The Mystic Masseur

6. The First Book

HE DIDN’T FEEL IT at all, at first.

Then he got up on a sudden and kicked the brass jar over, spilling water all over the floor. He watched the jar circling until it stopped on its side.

‘Let she go!’ he said aloud. ‘Lesshego!’

He spent some time walking up and down. ‘Going to show she. Not going to write at all. Not going to write a single line.’

He gave the jar another kick and was surprised to see a little more water spill. ‘Let she feel sorry and shame. Let she go. Saying she coming here to live with me and then she can’t even have a thing like a baby, a small tiny little thing like a baby! Let she shame! Lesshego!’

He went to the drawing-room and began pacing there, among his books. He stopped and gazed at the wall. Instantly he began working out whether he could really have fitted in seventy-seven feet of book-shelves on it. ‘Just like she father. No respect for books. Only money, money, money.’

He went back to the kitchen, picked up the jar, and mopped up the floor. Then he bathed, singing devotional songs with a certain fierceness. From time to time he stopped singing and cursed and sometimes he shouted, ‘Going to show she. Not going to write a single line.’

He dressed and went to see Beharry.

‘The Governor say the truth, man,’ Beharry said, when he had heard. ‘The trouble with we Indians is that we educate the boys and leave the girls to fend for theyself. So now it have you more educated than Leela and me more educated than Suruj Mooma. That is the real trouble.’

Suruj Mooma made a sudden irruption into the shop and as soon as she saw Ganesh she began crying, hiding her face in her veil. She tried to embrace him across the counter, failed; and, still crying, ducked under the counter and passed over to where Ganesh was standing. ‘Don’t tell me,’ she sobbed, and flung an arm over his shoulder. ‘Don’t tell me a single word. I know it already. I myself didn’t think she was serious or I woulda try to stop she. But we have to fight things like that. Ganesh, you must be brave. Is what life is.’

She edged Beharry off the shop-stool, sat on it, and cried by herself, wiping her eyes with the corner of her veil. Beharry and Ganesh watched her.

‘I would never leave Suruj Poopa,’ she said. ‘Never. I ain’t educated enough.’

Suruj appeared at the door. ‘I hear you calling me, Ma?’

‘No, son. I ain’t calling you, but come.’

Suruj did as he was told and his mother pressed his head against her knees. ‘You think I go ever want to leave Suruj and he Poopa?’ She gave a short scream. ‘Never!’

Suruj said, ‘I could go now, Ma?’

‘Yes, son, you could go now.’

When Suruj had gone she became a little calmer. ‘That is the trouble, giving girls education these days. Leela spend too much of she time reading and writing and not looking after she husband properly. I did talk to she about it, mark you.’

Beharry, rubbing his belly and looking down thoughtfully at the floor, said, ‘The way I look at it is this. These young girls not like we, you know, Ganesh. These young girls today think that getting married is some sort of game. Something like rounders. Running away and running back. Is a lot of fun for them. They want you to go and beg them —’

‘You never had to beg me once, Suruj Poopa.’ Suruj Mooma burst into fresh tears. ‘I never once leave you. Is the sort of woman I is. I go never leave my husband. I ain’t educated enough.’

Beharry put his arm around his wife’s waist and looked at Ganesh, a little ashamed of having to be so openly affectionate. ‘You mustn’t mind, man. Not to mind. You ain’t educated, is true. But you full of sense.’

Crying and wiping her eyes and crying again, Suruj Mooma said, ‘Nobody bother to educate me, you know. They take me out of school when I was in Third Standard. I always come first in my class. You know Purshottam, the barrister in Chaguanas?’

Ganesh shook his head.

‘Me and Purshottam was in the Third Standard together. I always come first in my class but still they take me out of school to make me married. I ain’t educated, man, but I would never leave you.’

Ganesh said, ‘Don’t cry, maharajin. You is a good woman.’

She cried a bit more; and then stopped abruptly. ‘Don’t mind, Ganesh. These girls these days does behave as if marrying is something like rounders. They run away but all the time they run away only to come back. But what you going to do now, Ganesh? Who go cook for you and keep your house clean?’

Ganesh gave a brave little laugh. ‘Somehow I never get worried by these things. I always believe, and Suruj Poopa could tell you this, that everything happen for the best.’

Beharry, his right hand under his vest now, nodded and nibbled. ‘Everything have a reason.’

