The Nightwatchman's Occurrence Book (17 page)

‘Mahadeo! What the hell you think you doing?’

Still on all fours, he looked up. It was Mr Cuffy.

‘Not doing nothing,’ he said.

‘Mahadeo, what get into you to make you play the ass so?’

Mahadeo rose and put his bare feet into his laceless boots.

‘You see Old Sebastian this morning, Mr Cawfee?’

‘Ain’t see nobody,’ Mr Cuffy said sullenly.
‘What
you was looking for so?’

‘Was Old Sebastian I was looking for, Mr Cawfee.’

‘And is so you does always look for Sebastian? Look, Mahadeo, if anything happen to Sebastian, you go be surprise …’

At this moment Baksh shouted from a little way down the road, ‘Hear about this thing at Cordoba, Mr Cawfee?’

‘Going up there right now,’ Mr Cuffy said.

‘When I did tell people,’ Baksh said, ‘nobody did want to believe. Everybody did just run about saying Baksh is a big mouther, eh?’

‘What happen at Cordoba?’ Mahadeo asked.

Mr Cuffy looked at Mahadeo. It was the look he had given him when he pasted his face with the whitewash brush. ‘Something
funny
happen up there last night, Mahadeo. I hear something about a dead.’

Mahadeo stared.

‘Let him go and see for hisself,’ Baksh said.

Mahadeo didn’t wait. He ran as much as he could of the way to Cordoba. Even before he got there he saw the crowd blocking up the road. It was mostly a Spanish crowd—he could tell that by the dress—but there were people from Elvira as well.

The crowd made a wide circle around something in the road. The Spaniards were silent but uneasy; they actually seemed happy to have the outsiders from Elvira among them.

Mahadeo was stared at. A path was opened for him.

‘Look,’ he heard someone say in the acrid Spanish accent. ‘Let him look good.’

*

Five dead puppies were symmetrically laid out on a large cross scratched right across the dirt road. One dead puppy was at the centre of the cross and there was a dead puppy at each of the four ends. Below was written, in huge letters:

AWAKE

And all around, on palings and culverts, Cordoba was still red with Foam’s old, partly obliterated slogans:
DIE! DIE!

Mahadeo, sweating, panting, gave a chuckle of relief.

The Spaniards looked at him suspiciously.

‘I did think it was Sebastian,’ Mahadeo said.

There were murmurs.

Mahadeo felt someone pull the sleeve of his uniform. He turned to see Sebastian, smiling, the empty pipe in his mouth. He almost embraced him. ‘Sebastian! You here! You ain’t there!’

The murmurs swelled.

Fortunately for Mahadeo, Baksh and Mr Cuffy came up just then, and almost immediately Foam arrived in the van and began to campaign.

Foam said, ‘Is those Witnesses. They can’t touch nobody else, so
they come to meddle with the poor Spanish people in Cordoba. Telling them not to vote, to go against the government. Who ever see white woman riding around on red red bicycle before, giving out green books?’

Baksh wasn’t thinking about politics. ‘Aha!’ he cried. ‘Aha! Just look at those dogs. Said same coloration, said same shape, said same everything, as in
my
dog. But nobody did want to believe. Well, look now.’

Mr Cuffy crossed himself. ‘Mahadeo, this is your work?’

‘Ain’t my work, Mr Cawfee. I just come and see it.’

‘Want to know something?’ Baksh said. ‘For all the tiny those dogs look tiny this morning, they was big big dogs last night. I telling all-you, man. Come in that night. Eleven o’clock. Open the door. See this mister man dog, big big, walking about quiet quiet and
sly
…’

‘Is those damn Witnesses,’ Foam said.

‘… next morning, is a tiny tiny puppy.’

‘Jesus say,’ Foam said, ‘we have to give Caesar’s things back to Caesar. Witnesses tell you different.’

‘I always say this,’ Mr Cuffy said. ‘God hath made man upright, but they have found out many inventions.’

A Spaniard asked, ‘But
what
they trying to do to we?’

‘Do to you!’ Foam said. ‘Do to you! They ain’t begin yet. Ain’t they was talking about the world blowing up in 1976? And ain’t you was listening? They was talking and you was listening. Well, look.’ And he pointed to the puppies.

Baksh said, ‘Nobody can’t try nothing on me. I know how to handle them.
My
dog
didn’t
dead.’

Harichand the printer came up, dressed for work.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘More puppy dogs.’ He squatted and examined the ground like a detective. ‘Dead, eh? Awake, eh?’ He stood up. ‘Witnesses. Serious. Very serious. Ganesh was the man to handle a thing like this.’

‘But what we going to do, Mr Harichand?’

