The Nightwatchman's Occurrence Book (9 page)

Foam nodded.

Mrs Baksh said, ‘By Saint Peter, by Saint Paul, Foam bring the dog.’

Foam replied, ‘By Saint Peter, by Saint Paul, Foam
ain’t
bring
no
dog.’

The Bible remained steady.

Mrs Baksh began again. ‘By Saint Peter, by Saint Paul, Zilla bring the dog.’

Foam replied, ‘By Saint Peter, by Saint Paul, Zilla
ain’t
bring
no
dog.’

Mrs Baksh, leaning back in her chair, looked solemnly at the Bible, not at the little Bakshes. She fetched a deep sigh and began again, this time on Carol.

Foam’s finger started to tremble.

Baksh looked on, pleased. The Biblical trial always appealed to him. Rafiq was excited. Herbert knew he was lost, but he was going to stick it out to the end. Tiger was dozing again, his thin muzzle between his thin front legs; the flies, energetic in the early morning, swarmed about him.

‘By Saint Peter, by Saint Paul, Rafiq bring the dog.’

It was going to be Herbert’s turn next. He had been through this sort of trial before. He knew he couldn’t fool the Bible.

Foam’s whole right hand was trembling now, from the strain of having a weight at his finger-tip.

‘By Saint Peter, by Saint Paul, Rafiq
ain’t
bring
no
dog.’

Another sigh from Mrs Baksh.

Baksh passed a hand over his moustache.

‘By Saint Peter, by Saint Paul, Herbert bring the dog.’

‘By Saint Peter, by Saint Paul, Herbert
ain’t
bring no
dog.’

The key turned. The Bible turned and fell. The key lay naked, its ends resting on the fingers of Foam and Mrs Baksh.

Rafiq said excitedly, ‘I did know it! I did know it!’

Foam said, ‘You did know too much.’

‘Herbert,’ Mrs Baksh said, ‘you going to lie against the Bible, boy?’

Rafiq said, ‘It must be
obeah
and magic. Last night he tell me it was a big big dog. And he say it was a
bad
dog.’ The emphasis sounded sinister.

‘Well,’ Mrs Baksh said calmly, getting up and smoothing out the creases across her wide belly, ‘before I do anything, I have to cut his little lying tail.’ She spoke to Baksh, kindly: ‘Man, let me see your belt a little bit, please.’

Baksh replied with equal civility: ‘Yes, man.’

He undid his leather belt, pulling it carefully through the loops of his khaki trousers as though he wanted to damage neither trousers nor belt. Mrs Baksh took the belt. Herbert began to cry in advance. Mrs Baksh didn’t look at him. She held the belt idle for some moments, looking down at it almost reflectively. On a sudden she turned; and lunged at Herbert, striking out with the belt, hitting him everywhere. Herbert ran about the small room, but he couldn’t get out. The back door was still barred; the door that led to the tailor shop was still padlocked. Unhurried, Mrs Baksh stalked him. The belt gave her ample reach. Once she struck Baksh. She stopped and said, ‘Och. Sorry, man.’

‘Is all right, man. Mistake.’

Herbert bawled and screeched, making the siren-like noise that
had so disturbed Harbans that Friday afternoon some weeks before. The other little Bakshes looked on with fascination. Even Foam was affected. Rafiq’s excitement turned to horror. Zilla wept.

Then Foam called in his stern booming voice, ‘All
right,
Ma.’

Mrs Baksh stopped and looked at him.

Baksh looked at him.

Mechanically Mrs Baksh passed the belt back to Baksh.

Herbert sat on the steps, his eyes and nose streaming. His sobs, half snuffle and half snort, came at regular intervals.

Tiger dozed on, his ears twitching.

Mrs Baksh sat down on the chair, exhausted, and began to cry. ‘My own son, my biggest son, talking to me so!’

Baksh tried to soothe her.

‘Go away. Is your fault, Baksh. Is this election sweetness that sweeten you up so. And now you seeing how sour it turning. You having people throwing all sorta magic and
obeah
in my house, you having all my sons lying to my face, and you having my biggest son talk to me like if I is his daughter. Is your fault, Baksh. This election sweetness done turning sour, I tell you.’

‘You see, Foam?’ Baksh said. ‘It make you happy? Seeing your mother cry?’

‘I ain’t tell she nothing. She was going to bless the boy, that is all.’

‘Take that dog outa my house!’ Mrs Baksh screamed, her face twisted and inflamed. ‘If that dog don’t go, I go go.’ She cried a lot more. ‘Oh God, Baksh! Now I have to waste a whole day. Now I have to go and take Herbert and get the spirit off him.’

From the steps Herbert said, ‘I ain’t got
no
spirit on me.’

