The Mystic Masseur Read Online Free

He sensed the excitement and recognized all the signs. Lights were on in most of the houses and huts, there was much activity on the road, and his ears caught the faint hum, as of distant revelry. It wasn’t long before he realized that it was his father who had died. Fourways seemed to be waiting for the taxi and the moment people saw Ganesh sitting in the back they began to wail.
    The house itself was chaos. He had hardly opened the taxi doors when scores of people he didn’t know scrambled towards him with outstretched arms, bawling; and led, almost carried, him into the house which was full of even more mourners he didn’t know or remember.
    He could hear the taxi-driver saying over and over, ‘Man, I guess long time what the case was. We stepping on the gas all the way from Port of Spain, driving like madness all in the dark. And the boy so mash up inside he not even crying.’
    A fat, sobbing man embraced Ganesh and said, ‘You get my telegram? Fust telegram I send. I is Ramlogan. You don’t know me but I know your father. Just yesterday, just yesterday’ – Ramlogan broke down and wept afresh – ‘just yesterday I meet him and I say, “Baba” – I does always call him that – “Baba,” I say, “come inside and have something to eat.” I take over Dookhie shop now, you know. Yes, Dookhie dead nearly seven months now and I take over the shop.’
    Ramlogan’s eyes were red and small with weeping. ‘ “Baba,” I say, “come inside and have something to eat.” And you know what he say?’
    A woman put her arms around Ganesh and asked, ‘What he say?’
    ‘You want to know what he say?’ Ramlogan embraced the woman. ‘He say, “No, Ramlogan. I don’t want to eat today.” ’
    He could hardly finish the sentence.
    The woman removed her hands from Ganesh and put them on her head. She shrieked, twice, then dropped into a wail: ‘ “No, Ramlogan, I don’t want to eat today.” ’
    Ramlogan wiped his eyes with a thick hairy finger. ‘Today,’ he sobbed, holding out both hands towards the bedroom, ‘today he can’t eat at all.’
    The woman shrieked again. ‘Today he can’t eat at all.’
    In her distress she tore the veil off her face and Ganesh recognized an aunt. He put his hand on her shoulder.
    ‘You think I could see Pa?’ he asked.
    ‘Go and see your Pa, before he go for good,’ Ramlogan said, the tears running down his fat cheeks to his unshaved chin. ‘We wash the body and dress it and everything already.’
    ‘Don’t come with me,’ Ganesh said. ‘I want to be alone.’
    When he had closed the door behind him the wailing sounded far away. The coffin rested on a table in the centre of the room and he couldn’t see the body from where he was. To his left a small oil lamp burned low and threw monstrous shadows on the walls and the galvanized-iron ceiling. When he walked nearer the table his footsteps resounded on the floor-planks and the oil lamp shivered. The old man’s moustache still bristled fiercely but the face had fallen and looked weak and tired. The air around the table felt cool and he saw that it came from the casing of ice around the coffin. It was a room of the dead, strange with the smell of camphor balls, and there was nothing alive in it except himself and the squat yellow flame of the oil lamp, and they were both silent. Only, from time to time, the water from the melting ice plopped into the four pans at the feet of the table and punctured the silence.
    He didn’t know what he thought or felt but he didn’t want to cry and left the room. They were waiting for him to come out and quickly encircled him. He heard Ramlogan saying, ‘Come on, man, give the boy air. Is his father dead, you know. His only father.’ And the wailing began again.
    No one asked him about plans for the cremation. Everything seemed arranged already and Ganesh was content that it should be so. He allowed Ramlogan to take him away from the house, with its sobs and shrieks and