‘Do, eh? What you going to do.’ Harichand thought. ‘Just don’t feed no Witnesses,’ he said decisively. ‘Don’t feed no Witnesses. Funny, five little puppy dogs like that. Like your dog, eh, Baksh?’

Baksh smiled. ‘Tell them about it, Harichand. And tell them about the sign too.’

Harichand said, ‘Yes, things really waking up in Elvira. But don’t feed no Witnesses.’

Baksh said, ‘But you did tell me it was Preacher who set the fust dog on me, Harichand.’

Harichand said quickly, ‘Didn’t exactly say it
that
way. Said
a
preacher was putting something on you. Didn’t say what
sort
of preacher. What about those printing jobs, Baksh? If Harbans want my vote, he want my printery, I telling you.’

Baksh said, ‘Harbans could haul his arse.’

Harichand laughed. ‘Election thing, eh? You changing sides? Who you for now?’

Baksh said, ‘Preacher. Eh, you ain’t hear the bacchanal?’

Mr Cuffy spat loudly.
‘Obeah! Obeah!’

The Spaniards looked on in dismay.

‘Obeah!’ Mr
Cuffy cried. ‘That is what all-you trying to work. Lorkhoor, and now you, Baksh. Tomorrow I go hear that Harbans come over to Mr Preacher side too. All-you only making a puppet-show of Mr Preacher. Mahadeo!’ Mr Cuffy called. ‘You trying something, eh?’

‘I ain’t trying nothing, Mr Cawfee.’ Mahadeo turned to Sebastian. ‘Come on, Sebastian, let we go home.’

Sebastian, smiling, stepped away from Mahadeo’s hand.

Mahadeo followed. ‘Come, Sebastian, you only tireding out yourself. You should go home and rest, man.’ He pressed a shilling into Sebastian’s palm. Sebastian smiled and allowed himself to be led away.

Mr Cuffy shouted, ‘Look after him good, you hear, Mahadeo.’

And then Chittaranjan was seen coming up to Cordoba.

He was in his visiting outfit.

*

Harbans—the candidate—heard about the row between Baksh and Chittaranjan and hurried down that noon to Elvira. He didn’t want to inflame either of the disputants, so he went straight to Pundit Dhaniram to find out what was what.

That day Dhaniram was not being a pundit. He was in his other, more substantial role as the owner of one-fifth of a tractor. No dhoti and sacred thread; but khaki trousers, yellow sports shirt, brown felt hat and brown patent leather shoes. When Harbans drove up, Dhaniram was standing on his sunny front steps, humming one of his favourite hymns:

He was about to leave, but he stayed to tell Harbans all about Foam and Nelly, and Baksh and Chittaranjan.

Harbans seemed more concerned about the loss of Baksh and the thousand Muslim votes than about the loss of honour of his prospective daughter-in-law. Dhaniram wasn’t surprised.

‘In the old days,’ Dhaniram said, talking about Nelly, and sounding Harbans further, ‘you coulda trust a Hindu girl. Now everything getting modern and mix up. Look, Harichand tell me just the other day that he went to San Fernando and went to a club place up there and he see Indian girls’—Dhaniram had begun to whisper—‘he see Indian girls openly soli-citing.’ He made the word rhyme with reciting. ‘Openly soli-citing, man.’

‘Openly soli-citing, eh,’ Harbans said absently. ‘Ooh, ooh. Send for some pencil and paper.’

‘Doolahin!’
Dhaniram called, loosening his black leather belt and sitting on the bench. ‘Pencil and paper. And make it quick sharp.’

The
doolahin
brought out some brown paper and the old pencil with the string attached to the groove at the top. She said irritably, ‘Why you don’t keep the pencil tie round your waist?’ And before Dhaniram could say anything she ran back to the kitchen.

‘See?’ Dhaniram said. ‘Only two years she husband leave she to go to England to study, and you see how she getting on. In the old days you think a daughter-in-law coulda talk like that to a father-in-law? In fact’—Dhaniram was whispering again—‘it wouldn’t surprise me if
she
ain’t got somebody sheself.’

‘Ooh, ooh, Dhaniram, you musn’t talk like that!’ Harbans was sitting cross-legged on the floor, making calculations on the brown paper. ‘We lose the Muslim vote. That is one thousand. We can’t get the Negro vote. Two thousand and one thousand make three thousand. About a thousand Hindus going to vote for Preacher because of that traitor Lorkhoor. So, Preacher have four thousand votes. I have three thousand Hindus and the Spanish ain’t voting.’ He flung down the pencil. Dhaniram picked it up. Harbans said calmly, ‘I lose the election, Pundit.’

