a room where he does cut hair, I have to cut hair in the open under this mango tree.’

  I said, ‘But it nice outside, it better than sitting down in a hot room. But why you stop cutting hair regular, Mr Bolo?’

  ‘Ha, boy, that is asking a big big question. The fact is, I just can’t trust myself.’

  ‘Is not true. You does cut hair good good, better than Samuel.’

  ‘It ain’t that I mean. Boy, when it have a man sitting down in front of you in a chair, and you don’t like this man, and you have a razor in your hand, a lot of funny things could happen. I does only cut people hair these days when I like them. I can’t cut any-and-everybody hair.’

  Although in 1945 Bolo didn’t believe that the war was over, in 1939 he was one of the great alarmists. In those days he bought all three Port of Spain newspapers, the Trinidad Guardian, the Port of Spain Gazette, and the Evening News. When the war broke out and the Evening News began issuing special bulletins, Bolo bought those too.

  Those were the days when Bolo said, ‘It have a lot of people who think they could kick people around. They think because we poor we don’t know anything. But I ain’t in that, you hear. Every day I sit down and read my papers regular regular.’

  More particularly, Bolo was interested in the Trinidad Guardian. At one stage Bolo bought about twenty copies of that paper every day.

  The Guardian was running a Missing Ball Competition. They printed a photograph of a football match in progress, but they had rubbed the ball out. All you had to do to win a lot of money was to mark the position of the ball with an X.

  Spotting the missing ball became one of Bolo’s passions.

  In the early stages Bolo was happy enough to send in one X a week to the Guardian.

  It was a weekly excitement for all of us.

  Hat used to say, ‘Bolo, I bet you forget all of us when you win the money. You leaving Miguel Street, man, and buying a big house in St Clair, eh?’

  Bolo said, ‘No, I don’t want to stay in Trinidad. I think I go go to the States.’

  Bolo began marking two X’s. Then three, four, six. He never won a penny. He was getting almost constantly angry.

  He would say, ‘Is just a big bacchanal, you hear. The paper people done make up their mind long long time now who going to win the week prize. They only want to get all the black people money.’

  Hat said, ‘You mustn’t get discouraged. You got to try really hard again.’

  Bolo bought sheets of squared paper and fitted them over the Missing Ball photograph. Wherever the lines crossed he marked an X. To do this properly Bolo had to buy something like a hundred to a hundred and fifty Guardians every week.

  Sometimes Bolo would call Boyee and Errol and me and say, ‘Now, boys, where you think this missing ball is? Look, I want you to shut your eyes and mark a spot with this pencil.’

  And sometimes again Bolo would ask us, ‘What sort of things you been dreaming this week?’

  If you said you didn’t dream at all, Bolo looked disappointed. I used to make up dreams and Bolo would work them out in relation to the missing ball.

  People began calling Bolo ‘Missing Ball’.

  Hat used to say, ‘Look the man with the missing ball.’

  One day Bolo went up to the offices of the Guardian and beat up a sub-editor before the police could be called.

  In court Bolo said, ‘The ball not missing, you hear. It wasn’t there in the first place.’

  Bolo was fined twenty-five dollars.

  The Gazette ran a story:

  THE CASE OF THE MISSING BALL

  Penalty for a foul

  Altogether Bolo spent about three hundred dollars trying to spot the missing ball, and he didn’t even get a consolation prize.

  It was shortly after the court case that Bolo stopped barbering regularly and also stopped reading the Guardian.

  I can’t remember now why Bolo stopped reading the Evening News, but I know why he stopped reading the Gazette.

  A great housing shortage arose in Port of Spain during the war, and in 1942 a philanthropist came to the rescue of the unhoused. He said he was starting a co-operative housing scheme. People who wished to take part in this venture had to deposit some two hundred dollars, and after a year or so they would get brand-new houses for next to nothing. Several important men blessed the new scheme, and lots of dinners were eaten to give the project a good start.

  The project was heavily advertised and about five or six houses were built and handed over to some of the people who had eaten the dinners. The papers carried photographs of people putting keys into locks and stepping over thresholds.

  Bolo saw the photographs and the advertisements in the Gazette, and he paid in his two hundred dollars.

  In 1943 the Director of the Co-operative Housing Society disappeared and with him disappeared two or three thousand dream houses.

  Bolo stopped reading the Gazette.

  It was on a Sunday in November that year that Bolo made his announcement to those of us who were sitting under the mango tree, waiting for Bolo to cut our hair.

  He said, ‘I saying something now. And so help me God, if I ever break my word, it go be better if I lose my two eyes. Listen. I stop reading papers.
If even I learn Chinese I ain’t go read Chinese papers, you hearing. You mustn’t believe anything you read in the papers.’

  Bolo was cutting Hat’s hair at the moment, and Hat hurriedly got up and left.

