‘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 God! Oh God! I didn’t know he was that sort of man. He look so quiet.’ He stamped up and down behind the counter. ‘Oh God! 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 glass case on the counter. ‘All that I do for him. Leela, I didn’t want any glass case in my shop.’
‘No, Pa, you didn’t want any glass case in the shop.’
‘It for he I get the glass case. Oh God! Leela, is only one thing he going to do with the picture. Work magic and 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.” God, oh God! Leela, why I didn’t listen to poor little Soomintra?’
Ramlogan passed a grubby hand over the brown-paper patch on the glass 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 glass 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 passing 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 cutlass underneath the counter, eh?’
‘Cutlass? Sharpen cutlass? 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 glass 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 glass and killed the fly. He threw it out of the side window and wiped his hands on his trousers. ‘These flies is 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 hell 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 God, we go see what happen.’
‘Oh God! 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 damn 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 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 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, Dick, and Harry my business?’
She faced the 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.’
‘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 carried this story on page five:
BENEFACTOR ENDOWS CULTURAL INSTITUTE
Shri Ramlogan, merchant, of Fourways, near Debe, has donated a considerable sum of money with the view of founding a Cultural Institute at Fuente Grove. The aim of the proposed Institute, which has yet to be named, will be the furthering of Hindu Cultural and Science of Thought in Trinidad.
The President of the Institute, it is learnt, will be Ganesh Ramsumair, 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 and the 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.
‘Don’t bother with the Herald,’ 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 to pay.’
‘Son of a bitch.’
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?’