The Nightwatchman's Occurrence Book (11 page)

Chittaranjan listened patiently, his hat on his knees.

When Rampiari’s husband was finished, Chittaranjan asked: ‘When you does want money borrow, Rampiari husband, who you does come to?’

‘I does come to you, Goldsmith.’

‘When you does want somebody to help you get a work, who you does come to?’

‘I does come to you, Goldsmith.’

‘When you want letter write to the Government, who you does come to?’

‘I does come to you, Goldsmith.’

‘When you want cup borrow, plate borrow, chair borrow, who you does come to?’

‘I does come to you, Goldsmith.’

‘When you want
any
sort of help, Rampiari husband, who you does come to?’

‘I does come to you, Goldsmith.’

‘So when
I
want help, who I must come to?’

‘You must come to me, Goldsmith.’

‘And when I want this help to put a man in the Legislative Council, who I must come to?’

‘You must come to me, Goldsmith.’

‘You see, Rampiari husband, the more bigger people
I
know, the more I could help
you
out. Now tell me, is beg I have to beg you for
your
sake?’

‘You ain’t have to beg, Goldsmith.’

Chittaranjan stood up and put his hat on. ‘I hope your foot get better quick.’

‘When you see Mr Harbans, Goldsmith, you go tell him, eh, how bad my foot sick.’

Chittaranjan hesitated, remembering Harbans’s refusal to have anything to do with the Hindu sick or the Hindu dead.

Rampiari’s husband said, ‘Preacher coming to see me tomorrow.’

‘What
Preacher
could do for you? A man like you ain’t want only sympathy. You want a lot more.’

The sick man’s eyes brightened. ‘You never say a truer word, Goldsmith.
Whenever
I want help, I does come to you.’

Chittaranjan smiled; the sick man smiled back; but when he was outside Chittaranjan muttered, ‘Blasted son of a bitch.’

Still, it was a successful afternoon, despite Rampiari’s husband and all that talk about
obeah.

But the
obeah
talk worried him. It could lose votes.

M
RS
B
AKSH CAME BACK
to Elvira, her mission accomplished. Herbert had received his spiritual fumigation; and she brought back mysterious things—in a small brown parcel—which would purify the house as well.

‘Ganesh Pundit was really the man for this sort of mystic thing,’ Baksh said. ‘Pity he had to take up politics. Still, that show how good he was. The moment he feel he was losing his hand for that sort of thing, he give up the business.’

‘The fellow we went to was all right,’ Mrs Baksh said. ‘He
jharay
the boy well enough.’

Herbert looked chastened indeed. His thin face was stained with tears, his eyes were still red, the edges of his nostrils still quivering and wet. He kept his mouth twisted, to indicate his continuing disgust with the world in general.

Mrs Baksh had been feeling guilty about Herbert. She said to Baksh, for Herbert to hear, ‘Herbert didn’t give the fellow much trouble you know. He behave like a nice nice boy. The fellow say that the fust thing to do when a spirit come on anybody is to beat it out. It ain’t the person you beating pussonal, but the spirit.’

Herbert sniffed.

Baksh said, ‘People ain’t want to believe, you know, man, that the big big dog I see last night turn so small this morning. Nobody ain’t want to believe at all at all. Everybody was surprise like anything.’

Mrs Baksh sank aghast into her cane-bottomed chair. ‘But you know you is a damn fool, Baksh. You mean you went around
telling
people?’

‘Didn’t tell them
everything.
Didn’t mention nothing about Preacher or about
obeah.
Just say something about the dog. It ain’t have nothing wrong if I tell about the dog. Look, Harichand tell me about the time he did see some tiny tiny horses dragging a tiny tiny funeral huss. Was a moonlight night. Three o’clock …’

‘Everybody know about Harichand huss. But that was only a
sign.’

‘Sign, eh? And this thing—this dog business—that—that is
obeah
and magic, eh? Something bigger?’

‘Yes, you damn fool, yes.’

‘Nobody did believe anyway. Everybody thought I was lying.’

‘You
was
lying, Pa,’ Herbert said. ‘Was a puppy last night and is a puppy today.’

Baksh was grateful for the diversion. ‘Oh God! Oh God! I go show that boy!’

He tried to grab Herbert; but Herbert ducked behind Mrs Baksh’s chair. He knew that his mother was in a sympathetic mood. And Baksh knew that in the circumstances Herbert was inviolate. Still, he made a show. He danced around the chair. Mrs Baksh put out a large arm as a barrier. Baksh respected it.

