V. Naipaul - Collected Short Fiction

No boy in the street particularly wished to be a sweeper. But if you asked any boy what he would like to be, he would say, ‘I going be a cart-driver.’

There was certainly a glamour to driving the blue carts. The men were aristocrats. They worked early in the morning and had the rest of the day free. And then they were always going on strike. They didn’t strike for much. They struck for things like a cent more a day; they struck if someone was laid off. They struck when the war began; they struck when the war ended. They struck when India got independence. They struck when Gandhi died.

Eddoes, who was a driver, was admired by most of the boys. He said his father was the best cart-driver of his day, and he told us great stories of the old man’s skill. Eddoes came from a low Hindu caste, and there was a lot of truth in what he said. His skill was a sort of family skill, passing from father to son.

One day I was sweeping the pavement in front of the house where I lived, and Eddoes came and wanted to take away the broom from me. I liked sweeping and I didn’t want to give him the broom.

‘Boy, what you know about sweeping?’ Eddoes asked, laughing.

I said, ‘What, it have so much to know?’

Eddoes said, ‘This is my job, boy. I have experience. Wait until you big like me.’

I gave him the broom.

I was sad for a long time afterwards. It seemed that I would never never grow as big as Eddoes, never have that thing he called experience. I began to admire Eddoes more than ever; and more than ever I wanted to be a cart-driver.

But Elias was not that sort of boy.

When we who formed the Junior Miguel Street Club squatted on the pavement, talking, like Hat and Bogart and the others, about things like life and cricket and football, I said to Elias, ‘So you don’t want to be a cart-driver? What you want to be then? A sweeper?’

Elias spat neatly into the gutter and looked down. He said very earnestly, ‘I think I going be a doctor, you hear.’

If Boyee or Errol had said something like that, we would all have laughed. But we recognized that Elias was different, that Elias had brains.

We all felt sorry for Elias. His father George brutalized the boy with blows, but Elias never cried, never spoke a word against his father.

One day I was going to Chin’s shop to buy three cents’ worth of butter, and I asked Elias to come with me. I didn’t see George about, and I thought it was safe.

We were just about two houses away when we saw George. Elias grew scared. George came up and said sharply, ‘Where you going?’ And at the same time he landed a powerful cuff on Elias’s jaw.

George liked beating Elias. He used to tie him with rope, and then beat him with rope he had soaked in the gutters of his cow-pen. Elias didn’t cry even then. And shortly after, I would see George laughing with Elias, and George used to say to me, ‘I know what you thinking. You wondering how me and he get so friendly so quick.’

The more I disliked George, the more I liked Elias.

I was prepared to believe that he would become a doctor some day.

Errol said, ‘I bet you when he come doctor and thing he go forget the rest of we. Eh, Elias?’

A small smile appeared on Elias’s lips.

‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t be like that. I go give a lot of money and thing to you and Boyee and the rest of you fellows.’ And Elias waved his small hands, and we thought we could see the Cadillac and the black bag and the tube-thing that Elias was going to have when he became a doctor.

Elias began going to the school at the other end of Miguel Street. It didn’t really look like a school at all. It looked just like any house to me, but there was a sign outside that said:

TITUS HOYT, I.A. (London, External)

Passes in the Cambridge

School Certificate Guaranteed

The odd thing was that although George beat Elias at the slightest opportunity, he was very proud that his son was getting an education. ‘The boy learning a hell of a lot, you know. He reading Spanish, French and Latin, and he writing Spanish, French and Latin.’

The year before his mother died, Elias sat for the Cambridge Senior School Certificate.

Titus Hoyt came down to our end of the street.

‘That boy going pass with honours,’ Titus Hoyt said. ‘With honours.’

We saw Elias dressed in neat khaki trousers and white shirt, going to the examination room, and we looked at him with awe.

Errol said, ‘Everything Elias write not remaining here, you know. Every word that boy write going to England.’

It didn’t sound true.

‘What you think it is at all?’ Errol said. ‘Elias have brains, you know.’

Elias’s mother died in January, and the results came out in March.

Elias hadn’t passed.

Hat looked through the list in the Guardian over and over again, looking for Elias’s name, saying, ‘You never know. People always making mistake, especially when it have so much names.’

Elias’s name wasn’t in the paper.

Boyee said, ‘What else you expect? Who correct the papers? Englishman, not so? You expect them to give Elias a pass?’

Elias was with us, looking sad and not saying a word.

Hat said, ‘Is a damn shame. If they know what hell the boy have to put up with, they woulda pass him quick quick.’

Titus Hoyt said, ‘Don’t worry. Rome wasn’t built in a day. This year! This year, things going be much much better. We go show those Englishmen and them.’

Elias left us and he began living with Titus Hoyt. We saw next to nothing of him. He was working night and day.

One day in the following March, Titus Hoyt rode up to us and said, ‘You hear what happen?’

‘What happen?’ Hat asked.

‘The boy is a genius,’ Titus Hoyt said.

‘Which boy?’ Errol asked.

‘Elias.’

‘What Elias do?’

‘The boy gone and pass the Cambridge Senior School Certificate.’

Hat whistled. ‘The Cambridge Senior School Certificate?’

Titus Hoyt smiled. ‘That self. He get a third grade. His name going to be in the papers tomorrow. I always say it, and I saying it again now, this boy Elias have too much brains.’

Hat said later, ‘Is too bad that Elias father dead. He was a good-for-nothing, but he wanted to see his son a educated man.’

Elias came that evening, and everybody, boys and men, gathered around him. They talked about everything but books, and Elias, too, was talking about things like pictures and girls and cricket. He was looking very solemn, too.

There was a pause once, and Hat said, ‘What you going to do now, Elias? Look for work?’

Elias spat. ‘Nah, I think I will write the exam again.’

I said, ‘But why?’

‘I want a second grade.’

We understood. He wanted to be a doctor.

Elias sat down on the pavement and said, ‘Yes, boy. I think I going to take that exam again, and this year I going to be so good that this Mr Cambridge go bawl when he read what I write for him.’

We were silent, in wonder.

‘Is the English and litritcher that does beat me.’

In Elias’s mouth litritcher was the most beautiful word I heard. It sounded like something to eat, something rich like chocolate.

Hat said, ‘You mean you have to read a lot of poultry and thing?’

Elias nodded. We felt it wasn’t fair, making a boy like Elias do litritcher and poultry.

Elias moved back into the pink house which had been empty since his father died. He was studying and working. He went back to Titus Hoyt’s school, not as pupil, but as a teacher, and Titus Hoyt said he was giving him forty dollars a month.

Titus Hoyt added, ‘He worth it, too. He is one of the brightest boys in Port of Spain.’

Now that Elias was back with us, we noticed him better. He was the cleanest boy in the street. He bathed twice a day and scrubbed his teeth twice a day. He did all this standing up at the tap in front of the house. He swept the house every morning before going to school. He was the opposite of his father. His father was short and fat and dirty. He was tall and thin and clean. His father drank and swore. He never drank and no one ever heard him use a bad word.