A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [128]
‘Afternoon, boss,’ the fat man said.
‘Haul your tail. Who the hell tell you you could lay your hand on my son?’
‘Son, boss?’
‘He try to thief my money,’ Anand said.
‘Was a game,’ the fat man said.
‘Haul off!’ Mr Biswas said. ‘Job! You not looking for any job. You not getting any either.’
‘But, boss,’ the younger man said, ‘Mr Seth say he did tell you.’
‘Didn’t tell me nothing.’
‘But Mr Seth say —’ the fat man said.
‘Leave them, Dinnoo,’ the younger man said. ‘Father and blasted son.’
‘Is in the blood,’ the fat man said.
‘You mind your mouth,’ Mr Biswas shouted.
‘Tcha!’ The man sucked his teeth, backing away.
Anand showed Mr Biswas the coppers he had found.
‘The road full of money,’ he said. ‘They was finding silver. But I didn’t find any.’
Mr Biswas was awake and lying in bed when Anand got up. Anand always got up first. Mr Biswas heard him walk along the resounding boards of the unfinished drawingroom floor and step on to the staircase – that was a firmer sound. Then there was a silence, and he heard Anand coming back across the drawingroom.
Anand stood in the doorway. His face was blank. ‘Pa.’ His voice was weak. His mouth remained half open and quivering.
Mr Biswas threw off the sheet and went to him.
Anand shrugged off his father’s hand and pointed across the drawingroom.
Mr Biswas went to look.
On the lowest step he saw Tarzan, dead. The body had been flung down carelessly. The hind quarters were on the step, the muzzle on the ground. The brown and white hair was clotted with black-red blood and stained with dirt; flies were thick about him. The tail was propped up against the second step, erect, the hair ruffled in the light morning breeze, as though it belonged to a living dog. The neck had been cut, the belly ripped open; flies were on his lips and around his eyes, which were mercifully closed.
Mr Biswas felt Anand standing beside him.
‘Come. Go inside. I will look after Tarzan.’
He led Anand to the bedroom. Anand walked lightly, very lightly, as though responding only to the pressure of Mr Biswas’s fingers. Mr Biswas passed his hand over Anand’s hair. Anand angrily shook the hand away. The tight, brittle body quivered and Anand, clutching his shirt with both hands, began dancing on the floor.
It was some seconds before Mr Biswas realized that Anand had drawn a deep breath before screaming. He could do nothing but wait, watching the swollen face, the distended mouth, the narrow eyes. And then it came, a terrible whistle of a shriek that went on and on until it broke up into gurgles and strangulated sounds.
‘I don’t want to stay here! I want to go!’
‘All right,’ Mr Biswas said, when Anand sat red-eyed and snuffling on the bed. ‘I will take you to Hanuman House. Tomorrow.’ It was a plea for time. In the anxiety that palpitated through him he had forgotten the dog, and knew only that he didn’t want to be left alone. It was a skill he had acquired: to forget the immediately unpleasant. Nothing could distract him from the deeper pain.
Anand, too, forgot the dog. All he recognized was the plea and his own power. He beat his legs against the side of the rumpled bed and stamped on the floor. ‘No! No! I want to go today.’
‘All right. I will take you this afternoon.’
Mr Biswas buried Tarzan in the yard, adding another mound to those thrown up by the energetic Edgar and now covered with a skin of vegetation. Tarzan’s mound looked raw; but soon the weeds would cover it; like Edgar’s mounds it would become part of the shape of the land.
The early morning breeze dropped. It became hazy. The heat rose steadily and no relieving shower came in the early afternoon. Then the haze thickened, clouds turned from white to silver to grey to black and billowed heavily across the sky: a watercolour in black and grey.
It became dark.
Mr Biswas hurried from the fields and said, ‘I don’t think we can take you to Arwacas today. The rain is going to come any minute.’
Anand was content. Darkness at four o’clock was an event, romantic, to be remembered.
Downstairs,