The nightwatchman's occurrence book_ and other comic inventions - By V. S. Naipaul Page 0,6

tin of Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits. He felt Mrs Baksh’s disapproval and avoided her eye.

‘Biscuit, Mr Harbans?’

The little Bakshes concentrated.

‘Nice biscuits,’ Baksh tempted, stubbornly. ‘Have them here since Christmas.’

Harbans said, ‘Give it to the children, eh?’ He broke off a large piece of the rock cake and handed it to Herbert who had edged closest to him.

‘Herbert!’ Mrs Baksh exclaimed. ‘Your eyes longer than your mouth, eh!’

‘Let the poor boy have it,’ Harbans cooed, and showed his false teeth.

She ignored Harbans’s plea and faced Herbert. ‘You don’t care how much you shame me in front of strangers. You making him believe I does starve you.’

Herbert had already put the cake in his mouth. He chewed slowly, to show that he knew he had done wrong.

‘You ain’t shame?’ Mrs Baksh pointed. ‘Look how your belly puff out.’

Herbert stopped chewing and mumbled, ‘Is only the gas, Ma.’

The other little Bakshes had their interest divided between their mother’s anger and Harbans’s food.

Harbans said, ‘Ooh, ooh,’ and smiled nervously at everybody.

Mrs Baksh turned to him. ‘You eat those cakes up and drink the sweet drink and don’t give a thing to any of these shameless children of mine.’

She used a tone of inflexible authority which was really meant for the little Bakshes. Harbans didn’t know this. He ate and drank. The warm liquid stabbed down to his stomach; once there it tore around in circles. Still, from time to time he looked up from the aerated water and rock cake and smiled at Mrs Baksh and Baksh and Foam and the other little Bakshes.

The biscuits were saved.

At last Harbans was finished and he could leave. He was glad. The whole Baksh family frightened him.

Foam walked down the steps with Harbans. They had hardly got outside when they heard someone screaming upstairs.

‘Herbert,’ Foam said. ‘He does always make that particular set of noise when they beat him.’

When Foam said they Harbans knew he meant Mrs Baksh.

Candidate and campaign manger got into the Dodge and drove on to see Chittaranjan.

2. The Bargain with Chittaranjan

EASILY THE MOST IMPORTANT person in Elvira was Chittaranjan, the goldsmith. And there was no mystery why. He looked rich and was rich. He was an expensive goldsmith with a reputation that had spread beyond Elvira. People came to him from as far as Chaguanas and Couva and even San Fernando. Everyone knew his house as the biggest in Elvira. It was solid, two-storeyed, concrete, bright with paint and always well looked after.

Nobody ever saw Chittaranjan working. For as long as Foam could remember Chittaranjan had always employed two men in the shop downstairs. They worked in the open, sitting flat on the concrete terrace under a canvas awning, surrounded by all the gear of their trade: toy pincers, hammers and chisels, a glowing heap of charcoal on a sheet of galvanized iron, pots and basins discoloured with various liquids, some of which smelled, some of which hissed when certain metals were dipped in them. Every afternoon, after the workmen had cleared up and gone home, children combed the terrace for silver shavings and gold dust. Even Foam had done so when he was younger. He hadn’t got much; but some children managed, after years of collecting, to get enough to make a ring. Chittaranjan never objected.

No wonder Foam, like nearly everyone else, Hindu, Muslim, Negro, thought and spoke of his house as the Big House. As a Hindu Chittaranjan naturally had much influence among the Hindus of Elvira; but he was more than the Hindu leader. He was the only man who carried weight with the Spaniards of Cordoba (it was said he lent them money); many Negroes liked him; Muslims didn’t trust him, but even they held him in respect.

‘You ain’t have nothing to worry about, Mr Harbans,’ Foam said, speaking as campaign manager, as he and Harbans drove through Elvira. ‘Chittaranjan control at least five thousand votes. Add that to the thousand Muslim votes and you win, Mr Harbans. It only have eight thousand voters in all.’

Harbans had been brooding all the way. ‘What about that traitor Lorkhoor?’

‘Tcha! You worrying with Lorkhoor? Look how the people welcoming you, man.’

And really, from the reception the lorry had been getting since it left Baksh’s, it didn’t look as though Harbans had anything to worry about. The news had gone around that he was in Elvira, campaigning at last. It was just after five o’clock, getting cool, and most people were at home. Children rushed to the roadside and shouted, ‘Vote Harbans, man!’