Dhaniram laughed and loosened his belt a bit more. ‘Lemmesee that paper,’ he said, and lay down flat on his belly and worked it out. He looked perplexed. ‘Yes, you lose. It
look
like if you lose.’ He passed his hand over his face. ‘Can’t make it out, man. It did look like a sure thing to me. Sure sure thing.’

Harbans cracked his fingers, turned his palm downwards and studied the grey hairs and wrinkles on the back. ‘I is a old man,’ he said. ‘And I lose a election. That is all. Nothing to cry about.’ He looked up and smiled with his false teeth at Dhaniram.

Dhaniram smiled back.

Harbans broke down. ‘How much money Preacher spend for him to beat me in a election?’

Dhaniram said, ‘This democracy is a damn funny thing.’

At that moment Lorkhoor came up in his loudspeaker van. ‘Preacher is gaining new support. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the voice of Lorkhoor. The enemy’s ranks are thinning and Preacher will win …’

From her room Dhaniram’s wife asked in Hindi, ‘What is he saying?’

Dhaniram translated for her.

The
doolahin,
adjusting her veil, rushed out on bare feet.

‘Back inside,
doolahin,’
Dhaniram said. ‘Is not the sort of thing a married woman should listen to.’

She didn’t obey right away.

‘Here,’ Dhaniram said. ‘Take back this paper.
And
the pencil.’

She practically snatched them.

‘See?’ Dhaniram said. ‘See what I was telling you? It only want for she to hear a man voice and she excited long time.’

Lorkhoor drove off noisily, shouting, ‘Yaah! We will bury Harbans!’

Harbans all the while kept looking down at his hands.

Dhaniram sat on the bench again, lit a cigarette and began shaking his legs. The gravity of the situation thrilled him; he couldn’t dim the twinkle in his eyes; he smiled continually.

A visitor came.

Harbans said, ‘Go away, if is me you want to see. I ain’t got no more money to give.’

The visitor was Mahadeo, still in his uniform, holding a sweated khaki topee in his hands. His big eyes shone mournfully at the floor; his cheeks looked swollen; his thick moustache gave an occasional twitch over his small full mouth.

‘Sit down,’ Dhaniram said, as though he was inviting Mahadeo to a wake.

Mahadeo said, ‘I have a message from the goldsmith.’

Harbans shook away his tears. ‘You is faithful, Mahadeo.’

Mahadeo’s sad eyes looked sadder; his full mouth became fuller;
his eyebrows contracted. ‘Is about Rampiari husband,’ he said hesitantly. ‘He sick. Sick like anything.’

‘Rampiari husband is a Hindu, as you damn well know,’ Dhaniram said.

‘Aah, Mahadeo,’ Harbans said, smiling through his tears. ‘You is unfaithful, too?’

‘Yes, Mr Harbans. No, Mr Harbans. But the goldsmith, Mr Chittaranjan, did promise Rampiari husband that you was going to see him. He sick bad bad. He cut his foot with a hoe.’

Harbans looked down at his hands. ‘I ain’t got no more money for nobody. All it have for me to do is to settle Ramlogan rum-account and leave Elvira for good. Why
I
fighting election for?’

Dhaniram said, ‘Is God work.’

‘How the hell is God work? Is God work for Preacher to beat me in a election? How much money Preacher spend? You call that God work?’

Mahadeo said, ‘Preacher gone to see Rampiari husband.’

Harbans jumped up. ‘Preacher ain’t got no
right
to meddle with the Hindu sick.’ He paced so thunderously about the veranda that Dhaniram’s wife, inside, complained. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘What about that list of Negro sick you was going to make?’

Mahadeo hesitated.

Dhaniram, who had suggested the care of sick Negroes, stopped shaking his legs.

Mahadeo explained about Mr Cuffy.

Harbans was silent for a while. Then he exploded: ‘Traitors! Spies! Haw-Haw! I ask you, Mahadeo, to keep a eye on Negro sick and I come today and find that you is
feeding
them.’ He wagged a long thin finger. ‘But don’t worry your head. I not going to cry. I going to fight all of all-you. I not going to let any of all-you make me lose my election, after all the hard work I put in for Elvira.’

Dhaniram’s legs began to shake again; he pulled at his cigarette; his eyes twinkled.

Then Harbans’s fight seemed to die. ‘All right,’ he said resignedly.
‘All right, suppose I go to see Rampiari husband’—he gave a short grim laugh—‘and I pay the entrance fee, what guarantee I have that Rampiari husband going to vote for me?’

Dhaniram stood up and crushed his cigarette under his shoe. ‘Ah, the main thing is to
pay
the entrance fee.’

Harbans went absent-minded.