"Ganesh, you is a man with a college education. How much book they does print every year in America, you think?"
"About four five hundred so."
"You crazy, man. Is more about a million. So I read somewhere the other day."
"Why you ask me then?"
Beharry nibbled. "Just to make sure."
Then they had a long discussion whether one man could ever get to know everything about the world.
Beharry annoyed Ganesh one day by showing a folder. He said casually, "Look what these people in England send me."
Ganesh frowned.
Beharry sensed trouble. "Didn"t ask ask for it, you know. You mustn"t think I setting up in compet.i.tion with you. They just send it, just like that." for it, you know. You mustn"t think I setting up in compet.i.tion with you. They just send it, just like that."
The folder was too beautiful for Ganesh"s annoyance to last.
"I don"t suppose they go just send it to me me like that, though." like that, though."
"Take it, man," Beharry said.
"Yes, take it before I burn it up." The voice of Suruj Mooma, inside. "I don"t want any more rubbish in my house."
It was a folder from the Everyman Library.
Ganesh said, "Nine hundred and thirty book at two shilling a book. Altogether that make "
"Four hundred and sixty dollars."
"Is a lot of money."
Beharry said, "Is a lot of book."
"If a man read all those book, it go have n.o.body at all to touch him in the line of education. Not even the Governor."
"You know, is something I was talking about to Suruj Mooma about only the other day. I don"t think Governor and them is really educated people."
"How you mean, man?"
"If they was really educated they wouldn"t want to leave England where they printing books night and day and come to a place like Trinidad."
Ganesh said, "Nine hundred and thirty book. Every book about one inch thick, I suppose."
"Make about seventy-seven feet."
"So with shelf on two walls you could find room for all."
"I prefer big books myself."
The walls of Ganesh"s drawing-room were subject to a good deal of scrutiny that evening.
"Leela, you got a ruler?"
She brought it.
"You thinking of alterations, man?"
"Thinking of buying some book."
"How much, man?"
"Nine hundred and thirty."
"Nine hundred!" She began to cry.
"Nine hundred and thirty."
"You see the sort of idea Beharry putting in your head. You just want to make me a pauper. It ain"t enough for you to rob my own father. Why you don"t send me straight off to the Poor House?"
So Ganesh didn"t buy all the Everyman Library. He bought only three hundred volumes and the Post Office delivered them in a van late one afternoon. It was one of the biggest things that had happened to Fuente Grove, and even Leela was impressed, though reluctantly. Suruj Mooma alone remained indifferent. The books were still being taken into Ganesh"s house when she told Beharry loudly, so that everybody could hear, "Now, you don"t start copying anybody and making a fool of yourself, you hear. Leela could go to the Poor House. Not me."
But Ganesh"s reputation, lowered by his incompetence as a ma.s.seur, rose in the village; and presently peasants, crumpling their grimy felt hats in their hands, came to ask him to write letters for them to the Governor, or to read letters which the Government, curiously, had sent them.
For Ganesh it was only the beginning. It took him about six months to read what he wanted of the Everyman books; after that he thought of buying more. He made regular trips to San Fernando and bought books, big ones, on philosophy and history.
"You know, Beharry, sometimes I does stop and think. What those Everyman people did think when they was parcelling up those books for me? You think they did ever guess that it had a man like me in Trinidad?"
"I ain"t know about that but, Ganesh, you beginning to get me vex now. You always forgetting nearly all what you read. You can"t even end what you was beginning to remember sometimes."
"What to do, then?"
"Look, I have a copy-book here. I can"t sell it because the cover get oily is that boy Suruj playing the fool with the candles and I go give you this copy-book. When you reading a book, make notes here of the things you think is important."
Ganesh had never liked copy-books, since his school days; but the idea of note-books interested him. So he made another trip to San Fernando and explored the stationery department of one of the big stores in the High Street. It was a revelation. He had never before realized that paper could be so beautiful, that there were so many kinds of paper, so many colours, so many glorious smells. He stood still, marvelling and reverent, until he heard a woman"s voice.
"Mister."
He turned to see a fat woman, traces of white powder on her black face, wearing a dress of a most splendidly floriferous design.
"Mister. How you selling the" she fished out a piece of paper from her purse and read from it "Nelson Introductory Introductory reading-book?" reading-book?"
"Me?" Ganesh said in surprise. "I ain"t a seller here."
She began to laugh all over the place. "Kee! Kee! Kyah! I did take you for the clurkist!"
And she went in search of the clerk, laughing and shaking and bending forward to hide her laughter.
Left alone, Garesh began taking surrept.i.tious sniffs at the paper, and, closing his eyes, pa.s.sed his hands over many papers, the better to savour their texture.
