The Mystic Masseur

  Ganesh warned Leela off. ‘Don’t touch these books, girl, or I don’t know what going to happen to you.’

  Leela understood and opened her eyes wide.

  And at about the same time Ganesh discovered the Hollywood Hindus. The Hollywood Hindus are Hindus who live in or near Hollywood. They are holy, cultivated men who issue frequent bulletins about the state of their soul, the complexities and variations of which are endless and always worth description.

  Ganesh was a little annoyed. ‘You think I could do this sort of thing in Trinidad and get away with it?’ he asked Beharry.

  ‘I suppose, if you really know, you only jealous them.’

  ‘Man, I could write a book like that every day if I put my mind to it.’

  ‘Ganesh, you is a big man now. The time come when you must forget other people and think about yourself.’

  So he tried to forget the Hollywood Hindus and set about ‘preparing himself ‘, as he said. The process, it soon became clear, was going to take time.

  Leela began to complain again. ‘Man, nobody seeing you go think that it have a war going on and that everywhere people making money. The Americans come to Trinidad now, and they giving away work, with all sort of big pay.’

  ‘Don’t approve of war,’ Ganesh said.

  It was during this period of preparation that my mother took me to see Ganesh. I never knew how she got to know about him; but my mother was a sociable woman and I believe that she must have met The Great Belcher at some wedding or funeral. And, as I said at the beginning, if I had been more acute I would have paid more attention to the Hindi phrases Ganesh muttered over me while he thumped my foot about.

  Thinking now about that visit I made to Ganesh as a boy, I am struck only by my egotism. It never crossed my mind then that the people I saw casually all around me had their own very important lives; that, for instance, I was as unimportant to Ganesh as he was amusing – and puzzling – to me. Yet when Ganesh published his autobiography, The Years of Guilt, I read it half hoping to find some reference to myself. Of course, there was none.

  Ganesh devotes quite a third of The Years of Guilt to the comparatively short period of his preparation, and it is perhaps the most rewarding thing in the book. The anonymous critic of Letras (Nicaragua) wrote: ‘The section contains little of what is popularly conceived of as autobiography. What we get instead is a sort of spiritual thriller, handled with a technique which would not have disgraced the creator of Sherlock Holmes. All the facts are stated, the most important spiritual clues are widely and obviously laid, but the reader keeps guessing the outcome till the last revelation when it is clear that the outcome could only have been what it in fact was.’

  Ganesh was undoubtedly inspired by the Hollywood Hindus but what he says owes nothing to them. It was quite a new thing when Ganesh said it, but the path that he followed has been trodden so often since that it has become a rut; and there is little point in going over it here.

  Presently The Great Belcher came again. She appeared to have recovered from the defection of King George and she told Ganesh almost as soon as she saw him, ‘I want to talk to you in private now, to see how well you study your uncle books.’

  After the examination she said she was satisfied. ‘It just have one thing you must remember all the time. Is something your uncle use to say. If you want to cure people, you must believe them, and they must know that you believe them. But first, people must get to know about you.’

  ‘Loudspeaker van in San Fernando and Princes Town?’ Ganesh suggested.

  ‘Nah, they might mistake it for the Borough Council elections. Why you don’t get some leaflets print and get Bissoon to give them out for you? He have a lot of experience and he wouldn’t go giving them away to any-and everybody.’

  Leela said, ‘I wouldn’t let Bissoon touch a thing in this house. The man is a blight.’

  ‘Is strange,’ Ganesh said. ‘Last time he was a sign. Today he is a blight. Don’t worry with Leela. I go get Basdeo to print some leaflets and Bissoon to give them away.’

  Basdeo was a little plumper when Ganesh went to see him about the folders – that was how, on Beharry’s advice, he had begun to call the leaflets – and the first thing he said to Ganesh was, ‘You still want me to keep the type for your first book?’

  Ganesh didn’t reply.

  ‘You does give me a strange feeling,’ Basdeo said, scratching his neck below the collar. ‘Something tell me not to break up the type and I keeping it. Yes, you does give me a strange feeling.’

