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

Miss Tall said, ‘The magazine my friend is holding shows how the prophecies in the Bible are coming true. Even the troubles of Elvira are in the Bible. Elections and all.’

‘Who won?’ Lorkhoor asked.

‘Who are you?’ Miss Short asked.

‘I’m the village intellectual.’ It was a tried sentence; it had the approval of Teacher Francis.

‘We must study the Bible together.’

‘Leave my election campaign alone first.’

Mr Cuffy’s disapproval of Lorkhoor was melting into admiration.

‘About this magazine,’ Miss Tall persisted. ‘You have no interest at all in seeing how the Bible’s prophecies are coming true?’

‘I’m not ambitious,’ Lorkhoor said.

The women left.

‘The devil ain’t no fool,’ Mr Cuffy said. ‘He does send pretty woman to tempt us. But were I tempted?’ He used the tone and grammar of his Friday evening sermons. ‘No, sir, I were not.’

‘You were not,’ Lorkhoor said. ‘But about this obeah affair, Mr Cawfee. If they try any fast ones, let me know. We have to plan move for move. And now we have those Witnesses encouraging people not to vote. We have to think of something to counter that as well.’

‘You is really a atheist?’

‘Freethinker really. Agnostic.’

‘Oh.’ Mr Cuffy looked reassured.

*

This Mahadeo, the estate-driver, was a real fool. He just had to make a list of sick and dying Negroes in Elvira — it was the only thing he could be trusted with — and he had to make a lot of noise about it.

That midday, shortly after Lorkhoor had left Mr Cuffy, Mahadeo, plump and sweating in his tight khaki driver’s uniform, came up to Mr Cuffy’s shop and tried to open a conversation with him. Mr Cuffy had relapsed into a mood of gloomy suspicion; opening a conversation with him was like opening a bottle of beer with your teeth. Mr Cuffy wasn’t liking anything at all at that moment; he wasn’t liking the Witnesses, wasn’t liking this talk of obeah, wasn’t liking Lorkhoor.

Mahadeo took off his topee. ‘Working hard, Mr Cawfee?’

Silence. Mr Cuffy wasn’t liking Mahadeo either.

Mahadeo scratched the mauve sweat-stains under his arms. ‘Elections, Mr Cawfee.’

No reply.

‘Progress, Mr Cawfee. Democracy. Elvira going ahead.’

‘Why you don’t go ahead yourself and haul your arse outa my yard?’

Mahadeo’s eyes began to bulge, hurt but determined. ‘One of the candidates want my help in the election, Mr Cawfee.’

Mr Cuffy grunted.

Mahadeo brought out his red pocket-notebook and a small pencil. ‘I have to ask you a few questions, Mr Cawfee.’ He tried some elementary flattery: ‘After all, you is a very important man in Elvira.’

Mr Cuffy liked elementary flattery. ‘True,’ he admitted. ‘It’s God’s will.’

‘Is what I think too. Mr Cawfee, how your Negro people getting on in Elvira?’

‘All right, I believe, praise be to God.’

‘You sure, Mr Cawfee?’

Mr Cuffy squinted. ‘How you mean?’

‘Everybody all right? Nobody sick or anything like that?’

‘What the hell you up to, Mahadeo?’

Mahadeo laughed like a clerk in a government office. ‘Just doing a job, Mr Cawfee. Just a job. If any Negro fall sick in Elvira, you is the fust man they come to, not true?’

Mr Cuffy softened. ‘True.’

‘And no body sick?’

‘ No body.’ Mr Cuffy didn’t care for the hopeful note in Mahadeo’s voice.

Mahadeo’s pencil hesitated, disappointed. ‘Nobody deading or dead?’

Mr Cuffy jumped up and dropped the black boot. ‘Obeah!’ he cried, and took up an awl. ‘Obeah! Lorkhoor was right. You people trying to work some obeah. Haul you tail outa my yard! Go on, quick sharp.’

‘How you mean, obeah?’

Mr Cuffy advanced with the awl.

‘Mr Cawfee!’

Mahadeo retreated, notebook open, pencil pointing forward, as protection. ‘Just wanted to help, that is all. And this is the thanks I getting. Just wanted to help, doing a job, that is all.’

‘Nobody ask for your help,’ Mr Cuffy shouted, for Mahadeo was now well away. ‘And listen, Mahadeo, one thing I promising you. If anybody dead, anybody at all, you going to be in trouble. So watch out. Don’t try no magic. If anybody dead, anybody. Obeah!’ Mr Cuffy bawled. ‘ Obeah!’

Mr Cuffy sounded serious.

And now Mahadeo was really worried.

*

Mahadeo wouldn’t have got into that mess if Baksh had kept his mouth shut. Mrs Baksh had warned him not to say anything about Tiger. But nothing like it had ever happened to him and he wanted people to know. Nearly everybody else in Elvira had some experience of the supernatural; when the conversation turned to such matters in Ramlogan’s rumshop, Baksh had had to improvise.

As soon as Mrs Baksh and Herbert left for Tamana, Baksh went to see Harichand the printer and caught him before he started for his printery in Couva.

Harichand, the best-dressed man in Elvira, was knotting his tie in the Windsor style before a small looking-glass nailed to one of the posts in his back veranda. He listened carefully, but without excitement.

‘Nothing surprising in what you say,’ he said at the end.

‘How you mean, man, Harichand? Was a big big dog …’

‘If you think that surprising, what you going to think about the sign I had just before my father dead?’

‘Sign, eh?’ It was a concession, because Baksh had heard Harichand’s story many times before.

‘Two weeks before my father dead,’ Harichand began, blocking his moustache with a naked razor-blade. ‘Was a night-time. Did sleeping sound. Sound sound. Like a top. Eh, I hear this squeaky noise. Squeaky squeaky. Like little mices. Get up. Still hearing this squeaky noise. Was a moonlight night. Three o’clock in the morning. Moonlight making everything look like a belling-ground. Dead and funny. Squeak. Squeak. Open the window. No wind at all. All the trees black and quiet. Squeak. Squeak. Road looking white in the moonlight. White and long. Squeak. Squeak. Lean out. No wind. Nothing. Only squeak, squeak. Look down. Something in the road. Black, crawling. Look down again. Four tiny tiny horses harness together. Big as little puppies. Black little horses. And they was pulling a funeral huss. Squeak. Squeak. Huss big as a shoebox.’

Harichand put away the razor-blade.

‘Two weeks later, my father dead. Three o’clock in the morning.’

‘But talking about puppies,’ Baksh said. ‘This thing was a big big dog last night. I just open the back door and I see it. Walking about in a funny limping way. You know how Haq does walk? Limping, as though he walking on glass? This dog was walking about like Haq. It ain’t say nothing. It just look at me. Sly. I get one frighten and I run upstairs. In the morning is a tiny tiny puppy, thin, all the ribs showing. But the same coloration.’

Harichand bent down to shine his shoe. ‘Somebody trying to put something on you.’ His tone was matter-of-fact.

‘Was a big dog, man.’

‘Just don’t feed it,’ Harichand said.

‘Feed it! Preacher ain’t catching me so easy.’

‘Ah, is Preacher, eh?’ Harichand gave a knowing chuckle. ‘Election thing starting already?’

‘We helping out Harbans.’

‘Harbans ain’t getting my vote. Eh, the man ain’t bring nothing yet for me to print.’

‘How you could say that, man? We fixing up something for you.’

‘Mark you, I ain’t begging nobody. But if you want my vote, you want my printery. It have a lot of people who wouldn’t like it if they know you wasn’t treating me nice.’

‘We fixing you up, man. So just don’t feed it, eh?’