The Nightwatchman's Occurrence Book (12 page)

She prepared to leave. ‘
I
don’t think anything, Teacher Francis. But if my father hear that you don’t approve of democracy or the elections, he wouldn’t approve of me coming to you for lessons, I could tell you.’

It was what Teach feared.

‘I was just talking, Miss Chittaranjan. Idea-mongering. Fact is, as a teacher, I have to be impartial.’

‘I know what you mean. You want to play both sides.’

‘No, Miss Chittaranjan, no.’

She didn’t wait to hear any more.

He wandered about his bare, cheerless government house, feeling once again that, since the defection of Lorkhoor, Elvira had become a wilderness.

*

Ravine Road was pitch dark. There was no moon, no wind. The tall featureless bush hunched over the road on one side; on the other side
the dry ravine was black, blank. When Foam turned off the headlamps, all the night noises seemed to leap out at the van from the bush, all the croakings and stridulations of creatures he couldn’t see, drowning the heaving of Tiger on the seat next to him.

Then the noises receded. Foam heard the beat of a motor engine not far away. Soon he saw headlights about two hundred yards down the slope where the road turned. The vehicle had taken the corner too quickly: the headlights made a Z. Then Foam was dazzled.

The driver shouted, ‘Yaah!’

It was Lorkhoor.

‘Yaah! We will bury Harbans! Yaah!’

Quick as anything, Foam put his head out of the window and shouted back, ‘Put money where your mouth is! You traitor!’

‘Yaah!’

And Lorkhoor was gone.

But Lorkhoor wasn’t alone in his van. Foam was sure he had seen a woman with him; she had ducked when the van passed. He was really a shameless liar, that boy. He said it was a degradation to get mixed up with Elvira politics, yet he was campaigning for Preacher. He said he didn’t care for women, that marriage was unnatural, and here he was driving out of Elvira at night with a woman who wasn’t anxious to be seen.

‘I too glad we not fighting on the same side this election,’ Foam said aloud.

*

Nelly Chittaranjan came, coy but uneasy. ‘Well, Foreman,’ she said ironically. ‘You bring this famous dog?’

He switched on the top light of the van.

‘Oh God, Foreman! A dog!’

He didn’t understand why she was annoyed.

‘Is a mangy little mongrel puppy dog, Foreman. It sick and it stink.’

‘For a little dog you calling him a lot of big names, you know.’

She was in a temper. ‘Look at the belly, Foreman. Colic.’

‘Is why I ask
you.
It ain’t have nobody else in Elvira who would look after a sick dog.’

She couldn’t go back on her word. But she was angry with Foam; she felt he had made a fool of her. What was she going to do with the dog anyway?

Foam said, ‘Your father send a message. Committee meeting at your house. I could give you and your dog a lift.’

She got in without a word.

‘For a educated girl, Miss Chittaranjan, you know you ain’t got no manners? They not going to like that at the Poly. Nobody ever teach you to say thanks?’

She tossed her head, smoothed out her frock, edged away from Tiger, and sniffed loudly.

Foam said, ‘You go get used to it.’

Then the trouble started.

They heard a curious noise at the side of the road. It was part gurgle, part splutter, part like a thirsty dog lapping up water.

Then a squeaky breathless voice exclaimed, ‘This is the thing that does start the thing!’

Foam had some trouble in making out Haq, the Muslim fanatic.

He got out of the van.

‘Haq, you is a old
maquereau.
God give you the proper
maquereau
colour. Black. You so damn black nobody could see you in the night-time.’

Haq was trembling with excitement. His stick rapped the ground, he looked more bent than usual. ‘You, Foreman Baksh, call me what you like. But I going to tell your father. For a Muslim you ain’t got no shame. Going out with a kaffir woman.’

Nelly looked down at Tiger beside her; she was too stupefied to say or do anything.

Foam defended her. ‘
You
calling she kaffir? You make yourself out to be all this religious and all this Muslim and all this godly, and
still you ain’t got no shame. Dog eat your shame. You is a dirty old
maquereau,
old man.’

‘This is the thing that does start the thing,’ Haq repeated, his squeaky voice twittering out of control. For a precarious moment he lifted his weight off his stick and used the stick to point at Nelly. ‘This is the thing.’ He made a noise that could have been a titter or a sob, and leaned on his stick again. In the darkness all that Foam could see clearly of Haq were the whites of his eyes behind his glasses and his white prickly beard.

‘What
thing
you see,
maquereau?’

