The Nightwatchman's Occurrence Book (15 page)

From his veranda Chittaranjan saw Nelly coming up the road.

‘Proper student and scholar, man,’ Ramlogan said. ‘The girl going to school in the day-time and taking private lessons in the night-time. I know I is a Nazi spy, and I know I is a shameless hardback resign man, but I is not the man to stand up between father and daughter.’

He gave the fence a final shake, went and picked up the chicken and flung it into Chittaranjan’s yard. ‘It get fat enough eating my food,’ he said. ‘Cook it and eat it yourself. Supreme Court fighter like you have to eat good.’

He went back to his counter.

Nelly had stayed behind at school, as she always did, to help correct the exercises of the lower classes and rearrange the desks after the day’s upheaval. She was head pupil; a position more like that of unpaid monitor. On the way home she had heard about Tiger and seen him lying in the Bakshes’ yard. She knew then that her parents must have found him and turned him out.

She overdid the cheerfulness when she saw Chittaranjan. ‘Hi, Pops!’

Chittaranjan didn’t like the greeting. ‘Nalini,’ he said sadly, ‘don’t bother to go round by the back. Come up here. I have something to ask you.’

She didn’t like his tone.

‘Oh dog, dog,’ she muttered, going up the red steps to the veranda, ‘how much more trouble you going to cause?’

*

The Bakshes in their dilemma—whether they wanted Tiger dead or alive—were fortunate to get the advice of Harichand the printer.

Harichand was coming home after his work in Couva. No taxi-driver cared to come right up to Elvira, and Harichand was dropped outside Cordoba. He had to walk the three miles to Elvira. He enjoyed it. It kept his figure trim; and when it rained he liked sporting the American raincoat he had acquired—at enormous cost, he
said—on one of his trips to Port of Spain. He was the only man in Elvira who possessed a raincoat; everybody else just waited until the rain stopped.

Baksh was sitting in his veranda, looking out as if to find a solution, when he saw Harichand and pointed to Tiger prostrate in the yard.

‘Ah, little puppy dog,’ Harichand said cheerfully. ‘Thought you did get rid of him.’

‘It come back, Harichand.’

‘Come back, eh?’ Harichand stopped and looked at Tiger critically. ‘Thin thing.’ He stood up and gently lifted Tiger’s belly with the tip of a shining shoe. ‘Ah. Preacher put something strong on you if dog come back.’

‘Come up, Harichand,’ Baksh said. ‘It have something we want to ask you.’

Harichand had an entirely spurious reputation as an amateur of the mystic and the psychic; but the thing that encouraged Baksh to call him up was the limitless confidence he always gave off. Nothing surprised or upset Harichand, and he was always ready with a remedy.

‘I have a pussonal feeling,’ Baksh began, seating Harichand on a bench in the veranda, ‘I have a pussonal feeling that somebody feed that dog here.’

‘Feed, eh?’ Harichand got up again and took off his coat. His white shirt was spotless. One of Harichand’s idiosyncrasies was to wear a clean shirt every day. He folded his coat carefully and rested it on the ledge of the veranda wall. Then he sat down and hitched up his sharply creased blue serge trousers above his knees. ‘Somebody feed it, eh? But did tell you not to feed it. Wust thing in the world, feeding dog like that.’

Mrs Baksh came up. ‘What go happen if the dog dead, Harichand?’

Harichand hadn’t thought of that. ‘What go happen, eh?’ He
passed the edge of his thumb-nail along his sharp little moustache. ‘If it dead.’ He paused. ‘Could be dangerous. You never know. You went to see somebody about it?’

She mentioned the name of the mystic in Tamana.

Harichand made a face. ‘He all right. But he don’t really
know.
Not like Ganesh Pundit. Ganesh was the man.’

‘Is that I does always say,’ Baksh said. He turned to Mrs Baksh. ‘Ain’t I did tell you, man, that Ganesh Pundit was the man?’

‘Still,’ Harichand said consolingly, ‘you went to see somebody. He give you something for the house and
he jharay
the boy?’

‘He well
jharay
him,’ Mrs Baksh said. ‘Baksh tell you about the sign, Harichand?’

‘Sign? Funeral huss?’

‘Not
that,’
Baksh said quickly.
‘We
had a sign. Tell him, man.’

Mrs Baksh told about the ‘Ten Die!’ sign.

‘Did see it,’ said Harichand. ‘Didn’t know
was your
sign.’

Baksh smiled. ‘Well, was
we
sign.’

Harichand said firmly, ‘Mustn’t let the dog dead.’

‘But you did tell me not to feed him,’ Baksh said.