  Still Ganesh didn’t speak, and Basdeo became gayer. ‘I have some news. You know so much wedding invitation I keep on printing and nobody at all invite me to a wedding. And, mark you, I does beat a damn good drum. So I think I would invite myself to a wedding. So I get married.’

  Ganesh congratulated him and then coldly outlined his request for an illustrated folder – the illustration was his photograph – and when Basdeo read the copy, which was all about Ganesh’s spiritual qualifications, he shook his head and said, ‘Tell me, man, but tell me, how people does get so crazy in a small small place like Trinidad?’

  And after all this, Bissoon refused to handle the folders, and made a long speech about it.

  ‘Can’t handle that sort of printed matter. I is a seller, not a give-awayer. Look, I go tell you. I start as a little boy in this business, giving away theatre handbills. Then I move up to San Fernando, selling kyalendars. Is not that I have anything against you or your wife. But is my reputation I got to be careful about. In the book business you got to be careful about your reputation.’

  Leela was more displeased than Ganesh. ‘You see what I say? The man blight. Giving we all that amount of big talk. Is the trouble with Indians in Trinidad. They does get conceited too quickly, you hear.’

  The Great Belcher looked on the bright side. ‘Bissoon ain’t what he used to be. He losing his hand, ever since his wife run away. She run away with Jhagru, the Siparia barber, some five six months, I think. And Jhagru is a married man, with six children! Bissoon shoot off a lot of big talk then about killing Jhagru, but he ain’t do nothing. He just start drinking. Too besides, Ganesh, you is a modern educated man and I think you should do things in a modern way. Put a advertisement in the papers, man.’

  ‘Coupon to full up?’ Ganesh asked.

  ‘If you want, but you must put a picture of yourself. Same picture you put in your book.’

  ‘Is just like I say in the beginning,’ Leela said. ‘Advertisement in the papers is the best thing. You wouldn’t waste any of the folders if you do that.’

  Beharry and Ganesh worked on the copy and they produced that challenging advertisement which was to be so famous later on: WHO IS THIS GANESH? The ‘this’ was Beharry’s idea.

  There was one other thing. Ganesh was not happy to be called simply a pundit. He felt he was more than that and he felt that he was entitled to a weightier word. So, remembering the Hollywood Hindus, he nailed a signboard on the mango tree: GANESH, Mystic.

  ‘Is nice,’ Beharry said, looking at it closely and nibbling, while he rubbed his belly under his vest. ‘Is very nice, but you think people go believe you is a mystic?’

  ‘But the advertisement in the papers –

  ‘That was two weeks back. People forget that long time. If you want people to believe you, you must start a advertising campaign. Yes, advertising campaign.’

  ‘So they won’t believe, eh? All right, let we see how much they won’t believe.’

  He built a small shed in his front yard, thatched it with carat palm which he had to get all the way from Debe, and put up some stands in it. On these stands he displayed about three hundred of his books, including the Questions and Answers. Leela put out the books in the mornings and brought them in at night.

  ‘Won’t believe!’ Ganesh said.

  Then he waited for clients, as he called them.

  Suruj Mooma told Leela, ‘I feel sorry for you, Leela, girl. Ganesh gone mad this time.’

/>   ‘Well, is his books, and I don’t see why he shouldn’t let people see them. Other people does drive about in their big car to show it off.’

  ‘I so glad Suruj Poopa is not a big reader. I so glad nobody bother to educate me after Third Standard.’

  Beharry shook his head. ‘Yes, man. This education and reading is a dangerous thing. Is one of the very first things I tell Ganesh.’

  Ganesh waited for a month. No clients came.

  ‘Is another twenty dollars you throw away on that advertisement,’ Leela moaned. ‘And that sign and those books. You make me the laughing-stock in Fuente Grove.’

  ‘Well, girl, is only the country district here, and if plenty people ain’t see, plenty people ain’t here to laugh. Personally, I feel we want another advertisement in the papers. Proper advertising campaign.’

  Leela began to sob. ‘No, man. Why you don’t give up and take a work? Look at Suruj Mooma cousin, look at Sookram. The boy give up dentistry and Sookram give up massaging and take a work like a brave man. Suruj Mooma tell me that Sookram getting more than thirty dollars a week from the Americans. Man, for my sake, why you don’t make up a brave mind and take a work?’

