The Nightwatchman's Occurrence Book (20 page)

Bathing Tiger was no easy business. First Foam and Herbert had to steal a block of Mrs Baksh’s strong blue soap. Then they changed into old trousers and shirts because they were going to bath Tiger at the stand-pipe in the main road.

They went to the cocoa-house.

Outside the cocoa-house they saw Lorkhoor’s van parked on the wide verge. The grass went up to the hubs of the wheels.

‘Hope he not interfering with Tiger,’ Herbert said.

On a signal from Foam Herbert fell silent and both boys made their way through the intricate bush to the cocoa-house. They heard Tiger bark. A little snap of a sound, high-pitched but ambitious. They heard someone muttering and then they saw Lorkhoor and the girl. Apparently they had been there some time because Tiger had grown used to their presence and had barked, not at them, but at Foam and Herbert.

The girl said, ‘Oh God!’ pulled her veil over her face and ran out of sight, through the bush, behind the cocoa-house and then, as Foam imagined, to the road.

Lorkhoor remained behind to brazen it out.

In his excitement he dropped his educated tone and vocabulary and slipped into the dialect. ‘Eh, Foreman! You take up
maquereauing
now?’

‘You ain’t got no shame, Lorkhoor. Using words like that in front of a little boy.’

Herbert pretended he hadn’t heard anything.

Lorkhoor turned vicious. ‘You tell anything, and see if I don’t cripple you.’

‘I is not a tell-tale. And at the same time I is not a hide-and-seek man.’

‘Go ahead. Open your mouth once, and I’ll have the police on your tail, you hear.’

‘Police?’

‘Yes, police. You drive a van. You have a driving licence? If I lay one report against you, I would cripple you for life, you hear.’

Foam laughed. ‘Eh, but this is a funny world, man. Whenever people wrong, they start playing strong.’

Lorkhoor didn’t stay to reply.

‘Eh!’ Herbert shouted after him. ‘But he too bold.’

Tiger, wagging his tail at Foam’s feet, barked continually at Lorkhoor. Every now and then he made abortive rushes at him, but he never seriously courted danger.

Foam pursued Lorkhoor with his words. ‘You disappoint me, Lorkhoor. For all the educated you say you educated, you ain’t got no mind at all. You disappoint me, man.’

They heard Lorkhoor drive off.

Foam said, ‘You see the girl who was with him, Herbert?’

‘Didn’t exactly see she. But …’

‘All right. You ain’t see nothing, remember. We don’t want to start another bacchanal in Elvira now. Catch this dog.’

But Tiger wasn’t going to be caught without making a game of it. He seemed to sense too that something disagreeable was in store for him. He ran off and barked. Herbert chased. Tiger ran off a little further and barked again.

‘Stop, Herbert. Let him come to we.’

Foam put his hands in his pockets. Herbert whistled. Tiger advanced cautiously. When he was a little distance away—a safe distance—he gave his snapping little bark, stood still, cocked his head to one side and waited. Herbert and Foam were not interested. Tiger pressed down his forepaws and began to bark again.

‘Don’t do nothing, Herbert.’

Hearing Foam, Tiger stopped barking and listened. He ran off a little, stopped and looked back, perplexed by their indifference. He ran up to Herbert, barking around his ankles. Herbert bent down and caught him. Tiger squirmed and used an affectionate tongue as a means of attack. Herbert leaned backwards, closing his eyes and frowning. Tiger almost wriggled out of his hands and ran up his sloping chest.

‘Take him quick, Foam.’

Foam took Tiger. Tiger recognized the stronger grasp and resigned himself.

They took him to the stand-pipe in the main road. To get a running flow from it you had to press down all the time on the brass knob at the top. Herbert was to do the pressing down. Foam the bathing and soaping of Tiger.

‘It will drown the fleas,’ Herbert said.

Foam wasn’t so sure. ‘These fleas is like hell to kill.’

‘I don’t think Tiger going to like this, you know, Foam.’

Tiger hated it. As soon as he felt the water he started to cry and whine. He shivered and squirmed. From time to time he forgot himself and tried to bite, but never did. The water soaked through his coat until Foam and Herbert could see his pink pimply skin. He looked tiny and weak still. Then the blue soap was rubbed over him.

‘Careful, Foam. Mustn’t let the soap get in his eye.’

The fleas hopped about in the lather, a little less nimble than usual.