‘I see everything.’ Haq tittered, sobbed again. ‘This is the thing that does start the thing.’

‘Tell me what thing you see,
maquereau.’

‘All right, all right, you calling me rude words.’ He whined one word and spat out another. ‘You don’t understand the hardship I does have to put up with.’

‘You not getting one black cent from me, you nasty old
maquereau.’

‘I not young and strong like you. I is a old man. You calling me rude words and you want to see me cry. Well, all right. I go cry for you.’

And Haq began to cry. It sounded like chuckling.

‘Cry,
maquereau.’

Nelly spoke at last: ‘Leave him, Foreman.’

‘No, I want to see the old
maquereau
cry.’

Haq sobbed, ‘I is a old man. All you people making Ravine Road a Lovers’ Lane. First Lorkhoor and now you. All-you don’t understand the hardship a old man does have.’ He wiped his cheeks on his sleeve. Then he cried again. ‘I is a widow.’

Foam got into the van.

‘You tell anybody about this
thing
you see, Haq, and I promising you that you going to spend the rest of your days in a nice hospital. You go start using rubber for bones.’

Haq sobbed and gurgled. ‘Kill me now self. You is young and
strong. Come on and kill me one time, and bury me right here in Ravine Road, all your Lovers’ Lane.’

To start the engine Foam turned off the headlights. Again the noises sprang out from the bush and Haq cried out in the dark, ‘Kill me, Foreman. Kill me.’

‘Maquereau,
’ Foam shouted, and drove off.

He had enjoyed the encounter with Haq, a man he had never liked; because of Haq’s tales he had often been flogged when he was younger.

But Nelly was feeling flat and frightened.

‘Don’t worry,’ Foam said. ‘He wouldn’t say anything. Not after that tongue-lashing I give him.’

She was silent.

Between them Tiger heaved and croaked.

He dropped them both off at a trace not far from Chittaranjan’s.

*

He found Mahadeo and Chittaranjan waiting for him. Chittaranjan had changed into his home clothes and, rocking in his own tiled veranda, was as dry and formidable as ever. Mahadeo was still in his khaki uniform.

There was no light in the veranda. Chittaranjan said they didn’t need one, they didn’t want to write anything, they only wanted to talk.

Presently Foam heard Nelly arrive. He heard her open the gate at the side of the shop downstairs and heard her come up the wooden steps at the back.

Chittaranjan called out, ‘Is you, daughter?’

‘Yes, Pa, is me.’

‘Go and put on your home clothes,’ Chittaranjan ordered. ‘And do whatever homework Teacher Francis give you. No more running about for you tonight.’

Foam looked at Chittaranjan. He was smiling his fixed smile.

For some moments no one in the veranda said anything. Foam
was thinking about Tiger; Mahadeo was thinking about Mr Cuffy; Chittaranjan rocked and clacked his sabots on the floor.

At last Chittaranjan said to Foam, “This Mahadeo is a real real jackass.’

Mahadeo remained unmoved, his large eyes unblinking. He had just told Chittaranjan of his unhappy interview with Mr Cuffy that morning.

‘I is a frank man,’ Chittaranjan said, spreading out his palms on the arms of his rocking-chair. ‘I does say my mind, and who want to vex, let them vex.’

Mahadeo wasn’t going to be annoyed. He continued to look down at his unlaced boots, stroked his nose, cracked his fingers, passed his thick little hands through his thick oily hair and mumbled, ‘I was a fool, I was a fool.’

Chittaranjan wasn’t going to let him off so easily.

‘Course you was a fool. And you was a double fool. And this boy father was a triple fool.’

‘How you mean?’ Foam asked.

Chittaranjan smiled more broadly. ‘So your father was having trouble with a dog, eh?’

Foam looked down.

‘And so your father think that the best way to get people votes is to run about saying that Preacher putting
obeah
and magic on him?’ Chittaranjan was caustic, but bland. ‘Tell me, that go make a
lot
of people want to vote against Preacher, eh?’

Mahadeo was still preoccupied with his morning adventure. ‘It look, Goldsmith, like we have to give up that plan now for burying dead Negroes and looking after sick ones.’

For the first time in his life Foam heard Chittaranjan laugh, a short, corrosive titter. ‘Eh, but Mahadeo, you smart, man. You work out that one all by yourself?’

Mahadeo smiled. ‘Yes, Goldsmith.’

