V. Naipaul - The Mystic Masseur

The dinner was a treat for the photographers. Ganesh came in dhoti and koortah and turban; the member for one of the Port of Spain wards wore a khaki suit and a sun helmet; a third came in jodhpurs; a fourth, adhering for the moment to his pre-election principles, came in short trousers and an open shirt; the blackest M.L.C. wore a three-piece blue suit, yellow woollen gloves, and a monocle. Everybody else, among the men, looked like penguins, sometimes even down to the black faces.

An elderly Christian Indian member didn’t bring a wife because he said he never had one; instead he brought along a daughter, a bright little thing of about four.

The Governor’s lady moved with assurance and determination among the members and their wives. The more disconcerting the man or woman, the more she was interested, the more she was charming.

‘Why, Mrs Primrose,’ she said brightly to the wife of the blackest M.L.C. ‘You look so different today.’

Mrs Primrose, all of her squeezed into floriferous print frock, adjusted her hat with the floral design. ‘Ah, ma’am. It ain’t the same me. The other one, the one you did see at the Mothers’ Union in Granadina, she at home. Making baby.’

Sherry, opportunely, passed.

Mrs Primrose gave a little giggle and asked the waiter, ‘Is a strong drink?’

The waiter nodded and looked down his nose.

‘Well, thanks. But I doesn’t uses it.’

‘Something else, perhaps?’ the Governor’s lady urged.

‘A little coffee tea, if you has it.’

‘Coffee. I am afraid coffee wouldn’t be ready for some time yet.’

‘Well, thanks. I doesn’t really want it. I was only being social.’ Mrs Primrose giggled again.

Presently they sat down to dinner. The Governor’s lady sat on the left of Mr Primrose. Ganesh found himself between the man in jodhpurs and the Christian Indian and his daughter; and he saw with alarm that the people from whom he had hoped to learn the eating drill were too far away.

The members looked at the waiters who looked away quickly. Then the members looked at each other.

The man in jodhpurs muttered, ‘Is why black people can’t get on. You see how these waiters behaving? And they black like hell too, you know.’

Nobody took up the remark.

Soup came.

‘Meat?’ Ganesh asked.

The waiter nodded.

‘Take it away,’ Ganesh said with quick disgust.

The man in jodhpurs said, ‘You was wrong there. You shoulda toy with the soup.’

‘Toy with it?’

‘Is what the book say.’

No one near Ganesh seemed willing to taste the soup.

The man in jodhpurs looked about him. ‘Is a nice room here.’

‘Nice pictures,’ said the man with the open shirt who sat opposite.

The man in jodhpurs sighed wearily. ‘Is a funny thing, but I ain’t so hungry today.’

‘Is the heat,’ the man with the open shirt said.

The Christian Indian placed his daughter on his left knee, and, ignoring the others, dipped a spoon in his soup. He tested it with his tongue for warmth and said, ‘Aah.’ The girl opened her mouth to receive the soup. ‘One for you,’ the Christian said. He took a spoonful himself. ‘And one for me.’

The other members saw. They became reckless and ate.

Unoriginal disaster befell Mr Primrose. His monocle fell into his soup.

The Governor’s lady quickly looked away.

But Mr Primrose drew her attention to the monocle. ‘Eh, eh,’ he chuckled, ‘but see how it fall down!’

The M.L.C.s looked on with sympathy.

Mr Primrose turned on them. ‘What all you staring at? All you ain’t see nigger before?’

The man in jodhpurs whispered to Ganesh, ‘But we wasn’t saying anything.’

‘Eh!’ Mr Primrose snapped. ‘Black people don’t wear monocle?’

He fished out the monocle, wiped it, and put it in his coat pocket.

The man with the open shirt tried to change the subject. ‘I wonder how much car expenses they go pay we for coming here. I ain’t ask to dine with the Governor, you know.’ He jerked his head in the Governor’s direction and quickly jerked it back.

The man with jodhpurs said, ‘But they got to pay we, man.’

The meal was torture to Ganesh. He felt alien and uncomfortable. He grew sulkier and sulkier and refused all the courses. He felt as if he were a boy again, going to the Queen’s Royal College for the first time.

He was in a temper when he returned late that night to Fuente Grove. ‘Just wanted to make a fool of me,’ he muttered, ‘fool of me.’

‘Leela!’ he shouted. ‘Come, girl, and give me something to eat.’

She came out, smiling sardonically. ‘But, man, I thought you was dining with the Governor.’

‘Don’t make joke, girl. Done dine. Want to eat now. Going to show them,’ he mumbled, as his fingers ploughed through the rice and dal and curry, ‘going to show them.’

SOON GANESH decided to move to Port of Spain. He found it fatiguing to travel nearly every day between Port of Spain and Fuente Grove. The Government paid expenses that made it worth while but he knew that even if he lived in Port of Spain he could still claim travelling expenses, like the other country members.

Swami and the boy came to say good-bye. Ganesh had grown to like the boy: he saw so much of himself in him.

‘But don’t worry, sahib,’ Swami said. ‘The Hindu Association fixing up a little something for him. A little cultural scholarship to travel about, learning.’

Beharry, Suruj Mooma, and their second son Dipraj helped with the packing. Later, Ramlogan and The Great Belcher came.

Suruj Mooma and Leela embraced and cried; and Leela gave Suruj Mooma the ferns from the top verandah.

‘I go always always keep them, my dear.’

The Great Belcher said, ‘The two of you girls behaving as though somebody getting married.’

Beharry put his hand under his vest and nibbled. ‘Is go Ganesh have to go. He do his duty here and God call him somewhere else.’

‘I wish the whole thing did never happen,’ Ganesh said with sudden bitterness. ‘I wish I did never become a mystic!’

Beharry put his hand on Ganesh’s shoulder. ‘Is only talk you talking, Ganesh. Is hard, I know, to leave a place after eleven years, but look at Fuente Grove now. New road. My new shop. Stand-pipe. We getting electricity next year. All through you.’

They took bags and cases into the yard.

Ganesh went to the mango tree. ‘Is something we did forget.’ He wrenched out the GANESH, Mystic sign.

‘Don’t throw it away,’ Beharry said. ‘We go keep it in the shop.’

Ganesh and Leela got into the taxi.

Ramlogan said. ‘I always did say, sahib, you was the radical in the family.’

‘Ah, Leela, my dear, look after yourself,’ Suruj Mooma sobbed. ‘You looking so tired.’

The taxi started and the waving began.

The Great Belcher belched.

‘Dipraj, carry this signboard home and come back and help your mother with the ferns.’

Leela waved and looked back. The verandah was naked; the doors and windows open; on the balustrade the two stone elephants stared in opposite directions.

It would be hard to say just when Ganesh stopped being a mystic. Even before he moved to Port of Spain he had become more and more absorbed in politics. He still dispelled one or two spirits; but he had already given up his practice when he sold the house in Fuente Grove to a jeweller from Bombay and bought a new one in the fashionable Port of Spain district of St Clair. By that time he had stopped wearing dhoti and turban altogether.

Leela didn’t take to Port of Spain. She travelled about a good deal with The Great Belcher. She visited Soomintra often and regularly went to Ramlogan’s.