‘Is my philosophy,’ Ganesh said, throwing up his arms in an expansive manner. ‘I ain’t worried.’

‘Well,’ Suruj Mooma said, ‘eat philosophy at your house and come and eat food here.’

Beharry went on with his own thoughts. ‘A wife does keep a man back — a man like Ganesh, I mean. Now that Leela gone he could really start writing the book. Eh, Ganesh?’

‘Not writing no book. Not … going … to … write … any … book.’ He began to stride up and down the short shop. ‘Not even if she come back and beg me.’

Suruj Mooma looked incredulous. ‘You not going to write the book?’

‘No.’ And he kicked at something on the floor.

Beharry said, ‘You ain’t serious, Ganesh.’

‘I ain’t laughing.’

Suruj Mooma said, ‘You mustn’t mind what he saying. He just want we to beg him a little bit.’

‘Look, Ganesh,’ Beharry said. ‘What you want is a time-table. And look, eh, I ain’t begging you. I ain’t go have you playing the fool and throwing away your abilities. I making a time-table for you right now and if you don’t follow it, it going to have big trouble between the two of we. Think, your own book.’

‘With your picture in front and your name in big big letters,’ Suruj Mooma added.

‘And getting it print on that big typewriter machine you tell me about.’

Ganesh stopped pacing.

Suruj Mooma said, ‘Is all right now. He go write the book.’

‘You know my note-books,’ Ganesh said to Beharry. ‘Well, I was thinking if it wouldn’t be a good idea to start off with that. You know, printing a set of things about religion, from different authors, and explaining what they say.’

‘Antheology,’ Beharry said, nibbling.

‘Right. A antology. What you think?’

‘I thinking.’ Beharry passed his hand over his head.

‘It go learn people a lot,’ Ganesh encouraged.

‘Is just what I was thinking. It go learn people a lot. But you think people want to learn?’

‘They ain’t want to learn?’

‘Look, Ganesh. You must always remember the sort of people it have in Trinidad. Every-and anybody not educated up to your standard. Is your job and is my job to bring the people up, but we can’t rush them. Start small and later on fling out your antology at them. Is a good idea, mark you. But leave it for now.’

‘Something simple and easy first, eh?’

Beharry placed his hands on his thighs. ‘Yes. The people here just like children, you know, and you got to teach them like children.’

‘A primer like?’

Beharry slapped his thighs and nibbled furiously. ‘Yes, man. That self.’

‘Leave it to me, Beharry. I go give them this book, and I go make Trinidad hold it head and bawl.’

‘That is the way Suruj Mooma and me like to hear you talk.’

And he did write the book. He worked hard at it for more than five weeks, sticking to the time-table Beharry had drawn up for him. He rose at five, milked the cow in the semi-darkness, and cleaned out the cow-pen; bathed, did his puja, cooked, and ate; took the cow and calf out to a rusty little field; then, at nine, he was ready to work on the book. From time to time during the day he had to take salted water to the cow and calf. He had never had to mind a cow before and it came as a surprise to him that an animal which looked so patient, trusting, and kindly required so much cleaning and attention. Beharry and Suruj Mooma helped with the cow, and Beharry helped with the book at every stage. He said, ‘Beharry, I going to dedicate this book to you.’

And he did that too. He worked on the dedication even before the book was completed. ‘Is the hardest part of the whole book,’ he said jocularly, but the result pleased even Suruj Mooma: For Beharry, who asked why.

‘It sound like po’try,’ she said.

‘It sound like a real book,’ Beharry said.

Finally the day came when Ganesh took his manuscript to San Fernando. He stood on the pavement outside the Elite Electric Printery and looked in at the machinery. He was a little shy at entering and at the same time anxious to prolong the thrill he felt that soon that magnificent and complicated machine and the grown man who operated it were to be dedicated to the words he had written.

When he went inside he saw a man he didn’t know at the machine. Basdeo was at a desk in a wire-cage full of pink and yellow slips on spikes.

Basdeo came out of the cage. ‘I remember the face.’

‘You did print my wedding invitation long time now.’

‘Ah, that is a thing for you. So much wedding invitation I printing and you know I never get one invite. What you have for me today? Magazine? Everybody in Trinidad bringing out magazine these days.’

‘Book.’

Ganesh was alarmed at the casual way in which Basdeo, whistling through his teeth, flipped his grubby fingers through the manuscript.