Before they could dry him, Tiger slipped out of Foam’s hands and ran dripping wet down the Elvira main road. Water had given him a strong attachment to dry land, the dustier the better. He rolled in the warm sand and dirt of the main road and shook himself vigorously on passers-by. Dirt stuck to his damp coat and he looked more of a wreck than he had before his bath.

Foam and Herbert chased him.

The patch of dirt before Mr Cuffy’s house appealed to Tiger. He flung himself on it and rolled over and over. Mr Cuffy stood up to watch. Tiger rose from the dirt, ran up to Mr Cuffy, gave himself a good shake, spattering Mr Cuffy with water and pellets of dirt, and tried to rub against Mr Cuffy’s trousers.

Mr Cuffy raised his boot and kicked Tiger away. And for a kick on a thin dog it made a lot of noise. A hollow noise, a
dup!
the noise you would expect from a slack drum. Tiger ran off whining. He didn’t run far. He ran into the main road, turned around when he judged it safe to do so; then, taking a precautionary step backwards,
let out a sharp snap of a bark. He turned away again, shook himself and ambled easily off.

Herbert, running up, saw everything.

‘God go pay you for that, Mr Cawfee,’ Herbert said. ‘He go make you dead like a cockroach, throwing up your foot straight and stiff in the air. God go pay you.’

‘Dirty little puppy dog,’ said Mr Cuffy.

Foam came up. ‘Yes, God go pay you back, Cawfee. All you Christians always hot with God name in your mouth as though all-you spend a week-end with Him. But He go pay you back.’

‘Puppy dog,’ Mr Cuffy said.

‘He go make you dead like a cockroach,’ Herbert said. ‘Just watch and see.’

*

Nomination day came. The three candidates filled forms and paid deposits. There were only two surprises. Preacher supplied both. The first was his name, Nathaniel Anaclitus Thomas. Some people knew about the Nathaniel, but no one suspected Anaclitus. Even more surprising was Preacher’s occupation, which was given on the nomination blank as simply, ‘Proprietor’.

Harbans described himself as a ‘Transport Contractor’, Baksh as a ‘Merchant Tailor’.

The night before, Pundit Dhaniram had suggested a plan to prevent the nomination of the other candidates.

‘Get in fust,’ he told Harbans. ‘And pay them your two hundred and fifty dollars in coppers. Only in coppers. And make them check it.’

‘You go want a salt bag to carry all that,’ Foam said.

For an absurd moment Harbans had taken the idea seriously. ‘But suppose they tell me wait, while they attend to Preacher and Baksh?’

Dhaniram shook his legs and sucked at his cigarette. ‘Can’t tell you wait. You go fust, they got to attend to you fust. Facts is facts and fair is fair.’

Chittaranjan squashed the discussion by saying drily, ‘You can’t give nobody more than twelve coppers. More than that is not legal tender.’

Harbans paid in notes.

He paid Baksh his two thousand dollars election expenses only after the nominations had been filed.

‘Like I did tell you, boss, can’t give you much of a fight with this alone,’ Baksh said ungraciously. ‘I is a man with a big family.’

That evening Baksh went to Ramlogan’s rumshop to celebrate his new triumph. They treated him like a hero. He talked.

*

At the end of that week, the last in July, the Elvira Government School closed for the holidays and Teacher Francis was glad to get away to Port of Spain. Elvira had become insupportable to him. Lorkhoor’s behaviour was one thing; and then, as he had feared, most of the Elvira parents had followed Chittaranjan’s example and stopped sending their children to him for private lessons.

The children were now free to give more of their time to the election. In their tattered vests and shirts and jerseys they ran wild over Elvira, tormenting all three candidates with their encouragements; impartially they scrawled new slogans and defaced old ones; they escorted Preacher on his house-to-house visits until Mr Cuffy frightened them off.

And the campaigns grew hot.

Lorkhoor roared into the attack, slandering Baksh, slandering Harbans. He spent the whole of one steamy afternoon telling Elvira what Elvira knew: that Harbans had induced Baksh to stand as a candidate.

‘A man who gives bribes,’ Lorkhoor said, ‘is also capable of taking bribes.’

‘This Lorkhoor is a real jackass,’ Chittaranjan commented. ‘If he think that by saying that he going to make Harbans lose. People
like
to know that they could get a man to do little things for them every now and then.’

Lorkhoor turned to Baksh. ‘A man who takes bribes,’ Lorkhoor said, ‘is also capable of giving them.’

