Ramlogan later solved the conversation problem by pretending that he couldn’t read and getting Ganesh to read the newspapers for him; and he listened, elbows on the counter, his hands holding his greasy head, his eyes filling with tears.
‘This reading, sahib, is a great great thing,’ Ramlogan once said. ‘Just think. You take up this paper that to me just look like a dirty sheet with all sort of black mark and scrawl all over the place’ — he gave a little self-deprecating laugh — ‘you take this up and — eh! eh! — before I have time to even scratch my back, man, I hear you reading from it and making a lot of sense with it. A great thing, sahib.’
Another day he said, ‘You does read real sweet, sahib. I could just shut my eye and listen. You know what Leela tell me last night, after I close up the shop? Leela ask me, “Pa, who was the man talking in the shop this morning? He sound just like a radio I hear in San Fernando.” I tell she, “Girl, that wasn’t a radio you was hearing. That was Ganesh Ramsumair. Pundit Ganesh Ramsumair,” I tell she.’
‘You making joke.’
‘Ah, sahib. Why I should make joke with you, eh? You want me call Leela here self, and you could ask she?’
Ganesh heard a titter behind the lace curtain. He looked down quickly at the floor and saw it littered with empty cigarette boxes and discarded paper bags. ‘Nah, nah. Don’t bother the girl.’
A week after that Ramlogan told Ganesh, ‘Something happen to Leela foot, sahib. I wonder if you would mind having a look at it.’
‘I ain’t a doctor, man. I ain’t know anything about people foot.’
Ramlogan laughed and almost slapped Ganesh on the back. ‘Man, how you could say a thing like that, sahib? Ain’t you was learning learning all all the time at the town college? And too besides, don’t think I forgetting that your father was the best massager we had.’
For years old Mr Ramsumair had this reputation until, his luck running out, he massaged a young girl and killed her. The Princes Town doctor diagnosed appendicitis and Mr Ramsumair had to spend a lot of money to keep out of trouble. He never massaged afterwards.
‘Wasn’t his fault,’ Ramlogan said, leading Ganesh behind the counter to the curtained doorway. ‘He was still the best massager we ever had, and I too too proud that I know his one and only son.’
Leela was sitting in a hammock made from a sugar sack. She was wearing a clean cotton frock and her long black hair looked washed and combed.
‘Why you don’t have a look at Leela foot, sahib?’
Ganesh looked at Leela’s foot, and a curious thing happened. ‘I just seemed to touch it,’ he wrote, ‘and it was all right.’
Ramlogan did not hide his admiration. ‘Like I tell you, sahib. You is your father son. Is only special people who could do that sort of thing. I wonder why you don’t take up massaging.’
Ganesh remembered the queer feeling he had of being separated from the village people, and he felt that there was something in what Ramlogan said.
He didn’t know what Leela thought because as soon as he had fixed her foot she giggled and ran away.
Thereafter Ganesh was a more willing visitor at Ramlogan’s, and with every visit he noted improvements in the shop. The most spectacular of these was the introduction of a new glass case. It was given pride of place in the middle of the counter; it was so bright and clean it looked out of place.
‘Is really Leela idea,’ Ramlogan said. ‘It does keep out the flies from the cakes and it more modern.’
The flies now congregated inside the case. Presently a pane was broken and patched up again with brown paper. The glass case now belonged.
Ramlogan said, ‘I doing my best to make this Fourways a modern place — as you see — but is hard, man, sahib.’
Ganesh still went out cycling, his thoughts maundering between himself, his future, and life itself; and it was during one of his afternoon wanderings that he met the man who was to have a decisive influence on his life.
The first meeting was not happy. It happened on the dusty road that begins at Princes Town and wriggles like a black snake through the green of sugar-cane to Debe. He was not expecting to see anyone on the road at that dead time of day when the sun was almost directly overhead and the wind had ceased to rustle the sugar-cane. He had passed the level-crossing and was freewheeling down the incline just before the small village of Parrot Trace when a man ran into the middle of the road at the bottom of the incline and waved to him to stop. He was a tall man and looked altogether odd, even for Parrot Trace. He was covered here and there in a yellow cotton robe like a Buddhist monk and he had a staff and a bundle.
‘My brother!’ the man shouted in Hindi.
Ganesh stopped because he couldn’t do anything else; and, because he was afraid of the man, he was rude. ‘Who you is, eh?’
‘Indian,’ the man said in English, with an accent Ganesh had never heard before. His long thin face was fairer than any Indian’s and his teeth were bad.
‘You only lying,’ Ganesh said. ‘Go away and let me go.’
The man tightened his face into a smile. ‘I am Indian. Kashmiri. Hindu too.’
‘So why for you wearing this yellow thing, then?’
The man fidgeted with his staff and looked down at his robe. ‘It isn’t the right thing, you mean?’
‘Perhaps in Kashmir. Not here.’
‘But the pictures — they look like this. I would very much like to talk with you,’ he added, with sudden warmth.
‘All right, all right,’ Ganesh said soothingly, and before the man could say anything he was on his bicycle saddle and pedalling away.
When Ramlogan heard about the encounter he said, ‘That was Mr Stewart.’
‘He just did look crazy crazy to me. He had funny cateyes that frighten me, and you shoulda see the way the sweat was running down his red face. Like he not used to the heat.’
‘I did meet him in Penal,’ Ramlogan said. ‘Just before I move here. Eight nine months back. Everybody say he mad.’
Ganesh learnt that Mr Stewart had recently appeared in South Trinidad dressed as a Hindu mendicant. He claimed that he was Kashmiri. Nobody knew where he came from or how he lived, but it was generally assumed that he was English, a millionaire, and a little mad.
‘He a little bit like you, you know, sahib. He does think a lot. But I say, when you have so much money you could damn well afford to do a lot of thinking. Sahib, my people make me shame the way they does rob the man just because he have a lot of money and like to give it away. He does stay in one village, give away money, and then he does move somewhere else and start giving there.’
When Ganesh next saw Mr Stewart, in the village of Swampland, Mr Stewart was in distress, the object of a scrimmage of little boys who were doing their best to unwind his yellow robe. Mr Stewart was not resisting or protesting. He was simply looking about him in a bemused way. Ganesh quickly got off his cycle and picked up a handful of blue-metal stone from a pile left on the verge by the Public Works Department and no doubt given up for lost.
‘Don’t hurt them,’ Mr Stewart shouted, as Ganesh pursued the boys. ‘They are only children. Put down the stones.’
The boys routed, Ganesh came up to Mr Stewart. ‘You all right?’
‘My dress is a little dusty,’ Mr Stewart admitted, ‘but I am still sound in wind and limb.’ He brightened. ‘I knew I was going to meet you again. Do you remember our first meeting?’
‘I really sorry about that.’
‘Oh, I understand. But we must have a talk soon. I feel I can talk to you. The vibrations are right. No, don’t deny it. The vibrations are there all right.’