‘You does write on nice paper, you know. But is only a booklet you have here, man. Come to that, it more like a pamphlet than a booklet.’

‘It don’t take much to see that it ain’t a big book. And it don’t take much to know too that we all have to start small. Like you. Remember the old machine you did have. Now, look at all this here.’

Basdeo didn’t reply. He went to his cage and came out again with a cinema handbill and a stumpy red pencil. He became serious, the businessman, and, bending over a blackened table, started to write down figures on the back of the handbill, pausing every now and then to blow away invisible dust from the sheet or to brush it with his right little finger. ‘Look, how much you know about this thing?’

‘Printing?’

Basdeo, still bending over the table, nodded, blew away some more dust, and scratched his head with the pencil.

Ganesh smiled. ‘I study it a little bit.’

‘What point you want it to be in?’

Ganesh didn’t know what to say.

‘Eight, ten, eleven, twelve, or what?’ Basdeo sounded impatient.

Ganesh was thinking rapidly about the cost. He said firmly, ‘Eight go do me.’

Basdeo shook his head and hummed. ‘You want any leading?’

He was like a Port of Spain barber boosting a shampoo. Ganesh said, ‘No. No leading.’

Basdeo looked dismayed. ‘For a book this size and in this print? You sure you don’t want leading?’

‘Sure, sure. But, look, before we go any farther just show me the type you going to print the book in.’

It was Times. Ganesh groaned.

‘Is the best we have.’

‘Well, all right,’ Ganesh said, without enthusiasm. ‘Another thing. I want my picture, in the front.’

‘We don’t make blocks here, but I could fix that up. Extra twelve dollars.’

‘For one little little picture?’

‘A dollar a square inch.’

‘Is expensive, man.’

‘You expect other people to pay for your picture? Well, that settle. Altogether — but wait, how much copies you want?’

‘A thousand in the beginning. But I don’t want you to break up the type. You never know what could happen.’

Basdeo didn’t look impressed. ‘Thousand copies,’ he mumbled abstractedly, working away at his calculations on the back of the handbill. ‘Hundred and twenty-five dollars.’ And he flung down his pencil on the table.

So the process began, the thrilling, tedious, discouraging, exhilarating process of making a book. Ganesh worked with Beharry on the proofs, and they both marvelled at the way the words looked so different in print.

‘They look so powerful,’ Beharry said.

Suruj Mooma could never get over it.

At last the book was completed and it was Ganesh’s joy to bring home the thousand copies in a taxi. Before he left San Fernando he told Basdeo, ‘Remember now, keep the type set up. You never know how fast the book go sell, and I don’t want Trinidad bawling for the book when I ain’t have any left.’

‘Sure,’ Basdeo said. ‘Sure. They want ‘em, you want ‘em, I print ‘em. Sure thing, man.’

Though Ganesh’s joy was great there was one disappointment he couldn’t quite stifle. His book looked so small. It had no more than thirty pages, thirty small pages; and it was so thin nothing could be printed on the spine.

‘Is this boy Basdeo,’ Ganesh explained to Beharry. ‘All the big talk he give me about point and leading, and after all that he not only give me that ugly type he call Times, but he had to give me small small type.’

Suruj Mooma said, ‘He make the book look like nothing, man.’

‘Is the trouble with Indians in Trinidad,’ Beharry said.

‘All of them not like Suruj Poopa, you know,’ Suruj Mooma interrupted. ‘Suruj Poopa want to see you get on.’

Beharry went on, ‘You know, Ganesh, it wouldn’t surprise if somebody did pay this boy Basdeo to do what he do to your book. Now, another printer who didn’t jealous you woulda make the book run to sixty pages and he woulda give you thick thick paper too.’

‘Anyway, you mustn’t mind,’ Suruj Mooma said. ‘Is something. Is a damn lot more than most people do in this place.’

Beharry pointed to the frontispiece and nibbled. ‘Is a nice picture of you here, you know, Ganesh.’

‘He look like a real professor,’ Suruj Mooma said. ‘So serious, and with his hand under his chin like if he thinking real deep.’

Ganesh took another copy and pointed to the dedication page. ‘I think Suruj Poopa name look nice in print too,’ he said to Suruj Mooma.

Beharry nibbled in embarrassment. ‘Nah. You only making joke, man.’

‘I think the whole thing look nice,’ Suruj Mooma said.

