moment; he wasn’t liking the Witnesses, wasn’t liking this talk of obeah, wasn’t liking Lorkhoor.
Mahadeo took off his topee. ‘Working hard, Mr Cawfee?’
Silence. Mr Cuffy wasn’t liking Mahadeo either.
Mahadeo scratched the mauve sweat-stains under his arms. ‘Elections, Mr Cawfee.’
No reply.
‘Progress, Mr Cawfee. Democracy. Elvira going ahead.’
‘Why you don’t go ahead yourself and haul your arse outa my yard?’
Mahadeo’s eyes began to bulge, hurt but determined. ‘One of the candidates want my help in the election, Mr Cawfee.’
Mr Cuffy grunted.
Mahadeo brought out his red pocket-notebook and a small pencil. ‘I have to ask you a few questions, Mr Cawfee.’ He tried some elementary flattery: ‘After all, you is a very important man in Elvira.’
Mr Cuffy liked elementary flattery. ‘True,’ he admitted. ‘It’s God’s will.’
‘Is what I think too. Mr Cawfee, how your Negro people getting on in Elvira?’
‘All right, I believe, praise be to God.’
‘You sure, Mr Cawfee?’
Mr Cuffy squinted. ‘How you mean?’
‘Everybody all right? Nobody sick or anything like that?’
‘What the hell you up to, Mahadeo?’
Mahadeo laughed like a clerk in a government office. ‘Just doing a job, Mr Cawfee. Just a job. If any Negro fall sick in Elvira, you is the fust man they come to, not true?’
Mr Cuffy softened. ‘True.’
‘And nobody sick?’
‘Nobody.’ Mr Cuffy didn’t care for the hopeful note in Mahadeo’s voice.
Mahadeo’s pencil hesitated, disappointed. ‘Nobody deading or dead?’
Mr Cuffy jumped up and dropped the black boot. ‘Obeah!’ he cried, and took up an awl. ‘Obeah! Lorkhoor was right. You people trying to work some obeah. Haul you tail outa my yard! Go on, quick sharp.’
‘How you mean, obeah?’
Mr Cuffy advanced with the awl.
‘Mr Cawfee!’
Mahadeo retreated, notebook open, pencil pointing forward, as protection. ‘Just wanted to help, that is all. And this is the thanks I getting. Just wanted to help, doing a job, that is all.’
‘Nobody ask for your help,’ Mr Cuffy shouted, for Mahadeo was now well away. ‘And listen, Mahadeo, one thing I promising you. If anybody dead, anybody at all, you going to be in trouble. So watch out. Don’t try no magic. If anybody dead, anybody. Obeah!’ Mr Cuffy bawled. ‘Obeah!’
Mr Cuffy sounded serious.
And now Mahadeo was really worried.
*
Mahadeo wouldn’t have got into that mess if Baksh had kept his mouth shut. Mrs Baksh had warned him not to say anything about Tiger. But nothing like it had ever happened to him and he wanted people to know. Nearly everybody else in Elvira had some experience of the supernatural; when the conversation turned to such matters in Ramlogan’s rumshop, Baksh had had to improvise.
As soon as Mrs Baksh and Herbert left for Tamana, Baksh went to see Harichand the printer and caught him before he started for his printery in Couva.
Harichand, the best-dressed man in Elvira, was knotting his tie in the Windsor style before a small looking-glass nailed to one of the posts in his back veranda. He listened carefully, but without excitement.
‘Nothing surprising in what you say,’ he said at the end.
‘How you mean, man, Harichand? Was a big big dog …’
‘If you think that surprising, what you going to think about the sign I had just before my father dead?’
‘Sign, eh?’ It was a concession, because Baksh had heard Harichand’s story many times before.
‘Two weeks before my father dead,’ Harichand began, blocking his moustache with a naked razor-blade. ‘Was a night-time. Did sleeping sound. Sound sound. Like a top. Eh, I hear this squeaky noise. Squeaky squeaky. Like little mices. Get up. Still hearing this squeaky noise. Was a moonlight night. Three o’clock in the morning. Moonlight making everything look like a belling-ground. Dead and funny. Squeak. Squeak. Open the window. No wind at all. All the trees black and quiet. Squeak. Squeak. Road looking white in the moonlight. White and long. Squeak. Squeak. Lean out. No wind. Nothing. Only squeak, squeak. Look down. Something in the road. Black, crawling. Look down again. Four tiny tiny horses harness together. Big as little puppies. Black little horses. And they was pulling a funeral huss. Squeak. Squeak. Huss big as a shoebox.’
Harichand put away the razor-blade.
‘Two weeks later, my father dead. Three o’clock in the morning.’
‘But talking about puppies,’ Baksh said. ‘This thing was a big big dog last night. I just open the back door and I see it. Walking about in a funny limping way. You know how Haq does walk? Limping, as though he walking on glass? This dog was walking about like Haq. It ain’t say nothing. It just look at me. Sly. I get one