  Later Hat said, ‘You know what I think. We will have to stop getting trim from Bolo. The man get me really frighten now, you hear.’

  We didn’t have to think a lot about Hat’s decision because a few days later Bolo came to us and said, ‘I coming round to see you people one by one because is the last time you go see me.’

  He looked so sad I thought he was going to cry.

  Hat said, ‘What you thinking of doing now?’

  Bolo said, ‘I leaving this island for good. Is only a lot of damn crooks here.’

  Eddoes said, ‘Bolo, you taking your box-cart with you?’

  Bolo said, ‘No. Why, you like it?’

  Eddoes said, ‘I was thinking. It look like good materials to me.’

  Bolo said, ‘Eddoes, take my box-cart.’

  Hat said, ‘Where you going, Bolo?’

  Bolo said, ‘You go hear.’

  And so he left us that evening.

  Eddoes said, ‘You think Bolo going mad?’

  Hat said, ‘No. He going Venezuela. That is why he keeping so secret. The Venezuelan police don’t like Trinidad people going over.’

  Eddoes said, ‘Bolo is a nice man and I sorry he leaving. You know, it have some people I know who go be glad to have that box-cart Bolo leave behind.’

  We went to Bolo’s little room that very evening and we cleaned it of all the useful stuff he had left behind. There wasn’t much. A bit of oil-cloth, two or three old combs, a cutlass, and a bench. We were all sad.

  Hat said, ‘People really treat poor Bolo bad in this country. I don’t blame him for leaving.’

  Eddoes was looking over the room in a practical way. He said, ‘But Bolo take away everything, man.’

  Next afternoon Eddoes announced, ‘You know how much I pick up for that box-cart? Two dollars!’

  Hat said, ‘You does work damn fast, you know, Eddoes.’

  Then we saw Bolo himself walking down Miguel Street.

  Hat said, ‘Eddoes, you in trouble.’

  Eddoes said, ‘But he give it to me. I didn’t thief it.’

  Bolo looked tired and sadder than ever.

  Hat said, ‘What happen, Bolo? You make a record, man. Don’t tell me you go to Venezuela and you come back already.’

  Bolo said, ‘Trinidad people! Trinidad people! I don’t know why Hitler don’t come here and bomb all the sons of bitches it have in this island. He bombing the wrong people, you know.’

  Hat said, ‘Sit down, Bolo, and tell we what happen.’

  Bolo said, ‘Not yet. It have something I have to settle first. Eddoes, where my box-cart?’

  Hat laughed.

  Bolo said, ‘You laughing, but I don’t see the joke. Where my box-cart, Eddoes? You think you could make box-cart like that?’

  Eddoes said, ‘Your box-cart, Bolo? But you give it to me.’

  Bolo said, ‘I asking you to give it back to me.’

  Eddoes said, ‘I sell it, Bolo. Look the two dollars I get for it.’

  Bolo said, ‘But you quick, man.’

  Eddoes was getting up.

  Bolo said, ‘Eddoes, it have one thing I begging you not to do. I begging you, Eddoes, not to come for trim by me again, you hear. I can’t trust myself. And go and buy back my box-cart.’

  Eddoes went away, muttering, ‘Is a funny sort of world where people think their little box-cart so good. It like my big blue cart?’

  Bolo said, ‘When I get my hand on the good-for-nothing thief who take my money and say he taking me Venezuela, I go let him know something. You know what the man do? He drive around all night in the motor-launch and then put we down in a swamp, saying we reach Venezuela. I see some people. I begin talking to them in Spanish, they shake their head and laugh. You know is what? He put me down in Trinidad self, three four miles from La Brea.’

  Hat said, ‘Bolo, you don’t know how lucky you is. Some of these people woulda kill you and throw you overboard, man. They say they don’t like getting into trouble with the Venezuelan police. Is illegal going over to Venezuela, you know.’

  We saw very little of Bolo after this. Eddoes managed to get the box-cart back, and he asked me to take it to Bolo.

  Eddoes said, ‘You see why black people can’t get on in this world. You was there when he give it to me with his own two hands, and now he want it back. Take it back to him and tell him Eddoes say he could go to hell.’

  I told Bolo, ‘Eddoes say he sorry and he send back the box-cart.’

  Bolo said, ‘You see how black people is. They only quick to take, take. They don’t want to give. That is why black people never get on.’

  I said, ‘Mr Bolo, it have something I take too, but I bring it back. Is the oil-cloth. I did take it and give it to my mother, but she ask me to bring it back.’

  Bolo said, ‘Is all right. But, boy, who trimming you these days? You head look as though fowl sitting on it.’

  I said, ‘Is Samuel trim me, Mr Bolo. But I tell you he can’t trim. You see how he zog up my head.’