Early one Sunday afternoon Leela was standing at the window of the kitchen at the back of Ramlogan’s shop in Fourways. She was washing the midday dishes and was about to throw some dirty water out of the window when she saw a face appear below her. The face was familiar, but the impish smile on it was new.

‘Leela!’ the face whispered.

‘Oh — is you. What you doing here?’

‘I come back for you, girl.’

‘Go away quick march from here, you hear, before I throw this tureen of dirty water all over your face and wash away the grin.’

‘Leela, is not only come I come for you; but I have something to tell you, and I want to tell you first.’

‘Say it quick. But I must say you was able to keep it to yourself a damn long time. Eh, eh, is nearly three months now you drive me away from your house and in all that time you never bother to send a message to ask me, “Dog, how you is?” or “Cat, how you is?” So why for you come now, eh?’

‘But, Leela, is you who leave me. I couldn’t send you a message because I was writing.’

‘Go and tell that to Beharry, you hear. Look, I go call Pa in a minute and what he have for you ain’t nice, I could tell you.’

The smile on the face became more impish, and the whisper was more conspiratorial. ‘Leela, I write a book.’

She trembled on the brink of belief. ‘You lying.’

He produced it with a flourish. ‘Look at the book. And look here at my name, and look here at my picture, and look here at all these words I write with my own hand. They print now, but you know I just sit down at the table in the front-room and write them on ordinary paper with a ordinary pencil.’

‘Oh, man! Oh, man! Oh, man, you really write the book.’

‘Careful! Don’t touch it with your soapy hand.’

‘Look, I go run and tell Pa.’ She turned and went inside. Ganesh heard her saying, ‘And we must let Soomintra know. She wouldn’t like it at all at all.’

Left alone under the window in the shade of the tamarind tree, Ganesh began to hum and take a minute interest in Ramlogan’s back yard, though he really saw nothing, neither the copper cask, rusted and empty, nor the barrels of water full of mosquito larvae.

‘Sahib!’ Ramlogan’s voice rasping from within. ‘Sahib! Come inside, man, sahib. Why you pretending that you is a stranger and standing up outside? Come in, sahib, come in, sit down in your old place in the hammock. Oh, sahib, is a real honour. I too too proud of you.’

Ganesh sat in the hammock which was now, once again, made from a sugar-sack. The Chinese calendars had disappeared from the walls which looked mildewed and dingy as before.

Ramlogan was passing his fat hairy hands over the cover, and he smiled until his cheeks almost covered his eyes. ‘The book smooth smooth,’ he said. ‘Look, Leela, feel how smooth it is. And the print on the cover, man. It look as if, sahib, is really part of the paper. Oh, sahib, you make me really proud today. Remember, Leela, was just last Christmas I was telling you and Soomintra that Ganesh was the radical in the family. Is my opinion that every family should have a radical in it.’

‘Is just the beginning,’ Ganesh said.

‘Leela,’ Ramlogan said, with mock severity. ‘Girl, your husband come all the way from Fuente Grove and you ain’t even ask him if he hungry or if he thirsty?’

‘I ain’t hungry and I ain’t thirsty,’ Ganesh said.

Leela looked miserable. ‘All the rice finish, and the dal that remain over not much really.’

‘Open a tin of salmon,’ Ramlogan ordered. ‘And get some bread and butter and peppersauce and some avocado pears.’ And he went himself to look after the preparations, saying, ‘We have a author in the family, man, girl. Girl, we have a author in the family, man.’

They seated him at the table which was again bare, without its oilcloth and vase and paper roses, and they fed him in enamel dishes. Ramlogan and Leela watched him eat, Ramlogan’s gaze shifting from Ganesh’s plate to Ganesh’s book.

‘Have some more salmon, sahib. I ain’t a pauper yet that I can’t afford to feed the radical in the family.’

‘More water, man?’ Leela asked.

Chewing and swallowing almost continually, Ganesh found it hard to acknowledge Ramlogan’s compliments. All he could do was swallow quickly and nod.

Ramlogan at last turned the green cover of the book.

‘I really wish I was a proper reader, sahib,’ he said. But in his excitement he betrayed his literacy. ‘A Hundred and one Questions and Answers on the Hindu Religion, by Ganesh Ramsumair, B.A. It sound nice, man. Eh, Leela? Just hear it again.’ And he repeated the title, shaking his head and smiling until tears came to his eyes.

