She was sitting at the kitchen table, cleaning rice for the midday meal. "Why you want it for?" she asked with alarm.
"You forgetting yourself, girl. Somebody make you a policeman now to ask me question? Is a old picture?"
Leela wept over the rice. "Not so old, man. Two three years now Pa did go to San Fernando and Chong take out a photo of Pa by hisself and another one with Pa and Soomintra and me. Just before Soomintra did get married. They was pretty photos. Paintings behind and plants in front."
"I just want a picture of your father. What I don"t want is your tears."
He followed her to the bedroom, and while he put on his town clothes khaki trousers, blue shirt, brown hat, brown shoes Leela pulled out her suitcase, an Anchor Cigarettes coupons-gift, from under the bed and looked for the photograph.
"Gimme," he said, when she had found it, and s.n.a.t.c.hed it away. "This go settle your father."
She ran after him to the steps. "Where you going, man?"
"Leela, you know, for a girl who ain"t married three days yet you too d.a.m.n fast."
He had to pa.s.s Ramlogan"s shop. He took care to swing his father"s walking stick, and behaved as though the shop didn"t exist.
And sure enough, he heard Ramlogan calling out, "Ganesh, you playing man this morning, eh? Swinging walking-stick as if you is some master-stickman. But, boy, when I get after you, you not going to run fast enough."
Ganesh walked past without a word.
Leela confessed later that she had gone to the shop that morning to warn Ramlogan. She found him mounted on his stool and miserable.
"Pa, I have something to tell you."
"I have nothing to do with you or your husband. I only want you to take a message to him. Tell him for me that Ramlogan say the only way he going to get my property is to take it away on his chest."
"He write that down last night in a copy-book. And then, Pa, this morning he ask me for a photo of you and he have it now."
Ramlogan slid, practically fell, off his stool. "Oh G.o.d! Oh G.o.d! I didn"t know he was that sort of man. He look so quiet." He stamped up and down behind the counter. "Oh G.o.d! What I do to your husband to make him prosecute me in this way? What he going to do with the picture?"
Leela was sobbing.
Ramlogan looked at the gla.s.s case on the counter. "All that I do for him. Leela, I didn"t want any gla.s.s case in my shop."
"No, Pa, you didn"t want any gla.s.s case in the shop."
"It for he I get the gla.s.s case. Oh G.o.d! Leela, is only one thing he going to do with the picture. Work magic and obeah obeah, Leela."
In his agitation Ramlogan was clutching at his hair, slapping his chest and belly, and beating on the counter. "And then he go want more property." Ramlogan"s voice palpitated with true anguish.
Leela shrieked. "What you going to do to my husband, Pa? Is only three days now I married him."
"Soomintra, poor little Soomintra, she did tell me when we was going to take out the photos. "Pa, I don"t think we should take out any photos." G.o.d, oh G.o.d! Leela, why I didn"t listen to poor little Soomintra?"
Ramlogan pa.s.sed a grubby hand over the brown-paper patch on the gla.s.s case, and shook away his tears.
"And last night, Pa, he beat me."
"Come, Leela, come, daughter." He leaned over the counter and put his hands on her shoulder. "Is your fate, Leela. Is my fate too. We can"t fight it, Leela."
"Pa," Leela wailed, "what you going to do to him? He is my husband, you know."
Ramlogan withdrew his hands and wiped his eyes. He beat on the counter until the gla.s.s case rattled. "That is what they call education these days. They teaching a new subject. Pickpocketing."
Leela gave another shriek. "The man is my husband, Pa."
When, later that afternoon, Ganesh came back to Fourways, he was surprised to hear Ramlogan shouting, "Oh, sahib! Sahib! What happen that you pa.s.sing without saying anything? People go think we vex."
Ganesh saw Ramlogan smiling broadly behind the counter. "What you want me to say when you have a sharpen cutla.s.s underneath the counter, eh?"
"Cutla.s.s? Sharpen cutla.s.s? You making joke, sahib. Come in, man, sahib, and sit down. Yes, sit down, and let we have a chat. Eh, but is just like old times, eh, sahib?"
"Things change now."
"Ah, sahib. Don"t say you vex with me."
"I ain"t vex with you."
"Is for stupid illiterate people like me to get vex. And when illiterate people get vex they does start thinking about working magic against people and all that sort of thing. Educated people don"t do that sort of thing."
"You go be surprised."
