V. Naipaul - The Mystic Masseur

‘It don’t take much to see that it ain’t a big book . And it don’t take much to know too that we all have to start small. Like you. Remember the old machine you did have. Now, look at all this here.’

Basdeo didn’t reply. He went to his cage and came out again with a cinema handbill and a stumpy red pencil. He became serious, the businessman, and, bending over a blackened table, started to write down figures on the back of the handbill, pausing every now and then to blow away invisible dust from the sheet or to brush it with his right little finger. ‘Look, how much you know about this thing?’

‘Printing?’

Basdeo, still bending over the table, nodded, blew away some more dust, and scratched his head with the pencil.

Ganesh smiled. ‘I study it a little bit.’

‘What point you want it to be in?’

Ganesh didn’t know what to say.

‘Eight, ten, eleven, twelve, or what?’ Basdeo sounded impatient.

Ganesh was thinking rapidly about the cost. He said firmly, ‘Eight go do me.’

Basdeo shook his head and hummed. ‘You want any leading?’

He was like a Port of Spain barber boosting a shampoo. Ganesh said, ‘No. No leading.’

Basdeo looked dismayed. ‘For a book this size and in this print? You sure you don’t want leading?’

‘Sure, sure. But, look, before we go any farther just show me the type you going to print the book in.’

It was Times. Ganesh groaned.

‘Is the best we have.’

‘Well, all right,’ Ganesh said, without enthusiasm. ‘Another thing. I want my picture, in the front.’

‘We don’t make blocks here, but I could fix that up. Extra twelve dollars.’

‘For one little little picture?’

‘A dollar a square inch.’

‘Is expensive, man.’

‘You expect other people to pay for your picture? Well, that settle. Altogether — but wait, how much copies you want?’

‘A thousand in the beginning. But I don’t want you to break up the type. You never know what could happen.’

Basdeo didn’t look impressed. ‘Thousand copies,’ he mumbled abstractedly, working away at his calculations on the back of the handbill. ‘Hundred and twenty-five dollars.’ And he flung down his pencil on the table.

So the process began, the thrilling, tedious, discouraging, exhilarating process of making a book. Ganesh worked with Beharry on the proofs, and they both marvelled at the way the words looked so different in print.

‘They look so powerful ,’ Beharry said.

Suruj Mooma could never get over it.

At last the book was completed and it was Ganesh’s joy to bring home the thousand copies in a taxi. Before he left San Fernando he told Basdeo, ‘Remember now, keep the type set up. You never know how fast the book go sell, and I don’t want Trinidad bawling for the book when I ain’t have any left.’

‘Sure,’ Basdeo said. ‘Sure. They want ‘em, you want ‘em, I print ‘em. Sure thing, man.’

Though Ganesh’s joy was great there was one disappointment he couldn’t quite stifle. His book looked so small. It had no more than thirty pages, thirty small pages; and it was so thin nothing could be printed on the spine.

‘Is this boy Basdeo,’ Ganesh explained to Beharry. ‘All the big talk he give me about point and leading, and after all that he not only give me that ugly type he call Times, but he had to give me small small type.’

Suruj Mooma said, ‘He make the book look like nothing, man.’

‘Is the trouble with Indians in Trinidad,’ Beharry said.

‘All of them not like Suruj Poopa, you know,’ Suruj Mooma interrupted. ‘Suruj Poopa want to see you get on.’

Beharry went on, ‘You know, Ganesh, it wouldn’t surprise if somebody did pay this boy Basdeo to do what he do to your book. Now, another printer who didn’t jealous you woulda make the book run to sixty pages and he woulda give you thick thick paper too.’

‘Anyway, you mustn’t mind,’ Suruj Mooma said. ‘Is some thing. Is a damn lot more than most people do in this place.’

Beharry pointed to the frontispiece and nibbled. ‘Is a nice picture of you here, you know, Ganesh.’

‘He look like a real professor,’ Suruj Mooma said. ‘So serious, and with his hand under his chin like if he thinking real deep.’

Ganesh took another copy and pointed to the dedication page. ‘I think Suruj Poopa name look nice in print too,’ he said to Suruj Mooma.

Beharry nibbled in embarrassment. ‘Nah. You only making joke, man.’

‘I think the whole thing look nice,’ Suruj Mooma said.

Early one Sunday afternoon Leela was standing at the window of the kitchen at the back of Ramlogan’s shop in Fourways. She was washing the midday dishes and was about to throw some dirty water out of the window when she saw a face appear below her. The face was familiar, but the impish smile on it was new.

‘Leela!’ the face whispered.

‘Oh — is you . What you doing here?’

‘I come back for you, girl.’

‘Go away quick march from here, you hear, before I throw this tureen of dirty water all over your face and wash away the grin.’

‘Leela, is not only come I come for you; but I have something to tell you, and I want to tell you first.’

‘Say it quick. But I must say you was able to keep it to yourself a damn long time. Eh, eh, is nearly three months now you drive me away from your house and in all that time you never bother to send a message to ask me, “Dog, how you is?” or “Cat, how you is?” So why for you come now, eh?’

‘But, Leela, is you who leave me. I couldn’t send you a message because I was writing.’

‘Go and tell that to Beharry, you hear. Look, I go call Pa in a minute and what he have for you ain’t nice, I could tell you.’

The smile on the face became more impish, and the whisper was more conspiratorial. ‘Leela, I write a book.’

She trembled on the brink of belief. ‘You lying.’

He produced it with a flourish. ‘Look at the book. And look here at my name, and look here at my picture, and look here at all these words I write with my own hand. They print now, but you know I just sit down at the table in the front-room and write them on ordinary paper with a ordinary pencil.’

‘Oh, man! Oh, man! Oh, man, you really write the book.’

‘Careful! Don’t touch it with your soapy hand.’

‘Look, I go run and tell Pa.’ She turned and went inside. Ganesh heard her saying, ‘And we must let Soomintra know. She wouldn’t like it at all at all.’

Left alone under the window in the shade of the tamarind tree, Ganesh began to hum and take a minute interest in Ramlogan’s back yard, though he really saw nothing, neither the copper cask, rusted and empty, nor the barrels of water full of mosquito larvae.

‘Sahib!’ Ramlogan’s voice rasping from within. ‘Sahib! Come inside, man, sahib. Why you pretending that you is a stranger and standing up outside? Come in, sahib, come in, sit down in your old place in the hammock. Oh, sahib, is a real honour. I too too proud of you.’

Ganesh sat in the hammock which was now, once again, made from a sugar-sack. The Chinese calendars had disappeared from the walls which looked mildewed and dingy as before.

Ramlogan was passing his fat hairy hands over the cover, and he smiled until his cheeks almost covered his eyes. ‘The book smooth smooth,’ he said. ‘Look, Leela, feel how smooth it is. And the print on the cover, man. It look as if, sahib, is really part of the paper. Oh, sahib, you make me really proud today. Remember, Leela, was just last Christmas I was telling you and Soomintra that Ganesh was the radical in the family. Is my opinion that every family should have a radical in it.’