Baksh said, ‘You keep your little tail quiet, mister man. Like you ain’t had enough.’ He said to Mrs Baksh, ‘I can’t think of nobody who could drive away a spirit as good as Ganesh Pundit. He was the man for that sort of thing. But he take up politics now.’

That reminded Mrs Baksh. ‘This election sweetness! Man, I telling you, it turning sour.’

‘Where you want me take the dog?’ Foam asked.

‘Just take him outa the house,’ Mrs Baksh said, wiping her eyes. ‘That is all I want. But don’t take him away, in broad daylight. Is bad enough already having
obeah
coming inside here. Don’t take it out for everybody to see. Ten die. What more Preacher have in mind than to make all of we come thin thin like that dog? And then for all ten of we to dead. What more?’

Baksh was struck by his wife’s interpretation. ‘Take that dog outa my house!’ he ordered. ‘And don’t give that dog any of my food, you hear. That dog going to suck the blood outa all of we if you don’t get him outa here quick sharp.’

Tiger woke up and looked dreamily at the scene.

*

Mrs Baksh took Herbert for a spiritual fumigation to a gentleman in Tamana who, following the celebrated mystic masseur Ganesh at a distance, dabbled in the mystic.

And when Baksh saw Preacher on the road that morning, walking as briskly as ever, he crossed himself.

T
HINGS WERE CRAZILY MIXED
up in Elvira. Everybody, Hindus, Muslims and Christians, owned a Bible; the Hindus and Muslims looking on it, if anything, with greater awe. Hindus and Muslims celebrated Christmas and Easter. The Spaniards and some of the Negroes celebrated the Hindu festival of lights. Someone had told them that Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, was being honoured; they placed small earthern lamps on their money-boxes and waited, as they said, for the money to breed. Everybody celebrated the Muslim festival of Hosein. In fact, when Elvira was done with religious festivals, there were few straight days left.

That was what Lorkhoor, Foam’s rival, went around preaching from his loudspeaker van that morning; the unity of races and religions. Between speeches he played records of Hindi songs and American songs.

‘People of Elvira, the fair constituency of Elvira,’ Lorkhoor said. ‘Unite! You have nothing to lose but you chains. Unite and cohere. Vote for the man who has lived among you, toiled among you, prayed among you, worked among you. This is the voice of the renowned and ever popular Lorkhoor begging you and urging you and imploring you and entreating you and beseeching you to vote for Preacher, the renowned and ever popular Preacher. Use your democratic rights on election day and vote one, vote all. This, good people of Elvira, is the voice of Lorkhoor.’

Lorkhoor took a good deal of pleasure in his unpopularity. He offended most Indians, Hindus and Muslims; and Preacher’s Negro supporters looked on him with suspicion. Mr Cuffy didn’t like Lorkhoor.
Mr Cuffy was Preacher’s most faithful supporter. Preacher was the visionary, Mr Cuffy the practical disciple. He was a grey-headed Negro who ran a shoe-repair shop which he called The United African Pioneer Self-Help Society. Every Friday evening Mr Cuffy held a prayer-meeting from his veranda. He wore his tight blue serge suit and preached with the Bible in one hand. On a small centre table he had a gas lamp and a framed picture of a stabbed and bleeding heart. On the last few Fridays, to ward off the evil he feared from Lorkhoor, Mr Cuffy had been giving resounding sermons on treachery.

So, when Lorkhoor’s van came near, Mr Cuffy, some tacks between his purple lips, looked up briefly and muttered a prayer.

Lorkhoor stopped the van outside Mr Cuffy’s shop and, to Mr Cuffy’s disgust, made a long speech over the loudspeaker before jumping out. He was slim and tall, though not so tall or slim as Foam. He had a broad bony face with a thriving moustache that followed the cynical curve of his top lip and drooped down a bit further. He had grown the moustache after seeing a film with the Mexican actor, Pedro Armendariz. In the film Armendariz spoke American with an occasional savage outburst in Spanish; it was the Spanish outbursts that thrilled Lorkhoor. Teacher Francis loyally if sorrowfully agreed that the moustache made Lorkhoor look like the Mexican; but Lorkhoor’s enemies thought otherwise. Foam called Lorkhoor Fu-Manchu; that was how Mr Cuffy thought of him too.

‘Heard the latest, Mr Coffee?’

Here was another reason for Lorkhoor’s unpopularity: his stringent determination to speak correct English at all times. He spoke it in a deliberate way, as though he had to weigh and check the grammar beforehand. When Lorkhoor spoke like that outside Elvira, people tried to overcharge him. They thought him a tourist; because he spoke correct English they thought he came from Bombay.

‘Good
morning,’
Mr Cuffy said.

Lorkhoor recognized his social blunder. ‘Morning, Mr Coffee.’

