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

The driver shouted, ‘Yaah!’

It was Lorkhoor.

‘Yaah! We will bury Harbans! Yaah!’

Quick as anything, Foam put his head out of the window and shouted back, ‘Put money where your mouth is! You traitor!’

‘Yaah!’

And Lorkhoor was gone.

But Lorkhoor wasn’t alone in his van. Foam was sure he had seen a woman with him; she had ducked when the van passed. He was really a shameless liar, that boy. He said it was a degradation to get mixed up with Elvira politics, yet he was campaigning for Preacher. He said he didn’t care for women, that marriage was unnatural, and here he was driving out of Elvira at night with a woman who wasn’t anxious to be seen.

‘I too glad we not fighting on the same side this election,’ Foam said aloud.

*

Nelly Chittaranjan came, coy but uneasy. ‘Well, Foreman,’ she said ironically. ‘You bring this famous dog?’

He switched on the top light of the van.

‘Oh God, Foreman! A dog!’

He didn’t understand why she was annoyed.

‘Is a mangy little mongrel puppy dog, Foreman. It sick and it stink.’

‘For a little dog you calling him a lot of big names, you know.’

She was in a temper. ‘Look at the belly, Foreman. Colic.’

‘Is why I ask you. It ain’t have nobody else in Elvira who would look after a sick dog.’

She couldn’t go back on her word. But she was angry with Foam; she felt he had made a fool of her. What was she going to do with the dog anyway?

Foam said, ‘Your father send a message. Committee meeting at your house. I could give you and your dog a lift.’

She got in without a word.

‘For a educated girl, Miss Chittaranjan, you know you ain’t got no manners? They not going to like that at the Poly. Nobody ever teach you to say thanks?’

She tossed her head, smoothed out her frock, edged away from Tiger, and sniffed loudly.

Foam said, ‘You go get used to it.’

Then the trouble started.

They heard a curious noise at the side of the road. It was part gurgle, part splutter, part like a thirsty dog lapping up water.

Then a squeaky breathless voice exclaimed, ‘This is the thing that does start the thing!’

Foam had some trouble in making out Haq, the Muslim fanatic.

He got out of the van.

‘Haq, you is a old maquereau. God give you the proper maquereau colour. Black. You so damn black nobody could see you in the night-time.’

Haq was trembling with excitement. His stick rapped the ground, he looked more bent than usual. ‘You, Foreman Baksh, call me what you like. But I going to tell your father. For a Muslim you ain’t got no shame. Going out with a kaffir woman.’

Nelly looked down at Tiger beside her; she was too stupefied to say or do anything.

Foam defended her. ‘ You calling she kaffir? You make yourself out to be all this religious and all this Muslim and all this godly, and still you ain’t got no shame. Dog eat your shame. You is a dirty old maquereau, old man.’

‘This is the thing that does start the thing,’ Haq repeated, his squeaky voice twittering out of control. For a precarious moment he lifted his weight off his stick and used the stick to point at Nelly. ‘This is the thing.’ He made a noise that could have been a titter or a sob, and leaned on his stick again. In the darkness all that Foam could see clearly of Haq were the whites of his eyes behind his glasses and his white prickly beard.

‘What thing you see, maquereau?’

‘I see everything.’ Haq tittered, sobbed again. ‘This is the thing that does start the thing.’

‘Tell me what thing you see, maquereau.’

‘All right, all right, you calling me rude words.’ He whined one word and spat out another. ‘You don’t understand the hardship I does have to put up with.’

‘You not getting one black cent from me, you nasty old maquereau.’

‘I not young and strong like you. I is a old man. You calling me rude words and you want to see me cry. Well, all right. I go cry for you.’

And Haq began to cry. It sounded like chuckling.

‘Cry, maquereau.’

Nelly spoke at last: ‘Leave him, Foreman.’

‘No, I want to see the old maquereau cry.’

Haq sobbed, ‘I is a old man. All you people making Ravine Road a Lovers’ Lane. First Lorkhoor and now you. All-you don’t understand the hardship a old man does have.’ He wiped his cheeks on his sleeve. Then he cried again. ‘I is a widow.’

Foam got into the van.

‘You tell anybody about this thing you see, Haq, and I promising you that you going to spend the rest of your days in a nice hospital. You go start using rubber for bones.’

Haq sobbed and gurgled. ‘Kill me now self. You is young and strong. Come on and kill me one time, and bury me right here in Ravine Road, all your Lovers’ Lane.’

To start the engine Foam turned off the headlights. Again the noises sprang out from the bush and Haq cried out in the dark, ‘Kill me, Foreman. Kill me.’

‘Maquereau, ’ Foam shouted, and drove off.

He had enjoyed the encounter with Haq, a man he had never liked; because of Haq’s tales he had often been flogged when he was younger.

But Nelly was feeling flat and frightened.

‘Don’t worry,’ Foam said. ‘He wouldn’t say anything. Not after that tongue-lashing I give him.’

She was silent.

Between them Tiger heaved and croaked.

He dropped them both off at a trace not far from Chittaranjan’s.

*

He found Mahadeo and Chittaranjan waiting for him. Chittaranjan had changed into his home clothes and, rocking in his own tiled veranda, was as dry and formidable as ever. Mahadeo was still in his khaki uniform.

There was no light in the veranda. Chittaranjan said they didn’t need one, they didn’t want to write anything, they only wanted to talk.

Presently Foam heard Nelly arrive. He heard her open the gate at the side of the shop downstairs and heard her come up the wooden steps at the back.

Chittaranjan called out, ‘Is you, daughter?’

‘Yes, Pa, is me.’

‘Go and put on your home clothes,’ Chittaranjan ordered. ‘And do whatever homework Teacher Francis give you. No more running about for you tonight.’

Foam looked at Chittaranjan. He was smiling his fixed smile.

For some moments no one in the veranda said anything. Foam was thinking about Tiger; Mahadeo was thinking about Mr Cuffy; Chittaranjan rocked and clacked his sabots on the floor.

At last Chittaranjan said to Foam, “This Mahadeo is a real real jackass.’

Mahadeo remained unmoved, his large eyes unblinking. He had just told Chittaranjan of his unhappy interview with Mr Cuffy that morning.

‘I is a frank man,’ Chittaranjan said, spreading out his palms on the arms of his rocking-chair. ‘I does say my mind, and who want to vex, let them vex.’

Mahadeo wasn’t going to be annoyed. He continued to look down at his unlaced boots, stroked his nose, cracked his fingers, passed his thick little hands through his thick oily hair and mumbled, ‘I was a fool, I was a fool.’

Chittaranjan wasn’t going to let him off so easily.

‘Course you was a fool. And you was a double fool. And this boy father was a triple fool.’

‘How you mean?’ Foam asked.

Chittaranjan smiled more broadly. ‘So your father was having trouble with a dog, eh?’

Foam looked down.

‘And so your father think that the best way to get people votes is to run about saying that Preacher putting obeah and magic on him?’ Chittaranjan was caustic, but bland. ‘Tell me, that go make a lot of people want to vote against Preacher, eh?’