The Mystic Masseur (17 page)

Ganesh began to chant in Hindi.

Leela asked the boy, ‘He ask whether you believe in him.’

The boy nodded, without conviction.

Leela said to Ganesh in English, ‘I don’t think he really believe in you.’ And she said it in Hindi afterwards.

Ganesh spoke in Hindi again.

Leela said to the boy, ‘He say you must believe.’

Ganesh chanted.

‘He say you must believe, if only for two minutes, because if you don’t believe in him completely, he will dead too.’

The boy screamed in the darkness. The candle burned steadily. ‘I believe in him, I believe in him.’

Ganesh was still chanting.

‘I believe in him. I don’t want him to dead too.’

‘He say he go be strong enough to kill the cloud only if you believe in him. He want all the strength you could give him.’

The boy hung his head. ‘I don’t doubt him.’

Leela said, ‘He change the cloud. It not following you now. It chasing him. If you don’t believe, the cloud will kill him and then it will kill you and then me and then your mother and then your father.’

The boy’s mother shouted, ‘Hector go believe! Hector go believe!’

Leela said, ‘You must believe, you must believe.’

Ganesh suddenly stopped chanting and the room was shocked by the silence. He rose from behind his screen and, chanting once more, went and passed his hands in curious ways over Hector’s face, head, and chest.

Leela still said, ‘You must believe. You beginning to believe. You giving him your strength now. He getting your strength. You beginning to believe, he getting your strength, and the cloud getting frighten. The cloud still coming, but it getting frighten. As it coming it getting frighten.’

Ganesh went back behind the screen.

Leela said, ‘The cloud coming.’

Hector said, ‘I believe in him now.’

‘It coming closer. He drawing it now. It not in the room yet, but it coming. It can’t resist him.’

Ganesh’s chants were becoming more frenzied.

Leela said, ‘The fight beginning between them. It starting now. Oh, God! He get the cloud. It not after you. It after him. God! The cloud dying,’ Leela screamed, and as she screamed there seemed to be a muffled explosion, and Hector said, ‘Oh God, I see it leaving me. I can feel it leaving me.’

The mother said, ‘Look at the ceiling. At the ceiling. I see the cloud. Oh, Hector, Hector. It ain’t a cloud at all. Is the devil.’

Hector’s father said, ‘And I see forty little devils with him.’

‘Oh God,’ Hector said. ‘See how they kill the cloud. Look how it breaking up, Ma. You see it now?’

‘Yes, son. I see it. It getting finer and finer. It dead.’

‘You see it, Pa.’

‘Yes, Hector, I see it.’

And mother and son began to cry their relief, while Ganesh still chanted, and Leela collapsed on the floor.

Hector was crying, ‘Ma, it gone now. It really gone.’

Ganesh stopped chanting. He got up and led them to the room outside. The air was fresher and the light seemed dazzling. It was like stepping into a new world.

‘Mr Ganesh,’ Hector’s father said. ‘I don’t know what we could do to thank you.’

‘Do just what you want. If you want to reward me, I don’t mind, because I have to make a living. But I don’t want you to strain yourself.’

Hector’s mother said, ‘But you save a whole life.’

‘It is my duty. If you want to send me anything, send it. But don’t go around telling all sorts of people about me. You can’t take on too much of this sort of work. A case like this does tire me out for a whole week sometimes.’

‘I know how it is,’ she said. ‘But don’t worry. We go send you a hundred dollars as soon as we get home. Is what you deserve.’

Ganesh hurried them away.

When he came back to the little room the window was open and Leela was taking down the curtains.

‘You ain’t know what you doing, girl,’ he shouted. ‘You losing the smell. Stop it, man. Is only the beginning. In no time at all, mark my words, this place go be full of people from all over Trinidad.’

‘Man, I take back all the bad things I say and think about you. Today you make me feel really nice. Soomintra could keep she shopkeeper and she money. But, man, don’t again ask me to let down my hair and go through all that rigmarole again.’

