A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [102]
‘Charge of the Light Brigade. You think Chinta would break up a dolly-house Govind buy? If you could imagine Govind doing anything like that. Tell me, what does that brother-in-law of yours use for food, eh? Dirt? You think Chinta would break up a dolly-house Govind buy?’
She wept over her plate.
Later she wept over the washingup, repeatedly interrupting her tears, first to blow her nose, then to sing sad songs softly, and finally to ask about Savi’s behaviour during the week.
He told how Savi had thrown away the old woman’s food. Shama was gratified, and told other stories of the girl’s sensibility. Savi, still anxiously awake and only pretending to be asleep, listened with pleasure. Again Shama told of Savi’s dislike for fish and how Mrs Tulsi had overcome that dislike. She also spoke of Anand, who was so sensitive that biscuits made his mouth bleed.
Mr Biswas, his mood now soft as hers, did not say that he thought this to be a sign of undernourishment. Instead he began to talk about his house and Shama listened without enthusiasm but without objection.
‘And as soon as the house finish, going to buy that gold brooch for you, girl!’
‘I would like to see the day.’
They had come on Saturday. On Monday Savi had to go back to school.
‘Stay here,’ Mr Biswas said. ‘They don’t teach much on the first day.’
‘How you know?’ Savi said. ‘You ever went to school?’
‘Yes, miss. I went to school. You are not the only one to go to school, you know.’
‘If I stay I will have to have an excuse to give Teacher.’
‘I will write one for you in two twos. Dear Teacher, My daughter Savi is unable to attend school for the first week because she has been staying with her grandmother and is suffering from serious undernourishment.’
On Sunday evening Shama took Savi and Anand back to Arwacas. She went to Hanuman House again. And so for the rest of the term she came and left; and he never ceased to feel that he was alone, with the trees, the newspapers on the wall, the religious quotations, his books.
One thing gave him comfort. He had claimed Savi.
At Easter he learned that Shama was pregnant for the fourth time.
One child claimed; one still hostile; one unknown. And now another.
Trap!
The future he feared was upon him. He was falling into the void, and that terror, known only in dreams, was with him as he lay awake at nights, hearing the snores and creaks and the occasional cries of babies from the other rooms. The relief that morning brought steadily diminished. Food and tobacco were tasteless. He was always tired, and always restless. He went often to Hanuman House; as soon as he was there he wanted to leave. Sometimes he cycled to Arwacas without going to the house, changing his mind in the High Street, turning round and cycling back to Green Vale. When he closed the door of his room for the night it was like an imprisonment.
He talked to himself, shouted, did everything as noisily as he could.
Nothing replied. Nothing changed. Amazing scenes were witnessed yesterday when. The newspapers remained as jaunty as they had been, the quotations as sedate. Of him I will never lose hold and he shall never lose hold of me. But now in the shape and position of everything around him, the trees, the furniture, even those letters he had made with brush and ink, there was an alertness, an expectancy.
Seth announced one Saturday that there were to be changes on the estate at the end of the crop season. Some twenty acres which had for many years been rented to labourers were to be taken over. Seth and Mr Biswas went from hut to hut, breaking the news. As soon as he entered a labourer’s hut Seth lost his briskness. He looked tired and sounded tired; he accepted a cup of tea and drank it wearily; then he spoke, as though the matter was trivial, burdensome only to him, and the land was being taken from the labourers purely for their benefit. The labourers listened politely and asked Seth and Mr Biswas whether they wanted more tea. Seth accepted at once, saying it was very good tea. He played with the thin-limbed, big-eyed children, made them