Leela said, ‘Man, I tell you a long time now that you must stop going around calling yourself a B.A.’

Ganesh chewed hard and swallowed with difficulty. He looked up from his plate and addressed Ramlogan. ‘Is something me and Beharry was talking about only the other day. Is a thing I ain’t approve of, you know: this modern method of education. Everybody start thinking is the little piece of paper that matter. It ain’t that does make a man a B.A. Is how he does learn, how much he want to learn, and why he want to learn, is these things that does make a man a B.A. I really can’t see how I isn’t a B.A.’

‘You is a B.A., man, sahib. I like to see the man who go come and tell me to my face that you ain’t a B.A.’

Ramlogan turned a few more pages and read aloud: ‘Question Number Forty-Six. Who is the greatest modern Hindu? Leela, just let me hear you answer that one.’

‘Let me see now. Is — is Mahatma Gandhi, eh?’

‘Right, girl. Fust class. Is the selfsame answer it have in the book. Is really a nice book, man, sahib. Full of nice little things to know.’

Ganesh, swallowing water from a brass jar that practically covered his face, gurgled.

‘Let we see now,’ Ramlogan continued. ‘Listen to this one, Leela. Question Number Forty-Seven. Who is the second greatest modern Hindu?’

‘I did know. But I forget now.’

Ramlogan was exultant. ‘Is the same thing I was saying. All sort of nice things in the book. The answer here is Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.’

‘Was that self I was going to say.’

‘Try this one. Question Number Forty-Eight. Who is the third greatest modern Hindu?’

‘Leave the book alone now, Pa. I go read it by myself.’

‘You is a sensible girl. Is the sort of book, sahib, they should give to children in school and make them learn it off by heart.’

Ganesh swallowed. ‘And big people too.’

Ramlogan turned some more pages. Suddenly the smile went off his face.

‘Who is this Beharry you give the book to?’

Ganesh saw trouble coming. ‘You know him, man. A thin little man break-up like match-stick who does get good hell from his wife. You did meet him that day you come to Fuente Grove.’

‘He ain’t a educated man, not true? He does keep shop like me, not true?’

Ganesh laughed. ‘But he ain’t no sort of shopkeeper at all. Is Beharry who start asking me question and give me the idea for the book.’

Ramlogan put 101 Questions and Answers on the Hindu Religion on the table, rose, and regarded Ganesh with sadness. ‘And you mean, sahib, you mean you give that man the book rather than give it to your own father-in-law, the man who help you burn your father and everything? Was the least you could do for me, sahib. Who start you off? Who give you the house in Fuente Grove? Who give you the money for the Institute?’

‘The next book go be yours. I done think of the dedication too.’

‘Don’t worry about dedication and edication. I did just hoping to see my name in your first book, that is all. I was right to hope for that, wasn’t I, sahib? People now go look at the book and say, “I wonder who daughter the author married.” And the book go tell them?’

‘The next book is yours.’ Ganesh hurriedly polished his plate with his fingers.

‘Just answer me that, sahib. The book go tell them? You dragging my name in the mud, sahib.’

Ganesh went to gargle at the window.

‘Who it is who always standing up for you, sahib? When everybody laughing at you, who did protect you? Ah, sahib, you disappoint me. I give you my daughter, I give you my money, and you don’t even want to give me your book.’

‘Take it easy, Pa,’ Leela said.

Ramlogan was crying openly. ‘How I go take it easy? Tell me, how I go do that? It isn’t as if a stranger do me something. No, no, Ganesh, today you really hurt me. You take up a big knife, you sharpen it, you hold it with your two hands and you push it right inside my heart. Leela, go bring the cutlass in the kitchen.

‘Pa!’ Leela screamed.

‘Bring the cutlass, Leela,’ Ramlogan sobbed.

‘What you doing, Ramlogan?’ Ganesh shouted.

Leela, sobbing, brought the cutlass.

Ramlogan took it and looked at it. ‘Take this cutlass, Ganesh. Come on, take it. Take it and finish off the job. Cut me up twenty-five times, and every time you chop me think is your own soul you chopping up.’

Leela screamed again, ‘Pa, don’t cry. Pa, don’t talk so. Pa, don’t behave so.’

‘No, Ganesh, come, chop me up.’

‘Pa!’