‘We not going to do that again. I only wanted to make sure this time. It make them feel good, you know, hearing me talk a language they can’t understand. But it not really necessary.’

‘Manwa, I did see the cloud too, you know.’

‘The mother see one devil, the father forty little devil, the boy see one cloud, and you see one cloud. Girl, whatever Suruj Mooma say about education, it have it uses sometimes.’

‘Oh, man, don’t tell me you use a trick on them.’

Ganesh didn’t say.

There was no report of this incident in the newspapers, yet within two weeks all Trinidad knew about Ganesh and his Powers. The news went about on the local grapevine, the Niggergram, an efficient, almost clairvoyant, news service. As the Niggergram noised the news abroad, the number of Ganesh’s successes were magnified, and his Powers became Olympian.

The Great Belcher came from Icacos, where she had been mourning at a funeral, and wept on Ganesh’s shoulder.

‘At long last you find your hand,’ she said.

Leela wrote to Ramlogan and Soomintra.

Beharry came to Ganesh’s house to offer his congratulations and make up his quarrel. He conceded that it was no longer fitting that Ganesh should go to the shop to talk.

‘From the first Suruj Mooma believe that you had some sort of Powers.’

‘So I did feel too. But ain’t it strange though that for so long I did feel I had a hand for massaging people?’

‘But you was dead right, man.’

‘How you mean?’

Beharry nibbled. ‘You is the mystic massager.’

8. More Trouble with Ramlogan

W
ITH IN A MONTH
Ganesh was getting as many clients as he could handle.

He had never imagined there were so many people in Trinidad with spiritual problems. But what surprised him even more was the extent of his own powers. No one could lay evil spirits better, even in Trinidad, where there were so many that people had acquired especial skill in dealing with them. No one could tie a house better, bind it, that is, in spiritual bonds proof against the most resolute spirit. If he ran up against a particularly tough spirit there were always the books his aunt had given him. So, balls-of-fire,
soncouyants, loups-garoux,
all became as nothing.

In this way he made most of his money. But what he really liked was a problem which called for all his intellectual and spiritual strength. Like the Woman Who Couldn’t Eat. This woman felt her food turn to needles in her mouth; and her mouth actually bled. He cured her. And there was Lover Boy. Lover Boy was a Trinidad character. Racehorses and racing-pigeons were named after him. But it was an embarrassment to his friends and relations that a successful racing-cyclist should fall in love with his cycle and make love to it openly in a curious way. He cured him too.

So, Ganesh’s prestige had risen until people who came to him sick went away well. Sometimes even he didn’t know why.

His prestige was secured by his learning. Without this he might easily have been lumped with the other thaumaturges who swarmed over Trinidad. They were nearly all fakes. They knew an ineffectual charm or two but had neither the intelligence nor sympathy for anything else. Their method of tackling spirits remained primitive. A sudden kick in the back of a person possessed was supposed to take the spirit by surprise and drive it out. It was because of these ignorant people that the profession had a bad name. Ganesh elevated the profession by putting the charlatans out of business. Every
obeah
-man was quick enough to call himself a mystic, but the people of Trinidad knew that Ganesh was the only true mystic in the island.

You never felt that he was a fake and you couldn’t deny his literacy or learning – not with all those books. And he hadn’t only book-learning. He could talk on almost any subject. For instance, he had views about Hitler and knew how the war could be ended in two weeks. ‘One way,’ he used to say. ‘Only one. And in fourteen days, even thirteen – bam! – no more war.’ But he kept the way a secret. And he could discuss religion sensibly as well. He was no bigot. He took as much interest in Christianity and Islam as in Hinduism. In the shrine, the old bedroom, he had pictures of Mary and Jesus next to Krishna and Vishnu; a crescent and star represented iconoclastic Islam. ‘All the same God,’ he said. Christians liked him, Muslims liked him, and Hindus, willing as ever to risk prayers to new gods, didn’t object.

