Part 7 (1/2)

'Ganesh, you is a man with a college education. How much book they does print every year in America, you think?'

'About four five hundred so.'

'You crazy, man. Is more about a million. So I read somewhere the other day.'

'Why you ask me then?'

Beharry nibbled. 'Just to make sure.'

Then they had a long discussion whether one man could ever get to know everything about the world.

Beharry annoyed Ganesh one day by showing a folder. He said casually, 'Look what these people in England send me.'

Ganesh frowned.

Beharry sensed trouble. 'Didn't ask ask for it, you know. You mustn't think I setting up in compet.i.tion with you. They just send it, just like that.' for it, you know. You mustn't think I setting up in compet.i.tion with you. They just send it, just like that.'

The folder was too beautiful for Ganesh's annoyance to last.

'I don't suppose they go just send it to me me like that, though.' like that, though.'

'Take it, man,' Beharry said.

'Yes, take it before I burn it up.' The voice of Suruj Mooma, inside. 'I don't want any more rubbish in my house.'

It was a folder from the Everyman Library.

Ganesh said, 'Nine hundred and thirty book at two s.h.i.+lling a book. Altogether that make '

'Four hundred and sixty dollars.'

'Is a lot of money.'

Beharry said, 'Is a lot of book.'

'If a man read all those book, it go have n.o.body at all to touch him in the line of education. Not even the Governor.'

'You know, is something I was talking about to Suruj Mooma about only the other day. I don't think Governor and them is really educated people.'

'How you mean, man?'

'If they was really educated they wouldn't want to leave England where they printing books night and day and come to a place like Trinidad.'

Ganesh said, 'Nine hundred and thirty book. Every book about one inch thick, I suppose.'

'Make about seventy-seven feet.'

'So with shelf on two walls you could find room for all.'

'I prefer big books myself.'

The walls of Ganesh's drawing-room were subject to a good deal of scrutiny that evening.

'Leela, you got a ruler?'

She brought it.

'You thinking of alterations, man?'

'Thinking of buying some book.'

'How much, man?'

'Nine hundred and thirty.'

'Nine hundred!' She began to cry.

'Nine hundred and thirty.'

'You see the sort of idea Beharry putting in your head. You just want to make me a pauper. It ain't enough for you to rob my own father. Why you don't send me straight off to the Poor House?'

So Ganesh didn't buy all the Everyman Library. He bought only three hundred volumes and the Post Office delivered them in a van late one afternoon. It was one of the biggest things that had happened to Fuente Grove, and even Leela was impressed, though reluctantly. Suruj Mooma alone remained indifferent. The books were still being taken into Ganesh's house when she told Beharry loudly, so that everybody could hear, 'Now, you don't start copying anybody and making a fool of yourself, you hear. Leela could go to the Poor House. Not me.'

But Ganesh's reputation, lowered by his incompetence as a ma.s.seur, rose in the village; and presently peasants, crumpling their grimy felt hats in their hands, came to ask him to write letters for them to the Governor, or to read letters which the Government, curiously, had sent them.

For Ganesh it was only the beginning. It took him about six months to read what he wanted of the Everyman books; after that he thought of buying more. He made regular trips to San Fernando and bought books, big ones, on philosophy and history.

'You know, Beharry, sometimes I does stop and think. What those Everyman people did think when they was parcelling up those books for me? You think they did ever guess that it had a man like me in Trinidad?'

'I ain't know about that but, Ganesh, you beginning to get me vex now. You always forgetting nearly all what you read. You can't even end what you was beginning to remember sometimes.'

'What to do, then?'

'Look, I have a copy-book here. I can't sell it because the cover get oily is that boy Suruj playing the fool with the candles and I go give you this copy-book. When you reading a book, make notes here of the things you think is important.'

Ganesh had never liked copy-books, since his school days; but the idea of note-books interested him. So he made another trip to San Fernando and explored the stationery department of one of the big stores in the High Street. It was a revelation. He had never before realized that paper could be so beautiful, that there were so many kinds of paper, so many colours, so many glorious smells. He stood still, marvelling and reverent, until he heard a woman's voice.

'Mister.'

He turned to see a fat woman, traces of white powder on her black face, wearing a dress of a most splendidly floriferous design.

'Mister. How you selling the' she fished out a piece of paper from her purse and read from it 'Nelson Introductory Introductory reading-book?' reading-book?'

'Me?' Ganesh said in surprise. 'I ain't a seller here.'

She began to laugh all over the place. 'Kee! Kee! Kyah! I did take you for the clurkist!'

And she went in search of the clerk, laughing and shaking and bending forward to hide her laughter.

Left alone, Garesh began taking surrept.i.tious sniffs at the paper, and, closing his eyes, pa.s.sed his hands over many papers, the better to savour their texture.