"What you think you feeling?"
It was a boy, wearing a white shirt, a tie, unmistakable badge of authority, and blue serge shorts.
"What you think you feeling? Yam or ca.s.sava in the market?"
Ganesh in a panic bought a ream of light blue paper.
Now, with the desire to write on his paper strong within him, he decided to have another look at Basdeo"s printing shop. He went to the narrow, sloping street and was surprised to find that the building he knew had been replaced by a new one, all gla.s.s and concrete. There was a new sign: ELITE ELECTRIC PRINTERY; ELITE ELECTRIC PRINTERY; and a slogan: and a slogan: When Better Printing is Printed We Will Print It. When Better Printing is Printed We Will Print It. He heard the clatter of machinery and pressed his face against a gla.s.s window to look in. A man was sitting at a machine that looked like a huge typewriter. It was Basdeo, long-trousered, moustached, adult. There could be no doubt that he had risen in the world. He heard the clatter of machinery and pressed his face against a gla.s.s window to look in. A man was sitting at a machine that looked like a huge typewriter. It was Basdeo, long-trousered, moustached, adult. There could be no doubt that he had risen in the world.
"Got to write my book," Ganesh said aloud. "Got "Got to." to."
There were diversions, however. Presently he developed a pa.s.sion for making note-books. When Leela complained he said, "Just making them now and putting them away. You never know when they go be useful." And he became a connoisseur of paper-smells. He told Beharry, "You know, I could just smell a book and tell how old it is." He always held that the book with the best smell was the Harrap"s French and English dictionary, a book he had bought, as he told Beharry, simply for the sake of its smell. But paper-smelling was only part of his new pa.s.sion; and when he bribed a policeman at Princes Town to steal a stapling-machine from the Court House, his joy was complete.
In the beginning, filling the note-books was frankly a problem. At this time Ganesh was reading four, sometimes five, books a week; and as he read he scored a line, a sentence, or even an entire paragraph, in preparation for his Sunday. This had become for him a day of ritual and perfect joy. He got up early, bathed, did his puja puja, ate; then, while it was still cool, he went to Beharry"s. He and Beharry read the newspaper and talked, until Suruj Mooma pushed an angry head through the shop door and said, "Suruj p.o.o.pa, your mouth always open. If it ain"t eating, is talking. Well, talk done now. Is time to eat."
Ganesh would take the hint and leave.
The least pleasant part of Sunday was that walk back to his own house. The sun was wicked and the lumps of crude asphalt on the road were soft and hot underfoot. Ganesh played with the idea of covering all Trinidad with a huge canvas canopy to keep out the sun and to collect the water when it rained. This thought occupied him until he got home. Then he ate, bathed again, put on his good Hindu clothes, dhoti, vest, and koortah koortah, and attended to his note-books.
He brought out the whole pile from a drawer in the bedroom bureau and copied out the pa.s.sages he had marked during the week. He had evolved a system of note-taking. It had appeared simple enough in the beginning white paper for notes on Hinduism, light blue for religion in general, grey for history, and so on but as time went on the system became hard to maintain and he had allowed it to lapse.
He never used any note-book to the end. In each he began with the best of intentions, writing in a fine, sloping hand, but by the time he had reached the third or fifth page he lost interest in the note-book, the handwriting became a hasty, tired squiggle, and the note-book was abandoned.
Leela complained about the waste. "You go make we all paupers. Just as Beharry making Suruj Mooma a pauper."
"Girl, what you know about these things? Is not a shop-sign I copying out here, you know. Is copying right enough, but it have a lot of thinking I doing at the same time."
"I getting too tired hearing you talking, talking. You say you come here to write your precious books. You say you come here to ma.s.sage people. How much people you ma.s.sage? How much book you write? How much money you make?"
The questions were rhetorical and all Ganesh could say was: "You see! You getting to be just like your father, talking like a lawyer."
Then, in the course of a week"s reading, he came upon the perfect reply. He made a note of it there and then, and the next time Leela complained he said, "Look, shut up and listen."
He hunted about among his books and note-books until he got a pea-green note-book marked Literature Literature.
"Just let me sit down, man, before you start reading."
"And when you listen don"t fall asleep. Is one of your nasty habits, you know, Leela."
"Can"t help it man. The moment you start reading to me you does make me feel sleepy. I know some people does feel sleepy the moment they see a bed."
"They is people with clean mind. But listen, girl. A man may turn over half a library to make one book man may turn over half a library to make one book. It ain"t me who make that up, you know."
"How I know you ain"t fooling me, just as how you did fool Pa?"
