V. Naipaul - The nightwatchman's occurrence book - and other comic inventions

‘Who is Nimrod?’ Baksh asked.

Pundit Dhaniram slapped his thigh again. ‘Nimrod was a mighty hunter.’

They pondered this.

Harbans was abstracted, disconsolate.

Baksh said, ‘What those woman want is just man, you hear. The minute they get one good man, all this talk about mighty hunting gone with the wind.’

Dhaniram was pressing Chittaranjan: ‘You didn’t tell them about Caesar? The things that are Caesar’s. Render unto Caesar. That sort of thing.’

Chittaranjan lifted his thin hands. ‘I don’t meddle too much in all that Christian bacchanal, you hear. And as I was leaving, he, Edaglo, call me back. Me, Chittaranjan. And he give me this green book. Let God be true. Tcha!’

Mahadeo shook his head and clucked sympathetically. ‘Old Edaglo really pee on you, Goldsmith.’

‘Not only pee,’ Chittaranjan said. ‘He shake it.’

And having made his confession, Chittaranjan gathered about him much of his old dignity again.

*

‘Even if the Spanish ain’t voting,’ Foam said, ‘we have four thousand votes. Three thousand Hindu and one thousand Muslim. Preacher only getting three thousand. Two thousand Negro and a thousand Hindu. I don’t see how we could lose.’

Dhaniram said, ‘I don’t see how a whole thousand Hindus going to vote for Preacher. Lorkhoor don’t control so much votes.’

‘Don’t fool your head,’ Foam said quickly. ‘Preacher help out a lot of Hindu people in this place. And if the Hindus see a Hindu like Lorkhoor supporting Preacher, well, a lot of them go want to vote for Preacher. Lorkhoor going about telling people that they mustn’t think about race and religion now. He say it ain’t have nothing wrong if Hindu people vote for a Negro like Preacher.’

‘This Lorkhoor want a good cut-arse,’ Baksh said.

Chittaranjan agreed. ‘That sort of talk dangerous at election time. Lorkhoor ain’t know what he saying.’

Harbans locked and unlocked his fingers. ‘Nothing I does touch does turn out nice and easy. Everybody else have life easy. I don’t know what sin I commit to have life so hard.’

Everyone fell silent in the veranda, looking at Harbans, waiting for him to cry. Only the Petromax hissed and hummed and the moths dashed against it.

Then the doolahin thumped out bringing tea in delightfully ornamented cups so wide at the mouth that the tea slopped over continually.

Dhaniram said, ‘Tea, Mr Harbans. Drink it. You go feel better.’

‘Don’t want no tea.’

Dhaniram gave his little laugh.

Two or three tears trickled down Harbans’s thin old face. He took the cup, blew on it, and put it to his lips; but before he drank he broke down and sobbed. ‘I ain’t got no friends or helpers or nothing. Everybody only want money money.’

Mahadeo was wounded. ‘You ain’t giving me nothing, Mr Harbans.’ He hadn’t thought of asking.

Dhaniram, who had been promised something — contracts for his tractor — pulled at his cigarette. ‘Is not as though you giving things to we pussonal, Mr Harbans. You must try and feel that you giving to the people. After all, is the meaning of this democracy.’

‘Exactly,’ said Baksh. ‘Is for the sake of the community we want you to get in the Legislative Council. You got to think about the community, boss. As you yourself tell me the other day, money ain’t everything.’

‘Is true,’ Harbans fluted. ‘Is true.’ He smiled and dried his eyes. ‘You is all faithful. I did just forget myself, that is all.’

They sipped their tea.

To break the mood Dhaniram scolded his daughter-in-law. ‘You was a long time making the tea, doolahin.’

She said, ‘I had to light the fire and then I had to boil the water and then I had to draw the tea and then I had to cool the tea.’

She had cooled the tea so well it was almost cold. It was the way Dhaniram liked it; but the rest of the committee didn’t care for cool tea. Only Harbans, taking small, noisy sips, seemed indifferent.

Dhaniram’s wife called querulously from her room. The doolahin sucked her teeth and went.

Foam said, ‘If Lorkhoor getting Hindus to vote for Preacher, I don’t see why we can’t get Negroes to vote for we.’

They sipped their tea and thought.

*

Dhaniram pulled hard at his cigarette and slapped his dhoti-clad thigh. ‘Aha! Idea!’

They looked at him in surprise.

‘It go take some money …’ Dhaniram said apologetically.

Harbans took a long sip of cool tea.

‘It go take some money. But not much. Here in Elvira the campaign committee must be a sort of social welfare committee. Supposing one of those Negroes fall sick. We go go to them. We go take them to doctor in we taxi. We go pay for their medicine.’

Chittaranjan sucked his teeth and became like the formidable Chittaranjan Foam had seen rocking and smiling in his tiled veranda. ‘Dhaniram, you talking like if you ain’t know how hard these Negroes is in Elvira. You ever see any Negro fall sick? They just does drop down and dead. And that does only happen when they about eighty or ninety.’

‘All right. They don’t get sick. But even you say they does dead sometimes. Well, two three bound to dead before elections.’

‘You going to kill some of them?’ Baksh asked.

‘Well, if even one dead, we go bury him. We go hold the wake. We go take we coffee and we biscuits.’

Baksh said, ‘And you think that go make the Negroes vote for you?’

‘It go make them feel shame if they ain’t vote for we,’ Dhaniram said. ‘And if they ain’t vote, well, the next time they start bawling for help, they better not come round here.’

Mahadeo lifted his right hand as a warning that he was about to speak again. ‘Old Sebastian is one Negro who look as though he might dead before elections.’

‘Is a good idea,’ Foam said. ‘And every one of we could buy just one sweet drink for some Negro child every day until elections. Different child every day. And the parents. We mustn’t only help them if they fall sick or if they dead. If they can’t get a work or something. If they going to have a wedding or something. Take the goldsmith here. He could make a little present for Negroes getting married.’

Chittaranjan said animatedly, ‘Foam, you talking as if I does make jewellery with my own gold. I ain’t have no gold of my own. When people want things make, they does bring their own gold.’

And Chittaranjan destroyed an illusion which Foam had had since he was a boy; he had always believed that the gold dust and silver shavings the children collected from Chittaranjan’s workshop belonged to Chittaranjan.

Harbans said, ‘Foam, take the pencil and paper and write down all those who sick in Elvira.’

Dhaniram said, ‘Mungal sick like anything.’

Mahadeo lifted his hand. ‘It have a whole week now that Basdai and Rampiari ain’t come out to work. They must be sick too.’

Harbans said, ‘Mahadeo, you know you is a damn fool. You think is Hindu sick I want Foam to write down?’

Chittaranjan said, ‘Like I say, it ain’t have no Negro sick in Elvira.’

‘All right.’ Harbans was getting annoyed again. ‘Who getting married?’

Chittaranjan said, ‘Only Hindu and Muslim getting married. Is the wedding season now. The Negro people don’t get married so often. Most of them just living with woman. Just like that, you know.’

Harbans said, ‘And you can’t damn well start taking round wedding-ring to those people as wedding present. So, all we could do is to keep a sharp look-out for any Negro who fall sick or who fall dead. That may you talk about, Mahadeo.’