A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [112]
Tara smiled at Mr Biswas. ‘I don’t know what to do with them, Mohun.’
‘Gratitude!’ Ajodha said.
‘Tell us about your house, Mohun,’ Tara said.
‘You take them out of a barrackroom and this is what you get.’
‘House?’ Mr Biswas said. ‘Oh, is nothing really. A small little thing. Is for the children sake that I really building it.’
‘We want to build over this house,’ Tara said. ‘But the trouble! The moment you want to put up anything good, so many forms, so many people’s permission. When we built this house we had nothing like that. But I don’t imagine you have that worry.’
‘O no,’ Mr Biswas said. ‘No worry about that at all.’
With those light, precise motions on which he prided himself, Ajodha jumped out of his chair and went through the half-door into the yard.
‘Those two,’ Tara said. ‘Always quarrelling. But they don’t mean anything. Tomorrow they will be like father and son.’
They heard Ajodha in the cowpen abusing the absent cowman.
Jagdat, Rabidat’s elder brother, came in and asked in his cheerful way, ‘Something eating your husband, Aunt?’ and chuckled.
Whenever Mr Biswas saw Jagdat he felt that Jagdat had just come from a funeral. Not only was his manner breezy; there was also his dress, which had never varied for many years: black shoes, black socks, dark blue serge trousers with a black leather belt, white shirt cuffs turned up above the wrist, and a gaudy tie: so that it seemed he had come back from a funeral, taken off his coat, undone his cuffs, replaced his black tie, and was generally making up for an afternoon of solemnity. His eyes were as small as Rabidat’s, but livelier; his face was squarer; he laughed more often, showing rabbitlike teeth. With a hairy ringed hand he slapped Mr Biswas hard on the back, saying, ‘The old Mohun, man!’
‘The old Jagdat,’ Mr Biswas said.
‘Mohun is building a house,’ Tara said.
‘Has he come to invite us to the house-warming? We only see you at Christmas, man. You don’t eat the rest of the year? Or is because of all the money you making?’ And Jagdat roared with laughter.
Ajodha came back from the cowpen and he and Mr Biswas and Jagdat ate in the verandah. Tara ate by herself in the kitchen. Ajodha was silent and sullen, Jagdat subdued. The food was good but Mr Biswas ate without pleasure.
He had hoped that after the meal he would get Tara alone. But Ajodha remained rocking in the verandah and after a little Mr Biswas thought the time had come to leave. The girl had finished washing up in the kitchen, and the night silence made it seem later than it was.
Tara said he should take back some fruit for the children.
‘Vitamin C,’ Ajodha said, in his irritable voice. ‘Give him lots of vitamin C, Tara.’
She obediently filled a bag with oranges.
Then Ajodha went inside.
As soon as he had gone Tara put some avocado pears into the bag, large purple-skinned ones such as, at Hanuman House, were set aside for Mrs Tulsi and the god. ‘They will get ripe soon,’ she said. ‘The children will like them.’
He didn’t want to explain where the children lived and where he lived. But he was glad he hadn’t asked her for money.
‘I am sorry your uncle was in such a temper,’ she said. ‘But it doesn’t mean anything. The boys are being a little difficult. They want money from him all the time and you can’t blame him for getting angry sometimes. They are spreading all sorts of stories about him, too. He doesn’t say anything. But he knows.’
Mr Biswas went to say good-bye to Ajodha. His room was in darkness, the door was open, and Ajodha was lying on his pillowless bed with all his clothes on. Mr Biswas knocked lightly and there was no reply. The ledges on the walls were littered with papers. The room had only four pieces of furniture: the bed, a chair, a low chest of drawers and a black iron chest, the top of which was also covered with papers and magazines. Mr Biswas was about to go away when he heard Ajodha say gently, ‘I am not asleep, Mohun. But these days I always rest after eating. You mustn’t mind if I don’t talk or get up.’
On the way to the Main Road