  Bolo said, ‘Come Sunday, I go trim you.’

  I hesitated.

  Bolo said, ‘You fraid? Don’t be stupid. I like you.’

  So I went on Sunday.

  Bolo said, ‘How you getting on with your lessons?’

  I didn’t want to boast.

  Bolo said, ‘It have something I want you to do for me. But I not sure whether I should ask you.’

  I said, ‘But ask me, Mr Bolo. I go do anything for you.’

  He said, ‘No, don’t worry. I go tell you next time you come.’

  A month later I went again and Bolo said, ‘You could read?’

  I reassured him.

  He said, ‘Well, is a secret thing I doing. I don’t want nobody to know. You could keep a secret?’

  I said, ‘Yes, I could keep secret.’

  ‘A old man like me ain’t have much to live for,’ Bolo said. ‘A old man like me living by hisself have to have something to live for. Is why I doing this thing I tell you about.’

  ‘What is this thing, Mr Bolo?’

  He stopped clipping my hair and pulled out a printed sheet from his trouser pocket.

  He said, ‘You know what this is?’

  I said, ‘Is a sweepstake ticket.’

  ‘Right. You smart, man. Is really a sweepstake ticket.’

  I said, ‘But what you want me do, Mr Bolo?’

  He said, ‘First you must promise not to tell anybody.’

  I gave my word.

  He said, ‘I want you to find out if the number draw.’

  The draw was made about six weeks later and I looked for Bolo’s number. I told him, ‘You number ain’t draw, Mr Bolo.’

  He said, ‘Not even a proxime accessit?’

  I shook my head.

  But Bolo didn’t look disappointed. ‘Is just what I expect,’ he said.

  For nearly three years this was our secret. And all during those years Bolo bought sweepstake tickets, and never won. Nobody knew and even when Hat or somebody else said to him, ‘Bolo, I know a thing you could try. Why you don’t try sweepstake?’ Bolo would say, ‘I done with that sort of thing, man.’

  At the Christmas meeting of 1948 Bolo’s number was drawn. It wasn’t much, just about three hundred dollars.

  I ran to Bolo’s room and said, ‘Mr Bolo, the number draw.’

  Bolo’s reaction wasn’t what I expected. He said, ‘Look, boy, you in long pants now. But don’t get me mad, or I go have to beat you bad.’

  I said, ‘But it really draw, Mr Bolo.’

  He said, ‘How the hell you know it draw?’

  I said, ‘I see it in the papers.’

  At this Bolo got really angry and he seized me by the collar. He screamed, ‘How often I have to tell you, you little good-for-nothing son of a bitch, that you
mustn’t believe all that you read in the papers?’

  So I checked up with the Trinidad Turf Club.

  I said to Bolo, ‘Is really true.’ Bolo refused to believe.

  He said, ‘These Trinidad people does only lie, lie. Lie is all they know. They could fool you, boy, but they can’t fool me.’

  I told the men of the street, ‘Bolo mad like hell. The man win three hundred dollars and he don’t want to believe.’

  One day Boyee said to Bolo, ‘Ay, Bolo, you win a sweepstake then.’

  Bolo chased Boyee, shouting, ‘You playing the ass, eh. You making joke with a man old enough to be your grandfather.’

  And when Bolo saw me, he said, ‘Is so you does keep secret? Is so you does keep secret? But why all you Trinidad people so, eh?’

  And he pushed his box-cart down to Eddoes’s house, saying, ‘Eddoes, you want box-cart, eh? Here, take the box-cart.’

  And he began hacking the cart to bits with his cutlass.

  To me he shouted, ‘People think they could fool me.’

  And he took out the sweepstake ticket and tore it. He rushed up to me and forced the pieces into my shirt pocket.

  Afterwards he lived to himself in his little room, seldom came out to the street, never spoke to anybody. Once a month he went to draw his old-age pension.

  15 UNTIL THE SOLDIERS CAME

  EDWARD, HAT’S BROTHER, was a man of many parts, and I always thought it a sad thing that he drifted away from us. He used to help Hat with the cows when I first knew him and, like Hat, he looked settled and happy enough. He said he had given up women for good, and he concentrated on cricket, football, boxing, horse-racing, and cockfighting. In this way he was never bored, and he had no big ambition to make him unhappy.

  Like Hat, Edward had a high regard for beauty. But Edward didn’t collect birds of beautiful plumage, as Hat did. Edward painted.

  His favourite subject was a brown hand clasping a black one. And when Edward painted a brown hand, it was a brown hand. No nonsense about light and shades. And the sea was a blue sea, and mountains were green.

  Edward mounted his pictures himself and framed them in red passe-partout. The big department stores, Salvatori’s, Fogarty’s, and Johnson’s, distributed Edward’s work on commission.