But more than his powers, learning, or tolerance, people liked his charity. He had no fixed fee and accepted whatever was given him. When someone complained that he was poor and at the same time persecuted by an evil spirit, Ganesh took care of the spirit and waived the fee. People began to say, ‘He not like the others. They only hot after your money. But Ganesh, he is a good man.’

He was a good listener. People poured out their souls to him and he didn’t make them feel uncomfortable. His speech became flexible. With simple folk he spoke dialect. With people who looked pompous or sceptical or said, ‘Is the first time in my life I come to anybody like you,’ he spoke as correctly as possible, and his deliberate delivery gave weight to what he said and won confidence.

So clients came to Fuente Grove from every corner of Trinidad. Soon he had to pull down the book-shed and put up a canvas-roofed bamboo tent to shelter them. They brought their sadnesses to Fuente Grove, but they made the place look gay. Despite the sorrow in their faces and attitudes they wore clothes as bright as any wedding crowd: veils, bodices, skirts all strident pink, yellow, blue, or green.

The Niggergram had it that even the Governor’s wife had consulted Ganesh. When he was asked about this he grew stern and changed the subject.

On Saturdays and Sundays he rested. On Saturday he went to San Fernando and bought about twenty dollars’ worth of books, almost six inches; and on Sunday, from habit, he took down Saturday’s new books and underlined passages at random, although he no longer had the time to read the books as thoroughly as he would have liked.

On Sunday, too, Beharry came in the morning, to talk. But a change had come over him. He seemed shy of Ganesh and wasn’t as ready with talk as before. He just sat on the verandah and nibbled and agreed with everything Ganesh said.

Now that Ganesh had stopped going to Beharry’s, Leela began. She had taken to wearing a sari and it made her look thinner and frailer. She spoke to Suruj Mooma about Ganesh’s work and her own fatigue.

As soon as Leela left, Suruj Mooma exploded. ‘Suruj Poopa, you was listening to she? You see how Indian people does get conceited quick quick? Mind you, it ain’t
he
I mind, but she. You hear all that big talk she giving we about wanting to break down the old house and build up a new one? And why all this damn nonsense about wearing sari? All she life she knocking about in bodice and long skirt, and
now
she start with sari?’

‘Man, was your idea Ganesh should wear dhoti and turban. It ain’t have anything wrong if Leela wear sari.’

‘Suruj Poopa, you ain’t have no shame. They does treat you like dog and still you sticking up for them. And too besides, he wearing dhoti and Leela wearing sari is two different things. And what about the other set of nonsense she sit down on she thin tail here and giving we? All about feeling tired and wanting holiday. She ever had holiday before? Me ever had holiday? Ganesh ever had holiday? You ever had holiday?
Holiday!
She working hard all the time cleaning out cow-pen and doing a hundred and one things
I
wouldn’t dirty myself doing, and we ain’t hear not one single squeak about tiredness and holiday. Is only because she feeling a little money in she purse that she start with this nonsense, you hear.’

‘Man, it ain’t nice to talk like this. If people hear you they go think you just jealous.’

‘
Me
jealous? Me jealous
she
? Eh, but what is this I hearing in my old age?’

Beharry looked away.

‘Tell me, Suruj Poopa, what cause I have to jealous a thin little woman who can’t even make a baby? I never leave my husband and run away from my responsibility, you hear. Is not me you got to complain about. Is them who is the ungrateful ones.’ She paused, then continued, solemnly. ‘I remember how we did take in Ganesh and help him and feed him and do a hundred and one other things for him.’ She paused again, before snapping, ‘And now what we get?’

‘Man, we wasn’t looking for anything in return. We was just doing we duty.’

‘You see what we getting. Tiredness. Holiday.’

‘Yes, man.’

