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

The crowd shouted obscene abuse at Baksh. Some of it was picked up by the loudspeaker.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, unless you corporate with the government and unless and until you corporate with the police and start bewaring of the Highway Code, I cannot give out the last and final result which I have at this very present moment in my own own hand. Ladies and gentlemen, come in a lil bit fust, ladies and gentlemen. Keep the road clear. Keep death off the roads. Think before you drink. Drive slowly. ‘Rrive safely. Come in a lil bit fust. Last result. Last result. Corporate with the police. Last result. Final grand total. Ladies and gentlemen, come in a lil bit.’

Harbans remained on the wing of the van, almost forgotten.

‘Baksh 56. Baksh 56.’

Boos. Ironical cheers. Laughter.

‘Repeat. Final result. Baksh 56. Harbans five thousand …’

Tumult.

‘Beware of the Highway Code. Harbans five thousand, three hundred and thirty-six. Five three three six.’

The crowd swarmed around the van, grabbed at Harbans’s ankles, knees. Some offered up hands. Harbans grabbed them with astonishing vigour and shook them fervently.

Baksh tried to carry on calmly, like a man on government business. ‘Thomas seven hundred …’

They wanted to hear no more.

Baksh shouted at them without effect. He shouted and shouted and then waited for them to calm down.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, you is not corporating. Thomas seven hundred and sixteen. Seven one six. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I give you your new Onble Member of the Legislative Council, Mr Surujpat Harbans. But before I give him to you, let me make a final appeal to corporate with the police. Beware of the Highway Code.’

Harbans, on the wing, was in tears when he took the microphone. His voice, coming over the loudspeaker, was a magnified coo. ‘I want to thank everybody. I want to thank you and you and you …’

Somebody whispered, ‘The police.’

‘… and I want to thank the police and the Warden and the clerks and I want to thank everybody who vote for me and even people who ain’t vote for me. I want to thank …’ Tears prevented him from going on.

Baksh recovered the microphone. ‘Corporate, ladies and gentlemen. That was your new Onble Member of the Legislative Council, Mr Surujpat Harbans.’

Foam wandered among the crowd looking for members of the committee. Mahadeo was drunk and useless. Dhaniram he couldn’t see. At the edge of the yard, in the darkness, he saw Chittaranjan, leaning against the radiator of a car.

‘Well, Goldsmith, we do it. We win.’

Chittaranjan pressed down his hat and folded his arms. ‘What else you did expect?’

*

At that moment Preacher was going round briskly from house to house, thanking the people.

*

And so democracy took root in Elvira.

HARBANS SPENT THE REST of that night settling his bills. The taxi-drivers had to be paid off, Ramlogan’s rum-account settled, petrol vouchers honoured, agents given bonuses. And when all that was done, Harbans left Elvira, intending never to return.

But he did return, once.

It was because of that case of whisky Ramlogan had promised the committee of the winning candidate. Ramlogan wanted the presentation to be made in style, by the new Member of the Legislative Council. Chittaranjan thought it was fitting. He hadn’t always approved of the publicity Ramlogan gave the case of whisky; but now he was glad of the excuse to get Harbans back in Elvira. Harbans hadn’t dropped a word about marrying his son to Nelly. Chittaranjan knew the rumours that had been going around Elvira during the campaign, knew that people were laughing at him behind his back. But that had only encouraged him to work harder for Harbans. He had made those heart-shaped buttons at his own expense. He had worn his visiting outfit nearly every day; he had used up one shirt; his shoes needed half-soling. Harbans had taken it all for granted.

The presentation was fixed for the Friday after polling day; it was to take place outside Chittaranjan’s shop. Benches and chairs were brought over from the school. Dhaniram lent his Petromax. Chittaranjan lent a small table and a clean tablecloth. On the tablecloth they placed the case of whisky stencilled WHITE HORSE WHISKY PRODUCE OF SCOTLAND 12 BOTTLES. On the case of whisky they placed a small Union Jack — Ramlogan’s idea: he wanted to make the whole thing legal and respectable.

Haq and Sebastian came early and sat side by side on the bench against Chittaranjan’s shop. Harichand came, Rampiari’s husband, Lutchman. Tiger came and sniffed at the table legs. Haq shooed him off, but Tiger stayed to chase imaginary scents all over Chittaranjan’s terrace.

Foam dressed for the occasion as though he were going to Port of Spain.

Mrs Baksh asked, ‘And what you going to do with the three bottle of whisky? Drink it?’

‘Nah,’ Foam said. ‘Keeping it. Until Christmas. Then going to sell it in Chaguanas. You could get anything up to eight dollars for a bottle of White Horse at Christmas.’

‘You say that. But I don’t think it would please your father heart to see three bottle of whisky remaining quiet in the house all the time until Christmas.’

‘Well, you better tell him not to touch them. Otherwise it going to have big big trouble between me and he.’

Mrs Baksh sighed. Only three months ago, if Foam had talked like that, she could have slapped him. But the election had somehow changed Foam; he was no longer a boy.

Ramlogan prepared with the utmost elaborateness. He rubbed himself down with coconut oil; then he had a bath in lukewarm water impregnated with leaves of the neem tree; then he rubbed himself down with Canadian Healing Oil and put on his striped blue three-piece suit. A handkerchief hung rather than peeped from his breast pocket. His enormous brown shoes were highly polished; he had even bought a pair of laces for them. He wore no socks and no tie.

Chittaranjan put on his visiting outfit, Mahadeo his khaki uniform.

Dhaniram wasn’t going to be there. He was so distressed by the loss of the doolahin that he had lost interest even in his tractor. He didn’t see how he could replace the girl. He was a fussy Brahmin; he couldn’t just get an ordinary servant to look after his food. Ideally, he would have liked another daughter-in-law.

Outside Chittaranjan’s shop the crowd thickened. People were coming from as far as Cordoba and Pueblo Road. It was like Mr Cuffy’s wake all over again.

Foam told the other members of the committee, sitting in Chittaranjan’s drawing-room, ‘I feel it going to have some trouble tonight.’

Chittaranjan felt that himself, and despite his friendship with Ramlogan, snapped out, ‘Well, if people must show off …’

Ramlogan took it well. He laughed, took out his handkerchief and fanned his face. ‘Gosh, but these three-piece suit hot, man. What trouble it could have? Whisky is for the committee, not for everybody in Elvira. Election over, and they know that.’

It was Friday evening; the people downstairs were in the weekend mood. Talk and laughter and argument floated up to the drawing-room.

‘They could say what they want to say. But I know that Baksh coulda win that election easy easy.’

‘What I want to know is, who put Harbans in the Council? Committee or the people?’

‘No, man. Is not one case of whisky. Is twelve case.’

‘Hear what I say. Preacher lose the election the night Cawfee dead. I was backing the man strong, man. Had two dollars on him.’

‘That one case under the Union Jack is just a sort of sign for all the twelve case.’

‘If Cawfee didn’t throw up his four foot and dead, you think Harbans coulda win?’