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

‘Tcha! You worrying with Lorkhoor? Look how the people welcoming you, man.’

And really, from the reception the lorry had been getting since it left Baksh’s, it didn’t look as though Harbans had anything to worry about. The news had gone around that he was in Elvira, campaigning at last. It was just after five o’clock, getting cool, and most people were at home. Children rushed to the roadside and shouted, ‘Vote Harbans, man!’ Women left their cooking and waved coyly from their front yards, and made the babies at their hips wave too.

Harbans was so morose he left it to Foam to wave and shout back, ‘That’s right, man! Keep it up!’

Foam’s ebullience depressed Harbans more. The bargaining with Baksh had shaken him and he feared that Chittaranjan too might demand stiffer terms. Moreover, he was nervous about the Dodge; and the sweet drink and rock cakes he had had were playing hell with his inside.

‘You shy, Mr Harbans,’ Foam said. ‘I know how it is. But you going to get use to this waving. Ten to one, before this election over, we going to see you waving and shouting to everybody, even to people who ain’t going to vote for you.’

Harbans shook his head sadly.

Foam settled into the angle of the seat and the door. ‘Way I see it is this. In Trinidad this democracy is a brand-new thing. We is still creeping. We is a creeping nation.’ He dropped his voice solemnly: ‘I respect people like you, you know, Mr Harbans, doing this thing for the first time.’

Harbans began to dislike Foam less. ‘I think you go make a fust-class loudspeaking man, Foam. Where you learn all that?’

‘Social and Debating Club. Something Teacher Francis did start up. It mash up now.’ He stuck his long head out of the window and shouted encouragement to a group of children at the roadside. ‘Soon as I get old enough, going up for County Council myself, you know, Mr Harbans. Sort of campaigning in advance. You want to know how I does do it? Look, I go in a café and I see some poorer people child. Buy the child a sweet drink, man.’

‘Sweet drink, eh?’

‘Yes, man. Buy him a sweet drink. Cost me six cents. But in five years’ time it getting me one vote. Buy one sweet drink for a different child every day for five years. At the end of five years, what you have? Everybody, but everybody, man, saying, “We going to vote for Foam.” Is the only way, Mr Harbans.’

‘Is a lil too late for me to start buying sweet drink for poorer people children now.’

They were near Chittaranjan’s now, and the Dodge slowed down not far from Ramlogan’s rumshop.

Ramlogan, a big greasy man in greasy trousers and a greasy vest, was leaning against his shop door, his fat arms crossed, scowling at the world.

‘Wave to him,’ Foam ordered.

Harbans, his thin hands gripped nervously to the steering wheel, only nodded at Ramlogan.

‘You have to do better than that. Particularly that Ramlogan and Chittaranjan don’t get on too good.’

‘Aah. But why this disunity in our people, Foam? People should be uniting these days, man.’

The Dodge came to a halt. Harbans struggled to put it in neutral.

Foam pointed. ‘See that Queen of Flowers tree in Chittaranjan yard, just next door to Ramlogan?’

‘Ooh, ooh, is a nice one.’ It made him feel Chittaranjan must be a nice man. ‘I didn’t know that Chittaranjan did like flowers.’

‘Chittaranjan ain’t like flowers.’

Harbans frowned at the Queen of Flowers.

‘Chittaranjan say flowers does give cough.’

‘Is true.’

‘Huh! Don’t start talking to Chittaranjan about flowers, eh. Look at the Queen of Flowers again. Flowers in Chittaranjan yard. But look where the root is.’

The root was in Ramlogan’s yard. But about eight inches from the ground the Queen of Flowers — just out of perversity, it seemed — had decided to change course. It made almost a right angle, went through the wide-meshed wire fence and then shot up and blossomed in Chittaranjan’s yard.

‘And look at that Bleeding Heart,’ Foam went on. ‘Root in Ramlogan yard, but the flowers crawling all up by Chittaranjan bedroom window. And look at the breadfruit tree. Whole thing in Ramlogan yard, but all the breadfruit only falling in Chittaranjan yard. And look at the zaboca tree. Same thing. It look like obeah and magic, eh?’

‘Ooh, ooh.’

‘Now, whenever Ramlogan plant a tree, he planting it right in the middle middle of his yard. But what does happen then? Look at that soursop tree in the middle of Ramlogan yard.’

It was stunted, wilting.

‘Ramlogan blight. If you know, Mr Harbans, the amount of row it does have here on account of those trees. One day Chittaranjan say he want to cut the trees down. Ramlogan chase him with a cutlass, man. Another day Ramlogan say he want to go in Chittaranjan yard to collect the breadfruit and the zaboca and flowers from his trees. Chittaranjan take up a stick and chase Ramlogan all down Elvira main road.’

Harbans began to get worried about Chittaranjan.

All this while Ramlogan had been eyeing the lorry, heavy brows puckered over deep-set disapproving eyes, fat cheeks sagging sourly, massive arms still crossed. From time to time he hawked leisurely, and hissed out the spittle between the gap in his top teeth.

‘Foam,’ Harbans said, ‘is a good thing I have a campaign manager like you. I only know about Elvira roads. I ain’t know about the people.’

‘It have nothing like the local expert,’ Foam agreed. ‘Look out, Mr Harbans, the lorry rolling in the drain!’

The lorry was moving forward, locked towards the gutter at the right. Harbans dived for the hand-brake and pulled it back with a loud ripping sound. ‘Oh God, I did know I was taking my life in my hands today.’ His alarm was double; he knew then that the sign he had had was being confirmed.

Ramlogan gave a short laugh, so sharp and dry it was almost like a word: ‘Ha.’

The commotion brought Chittaranjan to his veranda upstairs. The half-wall hid most of his body, but what Foam and Harbans could see looked absurdly small and shrivelled. Spectacles with thin silver rims and thin silver arms emphasized Chittaranjan’s diminutiveness.

Foam and Harbans got out of the lorry.

The awning of Chittaranjan’s shop had been pulled back; the ground had already been combed that afternoon by children; and only two toy anvils set in the concrete terrace remained of the day’s workshop.

‘Is you, Mr Harbans?’

‘Is me, Goldsmith.’

‘Who is the little boy you have with you?’

‘Campaign …’ But Harbans was ashamed to go on. ‘Baksh son.’

‘And not so little either,’ Foam muttered to himself. But he was anxious. He had been talking freely about Chittaranjan in the lorry, dropping the ‘Mr,’ but like nearly everyone else in Elvira he was awed by Chittaranjan, had been ever since he was a boy. He had never set foot in the Big House.

‘What Baksh son want with me? He want to see me in any pussonal?’

‘Not in any pussonal, Goldsmith. He just come with me.’

‘Why he come with you?’

Harbans was beside himself with shyness.

‘About the elections,’ Foam boomed up.

‘Ha,’ Ramlogan said from his shop door. ‘Ha.’

Chittaranjan turned to talk to someone in his veranda; then he shouted down, ‘All right, come up the both of all-you,’ and disappeared immediately.

Foam nudged Harbans and pointed to one side of Chitaranjan’s yard. The ground under the breadfruit tree and the zaboca tree was mushy with rotting fruit. ‘See what I did tell you,’ Foam whispered. ‘One frighten to eat it, the other ’fraid to come and get it.’

They went up the polished red steps at the side of the house and came into the large veranda. Chittaranjan was rocking in a morris rocking-chair. He looked even tinier sitting down than he did hunched over the ledge of the veranda wall. He didn’t get up, didn’t look at them, didn’t greet them. He rocked measuredly, serenely, as though rocking gave him an exclusive joy. Every time he rocked, the heels of his sabots clacked on the tiled floor.