‘Why I musn’t cry, eh, girl? How? The man rob me and I ain’t say nothing. He send you home and ain’t write a line to ask, “Dog, how you is?” or “Cat, how you is?” And I ain’t say nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing! Is all I does get in this world. People go look at the book and say, “Who daughter the author married?” And the book ain’t going to tell them.’

Ganesh put away the cutlass under the table. ‘Ramlogan! Is only the beginning, Ramlogan. The next book —’

‘Don’t talk to me. Don’t speak to me. Don’t say another word to me. You disappoint me. Take your wife. Take she and go home. Take she, go home, and never come back.’

‘All right, if is how you want to behave. Leela, come, let we go. Go and pack your clothes. Ramlogan, I going from your house. Remember is you who drive me away. But still, look here. On the table. I leaving this book for you. I sign it. And the next one —’

‘Go,’ Ramlogan said. He sat down in the hammock, held his head in his hands, and sobbed silently.

Ganesh waited for Leela in the road. ‘Trader!’ he muttered. ‘Damn low-caste trader!’

When Leela came out with her small Anchor Cigarettes coupons-suitcase, Ganesh said, ‘How your father so much like a woman, eh?’

‘Man, don’t start again so soon.’

Beharry and Suruj Mooma called that evening and as soon as Leela and Suruj Mooma saw each other they began crying.

‘He write the book,’ Suruj Mooma wailed.

‘I know, I know,’ Leela agreed, with a sharper wail, and Suruj Mooma embraced her.

‘Don’t mind you educated. You must never leave him. I would never leave Suruj Poopa although I read up to Third Standard.’

‘No! No!’

When that was over they went to Beharry’s shop and ate. Later, while the women washed up, Beharry and Ganesh discussed how the book could best be distributed.

‘Gimme some,’ Beharry said. ‘I go put them in the shop.’

‘But Fuente Grove is a damn small place, man. Nobody does ever come here.’

‘If it ain’t do good it ain’t go do harm.’

‘We have to paint some signs and send them to Rio Claro and Princes Town and San Fernando and Port of Spain.’

‘Handbills?’

‘Nah. Is a book we talking about, not a theatre show.’

Beharry smiled weakly. ‘Was just an idea. Really Suruj Mooma idea. But we must have a advertisement in the Sentinel. With a coupon to full up and cut out and send.’

‘Like the American magazines. Is a good idea, that.’

‘Eh, is something that was worrying Suruj Mooma. You ask the printer to keep the print?’

‘Yes, man. I know about the business, you know.’

‘Suruj Mooma was getting real worried.’

They grew so enthusiastic that Ganesh wondered whether he shouldn’t have printed two thousand copies of the book. Beharry said he visualized Trinidad storming Fuente Grove to get copies, and Ganesh agreed that the idea wasn’t far-fetched. They were so excited they fixed the price of the book at forty-eight cents, and not thirty-six, as they had planned in the beginning.

‘Clear three hundred dollars profit,’ Beharry said.

‘Don’t use that word,’ Ganesh said, thinking of Ramlogan.

Beharry brought out a heavy ledger from a shelf under the counter. ‘You go want this. Suruj Mooma make me buy it some years now, but I use only the first page. You go want it to show your expenses and your sale.’

Soon the Trinidad Sentinel carried a three-inch column advertisement for the book, with a coupon to fill in, and the coupon was full of dotted lines, as Ganesh had insisted. The Sentinel gave the booklet a three-inch review.

Ganesh and Beharry warned and bribed the Post Office people; and waited to deal with the rush.

After a week only one coupon was filled and sent. But the writer had attached a letter begging for a free copy.

‘Throw it away,’ Beharry said.

‘So Trinidad does behave,’ Ganesh said.

Bookshops and even ordinary shops refused to handle the book. Some of them wanted a fifteen-cent commission on every copy and Ganesh couldn’t agree to that.

‘All they thinking about is money, money,’ he told Beharry bitterly.

A few hawkers in San Fernando agreed to display the book and Ganesh made many journeys to see how the sales were going. The news wasn’t encouraging, and he walked a good deal about San Fernando with the book in his shirt pocket so that anyone could see the title; and whenever he was on a bus or in a cafe he took out the book and read it with absorption, shaking his head and stroking his chin when he came across a question and answer with which he was particularly pleased.

It made no difference.

Leela was as distressed as he was. ‘Don’t mind, man,’ she said. ‘You must remember that Trinidad just full of people like Soomintra.’

