Miguel Street - By V. S. Naipaul Page 0,14

his dhoti and white jacket, and we poured a tin of rice into the sack he carried on his back. At twelve an old woman smoking a clay pipe came and she got a cent. At two a blind man led by a boy called for his penny.

Sometimes we had a rogue. One day a man called and said he was hungry. We gave him a meal. He asked for a cigarette and wouldn’t go until we had lit it for him. That man never came again.

The strangest caller came one afternoon at about four o’clock. I had come back from school and was in my home-clothes. The man said to me, ‘Sonny, may I come inside your yard?’

He was a small man and he was tidily dressed. He wore a hat, a white shirt and black trousers.

I asked, ‘What you want?’

He said, ‘I want to watch your bees.’

We had four small gru-gru palm trees and they were full of uninvited bees.

I ran up the steps and shouted, ‘Ma, it have a man outside here. He say he want to watch the bees.’

My mother came out, looked at the man and asked in an unfriendly way, ‘What you want?’

The man said, ‘I want to watch your bees.’

His English was so good it didn’t sound natural, and I could see my mother was worried.

She said to me, ‘Stay here and watch him while he watch the bees.’

The man said, ‘Thank you, Madam. You have done a good deed today.’

He spoke very slowly and very correctly, as though every word was costing him money.

We watched the bees, this man and I, for about an hour, squatting near the palm trees.

The man said, ‘I like watching bees. Sonny, do you like watching bees?’

I said, ‘I ain’t have the time.’

He shook his head sadly. He said, ‘That’s what I do, I just watch. I can watch ants for days. Have you ever watched ants? And scorpions, and centipedes, and congorees-have you watched those?’

I shook my head.

I said, ‘What you does do, mister?’

He got up and said, ‘I am a poet.’

I said, ‘A good poet?’

He said, ‘The greatest in the world.’

‘What your name, mister? ’

‘B. Wordsworth.’

‘B for Bill?’

‘Black. Black Wordsworth. White Wordsworth was my brother. We share one heart. I can watch a small flower like the morning glory and cry.’

I said, ‘Why you does cry?’

‘Why, boy? Why? You will know when you grow up. You’re a poet, too, you know. And when you’re a poet you can cry for everything.’

I couldn’t laugh.

He said, ‘You like your mother? ’

‘When she not beating me.’

He pulled out a printed sheet from his hip pocket and said, ‘On this paper is the greatest poem about mothers and I’m going to sell it to you at a bargain price. For four cents.’

I went inside and I said, ‘Ma, you want to buy a poetry for four cents?’

My mother said, ‘Tell that blasted man to haul his tail away from my yard, you hear.’

I said to B. Wordsworth, ‘My mother say she ain’t have four cents.’

B. Wordsworth said, ‘It is the poet’s tragedy.’

And he put the paper back in his pocket. He didn’t seem to mind.

I said, ‘Is a funny way to go round selling poetry like that. Only calypsonians do that sort of thing. A lot of people does buy?’

He said, ‘No one has yet bought a single copy.’

‘But why you does keep on going round, then?’

He said, ‘In this way I watch many things, and I always hope to meet poets.’

I said, ‘You really think I is a poet?’

‘You’re as good as me,’ he said.

And when B. Wordsworth left, I prayed I would see him again.

About a week later, coming back from school one afternoon, I met him at the corner of Miguel Street.

He said, ‘I have been waiting for you for a long time.’

I said, ‘You sell any poetry yet?’

He shook his head.

He said, ‘In my yard I have the best mango tree in Port of Spain. And now the mangoes are ripe and red and very sweet and juicy. I have waited here for you to tell you this and to invite you to come and eat some of my mangoes.’

He lived in Alberto Street in a one-roomed hut placed right in the centre of the lot. The yard seemed all green. There was the big mango tree. There was a coconut tree and there was a plum tree. The place looked wild, as though it wasn’t in the city at all. You couldn’t see all