Ramlogan tried to draw Ganesh"s attention to the gla.s.s case. "Is a nice modern thing, ain"t so, sahib? Nice, pretty, little modern thing." A drowsy fly was buzzing on the outside, anxious to join its fellows inside. Ramlogan brought down his hand quickly on the gla.s.s and killed the fly. He threw it out of the side window and wiped his hands on his trousers. "These flies is is a botheration, sahib. What is a good way of getting rid of these botherations, sahib?" a botheration, sahib. What is a good way of getting rid of these botherations, sahib?"
"I ain"t know anything about flies, man."
Ramlogan smiled and tried again. "How you like being a married man, sahib?"
"These modern girls is h.e.l.l self. They does keep forgetting their place."
"Sahib, I have to hand it to you. Only three days you married and you find that out already. Is the valua education. You want some salmon, sahib? Is just as good as any salmon in San Fernando."
"Don"t like San Fernando people."
"How business there for you, sahib?"
"Tomorrow, please G.o.d, we go see what happen."
"Oh G.o.d! Sahib, I didn"t mean anything bad last night. Was only a little drunk I was, sahib. A old man like me can"t hold his liquor, sahib. I don"t mind how much you want from me. I is a good good Hindu, sahib. Take away everything from me and it don"t make no difference, once you leave me with my cha"acter."
"You is a d.a.m.n funny sort of man, you know."
Ramlogan slapped at another fly and missed. "What go happen tomorrow, sahib?"
Ganesh rose from the bench and dusted the seat of his trousers. "Oh, tomorrow is one big secret."
Ramlogan rubbed his hands along the edge of the counter.
"Why you crying?"
"Oh, sahib, I is a poor man. You must must feel sorry for me." feel sorry for me."
"Leela go be all right with me. You mustn"t cry for she."
He found Leela in the kitchen, squatting before the low chulha chulha fire, stirring boiling rice in a blue enamel pot. fire, stirring boiling rice in a blue enamel pot.
"Leela, I have a good mind to take off my belt and give you a good dose of blows before I even wash my hand or do anything else."
She adjusted the veil over her head before turning to him. "What happen now, man?"
"Girl, how you let all your father bad blood run in your veins, eh? How you playing you don"t know what happen, when you know that you run around telling Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry my business?"
She faced the chulha chulha again and stirred the pot. "Man, if we start quarrelling now, the rice go boil too soft and you know you don"t like it like that." again and stirred the pot. "Man, if we start quarrelling now, the rice go boil too soft and you know you don"t like it like that."
"All right, but I go want you answer me later on."
After the meal she confessed and he surprised her by not beating her.
So she was emboldened to ask, "Man, what you do with Pa photo?"
"I think I settle your father. Tomorrow it wouldn"t have one man in Trinidad who wouldn"t know about him. Look, Leela, if you start this crying again, I go make you taste my hand again. Start packing. Tomorrow self we moving to Fuente Grove."
And the next morning the Trinidad Sentinel Trinidad Sentinel carried this story on page five: carried this story on page five: BENEFACTOR ENDOWS CULTURAL INSt.i.tUTEShri Ramlogan, merchant, of Fourways, near Debe, has donated a considerable sum of money with the view of founding a Cultural Inst.i.tute at Fuente Grove. The aim of the proposed Inst.i.tute, which has yet to be named, will be the furthering of Hindu Cultural and Science of Thought in Trinidad.The President of the Inst.i.tute, it is learnt, will be Ganesh Ramsumair, B.A. B.A.
And there was, in a prominent place, a photograph of a formally attired and slimmer Ramlogan, a potted plant at his side, standing against a background of Greek ruins.
The counter of Ramlogan"s shop was covered with copies of the Trinidad Sentinel Trinidad Sentinel and the and the Port of Spain Herald. Port of Spain Herald. Ramlogan didn"t look up when Ganesh came into the shop. He was gazing intently at the photograph and trying to frown. Ramlogan didn"t look up when Ganesh came into the shop. He was gazing intently at the photograph and trying to frown.
"Don"t bother with the Herald," Herald," Ganesh said. "I didn"t give them the story." Ganesh said. "I didn"t give them the story."
Ramlogan didn"t look up. He frowned more severely and said, "Hmmh!" He turned the page over and read a brief item about the danger of tubercular cows. "They pay you anything?"
"The man wanted me me to pay." to pay."
"Son of a b.i.t.c.h."
Ganesh made an approving noise.
"So, sahib." Ramlogan looked up at last. "Was really this you wanted the money for?"
"Really really."
"And you really going to write books at Fuente Grove and everything?"
