A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [125]
Dookhnee said, ‘Yes, go and pack your clothes.’
And many of the women said, ‘Go, boy.’
‘He is not going with you to that house,’ Mr Biswas said.
Anand remained where he was, in the kitchen area, stroking Tarzan, not looking at Mr Biswas or the women.
Savi came out of the room with a suitcase and a pair of shoes. She dusted her feet and buckled on a shoe.
Shama, only now beginning to cry, said in Hindi, ‘Savi, I have told you many times to wash your feet before putting on your shoes.’
‘All right, Ma. I will go and wash them.’
‘Don’t bother this time,’ Dookhnee said.
The women said, ‘No, don’t bother.’
Savi buckled on the other shoe.
Shama said, ‘Anand, do you want to come with me, or do you want to stay with your father?’
Mr Biswas, the stick in his hand, looked at Anand.
Anand continued to stroke Tarzan, whose head was now upturned, his eyes partly closed.
Mr Biswas ran to the green table and awkwardly pulled out the drawer. He took the long box of crayons he used for his placards and held it to Anand. He shook the box; the crayons rattled.
Savi said, ‘Come, Anand boy. Go and get your clothes.’
Still stroking Tarzan, Anand said, ‘I staying with Pa.’ His voice was low and irritable.
‘Anand!’ Savi said.
‘Don’t beg him,’ Shama said, in control of herself again. ‘He is a man and knows what he is doing.’
‘Boy,’ Dookhnee said. ‘Your mother.’
Anand said nothing.
Shama got up and the circle of women around her widened. She took Myna, Savi took the suitcase, and they walked along the path, muddy between sparse and stubborn grass, to the road, scattering the hens and chickens before them. Tarzan followed, and was diverted by the chickens. When he was pecked by an angry hen he looked for Shama and Savi and Myna. They had disappeared. He trotted back to the barracks and Anand.
Mr Biswas opened the box and showed Anand the sharpened crayons. ‘Take them. They are yours. You can do what you like with them.’
Anand shook his head.
‘You don’t want them?’
Tarzan, between Anand’s legs, held up his head to be stroked, closing his eyes in anticipation.
‘What do you want then?’
Anand shook his head. Tarzan shook his.
‘Why did you stay then?’
Anand looked exasperated.
‘Why?’
‘Because –’ The word came out thin, explosive, charged with anger, at himself and his father. ‘Because they was going to leave you alone.’
For the rest of that day they hardly spoke.
His instinct had been right. As soon as Shama had gone his fatigue left him. He became restless again, and almost welcomed the familiar constricted turmoil in his mind. He returned to the fields, taking Anand with him on the first day. Anand, dusty, itching, scorched by the sun and cut by sharp grass, refused to go again, and thereafter remained at the barracks with Tarzan.
He made more toys for Anand. A round tin-lid loosely nailed to a rod provided something that rolled when pushed and gave Anand a deep satisfaction. At night they drew imaginary scenes: snow-covered mountains and fir trees, red-hulled yachts in a blue sea below a clear sky, roads winding between well-kept forests to green mountains in the distance. They also talked.
‘Who is your father?’
‘You.’
‘Wrong. I am not your father. God is your father.’
‘Oh. And what about you?’
‘I am just somebody. Nobody at all. I am just a man you know.’
He showed Anand how to mix colours. He taught him that red and yellow made orange, blue and yellow green.
‘Oh. That is why the leaves turn yellow?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Well, look then. Suppose I take a leaf and wash it and wash it and wash it, it will turn yellow or blue?’
‘Not really. The leaf is God’s work. You see?’
‘No.’
‘Your trouble is that you don’t really believe. There was a man like you one time. He wanted to mock a man like me. So one day, when the man like me was sleeping, this other man drop an orange in his lap, thinking, “I bet the damn fool going to wake up and say that God drop the orange.” So the other man woke up and began eating the orange. And this man come up and say, “I suppose God give you that orange.” “Yes,” the other man said.