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 thought.
(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.
Then Mr. Biswas visited his eldest brother Pratap. And there he had a surprise. He found that his mother had been living with Pratap for some weeks. For long Mr. Biswas had considered Bipti useless, depressing and obstinate; he wondered how Pratap had managed to communicate with her and persuade her to leave the hut in the back trace at Pagotes. But she had come and she had changed. She was active and lucid; she was a lively and important part of Pratap’s household. Mr. Biswas felt reproached and anxious. His luck had been too sudden, his purchase on the world too slight. When he got back late that evening to the Sentinel office he sat down at a desk, his own (his towel in the bottom drawer), and with memories coming from he knew not where, he wrote:
Scarlet Pimpernel Spends Night in a Tree
Anguish of Six-Hour Vigil
Oink! Oink!
The frogs croaked all around me. Nothing but that and the sound of the rain on trees in the black night.
I was dripping wet. My motorcycle had broken down miles from anywhere. It was midnight and I was alone.
The report then described a sleepless night, encounters with snakes and bats, the two cars that passed in the night, heedless of the Scarlet Pimpernel’s cries, the rescue early in the morning by peasants who recognized the Scarlet Pimpernel and claimed their prize.
It was not long after this that Mr. Biswas went to Arwacas. He got there in the middle of the morning but did not go to Hanuman House until after four, when he knew the store would be closed, the children back from school and the sisters in the hall and kitchen. His return was as magnificent as he had wished. He was still climbing up the steps from the courtyard when he was greeted by shouts, scampering and laughter.
“You are the Scarlet Pimpernel and I claim the Sentinel prize!”
He went around, dropping Sentinel dollar-tokens into eager hands.
“Send this in with the coupon from the Sentinel. Your money will come the day after tomorrow.”
Savi and Anand at once took possession of him.
Shama, emerging from the black kitchen, said, “Anand, you will get your father’s suit dirty.”
It was as though he had never left. Neither Shama nor the children nor the hall carried any mark of his absence.
Shama dusted a bench at the table and asked whether he had eaten. He didn’t reply, but sat where she had dusted. The children asked questions continually, and it was easy not to pay attention to Shama as she brought the food out.
“Uncle Mohun, Uncle Mohun. You really spend a night up a tree?”