‘Give?’
Chittaranjan said.
‘Baksh
give anything? He ain’t know Baksh.’

*

Photographs of Baksh and Harbans sprang up everywhere, on houses, telegraph-poles, trees and culverts; they were promptly invested with moustaches, whiskers, spectacles and pipes.

‘Making you famous girl,’ Baksh told Mrs Baksh. ‘Pictures all over the place. Mazurus Baksh. Hitch your wagon to the star. Mazurus Baksh, husband of Mrs Baksh. Mazurus Baksh, the poor man friend. Mazarus Baksh, everybody friend.’

‘Mazurus Baksh,’ Mrs Baksh said, ‘the big big ass.’

But he could tell that she was pleased.

*

Harban’s new slogan caught on. When Harbans came to Elvira children shouted at him, ‘Do your part, man!’ And Harbans, his shyness gone, as Foam had prophesied, replied, ‘Vote the heart!’

Foam was always coming up with fresh slogans. ‘The Heart for a start.’ ‘Harbans, the man with the Big Heart.’ ‘You can’t live without the Heart. You can’t live without Harbans.’ He got hold of a gramophone record and played it so often, it became Harban’s campaign song:

Every day Chittaranjan put on his visiting outfit and campaigned; Dhaniram campaigned, in a less spectacular way; and Mahadeo entered the names of sick Hindus in his red notebook.

*

For some time Preacher stuck to his old method, the energetic walking tour. But one day he appeared on the Elvira main road with a large stone in his hand. He stopped Mahadeo.

‘Who you voting for?’

‘Preacher? You know I campaigning for Harbans …’

‘Good. Take this stone and kill me one time.’

Mahadeo managed to escape. But Preacher stopped him again two days later. Preacher had a Bible in his right hand and a stone—the same stone—in his left hand.

‘Answer me straight: who you voting for?’

‘Everybody
know I voting for you, Preacher.’

Preacher dropped the stone and gave Mahadeo the Bible. ‘Swear!’

Mahadeo hesitated.

Preacher stooped and picked up the stone. He handed it to Mahadeo. ‘Kill me.’

‘I can’t swear on the Bible, Preacher. I is not a Christian.’

And Mahadeo escaped again.

*

Lorkhoor, copying Foam, gave Preacher a campaign song which featured Preacher’s symbol, the shoe:

Baksh, whose symbol was the star, went up to Harbans one day and said, ‘I want a song too. Everybody having song.’

‘Ooh, Baksh. You want song too? Why, man?’

‘Everybody laughing at me. Is as though I ain’t fighting this election at all.’

In the end Harbans allowed Foam to play a song for Baksh:

Rum flowed in Ramlogan’s rumshop. Everyone who drank it knew it was Harbans’s rum.

Dhaniram, exultant, consoled Harbans. ‘The main thing is to
pay
the entrance fee. Now is your chance.’

And Ramlogan encouraged the drinkers, saying, inconsequentially and unwisely, ‘Case of whisky for winning committee. Whole case of whisky.’

*

And in the meantime Harbans’s committee did solid work, Foam and Chittaranjan in particular. They canvassed, they publicized; they chose agents for polling day and checked their loyalty; they chose taxi-drivers and checked their loyalty. They visited warden, returning officer, poll clerks, policemen: a pertinacious but delicate generosity rendered these officials impartial.

With all this doing Harbans, with his moods, his exultations, depressions and rages, was an embarrassment to his committee. They wished him out of the way and tried, without being rude, to tell him so.

‘You could stay in Port of Spain and win your election in Elvira,’ Pundit Dhaniram told him. ‘Easy easy. Just leave everything to your party machine,’ he added, savouring the words. ‘Party machine.’

At his meetings on the terrace of Chittaranjan’s shop Harbans gave out bagfuls of sweets to children; and talked little. It was Foam
and Chittaranjan and Dhaniram and Mahadeo who did most of the talking.

First Foam introduced Mahadeo; then Mahadeo introduced Dhaniram; and Dhaniram introduced Chittaranjan. By the time Chittaranjan introduced Harbans the meeting was practically over and Harbans could only receive deputations.

‘Boss, the boys from Pueblo Road can’t play no football this season. Goalpost fall down. Football bust.’

Harbans would write out a cheque.

‘Boss, we having a little sports meeting and it would look nice if you could give a few of the prizes. No, boss, not give them out. Give.’

Another cheque.

It was Harbans, Harbans all the way. There could be no doubt of that.