Then The Great Belcher came to Fuente Grove and she brought a long thin boy with her. The boy wore a three-piece suit and hat and stood in the yard in the shade of the mango tree while The Great Belcher explained. ‘I hear about the book,’ she said warmly, ‘and I get Bissoon to come. He have a hand for selling.’

‘Only printed matter,’ Bissoon said, coming up the steps to the verandah.

Ganesh saw that Bissoon wasn’t a boy, but an elderly man; and he saw too that, although Bissoon wore a three-piece suit, a hat, collar and tie, he wore no shoes.

‘They does keep me back,’ he said.

Bissoon was anxious to make it clear that although he had taken a lot of trouble to come to Fuente Grove, he had not come as a suppliant. When he came into the drawing-room he didn’t take off his hat, and from time to time he rose from his chair and spat through the open window in a clean strong arc. He flung his feet over one arm of the chair and Ganesh watched his toes playing with each other, dropping a fine powder of dust on to the floor.

The Great Belcher and Ganesh looked at Bissoon, full of respect for his selling hand.

Bissoon sucked his teeth loudly. ‘Lemmesee the book.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘The book, man.’

Ganesh said, ‘Yes, the book.’ And shouted for Leela to bring the book from the bedroom where, for safety, all the copies were kept.

‘Bissoon, what you doing here?’

For a moment Bissoon’s composure broke up as he turned and saw Leela.

‘Ah, is you. Leela. Ramlogan daughter. How your father, girl?’

‘You do well to ask. Pa got you in mind, I could tell you. All those books you sell him he didn’t want to buy.’

Bissoon was calm again. ‘Oh, yes. American books. Pretty books. Nice books. Salesmanship. Fastest-selling books I ever handle. Reason I sell them to your father. Last set he get. Lucky man, Ramlogan.’

‘I ain’t know about that. But you go be an unlucky man if you ever go back to Fourways, I could tell you.’

‘Leela,’ Ganesh said, ‘Bissoon come here to sell my book.’

The Great Belcher belched and Bissoon said, ‘Yes, lemmesee the book. When you in the book business time don’t wait for you, you know.’

Leela gave him the book, shrugged her shoulders, and left.

‘Stupid man, Ramlogan,’ Bissoon said.

‘More a woman than a man,’ The Great Belcher said.

‘Materialist,’ Ganesh said.

Bissoon sucked his teeth again. ‘You got any water in this place. It making hot and I thirsty.’

‘Yes, yes. We got water, Bissoon, man,’ Ganesh said eagerly, rising, and shouted to Leela to bring the water.

Bissoon shouted, ‘And, eh, Ramlogan daughter, don’t bring me any mosquitoey water, you hear.’

‘No mosquitoes here, man,’ Ganesh said. ‘Dryest place in Trinidad.’

Leela brought the water and Bissoon put down the book to take the brass jar. Ganesh and The Great Belcher looked at him intently. Bissoon drank the water in the orthodox Hindu way, not letting the jar touch his lips, just pouring the water into his mouth; and Ganesh, sympathetic Hindu though he was, resented the imputation that his jars were dirty. Bissoon drank slowly, and Ganesh watched him drink. Then Bissoon delicately put down the jar on the floor and burped. He pulled out a silk handkerchief from his coat-pocket, wiped his hands and his mouth, and dusted his coat. Then he took up the book again.

‘Ques-tion Num-ber One. What is Hin-du-ism? Answer: Hin-du-ism is the re-li-gion of the Hin-dus. Question Number Two. Why am I a Hin-du? Answer: Be-cause my pa-rents and grand-pa-rents were Hin-dus. Ques-tion Num-ber Three —’

‘Stop reading it so!’ Ganesh cried. ‘You breaking up the words and the sentences and you making the whole thing sound like hell.’

Bissoon gave a decisive rub to his toes, got up, dusted his coat and trousers, and started towards the door.

The Great Belcher rose hurriedly, belching, and stopped Bissoon. ‘God, is this wind troubling me again. Bissoon, you mustn’t go now. Is for a good cause we want you to sell the book.’

She took his arm and he allowed himself to be led back to his chair.

‘Is a holy book, man,’ Ganesh apologized.

‘Sort of kyatechism,’ Bissoon said.

‘Just what it is.’ Ganesh smiled appeasingly.

‘Hard book to sell, kyatechisms.’

