The nightwatchman's occurrence book_ and other comic inventions - By V. S. Naipaul Page 0,17

good good friend. For years he eating my food, drinking my whisky, and borrowing my money. And now he tell me he ain’t voting. So I ask him, “Why you ain’t voting, Edaglo?” And he answer me back, man. He say, “Politics ain’t a divine thing.” Then he ask me, “You know who start politics?” You could imagine how that take me back. “Somebody start politics?” I say. He laugh in a mocking sorta way as though he know more than everybody else and say, “You see how you ain’t know these little things. Is because you ain’t study enough.” He, Edaglo, talking like that to me, Chittaranjan! “Go home,” he say, “and study the Bible and you go read and see that the man who start politics was Nimrod.” ’

‘Who is Nimrod?’ Baksh asked.

Pundit Dhaniram slapped his thigh again. ‘Nimrod was a mighty hunter.’

They pondered this.

Harbans was abstracted, disconsolate.

Baksh said, ‘What those woman want is just man, you hear. The minute they get one good man, all this talk about mighty hunting gone with the wind.’

Dhaniram was pressing Chittaranjan: ‘You didn’t tell them about Caesar? The things that are Caesar’s. Render unto Caesar. That sort of thing.’

Chittaranjan lifted his thin hands. ‘I don’t meddle too much in all that Christian bacchanal, you hear. And as I was leaving, he, Edaglo, call me back. Me, Chittaranjan. And he give me this green book. Let God be true. Tcha!’

Mahadeo shook his head and clucked sympathetically. ‘Old Edaglo really pee on you, Goldsmith.’

‘Not only pee,’ Chittaranjan said. ‘He shake it.’

And having made his confession, Chittaranjan gathered about him much of his old dignity again.

*

‘Even if the Spanish ain’t voting,’ Foam said, ‘we have four thousand votes. Three thousand Hindu and one thousand Muslim. Preacher only getting three thousand. Two thousand Negro and a thousand Hindu. I don’t see how we could lose.’

Dhaniram said, ‘I don’t see how a whole thousand Hindus going to vote for Preacher. Lorkhoor don’t control so much votes.’

‘Don’t fool your head,’ Foam said quickly. ‘Preacher help out a lot of Hindu people in this place. And if the Hindus see a Hindu like Lorkhoor supporting Preacher, well, a lot of them go want to vote for Preacher. Lorkhoor going about telling people that they mustn’t think about race and religion now. He say it ain’t have nothing wrong if Hindu people vote for a Negro like Preacher.’

‘This Lorkhoor want a good cut-arse,’ Baksh said.

Chittaranjan agreed. ‘That sort of talk dangerous at election time. Lorkhoor ain’t know what he saying.’

Harbans locked and unlocked his fingers. ‘Nothing I does touch does turn out nice and easy. Everybody else have life easy. I don’t know what sin I commit to have life so hard.’

Everyone fell silent in the veranda, looking at Harbans, waiting for him to cry. Only the Petromax hissed and hummed and the moths dashed against it.

Then the doolahin thumped out bringing tea in delightfully ornamented cups so wide at the mouth that the tea slopped over continually.

Dhaniram said, ‘Tea, Mr Harbans. Drink it. You go feel better.’

‘Don’t want no tea.’

Dhaniram gave his little laugh.

Two or three tears trickled down Harbans’s thin old face. He took the cup, blew on it, and put it to his lips; but before he drank he broke down and sobbed. ‘I ain’t got no friends or helpers or nothing. Everybody only want money money.’

Mahadeo was wounded. ‘You ain’t giving me nothing, Mr Harbans.’ He hadn’t thought of asking.

Dhaniram, who had been promised something—contracts for his tractor—pulled at his cigarette. ‘Is not as though you giving things to we pussonal, Mr Harbans. You must try and feel that you giving to the people. After all, is the meaning of this democracy.’

‘Exactly,’ said Baksh. ‘Is for the sake of the community we want you to get in the Legislative Council. You got to think about the community, boss. As you yourself tell me the other day, money ain’t everything.’

‘Is true,’ Harbans fluted. ‘Is true.’ He smiled and dried his eyes. ‘You is all faithful. I did just forget myself, that is all.’

They sipped their tea.

To break the mood Dhaniram scolded his daughter-in-law. ‘You was a long time making the tea, doolahin.’

She said, ‘I had to light the fire and then I had to boil the water and then I had to draw the tea and then I had to cool the tea.’

She had cooled the tea so well it was almost cold. It was the way Dhaniram liked it; but the rest of the committee