"Really going to write books."
"Yes, man. Been reading it here, sahib. Is a great thing, and you is a great man, sahib."
"Since when you start reading?"
"I learning all all the time, sahib. I does read only a little tiny little bit. Smatterer fact, it have a hundred and one words I just can"t make head or tail outa. Tell you what, sahib. Why you don"t read it out to me? When you read I could just shut my eyes and listen."
"You does behave funny afterwards. Why you just don"t look at the photo, eh?"
"Is a nice photo, sahib."
"You look at it. I got to go now."
Ganesh and Leela moved to Fuente Grove that afternoon; but just before they left Fourways a letter arrived. It contained the oil royalties for the quarter; and the information that his oil had been exhausted and he was to receive no more royalties.
Ramlogan"s dowry seemed providential. It was another remarkable coincidence that gave Ganesh fresh evidence that big things were ahead of him.
"Great things going to happen in Fuente Grove," Ganesh told Leela. "Really great things."
5. Trials
FOR MORE THAN two years Ganesh and Leela lived in Fuente Grove and nothing big or encouraging happened. two years Ganesh and Leela lived in Fuente Grove and nothing big or encouraging happened.
Right from the start Fuente Grove looked unpromising. The Great Belcher had said it was a small, out of the way place. That was only half true. Fuente Grove was practically lost. It was so small, so remote, and so wretched, it was marked only on large maps in the office of the Government Surveyor; the Public Works Department treated it with contempt; and no other village even thought of feuding with it. You couldn"t really like Fuente Grove. In the dry season the earth baked, cracked, and calcined; and in the rainy season melted into mud. Always it was hot. Trees would have made some difference, but Ganesh"s mango tree was the only one.
The villagers went to work in the cane-fields in the dawn darkness to avoid the heat of day. When they returned in the middle of the morning the dew had dried on the gra.s.s; and they set to work in their vegetable gardens as if they didn"t know that sugar-cane was the only thing that could grow in Fuente Grove. They had few thrills. The population was small and there were not many births, marriages, or deaths to excite them. Two or three times a year the men made a noisy excursion to a cinema in distant, wicked San Fernando. Little happened besides. Once a year, at the "crop-over" harvest festival, when the sugar-cane had been reaped, Fuente Grove made a brave show of gaiety. The half-dozen bullock carts in the village were decorated with pink and yellow and green streamers made from crepe paper; the bullocks themselves, sad-eyed as ever, wore bright ribbons in their horns; and men, women, and children rattled the piquets on the carts and beat on pans, singing about the bounty of G.o.d. It was like the gaiety of a starving child.
Every Sat.u.r.day evening the men gathered in Beharry"s shop and drank a lot of bad rum. They became sufficiently enthusiastic about their wives to beat them that night. On Sunday they woke sick, cursing Beharry and his rum, continued sick all day, and rose fresh and strong early Monday morning, ready for the week"s work.
It was only this Sat.u.r.day drinking that kept Beharry"s shop going. He himself never drank because he was a good Hindu and because, as he told Ganesh, "it have nothing like a clear head, man". Also, his wife didn"t approve.
Beharry was the only person in Fuente Grove with whom Ganesh became friendly. He was a little man, scholarly in appearance, with a neat little belly and thin, greying hair. He alone in Fuente Grove read the newspapers. A day-old copy of the Trinidad Sentinel Trinidad Sentinel came to him every day by cyclist from Princes Town and Beharry read it from end to end, sitting on a high stool in front of his counter. He hated being behind the counter. "It does make me feel I is in a pen, man." came to him every day by cyclist from Princes Town and Beharry read it from end to end, sitting on a high stool in front of his counter. He hated being behind the counter. "It does make me feel I is in a pen, man."
The day after he arrived in Fuente Grove Ganesh called on Beharry and found that he knew all about the Inst.i.tute.
"Is just what Fuente Grove want," Beharry said. "You going to write books and thing, eh?"
Ganesh nodded and Beharry shouted, "Suruj!"
A boy of about five ran into the shop.
"Suruj, go bring the books. They under the pillow."
"All the books, Pa?" the books, Pa?"
"All."
The boy brought the books and Beharry pa.s.sed them one by one to Ganesh: Napoleon"s Book of Fate Napoleon"s Book of Fate, a school edition of Eothen Eothen which had lost its covers, three issues of the Booker"s Drug Stores which had lost its covers, three issues of the Booker"s Drug Stores Almanac Almanac, the Gita Gita, and the Ramayana Ramayana.