‘Didn’t tell me about your sign,’ said Harichand. ‘And too besides, didn’t exactly say that. Did just say not to feed it
inside
the house. Wust thing in the world, feeding dog like that inside.’

‘Feed him outside?’ Baksh asked.

‘That’s right. Outside. Feed him outside.’

Harichand stood up and looked down at Tiger.

‘Think he go dead, Harichand?’ Mrs Baksh asked.

‘Hm.’ Harichand frowned and bit his thin lower lip with sharp white teeth. ‘Mustn’t
let
him dead.’

Baksh said, ‘He look strong to you, Harichand?’

‘Wouldn’t exactly
call
him a strong dog,’ Harichand said.

Baksh coaxed: ‘But is thin thin dogs like that does live and live and make a lot a lot of mischief, eh, Harichand?’

Harichand said, ‘Trinidad full of thin dogs.’

‘Still,’ Baksh said, ‘they
living.’

Harichand whispered to Baksh, ‘Is thin dogs like that does breed a lot, you know. And breed fast to boot.’

Baksh made a big show of astonishment, to please Harichand.

‘Yes, man. Dogs like that. Telling you, man. See it with my own eyes.’ Harichand caught Mrs Baksh’s eye. He said, loudly, ‘Just feed it outside. Outside all the time. Everything going to be all right. If anything happen, just let me know.’

He hung his coat lovingly over his left arm and straightened his tie. As he was leaving he said, ‘Still waiting for those election printing jobs, Baksh. If Harbans want my vote, he want my printery. Otherwise …’ And Harichand shook his head and laughed.

*

Soon Tiger was passing through Elvira again, this time in the loudspeaker van. Foam and Herbert were taking him, on instructions, to the old cocoa-house.

*

Chittaranjan called.

Baksh said, ‘Going out campaigning, Goldsmith?’

For Chittaranjan was in his visiting outfit.

Chittaranjan didn’t reply.

‘Something private, eh, Goldsmith?’

And Baksh led Chittaranjan upstairs. But Chittaranjan didn’t take off his hat and didn’t sit down in the cane-bottomed chair.

‘Something serious, Goldsmith?’

‘Baksh, I want you to stop interfering with my daughter.’

Baksh knit his brows.

Chittaranjan’s flush became deeper. His smile widened. His calm voice iced over: ‘It have some people who can’t bear to see other people prosper. I don’t want nobody to pass over their
obeah
to me and I ain’t give my daughter all that education for she to run about with boys in the night-time.’

‘You talking about Foam, eh?’

‘I ain’t talking about Foam. I talking about the man who instigating Foam. And that man is you, Baksh. I is like that, as you know. I does say my mind, and who want to vex, let them vex.’

‘Look out, you know, Goldsmith! You calling me a instigator.’

‘I ain’t want your
obeah
in my house. We is Hindus. You is Muslim. And too besides, my daughter practically engage already.’

‘Engage!’ Baksh laughed. ‘Engage to Harbans son? You have all Elvira laughing at you. You believe Harbans going to let his son marry your daughter? Harbans foolish, but he ain’t that foolish, you hear.’

For a moment Chittaranjan was at a loss.

‘And look, eh, Goldsmith, Foam better than ten of Harbans sons, you hear. And too besides, you think
I
go instigate Foam to go around with
your
daughter? Don’t make me laugh, man. Your daughter? When it have five thousand Muslim girl prettier than she.’

‘I glad it have five thousand Muslim girl prettier than she. But that ain’t the point.’

‘How it ain’t the point? Everybody know that Muslim girl prettier than Hindu girl. And Foam chasing
your
daughter? Ten to one, your daughter ain’t giving the poor boy a chance. Let me tell you, eh, every Hindu girl think they in paradise if they get a Muslim boy.’

‘What is Muslim?’ Chittaranjan asked, his smile frozen, his eyes unshining, his voice low and cutting. ‘Muslim is everything and Muslim is nothing.’ He paused. ‘Even Negro is Muslim.’

That hurt Baksh. He stopped pacing about and looked at Chittaranjan. He looked at him hard and long. Then he shouted, ‘Good! Good! I glad! I glad Harbans ain’t want no Muslim vote. Harbans ain’t going to
get
no Muslim vote. You say it yourself. Negro and Muslim is one. All right. Preacher getting every Muslim vote in Elvira.’

Baksh’s rage relaxed Chittaranjan. He took off his hat and flicked a finger over the wide brim. ‘We could do without the Muslim vote.’ He put on his hat again, lifted his left arm and pinched the loose skin
just below the wrist. ‘This is pure blood. Every Hindu blood is pure blood. Nothing mix up with it. Is pure Aryan blood.’