‘Oh God!’ he cried. ‘To hear a little piss-in-tail boy talking to me like that! When I was a boy, if I did talk to my father like that, I woulda get my whole backside peel with blows.’

‘Herbert,’ Mrs Baksh said. ‘You mustn’t tell your father he lie. What you must say?’

‘I must say he tell stories,’ Herbert said submissively. But he perked up, and a faint mocking smile—which made him look a bit like Foam—came to his lips.

‘No, Herbert, you mustn’t even say that your father does tell stories.’

‘You mean I mustn’t say
any
thing, Ma?’

‘No, son, you mustn’t say anything.’

Baksh stuck his hands into his tight pockets. ‘Next time you say anything, see what happen to you, mister man. I beat you till you pee, you hear.’

Herbert had a horror of threats of that sort; they seemed much worse than any flogging.

‘I talking to you, mister man,’ Baksh insisted. ‘Answer me.’

Herbert looked at his mother.

She said, ‘Answer him.’

He said, ‘Yes, Pa.’

Baksh took his hands out of his pockets. He was mollified but continued to look offended. He couldn’t fool Herbert though. Herbert knew that Baksh was only trying to prevent Mrs Baksh attacking
him.

Baksh got in his blows first. ‘You call yourself a mother, and this is the way you bringing up your children. To insult their father and call him liar to his face. This is what you
encouraging
the children to do, after they eating my food since they born.’

Mrs Baksh, tired and very placid now, said, ‘
You
carry them nine months in your belly? You nurse them? You clean them?’

Baksh’s moustache twitched as he looked for an answer.

Before he found one Mrs Baksh returned to the counterattack. ‘Who fault it is that this whole thing happen?’ Her brow darkened and her manner changed. ‘Is this election sweetness that sweeten you up, Baksh. But see how this sweetness going to turn sour sour. See.’

She was righter than she knew.

*

All that day Tiger remained in his box under the steps, dozing or lying awake and futile. Foam fed him surreptitiously; but Tiger was unused to food and in the afternoon he had an attack of hiccoughs. He lay flat on his side, his tiny ribs unable to contain the convulsions of his tiny belly. The hiccoughs shook him with more energy than he had ever shown; they lifted him up and dropped him down again on the sodden newspapers; they caused curious swallowing noises in his throat. His box became wetter and filthier. Foam, for all his toughness, was squeamish about certain things, and Tiger’s box was never cleaned. But Foam fed Tiger, often and unwisely; and it gave him
much pleasure when once, stretching out his hand and passing a finger down Tiger’s muzzle, he saw Tiger raise his eyes and raise his tail.

And now he had to get rid of Tiger.

‘Put him in a bag and take him away in the van,’ Mrs Baksh said after dinner.

‘Take him far,’ Baksh added. ‘Far far.’

‘All
right,’
Foam said, with sudden irritation. ‘All right, don’t rush me. I going to take him so far, he not going to offend your sight
or
your heart.’

Mrs Baksh almost cried. ‘Is only since the elections that this boy talking to me like that, you know.’

Baksh saw a chance to redeem himself. ‘Boy, you know you talking to your mother? Who carry you for nine months in their belly? Who nurse you?’

Mrs Baksh said, ‘Why you don’t shut your tail, Baksh?’

‘The two of all-you quarrel,’ Foam said, and went downstairs.

He took a clean gunny sack, held it open and rolled it down to make a nest of sorts; lifted Tiger from his box, using newspaper to keep his hands clean, and put him in the nest.

Herbert tiptoed down the steps.

‘Ey, Herbert. Come down and throw away this dirty box somewhere in the backyard. It making the whole house stink.’

‘Foam, what you going to do with him?’

Foam didn’t reply. His irritation lingered.

Tiger sprawled in the nest of sacking, heaving with hiccoughs.

‘Foam, Tiger going to dead?’

Foam looked at Herbert. ‘No. He not going to dead.’

‘Foam! You not going to kill him?’

He didn’t know what he was going to do. When he had spoken to Nelly Chittaranjan about Tiger, it was only to make conversation, to stop her from crying.

Tiger made choking noises.

Foam stood up.

‘Foam! You not going to
kill
Tiger?’

Foam shook his head.

‘Promise, Foam. Kiss your finger and promise.’

‘You know I don’t believe in that sort of thing.’

