A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [140]
He spoke without irony, but Mr Biswas, now practically without money, had begun to feel burdened by his freedom. He was no longer content to walk about the city. He wanted to be part of it, to be one of those who stood at the black and yellow bus-stops in the morning, one of those he saw behind the windows of offices, one of those to whom the evenings and week-ends brought relaxation. He thought of taking up sign-writing again. But how was he to go about it? Could he simply put up a sign in front of the house and wait?
Ramchand said, ‘Why you don’t try to get a job in the Mad House? Good pay, free uniform, and a damn good canteen. Everything there five and six cents cheaper. Ask Dehuti.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘Everything there much cheaper.’
Mr Biswas saw himself in the uniform, walking alone through long rooms of howling maniacs.
‘Well, why the hell not?’ he said. ‘Is something to do.’
Ramchand looked slightly offended. He mentioned difficulties; and though he had contacts and influence, he was not sure that it would create a good impression if he made use of them. ‘That is the only thing that keeping me back,’ he said. ‘The impression.’
Then one day Mr Biswas was surprised by the spasms of fear. They were weak and intermittent, but they persisted, and reminded him to look at his hands. The nails were all bitten down.
His freedom was over.
And as a last act of this freedom he decided to go to the specialist the Arwacas doctor had recommended. The specialist’s office was at the northern end of St Vincent Street, not far from the Savannah. House and grounds suggested whiteness and order. The fence pillars were freshly whitewashed; the brass plaque glittered; the lawn was trimmed; not a piece of earth was out of place on the flower-beds; and on the drive the light-grey gravel, free from impurities, reflected the sunlight.
He went through a white-walled verandah and found himself in a high white room. A Chinese receptionist in a stiff white uniform sat at a desk on which calendar, diary, inkwells, ledgers and lamp were neatly disposed. A fan whirred in one corner. A number of people reclined on low luxurious chairs, reading magazines or talking in whispers. They didn’t look sick: there was not a bandage or an oiled face among them, no smell of bay rum or ammonia. This was far removed from Mrs Tulsi’s Rose Room; and it was hard to believe that in the same city Ramchand and Dehuti lived in two rooms of a crumbling house. Mr Biswas began to feel that he had come on false pretences; there was nothing wrong with him.
‘You have an appointment?’ The receptionist spoke with the nasal, elided Chinese highness, and Mr Biswas detected hostility in her manner.
Fish-face, he commented mentally.
The receptionist started.
Mr Biswas realized with horror that he had whispered the word; he had not lost the Green Vale habit of speaking his thoughts aloud. ‘Appointment?’ he said. ‘I have a letter.’ He took out the small brown envelope which the Arwacas doctor had given him. It was creased, dirty, fuzzy along the edges, the corners curled.
The receptionist deftly slit the envelope open with a tortoiseshell knife. As she read the letter Mr Biswas felt exposed, and more of a fraud than ever. The blunder he had made worried him. He determined to be cautious. He clenched his teeth and tried to imagine whether ‘fish-face’, heard in a whisper, couldn’t be mistaken for something quite different, something even complimentary.
Fish-face.
The receptionist looked up. Mr Biswas smiled.
‘You want to make an appointment, or you prefer to wait?’ The receptionist was cold.
Mr Biswas decided to wait. He sat on a sofa, sank right into it, fell back and sank further, his knees rising high. He didn’t know what to do with his eyes. It was too late to get a magazine. He counted the people in the room. Eight. He had a long time to wait. They probably all had appointments; they were all correctly ill.
A short limping man came in noisily, spoke loudly to the receptionist, stumped over to the sofa, sank into it, breathing hard,