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

‘In the old days,’ Dhaniram said, talking about Nelly, and sounding Harbans further, ‘you coulda trust a Hindu girl. Now everything getting modern and mix up. Look, Harichand tell me just the other day that he went to San Fernando and went to a club place up there and he see Indian girls’—Dhaniram had begun to whisper—‘he see Indian girls openly soli-citing.’ He made the word rhyme with reciting. ‘Openly soli-citing, man.’

‘Openly soli-citing, eh,’ Harbans said absently. ‘Ooh, ooh. Send for some pencil and paper.’

‘Doolahin!’ Dhaniram called, loosening his black leather belt and sitting on the bench. ‘Pencil and paper. And make it quick sharp.’

The doolahin brought out some brown paper and the old pencil with the string attached to the groove at the top. She said irritably, ‘Why you don’t keep the pencil tie round your waist?’ And before Dhaniram could say anything she ran back to the kitchen.

‘See?’ Dhaniram said. ‘Only two years she husband leave she to go to England to study, and you see how she getting on. In the old days you think a daughter-in-law coulda talk like that to a father-in-law? In fact’—Dhaniram was whispering again—‘it wouldn’t surprise me if she ain’t got somebody sheself.’

‘Ooh, ooh, Dhaniram, you musn’t talk like that!’ Harbans was sitting cross-legged on the floor, making calculations on the brown paper. ‘We lose the Muslim vote. That is one thousand. We can’t get the Negro vote. Two thousand and one thousand make three thousand. About a thousand Hindus going to vote for Preacher because of that traitor Lorkhoor. So, Preacher have four thousand votes. I have three thousand Hindus and the Spanish ain’t voting.’ He flung down the pencil. Dhaniram picked it up. Harbans said calmly, ‘I lose the election, Pundit.’

Dhaniram laughed and loosened his belt a bit more. ‘Lemmesee that paper,’ he said, and lay down flat on his belly and worked it out. He looked perplexed. ‘Yes, you lose. It look like if you lose.’ He passed his hand over his face. ‘Can’t make it out, man. It did look like a sure thing to me. Sure sure thing.’

Harbans cracked his fingers, turned his palm downwards and studied the grey hairs and wrinkles on the back. ‘I is a old man,’ he said. ‘And I lose a election. That is all. Nothing to cry about.’ He looked up and smiled with his false teeth at Dhaniram.

Dhaniram smiled back.

Harbans broke down. ‘How much money Preacher spend for him to beat me in a election?’

Dhaniram said, ‘This democracy is a damn funny thing.’

At that moment Lorkhoor came up in his loudspeaker van. ‘Preacher is gaining new support. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the voice of Lorkhoor. The enemy’s ranks are thinning and Preacher will win …’

From her room Dhaniram’s wife asked in Hindi, ‘What is he saying?’

Dhaniram translated for her.

The doolahin, adjusting her veil, rushed out on bare feet.

‘Back inside, doolahin,’ Dhaniram said. ‘Is not the sort of thing a married woman should listen to.’

She didn’t obey right away.

‘Here,’ Dhaniram said. ‘Take back this paper. And the pencil.’

She practically snatched them.

‘See?’ Dhaniram said. ‘See what I was telling you? It only want for she to hear a man voice and she excited long time.’

Lorkhoor drove off noisily, shouting, ‘Yaah! We will bury Harbans!’

Harbans all the while kept looking down at his hands.

Dhaniram sat on the bench again, lit a cigarette and began shaking his legs. The gravity of the situation thrilled him; he couldn’t dim the twinkle in his eyes; he smiled continually.

A visitor came.

Harbans said, ‘Go away, if is me you want to see. I ain’t got no more money to give.’

The visitor was Mahadeo, still in his uniform, holding a sweated khaki topee in his hands. His big eyes shone mournfully at the floor; his cheeks looked swollen; his thick moustache gave an occasional twitch over his small full mouth.

‘Sit down,’ Dhaniram said, as though he was inviting Mahadeo to a wake.

Mahadeo said, ‘I have a message from the goldsmith.’

Harbans shook away his tears. ‘You is faithful, Mahadeo.’

Mahadeo’s sad eyes looked sadder; his full mouth became fuller; his eyebrows contracted. ‘Is about Rampiari husband,’ he said hesitantly. ‘He sick. Sick like anything.’

‘Rampiari husband is a Hindu, as you damn well know,’ Dhaniram said.

‘Aah, Mahadeo,’ Harbans said, smiling through his tears. ‘You is unfaithful, too?’

‘Yes, Mr Harbans. No, Mr Harbans. But the goldsmith, Mr Chittaranjan, did promise Rampiari husband that you was going to see him. He sick bad bad. He cut his foot with a hoe.’

Harbans looked down at his hands. ‘I ain’t got no more money for nobody. All it have for me to do is to settle Ramlogan rum-account and leave Elvira for good. Why I fighting election for?’

Dhaniram said, ‘Is God work.’

‘How the hell is God work? Is God work for Preacher to beat me in a election? How much money Preacher spend? You call that God work?’

Mahadeo said, ‘Preacher gone to see Rampiari husband.’

Harbans jumped up. ‘Preacher ain’t got no right to meddle with the Hindu sick.’ He paced so thunderously about the veranda that Dhaniram’s wife, inside, complained. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘What about that list of Negro sick you was going to make?’

Mahadeo hesitated.

Dhaniram, who had suggested the care of sick Negroes, stopped shaking his legs.

Mahadeo explained about Mr Cuffy.

Harbans was silent for a while. Then he exploded: ‘Traitors! Spies! Haw-Haw! I ask you, Mahadeo, to keep a eye on Negro sick and I come today and find that you is feeding them.’ He wagged a long thin finger. ‘But don’t worry your head. I not going to cry. I going to fight all of all-you. I not going to let any of all-you make me lose my election, after all the hard work I put in for Elvira.’

Dhaniram’s legs began to shake again; he pulled at his cigarette; his eyes twinkled.

Then Harbans’s fight seemed to die. ‘All right,’ he said resignedly. ‘All right, suppose I go to see Rampiari husband’—he gave a short grim laugh—‘and I pay the entrance fee, what guarantee I have that Rampiari husband going to vote for me?’

Dhaniram stood up and crushed his cigarette under his shoe. ‘Ah, the main thing is to pay the entrance fee.’

Harbans went absent-minded.

‘The people of Elvira,’ Dhaniram said, tightening his belt, ‘have their little funny ways, but I could say one thing for them: you don’t have to bribe them twice.’

‘But what about Baksh?’

‘Baksh,’ Dhaniram said, ‘is a damn disgrace to Elvira.’

They went to see Chittaranjan.

*

They found Chittaranjan unruffled, bland, in his home clothes, rocking in his veranda. Obviously he was in the highest spirits.

‘Who say the Spanish ain’t voting?’ Chittaranjan said. And he told them about the five dead puppies in Cordoba. ‘Bright and early those two white woman Witnesses come up on their fancy bike. The Spanish ain’t talk to them, ain’t look at them. The five dead puppies alone remain in the road and the Spanish go inside their house and lock up the door. The white woman had to go away. Who say the Spanish ain’t voting?’

Harbans hid his joy. He didn’t want to tempt fate again.

Dhaniram calculated. ‘We draw up even with Preacher now. Four thousand apiece.’

Chittaranjan rocked. ‘Wait. Watch and see if Preacher don’t lose his deposit.’

Harbans said, ‘Goldsmith, I shoulda tell you this a long time now.’ And he disclosed the sign he had had weeks before: the Witnesses, the black bitch, the engine stalling.