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

Ramlogan yawned and scratched. ‘Before you start, Haq, remember one thing. No trust. Remember, no trust.’

He pointed to the only picture on his walls, a coloured diptych. In one panel Haq saw the wise man who had never given credit, plump — though not so plump as Ramlogan — and laughing and counting what looked like a fortune. In the other panel the incorrigible creditor, wizened, haggard, was biting his nails in front of an empty money chest. Ramlogan had a copy of this picture in his shop as well.

‘In God we trust, as the saying goes,’ Ramlogan glozed. ‘In man we bust. As the saying goes.’

‘I ain’t come to beg,’ Haq said. ‘If you ain’t want to hear what I have to say, I could just get up and walk out, you know.’

But he made no move to go.

He talked.

Ramlogan listened. And as he listened, his peevishness turned into delight. He rolled on his dirty bed and kicked up his fat legs. ‘Oh, God, You is good. You is really good. Was this self I been waiting and praying for, for a long long time. Ha! So Chittaranjan is the fighter, eh? He in the Supreme Court for fighting, eh? Now we go show this Supreme Court fighter!’

Then the breadfruit fell. Then Chittaranjan cursed.

Haq waited. Ramlogan did nothing.

‘Go on and tell him now,’ Haq urged. ‘Answer him back.’

‘It could wait.’ And Ramlogan began to sing: ‘It could wait-ait, it could-ould wait-ait.’

He stopped singing and they both listened to Chittaranjan cursing. Ramlogan slapped his belly. Haq giggled.

‘Let we just remain quiet like a chu’ch and listen to all that he have to say,’ Ramlogan said. He clasped his hands over his belly, looked up at the sooty corrugated-iron ceiling, smiled and shut his eyes.

Chittaranjan paused. All that could be heard in Ramlogan’s room was the whisking of cockroaches behind the Trinidad Sentinels on the wall.

Chittaranjan began again.

‘He talking brave, eh, Haq? Let him wait. Haq, you black, but you is a good good friend.’

Haq was about to speak, but Ramlogan stopped him: ‘Let we well listen.’

They listened until there was nothing more to listen to.

Haq said, ‘Ramlogan, you is my good good friend too. You is the only Hindu I could call that.’

Ramlogan sat up and his feet fumbled for the degraded canvas shoes.

‘I is a old man, Ramlogan. My shop don’t pay, like yours. People ain’t buying sweet drink as how they use to. I is a widow too. Just like you. But I ain’t have your strength.’

‘All of we have to get old, Haq.’

‘That boy Foam say he going to send me to hospital.’

‘Foam only full of mouth, like his father.’

‘He did beg and beg me not to tell nobody. Wasn’t for my sake I break my word.’

Ramlogan stood up, stretched, and passed his big hairy hands over his big hairy belly. He walked over to the rum crates and took out a quarter bottle.

‘A good Muslim like you shouldn’t drink, you know, Haq.’

Haq looked angrily from the quarter bottle to Ramlogan. ‘I is a very old man.’

‘And because you is very old, you want to take over my shop?’ Ramlogan put back the bottle of rum. ‘You done owing me more than thirty dollars which I know these eyes of mine never even going to smell again.’

It was true. Haq had caught Ramlogan when Ramlogan was new in Elvira.

Haq said, ‘Is so it does happen when you get old. Give me.’

He took the rum, dolefully, and hid it in an inside pocket of his loose serge jacket. ‘Sometimes, eh, Ramlogan, I could drop in by you for a little chat, like in the days when you did fust come to Elvira?’

Ramlogan nodded. ‘You is a bad Muslim, Haq, and you is a bad drinker.’

Haq struggled to rise from his hammock. ‘I is a old man.’

Ramlogan hurried him outside and chained the gate after him.

Haq came out well pleased, but trying hard to look dejected, to fool the two workmen in Chittaranjan’s yard. They weren’t looking at him; they were staring in astonishment at something he hadn’t seen. He kept his eyes on the ground and fumbled with his jacket to make sure that his rum was safe. He limped a few paces; then, knowing that people would suspect equally if he appeared too dejected, he looked up.

And halted.

There, limping out of Chittaranjan’s yard into the hot afternoon sun, was the animal all Elvira had heard about. Tiny, rickety. Dangerous. Tiger.

‘Where that dog going?’ Haq cried. And he hoped it wasn’t to his place.

*

Tiger came out into the road and turned left.

It was nearly half past three. Children were coming back from school, labourers from the estate. Only people in government service were still at work; they would knock off at four.

The news ran through Elvira. Baksh’s puppy, the obeah-dog, the one that had been sent away, was back.

Tiger limped on. Schoolchildren and labourers stood silently at the verge to let him pass. Faces appeared behind raised curtains. People ran up from the traces to watch. No one interfered with Tiger and he looked at no one. His hiccoughs had gone. He tottered, wobbled, and went on, as though some force outside him were pushing him on to a specific destination.

Mr Cuffy saw and was afraid.

Rampiari’s husband was afraid. ‘You is my witness, Ma,’ he said to his mother-in-law, ‘that when the goldsmith come yesterday to ask for my vote, I tell him I didn’t want to meddle in this politics business. You is my witness that he beg and beg me to vote.’

Mahadeo, his thoughts on the sick and dying Negroes of Elvira, saw. When he passed Mr Cuffy he didn’t look up.

Mr Cuffy shouted, ‘Remember, Mahadeo, if anybody dead before this elections …’

Mahadeo walked on.

Tiger walked on.

Baksh, Mrs Baksh, Foam and all the six young Bakshes knew.

‘Shut up the shop!’ Baksh ordered. ‘And shut up the gate. Nobody dog ain’t walking in my yard as they well please.’

Mrs Baksh was pale. ‘This sweetness, man, this election sweetness.’

Baksh said, ‘Foam, I ain’t want to get Bible and key again. You did or you didn’t take away that dog last night?’

‘I tell you, man.’

‘Oh God, Foam! Things serious. Don’t lie to me at this hour, you know.’

Foam sucked his teeth.

Herbert said, ‘But we ain’t even know is the same dog.’

‘Yes,’ Baksh said eagerly. ‘Exactly. How we know is the same dog?’

Mrs Baksh beat her bosom. ‘I know, Baksh.’

Tiger came on, indifferent as sea or sky. He didn’t walk in the centre of the road, as people wished he would; he walked at the edge, as if he wished to hide in the grass.

Christians, Hindus and Muslims crossed themselves. To make sure, some Hindus muttered Rama, Rama as well.

Tiger came around the bend of the road.

‘Is Tiger!’ Herbert said.

‘Sweetness! Sourness!’

Rafiq said, ‘Ten die.’

‘But look how small the mister man dog is, eh?’ Baksh said. ‘You know, he get even smaller now. Small as a rabbit and thin as a match-stick.’

Herbert said, ‘Still, small as he is, he coming.’

‘Herbert,’ Mrs Baksh pleaded, ‘you ain’t cause enough trouble and misery?’

Baksh said, ‘Not to worry, man. For all we know, the dog just going to walk straight past the house. After all, that fellow in Tamana did well jharay Herbert.’

‘I know, Baksh. And everybody in Elvira know too. Look how they looking. They looking at the dog and then they looking at we. And they laughing in their belly, for all the serious face they putting on. Oh God, Baksh, this sweetness!’

Foam said, ‘I don’t see why all-you making this big set of fuss for. All I could see is a thin thin dog, break-up like hell, that look as though he ain’t eat nothing since he born.’