A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [162]
‘Set up trip-wires,’ he told Shama. ‘Then let them carry on. “Aré, what have we here?” He imitated an old woman talking Hindi. ‘Then, oops! Trip! Bam! Fall. All the pretty clothes get dirty like hell. Face wet with mud. Let that happen a few times. Then they will learn that flowers don’t just grow like that.’
After two days he gave up his flowers as lost. He went for long walks in the evening and stayed out as late as possible, calling at various police stations on the chance of picking up a story. One night he stayed out until the street dogs began their round, futile creatures that hunted in packs, fled at the sound of a human foot and left a trail of overturned dustbins and sifted garbage. The house was alive but subdued when he got back. He found four children on his bed. They were not his. Thereafter he occupied his room early in the evening, bolted the door and refused to answer knocks, calls, scratches and cries.
And all at once, too, the bond between Owad and himself seemed to have evaporated. Owad was out for much of the time making farewell calls; when he came to the house he was immediately besieged by friends and relations who gazed on him and wept and offered advice which they later discussed among themselves, to prove their concern: advice about money, the weather, food, alcohol, women.
The time came for photographs. Husbands, children and friends watched as Owad posed with Shekhar, with Mrs Tulsi, with Shekhar and Mrs Tulsi, with Shekhar, Mrs Tulsi and the whole array of the sisters who, because the occasion was sad, ignored the pleas of the Chinese photographer and scowled at the camera.
On the last day Seth arrived. He wore his khaki uniform; his bluchers rang on the floor; he dominated, imposing formality wherever he went. His absence had been noted, and now everyone was expectant. But after the final family council Owad, Shekhar, Mrs Tulsi and Seth looked only solemn, which could have been a sign of disagreement, or sorrow.
Mr Biswas achieved a minor notoriety when he brought the Sentinel photographer to the house, cleared the drawingroom and did his best to appear to be directing both Owad and the photographer. But on the following morning the story, on page three – TRINIDAD MAN OFF TO U.K. FOR MEDICAL STUDIES – was given little attention, for those who were not occupied with dressing their children for the wharf or getting wharf passes were at the service Hari was conducting in the tent.
Finally they went to the wharf. Only new-born babies and their mothers stayed behind. The Tulsi contingent stared at the ship; and the ship’s rails were presently lined with in-transit passengers and members of the ship’s company, getting an unusually exotic glimpse of Port of Spain harbour. The word went around that well-wishers could go aboard and in a matter of minutes the Tulsis and their friends had overrun the ship. They stared at officers and passengers and the photographs of Adolf Hitler, and listened attentively to the guttural language around them, to mimic it later. The older women kicked at decks and rails and the sides of the ship, testing its seaworthiness. Some of the more susceptible took it in turns to sit on Owad’s bunk and weep. The men were shyer, and more respectful before the might of the ship; they wandered about silently with their hats in their hands. Whatever doubts remained about ship and crew vanished when an officer began giving out presents: lighters to the men, dolls in country dress to the women. And all the time, unnoticed by those he was seeking to impress, Mr Biswas scurried knowingly about the ship, talking to the foreigners and writing in his notebook.
They came out of the ship and massed formally in front of a magenta-coloured shed with French and English notices forbidding smoking. From somewhere a chair had been obtained and Mrs Tulsi sat on it, her veil pulled low over her forehead, a handkerchief crushed in one hand, with Sushila, the sickroom widow, at her side.
Owad started to kiss, strangers first. But they were too many; soon he abandoned them