V.S. Naipaul - The Nightwatchmans Occurrence Book and Other Comic Inventions

V. S. Naipaul

The Nightwatchmans Occurrence Book

V. S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932. He went to England on a scholarship in 1950. After four years at Oxford he began to write, and since then he has followed no other profession. He is the author of more than twenty books of fiction and nonfiction and the recipient of numerous honors, including the Nobel Prize in 2001, the Booker Prize in 1971, and a knighthood for services to literature in 1990. He lives in Wiltshire, England.

A LSO BY V. S. N AIPAUL

NONFICTION

Between Father and Son: Family Letters
Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples
India: A Million Mutinies Now
A Turn in the South
Finding the Center
Among the Believers
The Return of Eva Pern (with The Killings in Trinidad)
India: A Wounded Civilization
The Overcrowded Barracoon
The Loss of El Dorado
An Area of Darkness
The Middle Passage

FICTION

Half a Life
A Way in the World
The Enigma of Arrival
A Bend in the River
Guerrillas
In a Free State
The Mimic Men
A House for Mr. Biswas
Miguel Street
The Mystic Masseur

FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, JUNE 2002

A Flag on the Island, copyright 1967, copyright renewed 1995 by V. S. Naipaul
Mr Stone and the Knights Companion, copyright 1963, copyright renewed 1991 by V. S. Naipaul
The Suffrage of Elvira, copyright 1958, copyright renewed 1986 by V. S. Naipaul

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Great Britain as three separate works, The Suffrage of Elvira, Mr Stone and the Knights Companion, and A Flag on the Island by Andre Deutsch Limited, London, respectively in 1958, 1963, and 1967.

All but two of the shorter pieces in this collection have appeared in periodicals in England or the United States. The Enemy was written in part of my book Miguel Street. It was not used there, and some of the episodes were developed in later books; the present story was published in American Vogue. The Raffle was written for the London Evening Standard series Did it Happen? The answer was no; the autobiographical detail is deliberately misleading. A Flag on the Island was specially written for a film company. The story they required was to be musical and comic and set in the Caribbean; it was to have a leading American character and many subsidiary characters; it was to have much sex and much dialogue; it was to be explicit.

In The Suffrage of Elvira, the song My Heart and I is quoted by permission of Lawrence Wright Music Co. Ltd. The song Swinging on a Star is quoted by permission of Edwin H. Morris & Co. Ltd and Messrs Burke & Van Heusen Inc.

Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage International
and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file.

eISBN: 978-0-307-77652-5

www.vintagebooks.com

v3.1

For Pat

Contents

T HAT AFTERNOON M R Surujpat Harbans nearly killed the two white women and the black bitch.

When he saw the women he thought of them only as objects he must try not to hit, and he didnt stop to think how strange it was to see two blonde women forcing red American cycles up Elvira Hill, the highest point in County Naparoni, the smallest, most isolated and most neglected of the nine counties of Trinidad.

The heavy American bicycles with their pudgy tyres didnt make cycling up the hill easier for the women. They rose from their low saddles and pressed down hard on the pedals and the cycles twisted all over the narrow road.

Harbans followed in a nervous low gear. He didnt like driving and didnt feel he was ever in control of the old Dodge lorry banging and rattling on the loose dirt road. Something else about the lorry worried him. It was bright with red posters: Vote Harbans for Elvira. There were two on the front bumper; two on the bonnet; one on each wing; the cab-doors were covered except for an oblong patch which was painted HARBANS TRANSPORT SERVICE. The posters, the first of his campaign so far, had arrived only that morning. They made him shy, and a little nervous about the reception he was going to get in Elvira.

Just before the brow of the hill he decided he needed more power and stepped a little harder on the accelerator. At the same time the women wobbled into the middle of the road, decided they couldnt cycle up any further, and dismounted. Harbans stamped on his brakes, his left foot missed the clutch, and the engine stalled.

The bumper covered with two Vote Harbans for Elvira posters hit the back mudguard of one cycle and sent the cyclist stumbling forward, her hands still on the handlebars. But she didnt fall.

The women turned to the lorry. They were both young and quite remarkably good-looking. Harbans had seen nothing like it outside the cinema. Perhaps it was the effect of the sun-glasses they both wore. The trays of both cycles were packed with books and magazines, and from the top of each tray a stiff pennant said: AWAKE!

The taller woman, who had been knocked forward, composed herself quickly and smiled. Good brakes, mister. She spoke with an American accentor it might have been Canadian: Harbans couldnt tell. She sounded unreasonably cheerful.

Fust time it happen, Harbans said, almost in a whisper. Fust time in more than twenty years. That wasnt hard to believe. He had the face of the extra-careful driver, thin, timid, dyspeptic. His hair was thin and grey, his nose thin and long.

The shorter woman smiled too. Dont look so worried, mister. Were all right.

In a difficult position Harbans had the knack of suddenly going absent-minded. He would look down at the grey hairs on the back of his hands and get lost studying them.

Eh? he said to his hands, and paused. Eh? All right? He paused again. You sure?

Were always all right, the taller woman said.

Were Witnesses, said the other.

Eh? But the legal sound of the word made him look up. You is. He waved a wrinkled hand. Election nonsense. He was coy and apologetic; his thin voice became a coo. My head a little hot with worries. Election worries.

The taller woman smiled back. We know youre worried.

Were Witnesses, said the other.

Harbans saw the AWAKE! pennants for the first time and understood. The women dragged their red bicycles to the verge and waved him on. He managed somehow to move the Dodge off and got it to the top of Elvira Hill, where the black and yellow board of the Trinidad Automobile Association announces the district as The Elvira. This is short for The Elvira Estate, named after the wife of one of the early owners, but everyone who knows the district well says Elvira.