Mr Cuffy frowned, the wrinkles on his black face growing blacker. ‘I is not something you does drink, sir.’

The people of Elvira called Mr Cuffy ‘Cawfee’. Lorkhoor, a stickler for correctness, called him ‘Coffee’. Mr Cuffy preferred ‘Cawfee’.

‘Heard the latest?’

‘Ain’t hear nothing,’ Mr Cuffy said, looking down at the ruined black boot in his hand.

‘Propaganda, Mr Cawfee. Blackmail and blackball.’

Mr Cuffy regarded Lorkhoor suspiciously; he thought his colour was being mocked.

‘Obeah,
Mr Cawfee.’

Mr Cuffy tacked a nail. ‘God hath made man upright.’

‘Yes, Mr Cawfee. However, this propaganda is pernicious.’

Mr Cuffy tacked another nail. ‘But they had found out many inventions.’

‘Something about a dog.’

‘Ain’t know nothing about no dog.’

‘Could destroy the whole campaign, you know.’

‘That go satisfy you, eh, Mr Lorkhoor? That go satisfy your heart?’

‘Mr Cawfee, I’m only informing you that the opposition are spreading the pernicious propaganda that Preacher is working
obeah.’

‘Who give you the right to call the gentleman Preacher?’

‘Mr Preacher, then.’

‘Mr Preacher go look after everything. Don’t worry your head too much, you.’

‘Still, Mr Cawfee, keep your eyes open. Nip the rumour in the bud. And see if they try to work any
obeah
against us. Could frighten off many votes, you know, if they try to work any
obeah
and magic against Mr Preacher.’

Bicycle bells trilled from the road and Lorkhoor and Mr Cuffy saw two white women with sunglasses standing beside red pudgytyred American bicycles. Pennants from both cycles said
AWAKE!

Mr Cuffy grumbled a greeting.

The shorter woman took a magazine from her tray and held it before her like a shield.

The taller woman said, ‘Can we interest you in some good books?’

‘I’ve read too many lately,’ Lorkhoor said.

He was ignored.

Mr Cuffy looked down. ‘Ain’t want no magazine.’ But his manner was respectful.

Miss Short said happily, ‘Oh, we know you don’t
like
us.’

Mr Cuffy looked up. ‘You know?’

‘Course we do. We’re Witnesses.’

‘This election business,’ Mr Cuffy said. ‘You in this election business, like everybody else?’

Miss Short curled her thin lips. ‘We have nothing to do with politics.’

‘It’s not a divine institution,’ said Miss Tall, ‘but a man-made evil. After all, who started the politics you have in Elvira today?’

‘British Government,’ Mr Cuffy said. He looked puzzled.

The Witnesses rested their case.

‘We had to fight for it,’ Lorkhoor said.

Miss Short looked at him sympathetically. ‘Why, I don’t believe you’re even a Christian.’

‘Of course not,’ Lorkhoor snapped. ‘Look at Jacob. Defend Jacob. Defend Abraham.’ It was something he had got from Teacher Francis.

‘We
must
study the Bible together,’ Miss Short said. ‘What do you do Sunday afternoons?’

Mr Cuffy’s puzzlement was turning to exasperation. ‘Look, who you come to see? Me? Or he?’

Miss Tall said, ‘The magazine my friend is holding shows how the prophecies in the Bible are coming true. Even the troubles of Elvira are in the Bible. Elections and all.’

‘Who won?’ Lorkhoor asked.

‘Who
are
you?’ Miss Short asked.

‘I’m the village intellectual.’ It was a tried sentence; it had the approval of Teacher Francis.

‘We must study the Bible together.’

‘Leave my election campaign alone first.’

Mr Cuffy’s disapproval of Lorkhoor was melting into admiration.

‘About this magazine,’ Miss Tall persisted. ‘You have no interest at all in seeing how the Bible’s prophecies are coming true?’

‘I’m not ambitious,’ Lorkhoor said.

The women left.

‘The devil ain’t no fool,’ Mr Cuffy said. ‘He does send pretty woman to tempt us. But were I tempted?’ He used the tone and grammar of his Friday evening sermons. ‘No, sir, I were not.’

‘You were not,’ Lorkhoor said. ‘But about this
obeah
affair, Mr Cawfee. If they try any fast ones, let me know. We have to plan move for move. And now we have those Witnesses encouraging people not to vote. We have to think of something to counter that as well.’

‘You is really a atheist?’

‘Freethinker really. Agnostic.’

‘Oh.’ Mr Cuffy looked reassured.

*

This Mahadeo, the estate-driver, was a real fool. He just had to make a list of sick and dying Negroes in Elvira—it was the only thing he could be trusted with—and he had to make a lot of noise about it.