The Mystic Masseur (11 page)

‘Is all right for you. You ain’t have no sisters to face and hear them laughing at you.’

‘Leela, is the thing everybody who want to write have to face. Poverty and sickness is what every writer have to suffer.’

‘But you ain’t writing, man.’

Ganesh didn’t reply.

He kept on reading. He kept on making notes. He kept on making note-books. And he began to acquire some sensitivity to typefaces. Although he owned nearly every Penguin that had been issued he disliked them as books because they were mostly printed in Times, and he told Beharry that it looked cheap, ‘like a paper’. The works of Mr Aldous Huxley he could read only in Fournier; in fact, he had come to regard that type as the exclusive property of Mr Huxley.

‘But is just the sort of type I want my book to be in,’ he told Beharry one Sunday.

‘You think they have that sort of type in Trinidad. All they have here is one sort of mash-up type, ugly as hell.’

‘But this boy, this man I was telling you about, Basdeo, he have a new printing machine. It like a big typewriter.’

‘Line of type.’ Beharry passed his hand over his head and nibbled. ‘It does just show you how backward this Trinidad is. When you look at those American magazines, you don’t wish people in Trinidad could print like that?’

Ganesh couldn’t say anything because just then Suruj Mooma put her head through the door and gave Ganesh his hint to leave.

He found his food neatly laid out for him in the kitchen, as usual. There was a brass jar of water and a little plate of fresh coconut chutney. When he was finished he lifted up the brass plate to lick it and found a short note below it, written on one of his best sheets of light blue paper.

I, cannot; live: here. and, put; up: with. the, insult; of: my. Family!

6. The First Book

H
E 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.