Foam was attending with only half a mind. He was straining to catch all the noises inside the house. The coolness he had shown in
Ravine Road was beginning to leave him in Chittaranjan’s veranda; the thought of Haq unsettled him now. He heard sounds of washing-up; he heard Mrs Chittaranjan singing the theme song from the Indian film
Jhoola.

Mahadeo was saying, ‘Was a good plan though, Goldsmith. Goldsmith, ain’t it did look to you that Sebastian was one Negro who was bound to dead before elections?’

Chittaranjan smiled and rocked and didn’t reply.

Mahadeo suffered. He passed his hands through his hair and said, ‘I sorry, Goldsmith. I was a fool, I was a fool.’

Inside Nelly was moving about. Foam heard the thump and slap of her slippers. Everything seemed all right so far.

Mahadeo scratched the back of his neck to indicate perplexity and contrition. Chittaranjan remained impassive. Mahadeo tried to crack his fingers again; but nothing came: they had been cracked too recently. ‘Goldsmith, this new talk about
obeah
could frighten off a lot of votes.’

Chittaranjan spoke up. ‘On one side we have the Witnesses telling people not to vote. And now this boy father decide to tell people that if they vote for Harbans, Preacher going to work magic and
obeah
on them. All-you go ahead. See if that is the way to win election.’

Mahadeo forgot his own error. ‘In truth, Goldsmith, this boy father does talk too much.’

Foam was about to retort, but Chittaranjan challenged him: ‘You got any sorta plan, Foam? To make the Spanish people vote, and to get other people to vote without getting frighten of Preacher
obeah?’

Foam shook his head.

Chittaranjan rocked. ‘I have a plan.’

They attended.

‘It ain’t Preacher who working
obeah,’
Chittaranjan said. ‘Is the Witnesses. That is the propaganda we have to spread.’

‘Is a master-idea,’ Mahadeo said.

Foam was cautious. ‘Just a minute, Goldsmith. All right, we go
about saying that the Witnesses working
obeah.
But what Preacher going to say?’

Chittaranjan’s gold teeth flashed in the pale light that came through the thickly curtained drawing-room doorway. ‘You is a smart boy, Foam. You does ask the correct question. He’—Chittaranjan jerked his chin towards Mahadeo who stared stolidly at his boots—‘he ain’t have the brains to think of things like that.’

Mahadeo looked up and asked, ‘What Preacher going to say, Goldsmith?’

Chittaranjan stopped rocking. ‘Is like this. Preacher hoping to get some Spanish votes too. He wrong, but it good to let people hope sometimes. If the Spanish ain’t voting, Preacher suffering. So, already Preacher hisself start saying that the Witnesses working
obeah.
If we say the same thing, the Witnesses ain’t got a chance. People go start getting frighten of the Witnesses and we go get back all the votes of the Spanish people in Cordoba who saying they ain’t voting because politics ain’t a divine thing. Tcha!’ Chittaranjan sucked his teeth; the ingratitude and stupidity of the Spaniards still rankled.

Mahadeo scratched the back of his head and passed a finger down his nose. ‘You know what you have that we ain’t have, Goldsmith? Is brains you have, Goldsmith.’

Chittaranjan snubbed Mahadeo. ‘Wasn’t my idea. Today I hear people talking about
obeah
and today I hear Lorkhoor going around saying that it wasn’t Preacher working
obeah,
but the Witnesses. And I sit down and I hold my head in my two hands and I puzzle it out and I see that even out of this boy father stupidness, starting all this talk about dog and
obeah,
we could make some profit.’

Foam gave his approval. But he was a little bitter that it was Lorkhoor who had thought of a way to counter the Witnesses. After all, the Witnesses were to be defeated by talk of
obeah
and magic; and this
obeah
and magic was nothing other than Tiger, Herbert’s Tiger.

Inside, footsteps were measured, ordinary. Mrs Chittaranjan was singing.

Tiger was going to be all right. At least for the night.

A
ND THE NEXT DAY,
in spite of Chittaranjan’s plan, Harbans was in trouble, big trouble.

The day began badly, you might almost say with an omen. Foam had an accident outside Chittaranjan’s shop. Only a chicken was involved, but the repercussions of the accident were to shake Elvira before dusk.

It was just about midday when the accident happened. Ramlogan had closed his rumshop for the regulation hours from twelve to four. Chittaranjan’s two workmen had disappeared somewhere into the back of the shop to eat—Mrs Chittaranjan gave them food and they ate squatting on the floor downstairs. Just then the two rival loudspeaker vans approached one another.