‘Don’t kill him, Foam.
You
don’t believe in this
obeah
business, eh, Foam?’

Foam sucked his teeth. ‘That boy give you the top?’

‘Rafiq?’ Herbert brightened. ‘Yes, he give me the top.’

‘Good, throw away that old box. It stinking.’

Herbert touched Tiger’s nose with the tip of his index finger.

Tiger’s eyes didn’t change; but his tail lifted and dropped.

*

Nelly Chittaranjan hadn’t been thinking when she agreed to meet Foam that evening and take the dog. Now, sitting in Teacher Francis’s drab drawing-room and only half listening while he talked, she wasn’t so sure about the dog or about Foam. She didn’t believe the dog existed at all. But the thought of meeting a boy at night in a lonely lane had kept her excited all afternoon. She had never walked out with any boy: it was wrong; now that she was practically engaged, it was more than wrong. Mr Chittaranjan was modern enough in many ways—the way he had given her education and the way he furnished his house and kept it shining with new paint—but he wasn’t advanced enough to allow his only daughter to walk out with a boy before she was married. Nelly didn’t blame him. She knew she was being married off so quickly only because she hadn’t been bright enough to get into one of the girls’ high schools like La Pique. Thinking of La Pique, she thought of the Poly, and then she thought of Harbans’s son, the boy she was going to marry. She had seen him once or twice in Port of Spain when she had gone to stay with her aunt (the wife of the barrister, the donor of the chromium-plated ashtray in Chittaranjan’s veranda). He was a fat yellow boy with big yellow teeth, a giggling gum-chewer, always taking out his wallet to show you his latest autographed picture of some American actress, and you were also meant to see the crisp quarter-inch wad of new
dollar notes. Still, if she had to marry him, she had to; it was her own fault. She would have preferred the Poly though. Teacher Francis had met someone who had actually been. There were
dances
at the Poly! Foam didn’t even know what the Poly was. But he was no fool. He couldn’t talk as well as that Lorkhoor; but Lorkhoor was a big show-off; she preferred Foam. Foam was crazy. Those sunglasses. And those long speeches he shot right off the reel, just like that. She had wanted to laugh all the time. Not that the speeches were funny; it was the over-serious way Foam spoke them. And yet he could never make her feel that the whole thing was more than a piece of skylarking. A boy trying to be mannish! And making up that story about a dog, just to meet her!

Teacher Francis had to pull her up. ‘But what making you laugh all the time so for, Miss Chittaranjan?’ Teacher Francis reserved standard English only for prepared statements. ‘I was saying, the thing about shorthand is practice. When
I
was studying it, I use to even find myself writing shorthand on my pillow.’ That was how he always rounded off the lesson.

Nelly looked at the dusty clock on the ochre and chocolate wall. It was twenty past eight; she was meeting Foam at a quarter to nine.

But this was the time when Teacher Francis, the lesson over, his coat off, his tie slackened a little lower than usual, liked to talk about life. He was talking about the election. A bitter subject for him ever since Lorkhoor had, without warning or explanation, deserted him to campaign for Preacher.

‘This new constitution is a trick, Miss Chittaranjan. Just another British trick to demoralize the people.’

Nelly, her pen playing on her pad, asked absently, ‘Who you voting for, Teach?’

‘Not voting for nobody at all.’

‘You talking like the Witnesses now, man, Teach.’

He gave a sour laugh. ‘No point in voting. People in Elvira don’t know the
value
of their vote.’

Nelly looked up from her pad. ‘It look to me that a lot of them know it very well, Teach.’

‘Miss Chittaranjan, I don’t mean nothing against your father, Miss Chittaranjan. But look at Lorkhoor. Before this election, I did always think he was going to go far. But now …’ Teacher Francis waved a hand and didn’t finish the sentence. ‘Elvira was a good friendly place before this universal suffrage nonsense.’

‘Teach! You mean to say you against democracy?’

He saw he had shocked her. He smiled. ‘Is a thing I frown on, Miss Chittaranjan.’

‘Teach!’

‘I am a man of radical views, Miss Chittaranjan.’

Nelly put down her pen on her notebook. ‘My father would be
very
interested, Teacher Francis.’

He saw the notebook. ‘Miss Chittaranjan! You been taking down what I was saying, Miss Chittaranjan!’

She hadn’t. But she snapped the book shut and rose.

‘I was just throwing off ideas, Miss Chittaranjan. You mustn’t think I is a fascist.’