  ‘You looking at this thing from the wrong point of view. Your science of thought tell you that the war going to last for ever? And what go happen to Sookram and the other massagers when the Americans leave Trinidad?’

  Leela still sobbed.

  Ganesh forced a smile and became coaxing. ‘Look, Leela girl, we go put another advertisement in the papers, and we go have my picture and we go have your picture. Side by side. Husband and wife. Who is this Ganesh? Who is this Leela?’

  She stopped crying and her face brightened for a moment, but then she began to cry in earnest.

  ‘God, woman! If man did listen to woman all the time, nothing at all woulda happen in this world. Beharry was right. A woman does keep a man back. All right, all right, leave me and run back to your father. Think I care?’

  And he stuck his hands in his pockets and went to see Beharry.

  ‘No luck?’ Beharry queried, nibbling.

  ‘Why you have this thing about asking damn fool questions, eh? But don’t think I worried. What is for me I will get.’

  Beharry put his hand under his vest. It was a warning, as Ganesh knew now, that Beharry was going to give advice. ‘I think you make a big big mistake in not writing the companion volume. That’s where you go wrong.’

  ‘Look, Beharry. It have a damn long time now you judging me like some blasted magistrate, and telling me where I go wrong. I read a lot of psychology book about people like you, you know. And what those book have to say about you ain’t nice, I can tell you.’

  ‘Is only for you I worried.’ Beharry pulled away his hand from his vest.

  Suruj Mooma came into the shop. ‘Ah, Ganesh. How?’

  ‘How “how”?’ Ganesh snapped. ‘You can’t see?

  Beharry said, ‘Is a suggestion I have to make to you.’

  ‘All right, I listening. But I ain’t responsible for what I do when I finish listening.’

  ‘Is really Suruj Mooma idea.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yes, Ganesh. Me and Suruj Poopa been thinking a lot about you. We thinking that you must stop wearing trousers and a shirt.’

  ‘It don’t suit a mystic,’ Beharry said.

  ‘You must wear proper dhoti and koortah. I was talking only last night to Leela about it when she come here to buy cooking-oil. She think is a good idea too.’

  Ganesh’s annoyance began to melt. ‘Yes, is a idea. You feel it go bring me luck?’

  ‘Is what Suruj Mooma say.’

  Next morning Ganesh involved his legs in a dhoti and called Leela to help him tie the turban.

  ‘Is a nice one,’ she said.

  ‘One of my father old ones. Make me feel funny wearing it.’

  ‘Something telling me it go bring you luck.’

  ‘You really think so?’ Ganesh cried, and almost kissed her.

  She pulled away. ‘Look what you doing, man.’

  Then Ganesh, a strange and striking figure in white, went to the shop.

  ‘You look like a real maharaj,’ Suruj Mooma said.

  ‘Yes, he look nice,’ said Beharry. ‘It make me wonder why more Indians don’t keep on wearing their own dress.’

  Suruj Mooma warned, ‘You better not start, you hear. Your legs thin enough already and they look funny even in trousers.’

  ‘It look good, eh?’ Ganesh smiled.

  Beharry said, ‘Nobody would believe now that you did go to the Christian college in Port of Spain. Man, you look like a pukka brahmin.’

  ‘Well, I have a feeling. I feel my luck change as from today.’

  A child began crying inside. ‘My luck don’t change,’ Suruj Mooma said. ‘If it ain’t Suruj Poopa, is the children. Look at my hands, Ganesh. You see how smooth they is. They can’t even leave finger-prints now.’

  Suruj came into the shop. ‘The baby crying, Ma.’

  Suruj Mooma left and Beharry and Ganesh began a discussion about dress through the ages. Beharry was putting forward a daring view that dress wasn’t necessary at all in a hot place like Trinidad when he broke off suddenly and said, ‘Listen.’

  Above the rustle of the wind through the sugar-cane came the rattle of a motor car bumping along the lumpy road.

  Ganesh was excited. ‘Is somebody coming to see me.’ Then he became very calm.

  A light green 1937 Chevrolet stopped in front of the shop. There was a woman at the back and she was trying to shout above the beat of the engine.

