‘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 massage. If you hear anybody wanting a massage 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 massagers. Is people like that who taking the work from really good people like Ganesh. But the rest of these little boys who taking up massaging, 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 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 —’
‘All right, Pa, but take it easy,’ Soomintra interrupted. ‘You go wake up Kamala again if you walk up and down like that and talk so loud.’
‘But still, man, the truth is the truth. It does make a man feel good to have all his family around him, and seeing them happy. I say that every family must have a radical in it, and I proud that we have Ganesh.’
‘So is that what Soomintra saying, eh?’ Ganesh was trying to be calm. ‘What else you expect? Money is all she and she father does think about. She don’t care about books and things. Is people like that did laugh at Mr Stewart, you know. And they call theyself Hindus! Now, if I was in India, I woulda have people coming from all over the place, some bringing me food, some bringing me clothes. But in Trinidad — bah!’
‘But, man, we got to think about money now. The time coming when we won’t have a cent remaining.’
‘Look, Leela. Look at this thing in a practical way. You want food? You have a little garden in the back. You want milk? You have a cow. You want shelter? You have a house. What more you want? Chut! You making me talk like your father now.’
‘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
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!’