‘Suruj Poopa, you ain’t listening to me. Every Sunday morning bright and early you jump out of your bed and running over to kiss the man foot as though he is some Lord Laloo.’

‘Man, Ganesh is a great man and I must go and see him. If he treat me bad, is on his head, not mine.’

And when Beharry went to see Ganesh he said, ‘Suruj Mooma not well this morning. Otherwise she woulda come. But she send to say how.’

For Ganesh the most satisfying thing about these early mystic months was the success of his
Questions and Answers
.

It was Basdeo, the printer, who pointed out the possibilities. He came to Fuente Grove one Sunday morning and found Ganesh and Beharry sitting on blankets in the verandah. Ganesh, in dhoti and vest, was reading the
Sentinel
– he had the paper sent to him every day now. Beharry just stared and nibbled.

‘Like I tell you,’ Basdeo said, after the salutations. He was a little more than plump now and when he sat down he could cross his legs only with difficulty. ‘I still keeping the print of your book, pundit. Remember, I did tell you I did feel something special about you. Is a good good book, and is my opinion that more people should have a chance to read it.’

‘It still have more than nine hundred copies remaining.’

‘Sell those at a dollar a copy, pundit. People go snap them up, I tell you. It have nothing to shame about. After you sell off those I print another edition –’

‘Revise edition,’ Beharry said, but very softly, and Basdeo paid no attention.

‘Another edition, pundit. Cloth cover, jacket, thicker paper, more pictures.’

‘De luxe edition,’ Beharry said.

‘Exactly. Nice de luxe edition. What you say, sahib?’

Ganesh smiled and folded the
Sentinel
with great care. ‘How much the Elite Electric Printery going to make out of this?’

Basdeo didn’t smile. ‘This is the idea, sahib. I print the book at my own expense. A nice big de luxe edition. We bring them here. You ain’t pay a cent so far. You sell the book at two dollars a copy. Every copy you sell you keep a dollar. You ain’t even have to lift your little finger. And is a good holy book, sahib.’

‘What about other sellers?’ Beharry asked.

Basdeo turned apprehensively. ‘What other sellers? No body but the pundit sahib going to handle the books. Only me and Ganesh pundit sahib.’

Beharry nibbled. ‘Is a good idea, and is a good book.’

So
101 Questions and Answers on the Hindu Religion
became the first best-seller in the history of Trinidad publishing. People were willing to pay the money for it. The simple-minded bought it as a charm; the poor because it was the least they could do for Pundit Ganesh; but most people were genuinely interested. The book was sold only at Fuente Grove and there was no need of Bissoon’s selling hand.

He came, though, to ask for a few copies. He looked longer, thinner, and at a hundred yards couldn’t be mistaken for a boy. He had grown very old. His suit was frayed and dusty, his shirt was dirty, and he wore no tie.

‘People just ain’t buying from me these days, sahib. Something gone wrong. I feel your kyatechism go bring back my hand and my luck.’

Ganesh explained that Basdeo was responsible for distribution. ‘And he don’t really want any sellers. It have nothing I could do, Bissoon. I sorry.’

‘Is my luck, sahib.’

Ganesh turned up the edge of the blanket on which he was sitting and brought out some five-dollar notes. He counted four and offered them to Bissoon.

To his surprise Bissoon rose, very much like the old Bissoon, dusted his coat, and straightened his hat. ‘You think I come to beg you for charity, Ganesh? I was a big big man when you was wetting your diaper, and you want now to give me
charity
?’

And he walked away.

It was the last Ganesh saw of him. For a long time no one, not even The Great Belcher, knew what became of him, until Beharry brought the news one Sunday morning that Suruj Mooma thought she had glimpsed him in a blue uniform in the ground of the Poor House on the Western Main Road in Port of Spain.

One Sunday Beharry said, ‘Pundit, it have something I feel I must tell you, but I don’t know how to tell you. But I must tell you because it does hurt me to hear people dirtying your name.’