‘Nah!’ The Great Belcher blended a belch into the word.

‘Look, is experience I have in this business, you know.’ Bissoon’s feet were draped again over the arm of his chair, and his toes were again playing with each other. ‘All my life, ever since I leave the grass-cutting gang, I in the book business. Now I could just look at a book and tell you how hard or how easy it is to sell. I start off as a little boy, you know. Start off with theatre handbills. Had to give them away. I give away more theatre handbills than any other body in Trinidad. Then, I move up to San Fernando, selling kyalendars, then —’

‘These books is different books,’ Ganesh said.

Bissoon picked up the book from the floor and looked through it. ‘You right. Handle poetry — it go surprise you how much people in Trinidad does write poetry — and I handle essays and thing, but I never handle a kyatechism before. Still, is experience. Gimme nine cents commission. Remember, if any sort of printed matter could sell in Trinidad, Bissoon is the man to sell it. Gimme thirty of your kyatechisms to start off with. Mark you, I warning you now that I don’t think they go sell.’

When Bissoon had left, The Great Belcher said, ‘He have a hand. He go sell the books.’

And even Leela was cheerful. ‘Is a sign. Is the first sign I ever believe in. Is Bissoon who sell those books to Pa. Is those books that put the idea of authoring in your head. And is Bissoon who selling them for you. Is a sign.’

‘Is more than a sign,’ Ganesh said. ‘Anybody who could sell a book to your father could sell milk to a cow.’

But secretly he too believed it was a good sign.

Beharry and Suruj Mooma could not hide their disappointment at the poor reception of the book.

‘Don’t let them worry you,’ Suruj Mooma said. ‘Is just jealous they jealous in Trinidad. I still think is a good book. Already it have some question and answer Suruj know off by heart.’

‘It have a lot in what Suruj Mooma say,’ Beharry said judiciously. ‘But I feel the real trouble is that Trinidad just ain’t ready for that sort of book. They ain’t educated enough.’

‘Hah!’ And Ganesh gave a short dry laugh. ‘They want a book that look big. Once it look big they think it good.’

‘Perhaps they want more than a booklet,’ Beharry ventured.

‘Look,’ Ganesh said sharply. ‘Is a damn good book, you hear.’

Beharry, growing bolder, nibbled energetically. ‘I don’t think you go really deep enough.’

‘You think I should throw out another one at they head?’

‘Companion volume,’ Beharry said.

Ganesh was silent for a while. ‘More Questions and Answers on the Hindu Religion,’ he dreamed aloud.

‘More Questions and Answers,’ Beharry said, ‘Companion Volume to 101 Questions and Answers.’

‘You make it sound good, man, Beharry.’

‘Well, write it, man. Write it.’

Before Ganesh even began thinking constructively about the companion volume Bissoon returned with bad news. He gave it with respect and sympathy. He took off his hat when he came into the house, didn’t fling his feet over the arm of the chair, and when he wanted water he said, ‘Tonnerre! But it hot today. You think you could give me just a little sip of water?’

‘I is not like some people who does go round boasting that they right,’ he said, after he had drunk. ‘Nah, I is not that sort of man. I know I did tell you, but I not going to even talk about it now. Wasn’t your fault that you didn’t know. You ain’t have my experience in the business, that is all.’

‘You ain’t sell none at all?’

‘Sell ten, and all the people I sell it to going to behave like your wife father when they get to find out. Had to sell it to them as sort of charm. Pappa, that cost me a lot of work.’

‘Ninety cent commission you have to get, then.’

‘Don’t bother. You keep that for the next one you write. Anything in the way of printed matter, if it can sell, Bissoon is the man to sell it.’

‘Can’t understand it, Bissoon.’

‘Is easy. You a little too early. You see, is the sort of book you go have hell even giving away because people go think you want to work some sign of magic on them. Still, you mustn’t give up.’

‘Damn funny sort of sign!’

Bissoon looked up bewildered.

In spite of everything Ganesh still felt that something might be made of the book. He sent signed copies to the heads of all the Governments he could think of, and when Beharry found that Ganesh was sending them free, he was annoyed.

‘I is a independent man,’ he said. ‘And I don’t hold with that sort of curry-favouring. If the King want to read the book, he got to pay for it.’

This didn’t stop Ganesh sending a copy to Mahatma Gandhi, and doubtless it was only the outbreak of the war that prevented an acknowledgement.