Baksh snorted. ‘All-you is just a pack of kaffir, if you ask me.’

‘Madinga!’
Chittaranjan snapped back.

They traded racial insults in rising voices.

Mrs Baksh came out and said, ‘Goldsmith, I is not going to have you come to my house and talk like that.’

Chittaranjan pressed his hat more firmly on his head. ‘I is not
staying
in your house.’ He went through the brass-bed room to the stairs, saying, ‘Smell. Smell the beef and all the other nastiness they does cook in this house.’ He matched the rhythm of his speech to his progress down the steps: ‘A animal spend nine months in his mother belly. It born. The mother feed it. People feed it. It feed itself. It grow up. It come big. It come strong. Then they kill it. Why?’ He was on the last step. ‘To feed Baksh.’

Baksh shouted after him, ‘And tell Harbans he have to win this election without the Muslim vote.’

‘We go still win.’

And Chittaranjan was in the road.

‘What I tell you, Baksh?’ Mrs Baksh exclaimed. ‘See how sour the sweetness turning?’

‘Look, you and all,’ Baksh said, ‘don’t start digging in my tail, you hear.’

Mrs Baksh smoothed her dress over her belly. ‘Why you didn’t talk to the goldsmith like that? No, you is man only in front of woman. But Baksh, you just put one finger on me, and Elvira going to see the biggest bacchanal it ever see.’

Baksh sucked his teeth. ‘You talking like your mother. Both of all-you just have a lot of mouth.’

‘Go ahead, Baksh. You finish already? Go ahead and insult the dead. This election make you so shameless. If it was to me that the goldsmith was talking, I woulda turn my hand and give him a good clout behind his head.
I
know that. But you, you make me shame that you is the father of my seven children.’

Bakish said irritably, trying to turn the conversation, ‘You go ahead and talk. And let the goldsmith talk and let Harbans talk. But no Muslim ain’t going to vote for Harbans. Just watch and see.’

*

It was growing dark when Foam and Herbert brought Tiger to the cocoa-house. Years before, labourers were paid to keep the very floor of the cocoa-woods clean; now the woods were strangled in bush that had spread out to choke the cocoa-house itself. When Foam was a child he had played in the cocoa-house, but it was too dangerous now and no one went near it.

Foam and Herbert broke a path through from the road to the house. They had brought a box, gunny sacks and food for Tiger. While Foam hunted about for a place safe enough to put Tiger, Herbert explored.

Herbert knew all about the ghost of the cocoa-house, but ghosts, like the dark, didn’t frighten him. The ghost of the cocoa-house was a baby, a baby Miss Elvira herself had had by a negro servant at the time the cocoa-house was being built. The story was that she had buried it in the foundations, under the concrete steps at the back. Many people, many Spaniards in particular, had often heard the baby crying; some had even seen it crawling about in the road near the cocoa-house.

Herbert climbed to the ceiling and tried to push back the sliding roof: the roof was sliding so that the beans could dry in the sun and be covered up as soon as it began to rain. He pushed hard, but the wheels of the roof had rusted and stuck to the rails. He pushed again and again. The wheels grated on the rails, the whole house shook with a jangle of corrugated-iron sheets and a flapping of loose boards, and wood-lice and wood-dust fell down.

Herbert called out, ‘Foam, the roof still working.’

‘Herbert, why you so bent on playing the ass? Look how you make Tiger frighten.’

Tiger was indeed behaving oddly. He had staggered to his feet,
for the first time since his marathon afternoon walk; and for the first time since he had been discovered, was making some sound. A ghost of a whine, a faint mew.

Herbert came down to see.

Tiger mewed and tottered around in his box, as though he were trying to catch his tail.

Herbert was thrilled. ‘You see? He getting better.’ He remembered Miss Elvira’s baby. ‘Dog could smell spirits, you know, Foam.’

The tropical twilight came and went. Night fell. Tiger’s mews became more distinct. Whenever Foam stepped on the rotting floor the cocoa-house creaked. Outside in the bush croak was answering screech: the night noises were beginning. Tiger mewed, whined, and swung shakily about in his box.

Foam tried to force Tiger to lie down; the position seemed normal for Tiger; but Tiger wasn’t going to sit down or lie down and he wasn’t going to try to get out of his box either. The darkness thickened. The bush outside began to sing. Foam could just see the white spots on Tiger’s muzzle. A bat swooped low through the room, open at both ends.

‘Can’t leave him here,’ Foam said aloud. ‘Herbert!’

But Herbert wasn’t there.