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

Brush your teeth with Colgate,

Colgate Dental Cream.

‘Take the damn thing off,’ Rampiari’s husband shouted.

It cleans your breath

(One, two),

While it guards your teeth.

The radio was turned off. The hymn-singers sang hymns.

Pundit Dhaniram’s grief was beginning to be noticed. A lot of people felt he was showing off: ‘After all, Cawfee was Preacher best friend, and Preacher ain’t crying.’ Preacher was still consoling Dhaniram, patting the distraught pundit; while the announcement was coming over the radio Preacher had held on to him with extra firmness and affection. Now he took him to the bedroom.

It was close in the bedroom. The window was shut, the jalousies blocked up. The pictures had been turned to the wall and a towel thrown over the mirror. Tanwing and his assistants worked by the light of an acetylene lamp which was part of the equipment they had brought; candles burned impractically at the head of the bulky bed. The assistants, noiseless, were preparing the icebox for Mr Cuffy. Mr Cuffy’s corpse was without dignity. The man’s grumpiness, his fierce brows — all had gone for good. He just looked very dead and very old. The body had already been washed and dressed, with a curious clumsiness, in the shiny blue serge suit Elvira had seen on so many Friday evenings.

Preacher released Pundit Dhaniram and looked at Mr Cuffy as though he were looking at a picture. He put his hand to his chin, held his head back and moved it slowly up and down.

Dhaniram still sobbed.

This didn’t perturb Tanwing. He looked once at Dhaniram and looked no more. He was still fussing about the body, putting on the finishing touches. He was trying to place camphor balls in the nostrils and the job was proving a little awkward. Mr Cuffy had enormous nostrils. Tanwing had to wrap the camphor balls in cotton wool before they would stay in. Tanwing had the disquieting habit of constantly passing a finger under his own nostrils as though he had a runny nose, or as though he could smell something nobody else could.

When Dhaniram and Preacher left the room they were met by Chittaranjan. Dhaniram almost fell on Chittaranjan’s shoulder, because he had to stoop to embrace him.

‘You overdoing this thing, you know, Dhaniram,’ Chittaranjan said. ‘You ain’t fooling nobody.’

‘She gone, Goldsmith,’ Dhaniram sobbed. ‘She gone.’

‘Who gone, Dhaniram?’

‘The doolahin gone, Goldsmith. She run away with Lorkhoor.’

‘Come, sit down and drink some coffee.’

‘She take up she clothes and she jewellery and she gone. She gone, Goldsmith. Now it ain’t have nobody to look after me or the old lady.’

Outside, the men were singing a calypso about the election:

And I tell my gal,

Keep the thing in place.

And when they come for the vote,

Just wash down their face.

The drinking and singing continued all that night and into the morning. Then they buried Mr Cuffy. Preacher did the preaching.

IN MR CUFFY’S YARD the flambeaux had burned themselves out and were beaded with dew. The smell of stale rum hung in the still morning air. Under the almond trees benches lay in disorder. Many were overturned; all were wet with dew and coffee or rum. Around the benches, amid the old, trampled almond leaves, there were empty bottles and glasses, and enamel cups half full of coffee; there were many more in the dust under the low floor of Mr Cuffy’s house. The house was empty. The windows and doors were wide open.

It was time for the motorcade.

Outside Chittaranjan’s the taxis were parked in jaunty confusion, banners on their radiators and backs, their doors covered with posters still tacky with paste. The taxi-drivers too had a jaunty air. They were all wearing cardboard eyeshades, printed on one side, in red, DO YOUR PART, and on the reverse, VOTE THE HEART.

Some taxis grew restless in the heat and prowled about looking for more advantageous parking places. Disputes followed. The air rang with inventive obscenities.

Then a voice approached, booming with all the authority of the loudspeaker: ‘Order, my good people! My good people, keep good order! I am begging you and beseeching you.’

It was Baksh.

Without formal negotiation or notification he was campaigning for Harbans. In the loudspeaker van he ran up and down the line of taxis, directing, rebuking, encouraging: ‘The eyes of the world is on you, my good people. Get into line, get into line. Keep the road clear. Don’t disgrace yourself in the eyes of the world, my good people.’

His admonitions had their effect. Soon the motorcade was ready to start.

Harbans, Chittaranjan, Dhaniram and Mahadeo sat in the first car. Dhaniram was too depressed, Mahadeo too exhausted, to respond with enthusiasm to the people who ran to the roadside and shouted, ‘Do your part, man! Vote the heart!’

Mrs Baksh and the young Bakshes had a car to themselves. Mrs Baksh was not only reconciled to the election, she was actually enjoying it, though she pretended to be indifferent. She had decked out the young Bakshes. Carol and Zilla had ribbons in their hair, carried small white handbags which contained nothing, and small paper fans from Hong Kong. The boys wore sock and ties. Herbert and Rafiq waved to the children of poorer people until Zilla said, ‘Herbert and Rafiq, stop low-rating yourself.’

Baksh was with Foam in the loudspeaker van. He did his best to make up to Harbans for all the damage and distress he had caused him. He said, ‘This is the voice of … Baksh. Mazurus Baksh here. This is the voice of … Baksh, asking each and every one of you, the good people of Elvira, to vote for your popular candidate, Mr Surujpat Harbans. Remember, good people of Elvira, I, Mazurus Baksh, not fighting the election again. I giving my support to Mr Surujpat Harbans. For the sake of unity, my good people. This is the voice of … Baksh.’

Then Foam played the Richard Tauber record of the campaign song:

And oh, my darling,

Should we ever say goodbye,

I know we both should die,

My heart and I.

And Baksh added, ‘Don’t let nobody fool you, my good people. Vote the heart. Make your X with a black lead pencil, my good people. A black lead pencil. Not a red pencil or a pen. Do your part. This is the voice of … Baksh.’

The motorcade was well organized. One van alone carried food— roti, dalpuri and curried goat. Another carried hard liquor and soft drinks. There were small mishaps. Two or three cars broke down and had to be pushed out of the way. Once the motorcade enthusiastically went beyond Elvira, snarled with the motorcades of other candidates in the next constituency, and when the dust settled Chittaranjan saw that the first half of the motorcade, which contained the candidate, the committee and the loudspeaker van, had got detached from the second half, which carried the food and the liquor.

A long grey van pulled up. It belonged to the Trinidad Film Board, who were shooting scenes for a Colonial Office documentary film about political progress in the colonies, the script of which was to be written, poetically, in London, by a minor British poet. Apart from the driver and an impressive tangle of equipment behind the front seat, the van carried a Negro cameraman dressed for the job: green eyeshade, unlit cigar, wide, brilliant tie, broad-collared shirt open at the neck, sleeves neatly rolled up to mid-forearms. The cameraman chewed his cigar, sizing up Harbans’s diminished motorcade.

Chittaranjan went to him. ‘You drawing photo?’

The cameraman chewed.

‘If is photo you drawing, well, draw out a photo of we candidate.’

Harbans smiled wanly at the cameraman.