"But why for I go want to fool you, girl?"
"I ain"t the stupid little girl you did married, you know."
And when he brought the book and revealed the quotation on the printed page, Leela fell silent in pure wonder. For however much she complained and however much she reviled him, she never ceased to marvel at this husband of hers who read pages of print, chapters of print, why, whole big books; this husband who, awake in bed at nights, spoke, as though it were nothing, of one day writing a book of his own and having it printed printed!
But it was hard for her when she went to her father"s, as she did on most of the more important holidays. Ramlogan had long ago come to regard Ganesh as a total loss and a crook besides. And then there was Soomintra to be faced. Soomintra had married a hardware merchant in San Fernando and she was rich. More than that, she looked rich. She was having child after child, and growing plump, matronly, and important. She had a son whom she had called Jawaharlal, after the Indian leader; and her daughter was called Sarojini, after the Indian poetess.
"The third one, the one coming, if he is a boy, I go call him Motilal; if she is a girl I go call she Kamala."
Admiration for the Nehru family couldn"t go much farther.
More and more Soomintra and her children looked out of place in Fourways. Ramlogan himself grew dingier and the shop grew dingier with him. Left alone, he seemed to have lost interest in housekeeping. The oilcloth on the table in the back room was worn, crinkled, and cut about; the flour sack hammock had become brown, the Chinese calendars fly-blown. Soomintra"s children wore clothes of increasing cost and fussiness, and they made more noise; but when they were about Ramlogan had time for no one else. He petted them and pampered them, but they soon made it clear that they considered his attempts at pampering elementary. They wanted more than a sugar-coated sweet from one of the jars in the shop. So Ramlogan gave them lollipops. Soomintra got plumper and looked richer, and it was a strain for Leela not to pay too much attention when Soomintra crooked her right arm and jangled her gold bracelets or when, with the licence of wealth, she complained she was tired and needed a holiday.
"The third one come," Soomintra said at Christmas. "I wanted to write and tell you, but you know how it hard."
"Yes, I know how it hard."
"Was a girl, and I call she Kamala, like I did say. Eh, girl, but I forgetting. How your husband? I ain"t see any of the books he writing. But then, you see, I isn"t a big reader."
"He ain"t finish the book yet."
"Oh."
"Is a big big book."
Soomintra jangled her gold bracelets and at the same time coughed, hawked, but didn"t spit another mannerism of wealth, Leela recognized. "Jawaharlal father start reading the other day too. He always say that if he had the time he would do some writing, but with all the coming and going in the shop he ain"t really have the time, poor man. I don"t suppose Ganesh so busy, eh?"
"You go be surprise how much people does come for ma.s.sage. If you hear anybody wanting a ma.s.sage you must tell them about him. Fuente Grove not so hard to reach, you know."
"Child, you know I go do anything at all to help you out. But you go be surprise the number of people it have these days who going around calling theyself ma.s.sagers. Is people like that who taking the work from really good people like Ganesh. But the rest of these little boys who taking up ma.s.saging, I feel they is only a pack of good-for-nothing idlers."
Kamala, in the bedroom, began to cry; and little Jawaharlal, wearing a brand-new sailor suit, came and lisped, "Ma, Kamala wet sheself."
"Children!" Soomintra exclaimed, thumping out of the room. "Leela girl, you ain"t know how lucky you is, not having any."
Ramlogan came in from the shop with Sarojini on his hip. She was partly sucking a lemon lollipop, partly investigating its stickiness with her fingers.
"I been listening," Ramlogan said. "Soomintra don"t mean anything bad. She just feeling a little rich and she got to show off a little."
"But he going going to write the book, Pa. He tell me so heself. He reading and writing all the time. One day he go show all of all you." to write the book, Pa. He tell me so heself. He reading and writing all the time. One day he go show all of all you."
"Yes, I know he going to write the book." Sarojini was dragging the lollipop over Leela"s uncovered head, and Ramlogan was making unsuccessful efforts to stop her. "But stop crying. Soomintra coming back."
"Ah, Leela! Sarojini take a liking to you. First person she take a liking to, just like that. Ah, you mischeevyus little girl, why for you playing with your auntie hair like that?"
Ramlogan surrendered Sarojini.
"Looking prettish girlish," Soomintra said, "wif prettish namish. We having a famous family, you know, Leela. This little girl name after a woman who does write nice nice poetry and again it have your husband writing a big big book."
Ramlogan said, "No, when you think about it, I think we is a good family. Once we keep cha"acter and sensa values, is all right. Look at me. Supposing people stop liking me and stop coming to my shop. That harm me? That change my "