  Ganesh said, ‘Go and talk to she, Beharry.’

  The engine was turned off before Beharry could get down the shop steps. The woman said, ‘Who is this Ganesh?’

  ‘This is this Ganesh,’ Beharry said.

  And Ganesh stood, dignified and unsmiling, in the centre of the shop doorway.

  The woman looked at him carefully. ‘I driving all from Port of Spain to see you.’

  Ganesh walked slowly towards the car. ‘Good morning,’ he said, but in his determination to be correct he was a little too curt and the woman was discomfited.

  ‘Good morning.’ She had to fumble for the words.

  Speaking slowly, because he wanted to speak properly, Ganesh said, ‘I do not live here and I cannot talk to you here. I live down the road.’

  ‘Hop in the car,’ the taxi-driver said.

  ‘I prefer to walk.’

  It was a strain for him to talk correctly and the woman noted, with obvious satisfaction, that he was moving his lips silently before every sentence, as though he were mumbling a prayer.

  Her satisfaction turned to respect when the car stopped outside Ganesh’s house and she saw the GANESH, Mystic sign on the mango tree and the book-display in the shed.

  ‘Is books you selling on the side, or what?’ the taxi-driver asked.

  The woman looked sideways at him and nodded towards the sign. She began to say something when the taxi-driver, for no apparent reason, blew his horn and drowned her words.

  Leela came running out, but with a glance Ganesh told her to keep out of the way. To the woman he said, ‘Come into the study.’

  The word had the desired effect.

  ‘But take off your shoes here in the verandah first.’

  Respect turned to awe. And when the woman brushed through the Nottingham lace curtains into the study and saw all the books, she looked abject.

  ‘My only vice,’ Ganesh said.

  The woman just stared.

  ‘I don’t smoke. I don’t drink.’

  She sat awkwardly on a blanket on the floor. ‘Is a matter of life and death, mister, so whatever I say you mustn’t laugh.’

  Ganesh looked straight at her. ‘I never laugh. I listen.’

  ‘Is about my son. A cloud following him.’

  Ganesh didn’t laugh. ‘What sort of cloud?’

  ‘A black cloud. And every day is getting nearer. The cloud eve
n talking to the boy now. The day the cloud reach him the boy go dead. I try everything. The real doctors and them want to put the boy in the mad-house in St Ann’s, but you know that once they put anybody there they does get mad for true. So what I do? I take him to the priest. The priest say the boy possess, and paying for his sins. It have a long time now I see your advertisement, but I didn’t know what you could do.’

  As she spoke Ganesh scribbled in one of his note-books. He had written, Black boy under a black cloud; and he had drawn a great black cloud. ‘You mustn’t worry. Lots of people see clouds. How long your son has been seeing the cloud?’

  ‘Well, to tell you the truth, the whole bacchanal begin not long after his brother dead.’

  Ganesh added to the black cloud in his note-book and said, ‘Hmmh!’ Then he chanted a short Hindi hymn, snapped his notebook shut, and threw his pencil down. ‘Bring the boy tomorrow. And don’t worry about priests. Tell me, you see the cloud?’

  The woman looked distressed. ‘No. That is the thing. None of we ain’t see the cloud, apart from the boy.’

  ‘Well, don’t worry. Things would be bad if you really did see the cloud.’

  He led her to the taxi. The taxi-driver was sleeping with the Trinidad Sentinel over his face. He was awakened, and Ganesh watched the car drive away.

  ‘I did feel this coming, man,’ Leela said. ‘I did tell you that your luck change.’

  ‘We don’t know what going to happen yet, girl. Give me a chance to think this thing out.’

  He remained a long time in the study consulting his uncle’s books. His ideas were slowly beginning to form, when Beharry came in a temper.

  ‘Ganesh, how you so ungrateful?’

  ‘What happening now?’

  Beharry looked helpless in his anger. He nibbled so furiously that for a while he couldn’t speak. When he could, he stammered. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t know. Why you couldn’t walk up to the shop to tell me what happen, eh? For a hundred and one weeks you coming up all the time, but today you prefer to make me leave my shop, leave only little Suruj in charge, and come to see you.’