The Mystic Masseur Read Online Free Page B

was an open secret in the village. Ganesh was always getting little gifts from Ramlogan – a special avocado pear, a tin of Canadian salmon or Australian butter – and whenever he passed the shop Ramlogan was sure to call him in.
    ‘Eh, eh, sahib. What happening that you passing without saying a word? People go think we vex.’
    Ganesh could not find it in his heart to refuse Ramlogan’s invitation, though he knew that whenever he looked at the doorway leading to the room at the back of the shop he was going to see Ramlogan’s daughter peering through the grimy lace curtains. He had seen her on the night of his father’s death, but he hadn’t paid much attention to her then. Now he saw that the girl behind the curtains was tall; sometimes, when she peered too closely, he could see her eyes wide with mischief, simplicity, and awe, all at once.
    He couldn’t link the girl with her father. She was thin and fair, Ramlogan fat and almost black. He seemed to have only one shirt, a dirty striped blue thing which he wore collarless and open down his hairy chest to just where his round and big belly began. He looked of a piece with his shop. Ganesh got the impression that every morning someone went over everything in it – scales, Ramlogan, and all – with a greased rag.
    ‘It ain’t dirty,’ Ramlogan said. ‘It just look dirty. Sit down, sahib, sit down. You ain’t have to blow any dust or anything away. You just sit down on that bench against the wall and let we have a good chat. I is not a educated man, but I like to hear educated people talk.’
    Ganesh, reluctantly seated, did not at once respond.
    ‘It have nothing like a good chat,’ Ramlogan began, slipping off his stool and dusting the counter with his fat hands. ‘I like hearing educated people giving off ideas.’
    Meeting with further silence, Ramlogan remounted his stool and spoke about the death. ‘Your father, sahib, was a good man.’ His voice was heavy with grief. ‘Still, we give him a good funeral. Fust funeral I attend in Fourways, you know, sahib. I see a lot of funeral in my time, but I go say now and I don’t care who hear me say it, that your father funeral was the best I see. Smatterer fact, Leela – my daughter, you know, second and best – Leela say is the best funeral she see. She say she count more than five hundred people from all over Trinidad at the funeral, and it had a lot of cars following the body. People did like your father, sahib.’
    Then they both fell silent, Ramlogan out of respect for the dead, Ganesh because he didn’t know what he was expected to say; and the conversation ended.
    ‘I like these little chats we does have, sahib,’ Ramlogan would say, walking to the door with Ganesh. ‘I ain’t educated meself but I like to hear educated people giving off ideas. Well, sahib, why you don’t drop in again? Let we say, tomorrow?’
    Ramlogan later solved the conversation problem by pretending that he couldn’t read and getting Ganesh to read the newspapers for him; and he listened, elbows on the counter, his hands holding his greasy head, his eyes filling with tears.
    ‘This reading, sahib, is a great great thing,’ Ramlogan once said. ‘Just think. You take up this paper that to me just look like a dirty sheet with all sort of black mark and scrawl all over the place’ – he gave a little self-deprecating laugh – ‘you take this up and – eh! eh! – before I have time to even scratch my back, man, I hear you reading from it and making a lot of sense with it. A great thing, sahib.’
    Another day he said, ‘You does read real sweet, sahib. I could just shut my eye and listen. You know what Leela tell me last night, after I close up the shop? Leela ask me, “Pa, who was the man talking in the shop this morning? He sound just like a radio I hear in San Fernando.” I tell she, “Girl, that wasn’t a radio you was hearing. That was Ganesh Ramsumair. Pundit Ganesh Ramsumair,” I tell she.’
    ‘You