The nightwatchman's occurrence book_ and other comic inventions - By V. S. Naipaul Page 0,59

he going to make Harbans lose. People like to know that they could get a man to do little things for them every now and then.’

Lorkhoor turned to Baksh. ‘A man who takes bribes,’ Lorkhoor said, ‘is also capable of giving them.’

‘Give?’ Chittaranjan said. ‘Baksh give anything? He ain’t know Baksh.’

*

Photographs of Baksh and Harbans sprang up everywhere, on houses, telegraph-poles, trees and culverts; they were promptly invested with moustaches, whiskers, spectacles and pipes.

‘Making you famous girl,’ Baksh told Mrs Baksh. ‘Pictures all over the place. Mazurus Baksh. Hitch your wagon to the star. Mazurus Baksh, husband of Mrs Baksh. Mazurus Baksh, the poor man friend. Mazarus Baksh, everybody friend.’

‘Mazurus Baksh,’ Mrs Baksh said, ‘the big big ass.’

But he could tell that she was pleased.

*

Harban’s new slogan caught on. When Harbans came to Elvira children shouted at him, ‘Do your part, man!’ And Harbans, his shyness gone, as Foam had prophesied, replied, ‘Vote the heart!’

Foam was always coming up with fresh slogans. ‘The Heart for a start.’ ‘Harbans, the man with the Big Heart.’ ‘You can’t live without the Heart. You can’t live without Harbans.’ He got hold of a gramophone record and played it so often, it became Harban’s campaign song:

And oh, my darling,

Should we ever say goodbye,

I know we both should die,

My heart and I.

Every day Chittaranjan put on his visiting outfit and campaigned; Dhaniram campaigned, in a less spectacular way; and Mahadeo entered the names of sick Hindus in his red notebook.

*

For some time Preacher stuck to his old method, the energetic walking tour. But one day he appeared on the Elvira main road with a large stone in his hand. He stopped Mahadeo.

‘Who you voting for?’

‘Preacher? You know I campaigning for Harbans …’

‘Good. Take this stone and kill me one time.’

Mahadeo managed to escape. But Preacher stopped him again two days later. Preacher had a Bible in his right hand and a stone—the same stone—in his left hand.

‘Answer me straight: who you voting for?’

‘Everybody know I voting for you, Preacher.’

Preacher dropped the stone and gave Mahadeo the Bible. ‘Swear!’

Mahadeo hesitated.

Preacher stooped and picked up the stone. He handed it to Mahadeo. ‘Kill me.’

‘I can’t swear on the Bible, Preacher. I is not a Christian.’

And Mahadeo escaped again.

*

Lorkhoor, copying Foam, gave Preacher a campaign song which featured Preacher’s symbol, the shoe:

I got a shoe, you got a shoe,

All God’s chillun got a shoe.

When I go to heaven,

Going to put on my shoe

And walk all over God’s heaven.

Baksh, whose symbol was the star, went up to Harbans one day and said, ‘I want a song too. Everybody having song.’

‘Ooh, Baksh. You want song too? Why, man?’

‘Everybody laughing at me. Is as though I ain’t fighting this election at all.’

In the end Harbans allowed Foam to play a song for Baksh:

How would you like to swing on a star?

Carry moonbeams home in a jar?

You could be better off than you are.

You could be swinging on a star.

Rum flowed in Ramlogan’s rumshop. Everyone who drank it knew it was Harbans’s rum.

Dhaniram, exultant, consoled Harbans. ‘The main thing is to pay the entrance fee. Now is your chance.’

And Ramlogan encouraged the drinkers, saying, inconsequentially and unwisely, ‘Case of whisky for winning committee. Whole case of whisky.’

*

And in the meantime Harbans’s committee did solid work, Foam and Chittaranjan in particular. They canvassed, they publicized; they chose agents for polling day and checked their loyalty; they chose taxi-drivers and checked their loyalty. They visited warden, returning officer, poll clerks, policemen: a pertinacious but delicate generosity rendered these officials impartial.

With all this doing Harbans, with his moods, his exultations, depressions and rages, was an embarrassment to his committee. They wished him out of the way and tried, without being rude, to tell him so.

‘You could stay in Port of Spain and win your election in Elvira,’ Pundit Dhaniram told him. ‘Easy easy. Just leave everything to your party machine,’ he added, savouring the words. ‘Party machine.’

At his meetings on the terrace of Chittaranjan’s shop Harbans gave out bagfuls of sweets to children; and talked little. It was Foam and Chittaranjan and Dhaniram and Mahadeo who did most of the talking.

First Foam introduced Mahadeo; then Mahadeo introduced Dhaniram; and Dhaniram introduced Chittaranjan. By the time Chittaranjan introduced Harbans the meeting was practically over and Harbans could only receive deputations.

‘Boss, the boys from Pueblo Road can’t play no football this season. Goalpost fall down. Football bust.’

Harbans would write out a cheque.

‘Boss, we having a little sports meeting and it would look nice if you could give